1 Chapter 1

“I’m gross, don’t talk to me.”

She blushed fiercely, not knowing how to react to the other girl’s bluntness, her face red, her body suddenly unwilling to move, unwilling to work; sixteen-years-old, and Sunaga Karin found herself awkwardly confronted with the reality of meeting your idols. Literally.

The older girl glanced down at her with frustration, graceful despite her displeasure, her eyebrows knitting together in a scowl.

“You’re still here?”

The blush on Karin’s face deepened, and she jumped out of the way so that the other girl could pass, pushing herself up flat against the opposing wall in the narrow corridor.

There was a moment, a long moment, in which the other girl held her eye contact, and then just shook her head.

“Quit while you’re ahead,” she said, and marched past, a towel around her neck, her T-shirt stained with sweat, despite everything, still the most important person in Sunaga Karin’s life.

* * * *

She sighed wearily, and slumped down on into the lower bunk of the room, pushing her face into her pillow and screaming. From her desk by the window, Morinaga Setsuko looked up, raising an eyebrow at the shuddering form of her roommate.

“What’s up?” she asked, pulling her headphones off, and then with a wry smile, added, “Something good happen to you?”

Karin groaned into the pillow, kicking her feet against the bed, and then sharply lifted her head, wincing with remembered embarrassment.

“I bumped into Ishikawa Miki in the hallway!”

Setsuko shrugged.

“And?”

Angrily, Karin shook her head.

“You don’t get it! I bumpedinto Ishikawa Miki! I literally walked into her! The most important girl in the whole world, and I just walked into her!”

Setsuko’s eyebrows raised a degree higher.

“Ho, ho, someone has a crush.”

Again, Karin kicked her feet against the duvet.

“It’s not a crush, it’s just…it’s just…” Her round face filled with a warm blush once again. “It’s just that she’s soooocool! Ah, I can’t stand it!”

Setsuko nodded and turned away from her.

“Sounds like a crush to me.”

Karin dropped her head into the pillow again.

“What am I going to do?” she moaned.

Setsuko didn’t bother turning back. For six months now, the two of them had been understudies; for six long months, they had sweated their way through countless dance rehearsals, and singing lessons, and costume fittings, and now they were three weeks away from their debut as fully fledged members of the biggest idol unit in the whole country, ALiCE☆SWeeTS.

Despite herself, Setsuko did not consider herself to be ready in the slightest. Only two months older than her roommate, she was overwhelmed with the tremendous effort that was demanded of them, the hideous balancing act of trying to maintain a normal life, hand her school work in on time, and all the while devote the lion’s share of her energy to endless rehearsals, countless hours spent learning the same dance routines over and over again, and fan events.

This would be the end of her, she thought, leaning back in her chair with a sigh, a loose fitting faded black T-shirt hanging off her shoulder, revealing the strap of the vest she wore underneath.

“Just ask her out,” she said, tilting her head back, and looking up at the ceiling, the one light hanging above, shaded by a cone of beige material.

Karin kicked at the bed again, and let out a frustrated groan.

“I can’t do that!” she wailed into the pillow. “I’m not even on Ishikawa Miki’s level! I’ll neverbe on Ishikawa Miki’s level!”

A cruel smile flashed across the other girl’s face, and she blew her fringe of dyed blonde hair from her eyes, and turned in her chair again so as to look at her roommate.

“Hey, Karin,” she said, “who was your fist kiss?”

Karin’s head shot up with such force that she almost smacked it against the bunk above her

“My first kiss?” she exclaimed, and then let out a mournful cry, something like a wounded animal, Setsuko thought. “I haven’t been kissed yet!”

“Oh, is that so?” Setsuko continued, interested now in the scenario unfolding.

Sunaga Karin was not the most attractive girl, she thought, and true, she didn’t really care for girls anyway, but there was something appealing in her innocence. She was like a pet Setsuko wanted to play with as compensation for the lack of kittens and puppies that had so punctuated her growing up.

No, she didn’t really care for girls, she thought again, turning the thought over in her head, but she was sixteen, she shouldn’t have to decide whether she liked girls or boys, she shouldn’t have to decide who she liked until she met them.