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For a year following the death of Hoshino Aquamarine, Arima Kana makes no public appearances at all. Word flies around that she’s taken on small projects here and there, but no one is able to confirm anything.
That’s fine. Kana isn’t interested in saying anything, anyway; she stares at the screen of her laptop, an email detailing an offer for a big role sent her way via Miyako. It’s a good chance, a big break—an opportunity to finally pull herself out of this slump that she’s fallen into.
On her TV screen: Kurokawa Akane plays the role of a beautiful yet misunderstood high school nerd, opposite some guy who’s making his debut this year. She looks every bit as in love with Aqua that she had looked a long time ago.
Kana’s laptop pings again, a notification reminder from three days ago.
Kurokawa Akane: would you like to meet up for drinks sometime, Kana-chan?
/
On Arima Kana’s twentieth birthday, she’s spotted outside with her supposed rival, Kurokawa Akane. Kana doesn’t spare thought to what the tabloids will say about them this time—the last time she’d been a big deal on the news, it had been because some reporter had been outside the specifically private funeral for Aqua and therefore it only follows that her screams of I haven’t told you I love you were everywhere for everyone to see by the following morning.
She hadn’t even had the energy to be angry about it. She still doesn’t.
And that’s why she’s perfectly fine with anything they’ll say about her a year later, standing outside that same boy’s ex-girlfriend’s apartment building, accompanied by said ex, with only an umbrella to shield them from the pouring rain— Kana dressed as if she belongs on a movie set in contrast to Akane’s casual wear. A habit that broke over the past several months, but when faced with the thought of seeing Akane again, she…
Akane tilts her head, cold eyes staring right at the photographer directing his camera at them from inside his car. The shameless bastard doesn’t so much as flinch. “Sorry about that, Kana-chan,” she says apologetically, smile warm in a way that doesn’t match her eyes. “I thought he’d gotten tired of me already. He’s been turning up here and there ever since I moved here.”
“They never get tired until they get what they want,” Kana deadpans, remembering the disaster with the director. Her stomach cramps, remembering Aqua all over again, wishing she could just— put him out of sight, out of mind, for once. Though… that’ll be unavoidable tonight. She gestures for Akane to enter ahead of her. “Guess he’s gotten what he wanted tonight, then.”
/
“It’s a big break, Arima,” Miyako tells her when Kana finds it in herself to stop by the office again. Kana stops in the middle of pouring herself a cup of coffee. “I know you’ve had a difficult time. We all know, and we get it. But you love acting.”
“I do,” Kana agrees. The jug is almost hot enough to burn.
“Your prospects are falling off,” Miyako says bluntly. “They have fallen off. People don’t have sympathy for teenage heartbreak, is the simple fact of the matter. Either you take this chance, or this is how the revival of Arima Kana begins.”
Kana is silent for a moment. Then, “I’m meeting Akane next week.”
Miyako pauses. “Next week is your birthday.”
“Yeah.”
/
To fall in love again is an impossible notion for Arima Kana.
She who, when she falls, falls fast and hard and impossibly deeply, could never open her heart again to anyone, she’s sure of it. After all, she fell in love with acting, and she gave up on that, too.
She’s sure she did.
So why is she sitting here with Kurokawa Akane, who loved the same boy that she loved, the boy that hangs between them like a ghost that refuses to be vanquished? The only person who’s ever looked at her head-on and been willing to put her in her place with all her weaknesses yanked right to the forefront.
Call it bad birthday decisions, she decides.
Akane hands her a glass of wine and sits down next to her on the couch; Kana almost says that she can handle something stronger—or perhaps that’s just wishful thinking—but instead she asks, “why did you invite me over? Treating me for my birthday?”
Akane hums. “Should I not have?”
“There’s going to be so much shit about us all over the news tomorrow,” Kana sighs. “There’s a reason I’m not supposed to be seeing you in public, you know.”
“I don’t care,” Akane says simply.
“Look, I’m already getting calls,” Kana turns her phone screen at Akane, glowing with an incoming call from Miyako, and silences it by pressing the power button. She lays it facedown on the low glass table in front of them.
“We’re old friends,” Akane shrugs. “What are they going to do about it? Neither of us have an agenda against each other and neither do our respective agencies. It’s perfectly normal for us to meet up on your birthday.”
And there it is—the confirmation Kana was waiting to hear. But still: “well, good to know—but you’re supposed to be…”
“What am I supposed to be, Kana-chan?” a tilt of her head back, more wine drained from the glass. Star-bright green eyes pierce into her. “You can say his name, you know. It’s not taboo.”
“Is it?” Kana mutters,
“No, it isn’t,” Akane says. She laughs softly. “That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it, Kana-chan? You’re worried this is some kind of jealous-ex move?”
“That’s—!” Kana flushes, hand tightening around the glass. “That’s not… I don’t think of you as…” she sees the way Akane is struggling to hold back her laughter, and her temper flares. “You—!” she sputters. “Kurokawa Akane, you insufferable—!”
“I’m sorry,” Akane snorts, “but it’s just incredible that you really think—”
“Shut up!” Kana hisses. She’s red from the tips of her ears down to her neck. God, she wishes she had it in her to regret this meetup. “Akane.”
“Kana-chan,” Akane continues, “Aqua-kun was the first person to realize I was never really in love with him. Did you know that?”
That stops Kana short. “I—what?”
“It’s just… when someone stops your suicide attempt and then gets invested in defending you and helping you afterwards, that’d make any girl’s heart flutter, I think,” Akane says. “Even if I figured out pretty quickly that he was doing it to find his father and kill him.”
“That’s… why’d you agree to the role in The 13 Year Lie, then?” Kana isn’t sure she believes Akane, but when she thinks about it…
“I had to do something. Unfortunately, Aqua-kun was persistent.”
“Yeah, you can say that about him,” she mutters, and it hurts that Akane is one of the people in the world who’s allowed to laugh at the memory. It hurts that her first instinct is still to rib at him and it hurts that it hurts.
“I would’ve helped him if he let me,” Akane says, quiet. “He isn’t the kind of person who wants to be helped if he thinks he doesn’t need it. I think he did know he honestly did, but he chose to…”
“Enough about him already,” Kana snaps, raising her head—when did she lower it?—to look at Akane in the eyes. The wine tastes sour in her mouth. “Tell me what you’re doing bringing me here already. You know about the role I was offered, don’t you? Are you going to tell me that I should take it?”
“Of course,” Akane says without faltering even once. “Who else should take it if not you?”
“I knew it,” Kana fumes. Akane tilts her head.
“I honestly expected you to say something the moment you saw me, actually,” she admits. “You’re usually much more… impulsive?”
“Hey!”
Kana’s fuming, but she’s not even… she had known it would be about this, because if there’s anyone she expects to keep a close eye on any and all news on Arima Kana, even little bits of gossip heard through the grapevine, it would indeed be Kurokawa Akane. Truthfully, when Miyako had forwarded her the email, her first thought had been a distant wonder if Akane already knows.
It’s not even surprising.
It’s just that—
“How are you still keeping such close watch on me?” she demands, putting her glass down. How much has she had already? “It’s—we’re hardly even rivals anymore, there’s nothing for us to compete about, so why haven’t you quit it already? And you’re supposed to be jealous of me!”
“What exactly am I supposed to be jealous of you for?” Akane asks, looking back at her blankly. Kana genuinely cannot tell if it’s true bafflement or if Akane’s acting prowess has truly only progressed in the past year and some change since they’ve met directly.
“He broke up with you and then spent all that time with me!” Kana near-shouts.
“Well,” Akane replies, far too calmly, “you are part of the same agency. And you were schoolmates.”
“How is that any better?!”
“I knew he was in love with you, Kana-chan. There’s nothing I could’ve done and it’s none of my business, anyway, what you and Aqua-kun were up to. My business with you is that you’re going to let yourself wither away into nothing,” she punctuates this with the tap of her empty glass meeting the table.
“He was—we—what,” Kana flusters and finally lands on, “I’m not withering away!”
“New information?” Akane raises an eyebrow. Kana sputters out something like what the hell are you talking about. “Honestly, Kana-chan… well, whatever. That’s not the point. Yes, you are.”
Kana doesn’t even know what to say to that, because it’s true. She knows better than anyone what stagnancy does to an entertainer’s career. If she chooses to step back into the spotlight again, she’ll have to endure a hell of her own making. A choice that she made; choices that she continuously made, over and over again, listless and heartbroken and thinking that everyone on the planet was dealing with it better than her.
Even Ruby got over her grief and threw herself back into the idol world faster than expected, and Akane never took a break at all except a few interviews where she appropriately expressed grief and then moved onto to doing her own things. Kana continued on with every aspect of her life but her acting career, knowing that every single person who recognized her knew that she was this way because of a grief so immeasurable it blocks her way even now.
It’s such a relief and so, so infuriating that Kurokawa Akane is the only person who still evidently believes in her fiercely. It’s always Akane.
“What are my career choices to you?” she murmurs, looking at her lap. “If I let myself fade into obscurity, won’t that be of benefit to yours?”
“Who cares about all that,” Akane scoffs. “What I want is for you to come back and start competing with me again.”
“Saying it like that—do you even realize what you’re saying?” Kana demands, looking up again. She refuses to back away from the intensity of Akane’s blazing gaze, as intense as they had been the night they realized something was very, very wrong, as intense as they had been the moment before their world split into two.
“There’s no one in the world more qualified for this than you,” Akane insists. “I built my whole career off being better than you. What’s the point if I can’t constantly improve myself without looking at the only reference point worth observing?”
“You… you think lowly of my acting methods,” Kana accuses. “You said it yourself.”
Akane actually rolls her eyes. “That’s hardly important.”
“It’s very important, actually!”
“We’re derailing again,” she shakes her head. “Look, Kana-chan, I want you to go and accept that role. Because it’s important, because it’s the only chance you have left at proving Arima Kana still has it within her. If you change your mind again, there’s no telling when the opportunity will come up again.”
“It’s already gone,” Kana says bitterly. “The only thing Arima Kana is known for now is being a spoiled brat of a child star, a failed idol, and a girl who threw a hysterical fit at the funeral of the guy who never loved her back.”
“He did—”
“That’s not what matters to them, is it?” she snaps. “People already have a pretty set idea of who Arima Kana is. Even if I were okay with it—”
“If it makes you this angry, then take the role,” Akane cuts in, lunging forward to take Kana’s hands. It silences her immediately. “You’re angry and furious and heartbroken—so go and put that energy into that role. Show them what you’re made of, again and again and again. Show them that no matter how many times Arima Kana’s spirit is killed, she’ll come back to life blazing. You’ve done it before and you can do it again.”
“Akane,” Kana starts. Stops, because she doesn’t know what else to say.
“I refuse to accept that Arima Kana is worse than me,” Akane says resolutely. “I know Arima Kana is going to be one hell of a rival when she returns. You’re destroying that fact prematurely just because you think you’re deserving of some kind of suffering.”
“You’re still so fucking annoying,” Kana says, her voice wobbling. Akane’s expression brightens. “And if I fail and nothing substantial happens? What then?”
“Not give up, obviously. Have you already forgotten how hard it is?”
God, how could Kana ever?
And, it’s just. None of this is surprising, not at all, not coming from Kurokawa Akane who forced herself into a world that almost destroyed her because of Kana, not coming from Kurokawa Akane who’s had eyes akin to a predator setting her gaze on another just like her for almost their entire lives. Even when Kana didn’t know it. Especially when she didn’t know it.
Of course it’s Akane who has her cornered like this. Kana knew, and she came anyway, because no one else would’ve taken Kana by the throat and essentially said that her grief is not enough reason to give up.
“It’s not even a particularly interesting role,” Kana says.
“You’ve played love interests before,” Akane shoots back.
“Yeah, but that was from a source material that was actually good,” Kana insists. “This one is… ah, I don’t get to complain about this now, do I?”
“No,” Akane confirms. “You’re going to be the only thing making that watchable, Kana-chan.”
“Aren’t I usually,” she grumbles.
Of course Akane cornered her like this. Of course she did. Only she would ever dare to.
/
By the downstairs door, when she’s about to leave:
“Kana-chan,” Akane begins, hand reaching for the sensor to unlock the door for her, “just call me if you ever want to hang out, or something. We should invite Ruby-chan, too, if she’d—”
“Just us is fine,” Kana interrupts, “Ruby can come along some other time—” She silences herself, cheeks flushing. She hadn’t… meant. To say that.
Akane smiles. It’s the first time a smile from her has looked so soft and amused. “Yeah, that’s what I meant,” she says. “You have my number, just let me know when you’re free. We can work something out, I think.” The smile becomes something sharper, challenging. “We’ll have to see just how rusty you’ve gotten.”
“I still have it,” Kana smirks back. “Just you wait and see, Kurokawa Akane.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” she says, almost melodically, and the door clicks open. “Off you go. See you later, Kana-chan.”
“See ya. You’re awful for this, but…” she sighs. The revival of Arima Kana, huh? It has a nice ring to it, at least. “Thanks.”
“You’re very welcome.”
How does she make even that sound so smug? Kana fumes as she stomps off down the street, fully aware that the stupid fucking journalist bastard is still there, and you know what?
They’ve said worse about her. Let them try.