Kakeru is a typical high school sophomore who is totally obsessed with the super popular Vtuber, Muna Hoshinova. But one day, he accidentally discovers that the new transfer student, Hazuki, is actually Muna in real life! Hazuki begs him to keep it a secret from everyone at school, making him her only confidant.
But keeping that secret is way too hard! His classmates Yuzuha and Akari keep pestering him because they know he's a Muna fan, and his childhood friend Sakura is getting suspicious of h
A Secret Kiss Behind the Stars - The Despair of the Cultural Festival and a Lone Cry
The gymnasium swayed and shuddered with heat.
On the third Saturday of October, the Aoba Festival was reaching its peak. The stage was flooded with lights that spilled over the audience, and the excited voices of the students swirled in a vortex.
"All right, the moment you've been waiting for! The Class 2-3 project, the Muna Hoshinova Look-Alike Imitation Contest, is starting now!!"
Her chestnut ponytail swinging, Yuzuha shouted out the emcee's introduction. Beside her, Akari was operating a laptop, and in the wings, classmates cosplaying as Muna waited with tense expressions.
At the back of the gymnasium, Aikawa Kakeru clenched his fists.
*(Please. Just let this end without incident.)*
His fingertips were cold. A cold, greasy sweat trickled down his back. The guys from the next class were jeering about something, but the words didn't reach his ears at all.
Where was Haduki?
He searched with his eyes alone. Stage left, in the wings. She was there, in the darkness. Head bowed, hands clasped tightly in front of her chest. Her purple eyes behind her fake glasses trembled, as if afraid of something.
*(It's okay. I'm with you.)*
That was all he could tell himself.
"Our first challenger is our class's rising star of hope! Haduki Tsukimiya, everyone!!"
Amid the uproar and applause, Haduki's shoulders flinched violently.
"...I... I really..."
Kakeru saw her lips form those words, clear as day. But Akari quietly pushed her from behind, and Haduki was half-forced to walk to the center of the stage.
The spotlight illuminated her. Her long black hair shimmered silver in the light.
"Whoa! She's got the vibe!"
"I wonder if her voice is similar?"
The audience buzzed.
In front of the microphone stand, Haduki stood frozen, like a bird with broken wings.
"Well then, shall we begin with the analysis?"
Akari's voice echoed coolly through the gymnasium. She operated her laptop, displaying some kind of application on the giant screen at the back of the stage. Two waveform lines were arranged there, cold and mechanical.
"This is the latest voice analysis software. Let's compare Haduki-san's voice, which we recorded beforehand, with the audio from Muna-sama's streaming archives."
Kakeru's heart leaped into his throat.
*(Voice analysis...?)*
There had been no explanation of this beforehand. Akari had prepared it on her own.
"Beginning analysis."
The two waveforms were overlaid on the screen. Blue for Haduki, red for Muna.
The entire gymnasium held its breath and watched.
They overlapped.
The two waveforms became one, perfectly aligned.
A number flashed boldly onto the screen.
**Waveform Match Rate: 98.7%**
—The gymnasium froze.
A moment of silence.
Then.
"WHOOOOA!! What's with that number?!"
"She really does sound like her!!"
"Sing! Sing!"
A deafening roar of cheers and applause erupted.
"Amazing! Haduki-san, your voice really is super similar to Muna-sama! Try doing an imitation!"
Yuzuha, with a beaming smile, slapped Haduki on the shoulder repeatedly.
Haduki was pale.
The blood had drained from her face, her lips trembling. Her fingers gripping the microphone were so tense they turned white.
"...I... I'm..."
Her voice wouldn't come out.
Only a hoarse breath escaped, and she couldn't move, as if paralyzed.
"Muna! Muna! Muna!"
Someone started a chant.
It spread in an instant, and the entire gymnasium began shouting her name like a single living creature.
"Muna! Muna! Muna!"
The innocent calls rained down on Haduki.
Like torture.
Tears welled up in Haduki's eyes.
*(Stop it.)*
Kakeru gritted his teeth.
*(Stop it. Don't push her any further.)*
He clenched his fists. His nails dug into his palms, drawing blood.
At that moment.
"Just stop it already!!"
From the front row of the audience, Sakura leaped out.
Her cherry-blossom-colored bob hair disheveled, she ran up onto the stage. Her upturned, dark brown eyes burned with anger and fear.
"She clearly doesn't want to! Why can't you understand something like that!?"
Sakura spread her arms wide, standing in front of Haduki to shield her.
"Hey, Sakura-chan, what are you saying? This is a cultural festival event, so cooperate!"
Yuzuha retorted with a sullen look.
"Cooperate...? Do you even understand the meaning of what you're doing!?"
"What do you mean, 'meaning'? I'm just trying to liven things up!"
Their argument on the stage grew more intense.
The crowd's voltage seemed to enjoy even their fight as part of the spectacle.
"Kakeru! Say something!!"
Sakura turned around and shouted.
Her face was a mess of tears.
The desperate look of his childhood friend.
Kakeru—couldn't move.
*(...What am I supposed to say?)*
His mind went completely blank.
He clenched his fists. He trembled. He gritted his teeth and bit his lip.
He tasted blood.
"Data does not lie."
Akari's voice echoed through the microphone.
She calmly pointed at the screen. Her words, which sounded like nothing but noise, further unified the chaotic venue.
"Please look at this waveform match. 98.7%. This is not a number that can be dismissed as coincidence. Tsukimiya-san, you are—"
At that moment.
Tears spilled from Haduki's eyes.
A glistening droplet burst in the spotlight.
She tried to run away.
She took a step toward the wings on trembling legs.
In that instant.
"STOOOOP!!"
Kakeru was screaming.
A roar so loud he couldn't control it, a shriek that felt like it would tear his throat apart.
Before he knew it, he was running.
He kicked over a chair, shoved past people's shoulders, and leaped onto the stage.
The sound of his shoe soles scraping the floor echoed strangely distant.
He snatched the microphone from Yuzuha's hand and hid Haduki behind his back.
"She's just a transfer student! Her voice just happens to sound like Muna's! I'll show you the proof!"
With trembling hands, he pulled out his smartphone.
His fingers, tapping the screen, wouldn't move properly from fear.
*(Please. Please, work.)*
The data he had prepared in advance.
Fake voice samples he had gathered from the depths of the internet—imitations of Muna's voice, cut and pasted from various sources, edited together.
Kakeru forced a connection to the speakers.
*SCREEEECH!*
Feedback.
A piercing sound echoed through the gymnasium, and the students all covered their ears at once.
"See! Look! The person behind Muna is someone else! This is the owner of that voice! You get it now!!"
Distorted audio played from the speakers.
It was clearly an amateur's voice imitation, different from Muna's voice.
Just a copy, with no skill or technique.
Anyone listening could tell it was fake.
—But.
"...What's with him?"
"Can't he read the room?"
"Yikes. That's seriously cringe."
The atmosphere in the audience changed completely.
The frenzy turned instantly into a collective cringe.
"Hey, Kakeru-kun, what are you doing...?"
Yuzuha stared at Kakeru with a bewildered expression.
There was no familiarity or camaraderie left in her eyes.
Just the look one gives a foreign object.
"It's just an audio malfunction."
Akari turned off the microphone.
*Click.*
Silence.
In the gymnasium where all sound had vanished, Kakeru stood frozen.
Only his ragged breathing echoed in his own ears.
"...Ngh."
Behind him, Haduki let out a sob.
She kept her head down, her shoulders trembling.
He looked around.
The faces of his classmates.
Yuzuha's bewilderment.
Akari's cold gaze.
Sakura's face, her mouth opening as if to say something, then closing.
Everyone in the audience was looking at Kakeru.
As if observing an insect in a test tube.
*(...It's over.)*
Kakeru understood.
He had protected Haduki's secret.
But in exchange, he had lost everything.
Trust, friendship, his place to belong—all of it.
"...Today's imitation contest will conclude here."
With Akari's declaration, the event came to an end.
As people dispersed in a buzz, Kakeru could do nothing but stand there, rooted to the spot.
————
Twilight.
Kakeru was in the schoolyard, where the heat of the cultural festival had cooled as if it had been a lie.
There were only a few people around.
Most of the students were getting excited for the after-party.
Cheerful music could be heard in the distance.
"Aikawa is seriously annoying."
"Why did he do that? Is he an attention whore or something?"
"I mean, he totally can't read the room. Makes me never want to talk to him again."
The voices of passing students stabbed into him like thorns.
Insults loud enough to be sure he heard.
Kakeru kept his head down and moved his feet.
Near the school gate, trash cans were lined up.
They were overflowing with garbage carelessly discarded from the festival.
—Among it all.
A Muna Hoshinova fan was stuck in, upright.
The printed smile was smeared with mud.
The avatar, themed after the moon and stars, was buried in trash and no longer visible.
Kakeru reached out his hand.
He picked up the soiled fan.
"...This was the right thing to do."
His voice trembled.
Nothing was right at all.
The only thing he'd protected was a secret; everything else was shattered to pieces.
*(But that's fine.)*
Kakeru gripped the fan tightly.
The paper crumpled with a crunch.
*(If Haduki can smile, then that's enough.)*
No tears came.
Maybe he had already cried them all out.
All that remained was an emptiness, a hollow hole gaping in the center of his chest.
The wind blew.
"—Kakeru!"
A voice called from above.
Kakeru looked up.
The rooftop.
Leaning over the fence, Sakura was shouting.
Backlit by the setting sun, her cherry-blossom hair blazed brilliantly.
"I'm sorry...!! If I... if I hadn't done that...!!"
Sakura's voice was drenched and broken with tears.
She covered her face with both hands, crying, her shoulders shaking.
In her right hand, she was clutching something.
A small USB memory stick, glinting silver.
That was—.
"I... gave that data to Akari-san..."
The rest of her words were swallowed by sobs.
Something creaked deep in Kakeru's chest.
*(Sakura did...?)*
But the words that followed dissolved into her tears.
The sound of crying from the rooftop was absorbed into the sunset sky.
Night was about to fall on the town of Minase.
Clutching the broken fan, Kakeru couldn't move.
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