Sorry I took so long! Forgive meeee :P

Hoshino Ruby, daughter of the greatest idol Hoshino Ai and currently a participant of her newly christened childhood friend's birthday party, was seated on the floor comfortably, seated beside her mama (true).

Ruby furrowed her eyebrows. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was going on in front of her. No matter from what angle she looked, however, she couldn't figure out just what was going on.

But there were signs of something going on.

When she looked at Mana, she felt like he had the same look in his eyes that he had when they planned the prank together on Aqua. She didn't think much of it at the time, but she was getting the feeling that really, maybe she should.

Another sign was that Ruby's dearest and most beautiful mama was acting weird. Ai often patted and played with Ruby, and her doing so was not weird at all. But only in a private setting. It was very rare for Ai to play with Ruby in public, especially one where there were people who were currently strangers to them.

The third and last sign she noticed, although she had the feeling that there were more around her that she wasn't noticing, was that she, Hoshino Ruby, was feeling… weird. She was feeling weird ever since she saw the picture. A girl looking at a mother-daughter pair eating ice cream. She felt her skin crawl, watching the mother-daughter pair eat ice cream happily.

She'd never done it in all 12 years of her first life. That happy scene of a mother-daughter pair. She was always in the hospital, after all. 'And her mother and father in that life…' Ruby choked internally at the thought of them. 'Were they there when I died? I was so out of it, I can't remember…'

The only one she could remember being there for her on her death bed was her dearest Gorou-sensei. She hadn't seen her parents in perhaps weeks at the time.

Ruby shivered, her dearest and most wonderful and precious mama fussing over her kindly and asking if she wanted to get her jacket. She refused, however. She wasn't cold nor was she uncomfortable, the floor was covered in a somewhat soft mat and then had a blanket placed over it, which is why everyone was just sitting on the floor contently, shoes abandoned at the side.

She was made even more comfortable because her dearest and most beautiful mama was patting and stroking her. She loved all the attention that her mama could give her, she adored it, even if the timing was weird, so of course she found herself relaxing somewhat. She couldn't let her relax completely, Aqua to her left was already glaring at her and Miyako on her mama's other side looked like she would nudge them in reminder of what they're supposed to be looking like in public.

The question then was that if Hoshino Ruby wasn't feeling uncomfortable, why was she feeling… weird? 'What is this weird feeling?' Ruby questions as she glares accusingly at Arima Mana.

Ruby gasps internally as Mana meets her eyes and almost glides past her, so focused on his role of being a good host for his game activity. 'Is this weird feeling really his fault or is it something else?' Ruby doubts herself a little, unsure if she was imagining everything as Mana continued on with his activity.

As Mana prepared to change the picture, her eyes lingered on the photo presented, her eyes blasted with a barrage of light. The more Ruby stared, the more she felt like something was burrowing, deep into her heart.

Ruby was so distracted with the burgeoning feelings inside her chest that she almost didn't notice her brother squeeze her hand, his own eyes filled with worry over her reaction. She didn't even realize he had started holding her hand at some point.

'Thanks, Aqua. Thanks, mama.' With a warm smile, Ruby squeezed back.

Hoshino Aquamarine was a bit worried.

Ruby looked like she would almost cry for a moment there, and he almost didn't notice if not for Ai's petting of Ruby. He only noticed because he was worried that Ai was being too obvious with their secret. Aqua was thankful that their mother was able to help Ruby.

'Unacceptable.' Aqua thought grimly, his hand holding his twin sister's. He resolved to protect his family just moments ago, but Ruby looked like she would cry already, and he had zero clue as to why.

'What's causing it?' He questioned, looking around the room. Ruby was in a good mood just moments ago. She was even teasing him about the prank. She got distracted and suddenly looked like that. There wasn't anything here that Aqua could identify that was distressing Ruby.

Aqua's worries subsided slightly when his sister finally squeezed his hand back, but his frustration with his lack of ability annoyed him to no end.

"Okay, so here's the next picture!" Mana continued, his hands gesturing wildly at the new photo. Aqua blinked for a moment as he processed Mana's words, raising his head to look at the picture even as he decided to hold back his worries until a more private time to ask Ruby about it came.

It was a forest in the nighttime. The photo was clearly framed to be for some kind of horror plot, as dark, foreboding, and foggy as it was. There was a woman looking immensely lost who was walking deeper and deeper into the darkness of the woods.

He could relate to being afraid, honestly. Anyone would be afraid to enter a forest as frightening as that, especially in the dark of night.

After his reincarnation, Aqua now immensely disliked forests at night. As thankful as he was for the chance of his reincarnation, even once admitting to himself that he was thankful to his murderer for giving him this new chance at life, Aqua never once liked how he got to be reincarnated.

And so, Aqua could relate to the woman's fear at entering the woods. He could even see the woods from her perspective, feel what it was like to be in that situation. And so it was that description that he told everyone when Mana called upon him to speak.

"The woods took shape, looming and cold. The roots grew deep beneath the earth. The branches, swaying slowly, appeared like they were breathing. And as she moved deeper and deeper…" Aqua paused, stopping at that point not because he was giving way for the next storyteller or that he had a lack of things to say, but rather, he probably had too much to say.

'That was too much for a child of my age.' He realized as Ruby squeezed his hand this time, clearly a reminder to him to keep their shared secret, as in, only his and her secret, this time.

'Ah.' Aqua finally realized what was going on, absentmindedly noting that Mana had taken control in his silence and was and was now cheering on an embarrassed "mama", Miyako, who didn't think she was even part of the wheel in the first place and hurriedly thought of an answer to continue Aqua's story.

Seriously, her mind was a bit saddled with romance, he remarked dryly as she inserted a charming prince into the story to come save the lost girl in the woods.

Aqua shook his head, wanting to focus more on what was happening. As someone who used to live in the mountains, Aqua, or rather, his past life Goro hadn't always been a fan of idols and B-Komachi and Hoshino Ai. Once upon a time, he went to medical school and socialized with other medical school students like a normie - Aqua didn't think you could survive medical school on your own.

In his interactions with normies, one of them was inevitably bored enough to test out random psychology tests on people they knew. And so everyone was tested on a bunch of things, just because they could. 'I mean, there's not much to do in the province, after all…'

And so Aqua had tried out projective tests. He tried one with a bunch of ink splatters and one with a lot of words and sentences with his former friends, back then. Apparently, those were pretty popular among those psychology students.

Whatever Mana had found in his casual web searching, it was clearly some kind of variation using actual pictures and words in tandem.

Aqua didn't know very much about psychology and projective tests, but he suspected that this one emphasized the story telling aspect to drag out people's feelings just by looking at some random average picture.

If his guess was right, and he had troubled feelings regarding this image, it should mean that he was projecting his dislike of the woods into the story that he was telling.

An attempt at murder could be traumatizing for anyone, even witnesses. But Aqua's situation was a bit more precarious than that. After all, he'd actually died to it. So it was no wonder to Aqua that he'd started to dislike the woods, especially at night.

'… Is this a problem?' Aqua wondered to himself. Even if he's happy with his life right now, he still died to something.

Ruby suddenly let go of Aqua's hand, gesturing at Miyako, their "mother", reacting and teasing her for her continuation of the story. No doubt she was trying to cover up his reaction and his somewhat mature story and choice of words.

'Wait. If I had a bad reaction to this image, why did Ruby have a bad reaction to the last image?' Aqua finally realized that the previous image must have been the source of his twin sister's earlier distress.

Recalling Ruby's previous insistence at not discussing their past lives, Aqua sighed to himself. He would probably never be able to ask her about it.

He looked up and glared at Mana. 'This is all your fault, Mana. Don't just pull random shit from psychology on YouTube and throw it at us.'

Aqua gave up on thinking and blamed everything on Mana.

I swear I watched the end of Episode 7 like a million times and my heart started pounding for Akane. Akane might come in sooner than planned... I have a plan for her already, somehow.

Also we need more Oshi no Ko fics so, please please please, let my lie become true?

Oshi no ko will have more fics ~