"Say whatever you want to say," Hiko proactively said to Ai.
Hoshino Ai felt that now wasn't the time for him to sleep; it would be better to let him rest after they'd eaten something.
"I've been thinking, aren't they objectifying themselves by doing this?" Ai voiced her confusion about the three-person group. "Although it's not a nice way to put it, I just feel like they're objectifying themselves and selling themselves at a clear price. This situation with underground idols is clearly not normal, right?"
"But if they don't do that, they'll lack funds and won't be able to sustain themselves."
Hiko thought for a moment before replying, "Perhaps they struggled internally too, but considering Rika, who abandoned her dignity to become an idol, we have no right to criticize them."
"We have no right?" Ai repeated Hiko's words, feeling that his reasoning was wrong.
What she had said earlier wasn't about Rika from the three-person group, but rather about the plight of underground idols in general.
Ai felt that Hiko had misunderstood her words, so she reiterated, "I'm not talking about her. I'm asking you why they became like this."
Hiko initially thought that since he had repeatedly emphasized that idols don't earn much, Ai would already understand that the root cause was a lack of money. But seeing her ask again, he said, "Because the answer is simple, they just don't have money."
"Didn't I explain to you a long time ago that idols earn very little?" Hiko looked at Ai with confusion.
He still remembered telling her about the low salaries of idols in the president's car a month ago.
"Did you say that?" Ai replied without thinking.
"…"
Memory… Hiko was worried about Ai's memory, but after a moment of concern, he remembered that she had brought up old topics before, which clearly meant her memory wasn't bad at all, she just didn't think.
"Can't you try to recall?" Seeing Ai's unhesitating response, Hiko could only remind her, "A month ago, I mentioned it in the president's car."
Ai heard the keywords and tried hard to recall, finding that she seemed to have an impression.
"You really did say that," she said after thinking for a moment, then asked, "But according to what you said, 200,000 yen isn't a small amount, is it? It's enough to cover minimum expenses."
"You remembered the 200,000 yen, but did you forget what I said afterward?"
Hiko felt that Ai probably really couldn't remember, so he continued, "200,000 yen, that's the profit share when merchandise sells well. But I also said that if merchandise doesn't sell, idols can even lose money."
"But they don't look like they can't sell anything," Ai mentioned the three-person group's explosive sales at the merchandise booth.
"That's because they sell original scented items… focusing on suggestive content. Their fans have high loyalty, which is why their merchandise sales seem to be booming."
Hiko paused to organize his thoughts. "But have you ever considered how much actual income they get, despite the apparent popularity?"
He threw the question back to Ai.
Ai recalled the prices on the merchandise list. "Their merchandise event went so well, they should have earned quite a lot, right?" Ai answered with an uncertain tone.
Hiko shook his head. Just as he was about to reply, the waiter brought over their drinks and food.
Since it was evening, neither of them ordered coffee. They only ordered juice and pastries.
Saito Hiko put the straw into his orange juice, took two sips, and then regretted not ordering milk tea.
But there was no milk tea here.
He should have ordered the same as her earlier.
Ai, sitting across from him, had ordered a glass of milk.
Hiko sighed inwardly and continued, "Don't look at the large numbers and high prices on the list and assume every fan goes crazy shopping at the merchandise booth."
"From what I observed, the fans there spent roughly between 10,000 and 20,000 yen each."
Hiko told Ai what he had just noticed. "It might seem like a lot, but they're a three-person group, so you have to divide that by three."
"There were only seventeen people at the booth. Even if each person spent 20,000 yen, the total turnover would only be 340,000 yen. Divide that by three, and the average is about 113,000 yen per person."
Hiko asked Ai, "Do you still think that's a lot?"
"To earn over 110,000 yen from one performance, that's not bad," Ai said, feeling that the group's income wasn't low.
"If every performance brought in that much, it really wouldn't be bad. But the problem is, after fans buy once, even if they want to support again, it's hard for them to spend 20,000 yen on merchandise a second time. After all, they already bought plenty before, and they won't buy duplicates, right?"
"Therefore, they need to take new photos, right? New photos require new clothes, right? They also need to pay the photographer, right? Then there are the venue fees we mentioned earlier, right? Plus rent, food, utilities…"
Hiko rattled off a series of questions.
Hearing all those expenses, Ai suddenly realized that the 110,000 yen wouldn't be saved at all. Not only that, they probably couldn't even survive on such a meager income.
She was silenced by his words.
"What I just said was still a relatively ideal scenario, where each fan spent 20,000 yen. The production of merchandise also costs money, and even original scented items, as grand prizes, require a lot of money to prepare. You should know their prices better than I do."
After speaking, Hiko picked up a small cake-shaped pastry, took a bite, chewed, swallowed, and drank his juice, waiting for Ai to digest all the information.
Ai had thought what aito Hiko said earlier was already enough, but she didn't expect him to bring up the original scented items again.
Of course, she knew that even if those items were relatively cheap, they couldn't be too low-priced; otherwise, problems would arise. Even disposable ones were expensive, and given their situation, they definitely wouldn't choose disposable ones.
After all, they also had to consider the fans' reputation… and it was impossible to use them only once.
Otherwise, the price would exceed even that of good-quality ones.
Ai took a small sip of milk, picked up a pastry, and began to eat. She was tired and didn't want to do such math problems.
Seeing her silenced by his words, Hiko felt that the blow might've been too much, so he tried to reassure her, "Don't worry, you won't end up like that."
'Am I worried about such problems now? I'm just frustrated that you've brought up so many things to corner me.'