The show was a success and the two next ones were no exception.

The second place we performed at was the bar I had gone to before. Opposite to my initial visit, when the manager was rude and disrespectful, he was kind and helpful this time. As much as I hated to deal with such two-faced people, and wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine, I wouldn't lower myself to that level.

The third and last place was a small restaurant in a mall not too far from HQ. It wasn't located in the center of the city, but it was close.

After the shows, the girls could barely move. I wanted to give them a week-long break but they refused. Somehow, they ended up bargaining for a two-day-long break instead. However, that didn't mean the rest of us had nothing to do.

By the time the girls came back, the plans for the next two weeks had been laid out. We met at the dance studio, as usual, to discuss them and give them an update on other things.

"I just want everyone to be on the same page, so this will be a brief meeting," I said, standing in the middle of the room. "First and foremost, I'll give you an update on the numbers. On the social media side, Blostars' account has reached a thousand followers."

Aya started clapping, so everyone followed her. I opened the reports we had made on my glasses so as not to make a mistake.

"Meanwhile, the girls' public accounts sum up to seven hundred and twenty-three followers. From the least to the most followers, the order is Astra with ninety-two."

She scratched her neck as she nervously laughed.

"Risa with one hundred and one."

She smiled. "That's great."

"Sanae with one hundred and thirty five."

Her smirk promptly disappeared. "Wait, are you serious?"

"I am. The next one is Aki, with one hundred and eighty-nine."

The room became silent as everyone stared at me with their eyes open wide.

"What?" I wondered.

"Is this a joke?" Umi asked. "Because it's a bad one."

I shook my head. "Nope. You have the most followers with two hundred and six."

She stared at me with her eyebrows raised. It was one of the few times I had seen her show this much emotion.

"Congratulations," Aki smiled as she slapped Umi's back.

"But why?" Sanae wondered.

"Are you implying I don't deserve it?" Umi frowned.

"I just don't understand. I've been acting like a proper idol."

"That's exactly why," Aya replied. "Idols were a thing a thousand years ago, it's only normal for this to happen. In fact, I had already speculated this outcome a little after we decided to create your public accounts, based on the current trends of actors, singers, and characters in general."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"Because we prefer for you to behave as yourselves," I answered. "This takes me to the next point: don't treat this as a competition; not an unhealthy one, at least."

"Why are you telling us these numbers, then?" Umi asked.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"I'm not going to hide them from you. I'm sure you all are mature enough to understand this is a team effort. It doesn't matter if someone has more or fewer followers, everyone has their own audience. And the primary goal is to grow as a group and as a company. Understood?"

"Yes," the girls replied.

"Good. Secondly, the number of streams of the album sums up to one hundred thousand. Even though a lot of them are from the same people playing the songs on repeat, it's still a number none of us expected."

The girl's eyes sparkled.

"Nonetheless, it still generates little revenue. As for the shows, every time we performed, the peak viewership of the live stream doubled, getting close to fifty thousand. Meanwhile, compared to the first show at Kiku's café, the average viewership almost doubled, reaching twenty thousand."

Everyone clapped.

"As for people in real life, it stayed relatively the same around seventy, since all of the places were similar in size. However, that number doesn't reflect the actual number of people that wanted to see the show. With every show, the lines became massive and something to worry about. This leads us to our next goals: renting a venue by ourselves to give our first, official concert, which we'll promote with a fan meeting."

The girls' jaws dropped before they grinned and celebrated. Astra held Risa's hands and jumped. Even Umi smirked for a second but stopped when she glanced at Aya.

"Are you sure, Kaito?" Sanae smiled, although she didn't seem as happy as the other girls.

I stared at her for a second and approached her. I stood in front of her. She wouldn't keep her eyes still.

"What?" she stuttered.

"Have more confidence. Everyone needs it. We all believe in ourselves."

She looked at me and glanced at everyone else in the room. She lowered her head and took a deep breath.

"Okay, I will."

"That's better," I smirked. "The venue is already reserved, giving us three weeks to prepare everything. Tomokazu ordered a few samples of the merchandise he made so that we all can review it before selling it at the fan meeting and at the concert. Aya will create the advertising campaign to make sure the events get as much reach as possible. Miki, I'll send you the venue's blueprints so that you can arrange everything properly. Satō, make sure the girls stay in shape."

"Yes," they replied.

"As for the girls," I said and turned around, "you need to come up with your artist signatures."

"Risa and I already have ours," Sanae smirked.

"Good, as long as you're one hundred percent sure you like them."

"I'll work on mine a bit more," Risa giggled.

"Why signatures?" Astra wondered. "Can't we send them a stamp or something like that? That way they don't need to wait in line."

"They go for the experience," Umi answered. "And it's not a nice feeling to go see your favorite artist just to get a copy of their signature. Yes, they shake your hand and take pictures with you, but it still wouldn't be a nice thing to do."

"I see. Sorry for the dumb question," Astra laughed nervously.

"It wasn't dumb," Umi replied with her arms crossed and looked away.

I smiled. "I have one more task, though."

The girls looked at me in confusion.

That task was to go out on a short trip around the city and the outskirts. The main goal was to take pictures so that the girls had experiences to share on their social media accounts. However, I also wanted them to get closer to each other and have a normal outing for what would probably be the last time. That's why I didn't want to meddle and didn't go with them. I had a hard enough time deciding whether or not to ask Butcher to go with them, but I didn't do it in the end. He didn't like the idea either, but he also understood the reason.

They returned a few days later and showed us the pictures they took before posting them online. The first one was a selfie taken by Astra with the girls posing behind her outside the tallest mall in the country. The next pictures were of them eating at a restaurant, trying on clothes, playing pool and games at an arcade, bowling, and about to enter the theater to watch a movie.

The next day started with a picture taken by Aki: a selfie of her with the girls chatting behind her on the train heading to the outskirts of the city. The next one was of the five of them with Mount Fuji behind them. Then they went to one of the four remaining temples in the country and also spent time with the wildlife that lived around it, mainly monkeys and raccoons. They also visited the only remaining village in the country, which had miraculously survived for more than a thousand years.

Lastly, they went on a short boat tour on the last day. The short cruise visited various islands near the coast, each one with different tourist attractions like beaches, theme parks, and even abandoned buildings. Sadly, most of the islands in the country were occupied by industries.

Those were all the pictures. Aya helped the girls choose which ones to post and also used their accounts to advertise the fan meeting and the concert, which were only two weeks away.