When she'd found the phone and turned it on it immediately began chiming to let her know about the dozens of calls she'd missed, but she turned off the notice without listening to any of the messages that had been left. She knew that if she listened to all of her friends trying to find out what had happened to Lala she'd only start crying again. But, at the same time, it wouldn't be fair to have a way of contacting them and not use it.
"Pigu, Mogu, I wish you were here..." she whispered to herself. It would be so much easier to be brave with other people there to support her. Thinking about it, she snuck out of her room and down to her father's workroom, carefully avoiding drawing the attention of her sister. She didn't want to have to try explaining where the phone had come from, or why she was taking the dinosaur skull the was sitting on their dad's desk and cradling it in her lap. "You'll help me do this, won't you Pigu?" she asked, smoothing her hand over the top of the skull's head.
It didn't answer, of course, but just holding it comforted her enough to finally dial.
Actually speaking when the person on the other end picked up was a little more difficult, however. She bit her lip hard when she heard "Hello? Hey, is anybody there? There is, right? I can hear you breathing!" Miho guessed that wasn't very hard, since she was already panting in short, sharp, gasps as she tried as hard as she could not to start sobbing. That would definitely get Chisa's attention, and she didn't need her sister teasing her about being a crybaby on top of anyone else. "Is this some sort of pervert? It is, isn't it! Well I'm not giving you a minute more of my--"
"N-no! Ririka!" Miho finally choked out at the prospect of being hung up on.
The other end of the line was silent for so long that Miho started to think she must not have been quick enough to keep Ririka from hanging up, then, very quietly, she heard "Lala?"
"I missed talking to you so much, Ririka!" she exclaimed, smiling even though the tears wouldn't stop flowing.
"Lala, where have you been? Do you know how worried we've all been? Yumi keeps getting harassed by everyone she had jobs for you set up with, Yoshio won't stop sobbing about how he should have asked you out when he had a chance, and I... I haven't gone out on a date since they day you left!"
Miho couldn't hold back a laugh at the last item on the list. "That's hard to believe, Ririka." Then the light moment passed, and she said seriously, "I never wanted to disappear, Ririka, I swear I didn't. I would... I'd... I'd cut off the top of my pinkie finger to prove it!"
It was Ririka's turn to laugh. "Geeze, Lala! We aren't Yazuka."
"I know, but I would anyway. Just to prove I'd never, ever, wanted to leave." She sniffled, swiping at her eyes.
"Then why did you, Lala? Especially without ever letting us know you were going to?" Before Miho even really had time to start thinking of an excuse, Ririka suddenly blurted out, "It was your parents, right? I knew you were hiding working for us from them, but when you started getting so famous and they never threw a fit I thought they must have realized that they shouldn't stop you from doing something you're so good at. How could they have missed all the ads you were in, or the TV shows, or hearing Transparence playing on the radio?"
"They, um, they don't watch TV, really!" Miho stammered out quickly. "And when they heard me on the radio they didn't know it was me, because I never sing in front of them, and... and Lala's not my real name!" She hugged the dinosaur skull tightly at the confession, hoping Ririka wouldn't be angry with her about it. "I'm sorry!"
"Hey, it's okay," Ririka said gently. "I mean, Lala sounds like stage name, especially since you never gave us a last name, so it's not that surprising. So, they finally found out, then? What happened."
"I'm not old enough to be an idol!" Miho blurted out, then quickly amended, "I mean, they think. I can't work again until I'm older."
"How much older?" Ririka asked. When Miho didn't answer right away she tried again, "When, Lala?"
Miho stared at herself, imagining the years it would take for her fingers to grow as long as Lala's had been, for her legs to grow long and lean. "...Five years," she said slowly.
"What?"
"I can't come back for five years." Even that would probably be too soon, although she wasn't sure exactly how old she'd been as Lala to be positive, but she couldn't stand the thought of making them wait any longer. They shouldn't need to wait at all, if only she hadn't been so stupid.
Ririka was grinding her teeth loudly enough for it to be heard over the phone, and Miho was positive that she was doing it to hold back the desire to yell about how horrible it was for a parent to do such a horrible thing to their child. After a minute she drew a deep breath then said, with cheeriness that Miho could tell was fake, "Well! That will give us plenty of time to plan your surprise comeback!"
"You would really do that, Ririka?" Miho asked, feeling real hope rising in her chest about the future of her career for the first time since she'd lost the ability to grow older in a flash of light.
"Of course! Just think about it," Ririka said, her voice now shaking like she was beginning to cry too. "The mysterious star Lala, reappearing just a suddenly as she'd vanished; everyone would want to be there to see it. I bet you'd be even more famous than ever, even after... five years... Lala, even if you aren't allowed to perform for that long, can't we see each other at least? I don't want to wait that long to spend time with you again. I... I thought--" her words broke off into a choked sob.
"Ririka," Miho cut in, then mimic the words she'd overheard Ririka saying a few days before back at her. "I always thought that we would be best friends, even though you're older than me. I really, really, wanted that. I still do! But I can't see you until then. I..." she thought rapidly, looking for a reason that would work. "My parents took me away from Tokyo, and they're not going to let me come back before then."
"They won't even let you see your friends? That's cruel, Lala, and you should tell them so."
"It won't work, Ririka. I've already tried coming back." She thought for a minute, then asked, "My phone's paid for out of the account Yumi set up for all my money, right? So the money won't run out for a long time?"
"Oh, Lala," Ririka giggled around a teary hiccup, "You've never seemed to understand just how popular you are. The profit you made just from your concert would be enough to keep your phone bill paid for the rest of your life, if you never touched it for anything else." She seemed to have a thought then, and her voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper, as if there was actually any chance that someone could overhear her on Miho's end of the phone. "Lala, do you still have the debit card Yumi gave you? At least you could use your money, instead of having to wait until you come back."
"I don't need anything else! As long as the phone works, I can call, so we won't be totally apart. Will you tell Yumi to keep it going?" She bit her lip again, and said quietly, "And tell her how sorry I am, and why I can't come back yet."
"Hey, tell her yourself, Lala. Do you know how much she'd like to hear from you?"
"I can't!" Miho started to shake at the very idea of calling up her boss after everything that had happened. "After everything she did for me, and how hard she worked to find jobs for me, I can't call her up like everything's just fine."
"Yumi loves you, Lala," Ririka said. "We all do. She won't be upset with you."
"Yes she would. No way she wouldn't be." Miho curled herself over the top of the skull, closing her eyes tightly. "Best friends, right? So you can't try and make me."
Ririka sighed, "Okay, Lala. If that's what you want. But she's going to try calling when she hears you want to keep your phone; so will Emiko and Yoshio. Are you just going to ignore their calls?"
"I can't have the phone on when I'm not using it, Ririka. Momma or Daddy might hear it ring. But... maybe I'll call them back Later." She sniffled and swiped at her eyes. "I should go, before anybody comes to find me. I can't let them know I have a cell phone."
"Okay..." Ririka's voice sounded so sad that Miho was almost surprised. "Lala, before you go, could you at least tell me what your real name is? Since you brought it up, I mean."
It was risky, maybe, since her voice sounded the same in either form and Ririka had just seen her as herself a few days before. But Ririka had asked, and the truth was so wild that she probably wouldn't be able to put the clues together anyway, would she? "Miho. My name's Miho."
"Miho." Ririka paused for a minute, then exclaimed, "Oh! That's the same name as the little girl we met when you did the show about the kappa, right? That must be why you two got along so well!"
"Um, yeah. That's why. So, now you know my secret identity! Don't tell, okay?"
"I'll cut off the top of my pinkie finger if I break my promise," Ririka said solemnly, then couldn't resist giggling. "Goodbye, Lala... Miho."
"Goodbye, Ririka." Miho hung up the phone and sat in silence for a long while, until the tears finally stopped streaming down her cheeks. When she finally pulled herself together she lifted the skull back onto her father's table and kissed it lightly between its eye sockets. "Thank you, Pigu," she said quietly. "I couldn't have done it without your help."
And now it was just a matter of waiting, five long years until she could see Lala's friends again.