Work Text:
Icchan: How was your checkup today?
Sakiiii: It was NBD. I am stronk after all! ᕕ( ᐛ ) ᕗ
Sakiiii: BTW, how is Kyoto?
Icchan: It is good! We visited Kiyomizu Temple yesterday.
[Icchan sent a photo]
Sakiiii: Nice!
Icchan: It is! But unfortunately, they are still doing reroofing – that’s why there is that scaffolding structure around the Main Hall.
Icchan: We came all this way to see the temple. It would’ve been nice if we could’ve seen the Main Hall in its usual glory.
Sakiiii: Heh heh heh, it’s divine indication that we should go again together!
There was a pause in the messages. After a minute, Ichika finally replied.
Icchan: Yeah, let’s go again when you get better, Saki.
Saki set down her phone on the table beside her hospital bed. She usually enjoyed messaging her childhood friends, but lately it has become difficult to bear.
How could she tell Ichika that the most painful thing was not the endless checkups, side effects from her medications, or even the surgery wounds on her body?
…It was the fact that she was here, all alone, missing out on all the activities she had once dreamt about.
She had studied hard to enter Miyamasuzaka Girls’ Academy for middle school. She had thought that she would be able to make lots of friends, try out all sorts of sports and arts clubs at school, and then graduate happily with tears in her eyes alongside everybody else.
She ended up spending most of her middle school years hospitalized, studying digitally, even skipping out on their graduation trip to Kyoto.
How pathetic.
The only saving grace to her gloomy hospital life, besides the occasional visits from her family and friends, was the variety show, “World Wahaha TV”. The cheerful title song had once again filled the hospital room when the show started on this miserable Friday morning. While the world outside Saki’s room was being battered by a summer typhoon, the show was running a segment that had been shot on a bright and sunny Okinawan beach last week. Though the scenery on the TV screen seemed completely detached from Saki’s reality, she liked it better this way. If only she could also be healthy and well, swimming in warm southern waters instead of lying all day on a bed that smelled of cheap detergent…
“Last but not least, our favourite contestant: Masked Variety Idol – Happy Everyday!” the host announced amidst cheers from the on-screen audience. Saki immediately glued her eyes onto the TV set. Indeed, Happy Everyday was her favourite member of the World Wahaha cast. The way she sauntered into the camera’s view, head held high while wearing a cocky grin beneath her corny domino mask, brought a smile to Saki’s face.
The World Wahaha cast was then divided into two teams to compete in different events held on the Okinawan beach. And what event was Happy Everyday picked to compete in? Mud wrestling!
“They keep bullying Happy Everyday. It’s so unfair!” Saki felt indignant for her idol. It was no coincidence that Happy Everyday was always picked for the least glamourous tasks on the show. Last time, they made her catch a jam-filled bread with her mouth, knowing that she was too short to make the jump. After a series of failed hops while the audience laughed at her dismay, the staff finally gave her a children’s footstool to stand on, after which she managed to bite into the bread but not without first getting powdered sugar and strawberry jam all over her face. While Saki was annoyed at the way the show treated Happy Everyday, she could not help but admit that she enjoyed watching her face those undeserved challenges. It was not that Saki liked making fun of Happy Everyday just like everybody else, but that she admired the way she would never back down no matter how embarrassing the tasks were, always remaining strong and cheerful.
Happy Everyday was Saki’s heroine, and she loved her very much!
As usual, Happy Everyday delivered a comedic complaint about the show’s mistreatment before stepping confidently into the mud pit. “Humph! You think you can make me look bad by getting me to wrestle in mud? What is a little mud in the face of my super variety idol powers? My light will shine through the galaxy! Bring it on, Variety Villain – Angry Every Night. Let’s see whether your measly attacks can pierce through my perfect defensive move: Repeated Side Jumps!”
Saki subconsciously leaned forward with fists clenched excitedly while she cheered for Happy Everyday. Her signature move, “Repeated Side Jumps”, worked at first to avoid the attacks of her opponent who was a good foot taller than her, but the mud pit was situated on an inflatable bouncy platform, and so it was no surprise that Happy Everyday would eventually slip and fall into the mud. “Whose idea was it to make us wrestle on a bouncy castle? We’re not toddlers!” she cried after scrambling to get up again; the audience burst out laughing at how Happy Everyday’s mouth and the tip of her nose were now smeared with mud.
“Looks like you just snacked on a mud pie, hahahaha!” the host joked at Happy Everyday’s expense.
Saki crossed her arms angrily, answering the host as though he could hear her through the TV screen, “I’d like to see you do better at mud wrestling!”
Happy Everyday continued to struggle against her opponent for three more minutes. She almost managed to take the victory with a well-timed tiger tail sweep, but he used his brute strength to bring her down with him by yanking on her foot! “Ow, ow, ow!! I demand to wrestle someone of my weight category instead!”
“Seems like the Variety World has been conquered by the villain today, hahahaha. Don’t be a sore loser now, Happy Everyday. Just fight harder tomorrow!”
“Only if you give me my paycheque on time, damn it!”
Saki laughed hard at Happy Everyday’s superb humour. For a moment, she could forget about the pains of reality and just immerse herself in the wonderful world that her idol created…
…But when the show’s ending song sounded, she would be back in her hospital room where she was all alone once again.
“I can’t wait to meet you again tomorrow, Happy Everyday,” she whispered.
……………………
“QT member, Momoi Airi, has announced her retirement on Friday morning. The teenage idol was a regular personality on numerous variety shows, including the long-standing World Wahaha TV as the character, Masked Variety Idol - Happy Everyday…”
When Saki’s favourite idol retired from the entertainment industry, she had already been discharged from the hospital. Although her life was no longer as miserable as it had been, Saki still felt sad about how she would never get to meet Happy Everyday again. She did know that the person behind Happy Everyday, Momoi Airi, was her senpai at Miyamasuzaka Girls’ Academy – it had been one of her reasons for applying to the school’s middle school division in the past after all – but there was no way she could just walk up to her and ask why she decided to quit her idol job, right?
“People have different circumstances. Maybe she quit to focus on her studies? Maybe she found idol work unrewarding? Whatever her reason, I do hope she is doing well now,” Saki thought to herself. Airi had not looked so cheerful on the rare occasions that Saki had managed to spot her on the hallway though, a stark contrast from her Happy Everyday persona. The possibility that Airi had been forcing herself to smile in front of the camera in the past made Saki feel a bit bad about liking Happy Everyday so much back in middle school – it was as though she had never bothered truly understanding the person she had once considered her personal heroine.
When Shiho inadvertently informed the rest of Leo/need that her sister, the famous idol/model Hinomori Shizuku, had also quit as the center of the group, Cheerful*Days, to instead join an amateur unit, MORE MORE JUMP!, alongside Airi, ASRUN’s former center Kiritani Haruka, and a complete newbie to the industry Hanasato Minori, Saki became very excited. Shiho never liked talking about her sister’s career too much, so Saki tried to keep her mouth shut while they were still hanging out. But by the time she returned home, Saki immediately searched for MMJ’s podcast and binged all the episodes in one siting, resulting in her sleeping at such an ungodly hour that her helicopter brother was horrified by her humungous eye bags the next morning.
“Airi-senpai isn’t quite the same as she used to be when she played the character of Happy Everyday, but she is just as wonderful now. Ahhh…If I ever get to speak to her in-person, I’ll definitely tell her how much I love her work!”
Still, as Saki continued to follow MMJ’s podcasts, she started noticing something “missing” about Airi’s performances. In the last episode, when the topic of variety shows came up, Airi became more quiet than usual – this fed into Saki’s suspicion that her idol might not have enjoyed playing the character of Happy Everyday that she so adored. Perhaps Airi had her reasons for disliking that role, but Saki could not help but feel that it was regretful, as Airi really was amazing in the character, so discarding it was akin to Airi tossing her talent away into the sea.
“No, I shouldn’t wait for an opportunity. I must go and find Senpai to let her know how wonderful she is, both as Happy Everyday and as a shining idol within MMJ!”
During the next break, Saki ran up to the 2-D classroom in hopes of catching Airi, but the entrance was so crowded with students ogling the two resident idols of that class that she could not squeeze her way inside at all. She tried again the next day, but history repeated itself, leaving her stuck at the door. “I think they have group practice on the roof after school each day. Maybe you can try catching her then?” Shiho suggested after Saki sought her help with tearful eyes. Seizing the advice, Saki decided to run up to the stairs that led to the roof immediately after school and squatted there in hopes of ambushing her idol.
When Airi finally appeared, Saki leapt up from her place on the stairs and grabbed Airi by the hand, prompting Airi to nearly scream – the stairwell was quite dimly lit after all. Seeing Airi’s shock, Saki immediately let go, but then regretted not giving Airi’s hand a good shake before that – she had always wanted to attend QT’s handshake events in the past but never had the chance. That was not the point! Saki pushed her own selfish desires to the back of her mind and concentrated on the task at hand: to encourage Airi and help her become the “bestest” idol ever!
“Airi-senpai!” Saki shouted.
“Y-Y-Yes???”
“My name is Tenma Saki from class 1-C!”
“Good afternoon, Tenma-san,” Airi answered with an audible gulp.
“Please call me by my first name!”
“Umm…okay. Saki-chan?”
“My special skill is to juggle!”
“Err…good for you?”
“GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!” Saki screamed in frustration at her own idiocy. What the hell had she been saying? Juggling? Why would Airi-senpai need to know whether she could juggle?
Airi was so bewildered that her usual tsukkomi skill was temporary deactivated. “So…how may I help you, Saki-chan?” she ended up saying while a gigantic sweatdrop started forming on her forehead.
When she saw Airi’s expression, Saki wanted to smack herself. “Calm down. CALM DOWN! You are just facing the love of your life…NOT! She’s your senpai! You are here to encourage her! Now move that mouth of yours and speak some sensible words for once! ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!”
“You may help me by becoming the bestest, most wonderfulest, super duper amazing idol heroine of all times,” Saki said with a serious nod. “OMG, I totally screwed up! What the hell does wonderfulest even mean???”
“…I guess I’ll try?”
“No! I mean…I mean…Airi-senpai is already the most wonderfulest!”
“Wonderfulest?”
“Ahhh!! I’m embarrassing myself! Please ignore my bad grammar. I mean, like…I already love you a lot, Airi-senpai!”
Airi froze to her spot. It took her three seconds before she managed to react to Saki’s declaration. “Are you trying to confess to me?”
“Of course not!” Saki screamed, horrified by the misinterpretation. But then she wondered whether her clarification sounded too indignant. It was not like she found the prospect of actually confessing to Airi in that way to be horrifying, but that was not the point she was trying to make… “Umm…is it okay if you give me a second? I wrote my points down somewhere. I just need to read it out to you.”
To Saki’s surprise, Airi started looking quite amused – a far better expression than the depressed one she had been wearing often in recent days. “Sure. But if you take too long, the other members of my team would be arriving soon,” she answered with a chuckle.
Saki frantically dug through her school bag for a crumpled sheet of lined paper she had previously torn from her notebook. After taking it out, she read through its contents without taking a single pause. “I first came to know Airi-senpai from your character of Happy Everyday on World Wahaha TV and though the rest of the cast kept bullying Happy Everyday and I hated it when the audience laughed at her I still loved every moment of the show because Happy Everyday shone brightly no matter how many obstacles she had to face so I found a lot of hope from her bravery…” Running out of breath, Saki was forced to breathe before rambling once more, “…I was really sick back then and hospitalized and every day I felt so alone but Happy Everyday kept me company and I was always really happy to see her and so when I found out Airi-senpai would return to the idol world as a member of MMJ I was super excited and I just wanted you to know that I love you both as Happy Everyday and as an idol who sings and dances on the stage…”
That was terrible! She had spoken so fast that she was not sure whether Airi even caught half of what she was saying. The only thing she could do to salvage the situation and convey her admiration was to take out a CD and a poster from her bag and passed them towards Airi alongside a marker. She bowed deeply and said, “If at all possible, would you please sign these for me?”
“Of course I’d be happy to sign them!”
Airi took the items from Saki’s hands. She first glanced at the poster of Happy Everyday – surprisingly, no bitterness welled in her chest anymore. Instead, the pose she had made that was as corny as the mask that she had worn only gave her a warm, nostalgic feeling. Though those days she had spent on the cast of World Wahaha TV had been hard, she had learned a lot from the experience, and there was no doubt that she had also brought fun and laughter to many families across the nation. Why had she forgotten that a variety idol was still a legitimate idol that shone in their own ways? She then took a look at the CD Saki had handed her – it was the single of her solo song as a member of QT.
“You liked this song?” Airi could not help but ask. Saki looked up to her and nodded fervently.
“It was my favourite QT song! Well, they were all wonderful, and I liked the other members of QT also, but like…like…Airi-senpai’s song was the brightest of them all. It twinkled like the stars!”
“Stars?”
“Ahhh…I’m not making sense again, am I? Umm…how should I say it? It’s like…when you look at the stars, you get this feeling that you’re… 'connected' with the rest of the world. Everybody is looking at the same stars. And the stars we see are stars that once shone thousands if not millions of years ago, right? Because, you know, they’re so far away that it takes that much time for the light to reach Earth? So, watching the stars is like you’re connected across all time and space – you could be alone, but not really alone, if you get what I mean? Listening to Airi-senpai’s song is like that. It’s…warm and beautiful, just like Happy Everyday.”
“Just like Happy Everyday” …those words rang again and again in Airi’s head. She had thought that her days as a variety idol had taken away from her career as a singing idol, but that was not entirely true – both aspects of her work embodied her true self, and she had merely brought joy to her audience through different means. Her character of Happy Everyday gave her inspiration for her songs and vice versa. She would not be herself without one or the other.
It took Airi’s all to hold back the tears that threatened to fall from her eyes. “Thank you, Saki-chan,” she managed to say, barely concealing the choking quality of her voice. “Your support means a lot to me.”
She signed the poster and the CD, returned them back to Saki, and then shook her hand as she would do routinely at fan events. Saki’s grin reached her eyes – she could not believe that this was real life and not something from her wildest dreams! “I’m shaking Momoi Airi’s hand! I’m shaking Momoi Airi’s hand! OMGOMGOMG!!!” she screamed in her mind. If only this moment could last just a little, teeny bit longer…
“Umm…Airi-senpai?”
“Yes?”
“May I…err…shake your hand for a bit longer?”
Airi laughed – a sound that rang cheerfully throughout the stairwell. “Go right on ahead! You may shake my hand for as long as you wish!”
……………………
Sometimes MMJ’s podcasts would coincide with Leo/need’s practice sessions, hence Saki would beg for a break so that she could watch them live. Shiho heaved a long sigh. “What can we do with you, Saki?” she said – even Shiho had difficulty saying no to Saki when her eyes twinkled like that.
The MMJ podcast took place at an elementary school about to be closed due to declining student numbers, a common occurrence in rural areas. It should have been a sad event, with friends being torn from each other now that they must be readmitted to different schools, but the atmosphere was full of happiness and hope.
“Ah, it’s the ‘Repeated Side Jumps’! I can’t believe I get to witness it again!” Saki yelled excitedly when she spotted Airi’s signature move while the latter evaded the students in her opposing team during a game of tag. Saki stood up and tried to imitate Airi’s complex steps.
“Please don’t trip over yourself now,” Shiho warned. She wanted to say that Saki’s fannish behaviour was a bit creepy but could not get herself to do so. They all doted on Saki after all, and Shiho was no exception.
Thankfully, the game segment of the podcast soon ended. There was to be a surprise live after this. “I wonder what song would they be singing? Maybe they’d announce a new song? It’s a bit early for that, but like…wouldn’t it be cool if we wrote a song for MMJ?” Saki said.
“Let’s concentrate on writing songs for ourselves first, Saki,” Shiho answered.
“Aww…you know you’d want Shizuku-senpai to sing our songs too.”
“No!” Shiho was terrified by the prospect. She did not want to imagine the way Shizuku would glomp her if she suggested anything remotely close to that idea! The thought made her shake her head wildly. “Please no. Anything but that!”
Their conversation was interrupted by the lifting of curtains on the MMJ stage – Airi stood alone at the center of it, mic in hand.
“Hey everyone, thanks for having us today!” Her voice rang through the gymnasium. “Even though you will soon part from this school, your memories of it will remain in your chests. With bright hopes for the future, let us sing together!”
The cheerful melody of Airi’s solo song during her QT days sounded from the speakers. When Airi sang, Saki could tell the difference in her voice now compared to back then. Though Saki had always liked this song, Airi was now even better than before. There was no longer a hidden tension, a slight regret, in the way Airi pronounced the words of the lyrics. Her song and her expression were all full of unadulterated pride.
Saki sang along with the video. Even Shiho was captivated by the brightness of Airi’s song. “Airi-senpai is a pretty good singer, isn’t she?”
“Her voice is really warm. It is quite wonderful,” Honami answered.
“Right, right? That’s why we should totally write a song for MMJ!” Saki exclaimed.
“NO!!!” Shiho rebuked much to everybody’s laughter.
The stars kept shining from the limitless skies above Leo/need’s Sekai. Saki glanced up at them, looking forward to what awaited her in the future.