Morning 7:31 AM.
Haruka was woken up by her alarm.
Her original plan was to sleep in until she naturally woke up—after all, Ritsu had told her yesterday to rest properly.
But she turned off the alarm and immediately threw off the covers to stand up.
Not for any other reason than she didn’t want to replicate the old Hoshino Haruka’s terrible morning routine.
Based on the information she’d pieced together from her phone’s memos and chat logs during her hospital stay, Hoshino Haruka had a hard time getting out of bed.
Her usual morning process went something like this:
Alarm goes off → turn it off → go back to sleep → alarm goes off again → turn it off again → sleep again → Ritsu calls → don’t answer → Ritsu sends a LINE message → don’t reply → Ritsu calls the apartment intercom directly → Haruka rolls out of bed → kicks over her slippers → trips on the clothes thrown on the floor yesterday → bangs into the coffee table corner → eventually opens the door in a zombie-like state → gets scolded by Ritsu for ten minutes and then heads to the agency.
But she had no intention of replicating that process, because she’d already made that decision: ‘From today, I’m going to be a brand-new Hoshino Haruka.’
Not to completely erase the old Haruka, but to build on what was there and do a little better.
And as for the first step of that “a little better”—
‘At least tidy up the room.’
She’d gotten home around nine last night, taken a quick shower, and gone straight to the bedroom without even getting a proper look at the place.
What followed as she cleaned up was honestly quite an eye-opener.
—
Haruka’s apartment was a 1DLK in a high-rise building in Shibuya, Tokyo—one bedroom, one living/dining room, one kitchen, and one bathroom.
For a solo idol at her level, this floor plan was neither extravagant nor shabby.
Most entertainers under Stras Agency didn’t usually live in dorms—only trainees at larger agencies did that.
Instead, the agency helped lease or purchase residences, with the costs deducted from the entertainer’s income.
Haruka’s apartment had a monthly rent of around one hundred thousand yen, signed for and managed by the agency.
The living and dining room was fairly spacious: a sofa, a coffee table, a TV, a small dining table, and clutter spread across every surface.
On the coffee table: several empty pudding cups, two half-drunk bottles of water, a fashion magazine open to some page in the middle, a lyrics notebook, two markers of different colors, and a few hair ties scattered around.
On the sofa: at least four jackets piled up—different seasons, different occasions—stacked like geological layers.
The one at the bottom was probably from a summer a few months ago.
On the dining table: no food, just a closed laptop with a thin layer of dust, several unopened delivery packages, and an overturned empty mug with dried coffee stains visible at the bottom.
When she passed by the kitchen, she stepped in for a look.
The stove was completely bare.
It looked like it had never been used.
She opened the fridge.
Inside: a carton of milk that expired two weeks ago, a half-flat bottle of cola, a tube of something she couldn’t tell if it was hand cream or food, and, all alone in the freezer, a single Häagen-Dazs ice cream.
She closed the fridge door.
‘…’
She stood in the center of the living room, took a deep breath, and started cleaning.
Throw away all expired food.
Toss the water bottles.
Wipe down the coffee table.
Fold the jackets from the sofa and put them in the bedroom closet.
Open all the packages on the dining table, sort the contents, and take them into the bedroom.
Dust the laptop and place it neatly on the corner of the table.
Wash the mug and put it back in the kitchen.
Then she went back to the bedroom.
She hadn’t paid much attention last night, but with daylight, she saw the bedroom was even worse than the living room.
The bed went without saying—she’d noticed it when she slept last night.
The blanket was bunched up instead of folded.
There were two pillows: one in its normal spot, the other dangling off the foot of the bed for some reason.
On the bedside table: various bottles and jars of skincare products, some miscellaneous items she couldn’t name or understand but looked messy, an old-fashioned alarm clock, a few hairpins and headbands, and a half-eaten pack of small cookies.
In the end, she spent about forty minutes cleaning the entire room.
It wasn’t a deep clean, but at least it achieved “surface-level tidiness”: everything back in its place, trash cleared, all surfaces wiped down.
When she finished, she stood in the middle of the living room, hands on her hips, and surveyed the results.
“Mm, not bad. At least it doesn’t look like it’s been robbed.”
After cleaning, she went to the bathroom to wash her face.
She looked at the bewildering array of bottles and jars on the sink and had no idea which to use.
Her face-washing method had been the same for decades: splash cold water on her face, rub vigorously with both hands, repeat a few times, then roughly wipe dry with a towel.
She’d bought men’s face wash before, but it would sit on the sink for years, still full until it expired.
But now she was Haruka, a girl.
Girls’ skin was more delicate, so she should take good care of it, right?
So she randomly picked one labeled “Daily Use.”
After washing, her skin felt smooth and slippery—a strange, pleasant sensation.
After washing up, came the issue of what to wear.
Haruka’s closet… was astonishingly full.
Hanging, folded, stuffed into corners—all kinds of styles and types, from formal to casual to loungewear.
Some still had brand sponsorship tags attached.
She ended up picking the most ordinary combination she could find: a white long-sleeve T-shirt and light gray loose-fitting house pants.
For her hair, she tried a simple low ponytail.
This outfit was the standard “off-day selfie” look she’d seen in Haruka’s photo album.
After changing, she checked the time—8:43 AM.
Still thirteen minutes until the agreed time.
She sat down on the sofa, placed her hands on her knees, and took a deep breath.
As she marveled at how exhausting cleaning could be, she felt her heart start pounding uncontrollably.
It wasn’t entirely from the nerves of facing Ritsu soon—it was more like an adrenaline rush, the feeling of “the safe zone protection in the starting village is gone, and you’re about to be teleported into a high-difficulty dungeon.”
The month in the hospital was like a tutorial.
In the ward, nurses and doctors acted as a buffer.
“Post-accident symptoms” served as the perfect excuse for any odd behavior.
“Still recovering” was a valid reason to avoid most normal social interactions.
But starting today, she would have to face Mizutagawa Ritsu in Hoshino Haruka’s everyday scenes, face her colleagues at the agency, face her fans.
She began rehearsing in her head: What should she say when Ritsu came in? “Good morning, Manager?” Too formal.
‘Ritsu—good mor—ning—?’
Drawn out, with a teasing tone?
No, she couldn’t naturally pull off that kind of Haruka-style teasing yet.
It felt weird.
Or maybe say nothing?
Just sit on the sofa and smile at him?
No, no.
If it were the original Haruka, she’d be the type to spring up the moment the door opened, not sit quietly waiting.
Before she could continue rehearsing, she heard a knock at the door.
‘Sigh. Plans change, huh.’
Haruka stood up and walked over to open the door.
The person standing outside wore a thin dark gray jacket over a black shirt, with dark-colored pants.
He looked like a walking grayscale color swatch, saving all his color budget for the entertainer he managed.
In his left hand, he carried a lunch bag; in his right, a takeout coffee.
“Morning.”
“Good morning, Manager.”
She stepped back half a step, making room at the entrance.
Ritsu stepped inside.
He effortlessly pulled a pair of gray indoor slippers from the shoe cabinet—so practiced he didn’t even need to look down.
But the moment he changed shoes and walked into the living room, he froze.
Haruka followed behind him and saw Ritsu standing in the middle of the room, his gaze sweeping across it.
Ritsu turned his head and glanced at the half-open bedroom door.
From this angle, he could probably see the neatly folded blanket and the tidied room.
His eyes lingered on the room for a good while, then he turned to look at her.
Behind his black-rimmed glasses, the eyes that were usually analyzing something now held an undisguised confusion.
Haruka put her hands on her hips, her expression saying, ‘What, you don’t believe I cleaned this myself?’
Ritsu stroked his chin, speaking slowly with a tone that was three parts confirmation, three parts confusion, and four parts “Did I walk into the wrong apartment?”
“…You really did a one-eighty?”