𝒩ᴼᵂ 𝒫ᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : ❝ ℋᴬᴿᴰ 𝓉ᴼ 𝒮ᴸᴱᴱᴾ ❞ 𝒷ᵞ 𝒢ᴿᴬᶜᴵᴱ 𝒜ᴮᴿᴬᴹˢ
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
ʜᴏᴡ ɪ'ᴍ ᴏᴠᴇʀᴛʜɪɴᴋɪɴɢ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ɪ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ sᴀɪᴅ?
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ʀᴜʙʏ ᴘɪᴄᴋᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴇ right time to start fixing her "issues" with Melt. Not only were fans getting excited over their progress, but some were quickly tying in her new music video, now officially titled Whispers of Echo, to their friendship. Theories were coming faster than before, and more people were interested in the show. The music video was entirely done, and it was set to be posted soon.
Aqua was exhausted.
"I told you to not put all this effort into Ruby's music video," Kana said when she visited him.
He said nothing, sinking further into his pillow. He felt so tired he was sick. Perhaps as a past doctor he should know what to do, but he didn't.
Kana scrolled through her phone. "Well, if it makes you feel better...people really love her song. It's already starting to get used in edits."
People using the song in edits were good. He found out songs reached more publicity the more people used it to edit fictional characters. As long as they were using it, he didn't care what edits they were making.
Aqua sighed as he rolled over. "I just remembered I need to contact this Mem-Cho person. Ruby said she wanted to help with posting and stuff..."
"Mem-Cho the YouTuber? I watched some of her videos. She's cool."
He nodded, though he was more focused on sitting which needed more energy than he remembered. His phone was in the living room, which felt like a long walk from where he was.
Kana immediately noticed. "Lay down. You're not doing any more work."
"I have to..."
"You're not her manager, Aqua. Miyako can contact Mem-Cho herself."
"Ruby said she wanted to contact me specifically, though..."
"Aqua, it's fine. You're basically sick. Let the fans get excited for a few more days. You're not even the one posting it."
"I know, but what if—"
"Oh my God, Aqua, just relax. You're just gonna stress yourself out more. When did you forget that was an option?"
He never forgot he could rest; he chose not to in order to finish Whispers of Echo.
"If I'm not getting to you, look." Kana showed him her phone screen. "Ruby talks about how you're doing a lot of the work for Whispers of Echo, and people love you. They're finding things you're working on and are sending you love. You're the perfect brother in their eyes, and after hearing just how much work you're doing, they want you to rest too."
She wasn't wrong; just from searching his name alone brought praises from his new fans from how good of a brother he was. He felt proud of himself, but his work was supposed to be for Ruby to get the attention, not him.
Kana pulled her phone away. "You know, some people think you could play Touki in the Tokyo Blade stage play."
"Tokyo Blade, the manga?"
"I heard it's getting a stage play adaptation, hosted by Lalalie Theatrical Company. The auditions haven't started though." A shy smile formed on her face. "We could audition together, you know. I can play the female antagonist, and you can play the male."
He sighed. "If I feel better, that is..."
"Just a second ago, you were fine with ignoring being sick. Now you're acting like you're going to die?"
Aqua managed a weak smile. "I'm an actor, after all..."
Kana shook her head, but the hint of a smile was there. Now that the music video done, Aqua decided he might as well make her happy and focus more on acting. That was after he healed, though. Right now, he wanted to rest.
. . .
ᴀǫᴜᴀ ᴡᴀs sᴛᴀʀᴛɪɴɢ to feel better. He was rejoining Taishi for their editing classes despite the music video set to upload in the following week. He wanted to keep improving his editing skills so he could edit more music videos as needed. Since Ai was their mother, he had no doubt Ruby would soon have her same fame, but for now, he wanted to help her spend the least amount of money yet give the highest quality possible.
When dinnertime came, Taishi's mother invited him to stay for dinner. Letting Miyako know, he kept a polite manner when speaking with her. He knew what she liked, and getting into little arguments like Taishi did was not what he should be doing.
During the meal, Taishi's mother asked, "Aqua, do you see that TV show your sister is on? The one about famous people?"
"She's on Idol's Beginning, and yes, I do. But I haven't seen it recently since I've been busy."
"Did your sister really accidentally start a fire?"
That was what Aqua and Miyako demanded to know the moment they found out. Ruby told them yes but tried to escape the conversation fast. Neither of them were willing to let her go that fast after potentially hurting members of the cast, the workers behind the scenes, and destroying the school itself.
However, Aqua didn't want his sister to be insulted by others. "It was an honest mistake."
"She knows that, I know that," said Taishi, "but some people online find it suspicious."
Aqua frowned. "What would she get out of it? She already shares the face of the show with Melt."
"More popularity isn't a bad thing, especially when the other members of the cast are still a lot more famous than you. We both know her Whispers of Echo is getting a lot more attention now that the episode has aired."
That was besides the point. "Still, she has nothing to gain. If she wanted to make a spark to start her fixing her friendship with Melt, having bad baking skills from both of them and making bad dorayaki is enough to start one. And she's an idol, so she can't get too close to a boy outside of her family."
"Scandals are perfect ways to get more attention. Some companies use them to get more attention to their idols."
"How do you know that?"
"He's always watching those gosh-darn idols dancing on his computers!" Taishi's mother swatted at her son with her spoon.
"No I do not!"
Aqua finished his meal quickly, thanking Taishi and his mother before leaving to head back home. On the way, he took out his phone and searched Ruby's stage name. The first few articles and blogs were sending positive attention to Whispers of Echo, but soon after, some questioned if the fire was on purpose. He skimmed through several of them, and they all said the same thing: If Sarina started on purpose, she was doing too much to promote Whispers of Echo. The infamous ship between her and Melt was starting to get more negative attention as well, bringing more hate to her. Some were even accusing her of bribing Masaya into making her the main face—though Melt was nowhere in the conversation.
Aqua froze when he saw a comment joking about Sarina getting cancelled before her first music video even came out. It was a joke and everyone could tell, but he feared it might be close to what could be the truth. He couldn't let her get cancelled before she debuted; he couldn't let Ruby, Miyako, nor Ai down.
. . .
"ɪᴛ's ɴᴏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴛᴏᴏ big," Miyako said when he informed her about it.
Aqua's frown deepened. "What do you mean? Ruby could get cancelled!"
"They're not outright cancelling her, are they? Besides, a little scandal never hurt anyone."
"This 'scandal' could lead to her career ruined!"
Miyako laughed, causing more confusion from him. "I don't think you understand how many idols use something like this to help promote their debut. Have you heard of how companies like to use scandals to promote their idols? The Internet likes to hate people, so getting hate is the quickest and cheapest way to get attention. I'm not saying I wanted this to happen, but it's not bad it did. There are some people who will find out who Sarina is with all this talk and like her, but this is really no big deal. Ai had much worse scandals."
That stopped Aqua. "She did?"
"Plenty of it." Her smile softened. "My point is that you can relax. This isn't too big of a deal that you should be so worried about. You've done enough work, so please. Take some time to yourself. Talk to Kana. Study for school. Start acting again. Whatever you want that doesn't involve Ruby's idol career. You have free time, so start using it. No one is going to punish you if you don't."
It still felt wrong to do nothing about them. Ruby had decided to have a private, non-scripted hangout with Melt, so he couldn't ask her if she was okay with all this happening. He didn't want to say something that could ruin her career or worsen the scandals, so he couldn't use his social media accounts.
Fortunately, an idea sparked. He left to his bedroom and opened all of his social media apps. There, he made new accounts all dedicated to being Sarina's number one fan. Ai had plenty of them, and he remembered them supporting her no matter what. Ruby or Sarina had to have some, so he would be the first.
From here on out, Aqua would use these accounts when he wasn't sure if he could support Ruby on his main accounts. Right now, he was starting his first posts on all of the accounts: You guys are ridiculous for saying Sarina purposely started the fire. Anyone could tell she never meant for it to happen! And she LIED about it! She said SHE did it when Melt was the one who told her not to! How about we stop all this hate and accept the fact new idols make mistakes ok? Is that really so hard?