CHAPTER 2

A month ago...

Blue eyes blinked at the sight of the beautiful lake. Even his still frame gave the impression that he just enjoyed the view and took a fresh air, no one but his best friend knew how much his heart was like in a war, battling against all sorts of uncomfortable feelings. No matter how much oxygen he inhaled, it still did not soothe his nervousness.

Oh, and also in disbelief. Just when he thought his life fell apart, Shining Saotome came to his rescue, offering all his basic needs if he still called himself a human.

"This is my card, Mr. Ichinose. You can call me anytime."

Initially, he did not. Even he failed to find suitable words to describe how much he was thankful to the legendary singer given he was not eloquent in the first place, he was suspicious at first. How on earth a president of a well-known entertainment agency like Saotome could spare time for a nobody like him? A nobody who had memory loss and was still confused about how on earth he made himself hospitalized.

The doctor said, he almost drowned but how and why it happened was still a mystery. He found no witnesses who could help him to put two and two together.

Man, had his life always been this alone and lonely? Apart from his best friend, Satsuki, no one else visited him.

Yes, he almost forgot that Saotome and his assistants, Ringo and Hyuga also visited him a couple of times. Then only he realized that it was not surprising why he literally had no friends or relatives other than Satsuki. His coldness even scared the doctors and nurses, let alone those patients whose rooms were nearby. His aloofness came out naturally which made him concluded that it was his true personality.

He was comfortable to be left in silence and he knew no one needed to be a genius to figure out how he hated to be disturbed by pointlessly chummy chats.

Yet, apparently Saotome and his assistants were well-informed of his personality that they took their time to make him open with them. They were a tad chatty but they knew their limits. Still, they did not appear as significant to him. To make himself optimistic, he convinced himself that they might be just the passers-by who happened to be there when he almost drowned. Apart from establishing themselves as an idol, they might randomly pray that they wanted to be the good Samaritans for that day and God granted it immediately.

Everything changed after he was still jobless, had a passion for singing and Saotome happened to be an owner of a talent agency. Tokiya almost lost his breath when he braced himself to call the legendary singer but he swore he already lost it when Saotome reacted loudly.

"Excellent, Mr. Ichinoseeee! Pack your things and move to the Master Course dorm instantlyyy!"

It sounded like Saotome already looked forward to this particular call from him.

Which led him to this moment; waiting for Saotome's driver to pick him up and bring him to Master Course dorm.

"How do you feel, Tokiya?" A deep voice crossed his hearing which sent him turned to his back.

Shinomiya Satsuki. A man who was as weird as him which made it more logical for them to be friends. The tall and fierce-looking man was weird because he always showed up and left suddenly. Strangely enough, most probably the man was the only earthling who he could get along.

"It happened too fast. He said I don't even need to be trained. I can join the Master Course instantly," Tokiya remarked. "Is that..."

"No, Tokiya. It's not strange. Saotome Agency is a huge deal. They didn't scout just anyone. That eccentric president might have his eye on you for quite some time. The time before you lost your memory."

Tokiya closed his eyes for a while before looking back at Satsuki.

"Are you sure we didn't know each other before?" Tokiya asked back.

"No, we didn't," Satsuki said. "My suggestion is... you should ask Saotome-san. Maybe he knows something. Or else, he won't be that enthusiastic to make you part of his agency, right?"

Tokiya shrugged but his mind could not agree more with Satsuki.

It was a boring morning in Master Course dorm without any sort of ridiculous dramas, neither among STARISH, among QUARTET NIGHT nor between those two groups. Natsuki was too tired to make Syo wearing something cute, Ren was too sleepy to annoy Masato with his every breath and Reiji felt his nerves were sore and about to snap to bother about disturbing Ranmaru with his Ran-Ran jokes.

In short, they were too tired to bother about anything. If breathing was unnecessary, they did not want to breathe either.

It was all because of Shining Sports Day. According to Saotome, it was supposed to strengthen their bonds given that not all of them were fairly chummy to each other but...

It started, continued and ended horribly. Syo and Ranmaru fought for meat. Natsuki, Otoya, and Reiji were too happy to care. Ai and Camus did not really bother which they ended up heating up and questionably suffered from a fever.

And so forth.

So, when Saotome decided to distract their sleepy morning with no reasons (at least with no reasons told beforehand), it granted him so many kinds of responses; ranging from the semi-curious Otoya to the grumpy swear from Ranmaru.

"What does he want when we're supposed to sleep until afternoon?" Ranmaru mumbled.

"Obviously, something that avoids you from sleeping like logs," Camus twitched his eyebrow.

"Shut up! Who talked to you!?"

"Who said I talked to you? I was talking to your bedhead."

"Ah, Shinomi... This is so boring. Can you disturb Ochibi-chan for me? Like... maybe you can lift him and toss him in the air to cheer up the mood," Ren remarked. Even in his ultra-drowsy mode, the disheartening air in the salon depressed his normally bright side.

"What the hell are you talking about, Ren? Besides, why did you ask him to disturb me just because you're bored?" Syo shouted back.

"Quit that, Jinguuji," Another scion in STARISH retorted. He could not believe that he had to face Ren's ridiculousness even in this tiring day.

"Hello, everybodyyyyy," Saotome said. It was compulsory indeed to have all eye-tearing lights and long ribbons around him whenever he showed up suddenly. Everything was random including how the usually charismatic Hyuga appeared the same way with his boss even everything could tell that it was not out of his will.

Seriously, did they ever sleep? Three of them including Ringo were around on the sports day and participating as vigorous as them. How come they still looked like sunshine in this dull morning?

"Guys, this is not the time to be this soulless! An idol should always be physically fit and lively."

"That's why we need to sleep so that we can be physically fit. We're humans, not a robot nor a ghost," Syo said, trying hard not to sound annoyed. Yet, his half-awake state had somehow convinced him to at least be the blunt one in the group who told Saotome that his 'craziness' this time was not entertaining at all.

"Hmm... yeah, you guys are humans," the president remarked. "But I want to let you guys know about this person before you hibernating for two days straight."

With eye contact as his cue, Hyuga who was standing close to the door calmly opened it.

It revealed the bubbly Ringo which answered the question in their heads since it was rare to see Hyuga without Ringo or vice versa. The sight of the fashionista with a bright smile was not surprising but the man next to him...

Messy and long blue hair, blue eyes, the height which might reach Masato's, the poker face which might look more charming if he smiled...

"Come on, Tokiya-chan. Let us introduce you to the others," Ringo said, pulling his arm towards their direction.

"A new member?" Before everyone could point it out, Ren blurted out first. The third son of Jinguuji family was more convinced when he caught the blue head's name and his luggage.

His band currently consisted of six members when they were supposed to have seven members if Saotome really wanted to insist on the 'S for Shinomiya, A for Aijima, R for Ren, etc' thingy.

"Yes, Mr. Jinguuji is right," various reactions appeared both from STARISH and QUARTET NIGHT as Saotome replied. As Ringo softly pushed the stiff Tokiya to the middle, the president continued, "This is the announcement for today. Mr. Ichinose Tokiya here will be the T of STARISH from now on. Please treat him well, everyone. I am sure this addition will complete STARISH the most."

"Huh?" Syo and Cecil exclaimed, blinking at the way-too-sudden announcement. Not to mention Tokiya himself looked as surprised like them.

"Wahhh, a new member?" Natsuki exclaimed which was the brighter version of Syo and Cecil's.

While Masato could contain his surprise at the announcement, Otoya was more terrified. He was already a scaredy-cat but to accidentally make eye contact with Tokiya who seemed wanting to eat everyone in the space with his scowl was...

He turned to Ren who only nodded calmly at him. They both shared the same thought which consisted of...

This person might be suitable for Quartet Night more; A bunch of people with different personalities who also did not get along with each other. Plus, STARISH's concept was all about spreading happy virus with their rainbow-esque songs. So...

"According to my data, this person doesn't suit STARISH," Ai said, way too blunt even it was him who said it. They still could not believe their ears about how the cute senior could be this frank when Tokiya, the person who did not suit STARISH was still around.

"Yeah, you should kick out this noisy Kotobuki from our group and make that kid one of us," Ranmaru said, suddenly anticipated the possibility of Reiji being included in STARISH even it would mean the acronym would turn out weird.

Reiji's high-pitch exclamation got more dramatic when Ai nodded almost instantly at Ranmaru's suggestion.

"I just agree with the statement, Kurosaki. It doesn't mean I admit that you can be smart sometimes," Camus supplied.

"What was that!?" Ranmaru snapped.

"That's my line! Why did you guys sound like you don't want me around?" Reiji whined.

"We just didn't sound like that. We really mean that," Ai remarked.

"You guys are awfully mean, you know. At least please behave when your juniors are around," at last, Hyuga told them off. Since the beginning, he believed that putting four of them together in the same group would be a childish disaster but Saotome had always said he thought otherwise.

"Trust me, guys. You need Mr. Kotobuki more than anything so no switching," Saotome said. It was the same tone but those who worked with him in the long term could tell at this point that he expected no objection from any single soul in the salon. "That being said, I also need Mr. Kotobuki and Mr. Ittoki to especially treat Mr. Ichinose well since he's going to be your roommate and while all of you in STARISH..."

Those who were specially mentioned by the president flinched as he smirked evilly at them.

"Since Mr. Ichinose doesn't go through a proper idol training, I assign you to train him in one month."

While Tokiya who did not prepare any unique or interesting words to introduce himself to others (everyone might doubt Saotome would give him a chance to do so since the president had talked a lot), his eyes were mostly glued at Natsuki.

He... He's not Satsuki, right? 

Please don't hesitate to tell me what do you think :)