Gifts kept flooding in from everyone else at the party after I blew out the candles. We then each ate one tiny slice of cake since it was incredibly late, and kept the rest of the cake in the fridge of our building.
Some people chose to sleep for the one hour that remained before we had to wake up, while some of us preferred to stay up, like Aki and I. We used the extra time to make sure we had packed all the essential stuff we needed for the three months the tour covered.
Less than one hour remained before the bus we had rented, from the same company as Aeryx, arrived. The sunlight hitting my face while sleep-deprived was far from nice. Although we all were going to pay for it, the short party was worth it.
"Whose idea was the party?" I asked Aki as we both lay down on our bed.
This time, I didn't forget to set the alarm. Everyone else was still sleeping, but there was no reason to wake them up yet. I simply stood up and walked out of the room and into the bus corridor. To my surprise, Miki and Satō were sitting on one of the sofas, laughing together. It wasn't so surprising after remembering they weren't at the party the previous night. Although I didn't want to interrupt them, I wanted to sit down to get some work done before arriving at the venue. "Boss!" Satō gasped as soon as I entered her vision. "You startled us," Miki laughed nervously. "Don't mind me, I'll just work on some things before we arrive. Keep doing what you were doing." Satō rep
Unlike our previous concerts, most of the venues in the tour had the option to sell VIP tickets, which allowed people to be present for the soundcheck. We chose to enable them. Although it was going to be announced throughout the entire venue, I told Tomokazu that a small wave of fans was about to come inside since I was already talking to him. Both the photographer and I rushed to the green room. While walking, I told the venue assistant to let the VIP buyers in through the Talkie channel. The announcement was made just as we arrived at the green room. Everyone had just eaten lunch and seemed in a great mood. "Girls, they just let the VIP buyers in, meaning the soundcheck should start shortly," I informed them. "Still, there's no rush, so make sure you're ready."
Thus, the concert frenzy began. We barely had time to celebrate the start of the tour as the next concert took place the very next day in the same city, though it was in another venue. Most of the venues were similar in size—around two thousand people. In this case, the venue had seven hundred less capacity. The girls' performance kept improving throughout the following shows, making them less prone to mistakes. However, although we were more than happy to add a second date to many of the venues, they used up half of the days we had planned to take a break. It didn't seem like a problem at first, but it slowly burnt everyone out. A drop spilled the first glass eleven shows into the tour. The girls had already shown signs of fatigue, but it was nothing serious and they did everything they could to p
Tomokazu and I woke up with the same alarm as we shared the hotel room for the night. Since we were going to give a concert for the second day in a row in the same venue, it was better to have a comfortable sleep at a proper lodging instead of being cramped on a bus. As usual, Tomokazu let me use the bathroom first. However, I received a message from Astra while brushing my teeth, asking me to come to her and Risa's room as soon as possible. She had never done that before, so I rushed to brush my teeth and stepped out of the bathroom without showering. "Is something the matter?" Tomokazu asked me with a raspy voice, knowing I usually took more time in the bathroom. I put my toothbrush and my toothpaste in my backpack before answering. "Astra asked me to go to her and
The entire team headed to the venue as if it were any other day. However, there was something that had to be done before anything else. "Open wide and say ah," the doctor asked Risa, who sat on a chair in the dressing room of the venue for more privacy. Risa complied and the doctor pushed her tongue down with a stick to be able to see her throat with the help of his glasses' flashlight. Risa choked a few seconds later, so the doctor stepped back. He threw the stick into the recycling bin and put his glasses in his bag. "In addition to the radiography I just took, I can confidently tell you that it's nothing serious." Risa and I smiled at each other. "That doesn't mean you do
Aeryx's world tour was only one month away and, since we had been on the road for almost three months, I gave everyone that went on tour two weeks of vacation. Including the girls, with the instruction that they were not to do or even think about anything related to their job: being idols. They tried to go out together to have some fun, but fans kept stopping them on the streets. It happened even when they went out on their own, wearing caps and tinted glasses to disguise themselves. Aki and Umi refused to hire a personal bodyguard, while Astra preferred only going out with Butcher, Sanae, and Risa. In the end, they had no other choice but to accept that it was going to be like that going forward. Aside from that, something interesting happened with the assistant we
Eventually, Sanae and Risa took Butcher's cake out of the fridge and put it on the table. They added two candles to spell Butcher's age and lit them. We sang happy birthday for him before he blew out the candles. Somehow, Sanae and Risa were able to push his face into the cake. They then served one slice to everyone at the party, along with the food they had prepared. It made me realize it was the first time I had eaten food prepared by them. It wasn't bad. Once everyone was done eating, Butcher opened his gifts. It was hard choosing something to give him. A butchering knife was too obvious, as was any home appliance, since they had moved in not long ago. Knowing he didn't have many hobbies, I ended up picking something riskier. "A flute," Butcher said as he took it out of the box. It looked even smaller in Butch
We followed them through the streets again and, just like Risa had said, people started greeting Butcher as soon as they entered the neighborhood that had many restaurants, stalls, and food places. Sugioka seemed confused at first, but her shyness quickly kicked in. It even looked like Sanae's and Risa's plan was about to backfire. Luckily, it didn't, but not everything went as planned. "Oh, no," Sanae expressed as Butcher and Sugioka walked past a boxing gymnasium. Butcher slowed his pace down and stared at the building. Sugioka said something to him, but we couldn't hear them from our hiding spot behind a delivery truck. They stopped in front of the gymnasium and exchanged words for a while. They then stepped into the building. Sanae hit the truck and fumed, "Damn