Disclaimer: I don't own any Battle Cards and Star Force characters. I do own a few original characters.
Chapter 8: Ayane's Day
As soon as Yusei left for his first day at his new school, Ayane puts on her work uniform. Her uniform is a blue one-piece dress, pink long-sleeved shirt, black tights, and blue shoes. She grabs her ID and keys as she gets into her car and drives off to work in her blue mini van.
She listens to the radio during her time driving to work. The radio spoke of the usual news like what happening over the world, an idol's song being on top of the charts, and random advertisements before switching over to music. The songs are quite catchy to her as she started to sing along with the songs. Ayane felt joy when she sings; however, she stops singing and looks at her surrounding outside of her car. She felt relief that no has heard her singing because she doesn't get use to being the center of attention at her age.
When she arrives at her work place, which is clothing store called Croco Fur, she got greeted by one of her female coworkers. The female coworker has dark skin and black curly hair. That woman said, "Ayane, would you mind helping me putting up a sign in front of the store?"
"A sign? Is it big for you, Aki?"
The woman, Aki, nods her head. "Yes it is. We're having two idols doing a mini concert here at our store and do some minor promotion of our products. I understand that we need to attract customers, but I wish the manager should lighten up a bit: he thinks having idols help the store."
Ayane giggles as she listens on Aki's complaints. "It's all business, which I believe. So I guess I can understand his stress of having these idols at the store. When are the idols going to be here?"
Aki answers, "Sometime around the afternoon, they are high school students after all."
The two female workers found the sign at the employee only area. The sign has the image of Sonia Strumm and another female idol singing together with promotional words that said, "A collaboration event of Sonia Strumm and Nao Iwatani! Please come to see them together!" Reading the promotional tagline, the two workers thinks it's tacky or at least not imaginative. They sigh and carried the sign out in front of the store that is next to a mini stage with speakers and lights.
"We're done here!" Aki exclaims. "Let's get back to our work, Ayane!"
"Sure thing!" she chimes of her answer.
They went back inside and do their work. Aki works at the cash register, while Ayane walks around and asks people what sort of clothes they're looking for. The people find Ayane nice and captivating, which made them asks for her help. She did her duty of helping them on what kind of outfit they should get within their price range and whatever that is currently on sale. Afterwards, she discovers a lost child, a little boy to be specific, and stays with him until his mother arrives and picks him up ten minutes later after the announcement of the lost boy. She later helps out other workers with organizing the new shipment of clothing on racks, shelves, and displays, which made her carry a lot of heavy stuff in a share amount with the workers.
After working up to the point of her lunch break, she and Aki meets up at the employee only area to get their homemade lunch from their lockers. Though Aki's lunch is three sandwiches, Ayane's lunch is chicken strips, rice, and salad with ranch. Looking at Ayane's lunch, Aki wonders if she's the one who made them.
"No," she said with a smile, "my little brother is the one who made it."
"Your brother is amazing!" Aki awes to hear that Ayane's brother made her lunch.
As they're eating their lunch in the employee lounge area, they heard a yell coming from the room next to theirs. They heard a young man yelling, "Don't overwork your idol!"
The two female workers stop their eating and got curious on that yell as they took a peek and eavesdrop on the conversation between two men. There's a big man wearing a purple business suit and sunglasses talking to a slim young man wearing a black business suit and glasses. Judging from that slim man's angry expression, the female workers can tell that they're having an argument.
The big man puffs his chest open with his arms cross and said, "Isn't this a part of being a producer? Also, why do you care? Sonia's fine and she's my idol."
"Even so! Don't you have a conscience or care of what happens to her? We work for the same Production Company and even the president is worried about her wellbeing! It's that very reason is why Sonia is sent to school!"
"How I work my idol is none of your business!" The big man storms out of the room. As he comes out of the room, he notices Ayane and Aki standing near the door: Aki is afraid of the big man as she hides behind, while Ayane puts up a brave face. The man ignores them and just walks away.
"That was scary, Ayane…" Aki said in a trembling voice. "I'm amazed that you're not scare after hearing that."
Ayane smiles at Aki and replies, "It's not that scary." Then she turns to the slim man and asks, "Having a hard time as usual?"
The man and Aki both tilt their heads. However, that man gasps as if he recognizes Ayane as he exclaims, "Ayane! Is that you? How are you doing?"
Ayane giggles. "I'm doing fine. By the way, I started working here last week." Aki asks who is this man as Ayane answers, "His name is Gen Kisaragi. We know each other seven years ago when he was a rookie producer."
"I have some experience now, thank you very much." Gen doesn't like someone reminding him about his past and keeps calling him a rookie.
Then she becomes serious and said, "That was quite an argument earlier. Who was that man?"
Gen explains, "That man's name is Chris Gold and he's the producer of Sonia Strumm, who is famous worldwide. However, Chris has a long history of overworking his idols, which causes them to retire quickly. I'm surprise that Sonia is the only idol he's producing that can take up his overloading schedule."
"Sonia is such a hard worker," Aki said at awe.
"But her health is what worries our workers in our company," Gen replies in a sad tone, "It's nice that she works hard; however, she might collapse if she doesn't rest for a bit. The President also put her to school just in case she wants to retire, but in the mean time, school will act as her own excuse to relax from her idol work."
"Who are you producing?" Ayane asks with a gentle smile on her face.
Seeing her smile makes Gen feel warm inside his heart as he answers, "I'm the producer for Nao Iwatani and it's my idea for this collaboration event."
Ayane raises an eyebrow. "This collaboration event is your idea?"
Gen gasps when he realizes what he has just spoken. "Um… Hey, Ayane! Let's talk somewhere privately, if that's okay with you?"
Ayane turns to Aki, who is standing behind her, and understands his reason. She told Aki that she's going to talk to Gen alone and she and the producer left the room.
Ayane and Gen went to the underground parking lot where Ayane's car is. She starts the conversation by asking, "Is there a reason for today's event?"
Gen nods his head. "Yeah. Some of the company's earnings have been taken."
"Say what?" Ayane is mad when she heard that.
He explains, "Though only a portion has been taken, no one knows why some of the money is gone. I did some checking and the only one producer who isn't being truthful on the money they earn through their idol's jobs and that person is Chris Gold."
Ayane crosses her arms with a serious look on her face. "So to make sure that the portion of the company's earnings isn't gone is by doing this collaboration."
"I believe that Chris has been extorting money from our company through Sonia's jobs, but I don't have enough evidence that goes against him. This collaboration is the only way to keep an eye on Chris's actions. However, I know I won't stop him from jobs where he's alone."
"So you're telling me these things because I may ask Yusei to help you with your problem?"
"Yes! He would really help because I know he's smart enough with technology and hacking stuff."
Ayane looks at him in disgust as she said, "I'm sorry, but my little brother has put an end to his hacking days a long time ago. So he's not going to help you with your Chris Gold problem."
Gen understands the reason as he changes the subject. "Speaking about Yusei, how is he?" he asks in a gentle tone.
She sighs and looks away for a bit. "He's doing fine. He's started school today at Echo Ridge High School."
"What a coincidence! Sonia is also attending at that school! I hope they get along!"
A small chuckle has been heard from Ayane. "He will. Yusei isn't the type to be following the trends, so he can make friends with an idol, despite a few minor problems."
"You mean like paparazzi and stuff like that, right?"
She nods her head and chuckles a bit more. "He hates being the center of attention, especially if that attention leads to some misunderstandings. He just ignores them and continue his life."
"I figure that's the case," Gen spoke with a smile on his face.
Then she notices the time from her Transer and realizes that her lunch break is near over. "I have to get back to work soon," she said as she walks away.
Gen grabs her by the arm to stop her from leaving as he asks, "Can you please watch our idols? I want your opinion on them since you were a professional idol before."
Ayane was a popular idol seven years ago. She made a number of appearances on game shows, TV dramas, promotional events, talk shows, and live concerts. She also did some voice acting for a number of anime and video games. Ayane should have reach worldwide fame if it weren't for her parents' death. She chose family over fame because she thinks that she would become a horrible older sister if she continues her fame while her little brother lives far away from her. Without her parents watching over the young Yusei, she feels like it's her responsibility to take over her parents' parental duty.
"I work at the store," Ayane answers, "so I may end up seeing your company's idols in action." Her smile reassures Gen to get rid of his worries.
Gen smiles and bows his head towards her. "Thank you, Ayane!"
As Ayane continues her job of helping people on their purchase and stuff, she heard some cheers coming from outside of the store. She knows that the event is starting as she heard a young girl saying, "Thank you everyone for coming to our collaboration event at Times Square's Croco Fur! I'm Sonia Strumm!"
"And I'm Nao Iwatani!" another girl added in the same cheerful tone.
"Please listen to our song!" The two girls cheerfully said together.
Ayane walks out to see the idols singing in front of the store. She saw the two girls singing on stage while wearing one of the products from the store. Sonia wears a pink shirt over a black long sleeved shirt, white jeans, and pink shoes. Singing next to her is a girl named Nao Iwatani who has pale skin and short black hair with a long braid hanging on in front of her foxy face. The clothes she wears is a dark purple tank top, black leather jacket, black leather skirt, black-white striped socks, and black shoes.
The song that the two girls are singing is about people's dreams and hopes would reach higher than the skies as long as they keep their dreams and hopes in their hearts. The lyrics are cheery, especially along with the music being a mixture of pop and rock. Ayane and other people are listening to the song and find them uplifting and catchy.
During the time of listening to that one song, Ayane, being a former idol, starts to evaluate their level currently. She first started to evaluate Nao: her evaluation of that girl is that she's good at her singing and expressions, but still has long ways to go when being compared to Sonia. Sonia, on the other hand, is clearly on the level of a top idol; however, Ayane notices some sort of emotional pain coming from her singing that no other people would notice. Ayane can hear Sonia's pain through the cheeriness of the song that she and Nao are singing and Ayane wonders what is causing her pain.
Before she can analyze even deeply about this sort of pain, a coworker calls Ayane's name. "Ayane! How long are you going to stand there?"
Ayane gasps and she replies, "Sorry! I just find their song to be good!"
The coworker giggles. "They're idols after all." Ayane quickly went back to work after feeling a bit embarrass of just standing to watch the idols.
The event was a success and Croco Fur earns quite a positive on their sales. The mini concert ended at the sunset, which is the same time when Ayane finishes her shift and is about to head home. Before she was about to head to her car, Gen come to her and ask her opinion about their idols' performance. Ayane gives him her opinion and he is shock to hear them.
"I understand that Nao still has long ways to go on being at the same level as Sonia," he said, "but Sonia is in pain…! What do you mean?"
She explains, "It's not physical pain, but emotional pain. Despite that she's singing a cheery song with her fellow idol, I can tell that she's writhing in pain as she sings. I can hear her heart screaming through her singing, but without any knowledge about her, I can't even tell what's causing her pain. So I'm wondering… do you know much about Sonia's life, even if it is before her idol days?"
Gen feels weird to tell her something about Sonia's life; however, he worries about Sonia's wellbeing and he can tell that Ayane is also worried about her. He decided to tell her about Sonia's personal life. According to him, Sonia use to live with her mother who was bedridden due to some unknown illness that no doctor had a clue what it was for three years. To make her mom happy, Sonia sings some songs that she made up from her surroundings. On Sonia's thirteenth birthday, Sonia's mom gives her daughter an idol application that has her daughter to start her idol debut. After her debut, Sonia's mom succumbs to her illness and dies, leaving Sonia to be an orphan.
Ayane feels sad from listening to that story as she asks, "Does she have any other relatives?"
"She doesn't," he answers, "Sonia doesn't know if she has any living relatives, so she's living at our company's apartment on her own."
She exhales her breath, crosses her arms, and solemnly looks down at the ground. "I think I discover her pain, but I don't think I'm qualified to talk to her about her problem."
"Why?" Gen gasps. "I mean you have experience of losing loved ones too! I think you're qualified to talk to her about her problems!"
Ayane knows why she isn't qualified to talk to Sonia about her problem of losing her mother because she felt that she would cause Sonia to be extremely wary on her kind words. Ayane have experience that her kind words cause people to be wary from when she was in Harmony Town. One of Yusei's middle school female classmates have problems relating to singing, which is stage fright, and Ayane tried to use some encouraging words to help her to get over her stage fright. However, the outcome causes that student to be even more afraid of being on stage. It was at that time when Yusei started to use harsh words on his fellow classmate and the outcome was different because the girl got over her stage fright so she can prove Yusei's harsh words are wrong.
Being reminded of that time, she decided to change the subject. Ayane asks, "Have you got your company's earnings? None of the money was missing, right?"
"Yes, none of the money was taken this time… wait… Hey! Don't change the subject!"
"Mr. Kisaragi!" a young girl's voice calls out his name as she and Gen turn to see Nao Iwatani. She wears new attire that is different from the one she's wearing at the event: a green sports shirt, black shorts, white ankle socks, and black shoes.
Following Nao is Chris Gold and Sonia Strumm who is wearing the clothes that she wears to school earlier. Ayane looks at Chris's face and saw his angry expression; possibly due to the argument he had with Gen earlier.
Nao notices the atmosphere between Ayane and Gen as she asks, "What are you two talking about?"
Gen ignores Nao for a bit and glares at Chris. He said, "The event was a success. I thank you for your idol's work, but I hope you make sure her health is okay. Got it?"
Chris ignores Gen as he walks away, leaving Sonia alone with the other two adults and a fellow idol. His final words before he left were "I'm going home."
Gen angrily glares at Chris's back as Ayane notices Sonia is making a sad face. She asks, "Are you feeling okay?"
Sonia gasps, "I-I'm sorry, I was just lost in thought!" She went back to her sad face, which causes the people around her to worry about her.
To break this weird tension, Nao smacks Sonia's back that causes Sonia to be in shock. "Cheer up, Sonia!" she cheerfully exclaims as she stretches the famous idol's face to force her to smile. "You have to smile! That sad face doesn't suit you!"
Ayane giggles and said, "I agree! Making that sad face would ruin such a cute face like yours."
Sonia's face turns red from Ayane's comment as she looks down at the ground. Nao quickly changes her attention towards Ayane and she asks, "Who are you, lady? And what is your relationship with my producer?"
"W-we didn't have any sort of relationship!" Gen's face turns a bit red as his heartbeats a bit fast.
Ayane is oblivious on the meaning behind Nao's question as she said, "We're just acquaintances who have met again after not seeing each other for seven years. I use to remember him to be an extremely hard worker, despite him being a bit too clumsy and forgetful. By the way, my name is Ayane Light." Gen felt deflated from Ayane's comment, but lets it slide because that's pretty much the last thing that she remembers about him.
When Sonia heard Ayane's last name, she regains her composure and started to have a normal conversation with her. "Light? I have a classmate who has also goes by that last name. His name is Yusei Light."
"That's my little brother! I'm so glad you met him!"
"Oh, I see… Yusei is your little brother." She giggles because she felt happy to have a nice chat with someone. However, it took her a few short seconds to realize what Ayane have just said and gasps out of shock. "You're his older sister? Um, n-nice to meet you! I'm Sonia Strumm!" Sonia's face becomes extremely when she says that and she starts to panic.
"Sonia, why are you panicking?" Nao tilts her head when she asks her that question.
Ayane finds Sonia's reaction to be amusing as she decided to have fun with her. "I hope you and my brother get along! Also, there's no need to panic, especially to someone who could eventually be my sister-in-law."
Hearing that last part from her, Sonia's face gets even redder than her hair. She puts her hands on her face and panics in thought.
"I'm kidding!" Ayane spoke out. "I just like seeing girls like you making that kind of reaction. Besides, if I know my brother, he would only sees you as his friend rather than girlfriend." Those last words made Sonia to feel a bit disappointed as Ayane turns to Nao. "Are you going to introduce your self?"
Nao happily answers, "I'm Nao Iwatani and I'm an idol like Sonia here! Though I'm not even close to her popularity…"
After chatting with them for a few minutes, Ayane checks the time from her Transer and realizes that she should be home soon. She leaves the people and quickly rushes to her car. At the same time, Sonia wonders why she felt like she saw Ayane somewhere before.
When she returns home, she opens the door to see Yusei's familiar shoes on the floor in front of her. She shouted, "Yusei! I'm home!" She enters the living room to see that Yusei is not in the room and she even checks the kitchen to only not find him there. She then checks up the stairs. "Yusei! Are you in your room?"
There's no answer and this causes her to worry. She walks up the stairs and knock on the door of Yusei's room. However, there's no one answering her knocks. She felt this heavy weight in her heart as she gulps down her worries and pray for not the worst scenario of what happens to her little brother. She slowly opens the door wide open to see Yusei lying on his bed, shirtless and has bandages wrap over his upper body. Seeing the bandages made Ayane to put her hand over her mouth as she fears that she is losing Yusei.
Ayane rushes over to him and she shouted, "Yusei! Yusei! Please tell me you're not dead!"
Yusei slowly opens his eyes to see his sister. "Don't write me off dead already…" Ayane is happy to hear him talking as he slowly rose his upper body. "Welcome back, Ayane. How was your day?"
"Never mind about my day!" Ayane exclaims. "What happen to you? Did you get into a fight? I told you before when you got into that street fight that you should never got into one! Do you know how much that worries me? Do you really want me to lose another family?"
"I'm sorry, but there was a reason why I'm like this."
"And what reason would that be?"
Yusei explains what happen to him today. His classmate, Luna Platz, threatened her friend, Bud Bison that she's going to cut off their Brother-Band if he doesn't stop his violent behavior yesterday. This causes Bud to have his revenge on the girl and Yusei fought him off to calm him down. After receiving many blows, Yusei manages to calm Bud down so Luna can apologize to him. When he is telling this story, he left out a few details, but the rest is actually true.
Ayane at first didn't want to believe his story, but she believes him because she knows her little brother best. "You always wanted to be the 'hero' that our parents want you to be. Just promise me that you won't do that again."
"I promise," he said with a reassuring smile. "Now let me make dinner!"
His sister stops him from getting up, which made Yusei wonder why she did that. "You don't have to. Just rest and heal, I'll make the dinner for the two of us."
Ayane left the room and headed towards the kitchen. During her time cooking dinner, she remembers that Yusei did most of the housework and cooking whenever he is alone, especially when they were at their uncle's place. She always appreciates the kind side about him, but she feels that he too is carrying a burden like she is. She hopes that what she's doing now can lighten the weight of his burden and as his older sister she must show that she's responsible for her little brother. Ayane starts singing as she makes dinner to lighten her mood.