SUN MEDIA had been abuzz with delighted chatter once Minami's photoshoot images had come in. They had to do numerous rounds of selections which lasted a total of three days, since so many good and useable photos had been taken. In the end, they narrowed it down to nine. One she would use as a profile picture on all sites, three of them she would post on the rest of her accounts as normal photo uploads with a link to her blog which would contain the rest of the photos.
The social media accounts had been set up for her by the company, although she would be the one posting, she would need permission and the greenlight from her manager. It was important to filter what was posted to ensure no scandals or anything of the sort would erupt and cause potential damage to her up and coming career.
"Hello everyone, my name is Ishihara Minami and I'm 17 years old! I want to be an idol, so I'd like to share some wonderful photos with you. The photoshoot day was difficult, but everyone did really great work. I'm thankful to have worked with such a wonderful staff and to have such pretty photos taken of me. Thank you everyone! Please take a look!"
Her blog post was short and sweet, just how Makoto liked it. The post did well for a sudden unknown. It received a little over 100 likes and a handful of comments such as:
"Wow, this is you? You're so pretty!"
"I'm going to support you, Ms. Idol~"
Next up on the schedule was a recording studio day, which Minami was late for. Makoto had set up the day for Minami to record a cover for her Hivideo account. This would be recorded in house and Makoto would professionally edit the audio. Then, Minami would record a video of herself in her room as if she were recording it at home. That way she would seem more relatable as a girl that just got picked up randomly off the internet.
"Sorry, I'm really sorry!" Minami exclaimed as she burst through the door to the studio.
Makoto took a puff of his cigarette, "You tell me right now. Am I here to babysit you? Why do I need to text you to get here? Do you not want to debut? Tell me now because I don't need someone that's not serious about this." He stared her in the eye and spoke sternly. He wasn't yelling but there was definitely anger and disappointment behind his words.
Minami bit her lip and looked down at her feet, "I'm really sorry. I lost my planner…."
Makoto raised his voice, "I don't want excuses! If you lost your planner, you should've come to the office and asked for a repeat of your schedule as soon as you realized it was gone. Be serious about this or I'm not going to bother with you!" He smacked his hand down hard against the table, causing a loud 'SMACK' to echo throughout the room.
Minami flinched and bowed, "I'm really sorry, it won't happen again."
"Get in there. Now." He shook his head and switched his gaze to the sound board, making a 'tch' sound as she entered the recording booth.
Luckily for her, the song that was selected for her to cover was DELIGHT by 5year. It was their newest single and it was sweeping the charts, so if she uploaded it, she'd no doubt be able to piggyback off their success and see a big view count.
She recorded the song with ease, it took only an hour and a half to complete, which earned her a lot of praise from Makoto. Minami sighed in relief, glad that she was able to shift his mood from before thanks to her good work.
Once finished, Makoto immediately took to audio mixing the cover, which Minami stayed around for. She was so filled with anticipation that she couldn't wait for the mixing to be completed and needed to watch the entire time.
"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Makoto asked, he seemed annoyed with her again, thanks to her constantly staring over his shoulder, her big brown eyes fixed on the screen.
"Nope!" she mindlessly replied without taking her eyes off the sound waves before her.
"Oh? You've completed your lyrics for the B-side already?" He turned his head to look over his shoulder at her. She looked down at him and pursed her lips, "No, but I assume I'm going to right now?"
He nodded and returned to his work, "Correct. You shouldn't even need to ask."
Minami hopped over to her bag and pulled out a pen, her mp3 player and the notebook that Akina had given her. She popped her headphones in and started playing the song, flipping through to one of its pages.
At first she started jotting down random words. "Love." "Longing." "Happiness." "Smile." "Dance." "Question." "Fairy Tale." "Sing with a smile." "Hope."
The song ended and she replayed it. This process continued over and over again while she leaned back, crossing her arms and tapping her pen against one of them. As time went on, words were circled and others were stricken out until only "Love." "Longing." "Sing with a Smile." and "Question." were left.
She then started jotting down additional sentences as she continued to listen. "With You." "Want You." "You and I." "Run to You." "Run With You." "Come to Me." "Love You." and the process continued.
After six hours, Makoto completed the song and handed Minami a USB with the song file on it.
"I want you to go home now and film yourself singing this. Act like you've just recored it in your bedroom and make it very casual, okay? Wear what we agreed on and then send the video file to my email. We'll edit it for you and upload it, got it?" He waved the USB around in front of her as he spoke.
"I've got it! I'll go home and do it right now!" She grabbed the USB and headed out the door.
"Oh! Minami!" one of the female staff members ran up to her, her short caramel hair waving back and forth, "Someone brought this for you." She held out Minami's planner.
Minami beamed and grabbed hold of it, hugging it to her chest, "My planner! Who brought it? Do you know?" Part of her wanted to know if Naoto had been near by, if his presence might still have lingered, while the other part of her was flashing red warning lights and neon signs that said 'DANGER! DANGER!'
If a boy had come to her workplace and dropped it off, who knows what they would think. Would they put two and two together and come to the realization that he and Minami knew each other and that they must've spent time together for her to lose it? Or maybe they could get away with saying he's just a stranger that must've found it on the floor, but then again how would he have known to drop it off at her place of employment if he was just a stranger.
Her head was starting to spin as she overthought all of the scenarios.
"It was someone named, Akina. She said you left it at her house….Are you okay? You look like you're going to be sick." She gently put a hand on Minami's shoulder and hunched over a little, as if trying to check Minami over.
Akina! Minami breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness it was Akina.
"Oh! No! I'm fine, I'm fine! I'm just tired from recording and working in there!" Minami put both her hands up and stretched to the side, "Just ready to go home!"
"Oh, alright! Get home safely!"
"You too when you get the chance, and thanks for giving me my planner!"
Upon returning home, she set her things on the floor by the door and pulled out her phone to text Naoto.
[Minami] "Thanks for sending Akina to bring me my planner!"
She headed to her bedroom. It was basically the same as it was when she was at her parents' home. Walls were littered with 5year and Ri posters, her favorite star shaped pillow was still laid out on her bed and complimented her new baby blue dolphin bed spread, shelves still lined with CDs and plushies. Although her star curtains from before were just plain white ones now. It was relatively clean with a few piles of dirty laundry, which she cleaned up to ensure it wasn't in the shot she was about to film.
She changed into the previously agreed upon outfit, a pink cross-cross dress with white boarders and a star embroidered on the right chest. She pulled her hair into a high side pony, trying to match with her profile photo images, and curled the ends, brushing them out to give them more volume. After touching up her makeup, she inserted the USB into her computer and extracted the mp3 file.
Bzz! Bzz! It was a text from Naoto.
[Naoto] "No problem. Next time leave something that I can drop off at your house so I can see you personally."
She smiled and giggled.
[Minami] "Will do! I'm going to film with my phone now so no replies for a while!"
She then proceeded to set her phone up on her desk, making sure that some of her 5year CDs were visible in the back. Her microphone was pulled up to her mouth so it looked like she was recording it at home, just like Makoto had told her to.
PLAY!
Throughout the song, she bopped her head along with the colorful beat and occasionally closed her eyes, making it look like she was pouring her whole soul, her everything into the song. It wasn't completely fake, she'd done that in the recording studio too. After she finished the take, she looked back and checked it over. It wasn't satisfactory.
Maybe it was just her being nitpicky, but she looked funny mouthing certain words, her hair at one point flew in front of her face which cause an awkward shot, and her pop filter had fallen a bit during the recording.
She redid the process a total of 10 times. By the time she finished, she was starving and ready to eat. After reviewing the takes, she selected five to send to Makoto to look through and edit. She'd save the other five just in case he decided that none of what she'd sent was usable. Although, she was bored of filming in her room already and prayed she wouldn't have to start over completely tomorrow.