Declaration (3)

"Why are you even hesitating? Is there a reason to hesitate?"

It was an offer the world would never make twice. He was handing a job this large, without a second thought, to the vocalist of a band that had never once proved itself.

Opportunity comes to everyone. Most people let it slip through their fingers. The ones the world calls successful are the ones who catch it.

Arthur was saying that this proposal, right now, was exactly that kind of naked chance.

When Tae-il failed to answer easily, Arthur thumped his own chest in frustration and pressed him again.

"The chance to sing the title theme of a blockbuster game that has no choice but to succeed worldwide. The best chance an unknown band that hasn't even debuted will ever get to become famous. Isn't it? Well?"

Arthur had sprinted down the road to success from the day he was born, and his instinct for seizing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an opportunity was sharper than anyone's. That was why he could not, for the life of him, understand why Tae-il was hesitating.

"Taichi. No—Shin Tae-il. Do you still not know how many bands disappear in this business?"

"I know."

"Then why is a guy who knows that still sitting here agonizing?"

Arthur had seen it. People who were glossy on the outside, just like him, stepping into a band because they wanted a little popularity, only to ruin themselves completely and vanish.

Arthur had seen it. People more desperate and wretched about music than anyone, staking everything they had, burning their bodies up inside a band, and ending in wreckage.

Arthur had seen it. The fate of cheap bands with nothing extraordinary to them, pulling nationwide fame on the skill of a single frontman.

Arthur had seen it. The small, retreating backs of people who had talent and still gave up in the end and left the industry, because their circumstances never caught up with them.

"I'm telling you, this is an opportunity."

Without realizing it, Arthur put strength into his hand and pressed down hard on Tae-il's shoulder.

"I don't say this kind of crap to other people. You know that."

Just as Arthur said. Tae-il knew Arthur hated men to death, and that no matter how gifted someone was, no matter what ability they had, he would never try to get close if they were male. He also knew that the only time Arthur handed anyone an opportunity was when that someone was a pretty woman.

"I'm going this far because it's you."

"And?"

"And because it's that vocalist you found."

Arthur played Tales Tale's Autumn Love Song.

"Listen."

Tae-il blinked. A song he had heard well over a hundred times—so familiar it had gone stale—poured cleanly into his ears.

Strange. He had been in a foul mood the whole time. And yet, listening to Iris sing like this, the discomfort eased, if only a little. The highlight especially, where she belted a high note wide open and clean, punched straight through the tightness in his chest.

"Fine. I'll admit it. You're right. This high school girl is, just like you said, material that becomes the best in Japan."

Seeing no sign that Tae-il meant to agree, Arthur took a step back to soothe him. One step back, for the sake of two steps forward.

"For a high school girl who's never even had professional vocal training, that singing is absurd. Her fundamentals are a little short, but the technique is already complete. Polish her just a bit and she'll shine brilliantly on her own. The finest talent there is. I'll be blunt—I've never seen a monster like this in my life."

A monster even Arthur had never seen. A being born to be a singer, a songstress dropped straight out of the sky.

Ah.

Under Arthur's repeated praise, Tae-il remembered the stature of the original Iris. She had always caught the eye with her looks first, but the moment people actually heard her sing, everyone in the industry had praise to spare. Everyone watched her. Not long after a star that might have become a songstress had fallen, they said, a successor appeared to follow her. That BARD would rise again… no. That a band perhaps greater than BARD might be born.

Of course, it had never actually succeeded on that scale. The original had simply ended with its conclusion left open.

"You know."

Arthur's earnest whisper tickled Tae-il's ear.

"You and I crawled through live houses together. We've seen it more times than we can count."

As if to help the recollection along, a video titled Memory played across the monitor.

A band fights. A band breaks up. The reason is always one. They can't endure being poor anymore. They had run with the whole of their youth, and what remained was a heap of instruments stained with the oil of their hands—instruments they weren't even sure would fetch their worth if they sold them back.

It had been a band Tae-il especially loved. Every time they played live, he would wedge his small frame through the crowd and cheer for them from the very front. The reason was one. They resembled, so closely, the band made by the cousin who had led him into this world. Shin Seongil.

Again. A band he had longed for was torn to shreds, mercilessly, right before his eyes.

"You know it too. The reality of this business."

Through the hallucination shattering like glass, Arthur's voice slid in deep, like a snake.

Having talent—even talent so tremendous it cannot be hidden—does not mean you will rise. Not here. A big market means, at the same time, just as many competitors. Opportunity is not equal. Some people get lucky and blow up overnight. Others don't break through until they're men in their thirties, late to it. Sometimes the band has long since broken up and vanished, and then an old song suddenly surges backward up the charts and turns them into a one-hit wonder after the fact. A world where unscripted dramas go into production all the time.

"I said that if it were your band, you'd definitely make it. But remember. Whether that popularity lasts is a separate question."

Arthur warned him.

"I don't even know your band's color yet. You know why?"

He pointed at the song spilling from the speakers.

"Because all you've shown me is the kind of song anyone might sing. Youth, love—that's where it ends."

As a school band, it was excellent. You could see what they were aiming at, and you could dress it up all you liked with the word textbook. But that was all.

"I'll give you an opportunity. For your vocalist."

"An opportunity?"

"Yeah. You don't have to gamble. Why do you think every guy dreaming of being a male idol crams himself into that fucking Johnny's?"

Because if you go to Johnny's, you might not hit a jackpot, but you will absolutely bat average. For no other reason than that the company makes it so. It's fine if an idol never becomes an artist and never really shines. They chase a single goal—get famous—and so they plug you into every program the public can lay eyes on, from variety shows on through dramas and films. Aspiring idols understand, more deeply than anyone, that Johnny's is a road where success is guaranteed.

"All you have to do is lean on Rin, the same way I do."

Ogawa Rin. The woman they called the queen of subculture had, at first, been someone even Arthur found extremely tiresome. The only reason he had gone along with her proposal so obediently was a thoroughly vulgar one: he wanted to sleep with a woman more beautiful than most.

But as time passed, Arthur understood. With Ogawa Rin, you succeed. No strange man shows up out of nowhere, claims you seduced his girlfriend, and starts throwing punches. You don't have to deal with a woman who got pregnant even though you used a condom, clinging to you and demanding you take responsibility. You simply live however the mood takes you. Even if you run wild and raise hell, so long as you are with Ogawa Rin, the hell itself equals success, and everyone looks at you with envy and looks up at you as if you were something great. Your talent shines brighter than it ever has. Arthur only had to stop thinking and do whatever Rin told him to do.

She was generous about other women, too. Rin was a woman who knew how to handle Arthur even with a leash on him, while he still thrashed in every direction.

Arthur believed it. That Rin's business had the power, in this unreasonable world, to take the people born with talent and make them shine exactly as they ought to.

"How many utaite has Rin launched? Every last one of them is doing well on a major label right now! You know, don't you? How hard the bastards who got famous as utaite wipe out the second they actually debut with a major? How they pathetically sell the album they barely managed to scrape together to their fans for a while, then tuck their tails and crawl back to this scene! The utaite Rin raised didn't have any of that!"

Arthur was starting to get angry. He was persuading him this fervently because Tae-il was a younger guy he was fond of, and still there was no reaction. It irritated him.

How dare you?

Tae-il thought of his past life. Shin Younghoon. The look in Arthur's eyes was already an exact match for his father's—the look of a man who had written him off completely.

"You confident?"

Arthur started Tae-il's song again and jabbed a finger at him.

"You confident you can hold on to your popularity by mass-producing crap like this on the back of that one vocalist, copying yourself over and over?"

Copying himself. There was plenty he wanted to say. Say it, though, and he really would lose the last thread of reason and start an all-out fight, so Tae-il closed his eyes and shut his ears.

Arthur's voice, climbing higher and higher, reached him muffled, as if he were underwater. Sunk inside a world of his own, Tae-il let out a breath.

"Haa."

There was not a single wrong word in Arthur's proposal. If you looked only at the opportunity, it was true. Someday, when Iris's value had risen, the booking fee they'd been beaten down on might sting—but if you approached it by what made sense, going along was the correct call. Famous bands didn't collaborate all over the place and put songs out for nothing. Even BARD had more than ten tracks made in collaboration with anime. Collaboration exerted an enormous influence on a band's popularity, and Arthur's proposal was, without question, an opportunity.

"Then why am I agonizing over something like this?"

Tae-il asked it of himself.

"This isn't just an opportunity for me. It's one for Iris, too."

In the original, Iris had thrown away everything she gained from her family and run away from home. Just like Shoko. She had fled with nothing but the clothes on her back, taken her mother's surname, and begun an entirely new life. If the collaboration Arthur was proposing succeeded, it could have drawn that moment closer, and more gently.

Tae-il realized the key was closed in his hand. A fork lay in front of him.

One path was to lead the members the way the original had, following the orthodox course of a shonen manga. It was also the line Tales Tale had been aiming for all along.

The other was to accept Arthur's proposal now, move Iris's personal debut forward, and build a fandom ahead of time.

The first had the romance of it. Weighed by reality and efficiency, the second was best.

So why? His reason kept shouting that the latter was best, and still his heart howled, over and over, that the former was right. It was, purely, the realm of feeling rather than logic.

First, identify the cause. Humans are wise animals. It ought to be possible.

Tae-il decided to start by taking apart this stifling emotion that had been souring his chest for a while now.

"What even is this feeling?"

Even Tae-il, who was relatively good at reading his own emotions, couldn't get a hold of it. Something dark and grimy, and at the same time vast and blank.

"First…"

He thought, very hard, of Iris accepting Arthur's proposal and debuting with a song someone else had written.

Fortunately, he had a guess about the game Arthur had called a blockbuster. It was a game mentioned in the original. Just as Arthur said, it became famous across the world, and its title song pulled in tremendous popularity as well. The reason the game came up was simple. The vocalist who sang the title track appears, proudly, as a nasty-tempered rival.

"Iris is better than her, obviously…"

Tae-il let out a short breath of a laugh. That vocalist had outstanding talent too, but she was a woman who, like Arthur, was thoroughly unpleasant from start to finish.

Before he knew it, Tae-il was following her path. The game succeeds, and thanks to it the vocalist becomes a star overnight. She is called to every game event there is, sings, shows off her live ability, and cements her position. Get famous once, and work comes in on its own, and the zeros stacking up in the bank account only multiply.

Then the vocalist thinks:

Do I really need to cling to a band? I'm already this famous. I've already succeeded this much.

Producing everything herself is annoying enough to kill her. When she thinks of having to split even the money she earned, and of that money going straight back into preparing a band album, her temper flares, and in the end she declares the band dissolved. Rather than band work with no clear future, dragging on and on, she chooses the road of a solo singer under a major corporation's production, and from then on she only rises. Just like the era when Tetsuya Komuro ran wild, closing and opening his fist around the Japanese music industry.

A manufactured idol. And standing in that exact place, in the unpleasant rival's stead, was Iris.

"Ah."

His palm hurt. He looked down. His nails had dug into the skin, and blood was running.

"Blood…?"

He opened the hand he had clenched until it went numb, and the nail marks stood out clear on his palm. Tae-il understood. Without realizing it, he had squeezed hard enough to draw blood.

Why? Because he couldn't stand the thought of Iris leaving the band and going independent?

"Iris would never do that."

Iris and that vocalist were different from the personality up. The Iris he knew had dreamed, more than anyone, of succeeding as a band, looking up to BARD's Izumi. Of course she would choose the band over herself.

And yet. The more he imagined it, the harder his hands shook.

Onstage. Not a single other member of Tales Tale—Iris alone, singing. A presence so overwhelming as a singer that she crushes the whole room. She can do it by herself. The sight of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Iris succeeding alone, the one Tae-il had secretly pictured all along, reflected clean in his eyes.

The song she was singing was not a song he had made.

His molars ground together before he knew it.

Next. Unfamiliar people appear around Iris. He can't see their faces. The crowd surrounding her looks, at a glance, as if it might be men, and as if it might be women. One thing is certain. Iris laughs with them, talks with them happily, and holds a deep conversation about music.

And in that place, too, Tae-il realized he was absent.

Below the stage. The way he used to admire a singer he had loved in his past life, only ever through a monitor. He saw himself looking at Iris not as a friend or a colleague, but as a fan—from the seat of the audience.

Truly pathetic. A miserable life no different from the one before.

Rage surged. Anger at his pathetic self climbed past anything he could hold and wrapped him in flame.

Above all, the thing that made him angriest was this. Having her debut song taken. Even if her first activities failed, he wanted that debut song to be his. No matter what. Arthur was stealing that glorious chance.

And after that? What got taken might be Iris herself. Tae-il knew how the people in this industry saw her—what an attractive piece of fruit she looked like to them.

Even if it killed him. No—even if the band went under, he did not want her taken. Because Iris was—

Mine.

Because she belonged to him, and to no one else. Because she was his vocalist. Because they had met across time and space so that she could sing his songs.

Tae-il raised his head.

"Kick this offer aside like that, and you really are going to regret it later."

His deadened hearing came back. His shoulder throbbed from how hard Arthur had been gripping it. Tae-il peeled the hand off.

"Shin Tae-il?"

Arthur looked at him, puzzled. He was smiling.

Tae-il shot up from his seat and yanked the precious USB out of the tower.

"Hey—wait. You mad because I ran my mouth too hard?"

"No?"

Tae-il smiled and rubbed his stiff shoulder. A faint smile crossed Arthur's face.

"Yeah? Good. Anyway, sorry for running my mouth. Honestly, I know you've got other songs ready. But…"

"I don't want to."

"What?"

Arthur asked again, wondering if he had misheard. At the blank look on his face, Tae-il let out a soft, breathy laugh and wiped the blood on his palm off against Arthur's cheek.

Arthur recoiled.

"Are you—are you insane…! Hey, what the hell is this…!"

"I'll be declining the offer."

"What?"

Arthur went dumb at the answer.

"I said I'm declining."

"Why?"

"Just because."

"Do you actually think that makes any sense right now?"

"Why wouldn't it?"

The counter left Arthur speechless. Why wouldn't it? If he didn't want it because he didn't want it, was some other reason required?

Arthur let out a dry laugh.

"Ahaha. I get it. Hey, you're sulking, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠aren't you? A guy, getting petty because I swore a little just now… huh?"

Even under the jab, Tae-il was still smiling. Arthur blinked.

"You really don't want it? Last chance."

"I don't."

Tae-il said it flat. His expression and his tone were perfectly calm. There was not a trace of sulking, not a trace of anger. Look closely, though, and his eyes were slightly unfocused, the way someone's are when they're worked up.

"You…"

Arthur wiped the sticky smear of blood on his cheek with his thumb. His gaze dropped. Blood had beaded across Tae-il's fist. Arthur cooled himself down, and then he asked himself the question.

Was this really something to get that angry about, kid…?

Sobered, he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. The air turned awkward all at once.

Tae-il apologized.

"I'm sorry."

"For getting blood on my face? Well, I can let that much go and call it a joke…"

"No, not that. I'm not sorry about that at all."

"You little—?"

"I mean Ginza. Today."

"Ginza?"

Only then did Arthur check the clock. It was time for Rin to arrive.

"We reserved it for three, right? Honestly, I set it up to mess with you. And I feel a little bad, so I'll just drop out."

"What? No, hey, wai—!"

"Excuse me. I'll be going first?"

Tae-il breezed straight past him as Arthur grabbed for his sleeve.

"Hey! If you drop out of that all of a sudden today…!"

That place in Ginza prepared only as many ingredients as had been reserved three days ahead, so a cancellation was not something you could make on a whim.

"My thirty thousand yen…!"

Looking at nothing but money down the drain, Arthur bolted for the entryway to catch him. But he couldn't.

"Arthur?"

Tae-il was already nowhere in the entryway. All that stood there was Rin, dressed up more beautifully than she had ever been.

"Rin!? You look incredibly pretty today—no, that's not it! Tae-il… no, no, no! Taichi! Where did that guy go!?"

"Taichi? He just ran off saying he was sorry, and that the two of us ought to enjoy a nice intimate evening."

"Damn it!"

Arthur blew past Rin and sprinted down the corridor. The elevator. But Tae-il had already taken the one Rin came up on, all the way down to the first floor.

Stamping where he stood, Arthur turned back and looked out over the railing. He could see the top of Tae-il's head.

"You piece of trash…!"

What came out of Arthur's mouth was a rich, full-bodied Korean curse. Tae-il stopped walking. Arthur shouted.

"How could you do this to me! I don't care how angry you are! Why were you even angry in the first place!"

At the appeal, sincere as it was, Tae-il raised his right hand.

"His right hand…?"

A second later, from the fist, he lifted a single middle finger high.

"That little bastard, I swear…!"

Tae-il answered the shout with the finger.

"Ha. Fuck…"

Rin greeted Arthur as he trudged back into the room.

"Oh my? Why are you suddenly swearing?"

"Ah, sorry…"

When she smiled, just a little, Arthur roughly mussed his own hair.

"What happened? Can you tell me?"

"So, the thing is…"

Forcing the anger down, he quietly explained what had passed between him and Tae-il today. Rin, who had started out listening with a smile, gradually turned grim. By the end she too had her head lowered, a hand pressed to her brow.

"Hey."

"Yes…"

At the sound of her voice, dropped low, Arthur folded on the spot.

"Haa."

When she sighed, he flinched. Rin fixed a steady stare on him—on Arthur, watching her face like a scolded dog—with an expression that found the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠whole of him pathetic.

"Who on earth raised you…? This hopeless, mannerless mutt of ours…"

"Who raised me. You're the one who raised me, Rin, you—"

"Shut up."

"Yes."

Once his mouth was shut, Rin took out her phone and sent Tae-il a message, with an apology of sorts folded into it. Of course, even she couldn't promise he would simply accept it.

"I told you, didn't I? If nothing else, learn to read the room when you're dealing with people."

"Is this really something to get that angry about?"

"It is. Did you ask what those two are to each other?"

"No?"

At the breezy answer, still blind to how serious this was, Rin shook her head.

"What were you planning to do if they're dating?"

"So what. I'm only borrowing her for a bit."

"That tone is exactly—haa. Forget it."

"And I don't think they're dating."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. I mean, that Taichi…"

"He's got a childhood friend."

At the answer, Rin blinked.

"A childhood friend?"

"Yeah. Cute, even by my standards. But she gave off a vibe kind of like the girl who tried to stab me with a knife way back, so it was a little…?"

As he laughed awkwardly and launched into the old war story, Rin asked about a question that had just occurred to her.

"How do you know his childhood friend?"

"What do you mean, how do I know?"

"Whatever else he is, Taichi doesn't really talk about his private life. Even if he said he had a childhood friend, he wouldn't have shown you her face…"

"Oh. There was a group artist photo on the USB with the songs. She was in it."

"Was she?"

"Everyone but him was a beautiful girl. Damn, and talented besides. Figures, for a little incubus drifting through the live houses."

"Hm?"

Rin dug at her ear, thinking she had misheard.

"What did you just say, Arthur?"

"Hm? That he's talented."

"No, not that. The thing right before it."

"That they were all beautiful girls…?"

"Right. That. He's the only man in the band…?"

"Yeah. Looked like it."

Arthur asked it back as if to say, how important could that possibly be. Rin drew her brows together.

"Taichi. Is he in the producer seat, or is he a member?"

"I didn't ask, so I don't really…"

"…"

Rin bit down hard on her thumb.

"Um, Rin…?"

When he started reading her mood, she sighed.

"Haa. This is a mess."

"What is?"

"If their vocalist is as incredible as you say…"

"If she's incredible?"

"There might be trouble with the big project our company's involved in this time…"

"A big project?"

It was the first Arthur had heard of the company preparing anything. He tilted his head, then leaned forward.

"What is it. Tell me in detail."

"Well…"

"Tss."

His palm stung. The nails seemed to have sunk in deeper than he had thought. At a drinking fountain in the park he roughly washed the blood off his hand, stopped the bleeding, and immediately took out his phone and called.

It rang. After a short tone, the other person picked up.

While Tae-il sat on a park bench and waited, a message arrived from Rin.

Tae-il closed the phone just like that. It buzzed again and again, but he made a point of ignoring it, and then a horn blared behind him.

He turned his head. A woman stood there in a razor-sharp black suit. The one true sunglasses woman of this age: Kiriko.

"You got here awfully fast."

"As it happens, I was nearby…"

"Haha. Then I'll leave it to you."

"Even Taichi, the very yardstick of a conscience, is growing less and less restrained. A dangerous sign."

"Haha. Surely not."

"There is one thing I have come to understand while attending the young lady."

"What's that."

"It's the 'surely not' that gets people killed."

Out of consideration for her, Tae-il didn't argue the point any further.

The road was clear. Even in Japan, a limousine on the street seemed to be a rare sight. No one dared think of coming close. Thanks to that, he reached the café where Iris was waiting sooner than he had expected.

"We've arrived, Mr. Taichi."

"Thank you for the trouble."

"Heh. Trouble? It's all just the job."

When he opened the door and stepped out, Kiriko caught him.

"Um, Mr. Taichi."

"Yes?"

"Please… take good care of the young lady."

"Of course."

Tae-il smiled, shut the door, and headed for the café. Kiriko took off her sunglasses.

"You had better keep that promise."

Dark brown eyes followed his back as he went up into the café.

"Because I have a feeling something grave is about to happen to the family…"

There was a bitterness in Kiriko's voice that she did not show.

The door opened. The only person who would be coming was Tae-il, so Iris set her cup down and turned to greet him.

"You got here fas—eh?"

Before the hello could even finish, Tae-il had crossed the distance in a few long strides and pulled her straight into his arms. Caught against him all at once, Iris went blank, and color climbed into her face.

"H-hey, Shin Tae-il…?"

"Just a second."

Iris's eyes went wide. His voice was slightly hoarse, as if he had cried on the way.

"Let me stay like this. Just for a minute."

"O-okay…"

She wanted to ask what had happened, but one look told her he would hate being pressed, so the two of them simply stayed quiet. Sensing that something had, she stole a glance at him, then quietly patted his back.

Why are you still exactly the same as when I met you on the roof?

She smiled bitterly. He was taller now. And yet the way he acted was still that unreliable boy she had seen a few months ago.

"I'm sorry."

The apology came out of nowhere.

"Why are you apologizing all of a sudden? Did you do something to me?"

"I couldn't find an engineer."

"Hmm."

So there had been something to today's appointment after all. Looking at Tae-il like this—the same Tae-il who had boasted he would come back with an engineer, now shrunk in on himself—she found him cute all over again.

Wait. Shouldn't this be pathetic to look at?

She didn't know. Iris shook her head and smoothed a gentle hand down his back.

"Well, but is that something you need to apologize to me for?"

"The album's going to be late…"

Iris was startled. He looked as if he were carrying an enormous guilt over the delay, the way a parent feels catching a child secretly eating snacks. Before she knew it, she was giggling under her breath.

"But so what? It doesn't really matter if we're a little late, does it?"

"It doesn't matter…?"

Certainly, if the album ran late, she would get anxious too. But.

"We still haven't done any busking, right?"

"Yeah."

"And the Cultural Festival hasn't even started, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well then, it doesn't matter, does it? Even if the album work runs a little late. The other songs aren't finished yet either. Right?"

"…"

She could already guess his excuse would have run a mile, and she smiled wryly.

"Shin Tae-il. Are you anxious right now?"

"…A little."

"A little?"

"…A lot of a little."

Unable to lift his head, Tae-il rubbed his cheek against her hair. Iris patted his back. In her eyes, he looked like he needed something a little stronger than ordinary comfort. What words would lift him the most? She chose them carefully.

"Hey, Shin Tae-il. Who am I?"

"Iris."

"No. Not that."

"Arisugawa Iris…"

"Get off the name."

"Tales Tale's vocalist."

"Deeper. Really deep."

"…"

Tae-il hesitated over the answer. Iris waited with patience, an arm around his back, for whatever came next.

"You said it here that time, too, didn't you?"

At the murmur, threaded with laughter, his shoulders drew in.

"My…"

"My?"

"My vocalist. Mine alone…"

The corner of Iris's mouth crooked up into a grin.

"The only person in the world who will sing the songs I write."

Iris pulled him in hard.

"Correct."

And then she let him go. Tae-il followed her hands without resistance, loosened the hug, and faced her. His eyes, bloodshot red, met hers—ruby eyes that had always shone red and clear, bright as gemstone. At that ridiculous face, Iris covered her mouth and laughed.

"Did that move you to tears?"

"No…"

"Really? And here I thought that was my secret finishing move."

His vision blurred. Seeing his eyes well up, Iris quietly drew him in again and patted his hunched back in quick, light beats.

"Don't go pushing yourself all on your own, idiot."

"I'm the leader…"

"That's why you should lean on us even more."

"…Is that what a leader does?"

"For Shin Tae-il, yes. Isn't it?"

"…"

Instead of talking back, Shin Tae-il answered by carefully pulling her in tight. Then he buried his face against the nape of her neck.

"Hey, Iris."

"I'm listening."

"I'm going to make you a success. No matter what."

"Mm. I'll be looking forward to it."

"I'll make you the most famous in Japan… in the world."

"Hm. That's such a huge goal, I think I won't get my hopes up?"

"I'll make it so you can sing however you want. Freely."

"Oh. That one might actually be a little moving?"

"I won't let go of you. Not for the rest of my life."

"Huh?"

At a vow that sounded like a confession, Iris faltered. Heat rushed into her face.

"Never. No matter what anyone says, I won't let you go."

"U-um, excuse me…?"

"For life."

The hold tightened.

"Mr. Shin Tae-il…? Are you listening?"

"…"

This was a confession. Anyone looking at it would have said so.

It is a confession, right? For real?

Faced with a sudden turn she had never once imagined, Iris's thoughts came to a dead stop.