CHAPTER TWO

She recognized the style immediately. Idols used them all the time in themed performances, cute accessories clipped onto costumes so they could sway playfully behind them during choreography.

She had worn them before.

But those had clips.

This one didn’t.

The base of it was thick and smooth, shaped like something meant to be inserted rather than attached.

Aoi’s stomach twisted.

“No,” she said immediately. “That’s not going inside me.”

A few people in the room exchanged glances. No one moved to stop the photographer.

He opened a small bottle and began coating the base of the prop with lubricant, his expression calm and mildly irritated, like someone dealing with a stubborn performer who refused to follow instructions.

“You have no choice, Meatgirl,” he said.

He didn’t raise his voice.

He didn’t need to.

The red watch on her wrist glowed brightly under the lights, the timer continuing its steady countdown.

“Now come here,” he added, gesturing impatiently.

“Bend over.”

Her body moved before her mind finished arguing.

Years of training pushed her forward automatically. Idols obeyed directors, photographers, choreographers, managers. They obeyed the camera most of all.

Aoi stepped closer.

Heat crept into her cheeks as she finally saw the prop clearly in his hand. Up close it looked even worse than it had from across the room. It wasn’t a costume piece meant to clip onto clothing. It was shaped to be pushed into her body so the tail would hang behind her for the camera.

The room watched.

Some of the crew avoided her eyes. Others simply waited, impatient for the shoot to continue.

“Please don’t do this,” Aoi said quietly.

The words came out smaller than she intended.

“This is humiliating.”

The photographer didn’t answer.

He simply reached forward, grabbing her shoulder and turning her around with casual strength, positioning her the way someone might position a mannequin on a display stand.

The bottle of lubricant clicked softly as he set it aside.

“Bend over,” he said.

His voice remained calm, professional, completely uninterested in her protest.

Then he added, without any change in tone:

“Or this goes in dry.”

Aoi bent over.

The photographer had positioned himself deliberately so that when she complied, her body faced the open room. The lights blazed against her skin while the white backdrop glowed behind her.

There was no attempt to shield her.

No attempt at privacy.

She could see the entire crew now if she turned her head—camera operators, assistants, stylists, all standing only a few steps away while they watched as an anal plug was pushed into her.

As she lowered herself, laughter rippled through the room.

Not loud.

Quiet giggles. A hand covering a mouth. A short, badly suppressed snort from someone near the lighting rig. The kind of laughter people used when they thought they shouldn’t laugh but couldn’t quite stop themselves.

The sound burned worse than the slaps had.

Aoi kept her eyes fixed on the floor.

No tears came.

Idols didn’t cry.

Then she felt it.

His hand pressed against her lower back, holding her steady as he forced the prop against her. The cold lubricant smeared across her skin before the pressure followed.

Aoi sucked in a sharp breath.

The intrusion was sudden and rough, her body instinctively tightening against it. Pain flared through her as the photographer shoved it in with impatient force, treating the moment like another technical step in preparing a prop.

A small, strained sound escaped her throat before she could stop it.

The room reacted with the same casual indifference it had shown to everything else. Someone adjusted a light. A camera lens clicked as it focused.

Behind her, the photographer gave the tail a testing tug to make sure it was secure.

“There,” he said.

The false tail now hung down behind her, swaying slightly as she struggled to steady herself. To the cameras it would look playful. Cute. Exactly the kind of image fans expected from a former idol.

But Aoi remained bent under the lights, her hands gripping her own arms as she forced her breathing to stay quiet.

And the cameras were about to start again.

They didn’t give her time to recover.

Hands moved in again the moment the photographer stepped away. One of the stylists grabbed a brush and began fixing her hair where it had fallen out of place. Fingers tugged through the strands quickly, straightening and smoothing them while another assistant stepped forward with a small plastic headband.

A pair of soft cat ears were attached to it.

They pushed it down onto her head.

Her hair was pulled forward deliberately after that, arranged so the ears framed her face while the rest of the strands fell loosely around them. Someone dabbed a bit of makeup onto the tip of her nose, a bright pink dot that looked childish under the lights.

Another brush flicked across her cheeks.

Thin lines followed.

Whiskers.

The final touch was quick, practiced. The stylists stepped back to examine their work while the tail behind her shifted slightly with her breathing.

Aoi remained standing where they had placed her, the white backdrop glowing behind her, the cameras waiting in front of her.

Around the room, the crew began to murmur.

The nickname spread quickly.

“Meatgirl Catgirl.”

Someone said it with a laugh. Someone else repeated it.

Within seconds the entire room had adopted it, the phrase bouncing casually between photographers, assistants, and technicians as if it were just another creative direction for the shoot.

Aoi stood under the lights while they talked about her.

Every movement reminded her it was there.

The plug shifted inside her ass whenever she stepped or changed position, a heavy, unwelcome presence she couldn’t ignore. It created a constant pressure that made her body tense without thinking. When she instinctively clenched, trying to push it out, it refused to move.

That only made the feeling worse.

Dirtier.

She kept her face composed while the photographer circled her, studying angles the way he would study a product.

“Turn around,” he said.

Aoi obeyed.

“Back to the camera. Now look over your shoulder.”

She twisted slightly, just enough for the camera to catch her face. The photographer gestured impatiently with two fingers.

“Smile. Mischievous.”

Aoi forced the expression onto her face. The kind of playful grin idols used during variety shows, the sort fans called cute.

The camera shutters began again.

“Good. Hold it.”

More clicks.

“Down on all fours, Meatgirl.”

She lowered herself carefully, the movement making the tail shift again inside her. The sensation forced her to tighten her jaw as she dropped onto her hands and knees on the white floor.

“Look up at the lens.”

Aoi tilted her head, the cat ears wobbling slightly as she lifted her gaze toward the camera.

From where the photographer stood, the pose showed everything he wanted: the curve of her back, the bright tail hanging behind her, the staged cuteness of the costume against the reality of the red watch on her wrist.

“Perfect,” he said.

The room murmured approvingly.

They kept adjusting her after that.

Different poses. Different angles.

“Lick your hand.”

She did.

“Now pretend you’re grooming.”

Aoi dragged the back of her hand across her mouth, mimicking the motion while the cameras snapped rapidly.

“Squat.”

She lowered herself again into a crouched position, arms bent slightly like paws, the forced smile still fixed on her face.

All the while the tail moved with every shift of her body.

Every adjustment.

Every pose.

Her body reacted to it whether she wanted it to or not, tightening, shifting, betraying her with sensations she couldn’t control while the room around her laughed and photographed and treated the entire thing like a successful concept shoot.

Aoi held the smile.

Because idols didn’t cry.

Then they spread her legs.

The photographer gestured impatiently toward the floor.

“Wider,” he said.

Aoi adjusted her stance, forcing her feet farther apart while the lights burned against her skin. The pose itself wasn’t unfamiliar. Idols were used to awkward stage positions, exaggerated stances meant to show energy or playfulness for the camera.

But this wasn’t a stage.

The tail shifted again as she moved, the pressure inside her body changing with the new position. It made her muscles tighten involuntarily, a constant intrusive reminder she couldn’t escape no matter how carefully she tried to hold still.

The cameras noticed everything.

“Hold it,” the photographer said.

Aoi froze in place while the lenses focused on her. She could feel the heat of the lights between her legs, could feel the humiliating awareness of her own body reacting to the pressure she had no control over.

It made her stomach twist.

More shutter clicks.

From the outside, the pose probably looked playful. The cat ears, the tail, the forced idol smile still fixed carefully on her face. Exactly the kind of image fans expected.

But standing there under the lights, legs spread while the entire room watched her body respond to something she hadn’t agreed to, Aoi felt dirtier than she had at any point during the shoot.

The photographer lowered his camera slightly.

“Good,” he said. “Stay just like that.”

“Now make a heart,” the photographer demanded.

Aoi hesitated only a moment before moving her hands.

“Lower.”

She lowered them.

“Lower.”

Her fingers drifted down her body.

“LOWER, MEATGIRL.”

The shout cracked across the room, sharp enough to make several assistants glance up from their equipment.

“Frame it,” he barked. “Let the public see how easily aroused an Animal should be.”

The cameras shifted.

Until now the lenses had followed her face, her smile, the cute gestures she had been trained to perform since she was little. Now they angled downward, settling on the space between her legs as her hands formed the heart shape he had demanded.

The shutters began firing again.

Aoi felt the heat of the lights there, the unnatural awareness of her own body reacting to the pressure she still couldn’t escape. The tail moved every time she shifted her balance, every time she breathed, every time the photographer told her to adjust the angle of her hips.

The cameras captured everything.

From the outside it would look deliberate. Designed. Another playful idol pose meant to excite fans scrolling through images on their phones.

But Aoi knew what it really was.

The warmth.

The humiliation of her body reacting to something forced into it.

Under the lights it glistened.

The photographer stepped closer, crouching slightly to get the angle he wanted.

“Hold it,” he said.

Aoi bit down on her lower lip hard enough to hurt, using the pain to anchor herself while the lenses moved closer and the shutters kept firing.

Idols didn’t cry.

So she didn’t.

“Good, Meatgirl,” the photographer said.

There was no warmth in his voice. No cruelty either. Just the flat tone of someone confirming that a task had been completed.

“We have what we need.”

Aoi slowly lowered her hands, her body aching from the forced poses and the tension she had held through the entire shoot.

“Need for what?” she asked.

The photographer wiped his lens with a cloth before answering.

“Promotional material,” he said. “For your last performance.”

He slung the camera strap over his shoulder.

“We’ve even secured a private slaughter license for it.”

The words hit her harder than any slap.

Aoi felt the color drain from her face, though the thick layers of makeup hid it from everyone else in the room. Her hands trembled as she grabbed her phone and opened the call screen.

Hori answered quickly.

“Aoi,” he said cheerfully then noticed her headband. “Oh, you look adorable. I heard they gave you a tail?”

“Are you going to slaughter me on stage?” she demanded, skipping the usual bullshit.

The words came out almost as a shout.

A few members of the crew looked over, curious but not particularly concerned.

Hori didn’t answer right away.

“Hori, stop dodging the question!”

A sigh came through the speaker.

“Yes,” he said finally.

The casual confirmation felt unreal.

“You remember Anna, right?”

Aoi blinked.

“Anna?” she repeated.

Her mind scrambled through the old agency roster.

“That half-Japanese girl from America, she graduated last year?”

Memories surfaced slowly. Anna had been older than her, already nearing retirement from idol work when Aoi joined the agency. Her father was Japanese, her mother American. They had never been close, but they had shared lunches a few times in the cafeteria between rehearsals.

Anna had always been polite.

Quiet.

“Apparently,” Hori continued, “she trained to be a Butcher.”

Aoi still remembered the farewell concert. The speeches, the tears from younger idols, the promise that Anna would “pursue a new path.” No one had said what that path was.

“I thought Butchers took longer to train than a year?” Aoi asked him.

Hori smiled faintly on the screen.

“We threw some money at the Butcher Academy in Osaka,” he replied. “They agreed you should be her first kill. The one she has to do stay on the program.”

He said it like he had just delivered wonderful news.

Like a special opportunity.

Aoi stared at him through the tiny camera on her phone, her eyes cold now.

He mistook the silence for surprise.

“She was very grateful, actually,” Hori continued. “First processing is important for trainees. And the audience will love the reunion angle.”

Aoi kept glaring at him.

But she didn’t fight.

The room around her still buzzed with photographers packing equipment, assistants discussing which shots would go out first, stylists collecting their kits. None of them were paying attention to the conversation happening through her phone.

She forced the next question out calmly.

“When’s the performance?”

“Two days,” Hori said.

He leaned back in his chair, clearly pleased with himself.

“Tickets are already sold out.”

Aoi’s fingers tightened around her phone.

“I’ve been red less than a day.”

Hori beamed.

“Amazing, right!”

“Don’t remove what you’re wearing,” Hori added quickly. “You’ll be on live television in an hour, and we want to capitalize on this ‘Meatgirl Catgirl’ idea you came up with.”

He blew an exaggerated kiss toward the camera.

Then the call ended.

The screen on Aoi’s phone went dark.

“I came up with?” Aoi said aloud.

Her voice sounded strange in the quiet apartment.

The crew was already leaving. Equipment cases snapped shut, lights were switched off, cables gathered. One by one they filed out the door until the noise faded into the hallway and the door clicked closed behind them.

No one said goodbye.

No one even looked at her.

Aoi stood alone in the center of the room.

What had once been her living room looked hollow now, stripped of furniture and scattered with the faint marks where the studio lights had stood. The white backdrop had been taken down, leaving only the bare wall behind it.

She was still naked.

Still wearing the cat ears.

Still forced to feel the humiliating weight of the tail they had pushed into her, swaying faintly whenever she shifted her weight.

Like a toy someone had finished playing with.

“I didn’t call myself a fucking ‘Meatgirl Catgirl,’” she muttered.

The anger rose quickly, hot and sharp in her chest.

“I didn’t call myself that, you insensitive son of a bitch!”

Her voice echoed off the walls.

There was no one left to hear it.

That was the only reason she shouted.

Because she was alone.

Completely alone.

The silence that followed pressed in around her.

No cameras.

No fans.

No one left to perform for.

Aoi sank down onto the floor of her empty apartment.

And for the first time since the watch turned red, Himari Aoi cried.