Ai Hoshino

"Ruby, Aqua, I love you. Ah, I was finally able to say it. I'm sorry, it took so long for me to say it. Ah, I'm so glad. Those words were definitely not lies."

Ai Hoshino (アイ) is a main character in the Oshi no Ko manga series. She was the lead idol of the now defunct B-Komachi, an idol group affiliated with Strawberry Productions. Before her idol work, she was a bumpkin who had no professionalism and didn't try to fit in. Through the help of Masaya Kaburagi, she was able to get into the Lalalie Theatrical Company, and from there, fell in love and started paying attention to herself. She transformed into the famous idol she was.

Her life took a turn when through an undetermined amount of time, she became pregnant with twins. Not wanting to squander her reputation, she and her team decide to hide this fact; having to play the role of idol and mother. This went on until an obsessed fan was given this secretive information by an unknown source and decided to end her life; not so long after doing the deed, ending his as well.

Her life and death became a source of motivation for her children (previously her fans before being reincarnated), arguably making her one of the most important character. Ruby Hoshino, the daughter, wants to become an idol just like her, and Aquamarine Hoshino, the son, who wants to do nothing but find out who was behind his mother's death by doing any means necessary.

Appearance
Ai Hoshino is a beautiful girl with a star in each of her eyes. She is shown to have brownish-red hair on first chapter cover but is shown to have more of a blue-purplish hair color on the volume cover.

Personality
Ai is shown to be quite joyful and always smiling even as she died. Despite this, she always had doubts about her actions and words; used lies to hide her true self. She claims that it's a form of love but she didn't want to bring that darker side of her to her children about loving them and was happy when she said it without lying. It was unfortunately the cause of her demise: her lies about not having children. She is stated to have an open-minded personality (as stated by Gorou, now as Aqua in his new life in chapter 1).

History
Ai Hoshino's mom was arrested for theft when she was at a very tender age. She was the only parent Ai knew so when she was thrown behind bars, Hoshino had to go live in an orphanage for the period she served her jailtime. However, when she was released, she didn't come back to the orphanage to pick her daughter up, which is the reason she had to stay in the orphanage and grow up within its walls.

When Ai became twelve, the president of Strawberry Productions, Ichigo Saitou, scouted her out and offered her a job as an idol. At the time, she thought she wasn't fit for the job since she never knew how to love and how to be loved. Nevertheless, Ichigo managed to convince her by explaining to her that she didn't need to know and that lying can work just as well. He gave her hope - that she would be able to turn that lie into truth. What followed was four successful years as the face of the popular idol group, B-Komachi.

Prologue
At the age of 16, Ai gets pregnant with twins. After hearing her manager/company president say that the world would not be for an idol with babies at the age of 16, she decided to keep her kids a secret from the outside world instead of completely getting rid of them, since she wanted to experience what a family is like. She managed to accomplish that feat to a certain extent as besides doing a fantastic job as the lead idol for B-Komachi, she even succeeded as an actor for a short while.

Ai was peaking at the age of 20 without being so clumsy as to let the cat out of the bag. However, she couldn't fool one of her followers who eventually found out about it (speculated by the older twin, Aquamarine Hoshino, to be the result of an information leak by their biological father) and stabbed her because she was "betraying her fans" by having the baby.

She, however, managed to recognize the man who stabbed her as one of the fans that regularly come to B-Komachi fan meeting, and the fan ran away in distress after she pointed out that she kept a trinket given by him. In her dying breath, Ai talked to both of her children, Aqua and Ruby, about her wish to see them grow up and be with them in every step, now no longer a possibility. She managed to finally say that she loved them, finally able to learn how to love others truly, before she died.

Relationships

 * Aquamarine Hoshino: Hoshino Ai's child. Hoshino Aquamarine is the older of the twins she gave birth to. He was the more reserved of the two. He, along with his sister, enjoyed watching her perform her work. Although he never was close with his mother, her death provided enough motivation to do what he thinks he has to do.
 * Ruby Hoshino: Hoshino Ai's child. Hoshino Ruby is the younger of the twins she gave birth to. Unlike her brother, she always yearned for her mother's attention and affection; elated being reborn as her daughter and wanting to savor the moment. Her mother's work inspired her to become an idol in her footsteps, her death exemplifying what passion was already there.

Etymology

 * The name Ai (1) is written in katakana (アイ), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (愛 or 藍), it could possibly mean:
 * 愛 - "love, affection".
 * 藍 - "indigo".
 * Ai's surname Hoshino means "star" (星) (hoshi) and "field, wilderness" (野) (no).

Trivia

 * Ai has two stars in her eyes compared to her children who only have one each (Aqua has one in his right eye and Ruby has one in her left).