LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 53 – Another Day in the Office Second
Edited by The Darkest Knight#4796
I didn't even do anything and let Ruby pull me. With her cheeks slightly puffed up, she stared at the two women who had swarmed me a few seconds ago.
"Hahaha, Ruby. You're too strict. We're just worried about him." Mem-cho responded with a light tone as she teased Ruby's behavior in front of adults, which would be seen as cute.
"Of course, you can worry about him. Just don't get too close to him." Ruby said so.
"She's just worried about Aqua… But yeah, I didn’t think she'd be so overprotective." Rin commented with a critical tone.
"Well, it's my privilege as his twins… Right, Aqua?" Ruby replied to Rin's words while turning her gaze to me.
"As long as it's not too much, I'm fine. However, if it's too much, it can be a bit annoying." I responded to Ruby with my honest feelings.
"How can you say that— Onii-chan!?" Ruby showed such a cute, betrayed expression.
"Hahaha, you two are really cute and funny." Mem-cho laughed while she saw me teasing Ruby, who was panicking, which was followed by Rin too.
"Oh, the two of you are here? I've been waiting for you two for a while, and Rin said she would look for Mem-cho, but she didn't come at all." I heard a familiar voice from near the door. Even though it was a gentle one, I could feel a touch of irritation in her voice.
"Oh, Sora."
"Ah, sorry about that."
Rin and Mem-cho responded to the source of the voice, Tokino Sora, who walked toward us.
"It looks like you two are having a fun time."
"That's…"
“Hahaha, I’m sorry, Sora. I'm trying to finish my video, and I saw Aqua-kun was having trouble."
"Huh—" Sora was surprised at Mem-cho's words and looked at me. "This is maybe the first time I’ve heard something like this. What kind of problems do you have, Aqua-kun?" She asked me those questions.
I thought for a while, and one by one; I was observing the faces of all the members of Starlight who were gathered together here. I felt like something that rarely happens these days, except when we had a meeting. So I thought it would be good to ask them something I wanted to know.
So I asked them about something that had been on my mind ever since I left Momo's house.
"I wonder if any of you know about underground idols…?"
“Underground Idol… Huh…” Rin didn't look like someone was aware of that stuff, which was a different contrast to the two other members' expressions. Those two had such sour expressions, which kind of gave me an answer to my question.
"It looks like you two know something."
"Ahaha, well. I only went to a few auditions, and usually, I choose, especially those from some big agencies. But actually, I got experience with them as I got scouted once." Mem-cho said with such a complicated face.
"Is that so?"
"And it's something that I don't want to experience again. I mean, I got interested since I want to become an Idol, and the people who scouted me were kind, friendly, and nice guys. Before, I was brought to a shady place with scary people with such dubious contracts. And my mother became evil and lectured me all night." Mem-cho answered with a distant gaze.
"Geez, what have you been doing in the past?" to which Rin replied by saying how dangerous and reckless Mem-cho was.
"Yeah, that's my big mistake at a young age…"
"Well, that's awful to hear. As for me— I got rejected a lot in auditions when I heard about those underground idols and talked about them to my friend. She got really angry at me and told me never to try it. Also, she always believed that I would become an Idol. Thanks to her that I didn’t try those underground Idols." Sora answered with an awkward smile.
"Oh, that's nice to hear," Rin said before continuing with her words. "It's nice to have such a good friend."
"Yeah, she's such a nice friend. She had always been a smart girl and had good grades too. She will graduate from university next year and said that she would like to work in this company together with me." Sora talked about her friend with a big smile.
"Is that so? That sounds nice. I hope she will get the job done. Ah, as for underground idols. To be honest, I never experienced anything with them. But I think I heard they had a little pay, long hours, and had such unbreakable contact too."
"Yeah, that's so awful to hear." Sora sighed at our serious conversation. "But why do you ask about them?" Sora thought for a moment before throwing a question at me.
"Hm?" I saw all of them looking at me with a kind of serious face, and since the four of us had become close, I didn't really need to lie to them. "I just saw a girl from an underground idol group that I felt had good talent, and thought it was such a waste to let a girl with her talent be neglected in such a place," I replied.
"Hm, I wonder if I could buy out her contract or something. I don't want trouble so much after all." I continued my word under their gaze.
"Well, I don't know much about contracts and law, but maybe you could do that," Mem-cho replied.
Yeah, honestly, I didn't really know about those things. But I'm pretty sure that I could handle my money, right? But I wonder if it will be alright to be upfront about it to play safe since I still had doubts it would be easy. It was just my gut feeling.
Well, of course, I needed to search for their weakness as leverage. But it would take time, too, and I didn't feel good about that.
"Onii-chan, Your face is very wrinkled. You know— I think you'll grow old faster if you keep brooding like this." Ruby said that since she saw me once again, I had a deep thought.
"Oh, sorry about that." I replied.
"Aren't you too serious about a lot of things, Aqua-kun? How about relaxing with onee-san, look, I have some delicious snacks." Mem-cho said as she tried to feed me a delicious-looking snack with a chocolate flavor that I didn't have any reason to reject.
"Yeah, this is delicious." I said while chewing the snack.
"You're still young, after all. Take it easy and enjoy life! If you have any difficulty or problem. You can ask any of us for help, you know? We will gladly help you. You can rely on us." Mem-cho told me those things with such calm and gentle eyes. I was pretty sure all of the girls had the same expression as her.
"Well, I will take note of that, and I will gladly ask you for help." I smiled sweetly at her as I told her that.
"Wow— Please, be kind to me, Okay? I feel like I will get a hard assignment or something."
Well, honestly, hearing those words for Mem-cho made me feel better. Hmm, I thought that maybe, at least, I tried to see her in person.
