Chapter 11: Lies

Later, she never thought about that incident again.

Not deliberately avoiding it—she simply no longer needed to.

Because the next day, when she was catching up on sleep during the day, she had a dream.

The content of the dream was vague.

She only remembered fragments—as if she were in a strange space, surrounded by white, with very bright light.

The light wasn’t harsh, but it was everywhere, like the whole world had been soaked in milk.

There was no sky or ground, no up or down, left or right.

There was something like a sound close to a “sensation.”

It wasn’t someone talking to her, but rather someone writing a string of text directly into her mind, bypassing her ears and vocal cords, projecting straight onto the screen of her consciousness.

As for what that string of “text” said, she couldn’t recall much after waking up.

It was like a normal dream—fun while it lasted, but completely forgotten upon waking.

If she had to describe it, it was probably something like this:

“For the two of us.”

“Live on, carrying both our lives.”

Was there anything else? Maybe there was.

Maybe a lot was said.

But exactly what it was slipped through her fingers like sand the moment she opened her eyes.

All she vaguely remembered was that there seemed to be a figure in the dream.

Very blurry, face unclear, but the silhouette was that of a girl—not very tall, long hair, and she seemed to be smiling.

Then she woke up.

After waking, she lay on the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling for a long time, until sunlight streamed in through the window.

Outside, Tokyo was already running.

The sound of cars, footsteps of pedestrians, the distant rumble of a train passing over tracks, and the occasional nurse’s footsteps and cart wheels in the hospital corridor—everything as usual.

There was no supernatural afterglow, no mystical aura.

The hospital room was quiet, with only the beeping of medical instruments.

A dream message.

As a former otaku still deeply versed in ACG, she had watched enough series to know the classic trope of “a dead soul conveying final words through a dream.”

If she believed that was a dream message, then she should also believe her transformation was arranged by some otherworldly goddess—standing in a white space, telling her she was actually a hero who needed to save the world.

But there was no goddess, no system, and nobody explaining anything to her.

From start to finish, there was only a truck, an intersection, two bodies, and an unreasonable miracle.

So that dream just now was most likely her own subconscious acting up.

After the night spent staring at the window, her brain had concocted a “reason to live” for itself.

More precisely, it was her conscience acting up—or her survival instinct.

In her twenty-nine years of life, her father’s accident, her mother’s car crash, her own death.

Each time, fate slapped her to the ground without warning.

But each time, she survived.

The first time, her mother pulled her back up.

The second time, relying on ACG and Ritsu, she slowly stood up on her own.

And this time, she survived in another person’s body.

In other words, if divine will truly existed, the heavens had given her three lives.

The first time it was taken away, she was too young to understand anything.

The second time it was taken away, she was lost and dazed for years, living as a complete waste.

If this time she still drifted through life aimlessly, or even gave up voluntarily, wouldn’t that be too unfair to the original owner of this body—the one who gave her a third life?

Whether that dream was real or not, whether Hoshino Haruka’s soul was really watching her from somewhere—

‘This life is for two people.’

One part belongs to Matsumoto Hidetoshi, one part belongs to Hoshino Haruka. Neither part can be wasted.

She took a deep breath, and suddenly a line from an anime she’d watched a couple years back popped into her head.

Not a famous quote, not some cheap inspirational chicken soup from a life coach—it was a core line that ran through the entire series.

That anime was mainly about idols and the entertainment industry, and its title was Oshi no Ko.

The reason she suddenly remembered that line was probably because her current situation matched it perfectly:

“Idols are built on lies.”

When she first heard it as a viewer, her reaction was: “Oh, that makes sense.”

Then she kept watching.

But now, she herself was that lie.

She smiled with another person’s face, spoke with another person’s voice, lived under another person’s name.

Her entire existence was a carefully maintained, unbreakable, enormous lie—built on a car accident and an inexplicable soul transfer.

If someone discovered the truth—that Hoshino Haruka was already dead, and what was alive now was a 29-year-old otaku man—

‘This lie cannot collapse.’

This wasn’t just for herself, but also for those waiting for Hoshino Haruka to return to the stage.

They didn’t need the “truth.”

They just needed Hoshino Haruka.

So then, she would be Hoshino Haruka.

Not “acting,” not “imitating,” not “temporarily filling in.”

But—“becoming.”

At this point in her recollection, Haruka opened her eyes again in the darkness. Silently, she said to “herself”:

‘Matsumoto Hidetoshi, thank you for living until now. But from today onward, you can rest. I’ll walk the rest of the path myself.’

She didn’t know who the “I” was.

Was it Eitai?

Haruka?

Some kind of fusion of both?

Probably neither.

“I” was “I”—a brand-new existence that was neither the original Matsumoto Hidetoshi nor the original Hoshino Haruka, yet carried the full weight of both.

An idol built on lies.

‘But even a lie can be a sincere lie. From today onward, I am no one’s substitute, no one’s appendage—I am someone true to my name.’

As if something had suddenly clicked, Haruka felt completely refreshed.

She decided to “review” a little more before sleeping.

This time, she simply flipped through the photo album.

Haruka’s photo album was just like her—lively, messy, crammed full.

Stage photos, selfies, food photos, scenic shots, screenshots, occasionally one or two badly composed snapshots… Over a thousand photos lined up in chronological order, like a silent diary.

She was getting a bit sleepy, so she planned to just browse casually before bed.

But then she came across a very interesting one—probably taken backstage at some live event, a joint photo of Haruka and Ritsu.

The two were standing very close.

Haruka made a peace sign, smiling like a little sun.

Ritsu stood beside her with a look of disgust, as if saying, “Stop taking photos already.”

Below this photo was a screenshot of a LINE chat log:

Ritsu: “Delete that photo.”

Haruka: “No—”

Ritsu: “I told you to delete it. What if it gets out?”

Haruka: “What if?”

Ritsu: “What would fans think if they see a photo of an idol with her manager?”

Haruka: “Then let it spread.”

Ritsu: “…”

Haruka: “If it’s with Mr. Ritsu, I don’t mind any rumors.”

Ritsu: “Are you an idiot?”

Haruka: “Ehehe ☆”

Ritsu: “…Delete it.”

Haruka: “Not deleting ♡”

She stared at the chat log for a while.

The photo was still in the album, which meant Ritsu hadn’t pressed it in the end.

Or rather, he said “delete it,” but he never actually checked whether Haruka had deleted it or not.

“If it’s with Mr. Ritsu, I don’t mind any rumors.”

Haruka stared at that line, lost in thought.

‘I see, I see. So that’s where your hardware problem lies…’ she thought.

‘As I suspected, this definitely isn’t my issue. As a normal straight guy with normal orientation, how could I possibly develop feelings for my own best friend?’

She turned over and set an alarm for 7:30.

Because this afternoon, on the way back from the agency, Ritsu had said to her in the van: “I’ll come by tomorrow morning. We need to discuss some things about your comeback. I’ll be there around 9.”

Hoshino Haruka closed her eyes.

This time, she didn’t suffer from insomnia.