Chapter 3: Muscle Memory

The practice room is a converted conference space on the hotel's mezzanine level. Mirrors line three walls. The fourth holds floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the Hudson River, gray and slow-moving under the January sky. Portable speakers sit in the corner, connected to someone's phone via Bluetooth.

Hana stands at the back of the room, watching the others warm up.

It's been four hours since her conversation with Ren. Four hours of strained silence, of careful observation, of trying to reconcile two impossible realities: the life she remembers living and the life she's apparently been living for the past three months.

The contract had been exactly as described. Seventy-five million yen in "training costs" that she theoretically owes. Two years of exclusive representation. Performance minimums, promotional obligations, behavioral clauses. The signature at the bottom looked authentic. The handwriting was her own—or rather, this body's own—but the execution was flawless. Wherever the forged documents had come from, they'd been produced by someone who understood legal scrutiny.

Professional work. Expensive. Suggests institutional support rather than individual initiative.

"Hana-chan!" Yuki's voice breaks into her thoughts. "We're starting with the opening formation. You're stage left, remember?"

Hana moves to her position.

She doesn't remember. That's the problem. The choreography exists somewhere in this body's muscle memory, installed like software she never downloaded, but her conscious mind has no access to the instruction manual.

"Ready?" Sora asks from center position. "Five, six, seven, eight—"

The music starts.

And Hana's body moves.

It's the same unsettling sensation from this morning—being a passenger in her own flesh—but worse now, with witnesses. Her feet find marks she's never rehearsed. Her arms execute positions she's never learned. When the formation shifts and she spins toward center, the transition is fluid, precise, professional.

She has never danced before in her life.

Correction: your previous life. This body has three months of training.

Doesn't matter. This isn't skill. It's violation.

The music continues. Hana's limbs continue to obey programming she didn't consent to.

She watches herself in the mirror, trying to identify the disconnect between intention and action. When she thinks "stop," her feet keep moving. When she tries to turn left instead of right, her body corrects automatically. The only autonomy she maintains is facial expression—and even that feels constrained, as if smiling is the default state she has to consciously override.

Loss of bodily autonomy. Common response to trauma: dissociation.

This isn't dissociation. This is external control.

Is there a difference?

The song ends. Hana's body stops moving. She's breathing hard—cardiovascular demand she didn't expect—but she's not out of breath the way she should be. This body is in better shape than her old one ever was.

"Perfect," Sora says, and the word feels like an accusation. "Everyone take five. We'll run it again with the backup vocals."

Hana walks to the water station in the corner. Her legs carry her automatically, like they know the path.

"You okay?"

Rei appears beside her, holding a towel. Her expression is watchful rather than concerned.

"Fine," Hana says.

"You're lying."

"And you're observant."

Rei shrugs. "Takes one to know one." She takes a long drink from her water bottle, studying Hana over the rim. "The muscle memory thing freaked me out too, at first. Feeling your body do things you never taught it. Like someone's controlling you with strings."

"How long until it feels normal?"

"Who said it ever does?"

Silence.

"I was a trainee for three years before the transformation, and was a performer four years before that" Rei continues. "Male idol track—long hours, strict dieting, constant pressure. I knew how to dance. I knew how to perform. But after Ren did her thing, my body still knew different choreography. Moves I'd never practiced with people I'd never met." She pauses. "Sometimes I still catch myself in the middle of a step and think 'that's not how I learned this.' The body remembers what the mind rejects."

Useful perspective. Suggests the dissociation is manageable long-term.

Or suggests the conditioning eventually wins.

"The language," Hana says. "I understand Japanese. I never studied it."

"Yeah, that would be part of the package for you. Probably can read now too.”

Hana tests the theory. She looks at document she noticed on the floor, all in Kanji and Hiragana.

She can read them, it’s the lyrics for a song which she also recognizes.

The knowledge simply exists, accessible the moment she reaches for it, like a file she didn't download appearing in her mental directory.

Her stomach lurches.

"Bathroom," she manages, and walks quickly toward the door.

She makes it to the women's restroom—a disorienting experience in itself, entering a space she's spent her entire life avoiding—before her knees give out. She catches herself on the sink and stares at her reflection in the mirror.

Amber eyes stare back. The face of a stranger who somehow knows everything she knows.

Breathe. Control the panic. It won't help.

What will help? What can possibly help?

Information. Understanding. Planning.

And if there's nothing to plan for? If this is permanent?

She grips the edge of the sink until her knuckles go white. The porcelain doesn't creak this time—she's controlling her grip strength, learning the limits of this body, adapting out of necessity rather than choice.

The bathroom door opens.

"Hana?" Yuki's voice, small and guilty. "Are you okay? I saw you leave and I thought—"

"I'm fine."

"You're not."

"Then why are you asking?"

Silence.

Hana turns. Yuki stands in the doorway, her hands twisted together nervously. She looks young—younger than the others, somehow, despite being roughly the same age. There's something fragile in her expression that makes Hana's chest tighten.

She did this to you.

She didn't mean to.

Intent doesn't erase consequence.

"I don't know how to apologize," Yuki says quietly. "There aren't words for what I did. 'Sorry' doesn't cover—"

"No. It doesn't."

Yuki flinches. But she doesn't leave.

"I spent two years after Mari died wanting to hurt everyone who hurt me of her," she says. "The fans who abandoned her. The managers who pressured. Myself, for not being there when she needed me. I was so angry, and I didn't know what to do with it except turn it inward. "

Hana says nothing.

"Then you were there, on that pool deck, and you didn't try to fix me or distract me or tell me to feel better…or forget her. You just... sat with me. Let me be sad." Yuki's voice cracks. "No one had ever done that before. Everyone always wants to solve the problem. You just wanted to help me carry it."

Emotional manipulation. Redirecting blame to generate sympathy.

No—look at her. She's not calculating. She's just broken.

"I wished for the feeling to last," Yuki continues. "That connection. That safety. I didn't know it would do this. I didn't know I could do this. When the light started and you were changing and I couldn't stop it—" She stops. Takes a shaky breath. "I tried to pull the wish back. I screamed at it to stop. But magic doesn't work like that. Once it starts, it finishes. No matter what."

"And now I'm trapped in a body I didn't ask for, with a life I never chose, performing for strangers while everything I was gets erased one day at a time."

"Yes." Yuki meets her eyes, tears streaming down her face. "And I'll never forgive myself for that. But I'm asking you—begging you—to let me try to make it bearable. Whatever you need. Whatever I can do. Please."

Hana looks at the girl who destroyed her life.

She looks so young. So desperately, painfully young.

Kill her.

The thought arrives cold and clear and utterly alien. Not her thought—a voice she doesn't recognize, hard as winter ice.

Kill her. She took everything from you. Make her pay.

Hana's hands shake.

Don't listen to that, another voice urges. That's not you. That's something else.

Something the spell created. Or something it awakened.

Control it. You have to control it.

"We need to get back to rehearsal," Hana says finally. Her voice is flat. Emotionless. Safe.

Yuki nods, wiping her eyes. "Okay. Okay, yeah. I'll just—I'll give you a minute."

She leaves.

Hana stands alone in the bathroom, listening to the voices in her head argue about whether to forgive or destroy the girl who loved her into existence.

Neither option feels like a choice she would make.

That scares her more than anything else.

When she returns to the practice room, the others are waiting.

"Everything alright?" Sora asks. Her tone is neutral, but her eyes are sharp.

"Fine."

"Good. Because we need to run vocals next, and the showcase is in thirty-two hours. Whatever you're processing, you need to process faster."

Hana almost laughs. Almost.

"Show me the vocal arrangement."

Sora pulls up sheet music on her tablet. The characters swim before Hana's eyes—Japanese lyrics with romanized pronunciation guides, tempo markings, harmony notations. She reads it without difficulty, the information translating itself automatically.

Another piece of her stolen life, running smoothly without her consent.

They run the song. Hana opens her mouth and a voice she doesn't recognize emerges: higher than her speaking tone, fuller, with breath control and projection she's never practiced. The harmony parts fall into place like puzzle pieces, her voice blending with the others in ways that feel less like collaboration than programming.

By the fifth repetition, she's not even trying to control it. She just lets the body perform while her mind catalogs every detail that feels wrong.

Pattern recognition: three distinct vocal techniques merged into one. Classical training foundation, J-Pop stylization overlay, traces of Western pop influence. Sophisticated composite skill set.

Useful observation. File for later analysis.

The session ends at noon. Sora declares a lunch break, and someone orders room service while Hana retreats to a corner with her phone, testing the limits of her implanted knowledge.

She can text in Japanese. The characters flow naturally from her fingertips, kanji and hiragana blending into sentences she's never constructed before. She can access social media accounts that apparently belong to her—an Instagram with three months of posts, a Twitter with carefully curated promotional content, a private fan communication app with thousands of subscribers.

All of it real. All of it fabricated.

"Hey."

Rei drops into the chair beside her.

"I'm busy."

"You're spiraling. There's a difference." Rei studies her with uncomfortable directness. "The others are scared of you, you know. After what you said this morning—about being trained for things they can't imagine—they're convinced you're some kind of secret agent who's going to murder them in their sleep."

Hana doesn't respond.

"Are you?" Rei presses. "A secret agent, I mean. The murder part is clearly still up for debate."

"Would it matter if I was?"

"Probably not. We're all trapped in the same situation. Your past doesn't change the present." Rei pauses. "But I'd like to know who I'm working with. Professional curiosity."

Hana considers her options. Lying would be simple—maintain cover, avoid complications. But she already broke that cover this morning, and Rei seems like the type who responds better to direct truth than polished performance.

"Most people don't get kidnapped and magically transformed into Japanese pop idols."

"Fair point." Rei stands, stretching. "For what it's worth, I believe you about the reversal thing. Ren doesn't know how to undo what she's done. But that doesn't mean a solution doesn't exist—just that we haven't found it yet."

"And if it doesn't exist?"

Rei's expression softens, just slightly.

"Then we adapt. It's what we do. What we have to do." She walks back toward the others, then pauses. "Sora wants to take everyone shopping this afternoon. Apparently you need more appropriate clothing for the showcase events."

"I have clothes."

"You have concert costumes and rehearsal gear. We're talking about the press appearances, the fan meetings, the casual backstage footage. You need a wardrobe that sells 'approachable idol' rather than 'competent threat.'"

Strategic image management. Standard industry protocol.

"Fine."

The word comes out sharper than intended. Rei raises an eyebrow but doesn't comment.

Across the room, the others are gathering around the delivered food, their voices a blur of Japanese and English. Yuki catches Hana's eye and quickly looks away, her guilt visible even from a distance.

Hana looks down at her phone. At the profile picture of a girl with amber eyes who somehow stole three months of her life.

She doesn't know who that girl is.

But she's going to have to become her.