They all pushed me!

Arima Kana still lived alone in that very empty villa. Unlike Kurokawa Akane who naturally knocked on the door and said "Mom, I'm back", she just habitually took out the house key from her bag and opened the door.

However, Arima Kana did not politely say "I'm back" to the empty house. Instead, she stood at the entrance, as if she could foresee that Kitagawa Ryo would not leave until she saw her return home safely. Before closing the door, she suddenly turned around and waved to Kitagawa Ryo who was waiting outside the courtyard with the window rolled down, and shouted from afar:

"I'm going home - see you tomorrow."

"It's your birthday, Liang-senpai, please remember to come."

Without waiting for the other party to answer, Arima Kana quickly closed the door again, causing Kitagawa Ryo to shake his head helplessly. After waiting for a while and confirming that the other party did not secretly stick his head out again, he chose to drive away towards his home.

Kitagawa Rumi and MEM啾 still have to prepare for tomorrow's show tonight, and neither of them can go home for dinner. After all, these are the most important two days since their debut, and they want to put a perfect end to this career. This level of hard work and endurance are necessary, and this is the case for two consecutive days of performances.

When Kitagawa Ryo returned home, the former members of B Komachi who had gathered here during the day had already tacitly agreed to come back tomorrow to watch the performance and left. After he habitually said "I'm back", the love waiting for her husband at the entrance skillfully took the big bag of things in Kitagawa Ryo's hand and handed him the shoes:

"Well, welcome back."

“How does it feel to be there?”

"It's fine. Anyway, I really enjoyed it and was very happy. My voice is a little hoarse."

The two chatted as they walked into the living room. Dinner was already prepared and placed on the table. Kitagawa Ryo went to the sink first, peeled off the paint and stickers on their faces and washed them clean, then returned to the dining table and sat down.

"On the way back, I saw the updates Ai posted today. Although I feel that it should be better described as 'the inheritance of the old and the new', apart from Ruby, wasn't it Ai that motivated MEM to want to become an idol in the first place? Even their support color is the same red. Besides, Ai has been giving them some pointers as a senior during this period of time. Ruby has told me all this."

"What Ryo said makes sense. Let's use this tomorrow. But if tomorrow really comes, not many people will pay special attention to our updates. After all, Ruby and the others are announcing their graduation, and they can almost reserve the front page headlines in advance."

After quietly saying the usual "I'm starting", Kitagawa Ryo and Ai started chatting while eating dinner, and the topic naturally revolved around ACE's performance today.

"Although it has not been officially announced yet, many fans have guessed it. After all, our operations department has also released the news through various channels. And to be honest, the official announcement of graduation was more sudden. It seems that even his teammates were unaware of it."

"I was already 20 years old at that time, and I had been an idol for eight years. It can't be considered sudden or unexpected. Ruby is only 17 this year, which is definitely the prime time for her to be an idol."

"Hey, if you say that, then MEM-chu should have graduated and retired two years ago. That's too much—"

"She looks younger. If I hadn't mentioned it, I would have forgotten that MEM is almost 23. Maybe it has something to do with her personality? She is lively and outgoing. She can play an active JK (high school girl) without any problem."

"It seems to be true if you say so. MEM啾's family also went to the scene today, but the banners they held up all had her real name written on them, um, Mei Qiu."

At this point, Beichuan Liang paused slightly. This was probably one of the things that impressed him the most today. Perhaps no matter how famous the stage name MEM啾 was, it had become a symbol and code name that could designate this person in the eyes of the public, but for her mother and brother and other close family members, the one standing on the stage dancing and singing, whose every move could draw warm applause and cheers, was still just their daughter and sister, and her name was just Mei Qiu.

"That's quite normal. Doesn't Ryo always deliberately distinguish between Akane and Akane? Akana-chan, Akana-chan."

"Ai-chan suki (like)——"

"Uh uh... I'm dreaming of more than ten years ago. This name is too old-fashioned."

Hearing Kitagawa Ryo suddenly respond in such a pretentious tone to the nickname given to her by fans when she was still an idol, Ai couldn't help but curl her lips and felt goose bumps all over. She quickly waved her hands in surrender and skipped the topic.

"Abiko performed much better today than I expected. Although she has been away from the stage for more than half a year, it seems that her foundation is still there. She has no problem cooperating with Ruby MEM-Chu. I thought she had completely abandoned these things after becoming a full-time cartoonist."

"In fact, I only practiced those two songs urgently. After all, just like Ai said, Abizi's focus is now on Tokyo BLADE. It's not easy for her to come here as a guest performer these two days. After all, although feelings can lower the standards of fans, they can't be too out of tune. Abizi has worked hard during this period."

Beichuan Liang picked up a piece of food with chopsticks and chewed it slowly, and added two more sentences:

"It's probably mainly because she found a suitable comic assistant some time ago. Her work efficiency has improved a lot. Otherwise, with Abiko's obsessive-compulsive perfectionist personality, she would have done her best to ensure the normal update of the weekly magazine. This is assuming that she has saved the manuscripts in advance."

"But this is also a mixture of pain and happiness. After all, this is an ideal that Abiko has held since she was very young, and now it should be considered halfway accomplished."

"half?"

Facing Ai's somewhat doubtful inquiry, Beichuan Liang nodded calmly:

"correct."

He had known Samejima Abiko for a long time, and in order to help his sister get closer to his only friend, he had even promised her that he could use his appearance as a prototype to draw a comic book. Although at that time he had no idea that this comic book, which did not even have a name at the time and existed only in the child's fantasy and rough drafts, would become so popular today.

But taking this as an opportunity, until now, he would actually receive some inquiries from Samejima Ahiko on his mobile phone every once in a while. At the beginning, the other party would be quite shy and hesitant, so that later Kitagawa Ryo simply told her to just think of it as a conversation with the character in the comics, and the character BLADE, and maybe she would not be so nervous. This method was quite effective for a long time, and it slowly helped Ahiko, who was very introverted as a child, to open up her heart.

The reason why Samejima Abiko is very close to her brother and sister is actually because when she was a child, Kitagawa Rumi, who was about the same age as her, was willing to play with her all the time, go to school and talk with her after school, and accompany her in every aspect of daily life; Kitagawa Ryo, who was much older than her and very famous, was willing to patiently accompany her in this kind of role-playing, similar to playing house, and was willing to talk to her about all aspects of her dream blueprint.

It is also because of this that, in some ways, Kitagawa Ryo is even more familiar with Samejima Abiko than Rumi. She is indeed willing to try being an idol for Rumi. She can also use Rumi as the prototype of the character before officially submitting it, and even design the character based on the other party's ideas to a certain extent. However, after "Tokyo BLADE" was actually published as a serialized comic, the situation became different.

"For a child who has wanted to be a cartoonist since childhood, drawing a comic that she has been thinking about for a long time and gaining super popularity is indeed the dream of all. But as for Abiko... she actually has a bit of an extreme side to her personality. Well, this word is not used well, it's similar to obsession or persistence."

Beichuan Liang hesitated and explained to Ai bit by bit:

"For example, the animation "Tokyo BLADE" which will be aired in October this year. A friend of mine in the animation industry told me before that Abiko is almost the author who cares most about the animation adaptation, and is also the original author who is most diligent in going to the recording and production site. She even had a small conflict with the voice actor and dubbing director there. She said, "My child doesn't speak in this voice." Fortunately, it was just a supporting role with few lines, and it was resolved through negotiation later."

"But that night, Abiko sent me a message, looking very angry. She also said that if the voice actors and other production staff were not up to her expectations, she would not want to animate it. After all, the purpose of animating comics is to boost the sales of the original work. She thinks it doesn't need anything..."

Ai Wenyan nodded thoughtfully:

"So, Abi is a kid who values ​​her own works and characters, right? I seem to have heard from Uncle Min that the planning of the 2.5-dimensional stage play "Tokyo BLADE" was also planned by Abi."

"Yeah, I can only say that it's a good thing that this project will take at least a year or so, otherwise she wouldn't have time to write the adapted script. After all, the stage play script is quite different from the comic text, and we also have to consider the specific stage performance format and props. She has already asked me about this and some related stage play common sense."

"To put it simply, whether it's an animation or any other adaptation, Abiko will pay special attention to the degree of restoration or reproduction of the original work, and will not allow or accept any script adaptation or actor's acting skills that she thinks are out of character (out of character) to taint the work "Tokyo BLADE"."

"It's really strict."

"It's like this. Over the years, I can't remember how many times Abiko told me that she must let me play the leading male role. I had clearly promised her a long time ago, but it was as if she was afraid that I would regret it or forget it."

As he spoke, Kitagawa Ryo suddenly remembered the information about his sister that he had learned from Kindaichi Toshiro two days ago, and he casually told Ai about something that he had been worried about in the past few days:

"Uncle Min has already told me that Ruby really wants the role of Shoji. A big part of the reason she joined the LALALAI troupe after the Tokyo Dome performance was for this role. She is also very confident. After all, even if we put aside the original work and the fact that the scriptwriter Abiko is one of her best friends, the role of Shoji was based on her from the beginning."

Ai nodded in understanding after hearing this. Ever since the three of them had revealed their relationships to each other, she didn't care too much about the fact that BLADE and Shaoji had a corresponding CP in real life.

"But acting is not just a simple COS."

"And Abizi may not be deliberately lenient towards Ruby in this regard."

-------------------------------------

ACE's performance on the second day continued the hot atmosphere of yesterday. Because he was photographed by other audiences or photographers yesterday, Kitagawa Ryo did not think about hiding himself today. He even picked a familiar face among the reporters gathered outside before entering the venue and accepted an interview openly. After all, it is not shameful to come to support his sister's performance. The GIF picture he made at the offline otaku event at the Tokyo Idol Festival is still widely used as an emoticon package on the forum.

Thanks to the fact that they met up outside the venue with Kindaichi Toshiro and MEM-chu's family today, the appearance of Kana Arima and Akane Kurokawa who were mixed in with them did not attract much attention. Most reporters were more interested in why Ai did not come, and were wondering whether they should use this as an angle to write another speculative report on Kitagawa Ryo's divorce.

After finally getting rid of the reporters' harassment, Kitagawa Ryocai finally broke into the Tokyo Dome. Just as the reporters outside the venue were looking at the young colleague who had won the exclusive interview with envy, they did not expect that the other party would righteously hand over the manuscript and camera and recording equipment in his hand to his senior from the same newspaper on the spot, and then take off his coat, revealing a bright red cheering uniform underneath, and then rush into the Tokyo Dome venue. For a moment, everyone was amazed at who this rising star with potential was, and that he had already made such thorough preparations for subsequent follow-up interviews. It was quite like the legacy of reporter Tanaka who caught hot spots to create news.

However, for ACE's fans, these were all insignificant episodes. From the moment the performance officially began, all their attention was completely captured by the two people on the stage. Kitagawa Rumi and MEM啾 also maintained the same state as yesterday, and together they presented an unforgettable visual and auditory feast to the more than 50,000 audiences on the scene.

As all the programs ended, when fans were still savoring everything that happened today, Kitagawa Rumi and MEM啾 took the stage again, but the difference from before was that this time the two brought the news that they had graduated from the idol industry together.

MEM啾's graduation speech was very brief. She pursed her lips, smiled with tears in her eyes, and told her fans that she would say everything she wanted to say to everyone in the thank you message section of the live broadcast later. Then she bowed deeply and bid farewell to the stage first.

Next it was Kitagawa Rumi's turn.

"I really want to thank the fans who came here yesterday and today, and those who couldn't come to the scene for their support over the years. This is not the result of my own efforts, but the support of everyone, which has made ACE what it is today. Once again, I sincerely thank every audience and staff member for allowing me to see today's grand occasion at the end of my idol career. I am already very satisfied in this life. Although I am very reluctant, idol Kitagawa Rumi has decided to officially graduate today."

Beichuan Liang stood quietly in the audience, and suddenly had a bad feeling.

As expected, Rumi, who had just made a serious speech, immediately raised the microphone and continued to speak to the fans in the audience:

"As for the rest of my life, I haven't actually decided what I want to do, but maybe, starting tomorrow I can fall in love?"

As soon as these words came out, there was a fierce roar from the audience, with a large number of audience members shouting "What!", "No, Ruby-chan!", "I don't accept it!", and it even felt like the situation was a little out of control.

But then, Kitagawa Rumi smiled and stretched out her hand in a certain direction of the audience:

"Who knows, you might become the lover of one of the audience members—"

With just one sentence, the fans who were originally quite excited immediately changed their tone, and for a while, shouts like "Mine! It's mine!" and "No, it's mine!" could be heard everywhere.

Like a little devil who was playing tricks on everyone, Kitagawa Rumi on the stage continued to shout loudly:

“Maybe one of you will be able to honestly say to others, ‘My lover is Ruby’!”

Beichuan Liang could hear the audience behind him once again erupting in cheers. He tilted his head slightly and looked at the big screens on both sides of the stage, watching the girl who seemed particularly cute and lovely tonight waving her final goodbye to everyone:

"Good-bye, then."

"Thank you again—"

After watching all this quietly, compared to the other audiences who were so excited that they couldn't control themselves, Kitagawa Ryo didn't seem to have much emotional fluctuation. He just turned his head and spoke to Arima Kana and Kurokawa Akane beside him:

"I've asked Mr. Izaki to pick you up. He'll take you home tonight."

"...As for me, I have something else to do, so I'll leave first."

Having said that, he chose to leave directly and neatly, hiding in the somewhat crowded crowd and quickly walked out of the Tokyo Dome venue. After calling Saito Kyoko, he waited for a while and was led into the backstage of the stage by the staff who came out to find him. In the lounge, he met a former super popular beautiful girl idol who had already become a real-time hot trend in just a few minutes.

Rumi hadn't changed her clothes yet. She was still in her performance costume and she looked like she had jumped out from the big screen. Before Kitagawa Ryo could react, she had already jogged and jumped onto his body, with her little head pressed against his chest, at the spot with 'I Love Ruby' printed on his cheering costume that he hadn't changed either.

"Mmmmm..."

Beichuan Ryo heard his sister's silly laugh, and her warm breath hit his heart through the thin shirt.

Maybe someone will take a picture of him?

Such a thought never occurred to him for even a second, not because Kitagawa Ryo knew there were no surveillance cameras here and Saito Kyoko was standing at the door.

Perhaps all those hesitant 'maybes' and necessary lies have already been said by Kitagawa Rumi just now.

Now, all we need to do is turn the uncertain question into the most affirmative statement.

"My lover is Ruby."

He held Rumi's face tenderly, lowered his head, and added those words at the best time:

"Ruby, I love you."

Chapter 4: Her Birthday Wish (5k)

Arimagana woke up much earlier than she expected this morning. She had this idea even before she saw the specific time. Two minutes later, she half-closed one eye and reached out to the bedside table as usual. There was a pink heart-shaped ring pillow on it, and her personal mobile phone was placed upright on it.

The current time is five thirty-six. Arima Kana naturally performed a simple addition and subtraction in her mind and concluded that she actually slept for less than five hours last night. This number is inconsistent with her long-term healthy sleep schedule.

But Arima Kana had no intention of putting down her phone and going back for a nap. Her sleepiness was like a piece of snow falling on a burning red stove, disappearing without a trace in an instant. She did not feel mentally tired at all. Instead, she was faintly excited, as if she was sincerely looking forward to the arrival of this day.

Like a flower awakened by the first ray of sunshine in the early morning, Arima Kana quickly got up from the bed, put on the slippers beside the bed nimbly, and walked to the bed. She quickly pulled open the curtains in the room, felt the bright morning light, then opened the window for ventilation. She hummed a song softly, and left the room briskly to wash up.

Just as Kitagawa Ryo commented, she might really have an extraordinary talent in singing. After she and Kurokawa Akane took on the job of singing the theme song of "Pest", the two of them took time out to receive simple vocal training of the crash course type, and sometimes they would go to KTV together to practice their voices. Whether it was from the evaluation of the vocal teacher or the scoring of the KTV song request system, her level was undoubtedly above Kurokawa Akane.

Magana's figure was soon reflected in the mirror of the sink. Her hair was a little frizzy after she woke up. She reached out to smooth her hair. She felt her heart beating very actively since she woke up, as if to show its presence. It didn't feel better until she brushed her teeth and washed her face.

After completing the basic washing, Arima Kana still had no intention of leaving. Instead, she moved closer to the mirror, raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes, confirming with some worry whether she had dark circles. Her eyelashes fluttered like black butterflies for a long time, and finally she nodded with satisfaction, turned around and walked back to her room, and with an exaggerated movement, she completely opened the wardrobe from both sides, stroked the bottom handle and began to think about her outfit.

Even though today is her birthday, Kana Arima, as the protagonist, is a little nervous now. She is as anxious as a child who is going to celebrate a friend's birthday and is worried that the gift she has chosen will not suit the friend's taste. Soon, all kinds of clothes were spread all over the bed in a mess, but she couldn't find anyone to give her advice. Kana Arima almost began to miss Kitagawa Rumi, who had given her and Kurokawa Akane precise guidance on clothing matching.

It has been more than a week since ACE's Tokyo Dome performance, and the discussion and popularity on the Internet have begun to slowly decline. However, Kitagawa Rumi's final graduation speech has the potential to become a popular community meme, although to Kana Arima, an insider, it was just a meaningful confession. After all, after hearing these words, Kitagawa Ryo simply left her and Kurokawa Akane and left. It goes without saying who he was going to meet.

Lying exhausted among the clothes on the bed, Arima Kana spread her arms and stared blankly at the familiar ceiling above her head, and suddenly recalled a very vague memory.

By the way, her first meeting with Kitagawa Rumi was very early, and it seemed to be during the audition for "Spider". She was sitting there quietly preparing when she saw Kitagawa Ryo bringing his sister over. The other party acted coquettishly and said that she wanted to see who would play her brother's sister. The young director Gotanda smiled and said that Kitagawa Ryo would never be able to refuse any request from this little girl. Even if the other party wanted the stars in the sky, she would try to pick them down. Thinking about it now, it was so long ago that her memory is quite vague.

On the first day of the performance, when Arima Kana followed Kitagawa Ryosen and saw him sending Kurokawa Akane home, and saw his mother open the door for her and talk to him, with a little bit of chatter mixed with gratitude and some other emotions, she once again understood the similarities and differences between herself and the other person.

The only ally who stood on the same side as her and pursued the same goal was Kurokawa Akane, but Kurokawa Akane had never been her only ally. There was always at least one person, a natural ally standing there who would unconditionally support her choices and actions, completely unlike her, who had been betting alone on a somewhat uncertain future for a long time.

Arima Kana once again pulled out the pendant from her collar, clenched it in her hand, and rubbed the hard spot inside with her palm. This was the button she had once sewed in.

But in the final analysis, she never gambled on whether he would accept her feelings.

Instead, he was betting that she would never regret it any day in the future.

-------------------------------------

Kitagawa Ryo arrived at Kana Arima's house before seven in the morning. Today was actually the scheduled shooting day. In fact, he had thought about suggesting to Kana Arima that the format should remain the same as last year's birthday.

At that time, they were filming "Tomorrow, Dad and Mom Are Not Here", so they finally staggered their filming times. Kitagawa Ryo, who was already an adult and could continue filming at night, went to Arima's house first to make the cake for her and put it in the refrigerator, and then she would eat it alone after Arima Kana finished filming during the day.

But the proposal was never made aloud. Kitagawa Ryo was very aware of the change in Arima Kana's mood during this period. Moreover, the two had agreed to give it a try together, so they eventually agreed to set the time in the early morning before the official start of the filming, and after finishing the birthday cake, they would go to the set together.

Yawning a little sleepily, Kitagawa Ryo knocked on the door of the Arima family and stood at the door waiting.

Since Kitagawa Rumi's performance at Tokyo Dome ended that day and she graduated as an idol, her entire schedule has become empty, and naturally, she has used all of this free time on herself. She visits the crew and clocks in on time every day during the day, and also at night.

What made Kitagawa Ryo a little jealous was that even though Rumi had officially graduated from the idol industry, she had no intention of letting him give up his personal image as a solo promoter. She quickly changed her mind and added the attribute of idol to her role-playing gift package. She even enthusiastically assigned a related role to Kitagawa Ryo. After all, it would be a waste if the cheering uniform given by Kindaichi Toshiro was only worn for two days.

However, starting from yesterday, the former super popular beautiful girl idol Kitagawa Rumi has bid farewell to his single promoter who he cheered for every night in tears. She was captured by Kindaichi Toshiro and Samejima Abiko and sent to a practice hell called LALALAI Theater. Now it seems that she has been handed over to Kurokawa Akane, asking her to help teach some basic knowledge of stage play performance.

The thoughts in his mind kept going around in circles. When Beichuan Liang came to his senses, he found that the door in front of him still showed no signs of being opened. He knocked on the door with more force, a little puzzled. Then he heard a burst of hurried footsteps approaching this side. Then, the door was opened from the inside. Arima Kana stood at the entrance, touching the back of his head a little embarrassedly:

"I'm so sorry for being late."

"It's okay. It's really early at this time. Did Kana just wake up? Your hair looks a little messy."

Kitagawa Ryo shook his head slightly in understanding, reached out his hand to slightly smooth down the very noticeable tuft of hair that was sticking up a little on Arima Kana's head, and asked with a smile.

"That's it, Liang-senpai, please change your shoes first. I have already processed and prepared the ingredients."

Arima Kana smiled awkwardly, and naturally didn't want to say that this was because she heard the sound of Kitagawa Ryo's car five minutes ago and randomly pulled out a piece of clothes from the pile of messy clothes on the bed and hastily put it on, and quickly changed the subject.

"Yeah, no problem."

While changing his shoes, Kitagawa Ryo followed Kana Arima through the living room to the kitchen, he looked at the girl walking in front of him. Her height was indeed a bit disappointing. At the age of fourteen or fifteen, when girls' growth period is basically over, she is still only about 1.40 meters. It is estimated that her upper limit will only be about 1.5 meters.

It has to be said that a large part of the reason why he has been treating her as his daughter for so many years is actually related to Arimakana's rather young height and appearance.