Ms. Yoshida and I agreed on the time later in the day, and the next morning arrived before I realized it.

There was no need to wear something too formal since we had known each other for a while, but that decision backfired as soon as I stood in front of the glass door of the meeting room at TOTOT Studios.

A suited man was sitting at the same table as Ms. Yoshida, not too far away from her, which caused me to freeze in place.

Could that be…?

My eyes met with Ms. Yoshida's, so I had no choice but to step in.

"It's great to see you, Mr. Miyahara," greeted Ms. Yoshida. "Thank you for coming."

"Good morning, Ms. Yoshida," I replied as I approached the table.

The suited man stood up and bowed, so I bowed back at him.

"Please take a seat," Ms. Yoshida said to me.

I complied and sat down in front of the suited man on the opposite side of the table.

Ms. Yoshida continued, "Mr. Miyahara, I present to you the CEO of the most successful ticket outlet in the entire world. They manage the ticket sales of the biggest arenas, domes, and stadiums."

Oh, so it isn't Mr. Yoshida.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person, Mr. Miyahara," the CEO smiled. "I hope you're interested in our offer."

I glanced at Ms. Yoshida for an explanation, but she merely smirked back at me.

"May I ask what offer?"

The CEO frowned, "Didn't Ms. Yoshida tell you about it?"

We both stared at her until she replied.

"I wanted to keep the surprise."

"Typical Ms. Yoshida," the CEO laughed. "I'll explain, then. Mr. Miyahara, we're going to partner with the biggest construction company in the world to build the first-ever stadium in space."

A stadium in space? Is he serious?

"Although my company can afford it, a project of this magnitude will be galactically expensive, as you might imagine. So, partnering with someone else is the smartest thing to do, and both TOTOT and GIMA are the first candidates on our list."

"May I ask why that is?" I wondered.

He answered, "Aside from your great potential, you share a similar vision with us; seeing your speech at the NBFA conference was more than enough to be sure of that. Besides, I've known Mr. and Ms. Yoshida for a couple of years, and they both vouch for you."

"I'm glad to hear that," I replied, "but why my speech specifically?"

"Not only your speech but also the vision of your company as a whole. You want to become galactical, and so we do."

"Really?"

"Yes. The secondary goal of building the stadium is to expand our services to other planets so that Humans, Furenoos, Plaqories, and Slixies can enjoy shows together. We know it'll be expensive to equip the facilities with the several thousand IAMSes that will be needed, but we'll do what's necessary to achieve our goals."

I took a moment to think.

"I'll be honest, that sounds insane, but I'm on board."

The CEO smiled, "That's music to my ears. Having both Aeryx and Blostars inaugurate the stadium will be incredible."

Aeryx? Didn't she retire?

"Ah, there's a problem, though," I said. "We're not at our best at this moment, financially speaking, but we're confident that's going to change soon."

"Don't worry about it, my company will take the charge upfront. You can make the payments of your split over time, which is going to be a small percentage of the total cost."

"That's a relief. How big will the stadium be?" I wondered.

"Our current blueprints can accommodate one hundred and five thousand people, but they are still being tweaked."

My mind went blank.

"One hundred and five… thousand?"

"We know it's not much, but we have to play it safe because it'll be the first time something this big is being built in space."

"Not much? One hundred and five thousand is a lot. I don't know if we'll be able to fill it."

"Really? Ms. Yoshida told me that you can already fill twenty thousand seats on your own. That, plus the hype of the inauguration of such a stadium and Aeryx's return should be able to do the job."

Ms. Yoshida added, "He also mentioned our potential, which will continue to grow over the following year as the stadium is being built. Filling one hundred thousand seats isn't as far-fetched as you might think."

"Alright. I'm still in," I said.

"Wonderful," the CEO smiled. He then stood up. "I'll schedule a meeting in the near future to discuss the details formally. That's everything on my part. Ms. Yoshida, Mr. Miyahara, thank you for joining me in this crazy whim of mine. I promise you won't be disappointed."

He bowed at us before walking out of the room.

"What do you think?" asked Ms. Yoshida.

"It is crazy indeed, but I'm excited."

"Just like me," she smiled.

"I have two questions, though. Hasn't Aeryx retired?"

"Yes, but we'll need help to fill such a big stadium. She isn't going to come back entirely, she'll only perform Auras along with Blostars."

I replied, "That makes more sense. Still, why did you claim that Blostars is able to fill twenty thousand seats?"

"Because I'm confident they are now, as long as you announce it with time."

"Are you implying that they should perform at a venue with twenty thousand seats?"

"Definitely," she smiled.

 

A giant screen at the back and another arched screen that went from the floor up to the top of the scaffolding was the stage for the Life Is Life tour. We didn't struggle to set up different configurations like last time since all of the venues were big enough to fit it, with a capacity ranging anywhere from five thousand to twelve thousand people.

I listened to Ms. Yoshida and scheduled the last show of the local tour in Saitama Arena in its medium configuration for twenty thousand people. As soon as it was announced, a few TV channels asked Blostars for interviews, and the ticket outlets of some of the venues gave tickets away.

As the first concerts took place, we realized that the setlist wasn't working. The transitions didn't work as expected and the mood of the venues was all over the place. Luckily, we were able to fix it after a few attempts.

We were scared of the concert at Saitama Arena being too far-fetched for us, but the tickets sold out just one day before the show. It was good that I listened to Ms. Yoshida and made the announcement as soon as possible.

It was the best closure for the local tour we could've asked for. There were no major issues and everyone seemed to love it.

A few weeks of vacations were planned before traveling to the five countries where Blostars were the most popular, and the girls definitely needed it. They hadn't fought or argued, yet it was obvious there was some tension between them.

However, several companies contacted GIMA about Blostars performing small, private shows for special events. Knowing the girls needed to rest, I didn't want to accept, but it wasn't easy to reject that much extra money. I met with the girls to discuss it and they agreed to perform the extra shows.

Even though they were half as long as the concerts during a tour, the girls weren't able to rest properly, and before we realized it, it was time to leave the country for the last concerts on Earth.

It was scary to schedule concerts in other countries, especially in such big venues, each one with a capacity for around ten thousand people. To our surprise, four out of five sold out quickly enough that we felt confident enough to announce a second show at those four locations. Although the tickets weren't sold out for the second date by the time the concerts took place, more than three-quarters of them were, which still was good.

The short international tour was good overall. More importantly, it was a great test for a future, and proper, world tour.

All of GIMA took a short vacation before more than half of us headed out to Furenoora. Plaraqor—a planet where the leading species looked like plants—and Slixam—where the predominant species looked like big blobs of jelly—would come next.

Such achievement was possible thanks to my contact, who was able to find several places for Blostars to perform soon after we hired him.

Only Plaraqor had built proper venues for musical performances since music was a big part of their lives, while Furenoora and Slixam only had food places and parks.

We also hired bodyguards depending on the planet we were on since we had learned that Human bodyguards were at a disadvantage against other species, not only physically, but also because they didn't have experience dealing with them.

Everything went perfectly on Furenoora. In total, thousands of Furenoos watched the shows, and we sold all of the merchandise we had brought to the planet. Then, we returned to Earth for a couple of days to restock our supplies before flying to Plaraqor.

Although there was already scaffolding on Plaraqor, it still was incredibly expensive to take all of the equipment we needed with us. Luckily, money had stopped being a problem for GIMA.

The first few concerts were an odyssey to assemble as there were many things that had to be adapted in order for us to use our equipment, yet that didn't stop us.

I believed that the rest of the shows on Plaraqor were going to be less stressful once we solved most of the problems, but how wrong I was.

A new problem surged in the middle of the Plaraqor tour, though it wasn't related to the assembly of the stage. Instead, it involved the girls. Specifically, Sanae.