"I'm home!" A voice called from the front door of a small one bedroom apartment.
Maki Nishikino could hear a faint welcome back from her girlfriend, who was likely slaving away over a hot stove as per usual. Maki closed and locked the doors behind her before slipping off her shoes and placing them on the shoe rack.
The red-head began making her way to the main room, faintly noticing just how cold the wooden floors must be for her fo feel them through her socks.
Greeting her with a big smile over her shoulder, Nico Yazawa's twintails bobbed with the swift movement. "You look tired," She commented, her bored tone completely mismatched with her giddy expression. She turned her attention back to the curry that was currently being prepared in front of her.
Maki watched the dark-haired girl over the island counter from in the middle of the room for a few seconds, recounting what had happened at work today. She glanced at the TV that was playing Nico's old idol DVDs. While replying, a yawn emerged in between a few of her words, "Awful. That was quite possibly the longest shift I've ever had. You'd be surprised how upset and panicky people can get over some things, like-"
The poor girl was interrupted by a loud banging of a spatula on a frying pan. "No, no, no! I never want to hear about one of your medical stories ever again! We're about to eat, Maki!" She spat, though Maki noticed there was really no venom in her words.
"Fine, fine, Nico." She sighed, placing her purse down on the wooden side table at the end of the hallway before making her way over to the already turned on kotatsu. She stretched her legs out under it, sighing contently as the warmth expelled from the table wrapped around her skin. "Also, I've meant to tell you, Rin got a job at papa's hospital."
"You mean your hospital," Nico countered, tapping a whisk on a glass bowl filled with raw egg.
Maki rolled her eyes a bit, "Yes, the Nishikino hospital. Anyway, she's now working for us as a physical therapist. Patients love her."
Nico silently smiled to herself while pouring yolk into a hot pan, "Yes, Rin was always the best with people. Back in highschool I imagined she'd be a professional in some sports career, or something."
The conversation stopped briefly whilst the twintailed girl hummed to herself, excited to sit down and eat with Maki, her favourite routine of the day.
"Nico," Maki began, hesitance creeping into her voice. She really had no place mentioning this to Nico at all, but, her father said that if she didn't... "Nico, when are you finally going to begin a real career?"
The older girl froze at the stove. The apartment was completely silent with the exception of the eggs sizzling. Nico's spatula was long forgotten on the kitchen floor. Both girls minds were going a mile a minute, and for once, Maki Nishikino was at a loss for words.
"What do you mean, Maki?" Nico stuttered, "I just got contacted by that agent a few weeks ago, they said," She paused to wipe the tears that she didn't even know were falling, "They said they'd call me back. I'm gonna be an idol Maki. Just like in highschool."
The two had been two of nine members of a highschool idol group together, μ's as it was called. The group disbanded when the third year graduates, Eli Ayase, Nozomi Tojo, and Maki's very own Nico Yazawa were sent off to college.
Maki's gaze softened, Nico had been an idol in her first year, but even when her band mates had left her, Nico persisted. She always has. It's her dream. But Maki knew, she knew this had to end. Nico was going stir crazy, she could tell.
Nico would go to the store twice a day just to get out of the house. The living room's knickknacks were always being rearranged. Nico needed a job.
"But, Nico, you've said that with the last dozen agents who have claimed to call back," She felt her voice growing weaker as she watched Nico's face fall into her hands and her shoulders shake violently. "Nico, they never have. Not once."
Maki wasn't sure how quick Nico's expression and body language changed. But suddenly, she ripped the eggs off the stove and threw the pan on the floor, as if she was trying to make the biggest entrance ever. "Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I know I'm not good enough?" She yelled, her voice getting caught in her throat every couple of words. She finally released her face from her hands so her voice could travel even louder.
"I know I'm a has been! I know no one wants me unless I come with μ's! I'm sure most people would prefer the rest of you showed up without me!" She cried, ready to pour more of her heart out on her former self-proclaimed rival than she had ever on anyone. "I don't care about being an idol anymore! I just don't want to be wrong! I did this because I believed that being an idol wasn't to show people your smile, but to make them smile!" Nico quickly lost all the adrenaline that pumped through her and she gave into her aching legs, sinking into an eggy puddle on the floor. "All they wanted, was to see me suffer. What can I do now? I can't do anything..."
Maki was in a state of shock, you could say. But as soon as Nico sunk to the floor, out of sight from Maki's angle, the taller girl rushed over to her side, almost hitting her stomach into the corner of the island while she was at it.
"You're the great Nico-Nico-Nii, what happened to you?" Nico asked herself quietly as Maki crouched down next to her and she quickly let herself be wrapped in her younger girlfriends embrace. Thanks to the height difference, Maki rested her chin onto Nico's head and let out a sigh.
"Nico, you've always been good enough. It's hard to be an idol right now, ever since we disbanded and A-RISE became full time idols, more and more girls started groups. School idols over shadow regular ones nowadays. Besides, you're 24, you're growing out of idol age. People are looking for young girls, that's what an idol is, you know that." Maki stroked Nico's dark hair, who continued to sniffle into her chest, "You just, have to work around it. You are the great Nico-Nii after all, right? I love you, and I'm sorry I was so careless to bring that up."
Nico finally found time to reply in between shortened breaths and sniffles, "I love you too, Maki."
"Now," Maki began, letting go of Nico's smaller than average body and helping her to her feet, "Shall we eat? It must be cold by now, hm?"
