The latter half of this chapter was 1000% NOT PLANNED. It literally was never even planned to happen, it wasn't even an idea or concept until I was literally writing it. Even I'm in shock as to what I wrote because it happened so naturally in my head but I swear, I didn't even think this would happen. I'll explain more in the end notes.
Kei Shirogane, youngest child and only daughter of the Shirogane family was seated comfortably for the movie.
She had a slice of pizza on her plate for her to eat, her cup was filled with juice. Her older brother, similarly equipped with food and drink, was seated beside her, while their father enjoyed everything from his position behind her.
Kei's new friends, Aqua and Ruby, sat somewhat opposite her and her family on the other side of the room with their mother, the pretty older lady, as well as Mana's friend, the pretty younger lady.
Seated between all of them was Kana, who was swiftly joined by Mana once he started the movie. Kei blinked for the briefest moment. 'Where is-'
The movie started softly, interrupting her thoughts, but Kei's attention was hooked. After all, from the very first part of the movie, they were quickly introduced to a character played out by one of the people they knew to be an actor: Mana's friend, Ai.
Kei didn't fully recognize her at first due to Ai having worn a wig with a different hair color and a different hairstyle to what she wore today, but Mana's gasp and dramatic whisper "Ai-nee" quickly signaled it for her.
Across the room, she could see her new friend Ruby gesturing excitedly at Mana's friend, who was nodding at her and smiling. 'Wow, they must be close too, just like how close Ai is with Mana.' she thought.
Ai's character on the screen disappeared almost as quickly as she appeared. As far as Kei could tell, the character went to visit a hospital, and was all nervous about it, when she was suddenly allowed in.
The scene cut off to a screen of black bars, before transitioning into a school setting.
Ai's brief scene at the beginning set the tone of the movie, and kept
"Black?" Kei found herself tugging on Mana's sleeve and asking.
"Yeah." Mana whispered back. "I asked the director to provide us a censored copy for the kids." he continued in a voice a bit louder than the whisper. "But even then it's a PG film so it's okay or something like that."
Kei didn't really get it, but she let it go.
The main actress was a rather plain-looking woman. She was much less beautiful than Mana's friend, according to Kei's standards.
'And maybe that's why she was so desperate to go to the scary hospital.' the 7 year old girl intuited.
'Ai-san is so pretty, after all. I want to be pretty like her.' Kei's mind went straight to Ai and how pretty she is.
'Maybe I should grow my hair out just like she does?' Kei let the thought linger in her mind before moving on to consider Ai's clothes. She thought all about how to become as pretty as Ai.
With all that thinking proving to be enough to distract her, her attention only returned back to the movie when whispers once again entered Kei's ears.
Her eyes were treated to the plain-main actress, who was entering a village, and subsequently bumped into two children.
As the camera panned up above their torsos to reveal their faces, Kei gasped as she realized who it was.
"Kana and Aqua!" Kei and Ruby reacted together, sharing a glance afterward at each other.
In the meantime, the whispering going on in the background, Kei realized when she faced the others properly, was actually Kana, who was whispering over Mana's shoulder while still hiding behind him. "Next time, I won't lose." She whisper-muttered repeatedly from behind Mana.
Kei glanced at Aqua all the way on the other side of the room, who gave Kei no indication that he was paying attention at all to Kana's muttering and whose gaze was focused solely on the screen, and then compared him to the creepy boy on the screen.
To Kei, at first glance, the boy on the screen was way creepier, especially with all the effects edited in to emphasize Aqua's acting, but when she placed her gaze in the general direction of Kana, who was whisper-muttering this whole time and sneaking glances at the male actor, and Aqua, who was stiffly focusing on the movie and didn't seem to turn Kana's way even once, she felt like the second scene was creepier.
Kei suddenly felt her big brother's hand over her head, and gave him a silent, questioning gaze. When no answer was offered to her, she turned her head and her attention back to the movie.
Aqua's ears were flushed red, even as he kept his gaze on the screen as much as he could, away from embarrassing reality.
To his left, Ruby, Ai, and even Miyako were ribbing him, giggling every time they heard one of his scant few lines or if he appeared in a scene.
To his right, Kana was muttering up an incomprehensible storm as she peeked at him from behind her Mana barrier. If this was a Shonen Manga, he felt like Kana would have declared their eternal lifelong rivalry, go in separate directions, and appear as a childhood friend character a decade after with revenge in her eyes. Or something.
The most embarrassing part, however, was when that girl, Kei Shirogane, spoke out loud. "Creepy.". From her tone of voice and the lack of reaction when everyone gasped for a little, the girl didn't even seem to realize she had spoken out loud.
It felt to him like a pin had just dropped. Flushed, he turned his head to peek at the girl, but her gaze wasn't even on him, who was being creepy on the screen, but it was on him. Not that it would have made a difference, considering he was literally just being himself during recording.
His cheeks exploded in a blush.
Ruby broke down laughing, no longer trying to hide it, and he lunged at her to keep it down.
Meanwhile, Ai and Miyako beside them, and Mana and Kana, in the center to the front somewhat, giggled even as they were playfully shushing the two.
Aqua picked up a slice of pizza, angrily taking a bite out of his pizza. "Idiots…" He was surrounded by idiots.
Minutes after Aqua's scenes, the only interruptions afterwards were Ruby's small giggles as she remembered the incident at Aqua's expense.
Ruby held in another giggle. 'Aqua sure is funny.' She smiled.
Her attention turned back to the movie. She was interested in the movie, that was true, but honestly, she was mostly only really cared because people she knew were on it. It was her mama, her brother, and her two friends, after all.
Her mama and her 'mother', who were both there at the recording, did their best to explain what happened in the scene, so she sort of got it, but until she saw the scene, it wouldn't stick.
As the biggest fan of her mama, the sweetest and most amazing super idol Hoshino Ai, she just had to see the scene after all. She had to see everything in her dearest, sweetest, most special and most amazing super beautiful and pretty idol, her oshi Hoshino Ai's debut movie after all.
As the movie played on, the more invested Ruby got. She wasn't usually interested in horror, the opposite actually. She preferred cute things to ugly gore, as evidenced by her preferring idol content. But something about the movie, the story, the characters, the acting, something she couldn't name caught her attention.
Her heartbeat drummed louder and louder every second. In this brief moment of anticipation as she waited for something mysterious, something without name, to come, Ruby went through a kaleidoscope of emotions, each wave of emotion intense and unexplainable.
Thump. Ruby's heart pounded loudly within her chest. Her throat felt dry. She started grasping the ends of her blouse, nervous anticipation bleeding out of her for some reason.
That something she was looking for hadn't even come yet, but for some supernatural reason, her eyes were drawn to the screen, every sense focused on absorbing every minute action, every small shift in position, every facial expression, every inch of the scene unfolding in front of here.
As she watched, on her left, she felt her true mama shift position slightly to make her seating position more comfortable. A completely normal, natural movement, but one that put her slightly further from Ruby by pure accident.
The coincidence only made the side of her elbow feel colder, the temperature difference only highlighting the contrast with the drumming sound of her heartbeat and the heat building up from within her chest.
The Ai within the screen was crying. Lamenting. That she wasn't pretty enough to have a place in the world. That she wasn't beautiful enough to be loved. All of those reasons drove her character to contact the horror hospital on the hill. She sacrificed everything she had to become beautiful for a brief moment in life, and for eternity in the afterlife.
For the briefest of moments, Ruby imagined herself in the character's place, a whirlwind of memories and emotions. 'What makes someone loved?' she asked herself.
The character in the screen mentioned beauty as the reason that she wasn't loved. Because she wasn't beautiful, she claimed, she was bullied, she had no friends, her lover cheated and left her for some prettier, better, more beautiful.
Ruby wasn't bullied. Ruby had friends. Ruby didn't have a lover, was never cheated on, and was never left behind.
But Sarina?
The first time Sarina collapsed, she was learning to ice skate in classes with a bunch of friends. Nobody knew how serious it was, everyone thought that she just lost balance, a completely normal thing. Even she herself had no clue at the time. It took a few collapses, both inside the rink and outside the rink throughout a series of weeks, the appearances of other symptoms, and finally, a standard check up to the doctor as recommended by the school nurse for people to finally realize that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
When she first collapsed, everyone laughed, her included. As she continued to collapse, the laughs slowly turned mocking, jeering. And then when her diagnosis was announced, every laugh, jeer, giggle, all of it transformed into sweet, comforting words laced with pity.
At one point in time, those she was skating with were her friends. They played together. They studied together. They went skating together.
Sarina didn't know when it all changed. When did they stop being her friends? Was it when they disappeared, was it when they stopped coming, was it when they stopped laughing with her and instead start laughing at her when she collapsed at skating? Was it when her body failed to keep up to the demands of her passions? Is that when they stopped being her friend?
Or was it when their treatment of her transformed into pity? When the lessened contact as a result of not being able to keep up with their shared passions, their shared hobbies burst into a few days of intensely increased contact after the announcement of her diagnosis? When the texts, calls, and catch ups slowly transitioned, lengthened, hourly into daily into biweekly into weekly, into bimonthly, into monthly, into every few months, into long, uncountable periods of time where Sarina couldn't be sure if they contacted last week, last month, or last year?
Sarina never had a lover. All she had was her doctor. Her doctor who she loved and cherished greatly, who she even gave her limited edition Ai merch to. Although he rejected her on basis of her age. 'That moralist.' she remembered him fondly.
She was sure that he loved her. He swore that he would be her fan. Doctor Goro was by Sarina's side, he talked to her, really listened to her, took in her ambitions, her aspirations, her dreams, her hopes, and her fear. He was there many times more than Sarina's mother was, and, well, she's a mother so she definitely loved her daughter, right? If he was there more than Sarina's mother was, then for sure he really love love loved her.
'I'm sure that, for all this time, he has kept his eyes on Ai. On my mama. Just like I have.' Her eyes followed the Ai on the screen, beautiful even as her character cried, lamented, and bemoaned her fate.
Now that Sarina has been reincarnated in the body of Ruby, the daughter of the brightest star, the brightest idol ever to live, beautiful and healthy, she will surely find love. She will surely be loved.
"Nee-chan…" Mana's voice reached out to her, snapping her out of her daze. Startled, she turned to face Mana, meeting his gaze but his lips weren't moving. The voice was coming from the screen. 'Why is he facing this way?' she wondered for a moment, but her eyes returned to focusing on the events on screen.
Mana on the screen, the child actor he was, stared at the camera. His eyes were watery, but he wasn't quite crying. He was blushing, red in the nose and in the cheek, emotional in a way that Ruby has never seen from the Mana she knew.
The scene briefly cuts to Ai's character, eyes starting to go teary as well, not knowing that her face reflected her mother's at that very moment.
In that brief moment of the cut, her eyes absorbing all of the light in front of her, both in the screen and outside of it, her eyes met Mana's, both the Mana in the screen and the one outside of it. His voice resounded within the boundaries of her skull, and only the lips of the Mana on screen moved. "You don't need to be more beautiful. You're already beautiful the way you are, the way you've always been."
The image she was watching blurred. Not because of a technical mishap, but because her eyes' vision were clouded by the tears built up. 'Is it really okay? Am I really okay the way I am?'
"I don't need a sister who's popular and can do anything, I just want you to be happy." Mana's lines continued, and she couldn't even see the screen anymore from how her eyes filled with tears. Her shoulders shook as she tried to hold in her tears.
All of a sudden, she felt arms wrap around her head, and she let loose, sobbing and crying. She knew, from sheer experience, just whose arms were around her head. As she cried onto his shoulder, her ears picked up the next line.
"…I love you. It's not a lie, I really do love you." The voice was soft. Earnest. In her emotional state, she couldn't tell if it was from the person in front of her or the speaker on the screen in front of her.
Through all of that, she sobbed and cried, silently. Her thoughts in a whirl, knowing mistakenly, unknowingly, by chance, by circumstance, by twist of fate, somehow, by some miracle, in some way…
Mistakenly, - Ruby knew that almost all of those lines were part of Mana's script given to him by the director for the role
Unknowingly, - Mana was just speaking lines in the guise of the character he acted as, but those words touched something deep within her.
By chance, - the characters and their situations seemed so reminiscent to her, from her worries about being loved to her desire to be more than what she was, more beautiful, more healthy, so that she could be loved
By circumstance, - Ruby didn't much like horror, normally, and would never pay too much attention to it. Normally.
By twist of fate, - But because it was Mana's birthday, because everyone was in a room, in public, all watching the movie together, there was nothing to distract her from the movie, no phone to put her eyes on, no mama to pat and soothe her, there was nothing but the rawness of her feelings.
Somehow, - Despite all of her fears, all of her difficult feelings, all of her worries
By some miracle - Those words reached out and picked her up in a way that she didn't even know she needed.
In some way… She felt saved.
So yeah. That happened. But I swear, Ruby's whole POV portion this chapter was not planned to happen. In fact, I was originally going to write from Ai's perspective which was kinda hinted from last chapter because she really did not want to be there but as I sat there trying to write Ai's perspective, I realized that something was missing. Something didn't feel right.
And then something pretty fucked up happened to me. Super fucked up to the point that I unironically relate a little too much to Sarina and Aqua right now. A little too much...
So me, trying to cope with the sheer fuckedupness of what happened to me, went to reread some Oshi no Ko manga and I saw, hey guys, wow, new Oshi no Ko chapter. And wow, that chapter, indeed, wow.
Except, when I reread it. Twice. Thrice. Four times. In fear, excitement, anticipation, nervousness, all of those feelings, I reread it and suddenly had a weird flashback.
Aqua's lines to Ruby that day... they were extremely, extremely similar to the lines that Mana had in the movie, literally in chapter 1. The lines I wrote in chapter 1, written right after I watched Oshi no Ko episode 1, BEFORE I even read the manga. I read the manga only after I wrote chapter 1, right as I posted it.
That was crazy for me to realize that. Truly it was a, what did I write in this chapter, "Mistakenly, unknowingly, by chance, by circumstance, by twist of fate, somehow, by some miracle" moment.
By some strange mysterious phenomenon or twist of fate, Mana's words matched Aqua's words in that chapter. Not exactly, not word for word, but quite close actually.
It almost feels kind of... Mary Sue and Gary Stu-y, from how perfectly that aligned. I swear it's not planned and I swear Mana has flaws too considering he's me HAHA you will all see. Mana isn't all gigachad wholesomeness I swear
But yeah, it aligned too perfectly, too mysteriously perfectly that I just HAD to write it. I absolutely HAD to write it because the scene matched my favorite scene in Sangatsu no Lion, my number 1 favorite series even through Oshi no Ko. If you've watched it, you probably know what I'm talking about.
Writing this actually fucked up quite a few future plans from me. Welp, back to the drawing board...