Ruby Hoshino's POV
"Miyako... Brother is becoming more and more like a riajuu these days, and less of an edgelord." I couldn't help but complain, the words dripping with bitter frustration as I watched my twin brother get absolutely swarmed by girls on that ridiculous dating show.
He was surrounded—literally surrounded—and he was acting completely different from the brooding, intense version of himself I knew.
The brother who lurked in shadows and muttered dark observations about human nature was now... smiling.
At cameras. At girls. It was unsettling.
"Hmm... That's rude to say, Ruby." Miyako's voice carried that familiar sternness, the one she used when we were stepping out of line. "How can you call him an edgelord? He's just intense sometimes. And quiet. There's nothing wrong with that."
We were both glued to the television, watching We're About to Fall in Love for Real unfold in all its cringe-inducing glory.
Every few minutes, one of us would physically wince at something on screen—some over-the-top confession, some painfully staged romantic gesture, some bit of emotional pollution being broadcast directly into millions of homes.
"Humph." I crossed my arms tighter. "Just look at this, Miyako. Just look." If I'd known this would happen, I never would have let my brother participate in there. Never. Not in a million years.
I shoved my phone toward her face, my thumb furiously scrolling through social media comments. Thread after thread. Post after post. All of them obsessed with my twin brother's so-called "love life."
"Aqua-kun is literally living every guy's dream."
"The harem king has arrived. Bow before him."
"Look at Yuki's face when Mem-cho touches his arm. She's gonna MURDER her. I'm serious. That's a kill shot."
"Akane is so cute when she's confused. Protect her at all costs. She's a precious cinnamon roll."
"Aqua X Yuki endgame. I will accept nothing less. Nothing."
"No, Aqua X Mem-cho forever! Team Mem-cho rise up!"
"You're all wrong. It's obviously Aqua X Akane. The quiet ones always win. Always. It's basic romance logic."
"Can we talk about how Aqua handled that cookie moment? King behavior."
"Yuki's bento vs Mem-cho's cookies vs Akane's confusion. The real competition."
Comment after comment after comment. The same basic arguments, repeated in different fonts and different levels of grammatical coherence. All of them claiming pieces of my brother. Dividing him up like he was some kind of prize to be won.
My stomach twisted into knots I couldn't untangle.
I shouldn't be bothered by this.
I know I shouldn't be bothered by this.
But I was.
I was bothered.
And I didn't know why.
Was this... possessiveness? Was this what it felt like, watching the person who'd been your other half since birth suddenly being pulled in a dozen different directions by strangers? By girls who didn't know him, didn't understand him, didn't share a womb with him?
Miyako, ever the voice of patience and reason, set down her tea and fixed me with that calm, knowing look she'd perfected over years of managing chaotic children. "Ruby. They're just acting. That's all it is—acting."
I opened my mouth to argue, but she kept going.
"If it were genuine—if any of those feelings were real—we'd be seeing scandals by now. That's how these things work. A beautiful woman and a handsome man in close proximity? The public expects them to lose control."
"They expect pregnancies, disappearances, year-long hiatuses while someone hides from the tabloids. But look closely, Ruby." She gestured at the screen. "No one's pregnant. No one's hiding. No one's disappeared. That's how you tell the difference between genuine chemistry and manufactured content. The real thing leaves evidence. This? This is just... smoke."
The tight knot in my chest loosened, just a fraction.
"I know that, Miyako." I said it quickly, defensively. Too quickly. "Of course I know that. I would despise him if he actually impregnated any of them. I don't want him to be like our father." The words came out sharper than I intended. "I don't want another deadbeat dad in the family. One was enough."
The mention of him—of that man—hung in the air between us. Unspoken history. Unspoken pain.
Miyako's voice was firm, absolute. "He will not become that. Aqua is not his father."
"I believe that." And I did. I truly did. "But if he does..." I let the sentence trail off, my gaze darkening as it fixed on the television screen. On my brother's face, smiling at someone who wasn't me. "If he does, I'll punish him myself."
The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken things.
Then I took a breath. A deep one. And I let the words I'd been holding in for weeks finally spill out.
"Miyako." My voice was different now. Softer, but more determined. "I can't just let my brother have all the spotlight. I can't just watch from the sidelines while he becomes... this. While everyone talks about him. I want to stand on that stage too. I want to chase the dream I had before everything fell apart. Before... you know. Before."
I turned to face her fully, my eyes burning with something that felt a lot like desperation and hope mixed together.
"Please, Miyaemon. I want to become an idol."
...
Third Person POV
We're About to Fall in Love for Real—the dating show that had consumed the internet's collective attention for weeks—finally approached its climactic end.
The breakdown that should have happened. The near-suicide that haunted another timeline. None of it touched Akane Kurokawa here. Not with Aquamarine Hoshino's timely intervention, not with the quiet support he'd offered when she needed it most.
She had found her place in the show, awkward as she was, stumbling as she did. The audience had accepted her.
Not loved her, not yet—but accepted. In the comment sections, in the fan polls, in the endless CP wars that raged across social media, she had a presence now.
Small, but real.
The war between the three girls continued unabated. Every episode brought new battlegrounds.
Every glance, every gesture, every accidental touch was dissected by thousands of viewers who had invested far too much emotional energy in their love war.
Everyone was watching. Everyone was waiting to see who would win.
Meanwhile, off to the side, Nobuyuki and Kengo continued their stable, unbothered existence.
Their fanbase, the infamous "rotten girls" of the internet, had long since accepted that their boys weren't going to win any romantic competitions—and they were perfectly fine with that.
They had each other. That was enough. The AO3 tags grew daily.
But the cameras weren't focused on them today.
Today, the focus was entirely on the crowned king of this harem drama, the man at the center of the storm: Aquamarine Hoshino.
He stood—or rather, sat—at the center of everything, surrounded by three beautiful young women who had spent weeks vying for his manufactured affection.
They had brought him food. They had brought him gifts. They had smiled their most beautiful smiles, cried their most beautiful tears, and showcased every angle of themselves that might possibly make him choose them.
The internet was already screaming.
"MEM-CHO SUPREMACY" trended briefly before being drowned out by "YUKI ENDGAME OR WE RIOT."
The Akane supporters were quieter, fewer in number, but they were passionate.
They had crafted manifestos. They had made timelines. They had noticed every small moment where Aqua's eyes lingered on her just a second too long.
The polls told a story: Mem-cho led by a significant margin. Her YouTube fanbase was loyal, organized, and loud.
Yuki Sumi lagged behind, but not by much—her modeling career had given her a different kind of reach, a different kind of audience.
Akane was last, trailing by numbers that looked insurmountable on paper.
But numbers weren't everything. Numbers didn't account for the quiet ones, the ones who didn't comment but still voted.
"Aqua-kun." Mem-cho's voice cut through the tension, playful but with an edge that suggested she knew exactly what was at stake. "Who do you choose?"
Three pairs of eyes locked onto him.
Expectant. Hopeful. Terrified beneath the surface.
Aqua closed his eyes calmly.
Well, came the voice in his mind—milky, amused, impossible to ignore.
Tsukuyomi.
The Crow Goddess.
"If you choose Mem-cho, it's predictable. Too much favor toward traffic and audience numbers. Anyone who digs deeper will feel the fabrication. They'll know it's fake."
She was right. Of course she was right.
Aqua had never been someone who simply pleased the audience. He defied expectations. That was his nature, his instinct, his brand.
If he chose Mem-cho—the frontrunner, the obvious favorite—no one would remember this scene in a year. It would fade into the endless graveyard of predictable reality TV endings.
Forgotten.
Irrelevant.
The only thing that made people remember was the bittersweet. The unexpected. The moment that etched itself into their hearts and lingered there, haunting them for as long as they lived.
He opened his eyes.
His gaze shifted.
Past Mem-cho's confident smile.
Past Akane's nervous fidgeting.
It settled on Yuki Sumi, and he knew—knew—the answer that had been forming in his chest for weeks.
"Yuki..."
Her name hung in the air like smoke.
Yuki Sumi's expression flickered.
For a moment, hope blazed in her eyes—hope so bright it was almost painful to witness.
Then, just as quickly, it dimmed.
She saw something in his gaze.
Something that wasn't quite... there.
A bitter smile curved her lips.
"Sorry, Aqua-kun." Her voice was soft, resigned, utterly genuine. "Even if your eyes are here... your heart isn't. But..."
She took a breath. "We can still be friends. I'd like that."
The audience collectively gasped.
What was happening? Had he chosen her? Had she rejected him?
The ambiguity was deliberate, beautiful, cruel.
"Well!" Mem-cho jumped in, her voice bright and playful, diffusing the tension with practiced ease. "You can always choose me, Aqua! Don't worry, big sister will accept your wounded heart with open arms. I'll heal all your emotional boo-boos."
A ripple of laughter moved through the studio audience. Mem-cho's fans cheered.
The comment sections exploded with heart emojis and "QUEEN" spam.
But Aqua wasn't finished.
"Ahem." He cleared his throat, drawing attention back to himself.
His expression shifted into something that looked almost... apologetic. "I mean... sorry to hide this from both of you. But..."
He reached out, his hand finding Akane's.
She startled, her eyes going wide.
"I and Akane are already together."
Before anyone could process the words, before Yuki could react, before Mem-cho's playful mask could crack, Aqua leaned in.
He kissed Akane.
On the lips.
In front of the cameras.
In front of two stunned women who had spent weeks competing for this exact moment.
Akane froze for a heartbeat—two heartbeats—and then something in her melted.
Her eyes fluttered closed. Her hands came up to grip his shirt, and she returned the kiss, awkward and sincere and absolutely real in a way that nothing else on this show had been.
When they finally parted, Akane's face was the color of a ripe tomato.
But she was smiling.
And when Aqua pulled her into a hug, she went willingly, burrowing against his chest like she belonged there.
The cameras held on the image: the crowned harem king, the least expected winner, wrapped in each other's arms while the other two women stared in disbelief.
Yuki Sumi's eyes widened to dinner plates.
Mem-cho's jaw actually dropped—a genuine, unscripted reaction that would become a meme within minutes.
The show closed.
The credits rolled.
And on millions of screens across Japan, the words appeared:
FIN
The least expected CP had won.
The internet exploded.
...
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