Chapter 171: This Is... Possessed by a God? (Patreon)

As the flagship genius actress the Lala Lai Theatrical Company had put forward — famous throughout the industry — Akane Kurokawa's talent was beyond question.

Even Kana Arima, famous in her own right these days, had to admit whenever the subject came up: though Akane Kurokawa's fame didn't match her own, her acting talent genuinely stood shoulder to shoulder with hers.

Except—

"Huh? You want to ask about Yuji's personal information? You want to play him in the next episode...? What kind of nonsense excuse is that? Like I'd just hand it over."

Gripping the landline receiver, leaning forward as she listened to the voice on the other end, the wine-red-haired girl wore an expression of pure disgust.

Kana Arima had actually had a shoot and other work scheduled today, but she'd wanted so badly to see Minami Yuji — and maybe invite him to dinner while she was at it — that she'd cranked out two hundred percent of her usual effort, blazed through recording the segment at hand, and rushed straight over to Minami Pro.

Unfortunately, Minami Yuji still had work to handle over at south, the short-video app, so she'd come up completely empty.

But she wasn't about to leave empty-handed!

Seven years in the entertainment industry had taught Kana Arima one thing: seize every opportunity worth seizing, always.

And don't forget — even if Minami Yuji wasn't around, Minami Reiko certainly was!

Who was Minami Reiko, exactly?

Having dated Minami Yuji all this time, Kana Arima obviously knew exactly who she was.

A bona fide woman who'd grown up alongside her boyfriend (status: pending) Minami Yuji at Masayama Orphanage — with a bond that close, calling her his half-sister in all but blood wouldn't be an exaggeration!

Now that she'd come all the way to Minami Pro, she couldn't possibly leave with nothing to show for it! At the very least, she had to make sure her future sister-in-law remembered her face.

As it happened, Minami Yuji had left his phone behind when he stepped out of Minami Pro.

So, brushing off Minami Reiko's objections almost entirely, Kana Arima had taken it upon herself to serve as Minami Yuji's personal phone operator —

mostly because she wanted to see exactly which girls were in the habit of calling him.

And then... this was where things had ended up.

Because Kana Arima hadn't forgotten — in this latest episode of LoveforReal, Minami Yuji had hugged this girl for a full three minutes and more.

A full three minutes!

Meanwhile, the closest she and Minami Yuji had ever gotten was holding hands during a scene — and even then, she'd deliberately fumbled the take several times just to hold his hand a little longer before they finally got it approved.

And now?

This girl had gone and hugged him?

How enviable— no, wait! How shameless! Did this junior have no sense of feminine modesty at all?

And after the show wrapped, she'd actually called Minami Yuji's private number to ask about his personal information — who knew what she was really after?!

So no matter what, there was no way Kana Arima would grant her request!

Absolutely not!

"Huh?"

Caught off guard by the sudden refusal, Akane Kurokawa froze for a beat.

She didn't understand — the operator had sounded so pleasant when she first picked up, so why had her tone turned so hostile the instant she heard Akane's voice?

And besides, that voice... why did it sound familiar?

Akane Kurokawa froze, opening her mouth to continue — only for something even stranger to happen. Before she could get another word out, a dial tone was already buzzing in her ear.

Still... "Never mind," she murmured.

Akane Kurokawa didn't dwell on it much — the industry was a big place, after all, and a rough operation or two here and there was only normal.

Besides...

She raised her pale hands, gathering her short, blue-black hair scattered at the nape of her neck into a ponytail.

Then she settled slowly into the soft chair in front of her.

On the wall before her hung every photo of Minami Yuji she'd been able to scrape together online, from his debut all the way to the present.

The photos packed the wall edge to edge, dense enough to send a chill down anyone's spine.

At the same time, her computer played through the films where Minami Yuji had starred over the years.

Anyone who walked in on this scene would probably peg Akane Kurokawa for some deranged stalker obsessed with Minami Yuji.

But that wasn't actually the case.

This was really just Akane Kurokawa's preparation for immersing herself in a role.

After all, an actress could only nail a role perfectly once she truly understood it.

It's just that her method of "understanding" happened to be a little... unconventional.

"Let's begin," she murmured under her breath, and at the same time raised her pale blue-green eyes.

In the soft glow of the computer screen, her fathomless eyes reflected the shadow of Minami Yuji's photo before her.

At age eight, he transferred from Masayama Orphanage to the Northern Koyaku Agency in Tokyo. When he first joined, his manager hadn't given him a fair assessment — during this period, Senior Minami's roles were basically all bit parts and extras, and his acting wasn't anything special either...

That continued until midway through that year, when he appeared in White Coastline — his acting showed a clear leap forward. And...

"The rate of improvement was downright abnormal... all the way up through the variety show That Child, where he displayed acting so magnetic it was like a black hole, drawing countless eyes."

Had something happened to him? Some kind of shock that triggered such a leap?

Muttering to herself, Akane Kurokawa's pencil-gripping fingers scratched unconsciously across her notebook. She tore the page free and stuck it beside Minami Yuji's photo from eight years ago: Something happened, causing his acting to improve.

Honestly, if Minami Yuji had been there to see this, he'd have been more than a little startled by this two-dimensional-looking girl's talent —

because, exactly as Akane Kurokawa had guessed, his acting skill had jumped from LV7 to LV8 right around then.

What's more, she'd worked all this out purely from scraps of evidence glimpsed on TV.

And something even more astonishing followed close behind.

Scritch, scritch, scritch —

A sound started up, dense and rapid-fire.

It was the sound of Akane Kurokawa's pencil tip scraping ceaselessly across the notebook.

"Handsome features, excellent eyesight and hearing. Clearly has little personal interest in fashion, yet actively keeps up with youth trends for work purposes."

Riiip —

The page, covered edge to edge in writing, tore free.

A perfectionist!

"Found abandoned as a child at Masayama Orphanage — meaning he never had access to advanced education. Yet islanders were already calling him a child prodigy at age five or six. Despite having no formal schooling, he could breeze through high-school-level problems and beyond..."

Riiip — Education!

"Refined table manners. Right-handed."

"Unlike a typical Japanese person, he dislikes soaking baths and prefers showers. Visibly resistant to the constant bowing of traditional Japanese etiquette. Seems to have received a fair amount of civic-minded education, and shows a notably high level of concern for children's issues — despite being only eight himself, he carries himself in social situations with an adult's poise."

Riiip —

Mature social habits!

"Even as a young child, he instinctively met adults eye-to-eye when speaking with them. That means, deep down, he either considered these adults his equals — or ranked them lower than himself, a mere child."

Akane Kurokawa's brow furrowed. She looked back at the photo.

Details about Minami Yuji's profile kept surfacing in her mind at a speed no ordinary person could match, her eyes widening even as they kept tracking from photo to photo.

"Eight years in the industry, and aside from the manufactured 'golden boy and girl' pairing hype with Sakurajima Mai, no scandal involving any other actress has ever surfaced..."

His relationships with actresses were surprisingly tame?

The question flickered through her mind, only to be dismissed almost as fast.

Around young women, Minami Yuji clearly had the hormonal stirrings any young man would — but unlike the usual green, jittery boys, he radiated something distinctly more mature.

Could he already have sexual experience?

No — that couldn't be it. If it were, she'd have spotted it at a glance.

So then why...?

The deeper she thought it through, the deeper she immersed herself in the role of Minami Yuji, the more Akane Kurokawa felt something she couldn't quite put into words.

That feeling was...

Her clean, fine-featured face tilted back slightly as she stroked her chin.

"A contradiction..." she murmured softly.

Yes. That was it — a contradiction.

Despite having neither the background nor the opportunity for advanced education, everything Minami Yuji displayed as a child pointed to someone who'd received exactly that.

Despite being little more than an eight-year-old, he could turn adults' psychology inside out on camera — outwardly polite, while deep down treating them as equals in status.

Despite having no sexual experience, the air he showed the world was the distinctive maturity of a man who'd already been through romantic and physical relationships.

However you looked at it, put all these observations together and one feeling stood out.

Contradiction.

Because no matter how gifted a person was born, they still needed at least a minimum of education to bring that talent to fruition.

There was no such thing as a castle in the air, after all — to make talent shine, you first had to lay the foundation.

But Minami Yuji was entirely different.

From age five or six onward, there wasn't a trace of him receiving any mature, advanced education.

And yet, without fail, he could answer questions far beyond what anyone his age should manage.

Not only that — his attitude toward adults was strange, too.

Normally, even a genius child who looked down on adults would still let that childish mindset show through completely.

But Minami Yuji wasn't like that.

He was more like someone who saw through everything but never let on — outwardly just as deferential as any child, while inwardly regarding the adults other kids revered like gods as mere equals, seen through a grown man's eyes.

The same held true for his apparent sexual experience.

Akane Kurokawa was a teenage girl herself, after all, and she could clearly sense that Minami Yuji was a man too — he'd absolutely have the same desires any man would.

But that was exactly where the problem lay.

The impression Minami Yuji gave off was that of a "man" — not a "boy."

The difference seemed small, but in truth it was worlds apart.

A "man" meant someone mature, someone who could view relationships between the sexes with real rationality.

A "boy," on the other hand, meant someone like Kumano Nobuyuki or Morimoto Kengo — however much sex education they'd had, they were still hopelessly green about the whole concept.

Contradiction...

It really was a genuine contradiction.

After careful digging, she found that every word and gesture of Minami Yuji's radiated a maturity far beyond his years — maybe one trait being unusually mature was plausible, but every single one, all showing the same degree of maturity? That shouldn't be possible.

And yet, somehow, it had happened anyway. And it had happened right in front of her, no less.

The sense of contradiction and disorientation made her instinctively raise her notebook to cover the bottom half of her face — the first time she'd felt truly helpless.

No matter how hard she tried to grasp the feeling, she couldn't capture it — couldn't reproduce the way Minami Yuji fused naturalness and contradiction into something almost perfect.

It was right then that her phone suddenly buzzed.

"Hm...?"

Picking it up on reflex, Akane Kurokawa glanced at the notification, then instantly lost interest.

It was a push notification from a light novel publisher she followed — she'd done some voice-acting work with them before, and out of professional courtesy, her personal SNS account followed their page.

But when it came to actual light novel content...

"I really couldn't care less..."

Her eyes had that dull, glazed look.

These past few years, who knew what had gotten into the industry, but a whole wave of light novels about being "reincarnated in another world" had come flooding out...

Wait?!

A sudden flash of light seemed to go off in her mind. Akane Kurokawa, who'd been slumped comfortably against the chair, sat bolt upright without thinking.

Reincarnation...?

Light novels about reincarnation...

Wait — if that were the case...

Her breathing quickened. A bead of sweat slid unbidden down her temple.

Her eyes locked onto the screen. There, an interview clip of Minami Yuji was playing.

In the deliberately zoomed-in image —

Minami Yuji's smile was both bewitchingly magnetic and radiant enough to hold anyone's gaze captive.

If it really was what she thought...

Her fingers tightened around the pencil.

An idea, utterly outlandish yet incredibly bold, rose up in Akane Kurokawa's mind.

"Thanks for having me today!"

"Oh, thanks for having me too!"

"Thanks for having me today!"

"Ugh — having to come in to record the show this early in the morning, I'm exhausted."

Letting out a heavy breath, Mem-cho finished greeting the film crew, rubbing her temples as she merged into the group.

After a quick scan of everyone present, she finally voiced her question, curious.

"Never mind Senior Minami for now... where's Akane-chan?"

Minami Yuji was often a little late because of his own work, so she was used to that by now.

But what surprised her was that Akane Kurokawa, normally so painstakingly serious about her work, had turned up late today too — just like Minami Yuji.

"No idea."

Sumi Yuki and the others were clearly just as surprised. None of them had expected Akane Kurokawa to show up late.

But soon enough, Kumano Nobuyuki, standing nearby, offered up his own theory.

"Don't tell me she overslept from studying Senior Minami's 'role' too hard?"

"Ah... that's actually pretty plausible."

Generally speaking, an actor staying up too late over-researching a role was a pretty rare thing — but if it was Akane Kurokawa, it somehow felt perfectly normal instead.

After all, this dating reality show wasn't even her main line of work, and she was already this serious about it — let alone acting, which was her actual specialty.

But the thing was...

"Akane-chan... she didn't actually take what we said seriously, did she?" Mem-cho muttered under her breath.

"Uh..."

Now it was everyone else's turn to look uneasy.

Honestly, in their last conversation, they had said that "playing" Minami Yuji's character would be pretty interesting.

But in reality, aside from Uehara Ritsu, none of them had actually taken the discussion seriously.

The reason was simple enough —

This was Minami Yuji they were talking about!

The Minami Yuji who'd won the Galaxy Awards, the Broadcasting Culture Foundation Award, seven consecutive Drama Academy Best Actor titles, and a whole string of other honors!

Trying to imitate the style of an industry titan like that...? Was she joking?

Just thinking about it, anyone could tell it was doomed to fail.

And on this subject, Mem-cho, without question, had more say than anyone else present.

After all, she'd been a devoted fan of Minami Yuji since eight years ago — and she was already twenty-five now!

He was, without question, her one true moonlight.

Of course she knew exactly how impossible Minami Yuji's style was to imitate.

There simply wasn't a performer alive who could copy him.

Especially that charisma of his...

that indescribable, ineffable, bewitching charm that made it impossible to look away the instant he stood on a stage or faced a camera!

That was the real crux of it.

Put plainly, it wasn't as though the industry lacked performers who'd tried to copy Minami Yuji outright, hoping to ride his style and fabricate a similar persona to build their own momentum.

But every single one of them had failed without exception.

So...

As much as she felt bad for Akane Kurokawa, Mem-cho still thought that trying to imitate Minami Yuji was simply an impossible task.

She gave her head a small shake.

Only then, flashing her signature catlike grin, did Mem-cho speak up on her own.

"Hey, Nobuyuki, mind passing me that bottle of water over there?"

She said it partly because she really was thirsty after rushing to the set and going through all the bowing and greetings, and partly to break the somewhat awkward silence that had settled over the group.

After all, on camera her persona was the cheerful airhead.

But what neither Mem-cho nor anyone else present could have expected was —

"Here, catch. I saw you eyeing it earlier — you wanted the water, right, Mem-cho?"

A clear voice, crisp and unmistakably feminine, rang out suddenly from behind Mem-cho.

But in that moment, Mem-cho made no move whatsoever to take the water bottle being offered.

She just stood there, stunned, an utterly baffled look on her face, staring at the blue-black-haired girl who'd suddenly appeared behind her.

Because...

"What's wrong? Is something off?"

Saying this, the blue-black-haired girl extended her hand, while everyone around her stared, wide-eyed.

Her short hair swayed gently with the motion.

That indefinable, bewitching charm mixed into it...

It was just like Minami Yuji!