The first item of the rehabilitation training was a core stability test.
This required Haruka to stand on an extremely unstable balance pad, maintain a single-leg stance, and complete designated upper limb movements.
The purpose of this exercise was to test the subject’s balance, core strength, and coordination of the upper and lower limbs.
In Haruka’s initial evaluation, she had significant problems in all three areas.
Meihe stood nearby, holding a timer.
“Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.”
Haruka took a deep breath, stepped onto the balance pad, planted her right foot firmly, and slowly lifted her left foot.
“Raise your right hand to shoulder height.”
“Hold it. Arc your left hand from the side of your body all the way above your head.”
Haruka tried to follow along.
But as soon as her left hand began the arc, the balance pad under her feet started shaking violently.
She felt like she was stepping on a giant piece of jelly, wobbling perilously.
The muscles in her right ankle and calf twitched uncontrollably in an effort to maintain balance.
She had only drawn half the arc with her left hand when her center of gravity inevitably shifted.
Yet she gritted her teeth and forced herself to complete the movement.
The moment Meihe called out “Stop,” Haruka swayed violently and nearly toppled over.
“One more set.”
Meihe’s voice was calm.
Haruka adjusted her breathing and got back into position.
The movements were the same.
This time, she was slightly more stable, and the left-hand arc felt less awkward, but Meihe immediately spotted Haruka’s problem—in the final stage of this set, she had overused her lower back, showing compensation.
“Don’t compensate with your back. The power should come from your core, not your lower back.”
“…Okay.”
Third set, fourth set, fifth set…
By the fifth set, the back of Haruka’s training uniform was completely soaked through.
For her, this training was both physically and mentally draining.
Every movement required immense conscious effort to forcibly correct the tiny deviations between instinct and instruction.
This extreme nerve tension took a heavy toll on her mental energy.
The sixth set was even worse.
Her right foot barely lasted ten seconds on the balance pad before it started shaking like an electric shock.
Seventh set—
“Stop.”
Meihe’s voice was decisive.
The moment she heard the command, Haruka completely gave out in relief.
The sudden release of tension made her stumble, and she leaned against the mirrored wall, panting heavily.
Sweat poured down her cheeks and temples, and her training uniform was almost entirely soaked.
“That’s it for today.”
Meihe quickly wrote something in her notebook and put the timer in her pocket.
Haruka leaned against the wall, gasping for breath.
“Teacher Meihe… I, I can still—”
“No, you can’t.”
Meihe interrupted without even looking up.
“Your core muscles are exhausted and starting to compensate forcibly. Every movement after the fifth set used your lower back and shoulders to make up for insufficient core strength. Continuing is no longer training—it’s damage.”
Haruka shut her mouth.
She desperately wanted to continue, to get back in shape as soon as possible and step onto the stage that belonged to Hoshino Haruka, but she had to admit that this body had reached its limit.
‘What was that line again? My body is already a wreck!’
Meihe closed her notebook and changed the subject.
“You did well today.”
Haruka froze, hardly believing it. “…Really?”
“Your attitude in training today was great. Serious, hardworking, not lazy.”
Meihe tucked the notebook under her arm and started packing her bag.
“Much better than the old you.”
“Was the old me… not good?”
“Not exactly bad.”
Meihe tilted her head, thinking how to phrase it.
“The old you would have started sighing loudly around the third set, and by the fifth set you’d sit on the floor and complain, ‘I’m so tired, I’m going to die—’. Then I’d have to spend a full two minutes coaxing you to do the sixth set.”
“…”
“But today you did all seven sets without a single complaint. Keep up that momentum.”
“I will.”
“I’ll modify the training plan when I get back. Starting next week, we’ll begin systematic training.”
Meihe walked to the door and looked back at her.
“I’ll send the specific schedule to Mr. Mizugawa, and he’ll inform you. Go home and rest well, take a hot bath, go to bed early, and don’t overdo it.”
With that, Meihe left the practice room with her bags and closed the door.
In the quiet practice room, only Haruka remained, leaning against the wall, drained of strength.
“This idol life is really not for humans… And this is just a rehabilitation test. How scary will the real training be?”
—
Back at the apartment, Haruka threw herself into the bathroom for a hot shower.
After changing into pajamas, she flopped straight down onto the living room sofa.
“…I wonder how much longer I can use the car accident aftereffects as an excuse.”
She picked up her phone and casually searched for one of Hoshino Haruka’s old single music videos on a streaming app.
On the screen, the girl named Hoshino Haruka stood dazzling in the center of the frame.
Her smile was bright, her movements sharp, her high notes clear.
Back when she was a fan, she would cheer from the audience, watch nonstop for two or three hours, and after the show, her heart would be filled with emotion thinking how amazing Hoshino Haruka was—singing and dancing for so long on stage, yet still smiling so sweetly and happily.
“Lies don’t hurt, but the truth is a sharp knife.”
When she herself stepped onto this stage called “lies,” that sharp knife of truth really stabbed her hard—it was close to having someone shout “Kill!” beside her.
She silently slowed the video to 0.5x speed and observed Hoshino Haruka’s dance moves frame by frame.
Before, when she watched Hoshino Haruka dance on stage, she only thought it was pleasing to the eye, as if it was just moving around—”I could do that too.”
But when she calmed down and carefully observed these steps—the wide extensions of the limbs, the explosive quick-step changes, the sharp spins that locked the center of gravity in an instant—nearly every second mobilized the entire body’s muscle groups.
“This is nowhere near ‘pleasing to the eye.’ Asking me to dance this routine now? I’d rather die…”
After watching it four or five times, she turned off her phone.
The glamour and dazzle on stage were all exchanged for hundreds and thousands of hours of tedious torment unseen offstage.
“Can I just not dance this dance or be an idol…”
Haruka muttered to herself, but soon shook her head and dismissed the thought.
If you don’t dance, others will.
If you don’t smile, others will.
The entertainment industry lacks nothing when it comes to idols.
There are plenty of trainees eagerly waiting.
After sorting through her thoughts, she forced herself up from the sofa, dragged her leaden body to the bedroom, and plunged into the warm futon.
In the darkness, she whispered softly to the air:
“How in the world did you do it? I almost couldn’t make it through this first step…”
The air was silent, with only the occasional car engine from outside in the distance.
No one answered her.
—
At seven o’clock the next morning, the alarm rang on time.
Haruka opened her eyes and tried to sit up.
The moment she moved, a sharp, sour pain shot through her abdomen, thighs, and neck at the same time.
“Ouch—”
She sucked in a breath of cold air.
The delayed onset muscle soreness from yesterday’s rehabilitation training had arrived right on schedule, leaving her feeling as if she had been beaten all over.
Grimacing, she unplugged her phone from the charger.
On the screen was a LINE message notification from Ritsu sent at 12:30 last night:
“Tomorrow 10:00 Recording at the record label. Gather at the agency at 9:30.”
She glanced at the time at the top of the screen: 07:03.
If she only needed to be at the agency by 9:30, she could actually sleep in until 8:30 and then get up.
But after staring at the phone screen for a few seconds, she made a counterintuitive decision.
She opened LINE and sent a reply to Ritsu:
“Ritsu, I want to go to school first before recording today! I’ll leave after the second class and head to the agency!”
Less than a minute later, Ritsu replied:
“If you can make it in time, that’s fine. Don’t be late.”
Second class ended at 9:10, and from school to the agency by minibus would take about twenty minutes—plenty of time.
As for why she would skip a perfectly good lie-in and drag her sore body to school for trouble?
She thought about it and came to a conclusion—school was her “safe zone.”
The agency, the magazine publisher, and the recording studio she was about to go to—these were all her “battlefields” where she had to play the role of “ace idol Hoshino Haruka.”
But that ordinary high school classroom was the one place in her current high-pressure, surreal life where she didn’t have to “act.”
There, she didn’t have to think about career, workplace, or stage.
She didn’t have to face that manager who always made her heart skip for some reason.
She didn’t have to play another person.
She only had to be an ordinary high school girl—sitting in the seat by the window at the back, with a timid little deskmate next to her, occasionally called on by the teacher to answer a question.
That’s all.
“It’s better to be a student.”