Smoke and Mirrors

Later, it’s almost 3pm when she steps out to get lunch with some of the other techs and producers. Despite working in entertainment, they’re a pretty down-to-earth bunch: a few of the girls recommend a cheap new hotpot place and they all go, chatting in groups of two or three.

Hakaze walks at the end of the group with Fuma. It’s been a longish day already, and they’re both tired: Fuma rambles lazily about the fishing trip he’s going to take on the weekend, while Hakaze listens with half an ear. They only have a session with Harua left before she can end her day. In their group chat, Kaori has suggested meeting at 10: she has plenty of time to wrap up. Maybe go to the convenience store to see Ren.

“…the local recipe’s just to grill it,” Fuma is saying, “but our family braises it first, it gives it a deeper, almost nutty flavor. You should try it sometime.”

“You should bring it over sometime,” Hakaze counters. “It sounds really good.”

“You could just come. You never seem to do anything during weekends, anyway—”

Hakaze’s barely listening; the group in front of them slows, then stops. Not abruptly—more like the street itself hesitates. People begin drifting to the edges of the sidewalk, leaving a clean channel down the middle. Phones appear without anyone raising them outright, screens angled just enough to reflect faces.

She can’t quite see what’s ahead, but—

Ashy hair. Broad shoulders.

“Oh,” someone from their group murmurs. “Ren’s out here? That’s going to be a mess. Let’s go somewhere else.”

“Eh? I really wanted to try the lunch special, though!”

Hakaze keeps blinking. He’s far enough away that he hasn’t spotted them, so she can watch him; and she does, almost creepily, because there’s something off, something so unexpected that she can’t quite put her finger on—

Ren is smiling.

It’s a nice smile—wide, bright, effortless, and it suits his angular face, makes him handsomer than ever. It’s also practiced. As the fan’s camera moves, his smile shifts with it, so that the angle is never wrong. He doesn’t just look at the lens; he seems to account for the space around it, for the people hovering just out of frame. When the pictures are done, he says something, still smiling, and the fan laughs, bowing too deeply.

Ren bows back. When the fan says something, he laughs, and winks. 

Winks. Was Ren, the idol, good at flirting?

Hakaze realizes she’s holding herself perfectly still. The fans are giggling feverishly, their cheeks red. It's a wholesome interaction, but there's something that doesn't quite compute. It's a weird time of day to be in this part of town unless you worked here, and the girls look like they're college students--

As she watches, Ren's staff subtly usher him away and they move on. If Hakaze were to guess, he must be going to the gym. His expression as he says goodbye is perfectly cordial, despite the cameras shoved in his face. He even throws a wave in. 

Prince, she thinks again, though this time it feels vaguely surreal. So that was the real deal: the polished version the public got, the finished product. He might as well be on a different plane, for how untouchable he seemed. She would get excited to get a picture too, if that was a part of him she could win for keeps.

Ren, scowling on the balcony. Tired-eyed at the convenience store. Annoyed and thoughtful and conflicted and—

“Oh my gosh, you’re Hakaze, right?”

As their group dithers in indecision, Ren’s fans have caught up to them.

Beside her, Fuma tenses, but Hakaze simply smiles. It’s a group of women maybe Harua’s age; their eyes are bright. She waves on the rest of their group, who are hesitating uncertainly, and at her signal, they keep walking to the lunch place. Fuma lingers at her side.

She turns back to the girls. “Hey there! I’m surprised you recognized me.”

“Of course we’d recognize you! We used to fight about whether you or Nao was cooler when we were in high school.”

“High school, huh. I feel so old.”

They laugh. “We won’t keep you if you’re going out for lunch, we’re just excited because we just ran into Ren Mikazuki."

The other girl next to her still looks giddy. "I can't believe we really did it. Does that mean that that leaked schedule--"

The rest of the girls shush her aggressively. Another one quickly says, "Anyway, Hakaze, thanks for taking care of Neonite! The fans really appreciate it!”

Hakaze smiles. She's still watching the girl who got shushed, who has now slapped both hands over her mouth. “They do? What do you mean?”

“Oh, just all your help,” the first girl says. “You’ve been popping up more, in the album credits, and stuff. And someone recognized you in the background of Harua’s selfie last week! You always were so nice to your juniors.”

“Yeah,” another adds. “It’s on my feed a lot. It’s reassuring, to know that they aren't just locked up in some Astreon basement somewhere. No offense!" she adds to Fuma. He waves her off. 

"There's almost no official news of them, so it's their private social media that lets us stay updated."

"And fan sightings, no doubt," Hakaze adds pleasantly. 

“Err, yes. But Ren looks better lately, too, which is great!” the first girl says. “He looks like he's prepping for something, so we're all excited."

She hesitates, then adds, almost as an afterthought, “Though people online are kind of weird about it.”

Hakaze tilts her head. “Weird how?”

“Oh, nothing serious,” the girl says quickly. “It’s just… you know how they are. People keep saying Harua looks tired, and Ren's never in his selfies, like they're fighting, or something. Probably nothing,” she adds, waving her hands. “I don’t really follow this stuff that closely.”

Another laughs lightly. “Me neither. It’s just hard to avoid, since Ren and Harua are always trending because fans are so impatient for their comebacks.”

“There’s those crazies that are saying that it’s a sign Neonite’s gonna disband,” one of them says, and the rest laugh. “You wouldn’t be able to confirm, right? That’d show them.”

Hakaze laughs. “Sorry, no can do. I’m just a corporate grunt now, I don’t really know those things. Speaking of, I gotta get a move on before lunch is over. Are you girls headed to lunch too?”

They all shake their heads. “We had to skip to come here, we have a class in ten. It was really nice seeing you, Hakaze. We’re rooting for you! Hope Reina’s doing better, too.”

The first girl hesitates. Fuma has to sidestep awkwardly to avoid walking into her when she doesn’t move. “Actually… this is kind of awkward. You don’t have to answer.”

For a second, Hakaze feels her mouth push down in a frown. What did these diet stalkers want now?

Whoa whoa whoa. Looks like bad attitudes were contagious; she’d always been known for being nice to fans. Even when—

She should go, probably. Risking blowing up at another idol's fans won't do anything for her legacy, and Hakaze has precious little left these days. But still. There's people all around, and she doesn't want to see dismissive. She also doesn’t want to make a scene. 

“Sure,” she says, and peers at the phone the girl’s holding out to her.

The screen shows a tweet: the amount of reposts is crazy for a picture so blurry and low-res. When she squints, she can just about make out Harua in the grainy photo, entering a building late at night, someone just out of frame beside him. The caption is a string of emojis and the words, Is this why he’s been so busy lately?

“Oh,” Hakaze says, and hears how carefully neutral it sounds.

“It’s probably nothing,” the girl rushes on. “I mean, I don’t really believe it. But everyone’s seen it. A big TikTok account made an edit about it and it was honestly kind of ridiculous, like stupid thirst trap stuff, but now people are starting to accept it as fact.”

“And people are getting kind of intense,” another adds. “Like—Astreon doesn't have the best reputation for taking care of their idols, you know? If they don't step up and clear this up then we're worried it's going to blow into a scandal."

“Especially after everything Neonite’s given,” the first says, nodding. “It’d be messed up if they just try to disband Neonite like they did to Eclipse, over something so small."

Fuma says, exquisitely casual: “That’s thoughtful of you girls.”

“We’re the good ones. You should see what kind of weirdos are online. They’re calling for a Astreon boycott till they release a statement.”

“Whoa,” says Hakaze. “That sounds pretty extreme. Sorry to disappoint you though, but we’re just lowly producers, so we can’t do anything about it.”

“Oh, that's okay!” the first girl says brightly. “We’d never ask you to. We just wanted you to know that we’re rooting for Harua and for Neonite. We're just tired of trying to get on the hype train for this new bland-ass survival show Astreon's pushing."

This gets Hakaze to snort, unexpected and sincere. She smiles her most agreeable smile and they all bow slightly, in unison.

“It was really nice seeing you,” one of them adds. “Tell them we’re rooting for them!”

They walk away, already talking, phones back out.

Fuma exhales forcefully. “Are they always that self-righteous?”

Hakaze's watching them go. “What do you mean?”

“All the it’s for their own good stuff,” he says. “It’s asinine. Just say you’re nosy, goddammit. And did you hear them say they skipped their lunch break to come see Ren? His security's probably already on it, but his schedule probably got leaked again. I swear, Neonite has the most intense fans.” 

Hakaze wonders about that. Eclipse had only been a year past debut when the sheer dichotomy of how much more popular Reina was than the rest of them had come to light. Hakaze remembers it with dreamlike gauziness: they won Rookie of the Year, and it felt like the rest of her life’s joys would be concentrated onstage, the sun coming out during comeback seasons and chugging through the lightless arctic winters when they didn’t get to perform. Reina’s popularity had been baffling to them all, at first; she still remembers reading comments and exchanging awed looks with the other three, because more than anything else, the influx of hate comments Reina started to get was as a big indicator of their popularity, as much as the positive ones. Or so they were told.

But they kept coming, brick by brick, till it was the only thing they thought about. Going out to drink every day, insulating Reina from her phone and from the public, but still—

It had been a fan, finally, that leaked the final video. Is that ECLIPSE’s Reina? I just want her to be safe, and a video of her going into a hotel with a man.

Hakaze doesn’t know a world without her specific sword of Damocles hanging over her. Ren as well, who had smiled and winked like he was used to all this. 

“That’s just how they are,” she says.

Fuma hums, and shoulders the door to the hotpot place open. “Never really saw it up close before. You think they’re serious about the boycott stuff?” Before she can reply, his gaze catches on the ornate clock on the wall and he swears. “Shit, nevermind, let's get something to go. We’re going to be late to Harua’s recording.”