It was only the second year of middle school when my body started to develop faster than the rest of the girls'. Magnified with good makeup, the beauty was such that every guy in the school fell at my feet. They wouldn't stop declaring their wild love toward me, which I rejected gracefully. Only one person was worth my attention: Shō, the most popular guy in the entire school. I didn't like him because of that, I liked him because he was handsome, smart, kind, and good at sports; a true gentleman. Just like me, he played hard to get, making me want him more. I knew jumping straight at him wouldn't work, so I took it slow to show him how attractive I was. My brain might've been lacking a bit of agility, but the rest was a ten out of ten. The battle continued for the last year and a half of middle school. I managed

Sanae stood in the middle of the dancing studio. She had just finished reading what she had written for her song out loud when I stood up from the chair to let her sit next to the girls again. They had asked for the reading to be private, so it was only them and me in the room. Now I stood in front of them, speechless. Each of the girls had read out loud a story about their pasts and the mood had become bittersweet, to say the least. "I don't know what to say," I said. "All of your stories are… sad. It's nice knowing you didn't give up and how far you've come." "You also have a couple of stories of your own," Aki said. I knew exactly what she was talking about, while the girls only got half of the picture. "Yeah. Umi, do you think the stories can be turned into songs

Since it was Aeryx's press conference, we didn't expect many, if any, questions to be asked to Blostars. Opposite that, they received a fair amount of attention. Most of the questions were about the controversies we had gone through, but some journalists were genuinely interested in knowing about the collaboration from Blostars' side and our future. Those were the questions that made us want to go on. The girls were doing very well on their own, meaning Aya and I didn't need to communicate with them that much through Talkie. Other people in the green room from Aeryx's team were also talking with her throughout the conference. Thirty minutes later, the conference was over. Ms. Yoshida, Aeryx, the girls, and Butcher returned to the green room as bodyguards escorted the journalists out of the building. <

We tried our hardest to relax for fifteen more minutes before walking back into the venue. Aki and the girls returned for the sound check, while I headed to the actual storage room to help Aya and Tomokazu check the merchandise. It took more time than we expected since we had doubled the quantity compared to our previous concert. Luckily, everything looked good and, two hours before opening the doors to the public, the TOTOT staff assembled both their and our stalls at the entrance of the venue. One hour remained when the sound check was done. Everyone returned to their green rooms to have one last meal before the concert. Aeryx and her band even called us to spend some time with them. Of course, the girls were ecstatic to do so, but it didn't feel the same for me knowing she was a robot. Even Aki acted somewhat off when she talked with her. Read more