CHAPTER ONE

Himari Aoi had been an idol since she was nine. By thirteen she was famous enough that strangers could recognize her voice before they ever saw her face.

Now she had a week to live.

She sat alone in her apartment, one that she used when she was away from her parents for long periods, staring at the watch wrapped around her wrist as if it might change its mind. The display glowed a steady, unmistakable red, the countdown beneath her name ticking away in quiet, indifferent seconds.

Congratulations, Himari Aoi. You have been selected for Processing.

She had read the message so many times that the words no longer felt real. They simply existed on the screen, as cold and ordinary as a train schedule.

Her agent had gotten the notification that she had converted and he had called to make sure she was inside before taking off her clothes.

The moment the watch turned red, clothing privileges vanished along with everything else that made her a citizen. The apartment felt wrong without them. The air against her skin made her constantly aware of the change, of the way the law had stripped her status down to the bare body that would eventually feed someone else.

She had been told to stay inside, that her nudity was marketable.

The world outside already knew. Her agency knew. The networks knew. Somewhere, her name was already spreading across message boards and news feeds, the words Idol Selected traveling faster than any official announcement.

They would want to see her.

They would want interviews, tears, courage, composure. They would want the spectacle of a beautiful girl accepting her selection with grace. Fans would pay for the privilege to watch their favorite idol spend her final week smiling for them.

But that part hadn’t started yet.

So she stayed hidden in the quiet of her apartment, alone with the red glow on her wrist, staring at the seconds of her life draining away one by one.

Her manager called again.

Her phone chimed softly before the video request appeared on the screen. Aoi stared at it for a moment, then accepted the video call. Hori’s face appeared immediately, framed by the bright, sterile lighting of the agency office.
He smiled the way managers always smiled in meetings, polite and professional, as if nothing in the world had changed.

“Good afternoon,” he said pleasantly. “How’s Japan’s favourite Meatgirl?”

Aoi leaned back in her chair, angling the phone carefully so it showed only her face and shoulders. She wasn’t about to give him more than that. Hori had seen more of her than this casually over the years, poking his head into changing rooms or bringing her new costume dresses and asking her to try them on while he waited. She had accepted it then. Just another unpleasant fact of her life in the spotlight.

But he wasn’t getting to see her right now if she could help it.

“I’m bored, Hori-san,” she said. “I’ve been here for hours. A Meatgirl should be living it up, but you’re making me stay inside.”

The words came out flat. Not angry, not crying. Just tired.

Hori nodded sympathetically, though his expression carried the faint impatience of someone already thinking about schedules.

“Don’t be like that,” he replied. “We’re already setting up interviews, so you’ll be plenty busy.”

Of course they were.

Aoi imagined the calls already happening behind him: television producers, magazine editors, streaming platforms, all scrambling to secure time with the idol who had just become a headline. Selected at eighteen. A star chosen by the Lottery. The publicity practically wrote itself.

She sighed.

“I thought Animals didn’t have to work.”

The line had been repeated to her since childhood, a small comfort taught in school whenever the subject of Conversion came up. Animals were supposed to be free during their final week. Free to travel, free to rest, free to spend their last days however they wanted before reporting to a Processing Center.

Hori gave a small chuckle.

“Only the ones who aren’t owned by an agency. It’s in your contract. If you were ever chosen by the Lottery, your body—and your meat—belongs to us.”

He said it casually, like a reminder about scheduling terms, as if her legal transformation into livestock had simply activated another clause in the paperwork.

The red watch on her wrist continued counting down while he spoke, its numbers quietly shrinking her life by the second.

“Now,” Hori continued, glancing down at something offscreen, “a make-up crew is on its way to your apartment. They’ll prepare you for the photoshoot. Skin treatment, lighting adjustments… the usual things. We want you looking your best.”

Aoi frowned.

“Photoshoot?”

“Yes,” he said, as if the answer were obvious. “The public will want candid images. The moment someone becomes red, people get curious. They want to see the reality of it.”

“You mean they want to see me naked.”

She shifted in her seat, noticing too late that the phone dipped slightly in her hand. The camera dropped just low enough to give him a glimpse of her chest before she corrected it.

The most Hori had ever seen before was her in underwear during costume fittings.

Never this.

His gaze lingered on the screen in a way that made her skin crawl, his polite manager’s smile never quite reaching his eyes.

“You’ll be photographed as you are now,” he added. “It’s part of the authenticity. People respond well to that.”

Aoi said nothing.

The silence stretched for a moment.

Hori tilted his head slightly, still smiling, his tone soft but carrying the quiet expectation of someone used to obedience.

“You will be a good girl for them, yes?”

When she had complained in the past, this was how Hori reined her in.

Be a good girl, Aoi. I’ll buy you a crepe after practice.
Try not to make a scene.
I know you’re exhausted, but just one more set.

It dawned on her now just how much she hated him.

“Do I get a say?”

Aoi asked it quietly, though she already knew the answer.

Hori didn’t hesitate.

“Legally?” he said.

He leaned back slightly in his chair, the polite smile still resting on his face, calm and practiced.

“No.”

The word landed with the casual certainty of someone reciting policy.

“You signed a contract with the agency,” he continued, as if explaining something routine. “Standard idol agreements include post-selection clauses. Image rights, media access, promotional appearances. It covered your Conversion as well.”

Aoi stared at the screen.

The conversation sounded so normal coming from him. Not a discussion about the last week of her life, not a negotiation over the public display of her body after the law had stripped her of citizenship.

Just another clause in another entertainment contract.

Hori folded his hands together on the desk.

“Try to understand,” he said gently. “Your fans love you. They’ll want to see you during this time. Giving them that… it’s good for everyone.”

“And it doesn’t hurt that you make money off my death either?”

Aoi leaned closer to the phone as she spoke, her glare fixed on the tiny camera. The red glow from her watch reflected faintly across her skin.

For a moment Hori said nothing.

His expression didn’t change. The same polite manager’s smile stayed in place, calm and professionally neutral, as if she had just asked a mildly inconvenient question during a scheduling meeting.

The silence was answer enough.

Aoi watched him, waiting for a denial that never came.

Eventually he exhaled softly, the way someone does when a conversation drifts away from what they actually want to discuss.

“Be a good girl for us, Aoi.”

His voice was smooth again, warm in the way public-facing voices always were.

“We’ll make you famous long after you die.”

A knock came at the door.

It was the sort of knock given out of habit rather than respect, a quick tap of knuckles against the wood before the handle turned anyway.

Her make-up team entered without waiting.

They had worked with Aoi for years. They had stood backstage with her before concerts, adjusted her hair between takes, powdered her skin under bright studio lights. They knew her face better than most of her fans ever would.

Now they looked at her differently.

They spilled into the apartment carrying bags and cases, their voices already shifting into the brisk rhythm of work. The easy familiarity they once had with her vanished the moment they crossed the threshold. Assistants moved furniture aside without asking, setting down equipment while discussing lighting and camera angles as if she were already part of the set.

The moment they saw her sitting in the living room, the room changed from quiet to business.

Aoi remained where she was, naked under the law that now governed her body, the red watch bright against her wrist.

“Hi, Maya-chan!” Aoi said with a relieved smile as her lead stylist approached. For a brief second she felt a flicker of hope. Maya had always been kind to her—one of the few adults in the agency who treated her like a person instead of a product.

Maya stopped a few feet away and looked down at her.

“Get up, Meatgirl,” she said.

The warmth Aoi expected never came. The familiar softness in Maya’s voice had vanished completely, replaced with the same flat efficiency the others were using as they unpacked their equipment.

It was the same woman who had once called her Aoi-chan while fixing her eyeliner before a performance, gently turning her chin toward the mirror and telling her to keep still. Back then Maya’s voice had been warm, almost protective, the tone of someone fussing over a younger sister.

That warmth was gone now.

What remained was the clipped voice of a professional addressing something that wasn’t moving fast enough.

“The photographers will be here soon,” Maya continued. “We need you bathed and made presentable.”

Aoi pushed herself slowly to her feet.

“Maya… why are you speaking to me like that?”

For a brief moment the room seemed to pause around the question.

Then the slap came.

A sharp crack landed across her backside, the sound echoing through the apartment.

Aoi flinched, her body jerking forward from the sting.

No one reacted. No one even looked up from the equipment they were unpacking. Camera cases opened, lights were assembled, cables dragged across the floor as if nothing had happened at all.

Maya stepped closer, her voice dropping into a tone that carried none of the kindness Aoi remembered.

“Shut your mouth, Meatgirl,” she said.

Then she gave Aoi another shove toward the hallway.

“And get a move on.”

Aoi hissed as the sting spread across her skin. She rubbed the spot that had been struck while walking toward the bathroom, her fingers lingering there as if the pressure might dull the heat of it.

Behind her the team continued moving around the apartment, setting down cases, discussing lighting, speaking about her in the same practical tone they once used when preparing her for a concert.

Except now none of them used her name.

She stepped into the bathroom and reached for the door, trying to close it behind her.

It stopped halfway.

A hand pushed it open again.

One of the assistants slipped inside before Aoi could protest. She was the youngest member of the team, a girl who had only started working with the stylists a few months earlier. Not much older than Aoi herself, someone Aoi barely remembered from the busy blur of backstage faces.

The door shut behind her with a soft click.

“Get out!” Aoi snapped, her voice echoing off the tile.

The assistant ignored her completely.

“Into the shower,” she said.

Her tone was flat and practical, the same detached efficiency the others outside had slipped into the moment they walked through the door. There was no embarrassment in her voice, no hesitation about standing there while Aoi reached for the faucet and turned the water on.

“I’ll wash you myself.”

The assistant stepped closer.

Too close.

Aoi could feel her standing right behind her now, the small bathroom suddenly feeling much smaller than it had a moment ago.

“Make a scene,” the assistant added quietly, “and Maya-san gave me permission to hit you.”

Aoi stepped into the shower and turned the water on, adjusting the temperature carefully until it began to warm.

Before the heat could settle, the assistant reached past her and twisted the knob back down.

Cold water crashed over Aoi’s shoulders.

She flinched.

“No time for that, Meatgirl,” the assistant said with open annoyance, as if Aoi had deliberately slowed the schedule. “Hands behind your head.”

Aoi hesitated for only a moment before obeying.

She always obeyed.

Slowly she lifted her arms and locked her hands behind her head, standing still beneath the spray while the water ran down her skin and pooled around the drain.

The assistant picked up a cloth and began working soap into it. Thick foam gathered quickly before she pressed it against Aoi’s shoulder and started scrubbing.

There was no care in the motion. No gentleness.

Her hands moved briskly and impersonally, the same way someone might clean a prop after a performance or wipe down equipment between uses. She worked across Aoi’s arms, her back, her stomach, never pausing, never acknowledging the girl standing there beneath the water.

To her, Aoi was simply something that needed to be prepared before the cameras arrived.

When the cloth brushed across her chest, Aoi instinctively tried to knock the hand away.

The reaction was immediate.

The assistant’s hand snapped out and struck her sharply across the hip.

The sound echoed off the tile.

“Hold still, Meatgirl,” she said flatly.

Crying would do nothing.

Crying wasn’t something an idol did.

Idols smiled through exhaustion. They smiled through injuries, through long rehearsals and sleepless travel schedules. Cameras loved composure, and composure had been drilled into her since she was nine.

So Aoi kept her face still.

She allowed the assistant to handle her however she pleased, standing beneath the cold water while rough hands moved her body where they wanted it. The cloth dragged across her skin again and again, soap gathering in white streaks before being washed away by the spray.

The assistant worked without hesitation, pushing her arms higher, turning her shoulders, scrubbing places Aoi herself rarely touched.

Contract rules had made her careful about that.

Even alone.

The girl rinsed shampoo through Aoi’s hair next, fingers digging briskly into her scalp before shoving her head forward into the stream. Suds slid down over her face and chest before disappearing down the drain.

When the last of it was washed away, the assistant grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out from under the water.

A towel was waiting.

She dried Aoi quickly and roughly, dragging the fabric across her skin with none of the careful attention stylists once used before a performance. It felt less like being helped and more like being wiped down.

Prepared.

When she was finished, the assistant’s hand struck her again across the backside.

Aoi flinched at the familiar sting.

This time no words followed.

They didn’t need to.

The command was clear enough.

She stepped out of the bathroom and looked around.

The living room was no longer hers.

In the short time she was bathed, it had been turned into a studio.

Furniture had been pushed aside and stacked against the walls. In its place stood lights, cables, and camera equipment. A wide white screen had been stretched across the far wall, bright and clean beneath the glare of the lamps pointed toward it.

Men and women filled the room.

Some carried cameras. Others checked equipment or spoke quietly to one another while glancing at the red watch on Aoi’s wrist. The air carried the sharp smell of cosmetics and electrical heat from the lighting rigs.

No one greeted her.

No one even pretended this was unusual.

A hand closed around her arm.

The assistant dragged her forward, steering her through the crowded room until they reached a stool positioned beneath one of the lights. Maya was already waiting there with a case open across her lap.

Aoi sat down.

“Stand!” Maya snapped as her hand cracked sharply against her backside again.

The sting flared through her skin.

“Stop hitting me!” Aoi snapped, twisting around to glare at her.

The reaction came instantly.

Maya’s hand struck her across the face.

Her head snapped sideways as the sound echoed through the room. A few people glanced over, but none of them intervened. The cameras and equipment remained far more interesting.

Maya leaned closer, her voice sharp and contemptuous while her assistant smirked.

“Meatgirls do not give demands to Humans.”

Aoi barely had time to steady herself before the work began.

Hands moved in immediately.

Brushes touched her skin, soft at first, then more insistent as the make-up artist began working across her body. The attention wasn’t limited to her face anymore. Powder, foundation, and brushes moved across her shoulders, her arms, her stomach.

They worked quickly.

Efficiently.

The marks from the slaps were the first thing they dealt with. A sponge dabbed concealer over the redness on her cheek, blending it carefully until the skin looked smooth again beneath the studio lights. The same treatment followed across her hip and the places where the assistant’s hand had struck her earlier.

The evidence disappeared under layers of cosmetics.

Glossed over.

Erased.

The make-up artist leaned closer, studying her work critically before reaching for another palette.

“This will read better on camera,” she said to someone behind her.

A small brush touched Aoi’s chest and the assistant held her hands behind her back so she wouldn’t try to stop it. Makeup was dabbed onto her nipples and aerola. Making them more noticable and cute.

The discussion around her continued as if she weren’t even there.

Angles. Lighting. Audience reaction.

Aoi didn’t argue.

Now she sat still on the stool while they finished preparing her, letting them handle her however they needed. The sooner they were done, the sooner the cameras would take their pictures.

Better to let them work.

Better to get it over with.

When they were finished, Aoi was pulled off the stool and positioned in front of the white screen.

The lights were already blazing, hot against her skin. Cameras waited on tripods, lenses pointed directly at her. The living room no longer looked like a home at all. It looked like a set.

The lead photographer stepped forward.

He was one of Hori’s people, someone Aoi had seen before at agency shoots and promotional events. Back then he had spoken to her politely, offering suggestions, asking if she was comfortable before adjusting a pose. Like Maya, he had been somewhat kind.

Now he simply looked her over.

“Stand there,” he said, pointing to a mark taped on the floor.

Aoi moved to it.

“Good. Shoulders back.”

She straightened.

“Hands up. Smile.”

The instructions kept coming, one after another. Not requests. Orders.

She followed them automatically, her body slipping into the same trained responses she had learned during years of idol work. The gestures came easily even now. A practiced smile. A tilt of the head. Hands rising into the familiar shapes her fans loved.

Love hearts with her fingers.

Peace signs.

Playful clawed hands beside her face.

The camera shutters began clicking rapidly.

“Good,” the photographer said. “Now make a heart.”

Aoi shaped her hands again as she had done a thousand times before.

“Lower,” he told her.

The lens zoomed in closer on the heart as it framed a pink nipple. Aoi kept up her practiced smile. Her mask.

“Hold it there.”

The camera clicked again and again.

“Turn slightly,” he continued. “Just a little more.”

He stepped to the side, adjusting the angle with a small motion of his hand. Getting a good angle so that the curve of her ass and tits were noticeable in one shot.

“Good. Stop there.”

Aoi obeyed, holding the position exactly as instructed while the camera captured the line of her body beneath the studio lights.

More flashes.

More shutter clicks.

More quiet conversations between the crew about angles and framing.

Aoi kept smiling because that was what idols did.

But standing there under the lights, posed and repositioned while strangers studied her through their lenses, she felt less like a performer and more like something that had been placed on display.

Something to be looked at.

Something to be used.

A prop.

A toy.

“Now for the fan service,” the photographer said.

Aoi stared at him beneath the glare of the lights.

“This isn’t already fan service?” she asked flatly.

The room chuckled lightly at that, as if she had made a small joke during a normal shoot.

The photographer shook his head.

“A naked Animal is nothing,” he said. “People have seen that before. We want you to be remembered.”

He crouched beside one of his equipment bags and began rummaging through it.

Aoi watched uneasily while he pulled something out.

It was a cat tail.