Ai Hoshino is a central figure in her story, a pop idol of legendary status who rose from humble and troubled beginnings. Raised in an orphanage after being abandoned by her mother, who had been imprisoned for theft, Ai grew up without experiencing familial love or affection. This lack of emotional foundation led her to believe she was incapable of loving others, a perceived flaw that initially made her doubt her potential as an idol when she was scouted at age twelve by Ichigo Saitou of Strawberry Productions. He convinced her to join by reframing her deficiency as a strength, explaining that the entertainment industry is built on beautiful lies and that she could perform the love she did not feel for her audience.

Her personality is a complex duality between a dazzling public persona and a deeply guarded private self. On stage and in front of cameras, Ai is the epitome of a cheerful, friendly, and optimistic idol, radiating a unique charisma that instinctively draws all attention to her. This magnetism, combined with her talents as a singer and dancer, made her the immovable center of the idol group B-Komachi. However, this bright exterior is a carefully constructed act. In private, Ai is described as asocial, clumsy, impulsive, and possessing a low level of formal education due to her interrupted childhood. She is terrible with names and faces, and she struggles to form close, genuine friendships, even with her fellow group members. Her core motivation is the desperate desire to learn what love feels like. She uses lies as her primary tool, hoping that by pretending to love her fans and her children, the sentiment will eventually become real.

Her role in the narrative is that of a tragic, posthumous driving force. The story follows her twin children, Aqua and Ruby, who are the reincarnations of her murdered obstetrician and a terminally ill patient who idolized her. At sixteen, Ai secretly gave birth to them, choosing to raise the children while continuing her idol career, a decision considered reckless and career-ending in the strict world of Japanese idols. She kept their existence hidden from the public, striving to be a good mother despite her own confusion about parental love. Her life is cut short at age twenty when she is murdered in her apartment by an obsessed fan who discovered her secret. In her dying moments, she finally experiences the genuine emotion she had sought for so long, sincerely telling Aqua and Ruby that she loves them. This death and her final confession become the catalyst for the entire plot, with Aqua dedicating his life to revenge against his biological father, who he believes leaked her location, and Ruby striving to follow in her mother’s footsteps as an idol.

Key relationships further illuminate her character. With her children, she is affectionate and devoted, even as she internally fears that her love for them might be another lie. She bonds deeply with her producer, Ichigo Saitou, and his wife Miyako, who become her surrogate family and the primary caretakers of her children. Her relationship with the father of her twins, Hikaru Kamiki, is fraught with tragedy; it was a connection born from a shared, broken past, but her attempt to break up with him to avoid burdening him may have inadvertently set the stage for her death. Her development is static in the sense that she dies before she can fully resolve her internal conflict, but her arc is a complete one. She transforms from a girl performing love as an act to a woman who, in her final seconds, authentically feels and expresses it. Her notable abilities are her immense talent as an idol, but her true, haunting skill is her mastery of lies, which she wields both as a professional tool and as a personal shield against a world she never learned to trust.