The Reincarnation of a Commoner Couple - Episode 15

After coming back from the school trip, it’s the last G1 race of the first half of the year: the Takarazuka Kinen.

Dream Journ*y felt way too good. Please, please do well in the Arima Kinen too.

This time, I made about 12 million yen in profit. My Luck stat is now up to 50, and I’ve got 3 million yen left.

“Man, it’s cool in here! Studying at karaoke… we’ve really come up in the world, huh?”

“It’s way too hot to focus on studying at home. And using the AC at home puts too much strain on the household budget.”

It’s July now, and final exams are approaching. Our current grades are easily good enough, but we’re studying to be absolutely sure. We’ve even started tackling high school material already.

“We can take breaks and sing too~”

“This place is a total hidden gem.”

Lately, we’ve even been studying singing techniques. If we’re going to be streamers, you can never have too many skills in your arsenal.

“Are you planning to start streaming as soon as we get into high school?”

“I’d like to, but… revealing our identities, huh…”

We’re not naive enough to think we’ll get famous right off the bat. But if by some chance we did blow up, it might mess up our school lives. Besides, YeahTube’s livestreaming system isn’t even fully launched to the public yet. It seems to be in a testing phase, but the general service is still a little ways off.

“Getting showered with attention would be nice, but I don’t want my daily life to become a hassle.”

“True. I really don’t want things to get noisy while we’re still students. We’re not old enough or established enough socially to handle any serious trouble if it came up.”

Exactly. Dealing with creepy fans waiting outside would be a pain. We want the praise, but not the hassle. It’s a tricky balance.

“Maybe we just do video uploads without showing our faces while we’re students?”

“What do you mean?”

“Basically like Ad.”

“Ah. I see.”

Ad – that singer who exploded with “W*ssy” and stayed super popular even in the future. Only managing to get that popular without showing her face proves how insanely talented her singing voice was. Faceless live streams? Legendary. I’d only ever seen them on YeahTube, but they still gave me goosebumps, it was that incredible.

“How about this: focus purely on singing through high school and college, building up fans. Then, after graduation, make a grand entrance by finally revealing our faces?”

“That’s perfect! That’s a really good plan! Ahh… I’m already looking forward to seeing the fans’ reactions when we finally show our faces!”

Azu has this blissful expression. I’m probably making a similar face too. By then, we’ll have boosted our Appearance stats even more.

“All of that depends on us succeeding with our singing first, though.”

“We have the Status Board, remember?”

True, but… Having talent isn’t enough if no one hears it. We’ll probably need to make a bunch of throwaway accounts on Twitter and do some grassroots promotion. If we can just get people to listen once, that voice should be enough to turn them into fans.

“So, should we use this leftover money to boost our Singing skill level for now?”

“I want to do that too, but… I really want us to handle everything ourselves – songwriting, composing, arranging, playing instruments. Don’t you think that would make a bigger impact?”

Ideally, I’d want us to create the visuals for the YeahTube videos ourselves too. Mainly because, to avoid identity leaks, we should try to minimize working with strangers as much as possible.

“Won’t that cost a ridiculous amount of money?”

“Don’t underestimate the power of future knowledge.”

Once we’re in high school, we’ll definitely be earning way more than now. I plan to keep betting on horse racing, and I’ll start dabbling in stocks too. Sure, learning the first skill costs a steep 10 million yen, but after that hurdle, it only increases by 1 million each time. If we can just manage that initial investment, the rest is easy.

“But at this pace, won’t it take too long to be ready by the high school entrance ceremony?”

“Well, we couldn’t start immediately after entering anyway.”

It’ll take a little time for the stocks to get rolling too. Though, if we had a huge pile of cash upfront, it’d be different… But dumping a massive amount of money in right away would just attract attention from the tax office.

“Let’s make sure we don’t rush and put out some shoddy work just because we’re impatient.”

“Obviously.”

I want to start soon, but putting out crap wouldn’t achieve anything. We want that adoration. We’re only putting out work so good it silences all criticism.

“You know, actually taking action is fun, but planning like this? The anticipation is even more exciting.”

“I know, right?”

It’s like deciding groups for the school trip or brainstorming where to go with everyone. Sometimes the preparation phase is the most fun part.

“So, to learn skills faster, maybe we should go to the races more often?”

“We only go on G1 days right now.”

If the Horse Racing skill does its job properly, we should be able to make around 10 million yen every week. That means we could learn a new skill every two weeks.

“Spreading yourself too thin usually means you can’t master anything, though…”

“That doesn’t apply to us with the Status Board. We can master anything as long as we pay the money.”

Apologies to all the real artists and creators out there. We’re charging into the music industry with this utterly arrogant mindset. But hey, it’s for our own desires. We really crave that adoration. The music industry will definitely benefit in the end, so please forgive us. Forgive this mercenary couple.

I shared this work a little while back but quickly made it private. I’d lost motivation and just didn’t feel like writing anymore.

So, why did I remake it and rewrite it? Partly because I was bored, but the main reason was seeing Ad’s live performance footage on YouTub. It was just way too cool. I thought, “I want to write protagonists like this!” and that’s why I remade it. They’re nothing like that divine singer personality-wise, though! Haha.

Anyway, that’s the utterly unimportant behind-the-scenes story of this work.