Idol Gunner [Yuri Villainess LitRPG]

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Jina Ohara

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Keiko got comfortable in a new place faster than Jina had expected. The little sister had always been an explosion of energy from the first time she had met her, but Jina still found herself surprised by how little she seemed to care sometimes. Three days after she had moved into the spare bedroom, Keiko had basically made the house her own.

“You don’t like that?” Jina asked as she made the grocery list for the month. Normally, she wouldn’t have bothered until a few more weeks. But now, with one new mouth to feed, some adjustments had to be made.

“Not really. B-but it’s up to you. You should fill your own pantry as you wish. I’ll eat whatever you give me, really.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve already got enough for myself, so this is mostly for you. Feel free to get what you want, ok?”

“Oh…in that case…” She quickly put her hands on Jina’s phone and dragged it across the table to herself. With a sly smile on her face, she giggled and started typing. Who knew what devious things this girl was going to order?

Jina hoped it wasn’t anything that would make her helper question things. Taira had been kind enough to get her someone to do the household work, so Jina did not want to be the one to scare him away.

For now, as Keiko continued to type, she got up and moved to her work table. She had kept it right in the living room, so that it was easier to talk to people when they stopped by. Grabbing her chair, she sat down and pulled out the page on which she had been writing potential lyrics for future songs.

She wasn’t as talented as Kana or Kelsey at this work, so she worked at her own pace. First, she wrote down lines that she thought were cool or deep. Once there were more than enough, she could squish them together in a song and use the ones that fit together. It was possibly the most inefficient way to handle things, but it was all she had.

Sitting with Keiko had given her a few ideas, so it was time to pen them down. Jina looked up to make sure her new housemate was distracted before she started writing. It would be embarrassing if Keiko ended up seeing her work. Scribbling down her thoughts, she tried to make them as poetic and rhythmic as she could.

Without even knowing, she wrote about love. Was it because of the sadness that had overtaken her after seeing Keiko’s situation? Or was it just because she was the sister of a certain someone? Jina did not really know. All she knew was that it was working. As long as she could make lyrics out of them, she would welcome emotions without question.

Then, the phone rang, and her concentration broke. Keiko jumped up, and the phone slipped out of her hand. Thankfully, she stumbled around before catching it and then…just stood there. Stuttering while staring at the screen, she robotically walked over to Jina and handed her the device.

“Mmm…Ma…Ma…Marie…Iwaa….ta?!”

Oh, right. Jina had forgotten that they ever officially told Keiko about any of that. Kana had been involved with Marie with that tape, but their two bands had never really had a relationship beyond that. Not in the public eye, at least. For someone like Keiko, it was probably a huge shock.

Jina could guess that she was a big Nozoki Neko fan. Girls like her, of her age, usually were.

She took the phone and picked it up, greeting, “Morning. What’s up?”

“What’s…up!?” Keiko gasped at the informality and collapsed on the chair she had just been sitting on. Jina took one look at her and then went back to the conversation. Nothing too severe, clearly.

“Hey,” Marie spoke up. “I was planning on visiting today. Are you down? I finally got some of the stuff she wanted imported, so…”

“Imported? What the hell did she want this time?”

“I don’t know. It’s some weird box of some kind. Hanae handled all that stuff, and I didn’t ask. The entire thing is packaged in a brown box. Want me to open and check?”

Jina considered, and then shrugged, “Sure. Let’s see what she’s got.”

“Good idea. Actually…I’ll come over to your place. We can, uh, what’s it called? Unbox? We can unbox it together!”

“M-my place?!” Jina looked at the hyperventilating Keiko, then wondered how that would go. “Well, my pla-”

“I need to go for now, though. See you soon!”

With that, she cut the call. Jina groaned and smacked her forehead. Putting the paper with the lyrics back in the drawer, she tried to calm herself down. All they needed to do was make sure things did not escalate out of control. Surely, it could not be that difficult.

“Y-you…You know Marie Iwata!? She is your…fr-friend?”

Or maybe it was going to be a disaster without a doubt.

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“Alright, ground rules. Repeat them for me.”

Keiko hesitated, putting a finger on her chin as she started, “Um…I stay in my room. I do not make any noise. If I hear something that I think is important, then it is probably not important. And, uh, Marie Iwata is actually a very rude person sometimes, so she will get angry if she knows someone other than you is here. She loves her privacy and hates anyone who sees her without her knowing.”

“Yeah! Great! That’s exactly what I said. Now, are you going to follow all that?”

“Ok?” She nodded. “Although, I have to say…it sounds like a bunch of bullshit. Are you trying to make fun of me, Ohara-san?”

“Huh!?” Jina exclaimed, “N-no? Absolutely not. It’s the truth. Iwata is like this huge fucking idiot who hates people, and then she will shout at them all the time. I mean, like, her own agency barely likes her. Her team members are always thinking about how she should probably leave, and then they’ll have some oth-”

The lack of interest in Keiko’s face told her everything she needed to know. “Are you trying to make sure I don’t talk to her because you think that I will hear something about my sister and then go into shock or something?”

“Uh…”

That was a sentence. It was a breathless sentence in which Keiko had nailed down precisely what she was going to do. But that did not mean she was now allowed to talk to Marie. The truth was simple, and it was not allowed to get out. Kana was…not in a state that Jina wanted Keiko to see.

Over the last three months, they had tried. The two of them had tried way too many times to get her out of that stupor, but it had never worked. By now, Marie had given up. She was only concerned with keeping a friend alive.

“You know?” Keiko gulped, putting her hands behind her back as she winced. “I…don’t care. I don’t want to see my sister anyway. It’s ok.”

“Yeah, I’m not buying that. Sorry.”

“No! I am being serious. I don’t want to see her. She’s…she’s always been away from me anyway. I’ve realized that I’m just a burden on her. First, I did not let her follow her dreams because I went ahead and slit my wrist. And then…then with the forum mee-”

“You what?”

“I…” She tried her best to look Jina in the eyes. “I tried to kill myself. And then Kana had to break rules to leave her training center and…”

Keiko’s voice blurred out. Jina felt something collapsing down on her. This was not the story she knew. This was not the truth that Kana had told her about. When had this girl ever done something like that? She hadn’t. No, she had never done that. It had…it had been their mother. Right?

Jina pulled both of her hands to the front and checked. Sure enough, one of them still had the mark on it. Keiko yelped and put them back, anxiously grabbing one of the table napkins and wrapping it around her hand.

“I don’t like it when…”

“No, no. I am sorry. That was my fault.” Jina shook her head, whimpering. She tried to keep her breathing in control, but that day kept coming back to her.

Lying down, she had considered it. Covered in a blanket of her own clothes, she had been convinced that Kana’s story was heading for a bad end. But then the girl had told her something completely else. She had told her that it was all alright, and…then…

Then, Jina had fallen in love.

She had…

“Ohara-san?” Keiko whispered. “I’m sorry…too?”

“No, don’t. Don’t be sorry.” Jina reluctantly laughed. “What’s important is that you’re here right now, ok? You’ll be fine. And…you’re right. You don’t need your sister. L-let her do what she wants. You’ve got your own life, and she’s got hers. Am I right?”

“Yeah.” She smiled, nodded. “I don’t want to see her. I’m sure that she is fine on her own. She is strong, after all. Kana will be fine without me.”

“Strong…”

Jina repeated that word, wondering what it even meant anymore. What even was strength? Was that woman strong, truly? Locked in a mansion, refusing to see the sunlight, consumed by a fear she could not explain. Was she strong just because she still kept breathing?

Or was that just another weakness? Just another way to hide from confronting herself?

She looked at her work desk. An hour and a half ago, she had written those lines. Now, her mind moved from questioning strength to questioning love. What did her own love mean, now that she had found this out?

Just a lie based on a lie.

“You can just tell her that I am fine and stuff,” Keiko suggested. “She doesn’t need to know what happened. Just tell her that I am still living at that house. In fact, I think I should go back anyway. As long as you can tell her that I am fine, I will be fine. And I can live on my own, in fact. I just need some money, but I can get that by selling some of the furniture my mom used, and the-”

“Shut up.” Jina squeezed her arm, tighter and tighter until Keiko physically winced. Pulling it back with a jolt, she apologized. “I didn’t mean that. Or I did. I did mean it, but don’t say that. You can stay here. I am being serious. I’ve…been alone anyway. It’s fun to have someone staying with you.”

“Are you telling the truth? I can live here?”

“What have you been doing till now?” Jina wheezed and stood up, pulling the girl into a hug.

Keiko hugged her bag, still refusing to let go of that mask of false strength she was putting on. Sleeping pills, antidepressants, mark on her wrist. Girl like this did not care about meeting her sister? What a bad lie.

A lie to keep her sister happy. What was a lie like that called?

“Thank y-”

“Jinaaa!!”

The door burst open, and Marie stepped in with a chirp in her step. The two girls pulled away from each other and looked back at her in shock.

The leader of Nozoki Neko had two bags with her. One was the sling bag she had recently taken a liking to and carried everywhere. The second contained whatever box it was that had been imported from another country. It was that box that slipped out of her hand and fell to the floor.

“Oh, uh…um…” She mumbled. “I’ll wait. I’ll just stand outside and wait. I didn’t know you were with so-”

“Nuh uh uh!” Jina stumbled over her own words and ran to her, picking up the fallen bag and giving Marie a pat on the back. “This is, uh…this is just a girl I know. She is not like that. She is just, you know.”

“G-good morning!” Keiko bowed down. “I am a huge fan of yours, Iwata-san. I really, really, really love Nozoki Neko. You’ve been my top streamed artists for two years! And, uh, and…my name is Keiko Minami!”

Silence reigned for a moment. Jina’s hand slipped down from Marie’s shoulder, but she put it back up the next second. Leaning on her friend, she sighed. There went the cat out of the bag.

It was only a matter of time now.

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Said time came faster than she had anticipated.

In the next thirty minutes, the three of them were in Jina’s car and heading for what used to be Akiko Hara’s mansion.

The moment Marie had found out that Keiko was Kana’s sister, she had been unable to keep her mouth shut. Explaining that she was going to go and meet her right now, she had ultimately made it sound enticing enough to the little sister to get her heart beating again. After that, it took just a few seconds.

Keiko broke down, her eyes got wide, and she started crying about how much she missed Kana. She started uncontrollably sobbing, talking about how much she wanted to see her once more. Her beautiful lie collapsed before Jina could have processed the love hidden behind it. They all were, ultimately, unchangeable people.

“But does she not even come out to go to places? How does she handle work?”

“What work? She doesn’t do anything anymore.” Marie asked her. She had decided to sit in the back with Keiko, giving her a shoulder to literally cry on.

“Eh!? B-but everyone on social media claimed that she had just started working behind the scenes on the lyrics. Is she not writing your songs, Ohara-san?”

“Who the fuck said that!?” Jina snapped, snarling. “I write my own lyrics, got it? Do you know how difficult it is to write lyrics, huh? You think she’s up there in that mansion writing anything? Hell no! I am the one who’s putting in all the work, got it?”

“Uh, Jina? Watch the road, please? Your frustration is showing.”

“Yeah. Sorry for asking.” Keiko shook her head, clearly feeling bad about her choice of words. “It’s just that I can’t imagine it, you know? Kana being like that sounds a little impossible. Why would she do that? She even bought a mansion for herself, just like she wanted.”

Jina coughed, then looked back at Marie, nodding. The two of them decided on an unspoken rule right there.

Focusing on the driving, she spoke, “A lot of things happened, Keiko. You might have noticed that Ruby Passion retired, too.”

“Yeah. That was a big shock, actually.”

“Well, let’s just say that it was a bad week for the industry, yeah? Your sister got a little…difficult. She was on the edge all the time because of everything happening, and she ended up getting into a real bad fight with Emi. They broke up, and then she’s been like that since then.”

“But they’ve broken up before. Like…three times before. What happened this time?”

Jina lost control over the wheel at the sudden declaration, panicking. Thankfully, there were no cars on the uphill road they had taken. She had time to get back on the wheel without any catastrophic results.

“Three times?” Marie whispered.

“Three fucking times!?” Jina gasped. “Ok, that’s a bit much, isn’t it? You think it was just both of their faults all along?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about love.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jina thought back to when she had overheard Kana talking to her about these topics.

“What? How?”

“Huh? No, nothing. I just…said it. Nothing.” Jina sighed. This was getting much more difficult than she could have expected. “Anyway, the thing is…she’s different. That’s all I am going to say. You might not be ready for what you see.”

As the car got closer to the mansion, all Jina could do was brace herself for whatever would happen.