Prologue

“What are you thinking of?” Chaeyeon asked Sakura as she watched the Japanese girl stare off into space.

Sakura blinked out of her reverie at Chaeyeon’s question. She had to look around herself to remember where she was. She blushed as the other girl’s question sunk in. “Oh, nothing much. I was kind of day dreaming.”

“About what?” Chaeyeon could see Sakura’s flustered reaction to her question, which made her extremely curious.

Sakura gave a Chaeyeon a nervous look before deciding that her best friend would not judge her too terribly. “I was kind of thinking about what my life would be like if I weren’t an idol.”

“Oh, I get what you mean. You told me once that you thought you might become a doctor. Were you thinking that you might be a med student right now?” Chaeyeon had been amazed when her friend had told her the kind of grades she used to get in high school.

“Yeah, I sometimes fantasize about that as well. My imagination tends to run pretty wild though and usually everyone around me gets dragged into it. This time I was day dreaming about the all of us being in the same high school,” Sakura giggled as she looked around them to see if any of their other members were around. Fortunately, it was only her and Chaeyeon.

“How would that work? Eunbi Unnie is like nine years older than Wonyoung. And not all of us can speak Japanese well enough to go to a Japanese high school.” Chaeyeon raised an eyebrow at the absurd scenario that Sakura was imagining herself in.

“Well, I don’t really think too deeply about that. Eunbi Unnie would probably be about the age of a third-year high school student while Wonyoung would be the age of a first-year high school student. And you all speak perfect Japanese of course in my school and probably even live in Japan if you get down to it. But all of that doesn’t really matter to me. Everything kind of just works out in my head so that everyone can fit in the narrative.” Sakura felt strange to be defending her private fantasy, but now that she was talking about it, she felt protective of it. “It’s called suspension of disbelief.”

“I see,” Chaeyeon said, even though she didn’t really see at all. “What brought this on? Are you regretting becoming an idol?”

“No, never,” Sakura denied. “You know that game that we’re in? I kind of like to think about what other games we could appear in. I was thinking our next game could be like a visual novel type game. In games, the scenario can be as wacky as you want. I could even be a guy for example.”

“Are you a guy in this one?” Chaeyeon laughed as she asked the absurd question.

“I was initially, but then I switched back to a girl. It’s hard to imagine what a guy really thinks like sometimes,” Sakura answered truthfully.

“So, I’m in this fantasy scenario then? What am I like?” Chaeyeon was getting interested in the alternate scenario her friend had thought up.

“Well, I guess I can tell you about it. If you think it’s good, maybe you can help me convince the managers to make this the next game.” Sakura organized her thoughts, thinking about how best to tell her story. “I guess we should start at the beginning where our protagonist, Miyawaki Sakura, just entered her second year of high school and is hoping for a fresh start to the year since she didn’t make any same aged friends the year before...”