I Drink Every Night With a Lookalike of a Popular Idol on the Riverbank
My conversation with Nanase-san continued quietly and aimlessly, as usual. We’d gathered a little earlier than dusk to beat the cold, and on the field a short distance away, young baseball players were desperately chasing a white ball.
“Kids… why are they so full of energy?”
“Yeah. More than physical stamina, maybe it’s because they haven’t gotten bored with all the things in the world yet?”
Nanase-san’s perspective was sharp as ever today.
“Hey, what kind of kid were you, Yosuke?”
“Me? I was pretty ordinary. See?”
I pulled out my smartphone and dug deep into my photo folder to find some nostalgic images. The first one was my photo. There I was, five years old, stiffly dressed in unfamiliar formal wear, clutching a thousand-year candy, looking tense.
“Wow, Yosuke’s face is frozen stiff.”
“Right? The photographer didn’t make me laugh at all.”
The second was from elementary school sports day. Me, clutching the baton with a desperate look on my face, running the corner in the class relay race.
“Heh, your legs look slow.”
“How rude! I was the anchor leg back then, you know!?”
“Whoa, that’s awesome.”
A shot from the beach during a family trip, one taken with friends on graduation day. My smartphone screen displayed one after another: ordinary, commonplace, yet warm fragments of memories that everyone experiences. Nanase-san looked at each one, truly enjoying them, and yet, somewhere in her gaze, there was a hint of envy.
“How nice. Yosuke’s childhood was so… normal.”
“Is that a compliment!?”
“Well, this is definitely the highest praise I can give.”
From the way Nanase-san said it, it didn’t seem like a lie.
“Oh, I see… Then, it’s your turn, Nanase-san.”
When I said that, her expression suddenly clouded over.
“I don’t really have many photos. You see… I’ve never been good at having my picture taken.”
“Just one. I’d like to see it.”
Prompted by me, she hesitated slightly before starting to operate her smartphone. Her finger slid across the screen repeatedly, then stopped. There really were hardly any photos she could show me.
“Ah…”
It was then. Her finger suddenly tapped a single photo, and it filled the screen.
“Fufu. A photo from my trainee days. Nostalgic, huh?”
There, looking much younger than now, was Nanase-san, around ten years old. Her eyes were big and round, making her an overwhelmingly beautiful girl who made everything around her seem like a supporting role.
She wore simple clothes—a plain T-shirt and sweatpants, like lesson attire. The background was just a white studio wall.
But what caught the eye most was a single plate pinned to her chest. In stark, inorganic Gothic letters, it bore the number ‘128’.
Her eyes held tension, anxiety, and above all, a fierce light of determination.
I instantly understood this was an audition photo.
This was from the time she was aiming for that world—idol, singer, something like that.
And simultaneously, every piece that had been stuck in my mind all this time clicked into place, completing the picture.
She had been aiming for it. The same dazzling world as Yunagi Nagi
If there was a reason that separated the fates of two people whose looks and skills weren’t vastly different, I could think of nothing but luck.
Which meant, in other words—
“I see! So Nanase-san also aimed to be an idol back then. That’s why she’s so good at dancing and singing…! It all makes sense now! Her singing and dancing, which put the real idol to shame, are all thanks to Nanase-san’s hard work!”
Though I didn’t say it aloud, I realized that the person who once claimed to be a Yunagi hater might have been driven by jealousy, born from aiming for the same place.
The painfully bittersweet “truth” I’d arrived at within myself. I told her, with the utmost respect and sympathy.
Nanase-san stared back at my face with eyes that seemed to see something unbelievable. Those eyes quickly filled with moisture. Surely, the memories of her abandoned dream had resurfaced.
Then, she grinned as she always did.
“Hehe, you got it. You’re a detective right up there with Kogoro Mouri!”
“Th-that’s embarrassing…”
“Ahh, Yosuke’s theories never get old, do they?”
Nanase said this with a knowing chuckle, hiding something, maintaining her usual distance of two cans of canned chu-hi, occasionally poking my face playfully.
Maiasa