Since she didn’t have any homework today, Reina passed the time by practicing. 

Most of her time was spent alone, although she had her brief moments of practice with Hana. As for her other unit member, Reina was told she went home early, something about having to cook dinner. She practiced with the rest of the group for a brief amount of time after, but it was already towards the end of the session by the time she joined. Reina meant to leave much earlier, but it seemed her housemaid Chiyoko was too preoccupied with familial business today to arrive on time. 

Now that her work for the day was over, Reina entered the locker and changing room on the first floor so she could get her stuff before leaving. Practice time for some of the other NeoStars was over, so it wasn’t just her in there. Cobalt-haired Takamura Hitomi and long-time coworker Harukaze Yui were chatting across the room with mini-live leader Otokura Kyoko as they gathered their stuff. 

“...are you going to be online tonight?” Hitomi asked. In the reflection of her locker mirror, she saw the younger girl adjusting her pigtails. “I need help with a quest.”

“Sure!” Yui responded. She was laying down on one of the benches and looking at her phone while she waited for the other two girls with her. “I should be free after dinner.”

“I’m surprised you want to play the game again after how confused you were last time,” Kyoko laughed. “But no need to worry, your heroes are here!”

“I want to finish this quest but it’s so frustrating!” Hitomi nearly yelled. “I entered a really really big gold ship by myself, walked through some hallways, and suddenly things kept coming at me and I couldn’t kill them fast enough. I kept coming back to life and dying immediately until I just quit.”

Reina wasn’t particularly interested in what they were talking about, so she minded her own business as she changed out of her practice clothing and back into her school uniform. It seemed that as usual, Yui was taking the easy route in being an idol. Not much had changed since the last time they spoke. 

“What kind of icon did the quest have before you started it?” Yui asked.

“A skull, why?”

“Oh... you started the first raid by yourself.”

“You’re not nearly strong enough to do this alone,” Kyoko spoke up. Her wine-colored hair was tied into a ponytail. “You need a group of 6 to do those. And it’s recommended you do it about 4 times the level you are now.”

With her uniform on, Reina went to fix the lock of hair she always pinned up on the side, along with doing final checks to make sure she looked presentable before going outside.

“That’s not intuitive at all,” Hitomi said. “The game doesn’t tell you about anything when you start.”

Yui shrugged. “You get used to it.”

“Can you guys help me or not?”

“We need a full group to do it,” Kyoko said. “I don’t know if Natsumi-chan is going to be busy with unit stuff tonight.”

Kyoko called out to Reina after she closed her locker and made her way to leave the room. “Reina-san! Do you know if Hiro-chan is still practicing?

“Sorry, I don’t know a Hiro-chan,” the golden-haired idol responded. As she looked around the room, she noticed the others were still taking their time to get ready. 

“Hirose Miyako,” Yui responded. “She uses Hiro online so we started calling her by that in real life, too.”

Reina looked at her phone to see if there was any new message from Chiyoko. Nothing yet. “She went home early,” she told the others. “Wore herself out.”

“That sucks. I wish she would’ve told us.”

“Oh, right,” Reina said, remembering a conversation that ended up happening during practice. “She mentioned we should tell her friends, but I didn’t know she was talking about you three.” 

“Huh?” Hitomi responded. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Are you surprised that she has friends?” Kyoko asked. 

Reina shook her head. “No, not particularly.”

“Then what?”

“She’s surprised that her friends are us,” Yui explained.

“I’m just not one for friendships in the workplace,” Reina told them. “Besides, shouldn’t you all be working hard on practicing?” 

“We just finished training today,” Hitomi protested. “It’s not like any of us are in a unit yet, either.”

“Don’t you want to debut? Two of you were able to perform at our first mini-live, shouldn’t you be working towards being in a unit next?”

“We’ll have our time eventually,” Kyoko said. “Until then, why not have fun while being idols?” 

“Unfortunately, I can’t agree,” Reina responded. “Having fun isn’t why I’m here.” 

She left the locker room and exited the building without saying anything else. Since she hadn’t gotten a text yet, she decided to step outside and see if Chiyoko was there. Perhaps the housemaid’s phone died, but she’d been waiting outside the office all along. 

Reina tried to call her housemaid a few times, to no response. Just as she was going to go back inside, she noticed a familiar car parked at the side of the road, its black finish reflecting off of the night by the street lamp above it. 

Finally, she could go home. She picked up her school bag from the ground and made her way to the car.

“Sorry I didn’t see you,” Reina said as she entered. Now that the day was over, she immediately went to her phone to check on her blog. “How long were you waiting?”

“Not too long, actually,” her driver responded. “Your father just told me to get you around an hour ago.”

Something was wrong. Reina knew what Chiyoko’s voice sounded like. This person sounded younger, less serious than her housemaid. Looking away from her phone, she looked at the person driving the car. 

Reina had never met this person in her life. They were in their mid to late 20’s. She wore the same type of modest clothing Chiyoko did, but her lilac-colored hair was more youthful-looking as it hung it loose over her shoulders. 

“Is something wrong, Miss Reina?” she asked. Her eyes were behind a pair of red-framed glasses as she looked at the idol. 

“Who... are you?” Reina responded. She didn’t know whether or not to just leave the car.

“I’m very sorry, I forgot to introduce myself,” the woman responded. “My name is Fukuda Kayo, age 26.”

“Why are you here?”

“I’m your new housemaid!” Kayo responded. “It’s nice to meet you, the last housemaid told me many great things-.” 

“Just… please take me home,” Reina cut her off. The difference in her last name from Chiyoko’s meant she most likely wasn’t related. This woman most likely just finished with her higher education or training and took this job to help pay her bills. 

The new housemaid nodded. “Right away Miss Reina.” 

She had gone through countless other maids in the past, but Chiyoko ended up being the one who lasted the longest. Even in sickness, her house hadn’t gotten a replacement maid in almost a decade now. Something was definitely wrong at home, and she had a decent guess it had to do with her father.

As they drove back to her house, the new housemaid tried to make conversation with Reina. Although she tried her best to show in her body language that she wasn’t interested in talking, pointing her entire body towards the window. 

“So, how was practice today?” Kayo asked her. 

“It was adequate,” she responded. 

“Who did you practice with?”

“My unit members, and also the unit that will be releasing next.”

“What was your unit called again? Three Points?”

“Triple Point,” Reina corrected her. 

“Oh, right. Your members are both very pretty, and around your age too. You must have a lot to talk about with each other.” 

“We don’t, actually.” The golden-haired turned away from the window to look at the new housemaid. “How do you know this, anyway?”

“I tried to look up as much as I could about you since I’m going to be living with you, after all,” Kayo responded. “As your housemaid, I mean. The last housemaid said a lot about you that I wanted to remember. She said you like to take long baths, your favorite dessert is tiramisu, your cat’s name is Kumo, you like to eat omurice in the morning. And don’t worry Miss Reina, I make a great omurice.”

“Don’t talk like she’s gone…” Reina said under her breath.

The conversation lasted another long, uncomfortable twenty minutes before they were back home. The new housemaid had a lot of energy when it came to having her new position that Reina wasn’t in the mood to reciprocate at the moment. 

“We’re back!” Kayo told her.

Reina opened the door before the engine even turned off, walking across the garage to open the door to get inside. There weren’t any other cars in the garage when she entered, meaning neither of her siblings nor her father were home. 

“You’re in a hurry,” Kayo said to her. Reina didn’t actually have her key on her, so she had to stand to the side as she waited for the housemaid to open it for her.  “Are you hungry?”

“No, I’m just happy to be home,” Reina lied. 

She entered the living room as soon as the door opened, taking off her shoes without caring to have them neatly placed in the shoe rack. The lights in the house were turned on, while the water was running upstairs, so someone had to have been home before the two of them arrived. All throughout the room were cardboard boxes in various states of being unpacked. 

“I’ll get back to moving in,” Kayo said, going towards the other end of the room. 

While she looked around, her cat walked up to her and started rubbing against her leg as a greeting. She crouched down to scratch his charcoal-gray head. “Not now Kumo,” she told him. 

She stood up and headed towards the stairwell. A light at the end of the hallway was turned on, the one belonging to Chiyoko’s room. Reina took a deep breath as she headed towards the door, bracing herself for what she might see.

Reina was disappointed to have hope in coming there. It was like no one had ever occupied the room. The mattress was empty, while nothing hung from its dark tan walls. The only personal possession left was a single photo frame without a speck of dust on it. 

Reina walked over to pick it up. It was an image that had to have been at least five years old, featuring Chiyoko, her two older siblings, and herself. She was probably still at her father’s company at her time, back when she was a bright young idol with a big, hopeful smile. Years ago when she was still wearing fluffy dresses and had her hair in twintails.

She had actually forgotten this photo existed until now. There were a lot of memories from when she first became an idol that were hazy to her. She could only clearly remember her first performance, and then a few months after this photo was taken when she was unceremoniously fired without any remorse. 

Now wasn’t the time to reminisce. She had to keep moving forward.

Reina heard footsteps coming from behind her. As she turned around, she found herself in front of the very person she had been looking for.

“I thought I was forgetting something,” Chiyoko said to her. 

“You’re still here,” Reina said. She wanted to hug her housemaid, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. “What’s happening?” she asked. “Does this have to do with my father?”

Chiyoko nodded but didn’t say anything after. Reina frowned as her worst assumption was proven true. “There wasn’t anything else I could do,” her housemaid said.“Miss Reina, I’m very sorry I couldn't tell you about this.”

“Where is he?” Reina asked. “Is my father at his company office… or staying at someone else’s house tonight?”

“He’s currently at Mount Fortune. From what I’m told, she’s very busy.” 

“Take me there,” Reina told her housemaid. “Now.” 

“Miss Reina, I’m in the process of leaving. I can ask Fukuda-san if she can-”

“You’re still a housemaid until you’re fully moved out, correct?” Reina cut her off.

Chiyoko nodded again, albeit more hesitantly this time. “I don’t like where you’re going with this.”

“Until you’ve fully moved out, you’re still obligated to work in a manner beneficial to my growth as an idol, including making sure I’m happy while doing so.” Reina took a deep breath before saying her next sentence. “And I’ll be very distraught in the case where I don’t get taken to my father’s office.”

“You haven’t used that excuse in years.”

“I haven’t needed to until now.”

Chiyoko sighed, taking a few seconds to weigh her options. “Okay,” she finally said. “Let’s meet your father.” 

In the car ride to her father’s company office, the two didn’t have very much to speak about. For one of the first times in recent memory, Reina found herself going through any possible conversations that could happen in the next hour so she could respond to everything perfectly. She had to.

“Miss Reina,” Chiyoko ended up saying to her. “Please don’t pull that trick on the new housemaid. She’s actually quite the nice person.”

Reina crossed her arms as she stared ahead at the road. “I won’t need to since my father will be rehiring you by the time we’re done with this.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think this will be the case…”

“I’ll convince him,” Reina said. “I’m sure of it.”

When they arrived at Mount Fortune’s office complex, Reina left the car and quickly entered the company’s main building. Mount Fortune had a larger space than 765 Productions Supernova office, although 765 had multiple buildings across Tokyo.  She didn’t have to search very deep into her memory to be able to navigate to where the president’s office room was. 

It was night time, so there were only about a dozen people that she passed by. As she walked through the building, she held her head high despite the number of stares trying to pierce through her. She no longer belonged to this company, so the thoughts of those around her no longer mattered to her.

They especially didn’t matter when a girl named Hamasaki Yuka tried to stop her. 

“I don’t have time to talk with you today, Hamasaki,” Reina said to her. 

“Actually, I just go by Yuka now,” her former coworker responded.

“I see you’re trying to imitate my sister by dropping your last name,” Reina tried to continue walking, but Yuka matched her pace and kept talking. 

“There’s nothing wrong with borrowing from somebody’s success. It’s exactly what you did when you were here.” 

“Insults from someone like you don’t mean much to me,” Reina responded. 

Everything about her former coworker oozed superficiality, from the way she had on practice clothes despite not having an ounce of sweat on her body, to how she always wore just enough makeup to let others know she put in the effort to put it on. Her black hair was styled so that the top half was in long twin tails while the bottom half hung loose, a new style from the one she had five years ago. The innocent look she put together from her expression and clothing betrayed the person who she actually was. 

If Reina could name one person in the world she hated the most, it would either have to be her father or the girl walking beside her. After everything that happened between them, Yuka was the very reason why Reina trusted no one in the idol world, why she didn’t care for making friends anymore. 

“So, ReiRei, what are you doing here?” Yuka asked her.

She hated that nickname, but she couldn’t show her displeasure in front of this girl. “It’s none of your business.” 

“Is it that you’re finally here to give up on trying to make it on your own? Is it too hard without daddy’s help? I’m sure he’ll take you back again if you ask nicely enough.”

Reina stopped walking, right outside of her father’s office, turning to face her former coworker. Staring back at her were eyes as blue as a beach’s clear waters. “I’m not here to return to a company that replaces talent like replacing phones,” she told Yuka.

Yuka was barely taller than her, but both of them straightened their postures to leverage as much height against each other as possible. “You know the idol world as good as I do,” the black-haired girl responded. “This happens to anyone if you’re not good enough. 

“Someone who works hard enough can just as easily become as good as someone naturally gifted. This company doesn’t know that.”

“Is that how you justify why your own father fired you?” Yuka asked. Reina ignored her comment, instead choosing to walk away from the conversation. “You weren’t good enough for daddy, you just need to accept this.”

“I don’t need to hear this from you,” Reina said, moving to open the door to the president’s office.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Yuka tried to warn her. “He’s very busy right now.” 

“I don’t care,” the blonde idol responded. 

“Wait!”

Her father was sitting behind his desk when she entered, his eyes too busy focusing on the computer monitor in front of him to notice that someone had entered. Like at his office at home, this room was filled with shelves containing CDs, recordings of concerts, and countless awards the company had earned in the past two decades. The same style of coffee sat in the middle of the room, although the chairs surrounding it were upholstered with expensive leather rather than suede. 

“It’s rude to enter without knocking,” her father told her. He was still wearing his entire gray suit in the cool air-conditioned room, a meticulously-tailored three-piece set that was probably as expensive as the computer he was using, if not more.

Reina swallowed before speaking. “I didn’t think you even noticed I came in,” she responded. The feeling her father gave off was completely different than at home. When they were at his company, she was speaking to a businessman who was only focused on success. Familial ties didn’t matter here.

“I tried to stop her,” Yuka said, coming into the room and standing next to Reina. Her tone of voice when speaking to her father was different. For once, she actually sounded respectful. “I’m very sorry, mister president.” 

Her father looked away from the screen, his blue eyes locking with Reina’s. “I could hear both of you from outside. To what do I owe the rare pleasure of a visit from my daughter while I’m working?”

“You fired Chiyoko,” Reina said to him.

“I see, you’re here for family matters,” he turned to look at the idol standing next to her. “Yuka, step outside.”

“Yes mister president,” Yuka bowed. She stared at Reina until she closed the door, sticking her tongue out before she left. 

“Why did you do this?” Reina asked. She thought back to the different ways this conversation played out in her mind, but she still didn’t have a logical answer. 

“Take a seat, and we can talk about this civilly,” her father said. 

“No thank you. This won’t take long.”

“So be it,” her father told her. “What did she tell you?”

“She said there wasn’t anything else she could do. She’s worked with the family for almost ten years now, living with us, making our meals, and you fired her.”  

“She’s a housemaid, Reina,” her father responded. He reached over to pour himself a drink from a half-empty bottle of whiskey. “They’re as replaceable as an idol.”

Reina crossed her arms. Her father was rarely ever home, which meant the two of them hardly spoke with each other. Their last conversation was two weeks ago, after the TV show when he tried to tell her about how she was squandering her talent at 765 Productions. 

“Did you do this so I would join your company again?” she asked. Her eyes wandered over to where his glass rested behind two framed pictures of her older sister and brother. The fact that she or her younger sister weren’t featured didn’t phase her. 

“If that’s what you want to think, then yes, I did,” her father responded. “We never were able to finish our conversation from back then, did we?”

“Why would you want me back after this?”

“When you left Mount Fortune this year, it was on some very unfortunate terms.” 

“I left on my own, rather than you firing me again.”

“I did apologize to you for the first time. That’s your fault for still being petty about it.”

“I was 12 years old. I wanted to be an idol because my siblings on stage were happy, and they made mom happy,” she said to him. “You took that away from me. Do you know what that does to someone that young, to be told they’re not good enough? From their own father, nonetheless? All I ever wanted to do was perform and make you proud, and I couldn’t even do that for you.”

He waited until she was done speaking to say anything else, taking his time to quietly drink from his glass and looking over to his computer monitor. “Are you done with your tantrum now?” he asked. “Wasn’t there another reason you came here?”

He was right. Reina took a deep breath. She ended up losing her composure while speaking. “Rehire Chiyoko,” she said. Two words. Nothing more, nothing less to get her demand across. 

Her father leaned forward, never needing to stand up to try and intimidate her. At the moment, he was almost succeeding through his calm attitude alone. “I’ll consider it if you leave your current company.”

“Absolutely not,” Reina said. Aside from refusing to work with her father again, she was actually starting to enjoy her time at 765 Productions. Not only had she not performed a full-on live with the NeoStars yet, but she still hadn’t felt like she peaked. There was so much more room for her to grow. 

“Then consider her fired.” 

“You’re so petty,” Reina responded. “I already told you, I’m never joining Mount Fortune again, and I refuse to accept this new woman as my housemaid.”

“Then we have nothing else left to discuss,” her father told her. He turned away from her to go back to his computer and started writing an email. “I have much more pressing matters in my life than the kind of help my 17-year-old daughter prefers.”

“You’re always like this,” she said. Her next few words would probably be a mistake, but this was her first chance to say it in years. “You care about your own success more than your family. Maybe that’s why mom left us.”

Her father stopped typing immediately. “Get out.”

“What?” 

He stood up. For the first time in this conversation, his voice was losing composure. “Leave my office. Leave my house. Find somewhere else to live.” 

“You can’t do that,” Reina responded. “I can’t sign a lease at seventeen.” 

“You have money in your account, don’t you? Buy an apartment, live with a friend, stay at a hotel, do whatever you please. I’ll even sign my name as a last gift to you as a father before you become a legal adult. If you want to show you can be independent on your own, then so be it. On these terms, you can rehire the housemaid on your own.”

This was a scenario Reina hadn’t planned out at all. It wasn’t above her father to kick out one of his children, but she never thought he actually would do so. Still, she stood her ground. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll leave tonight.”

“Take the cat with you, I never even wanted the thing.”

Reina turned around to leave. “Gladly.”

“And one last thing,” her father said to her. “Your mother left because of you, not the other way around. Remember this before your next concert with your new company.” 

Reina walked away from the room and out of the office, this time completely ignoring Yuka as her former coworker followed her all the way to the door. The blonde idol held her head high as best as she could while she tried to process the conversation that just passed with her father. 

Later that night, she checked into a hotel room for only her and her cat, while Chiyoko moved in with a family member. With the money Reina had saved over the years from being an idol, she could live there for almost a year, or whenever she’d be able to find someone to stay with.

As she laid in the room’s silken, unfamiliar sheets with Kumo sleeping peacefully on the pillow next to her, she silenced all of the negative thoughts starting to come into her mind. She had to sleep. Tomorrow she had school, and then practice, and this weekend she had the live at the 765 Live Theater to also prepare for.

It was going to be her first time performing her solo in front of a crowd, which meant she couldn’t let this day mess it up. She couldn’t be a hypocrite and not uphold the values she’d be singing about, either. 

Moving Forward was a concept that she was used to ever since the day five years ago when she was fired from Mount Fortune, and her entire path as an idol was changed forever. 

As she slowly drifted to sleep, she replayed that day in her mind. She could still remember that spring day as if it was yesterday.