Time slipped by, and several days had passed since the latest issue of Shinchō went on sale.
The streets of Tokyo in December were filled with the peculiar bustle and chill of the year's end, and the city had already been completely conquered by Christmas decorations.
The trees lining the sidewalks, along with the shops and storefronts of the commercial district, had hung out their colored lights early, bathing the entire street in a warm golden glow.
Tsushima Kagami tugged his scarf up higher. The white breath he exhaled dispersed before his eyes, only to be quickly scattered by the dry, cold wind.
He turned his head and caught sight of Yukinoshita Shizuku beside him, wearing a matching scarf and dressed in full winter attire, also blowing warm breath onto her cupped hands.
"I didn't expect it to suddenly get this cold today," Tsushima Kagami said with a laugh.
"Yeah, if I'd known, I would've worn gloves," Yukinoshita Shizuku said just then.
"But it's not quite bad enough to warrant that yet."
"This isn't Hokkaido, after all."
"I really don't want to hear that from someone who can't handle the cold!" Yukinoshita Shizuku said, looking at Tsushima Kagami.
"Let's go."
"It'll be warm once we reach the manga café," Tsushima Kagami said with a smile.
Yukinoshita Shizuku lowered her hands as well and nodded.
The two of them came out of Tokyo Station together and headed toward the manga café where Ijichi Seika and the others worked part-time.
They hadn't taken more than a few steps.
The gazes of the two of them happened to land on the LED screen atop a building across the intersection ahead.
The massive electronic screen was playing a promotional video on loop.
Several girls in matching uniforms, instruments in hand, were performing their hearts out on a stage, with the words [Young Tree] marked in bold, eye-catching lettering across the bottom of the frame.
"I see them," Yukinoshita Shizuku said, looking up at the big screen.
On their way from Shinjuku Station, the two of them had already seen plenty of [Young Tree]—the girls' band unit that had just debuted at the beginning of December.
The subway had been plastered with their ads and promotions the whole way too.
They never expected that here at Tokyo Station in Chitanda Ward, they'd be everywhere as well.
"So, feeling pretty proud of yourself?" Yukinoshita Shizuku asked, looking at Tsushima Kagami beside her.
"Proud of what?"
"Wakannai yo!"
Tsushima Kagami scratched his head, pretending not to understand.
The corner of Yukinoshita Rei's lips curved up into a faint, almost imperceptible arc.
"Isn't this the group you single-handedly made famous?"
"The great author is now the dream lover of thousands upon thousands of young girls."
There was an obvious teasing note in her tone.
"Oh, that."
"Come on, they're just little girls who don't get it, fooling around."
"Don't take it seriously."
"Give it some time and a new boys' group will come out, and they'll forget all about me."
"That's schoolgirls for you—following trends is perfectly normal."
Yukinoshita Shizuku folded her arms and watched Tsushima Kagami, saying nothing, only smiling faintly.
Tsushima Kagami also drew his gaze back from the screen.
This newly debuted girls' band unit, [Young Tree], was precisely the group that Nagato Tetsuya from Sony Music—the one who had come to the Manga Research Club to buy songs from him before—had wanted to launch back then.
The several conditions Tsushima Kagami had put forward at the time had exceeded the scope of Nagato Tetsuya's authority.
He'd only said he would go back and report it, and Tsushima Kagami himself had assumed nothing would come of it.
But after Nagato Tetsuya went back and made his report, Sony Music ultimately gave the answer that they accepted all of them.
It had been a project dreamed up on a whim by the higher-ups in the first place, with an experimental nature to it.
So they hadn't held out much hope for it.
Since Nagato Tetsuya—a veteran A&R director who had always had a discerning eye—said it was a good fit, then it was approved.
Sony was a vast enterprise with countless properties far more commercially valuable than these; they weren't short on this bit of money or these few songs.
After all, when a top-tier corporation sells off buildings, it can never sell them all.
So Nagato Tetsuya went to find Tsushima Kagami again to discuss the matter of the contract signing.
Later, after learning that Tsushima Kagami was also a famous, prominent author.
Sony Music's contract offered quite a few sincere terms, clearly aimed at securing long-term cooperation down the road.
But at the same time, it came with one additional clause.
Future contracts would be signed separately.
But this particular contract included a stipulation that, if the need arose in the future, Tsushima Kagami must create one more song for them that could be entirely bought out.
This condition could hardly be called harsh, so Tsushima Kagami agreed at once, and the two sides quickly signed the contract.
He truly hadn't expected that this band, made up entirely of female high school students, would swiftly sweep across all of Japan the moment it debuted.
The four songs he'd written were all released in the form of single albums.
Sony Music spared no resources in their rollout—television commercials, online promotions, offline events—covering nearly every possible channel.
Within the span of a single week, all four singles broke into the top ten of the Oricon charts.
Two of them even outright seized the first and second spots, holding firm for days on end without budging.
And before all this, there had actually already been a round of groundwork laid.
Tsushima Kagami thought back to the time of the school culture festival.
Back then, the girls' band temporarily formed by the Manga Research Club and the Light Music Club had performed around the school, and were filmed by visiting tourists and TV station staff.
That footage was later broadcast in the news across all five major private television stations as coverage of the private Sakusai school anniversary culture festival.
And afterward it was featured on a certain TV program as a prime example of "campus youth culture," unexpectedly sparking a small wave of attention.
Even later, his identity was exposed by the media during the Kyoto school trip.
Somewhere, reporters had dug up footage of the culture festival shot from every angle—clearly recorded by some tourists on their home camcorders that day.
The entertainment tabloids and magazines, as though they'd discovered a new continent, scrambled to report on this material, playing up the "remarkable encounter between the literary prodigy high schooler and the girls' band" for all it was worth.
In no time, Light Music Clubs sprang up like bamboo shoots after rain at schools all over Tokyo.
Boys and girls alike began scrambling to organize band clubs, and beginner-model guitars at instrument shops sold out at one point.
These scattered bits of attention finally converged into a great torrent in December, becoming the perfect opportunity for Sony's newly launched girls' band unit to blow up.
And when people noticed that the lyricist and composer columns of those four singles all bore the same name—
Tsushima Kagami!
Everyone wondered, could it really be that Tsushima Kagami?
In school classrooms, at offline fan meetups, in the little cliques of coffee shops, in forum boards online—similar questions came surging in like a tide.
Fans also kept pressing Sony Music's official channels for confirmation, anxious to verify this conjecture.
In the end, after obtaining Tsushima Kagami's consent, Sony Music officially gave a clear answer.
All four singles had been created by Tsushima Kagami.
The moment the news spread, he broke out of the literary circle.
Overnight, he became an object of worship for the boys and girls of the fashion and entertainment world.
His fame even briefly eclipsed that of the girls' band unit itself.
"You have no idea how many kinds of merchandise there are of you now."
Yukinoshita Rei pulled two little charms out of her bag and held them out in front of Tsushima Kagami.
They looked like keychains made from a photo of Tsushima Kagami cut out of some magazine and laminated.
It even had an embroidered badge printed with the initials of his name.
There was also one that looked like a hand-drawn chibi Tsushima Kagami portrait pin.
"?"
"Where did you get these?"
Tsushima Kagami looked at the two charms, thinking they were quite well made.
He was just about to reach out and take a closer look.
Yukinoshita Rei promptly grabbed them in one motion and put them back in her bag.
"Some classmates asked me to give them to you a few days ago."
"Then why aren't you giving them to me?"
"No, wait."
"Then why are you only taking them out to show me now?"
"Isn't it the same if they stay with me?" Yukinoshita Shizuku glanced at him and said with a smile.
"That works too." Tsushima Kagami nodded.
"It's not like it'd be great for me to carry them around anyway."
Yukinoshita Shizuku finally couldn't hold back and let out a soft laugh.
"Looks like the great author still isn't quite used to his new identity?"
"I just wrote a few songs, that's all."
"It's not like I debuted as an idol."
"But the other girls don't see it that way."
The fact was that it wasn't only the girls in Yukinoshita Shizuku's class—even the girls in his own class had made quite a lot of these kinds of little merchandise items.
There were plenty who wanted to give them to him, too.
But Tsushima Kagami felt it was a bit embarrassing to collect merchandise of himself, so he politely declined them all.
Beyond just his own school, at the very least a great many junior high and high school girls throughout all of Tokyo were likewise secretly collecting magazines, newspapers, and news featuring photos of Tsushima Kagami's public appearances, making them into all sorts of little merchandise items to show off.
On top of that, not only was Tsushima Kagami talented, but unlike the gloomy, sleazy boys usually found in class, he'd grown up tall, sunny, fresh, and handsome.
In an instant he became the late-night mining tool for millions of lovestruck young girls in their lonely hours.
____
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