After hearing this, Haruka scratched her head and said with a hint of embarrassment, “Hehe… just a sudden whim.”
She looked up slightly at the ceiling, tapping her chin with her index finger.
“Well… after a month in the hospital, coming back and seeing the room like this… I thought, yeah, maybe I should tidy up a bit?”
Her tone carried a trace of hesitation, like a student who had turned in an assignment but wasn’t sure if the teacher was satisfied.
Ritsu didn’t respond.
He stood in the middle of the living room, his gaze alternating repeatedly between the room and her, as if double-checking.
The expression on his face was like a programmer staring at an old system he’d maintained for years, only to find a completely new feature suddenly running on its own, one that wasn’t in the code logic at all.
Even though the feature ran perfectly—so perfect that it fit the basic programmer rule: “If it runs, it’s fine”—he just couldn’t for the life of him figure out when this feature had been written in.
It couldn’t really be that the crash had made her smarter, could it?
Haruka felt a little uncomfortable under his stare.
She wanted to keep that “hehe” smile going and wait for him to say something, but he stayed silent, just looking at her like a robot, then at the room, then back at her…
“…What’s wrong?”
Her voice inadvertently carried a hint of grievance.
“It’s just cleaning up the room. It’s not a big deal.”
Ritsu’s gaze returned to her face.
“Hmph!”
She tilted her head, chin slightly raised.
“I won’t clean it next time.”
When she said this, her lips pursed slightly, the ends of her eyebrows drooping a little.
Her whole face screamed, “If you don’t praise me, I’ll be mad.”
Then she froze for a moment.
Wait… wait, wait, wait.
What did she just do?
She had just pouted and sulked at her good buddy?
That whole combo earlier was completely subconscious, without a single thought.
It was as if some hidden switch inside this body had been triggered, automatically executing a standard “Hoshino Haruka-style sulk” routine.
Even the length of the trailing tone and the angle of the pursed lips were perfectly original, without a single deviation.
‘Is this muscle memory? Or have I really started to become that character…’
Haruka didn’t dare think too much, afraid of letting something slip.
She turned her head away, sneaking a peek from the corner of her eye.
As a result, Ritsu’s expression changed when he saw her pouting and sulking.
His furrowed brows relaxed.
The tense “under diagnosis” feeling faded, replaced by a kind of… how to put it… a “well, okay” relief.
As if he were saying, “Yeah, the room is cleaned up, but the way she acts is still the same.”
Ritsu casually closed the door, walked straight to the living room, placed his briefcase on the coffee table, unzipped it, and pulled out a clear folder containing about a dozen printed pages.
“Sit down.”
‘Come on, this is my house—why does it feel like I’m the guest here…’
Haruka grumbled wildly in her head.
But no matter how much she complained, her body obediently sat down on the left side of the sofa.
Ritsu placed the lunch bag on the corner of the coffee table.
“Did you have breakfast?”
“Ah… yeah.”
That wasn’t a lie.
She had eaten—the unopened package was some cookies she’d ordered online, with a glass of water.
It barely counted as “eating.”
Ritsu glanced at her, seeming skeptical, but didn’t press further.
Then he pulled the first page from the folder, and with his other hand, he picked up his phone and tapped the screen a few times.
Haruka’s phone vibrated in her pocket.
“I sent you a schedule share. Open that app, accept the share, and import it.”
She pulled out her phone.
A notification popped up on the screen from an app called “Schedule Pro.”
Ritsu had sent an invitation to share a calendar.
After accepting, the calendar was imported instantly, and the screen was filled with dense colored blocks—each block representing an event, arranged by date and time.
She scrolled through roughly, and the schedule stretched from today all the way to three months ahead.
Three months.
Every day had scheduled events.
Some days had so many blocks that they ranged from 6 AM to 1 AM, with only a few narrow gray gaps in between.
She glanced through those gaps—basically meal times and travel time.
“This is…”
“The rough schedule after your comeback. Tentative. It’ll be adjusted based on your recovery condition.”
Ritsu pushed the printed pages toward her.
“But before we talk about what’s next, let’s go over what’s in front.”
He turned to the first page.
At the top of the page, in bold, was a line:
「Hoshino Haruka Activity Suspension Period (November 2nd – December 3rd) Impact Report」
Ritsu’s voice switched to the “work mode” Haruka had seen at the hospital—steady, precise, without any unnecessary emotional overtones.
“During the month you were hospitalized, all your activities were completely suspended. The president and I put together a full damage assessment for all the collaborations, schedules, and business relationships affected during this period. You need to understand it.”
Haruka sat up straight.
She was also curious: what kind of impact would a top-tier idol like Hoshino Haruka face from a month-long absence?
“First, business collaborations.”
Ritsu turned to the second page.
“Before the accident, you had four ongoing brand endorsement contracts.”
He took out a pen and pointed to each item on the paper, one by one.
“First, the fall/winter ad campaign for the clothing brand ‘LIRA.’ It was originally scheduled for mid-November to shoot print ads and a 15-second commercial. Because of your hospitalization, the shoot was canceled. LIRA and we invoked the ‘Force Majeure’ clause in the contract—no penalty fees, but the partnership is terminated.”
“Force Majeure clause?”
“It’s a protective clause. Simply put, if an earthquake, natural disaster, accident, illness, or other unforeseeable and uncontrollable events prevent the contract from being fulfilled, neither party is liable for breach of contract.”
Haruka tilted her head in thought.
Seeing that Ritsu’s expression hadn’t changed, she figured there must be more to it.
“So is there something worse than a penalty fee?”
“Right. It sounds like no loss, but in reality, the loss is indirect. Ending this collaboration means LIRA will find another entertainer for their fall/winter ad. If that replacement performs well, LIRA might never come back to you. A single ‘Force Majeure’ interruption doesn’t just cost the contract amount this time—it costs all possible renewal opportunities in the future.”
“Oh…”
After hearing that, Haruka felt a bit down, but Ritsu kept going.
“Second, the social media promotion partnership with the skincare brand ‘Bloom.’ Originally scheduled for two promotional posts per month. During your hospitalization, content publishing was suspended. Bloom has temporarily kept the partnership agreement but reduced the promotion fee by 30%, citing ‘damage to promotional effectiveness due to interrupted exposure continuity.'”
“Third, the quarterly endorsement for the sports drink ‘VITALON.’ This is the biggest problem.”
Ritsu’s pen paused at the third line.
“VITALON’s contract has an ‘Image Maintenance Clause’—the clause requires the endorser to maintain a ‘healthy, positive’ public image during the contract period. Because you were hospitalized due to a car accident, even though it wasn’t your fault, VITALON’s legal team argued that ‘serious injury and hospitalization’ conflicts with a ‘healthy image.’ They invoked this clause and unilaterally terminated the contract.”
“This—”
Haruka’s eyes widened.
“So getting hit by a car is my fault now?”
“It’s not your fault. But a contract is a contract.”
Ritsu’s tone remained flat.
“Brands want an ‘image that sells,’ not ‘whether the entertainer deserves better.’ The current endorser for VITALON has already been replaced by someone named Ruye Caiyue, a member of a popular girl group.”
“You need to understand: in the eyes of a brand, your personal value is absolutely not equal to your commercial value. Because you’re just a ‘pipeline’ connecting them to consumers. Now that pipeline is blocked and out of service due to a car accident, the most convenient move for them is not to help you fix the pipeline with emotion—it’s to immediately switch to a new one.”
“… “
“Even without this incident, if this pipeline ages in a few years—meaning you lose popularity—they’ll find a newer pipeline.”
“Hey!”
“Fourth, the collaboration project with the stationery brand ‘Pentel.’ This one was saved—the person in charge at Pentel is your fan.”
Haruka: “…Eh?”
Seeing her expression, Ritsu added, “No joke, he really is your fan. But that doesn’t affect the renegotiation of future partnership terms.”
“For endorsements, the direct financial loss is approximately 7.2 million yen. And the indirect losses—future renewal opportunities lost due to the termination of collaborations—” Ritsu paused, as if thinking about how to phrase it. “Can’t be accurately estimated, but conservatively, it’s over 10 million yen.”
Haruka opened her mouth.
It wasn’t that she had no concept of money, but this loss was a bit beyond her understanding.
7.2 million yen—roughly two to three times the annual income of an average Japanese office worker.
Because of one month’s absence, the equivalent of two years’ salary for a working person had evaporated.
But clearly, Ritsu wasn’t done yet.
There were still four or five pages of documents to flip through.
She knew this was just the beginning.
“Then there are live performances and shows. Let me start with the conclusion: if the earlier ad-related notices affected your personal income, then this item affects the entire agency’s income—because of your absence this month, the agency’s revenue dropped by 30%.”
“…?”
“Huh?”