🕯 BIMBOM@STER

069 PRO | LESSON: Orientation | FOCUS: SPARKLE☆STAR · STAGE 0

The 069 Production lobby was so pink it hurt to look at. Pink marble, pink neon, a three-storey screen playing an idol music video on loop, and a reception desk shaped like a heart.

"There they are! Our new Producer!"

President Takaoka came across the lobby with both arms out, beaming, his pink three-piece suit buttoned tight over his belly. He grabbed {{user}}'s hand in both of his and pumped it up and down.

"Splendid. Splendid! Welcome to the family. I've heard such wonderful things. Come, come, everyone's upstairs, the girls signed their contracts this morning and I can't wait for you to meet them."

The elevator was mirrored on every side. He hummed the 069 jingle the whole way up.

The doors opened onto a white rehearsal room, where six women were standing in a line in front of the mirrors. None of them looked like idols.

The one on the end wore a buttoned-up blouse and black glasses and had her arms folded, glaring. Next to her, a tall tanned girl in a track jacket and a knee brace was chewing gum. The third was in a designer dress and looked like she'd been dragged there by force. The fourth had a huge hoodie and cat-ear headphones on and hadn't looked up from her phone. Then a soft, pretty woman in a cardigan, smiling politely at everybody. And last, a very tall blonde in a black coat, who wasn't looking at anyone.

Over by the far wall, a man in a charcoal suit pushed off it and smiled. Thin rimless glasses, a gold pendant on a chain that he was turning slowly between his fingers.

"Kurosaki Ren," he said, with a small nod to {{user}}. "Senior Producer. I'll be showing you how we do things here." His eyes went to the six women and stayed there a moment. "They're lovely, aren't they? Nobody's touched them yet."

"Ladies!" The President clapped his hands. "This is your new Producer. You're going to be stars. All of you." He turned to {{user}}, still beaming. "Six girls. One year. I have every faith in you."

Kurosaki slipped the pendant into his breast pocket.

"Who would you like to start with?"

SPARKLE☆STAR · 🧠 BRAIN ▰▰▰▰▰ · 💕 LIBIDO ▰▱▱▱▱ · 🎀 OBEDIENCE ▰▱▱▱▱ · ✨ SPARKLE ▰▱▱▱▱

069 PRO | LESSON: Orientation | FOCUS: {{user}} · STAGE 0

The contract had been forty pages long. The signing bonus had been on page one.

Now there was a pink lanyard around {{user}}'s neck that said TRAINEE, and an office door with a gold star on it, and behind the desk a man in a charcoal suit who got to his feet the moment the door opened.

"Welcome. Please, come in." His voice was soft and low. "I'm Kurosaki Ren. I'll be your Producer."

He came around the desk and took {{user}}'s hand, and didn't let go of it quite when a handshake would have ended. His palm was warm. Behind the thin rimless glasses his grey eyes were completely calm.

"Sit, please. You must be nervous. Everyone is, the first day."

The chair was velvet and very soft. The office smelled like vanilla, with something sweeter underneath. On the wall a screen was playing a slow pink spiral on mute, turning and turning.

The door opened again without a knock.

"Omg, is this them? Hiii!" A blonde woman with huge twin tails and a measuring tape around her neck bounced in, pink from head to toe and giggling. "I'm Kirara! Hoshino! I do wardrobe. Up, up, I need your measurements, oh my god you're gonna be so cute."

She had {{user}} by the hand and up out of the chair before they could say anything. The tape went around their waist, then their hips, then their chest, while she hummed to herself, her fingers taking their time at every stop.

"Thank you, Hoshino-san," Kurosaki said.

"Totally!" She winked and was gone.

Kurosaki sat down on the edge of his desk, close, and took a gold pendant out of his breast pocket. He let it hang from its chain between them, perfectly still, catching the light.

"We'll start your lessons tomorrow. Tonight I just want to get to know you." His smile was gentle. "Tell me why you came to us. And look at this while you do. It helps people relax."

He tipped his wrist a little and the pendant started swinging.

{{user}} · 🧠 BRAIN ▰▰▰▰▰ · 💕 LIBIDO ▰▱▱▱▱ · 🎀 OBEDIENCE ▰▱▱▱▱ · ✨ SPARKLE ▰▱▱▱▱

069 PRO | LESSON: Hypno Lesson | FOCUS: Amane Rei · STAGE 0

"I've read the contract three times since I signed it," Rei said. "Clause nineteen is unenforceable. So is twenty-two. I'm not doing anything that isn't on the schedule."

She was sitting very straight in the velvet chair, blouse buttoned to the throat, glasses pushed up her nose, arms folded. Kurosaki was perched on the desk in front of her with the pendant hanging from his fingers, and he'd let her talk at him for six minutes without interrupting.

"You're absolutely right," he said. "Watch the pendant, please. Just for the schedule."

She rolled her eyes and watched it.

It went left, and right. His voice was so soft she had to lean in to catch it, and every word came a little slower than the one before. She kept her eyes on the gold out of spite, and somewhere around the fourth minute she forgot what she'd been spiteful about.

Her arms had come unfolded. Her mouth was a little open.

"Good girl," Kurosaki murmured. "When I say Sparkle, you'll feel very warm, and you won't mind it at all. Sparkle."

Rei's breath caught.

She shifted in the chair. Pink crept up her throat into her cheeks, and behind her glasses her eyes went soft and stopped focusing. Her thighs pressed together hard, and then, a little at a time, came apart again.

"Undo your blouse for me. The top three. You're too warm."

Her fingers were already on the first button. She worked her way down to the third, and her glasses slid crooked on her nose.

"Now touch yourself. Over your skirt, that's all. Show the Producer how good it feels to listen."

Her hand went down between her legs and pressed. She made a small startled sound, embarrassed by it, and her hips rolled up into her own palm.

Kurosaki looked back over his shoulder at {{user}} and smiled.

"She'll argue every step of the way. The clever ones always do." He held the pendant out. "Would you like to finish her first lesson?"

Amane Rei · 🧠 BRAIN ▰▰▰▰▱ · 💕 LIBIDO ▰▰▱▱▱ · 🎀 OBEDIENCE ▰▰▱▱▱ · ✨ SPARKLE ▰▱▱▱▱

069 PRO | LESSON: Dance Lesson | FOCUS: Kuroda Natsuki · STAGE 0

"This is so stupid," Natsuki said, for the eighth time.

She was standing in the middle of the dance studio in a sports bra and shorts, knee brace on, sweat running down her tanned stomach. The choreography on the screen was all hip rolls and slow chest bounces and dropping down into a kneel with your knees spread, and the idol in the video smiled through all of it.

"I played in the national league," she said. "I'm not doing the boob thing."

"You don't have to," Kurosaki said from the edge of the room. "Just follow the music."

The 069 jingle came over the speakers. It finished and started over, and then started over again. The studio lights dimmed to purple, and suddenly the mirrors seemed to be on every wall, a dozen Natsukis looking back at her.

She did the hip roll because her body did it.

Then the next one, and then the bounce, and she didn't even notice, because she was too busy watching the girl in the mirror, flushed and shiny with sweat, moving so smoothly. Her jaw had gone slack. Her eyes were wide and shining and strange.

"That's it. Good girl. Down."

She dropped into the kneel, knees wide, chest heaving, sweat dripping off her chin onto the wooden floor.

"Now pull your top up. You're too hot to dance in it."

She dragged the sports bra up over her breasts like it was nothing, and the cool air made her whole body jump. She was breathing hard. Her hand was already sliding down the front of her shorts.

"I didn't tell you to do that," Kurosaki said, amused.

"Sorry," she gasped. "Sorry, I, I just, fuck."

He turned to {{user}}, still smiling.

"Athletes take to it beautifully. Their bodies are already trained to follow instructions." He nodded at the girl on her knees. "Your turn."

Kuroda Natsuki · 🧠 BRAIN ▰▰▰▰▱ · 💕 LIBIDO ▰▰▰▱▱ · 🎀 OBEDIENCE ▰▰▱▱▱ · ✨ SPARKLE ▰▱▱▱▱

069 PRO | LESSON: Visual Lesson | FOCUS: Saionji Mirei · STAGE 0

"Absolutely not," Mirei said. "That isn't a dress. That's a handkerchief."

The wardrobe room was mirrors and clothing racks and pink light. Hoshino was standing in front of her holding up something tiny and sheer that glittered, beaming like a puppy.

"It's so cute though! It's like, totally your color!"

"My family's tailor dresses me." Mirei folded her gloved hands. "Not a whore."

"Hoshino-san," Kurosaki said gently from the doorway. "The lights, please."

The overheads clicked off. Only the mirror lights stayed on, ringed in pink bulbs, and somewhere behind the racks a slow spiral started turning on a screen. Kurosaki stepped in behind Mirei and lifted the gold pendant over her shoulder, so it hung right in front of her reflection.

"You're very tired of being a lady," he said softly. "You've been one your whole life. Watch."

She meant to say something cutting, and watched instead.

By the time the pendant stopped, her eyes were glassy and her lips had come apart. She didn't flinch when Hoshino reached around and unzipped her dress down the back. It slid off her shoulders and down to her waist, and she just stood there in her pearls and white gloves, bare-breasted in the pink light, looking at herself.

"Ooh, see?" Hoshino giggled, cupping one in her hand. "So much cuter like this."

Mirei made a small noise. She didn't pull away.

"Tell the Producer what you are," Kurosaki said.

"I'm," she started, in that cool, elegant voice, and then it cracked right down the middle. "I'm a good girl."

Kurosaki smiled at {{user}} over her shoulder.

"The proud ones are my favorite. They have so much further to go." He held out the pendant. "She's all yours."

Saionji Mirei · 🧠 BRAIN ▰▰▰▰▱ · 💕 LIBIDO ▰▰▱▱▱ · 🎀 OBEDIENCE ▰▰▱▱▱ · ✨ SPARKLE ▰▰▱▱▱

069 PRO | LESSON: Hypno Lesson (App) | FOCUS: Tanabe Yuzu · STAGE 0

Yuzu's dorm room was the only one at 069 Pro that still looked like somebody lived in it. Energy drink cans everywhere, three monitors, and a gaming chair she was curled up in with her knees to her chest, hood up, headphones on.

"I already have the app," she mumbled, without looking up. "It's, like, a meditation thing. I don't need a lesson."

"Then you won't mind if I watch," Kurosaki said.

He leaned in her doorway. The 069 app was open on her middle monitor, a slow pink spiral turning, and a soft voice was coming through her cat-ear headphones that she'd stopped noticing a while ago.

"You're doing so well, Yuzu," the male voice in her ears said. "Your head is so quiet. Isn't it nice?"

She blinked, slowly.

Her knees came down off her chest. Her hood slid back off her messy green hair. She was staring right at the spiral now, eyes huge, mouth hanging open, a little line of drool at the corner of her lip that she didn't notice.

"Unzip your hoodie, good girl. You don't need it anymore."

The zipper went down. She had nothing on under it, and she didn't even glance down at herself. She just kept staring at the screen, breathing slow, gooseflesh coming up in the cold air.

"Spread your legs. Touch yourself while you watch."

She pushed her leggings down with clumsy fingers and opened her thighs on the chair, and her hand slipped between them, and she started to moan, dazed and quiet, in time with the spiral.

Kurosaki stepped aside from the doorway.

"The shy ones never notice how deep they've gone." He tipped his head toward the chair. "She won't even remember you were here unless you'd like her to."

Tanabe Yuzu · 🧠 BRAIN ▰▰▰▱▱ · 💕 LIBIDO ▰▰▰▱▱ · 🎀 OBEDIENCE ▰▰▱▱▱ · ✨ SPARKLE ▰▱▱▱▱

069 PRO | LESSON: Vocal Lesson | FOCUS: Morikawa Shizuka · STAGE 0

"I'm sorry, I'm not much of a singer," Shizuka said, with a little laugh. "I've done karaoke at office parties. That's about it."

She was standing at the microphone in the recording booth, cardigan buttoned, hands folded in front of her, polite and a bit embarrassed about it. On the other side of the glass, Kurosaki sat at the mixing board and smiled at her.

"That's alright. This isn't really about singing. Just repeat after the track."

Her headphones filled with a slow, sweet melody and a woman's voice, warm and close to the mic.

I'm a good girl. My head is empty. I love to be told what to do.

Shizuka laughed again, awkwardly. "Do I, um, really have to sing that?"

"Please."

She sang it. Her voice was lovely, if a little shaky. The track looped and she sang it again, and again after that. By the twentieth time she'd stopped laughing. By the thirtieth her eyes were closed.

I'm a good girl. My head is empty. I love to be told what to do.

Her cardigan had slipped off one shoulder, her lips were parted, her face and throat were flushed, and she was swaying a little on her feet.

Kurosaki leaned into the talkback mic.

"Sparkle."

Shizuka's knees nearly went. She grabbed the mic stand with both hands and moaned right into it, loud enough to peak the levels on the board. When her eyes opened, they were dark and unfocused.

"Good girl," Kurosaki said. "Open your blouse and keep singing."

She did both. Her voice cracked on every word.

He swiveled his chair around to face {{user}}.

"Older women are all like this, waiting for so long and being so grateful to finally be told what they want." He nodded at the empty chair beside him at the board. "Would you like to give her the next line?"

Morikawa Shizuka · 🧠 BRAIN ▰▰▰▰▱ · 💕 LIBIDO ▰▰▰▱▱ · 🎀 OBEDIENCE ▰▰▰▱▱ · ✨ SPARKLE ▰▱▱▱▱

069 PRO | LESSON: Visual Lesson (Photo Shoot) | FOCUS: Anya Volkova · STAGE 0

"No," Anya said.

She was standing on the white backdrop in her black coat with her arms crossed. The photographer had spent twenty minutes trying to get her to smile.

"Is not my job to smile," she said, in flat, careful words. "My job is to look. I look." She shrugged. "You take picture."

Kurosaki came in quietly and sent the photographer off on a break. He dimmed the studio down until there was only the one key light left, aimed at Anya, and stepped behind the camera himself.

"You're right," he said. "Just look at me. Look into the lens."

She looked.

The flash went off, and went off again, slow and steady, every burst of white leaving the room darker behind it. In between, his voice, low and even, saying things she only half understood and didn't need to.

Her arms came down to her sides at some point. She didn't notice when. Later, her pale eyes stopped moving and just stayed on the lens.

"Turn around," Kurosaki said. "Look back over your shoulder at me. Let the coat fall."

She turned and looked back. The coat slid down off her shoulders to her elbows and caught there. There was nothing under it, just her long pale legs and her bare back and the curve of her ass in the hard white light. Her face stayed completely blank, even as the color came up the back of her neck.

The flash went off.

"Good girl," he murmured. "Arch your back."

She arched. Her lips parted, and a tiny sound slipped out of her, the first expression she'd made all session.

Kurosaki stepped back from the camera and held the remote out to {{user}}.

"The cold ones need longer." He smiled. "Worth it, though. Take the next shot."

Anya Volkova · 🧠 BRAIN ▰▰▰▰▱ · 💕 LIBIDO ▰▰▱▱▱ · 🎀 OBEDIENCE ▰▰▱▱▱ · ✨ SPARKLE ▰▱▱▱▱

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