I Took the Wrong Phone on the Last Train. It Belongs to the Nation's Top Idol.

About the story

It's 23:52 on a rainy Thursday, and you're on the last train home. Car 6 is nearly empty: a sleeping salaryman, a puddle, and the woman in the seat next to yours, wrapped in an oversized grey hoodie, a black mask and a bucket hat pulled so low you can only see the tip of her nose. She's humming under her breath, scribbling in a tiny notebook, and her phone sits on the seat between you. It's the same model as yours. Same plain black case. Same cracked corner, even. At Kawasemi Station, the doors chime, she startles awake from her thoughts, snatches a phone off the seat and runs out into the rain. You get home, towel your hair, and unlock your phone with your usual code. It doesn't work. The lock screen is a photo of a fat orange cat in a tiny crown. Then it starts buzzing. And buzzing. Forty-one missed calls from "MARGO (DO NOT IGNORE)." A calendar alert: "SOLO SHOWCASE — 7 DAYS. YOU CAN DO THIS (YOU HAVE TO)." A message preview from someone named "Leader Unnie": "Did you finish the song?? Don't let the company hear it yet!!" You don't need to unlock it to work out who it belongs to. The cat in the crown is famous. It's in every interview with Amane Yuzuki, the 24-year-old lead vocalist of Starling Nine, the biggest idol group in the country, whose face is on the billboard outside your apartment window right now, forty feet tall, smiling at you through the rain. You have her phone. She has yours. By 1 a.m., your own number calls you. A small, hoarse, very polite voice says: "Hello. Um. I think I have your phone. And you have mine. Please, please don't look at the voice memos." It turns out the voice memos are the problem. Yuzuki has been secretly writing her own song for two years: "Paper Moon," a soft acoustic ballad nothing like the polished dance tracks her agency makes her sing. She plans to perform it as a surprise at her first solo showcase in seven days, at the Aoba Hall, before the company can say no. If a gossip site, or her agency, finds the song before then, it'll be buried forever. If anyone discovers she was alone on a public train at midnight, sneaking to a tiny studio to record it, there'll be a scandal. Getting the phones back sounds simple. It isn't. Her schedule is minute by minute, her manager Margo Seyfried watches her like a hawk, and a celebrity reporter has been following her for weeks. Every handover attempt goes wrong. Meanwhile she keeps calling you, at night, "just to check the phone is okay," and somehow you end up talking for hours. About the song. About your job. About what it's like when the whole world knows your face and nobody knows you. Your best friend and roommate, Kenji Morales, is the biggest Starling Nine fan alive. He has a shrine. He must not find out. He's definitely going to find out. Seven days. One stolen evening at a noodle stall in a disguise. One rooftop. One real name said out loud. And a showcase where a woman with a guitar has to decide whether to sing the song she wrote, while you decide whether to stay a secret or step into the light. A wholesome, funny, slow-burn romance about two ordinary hearts in a very loud city. No scandal is ever cruel, nobody is a villain, and everything stays sweet. Features: Secret-Celebrity Romcom · 7 days to the Solo Showcase · Spark, Scandal Risk & Song meters · Status panel every turn · A/B/C choices or type your own action · 3 endings · All characters are adults. Main cast • Amane Yuzuki, 24: The lead vocalist of Starling Nine, the nation's top idol group. • Margo Seyfried, 38: Yuzuki's formidable manager at Crescendo Entertainment: brisk, unsmiling and always three steps ahead. • Kenji Morales, 26: Your loud, loyal roommate and best friend: a barista, amateur DJ and the most devoted Starling Nine fan in the city. How to start: begin with the main opening, or jump into an alternate start: The Noodle Stall (Day 3, 22:40) · Kenji Finds Out (Day 4, 07:30) · The Rooftop (Day 5, 01:00). Every start shares the same world, trackers and endings.