It was the day of Rise's big comeback; and Nanako was hanging out in Rise's dressing room at Takura productions.
Her big bro had to step out for a while, which left Rise along with Nanako, as she prepared herself for her performance. Rise was happy to look after her, of course—and in the end, Nanako was happy to help Rise, too.
"How do I look, Nanako-chan?"
Nanako looked up at the teen idol with wide eyes of admiration.
"You look so amazing!"
"Haha, thanks!"
Rise turned to look at her own reflection in the dressing room mirror—
"You know, when I'm looking this good, it makes me feel so happy," she says, a large natural smile on her lips.
"You're so pretty, Rise-chan!"
"Do you want to be pretty, Nanako-chan?" Rise asks her.
Nanako's eyes suddenly go super wide—
"Ah! Yes, I do! I want to be super pretty, like you, Rise!"
Rise grins from ear-to-ear.
"Hehe, I'm sure you'll be super beautiful when you're older," says Rise, "just as long as you keep the importance of hating ugly people inside of you."
"Keep...the hatred for ugly people inside my heart...?"
Rise nods.
"The nicer that a pretty girl is to ugly girls, the less pretty that pretty girl becomes," she says.
Nanako looked at Rise with wide eyes. She seems curious about what she's being told
"Huh? Wait, so...to be pretty, you need to hurt girls who aren't pretty?"
"Yup. Didn't you know that?"
Nanako shakes her head.
"N-No...Erm, my teacher has always told me that 'true beauty is on the inside'..."
Rise sighs.
"That's just nonsense," she says, "beauty can't exist in a world where ugly people are allowed to be happy. So, Nanako-chan, if you want to be pretty...remember to be as cruel to ugly people as possible."
"Okay!" she exclaims, with a cheerful nod.
"Good girl, Nanako-chan!"
A young assistant director pops his head in through the dressing room door.
"Rise-chan, you're up!"
"Ah, crap, I was so distracted by Nanako-chan I forgot...!"
Rise quickly rushes over to the dressing room mirror and touches up her hair.
"O-Okay, I think I'm good to go—"
She takes a step back, and examines her own reflection for a moment—
"...Damn, I'm looking good..." she muses.
She runs her hand down her own side.
"Jeez, I'm getting better with each passing day—"
"Rise-chan!"
The assistant director's interjection snaps Rise back to reality.
"Ah! S-Sorry!"
She sprints towards the door—Right as Kanami approaches the dressing room.
"Ah, Kanami! Perfect timing!"
"Rise-senpai!"
As soon as Nanako sees Kanami, she bolts over to her.
"Big sis!"
She wraps her arms around Kanami, throwing the older girl off.
"Ah! Oh gosh...!"
She still hadn't fully gotten over how Nanako was so taken to her, even after all of this time. She felt honoured, of course, to be loved so much by her—the bond she had formed with Nanako had really gotten her through some dark times during that Midnight Stage incident...
"Haha...Nanako-san, you're so cute!"
Kanami pats at her head and ruffles her hair.
"Kanami, can you look after Nanako-chan for me? I have to go and do a dress rehearsal."
Kanami nods at Rise, with a large smile.
"Of course! I'd love to!"
With that, Rise left the pair alone, after a final parting.
For a while, the two passed the time by playing Old Maid with a pack of cards that Kanami had brought—
As they're playing...
"Erm, Big Sis..."
"Yeah?"
Nanako looked nervous about what she wanted to say...
"Erm...is it true that pretty girls should hurt ugly girls...?"
The random question completely bewilders Kanami—
"Eh? Huh?"
"That's what Rise-chan told me," Nanako says, "she said that if I want to be pretty, I can't be nice to ugly looking girls."
Kanamin frowns. She hadn't been expecting something like this to come up...
And yet...
"Well, she's sort of right..."
"R-Really?"
"Yeah. I mean—"
Kanami is interrupted all of a sudden-
"Kanami-chan!"
The dressing room door, opens, and standing there is Inoue—Rise and Kanami's manger.
"Huh? Oh, Inoue-san!" Kanami greets.
As the man walks into the room, it becomes apparent that he's not alone—After him, a young girl also enters, looking rather nervous.
"Huh? Wait, who is—"
"Kanami-chan, this is the special guest I was telling you about earlier," says Inoue, while indicating towards the young girl.
"S-Special—Aaah!"
Kanami suddenly shoots up onto her feet, knocking over the pile of cards on the table in the process.
"(Crap, that was today! I totally forgot about it!)"
"B-Big Sis, what's wrong?"
Kanami turns to Nanako, and scratches her neck, awkwardly.
"I-I'm sorry, Nanako-san...I forgot I'm supposed to be greeting a competition winner..."
"Competition winner...?"
"This lucky girl is the winner of our 'Meet Kanamin in person' competition we put out," Inoue explains to the bewildered Nanako.
As he explains, he gives the girl next to him a pat on her back—one that was a little too hard. The girl shuffles forward slightly, and yelps.
"Aah!"
"Haha, there's no need to be so nervous," Inoue says to the girl, "Kanamin will make you feel at home."
As he says that, Inoue looks over at Kanami, as if to say 'that's your cue'. Kanami takes in a breath, before moving in towards the young girl. As she gets closer, Kanami begins to take notice of how ugly the little girl is—
Her face is wonky, and her teeth and mouth area look a little deformed. She's on the chubby side as well, and she barely has her look together.
It felt especially ironic, given what Nanako had been talking to her about, just before they were interrupted; no not "ironic", but rather...fitting.
Perhaps it was a quirk of fate?
"H-Hello there!" Kanami greats to the girl, "it's me, Kanamin, your prized cow! It's great to meet you!"
The girl looks up at Kanami, all shy-like.
"A-Ah...I-It's really her...!" she exclaims—she's so excited that her voice breaks a little.
Inoue chuckles.
"Well, I'll leave you to it for now, if that's alright with you Kanami-chan," he says, "we're going to invite her on stage with you during your appearance. But for now, just relax, and spend some time with her. Make her feel at home."
"R-Right...!"
Inoue leaves the dressing room, leaving Kanami with the so-called 'lucky girl'. Kanami leads the girl into the dressing room.
"Hey, I have to just do one quick thing," Kanami says to her, before moving towards towards Nanako. "Nanako-san, can you help? It'd hardly be fair to make our guest pick up cards, would it? Haha..."
She sits down next to Nanako, and begins picking up the cards that are all over the floor.
In reality, it was just an excuse to be able to talk to Nanako, though.
"Hey, Nanako-san...about what you were saying before..." Kanami says to Nanako, in a hushed whisper.
"Huh? About what?"
"A-About...you know, ugly people..."
Kanami takes a quick glance over at the little guest—
"Say, I think this could be a good chance for you to understand what Rise-senpai was talking about."
"Huh?"
"That girl's kinda ugly, right?"
Nanako looks over at the other little girl, and nods.
"Yeah...she's really bad looking..."
"Okay, so, you can see for yourself how fun it is to hurt ugly people, okay?"
Nanako didn't really understand fully, but if both Rise and her beloved big sis were saying this was for the best, then she had no reason to go against it.
"Okay!"
After the pair finished cleaning up the cards, Nanako walks over to the other girl, and stands near to her. The girl seemed shy to talk to Nanako. She was just stood there with her hands behind her back, her eyes shuffling around the room.
Behind the girl, Kanami was signalling to Nanako, pointing towards the girl. She was mouthing something that Nanako picked up as 'go on!'.
Nanako closed her eyes, and then took in a breath.
"Erm...h-hello..." Nanako says to the other girl.
The girl looks to Nanako, and nervously smiles.
"H-Hi..." says the girl.
Nanako's eyes shift back to Kanami for a moment—she's giving her a thumbs up behind the goblin-girl's back, as though saying 'you've got this!'.
"I'm Nanako Dojima...what's your name...?"
"Kana..." the girl shyly replies.
Nanako smiles at Kana.
"Kana, I'm...I'm so much prettier than you!"
"...Huh...?"
Nanako's remark throws the other off.
"W-What?"
"Yeah!" Nanako says with a grin. "I'm pretty and you're not! And, erm...that makes me better than you!"
Kana was thrown off by Nanako's bluntness—
"T-That's...I-I mean..."
"Oh, and you're ugly!" Nanako bluntly drops.
"I-I'm...ugly...?"
Nanako nods her head enthusiastically.
"Yeah! So that means, er..."
Nanako looks back to Kanami—She's drawing her finger across her throat, as an indication to her.
"You need to wear a necklace that says 'I'm an ugly loser' on it!"
"I-I need to what?"
Kanami waves her hands wildly with a feverish shake of the head. She mouths 'no, no!' to Nanako. She leans over and takes a butter knife from the dressing room table. She mimics drawing it across her throat, while pointing to Kana, and mouthing, 'kill self'.
"O-Oh!"
Nanako suddenly gets it.
"No, what I meant is that you need to, erm, slit your throat with a knife!"
"...H-Huh...?"
Nanako nods at her.
"Mm-hm. Kill yourself for looking like..."
Nanako looks to Kanami again. She's doing a charade of a scary creature.
"Kanji!"
Kanami face-palms. She shakes her head at Nanako, and mouths, gob-lin.
"Hob...lin...thingy."
Kanami facepalms again.
Well it was close enough, she supposed...
"...K-Kanamin..."
Kana turns to the teenage girl, and begins cowering next to her.
"I-I think I'm being bullied..." she says, in a desperate plea for her help, "I-I...I don't like that girl at all..."
Kanami smirks, knowing what a good job Nanako had done so far. She smiles down at the girl, in an incongruously affectionate manner.
"Auw, come on, she's just being open with you, that's all!" Kanami tells her.
"H-Huh?"
Kanami decides to just leave her with that. She turns, and gives the little girl a small wave of her hand, before moving away. As she moves out of Kana's sight, Kanami looks back to Nanako, and gives her a wink.
She tilts her head a little in Kana's direction, to indicate to Nanako to keep going with it.
"K-Kanamin...? W-Why are you—"
"Don't talk to Kanamin!" Nanako spits at the girl.
Nanako steps up to Kana, and looks at her with contempt.
"You don't deserve to talk to someone like her, you goblin!"
"B-But...I won the competition—"
"Why would they let a ugly brat like you win?" Nanako berates. "You're too ugly. They should've given it someone prettier."
Kana seems legitimately upset by Nanako's 'bullying'—But that just made Nanako happy. Like Rise had told her, the more upset they felt and the more they hated themselves, the better.
"E-Erm...b-but I..."
"Augh, shut up!" Nanako interjects, "why are you acting like we should be friends? Go away, you ugly goblin."
Tears start forming in Kana's eyes, and her lip trembles.
Nanako grins at the sight.
"Oh, you're gonna cry?" she sincerely mocks, "haha! That's funny! Crying because you're a useless ugly b-word! Haha!"
Kana turns away from Nanako and slowly sulks away.
"...Kanamin..."
Kana walks up to Kanami as the latter is sat in her chair, writing away in her diary. The small girl tugs gently at Kanami's frilly outfit.
"What do you want?" Kanami asks, dismissively.
"C-Can we...go somewhere else...?" Kana asks, "I-I don't like that girl...s-she's calling me ugly, and saying mean stuff to me..."
Kanami ignores her at first.
Kana tugs again.
"K-Kanamin...?"
"Kid, can't you see I'm busy?" Kanami says.
"Y-Yeah, but, that girl is...—"
Kanami grunts, and then slams her diary shut.
"Have you considered that maybe you're annoying her?" Kanami berates
"H-Huh...? B-But I haven't done anything to her..."
"You're annoying her just by existing, you abortion—er..."
Kanamin smiles, awkwardly, trying to pass of what she just said as a random slip of the tongue.
"I-I mean, please try and get along, okay...?"
"B-But Kanamin—"
Nanako runs up to Kana, and barges her out of the way.
"Go away, ugly b-word!"
"Ack!"
Kana falls over onto her rear. Nanako doesn't pay attention to her, though, and turns to Kanami.
"Kanamin! Can we play together?"
Kanami grins at Nanako.
"Of course!" she cheerfully exclaims. She gets up from her seat at the same time that Kana drags herself onto her feet.
"C-C...Can I join in—"
Kanami just ignores her, and barges past her. Her and Nanako move away at the brisk trot together, hand in hand.
"Haha, I love you Kanamin! You're so pretty, unlike that ugly goblin over there!"
"Auw, thanks!"
As Kana is left by herself, she begins to tear up—she bites her bottom lip, as the urge to cry consumes her.
"K-Kanamin..."
She quietly calls out, in emotional devastation.
Kanami stops walking, and looks over her shoulder, with an unamused expression.
"Hm? What is it?"
Kana had been about to ask if she could join them, but—something about Kanamin's uninterested response made it clear to her what the answer would be.
Besides, the words just wouldn't come out. Even if they did, they'd just come out as a strained crock of sobbing, anyway.
"..."
In the end, Kana just bit her lower lip, and tried to stop herself from crying—not that it did any good.
"Kanamin..." Nanako says, while shooting Kana a grubby look, "That crying goblin is ruining the mood..."
"Yeah..."
Kanamin turns to Kana, and shakes her head at her.
"Try and cheer up, for god's sake," she says to her, "you won the competition, and you're here. What possible reason could you have to be upset?"
"Oh, I know!" exclaims Nanako, with a grin, "she's upset because of her ugly face! Haha, she's so ugly!"
Kana looks at her reflection in the mirror—at her hideous appearance.
"..."
"Yeeeah..." Kanami says, with a sigh, "if I looked like that, I'd probably kill myself..."
"...!"
Kana's eyes widen slightly over Kanami's words.
"But you know, if she really felt bad about it, she would've already done that ages ago..." Kanami continues, while shrugging her shoulders, "so clearly that can't be upsetting her, right...?"
"Huh?"
Nanako is legitimately bewildered.
"B-But, we're trying to make her upset over it right now—"
Kanami pats her on the back.
"H-Haha, yes, I know, Nanako-san," she says, in a hushed whisper, "I'm pretending. It's a way to hurt her feelings more."
"Oh...I see...! Pretending, to hurt her feelings more!" replies Nanako, a little too loudly.
Their open discussion—and obvious motivations, was only helping to make Kana feel even worse, mind you.
Nanako nods, with a grin.
"Yeah, yeah, she's not upset by how ugly she is!" Nanako exclaims, "but if she was, she'd be REALLY upset, because she's really super ugly!"
Kanami chuckles.
"Yeah, I suppose so. Hey, Nanako-san, do you want to be an idol when you're older?"
Nanako nods, enthusiastically.
"Uh-huh! It'd be the best!"
"Haha, well, you sure are pretty enough for it!" Kanami says, with a large grin.
"Yeah, I am! I'm really cute and pretty, unlike some other people!"
"Yeah! You can TOTALLY be an idol, because you're cute, Nanako-san! Girls like Kana-san can't be idols, because they're human garbage—er, I mean, because she's not cute!"
Kana slowly reaches into her pocket, and pulls out the folded paper she was keeping in there. As she looks down at it, her tears land onto the top sheet, staining it.
She raises her hand to her eyes, and begins to rub at it, while sobbing.
"Hey, Nanako-san, is it me, or do you hear a goblin weeping?"
"Huh? O-Oh, erm, yeah I do! I hear it!"
Kanami puts on an over-the-top act of looking around the room, as though trying to search for the source of the noise.
"Nah, all I see here is some weird looking creature in the corner. Not sure where that noise is coming from."
"Yeah! Yeah!" exclaims Nanako, "a creature that'd be better off dead!"
"Yeah, I mean it's so pointless, so maybe it would be," Kanami seconds.
That's when it gets too much for Kana—she scrunches her face up to try and stop her tears from flowing out, while booking it towards the door of the dressing room. As she does, she passes Kanami—who casually puts her foot out, to trip the girl up.
"Oops," Kanami facetiously remarks, "so sorry, goblin—er, Kana-san...You okay?"
"I hope not!" Nanako cheerfully exclaims, "I hope the goblin cut her head open!"
Kana doesn't bother hiding her tears anymore—As they flow out, she picks herself up, and then stumbles towards the door, before running away. She's in such a state as she does so, that she doesn't realise she left the papers all scattered over the ground.
Once the goblin was gone, Kanami and Nanako both exchange a look, before breaking into laughter.
"Oh, man, that was so much fun!" Kanami exclaims.
"Yeah, yeah! It was so much fun!" seconds a joyous Nanako.
Kanami kneels down a little, and raises her hand to high five Nanako.
"That was so good! You made the ugly goblin cry her eyes out!"
"Yeah! I did it, I made her cry!"
Kanami couldn't be prouder of Nanako. She really had it in her to make the most of her ability to make ugly people suffer and cry.
"Hm, I wonder what these are, though..."
Kanami picked up the pieces of paper the girl had dropped, and begins to give them a once over. As she looked through them, it became increasingly clear as to what they were...
"Oh, this is a message to me..." she says, "it's...a love letter, I guess you'd call it..."
It was sickeningly sugar-sweet—full of words of love and admiration for Kanamin, and how her and Kanamin Kitchen had gotten Kana through difficult times.
"Oh my god, it says in here that I inspired Kana-san to want to be an idol!"
Kanami nearly gags—she feels so repulsed that she throws the papers onto the nearby table in disgust.
"Augh, imagine that...God, what a gross idol she'd make..."
Nanako giggles.
"Hey, hey, let's rip up those papers!"
Nanako casually grabs the papers, and begins tearing them up—
"W-Wow, Nanako-san, you're REALLY getting into this..."
The pair spent the next few minutes desecrating the letter from Kana—They scribbled all over it with lipstick, poured water from a flower onto it, and ripped it to pieces.
As they were busy doing all of this, Kana had made her way back to the dressing room—She had stumbled around the studio, but realised she didn't know where she was going, and so returned out of sheer necessity.
When they saw what the pair were doing to her letter—
"...K-Kanamin..."
Any remaining hope in Kana, that perhaps what she had experienced had just been her mind tricking her into making a mountain out of a molehill, was smashed to pieces.
Kanamin had presented her ripped up letter to the distraught little goblin-girl, with a grin.
"Here, here's your disgusting letter of admiration," she says. "Now, when you appear on stage with me, do you want to do it with or without a bag over your face? Well, I'd recommend the former, but it's up to you..."
Kana sobbed—She couldn't keep it contained.
"Haha..."
Kanami turns to Nanako, and points at Kana.
"Look, she's about to cry!"
Nanako giggles.
"Haha! It's so funny!"
Kana turns around, and runs away—
As she bolts back out of the dressing room for the second time, Kanami and Nanako both laugh—
"I hope the little goblin hangs herself!" Kanami exclaims.
"Yeah yeah! I hope she hangs!"
[ Sometime later... ]
...Kanami had been serious when she said she hoped Kana would kill herself.
However, she didn't realise it would happen quite so suddenly. It hadn't exactly been difficult for Inoue and the others to put the pieces together, either. The guest who she had been looking after runs away, and is later found hanging from the ned of a rope.
What's more, she had in her possession a letter, which had been ripped up—and which Kanami had written 'kill yourself' on, in her own lipstick.
...
The more she thought about it, the more she realised she might've been a bit careless.
"Erm, I-I can explain, Inoue-san..." Kanami begins, "y-you see, Nanako-san and I—"
Inoue shakes his head, while putting a hand up to interrupt her.
"Oh, no, don't get me wrong, we're not blaming you for this," he says.
"Huh? R-Really?"
"Yes...The issue is more about the potential scandal that might ensue if word of this got out..."
Kanami was relieved to hear that she wasn't under fire for what she had done—Although, she had to wonder..."
"Erm, Rise-senpai, what are you doing here, anyway...?"
Inoue had asked for Rise to be present—Apparently, it was because Rise has had experience with this kind of thing herself in the past.
"Oh, well, you see..."
Rise explains to Kanami about how she had one driven an ugly looking girl to suicide as well—And how Takura productions had helped to cover it up.
"W-Whoa, really? I didn't know that!" Kanami exclaims.
"Well, of course you don't, that's part of the whole cover up thing, silly."
"So, erm..."
Kanami turns to Inoue.
"Are you saying that you'll be able to cover this up, as well...?"
"We should be able to manage that..." Inoue replies, "I'm sure that if we—"
"W-Wait, Inoue-san!" Kanami interjects, "what about Nanako-san?"
"Hm? What about her?"
Kanami is about to explain her fear of Nanako getting dragged into this, but...then she realises that there's no reason for anyone to even know that Nanako had been involved in the first place.
After exchanging a quick look with Rise, Kanami falls silent, and shakes her head.
"I-I'm just...worried how she's feeling right now...that's all..."
"Oh, well, you don't need to worry about that," replies Inoue, "she's with Yu-kun and his friends. She's on top of the world, it seems. I suppose she's ignorant to what happened to Kana-san..."
On the contrary—she was on top of the world, specifically because she knew what had happened.
Rise had made sure to tell her, and to also let Nanako know what a good job she had done.
"Heheh...Nanako sure will become a beautiful girl one of these days..." Rise mutters.
"Hm? What was that, Rise-chan?" asks Inoue.
"Oh, nothing..." Rise replies, with a smile, "nothing at all~! Hehe!"