Finally, the first day of recordings arrived. Although I had been waiting for it, the girls were clearly more excited than me. Sadly, Ms. Yoshida—TOTOT's Co-CEO—asked us to send the girls one by one so the public wouldn't know about the collaboration before Aeryx's song was recorded.

It was Risa's turn first. I accompanied her, as I planned to accompany all of the girls, in case anything happened.

Ms. Yoshida received us at the entrance just as she had the previous time. "Welcome back," she smiled. "Are you ready?"

I looked at Risa. "Are you?"

"I am," she smirked, although she had told me she was shaking just before we stepped inside.

"Perfect," Ms. Yoshida replied. "Let's not waste time and get to work."

We followed her through the hallways and into the recording studio. What we didn't expect was for Aeryx to be there.

"What's up," she greeted us with a hand on her waist.

Even I was surprised to see her here. I could only imagine how fast Risa's heart was beating.

"Hello," she stuttered. "What are you doing here?"

"I can leave if you want."

Risa's jaw dropped and her eyes opened wide. "I didn't mean it like that!"

"I know. I'm here to answer any questions and hear any feedback you might have on the song. Even though I wrote it, you're the one singing."

"Ah. That makes sense," Risa laughed nervously.

"I did mean what I said, though. I can leave if I'm making you too nervous."

"No, it's fine! It's a great opportunity as well."

"Good," Aeryx smirked. She glanced back at the mixing room and then said, "Follow me, I'll introduce you to the producers."

About to follow her, Ms. Yoshida said, "I'd love to join you, but I have a lot of paperwork to do. Please call me before you leave to properly say goodbye."

"Sure," I replied.

She walked back into the hallway and Risa and I followed Aeryx into the mixing room. She introduced us to the people inside. They were incredibly friendly and even made Risa's nerves calm down by asking questions about us and explaining their recording process.

In the blink of an eye, Risa was in the recording booth. We had seen Aeryx in it only a couple of weeks before; now seeing Risa in there along with Aeryx was surreal. She had stepped inside with Risa to help her with the equipment.

After exchanging a few words we couldn't hear from inside the mixing room, Aeryx walked back into the mixing room and Risa grabbed the pair of headphones hanging on a mount on the floor.

Finally, Risa approached the microphone whose mount hung from the ceiling and spoke. "Can you hear me?" Her eyes widened as soon as she said that.

Although the volume was very high, it felt like Risa was whispering directly into my ear and gave me goosebumps.

"Loud and clear," one of the producers replied while pressing a button on a digital panel. "It's not necessary to get that close to the microphone."

"Yes, I just heard my voice through the headphones," she laughed nervously.

"It's no problem. You can change the volume of the feedback of your voice with the slider on the mount's hologram in front of you."

"Understood."

"You should also be able to see the lyrics."

"Yes."

"Wonderful. Remember that we'll use the first takes for you to get used to the microphone sensibility and volume. We'll let you hear Aeryx's sample recording first."

"Okay."

Only a couple of seconds later, a song started playing. It was obvious it wasn't the entire song, just Risa's part, but Aeryx's voice could also be heard.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It lasted about fifteen seconds. Despite sounding relatively easy, I had no idea if it really was or not. One part did sound difficult, though.

As soon as the song stopped playing, the other producer in the mixing room asked Risa, "How was the volume?"

"A little high."

"Alright, we'll lower it by two decibels. Are you ready to start singing or do you want to listen to it again?"

"Can I listen to it again, please?" she laughed nervously.

"Sure, no worries."

The same section of the song was played again. The producer then told her she should try singing and asked her to do so by following the metronome. She nodded and prepared to sing.

Once she began to sing, it became obvious that she was struggling. It didn't sound bad, but I knew she could do a lot better and the producers seemed to know that as well as they asked her to repeat it several times.

She was getting more and more frustrated as time went on, so the producers changed the section to record. It didn't help much and I was starting to get worried.

Out of nowhere, Aeryx stepped into the recording booth to talk to Risa. Again, we couldn't hear what she was saying, but Risa was completely focused on her. I had never seen her that serious.

Risa's voice suddenly sounded through the speakers in the mixing room. She still was staring at Aeryx and, despite no music being played, she sounded way better than before.

I noticed how the producers had started recording. Once Risa finished singing the section, Aeryx made a signal with her finger and the song started playing. Risa started singing while following the metronome. Her voice had returned.

I would've loved for Umi to be here to listen to the recording process and help Risa and the rest of the girls since she had already worked with them and I was not even an amateur. I thought about calling her and letting her see through my glasses, but I didn't want to give Chiharu more things to leak. She probably already knew about the collaboration, yet nothing had been leaked. However, that didn't last long.

The rest of the girls recorded their parts as the days passed, and we were done before we realized it, despite Aeryx's album's release still being more than one week away. We thought we had done a good job hiding the collaboration, but it was clear we didn't.

Many people on QNet forums were already talking about it. Although it was nice seeing that most of them were excited, we couldn't figure out how it was leaked. Of course, my first thought was that Chiharu did it, but I doubted that. She was the kind of person to make a show in front of the busiest street, not share it on forums, and the fact that Blostars was going to be the opening group for Aeryx's tour wasn't leaked.

The reason we wanted to hide it for as long as possible was that, although we wanted to collaborate, many things could've gone wrong which could've led to the collaboration being canceled; we didn't want to disappoint our fans. Apart from that, we wanted to surprise them.

Luckily, TOTOT and GIMA had planned to have a short press conference to officially announce our collaboration one week before the album's release, so people didn't have much time to speculate.

It was early in the morning when the SUV sent by TOTOT arrived at HQ. The girls, Aya, Butcher, and I climbed in and the chauffeur drove to TOTOT Studios. She parked behind the building so we could avoid being seen. Even then, two bodyguards, aside from Butcher, tried to cover most of the field of view the paparazzi could have as we walked into the building.

The conference took place on the second floor of TOTOT Studios. Apart from coming early to avoid being seen, we also had rehearsals, so we got to it.

Four hours flew by and journalists began to arrive. It wasn't a big room, so it was full within twenty minutes. Aeryx's popularity didn't help either.

Not only was the conference going to be live streamed on her website and the many places she had an account on, but it was also going to be broadcast on a few TV news channels. Even though I wasn't going to be at the conference, it was nerve-wracking to know how much of an impact Aeryx could have.

Finally, it was time for the conference to begin. Everyone in the green room watched the transmission projected on the wall as Ms. Yoshida walked out alone first. Only a few journalists clapped since most of them were busy taking videos or pictures with specialized cameras or taking notes on holograms projected out of their glasses.

Ms. Yoshida stood behind the podium and the room became silent for her to begin her speech.

"Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for accepting our invitation to see what will be one of our greatest announcements, if not the greatest. We are only six days away from the release of Aeryx's next album: Rock And No More."

As she was talking, someone in the green room had already called Aeryx to the door to be ready to go out.

"To celebrate this release, Aeryx will be doing a tour around the country, as you already know. Before going into the details, let's welcome Aeryx to the stage."

She walked out as soon as her name was said. Some journalists clapped again as she waved at them and the cameras and climbed onto the platform. As soon as she sat down at the table, the same person that had called Aeryx to the door called the girls. They stood up from the couch rigidly and approached the man, who gave them a few instructions.

Ms. Yoshida continued her speech. "Now, it takes no genius to see that there are too many chairs for one person, so why don't we get that out of the way? Please welcome Blostars."

The girls were asked to go out. Despite them being rigid from the nerves, their expressions instantly switched into smiles and grins. They waved as they climbed onto the platform and sat on their assigned chairs. Unlike Aeryx, who always wore normal outfits—although still stylish—the girls were wearing their costumes, giving off an interesting contrast.

"One of Rock And No More's songs is going to be a collaboration between Aeryx and Blostars. Although we won't say much, as not to spoil the surprise, you'll be able to ask them about it. However, there's one more surprise we had that wasn't leaked anywhere: Blostars will be the opening group for Aeryx's tour."

Fewer journalists clapped. It made sense since it was something no one knew of, so they wanted to be the first ones to publish articles about it.

"Without further ado, let's start with the questions," Ms. Yoshida smiled.