Printed on it were about fifteen questions, divided into three sections.
Section One: About the Accident and Recovery.
Please briefly talk about what happened during the accident.
What was the hardest part during hospitalization?
Were there any memorable moments during recovery?
Was there anything interesting that happened during hospitalization?
Section Two: About the Comeback.
What was the trigger that made you decide to make a comeback?
How is your current physical condition?
What is the first thing you want to do after coming back?
Do you have any plans or goals for future activities?
Section Three: To Fans.
Did you see fan support while hospitalized?
What do you want to say to fans who have been waiting for you?
Haruka roughly scanned them.
Most of the questions were within her expectations, nothing particularly tricky.
“Pay attention to a few points.”
Ritsu spoke in a low voice next to her.
“First, regarding the specifics of the accident, don’t give too many details. Stick to the version coordinated between the agency and the police: ‘I was resting in the car when I suddenly felt a jolt. I don’t remember much after that.’ Second, don’t mention the other casualties in the accident. You should—”
Ritsu paused at this point, his lips pressed together.
“…You should know.”
Haruka noticed that detail.
His expression hadn’t changed when he said it, but she knew what the phrase “other casualties in the accident” meant to him.
“I know,” she said softly.
Ritsu nodded and continued.
“Third, keep the tone positive when describing the recovery process. You can say ‘hard’ but not ‘hopeless.’ You can say ‘uneasy’ but not ‘scared.’ Because you are Hoshino Haruka—your fans need to see someone who ‘went through hardship but still smiles,’ not someone who ‘was defeated by hardship.'”
“…Manager.”
“Hmm?”
“Are you too nervous?”
“I’m doing my job.”
“But your speaking speed is much faster than usual, and you even stumbled a bit.”
Haruka tilted her head and smiled.
“And your coffee is already empty but you’re still pretending to drink.”
Ritsu looked down at the empty paper cup in his hand.
“…”
Then, he casually tossed the cup into the trash can nearby.
“I’ll be present during the interview. If there’s any problem—”
“Watch your cues, you said that in the elevator.”
Haruka stood up.
“Don’t worry, Manager.”
She gave him a smile that simply said, “Trust me.”
Ritsu looked at that smile, his lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he only said two words: “Go ahead.”
The interview was set up in a corner of another studio.
Two sofas faced each other with a low coffee table in between.
Editor Sato sat on one side, holding a voice recorder and notebook.
Haruka sat across from him.
Ritsu stood about two meters behind Haruka’s right-rear, outside the camera’s range but within Haruka’s peripheral vision.
“Well then—”
Editor Sato pressed the voice recorder.
“Hoshino, are you ready?”
“Anytime.”
Haruka nodded.
“First, about this accident—could you briefly talk about what happened? Of course, feel free to skip anything you’re uncomfortable with.”
Haruka lowered her head slightly, making an expression as if recalling.
“At that time… I had just finished recording a variety show and was resting in the car.”
Her voice was steady and soft.
“And then suddenly—uh—I felt a huge impact. I don’t remember much after that. When I came to, I was already in a hospital bed.”
“What did it feel like when you woke up?”
“The first thought was—’I’m still alive?'”
She laughed, a little self-deprecating.
“And then the second thought was—’What about my schedule?'”
Editor Sato and the assistant photographer laughed.
Behind her, Ritsu’s mouth twitched slightly.
“During the month of hospitalization, what was the hardest part?”
“Physically… at first, it really hurt. Everywhere hurt, even breathing hurt.”
Haruka unconsciously pressed her rib area.
“But those can heal. You just endure it. The hardest part was actually—”
She paused.
“Not being able to sing.”
She hadn’t prepared that line; it just came out.
“Sometimes while lying in the hospital bed, I’d unconsciously hum a song—and then my chest would hurt too much.”
She shook her head with a smile.
“That was when I realized how important singing is to me. If before, I sang at live performances because ‘it’s work, so it’s important,’ then in the hospital bed, it became like breathing—if I couldn’t do it, I felt like something was missing.”
Editor Sato scribbled something in his notebook.
“Were there any memorable or interesting moments during recovery?”
“Interesting things…”
Haruka tilted her head.
“Once, a nurse was taking my temperature. The reading was completely normal. She looked at my medical record, then at me, and her face turned into this—” She mimicked an exaggerated look of disbelief. “‘Are you sure you’re the patient who came from the ICU?'”
Thanks to Haruka’s vivid expressions, the editors laughed.
“The doctor later said I recovered remarkably fast. So fast that even he found it unbelievable.”
Haruka smiled and scratched her head.
“Maybe it’s because—um—the stamina I built up as an idol from daily training? But I think it’s more because I wanted to get back to the stage quickly, so my body hurried too.”
Editor Sato laughed again.
“Even the body hurried—that’s such a cute way to put it.”
Behind her, Ritsu narrowed his eyes slightly, an expression that seemed to say, “Since when did you become so good at this?”
“Oh, right, there was another interesting thing from the hospital.”
She suddenly remembered something and leaned forward slightly, making a conspiratorial gesture.
“Since I was so bored in the hospital—I could only do so much on my phone—I started watching anime!”
“Huh? Hoshino watches anime?”
“Yeah!”
She nodded vigorously.
“I hardly watched it before. But I was so—bored—in the hospital, I just randomly clicked on one. And then I couldn’t stop!”
“What did you watch? Can you share?”
“That popular one recently, um… what was it called… The Reversed Him and Her or Something?”
She thought for a moment, intentionally mispronouncing the title.
“Ah, I can’t quite remember the name. It’s really good! Especially episode three, when the male lead—”
Then, she fluently summarized a plot segment for about twenty seconds—before suddenly realizing she was getting too into this new anime.
‘If she remembered correctly, Hoshino Haruka didn’t really watch anime. Was she… out of character?’
At that thought, her pace quickly slowed down.
“—Ahaha, sorry, I talked too much!”
She scratched the back of her head sheepishly.
“Anyway, I was bored in the hospital, so I turned into a little otaku. Hehe.”
“Never imagined Hoshino could be a homebody too.”
Editor Sato smiled.
“Just temporary, temporary!”
Haruka waved her hands.
“Now that I’m discharged, I have to work hard. Can’t stay a shut-in—”
‘At that thought, she felt a little guilty, so she glanced at Ritsu from the corner of her eye.’
Ritsu stood in the shadows, his expression seemingly normal, but his glasses caught the light eerily, reflecting white.
For all anyone knew, he looked like some commander brewing the Human Instrumentality Project.
The interview continued.
“Then, about the comeback. What was the trigger that made Hoshino decide to come back?”
“Trigger…”
Haruka thought.
“Rather than a specific trigger, I feel like there was no reason not to come back.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hmm…”
Her gaze dropped slightly, looking at her hands, then she began to gesture.
“During the hospital stay, I received so many fan messages and support every day. Some were on X, some were physical letters sent to the agency and then forwarded to the hospital. I read every single one carefully.”
She looked up.
“There was one letter I remember clearly. It basically said: ‘Haruka-chan, during the time you’ve been away, my commute to work has no songs of yours to listen to, and the whole world turned gray. Please come back soon and give us back the colors.'”
“When I saw that letter, I thought—ah, so I’m that important to someone. How could I not go back?”
This story was half-true and half-false.
The letter was real; she had indeed seen scanned copies of fan letters forwarded by the agency in Haruka’s phone email inbox.
The letter about “give us back the colors” was real.
But the “feelings upon seeing the letter” she described weren’t exactly as she stated.
It was a mixture of a sense of responsibility as an idol and empathy as a fan, creating something new.
But that didn’t matter.
What mattered was that she saw a thin layer of tears in Editor Sato’s eyes across from him.
‘—Okay, a bit exaggerated, but the sentimental mood was set.’
The latter half of the interview revolved around comeback plans and messages to fans.
These questions were relatively simple.
Haruka used standard answers like “still recovering, specific plans depend on the manager’s arrangements,” “the first thing I want to do is get back on stage as soon as possible,” and “thank you for your patience” to get through most of them.
However, there was a small incident in the middle.
Editor Sato asked a question not on the list:
“This might be a bit personal. During your hospitalization, was there anything that made you feel ‘especially lucky’? Like a certain person, a certain event—”
Haruka tilted her head.
“Especially lucky…”
Somehow, her gaze naturally drifted to the side and behind her—toward where Ritsu was standing—and then quickly pulled back.
This action lasted less than a second, but Editor Sato noticed it.
“Mmm—”
Editor Sato’s lips curled up with a gossipy gentleness.
“Did you just look at someone?”
Haruka froze, realizing that she might have been caught sneaking a look at Ritsu.
Or maybe not, but either way, she knew she couldn’t explain carelessly, or it would only make things worse and solidify the rumor.
Her brain worked at high speed for two seconds, and then she did something she hadn’t expected—
Calmly, Haruka raised one index finger to her lips, then gently closed one left eye, giving Editor Sato an incredibly sweet, playful wink.
“—It’s a secret♪”