Chapter Text
“So! The most important thing for newbies is to join as many auditions as you can!” Honoka says, looking through the new listings.
“Auditions?” Rin asks, looking through her phone, “Oh! So that’s what this tab on the Aikatsu Mobile is for. There’s so many offers!”
“Don’t take them yet,” Maki puts her hand over Rin’s phone screen, “review your class and practice schedule. Rin. Wait. You’re going to double-book yourself. Stop.” Maki has her hands over Rin’s eyes at this point but she’s still scrolling .
“Eh…” Hanayo falters, “but… what if it’s not like me… and I don’t even know what to say. Interviews scare me, and… I already know I can’t really be compared to veterans and seniors…”
“You can’t think like that!” Honoka says. “You’re adorable, Hanayo-chan! Plus, there’s always an audition or three that want a fresh new idol on their pages.”
“Plus, even if you don’t win, participating is plenty of experience,” Umi says. “You get to be acquainted with directors, producers, and interviewers, and they may recognize you in other work they do. You make an impression and it’ll stay with them forever until they eventually seek you out themselves.”
“It’s all about persisting,” Kotori says. “You can also meet new people! People from Dream Academy, or idols not affiliated with school… you can make connections even with your rivals, and that’s always good!”
“Plus!” Honoka adds, excitedly, “auditions are a good place to figure out what you’re good at, and explore new genres! Have you seen Tsubasa’s new sports commercial?”
“YES,” Hanayo wheezes, and instantly they’re all up in each others’ hands and squealing, “she’s always wearing Futuring Girl, but she wore Colourful Splash for it! It’s the rarest Tsubasa content ever!”
“RIGHT???”
The rest of them look upon the rabid fangirls with disgust.
“Oh no,” Umi says, “there’s two of them now.”
“Who thought that pairing was a good idea?” Maki asks.
Kotori chuckles at that. “I’m glad they get along so well! It’s a good thing, that’s what senpai are for, after all.”
Rin giggles at the sight.
Regardless, the next thing on the first year agenda is to participate in auditions, to get their career kicking off strong.
“Then, senpai, ” Maki starts, “what would all of you recommend as a first audition for us newbies to the field, at this time of the year?”
“Well…”
Honoka, Kotori, and Umi look toward the billboard with a very knowing smile. And that’s when Hanayo steps back and her jaw drops in awe.
High up on the billboard, a poster so big it’s the majority of the entire board— is a poster of Kousaka Honoka, a leaping shot of her holding a creamy crepe. And right below it— auditions are now open.
“Is that…” Hanayo’s so amazed she’s crying, “the legendary Pon Pon Crepe commercial?!”
“Bingo!” Honoka beams.
“The legendary what now,” Maki’s exasperated.
“They scout for a new campaign girl every year,” Kotori explains. “And whoever wins it is sure to become the most successful up-and-coming idol of the new age— it’s basically our good luck charm of sorts,” Kotori says.
“More like a rite of passage, the surefire stairway to success, et cetera,” Umi sighs. “It all began when Miya became its image girl as her debut work, and then, she went on to become part of the Legendary Masquerade. It’s basically the indicator of gems in the rough for the new generation.”
“I got a TON of my current work from this!” Honoka boasts.
“You’re the first outlier, because you’re still low in the rankings,” Umi says, “the previous winner, Nico-senpai, is near the top of the rankings, and even if she isn’t winning against Tsubasa, she has a much more fanatical fanbase.”
Honoka’s affronted, “why are you so mean to me?”
But regardless if the superstition is true, one thing is very clear— winning this audition is going to stake you a firm spot in the current idol industry.
“Woah,” Rin’s on her phone again, “it’s true! There’s a whole website dedicated to listing old versions of the posters and where the idols are now!”
Some went on to become Starlight Queens, fill up concerts, some went on to become the muse of top brands, and others went on to gain further success worldwide.
Maki flushes red as she sees her mother’s younger self on one of those pages, listed as unknown after disappearing from the idol world after her final live. She averts her eyes.
“It’s not really my image, so I think I’ll pass,” Maki says. “The honey campaign was enough sugary sweetness for my quota this month,” she’s honestly a little bashful, “I’ve hit my limit, I’d rather go for one of the modelling auditions… what’s this Vivid Girl audition?”
“That’s for Vivid Color, a fashion magazine by Vivid Kiss,” Umi says. “It may not be your preferred brand, but it’s always a good idea to appeal to as many fashion trends as you can. I personally think you’d look great in American Street Fashion.”
“Ah… just like how Umi-senpai has Smile Pop Lemon!” Rin says.
Maki’s much more intrigued by that. “I think I’ll go for that, then.”
“Eh?” Hanayo falters, “then, I’ll—”
Rin jumps on her, earning a squeak, “Kayo-chin! Audition for Pon Pon Crepe with me!”
“Ehh?? But only one of us can win, you know?”
“Competing is great!” Honoka assures. “Though, honestly, looking for auditions for things you like is best. For food there’s also Pop’n Popcorn coming up, and Brain Thunder, and—”
“Honoka, aren’t you the image girl for all of those?” Umi says. “Stop. They’re supposed to be original!”
“I guess that’s decided, then,” Kotori says. “Luckily, the three of us have the day off then, so we can come along with you guys for your first auditions.”
“Alright!” Honoka cheers, “now that we’ve got the agenda, time for practi—”
She gets interrupted by a clap to the side.
“Honoka-Sunflower! The light of our lives,” Johnny Bepp-sensei serenades, “the Headmistress would like to see you, Sea-Beauty, and Honey-Bird in her office now, if you have the time to spare.”
“Honoka Sunflower?” Rin asks.
“Honeybird!” Hanayo’s fascinated.
“Sea-Beauty, really?” Maki’s flabbergasted.
“Right now?” the three seniors asks. “Like, right now… right this instant?”
“Yes!”
“So… I take it you’ve forgotten, but I don’t blame you, since this is your first time,” the Headmistress begins, and immediately, there’s a foreboding sense. “It’s very important to keep up the momentum of every new thing you do.”
A moment of silence.
And then Umi realizes, “oh right! Our unit!”
“I was so busy I completely forgot…” Kotori winces.
“Eh?” Honoka’s confused, “but couldn’t we wait until our schedules are a little freer to plan something together?”
Everyone in the room stared at her.
“Honoka, I know you’re not used to running long-term campaigns,but,” Umi says, “when it comes to a unit, there are no breaks.”
“Yeah…” Kotori chuckles, “it’s like my cafe. The second one campaign’s up, I need to have the full plan for the next or we’ll miss the season. We need to keep the momentum of interest to the audience, or we’ll lose them in this competitive field.”
Honoka whines, “but I’m swamped! Summer is the one season I’m even busier than Umi-chan!”
“I’m busy every other season!” Umi protests, “and I still make time for you!”
“I’d make time for you too!” Honoka wails.
“And I have my hands full planning for Mina-Maid Menagerie…” Kotori’s hesitant. It’s clear none of them actually felt the weight of forming a unit.
With a longsuffering sigh, Headmistress Orihime puts up a poster on the table projector.
“I knew it. I already said I’d be helping minimally at most, but I guess I’ll need to give you three a boost,” she says. “I had Johnny-sensei check your schedule, and you three have this Friday off. I want you three to go Bar-Hopping in Shibuya.”
“What?”
“What?”
“What?”
A moment of silence later, there’s Johnny in the corner going, “WHAT?”
“Why are YOU surprised?!” everyone spins on the Dance teacher, including the headmistress. He winces like he’s just gotten egged.
“We have an all-day pass for you girls to sing in the streets,” Headmistress says, “but aside from that, I arranged for various bars in the city to accommodate one performance slot for all three of you. Your challenge is to adapt to the different images of each place you get there— choose your own song and dresses, then produce your own stage. Just finish the day, and I’ll count that a job well done.”
It sounds— horrifying, honestly.
“Don’t those places usually want mature, rock performances?” Honoka asks.
“I… think I might be comfortable with them,” Kotori says, “but how many?”
“A small— a small audience?” Umi’s teeth are chattering, “and we’ll be going straight up against local favourites, drunkards, and we’ll need powerful performances to stand a chance? We have to improvise? Ad lib? Call and response? Everything?”
Umi can’t handle not knowing every single detail of the performance before she gets there. And while Kotori is experienced, she’s a niche. Honoka’s completely out of her element, outside of being able to supply the energy and stamina for all of that.
“Orihime!” Johnny’s also against this, surprisingly, “that was Masquerade’s challenge when you were already an established unit with a mysterious concept! It’s too hard for these Honeys! They don’t even have a unit name yet!”
Headmistress Orihime blinks at that.
“You have a point.”
Umi breathes a sigh of relief.
“In that case,” Headmistress Orihime shuts off the projector and picks up her tea, “decide on a unit name by today. Then spend the rest of the week planning. You leave on Thursday, I’ll have Suzukawa supervise all of you, so get ready to be there until Saturday.”
Umi shrieks and starts crying, face in her hands, “that’s TWO DAYS away and my schedule is completely full until then!”
“Calm down! Umi-chan! Calm down!” Honoka panics.
“Oh dear,” Kotori sighs to herself, “we’re off to a bad start already.”
Two steps out of the office Honoka has to spin around and shriek again, Aikatsu Mobile in hand, “WAIT! NO!”
“Huh?”
Johnny and Headmistress Orihime would like for them to stop being dramatic already.
“NO, just—!! This Friday is the Pon Pon Crepe audition!” Honoka fumbles, “I- I mean I can schedule a video address instead of being there in person, but—”
“Ah, the Vivid Girl audition is the same day,” Kotori notices.
Umi realizes what they’re talking about. “Wait, we can’t leave our understudies alone on their first audition! What if they trip into the interview and it haunts them for eternity?? No! I can’t let this happen! Not to them!”
“Umi-chan, you turned out fine even after that happened.”
“WHAT ABOUT MY CURRENT HYSTERICS SEEM FINE TO YOU?!”
“And that’s how we got here.”
Maki, Hanayo, and Rin have absolutely no idea where they got lost in the story, but right now, they’re standing in front of Nico, Nozomi, and Eli, and they’re in various ranges from mortified to ecstatic about this. Hanayo, for example, looks like her soul is about to escape her body and she’s already praying to god about it.
“We’ll guide you three that day,” Nozomi assures, warmly. “Don’t worry, if I’m here, you’ll be just fine!” and Hanayo feels rejuvenated already.
Nico clicks her tongue, “why do I have to babysit?” Maki raises a brow at that.
Eli smiles, through her eyes tingling with exhaustion, “We don’t exactly have that day off, but the audition slots just happen to be free for all of us. I hope you don’t mind being strung along our work schedule instead of being able to practice, though.” Rin nods enthusiastically.
They had much more experience than the second-years. They could juggle the busy schedules much better than them, so helping out minimally like this was no big deal.
“We’d be honoured to be able to follow you around!” Rin says, eyes twinkling with interest.
“I- I’m going to memorialize this day forever,” Hanayo stutters, “forever. I am so nervous now.”
“I’d rather go with Eli-senpai,” Maki immediately says.
Silence.
Then, Nico’s teeth grinds, “you got a problem with me, miss sassy bitch?”
“Yes,” Maki says, “you’re two-faced, narcissistic, and most of all, you clearly don’t want me along. I’d rather spend the day in the training room before my audition.”
“You think just because you’re the model student, you’ve got it made?” Nico snarls.
“Yes,” Maki says, upturning her nose, “more than you have with your stuck-up, overconfident attitude, at least. If leading around a junior is so beyond you that you have to complain the whole way through, I’d rather not.”
“You—!!” Nico struggles to not strangle her right then and there, but Eli holds her back by the shoulder and she scowls, “no respect for your seniors at all!”
“I have respect,” Maki clarifies. “Just not for you.”
That’s it. Nico lunges, and all hell breaks loose.
“A unit name, huh…”
The second-years gathered in the dorms. While the first-years shared with three, they had two to a room, and Umi didn’t have a roommate. So here they were in her room, making a mess Umi was going to regret enabling soon.
Honoka mulls over the table of choices before standing up and declaring, “Honoka, Umi, Kotori!” with full, unashamed confidence.
“What are we, a manzai group?!” And Umi whips to her feet with a paper fan, smacking her right up the jaw and sending Honoka flying for all of a dramatic moment, and then she crumbles into a miserable heap on the ground.
Kotori oohs and claps, “that was a perfect tsukkomi!”
“You’re not helping!” Umi whirls around and slaps it down over Kotori's head.
“Ow!”
That’s when Honoka shakily raises her hand from her spot playing dead and asks, “HonoKotoUmi?”
“What are you trying to achieve by shortening it?!”
Kotori tries her best to salvage the situation, “you know Soraru-san and Mafumafu-san? Their unit name was popular as Sky-coloured Muffler (Sorairo Mafura) before they officially formed After the Rain , so maybe we can do something like that and—”
“Earth, Sky, SEA!” Honoka declares. “The three elements of nature!”
“Stop opening your mouth!” Umi snarls.
“Uhh, how about,” Kotori holds the bump on her head, “something to do with Otonokizaka? Since we’re all from there, and we formed the unit for it…”
“Otonokizaka Trio!” Honoka comes back from the grave.
Umi doesn’t miss a beat. “We are no longer accepting suggestions from you.”
Honoka crumbles in despair, sobbing, “Umi-chan is so mean to me and only me always. Where is the Yamato Nadeshiko that’s always in front of the TV?”
“She exists because of you. Gratitudes.”
“It’s a coping mechanism?!”
Kotori scribbles down the ideas.
“It’s a start,” Kotori says. “I think ‘Otonokizaka’ is a name in itself… the sounds resonating along the woods and hills.”
“A little old-fashioned, don’t you think?” Umi says. “Personally, I have no problem, but…”
“It’s not cute!” Honoka insists from the floor.
“Then, let’s go in a different direction,” Kotori says, “we’re trying to be stars, after all, so… Three Stars!”
“Didn’t we already have one of the iconic Starlight Big 3, Tristar?” Honoka asks.
“Livestar?”
“A bit too generic, if I’m honest,” Umi says, “and honestly, with Tsubasa’s unit on the horizon, we’d be Little Stars at most.”
“How about we move away from stars ?” Kotori wonders.
“Little Diamond!” Honoka offers.
No one deigns her with a response. She’s almost offended.
“Nothing just… jumps out at me, you know?” Umi sighs, sitting down on her bed with a sigh. “None of these really… come to me like, yeah, this is our name , you know?”
Honoka sighs.
“What are the plans for Otonokizaka hence? Have you heard anything from your mother?” Umi brings it up, just to change the topic that’s not really getting anywhere.”
“Ah…” Kotori perks up, “I've heard they were making negotiations. Instead of shutting it down completely, we might be turning it into a rest stop for tourists. We will still be proceeding with breaking down the industrial powerhouses and shopping districts to transform them into reforestation zones, but there’s been talk of leaving the shopping district operating as they were.”
“So my family business should be okay?” Honoka asks.
Kotori nods. “It’s still all up in the air, but it’s… basically decided already.”
There’s a lull after that. It’s not like any of them could do anything about it. Even if those businesses could still operate, it would be much less profitable with the less tourist and local traffic, and against all the competition they’d likely have to move eventually.
It made them wonder why they even did it— maybe at first, it was for this vague hope they’d be able to change this decision somehow— but now, they wondered if they should still enjoy themselves here, as idols, when their families were going through so much back at home.
“You know… sometimes I wonder why we became idols,” Honoka admits. “Of course, I don’t regret it, but…”
Doubts happen. It happens to everyone.
“I just wonder how things would be, if I stayed with my parents and inherited the family business instead. I could still do that, but…” Honoka chuckles at the thought, “you know, I think our lives would be so strange compared to now, if we attended Otonokizaka instead of Starlight.”
Umi huffs at that. “Well, if we did, then when it shut down like now, we’d be stumped, too. We wouldn’t have any juniors to lead.”
“Oh no, I’d never be called senpai ever?” Honoka sulks.
Kotori giggles, “or maybe we’d be lucky enough to get juniors, but our juniors wouldn’t have juniors! That’s what’s happening to this year’s students, anyways…”
Another moment of contemplation.
“But we were all inspired by something, I guess,” Umi says. “Something that drew us out of Otonokizaka, into a different destiny.”
Kotori knows how she’d be, if she didn’t become an idol. She would work a normal business job, like her mother. That was the expectation in the Minami house— no one in the family could’ve ever fathomed a ‘lady’ acting like a maid for the internet, but she’s doing just that.
“Inspired, huh…” Honoka wonders. “So… like a muse?”
Kotori and Umi’s eyes light up at that, both turning to Honoka with a sudden spark.
“You know… like how Tsubasa is Nico-senpai and Nozomi-senpai’s muse,” Honoka thinks back, “and Umi-chan, you said your song was given to you by a singer-songwriter who was inspired by you, right? And how I’m the image girl of all those desserts. And Kotori’s the poster girl for that maid cafe. Everyone operates based on something.”
And they operate on aspiration for something, someone .
“Our first live…” Kotori says, “the lyrics were written by Umi, based on her feelings for Honoka, and the song was written by Maki-chan, for us.”
They’ve gotten this far because people saw a light, and they wanted to see more of that shine.
Just like how Honoka became an idol to chase after Tsubasa’s light… just like how the first-years dove into the world of idols after seeing Honoka shine on that street at the train station— just like how Maki wrote their song for them, just like how the lyrics were written in Umi’s heart for Honoka, and how the choreography was done in their image—
—their unit could be one that inspires others, even if it doesn’t become the brightest, shining star in this saturated idol environment.
With the words muse on the paper circled and underlined, they’ve made their decision.
Kotori looks up at Honoka, and then Umi, and they nod at each other with resolve.
“U’s?” Honoka asks.
She gets assaulted with the Johnny devastation pose.
“It’s read as MUSE, my honey, MUSE—!!!”
“Oh! Like the soap?”
Johnny cries for ten minutes.
With a laugh and a new unit name on their shoulders, they’re ushered out the door and onto the van, where their groundskeeper sighs with the car keys in hand.
“Oh, it’s really Suzukawa-san!” Honoka says.
“And he’s not wearing his work clothes!” Kotori observes, fascinated, “Swing Rock, huh, that suits you!”
“You identified that really fast, Kotori,” Umi’s baffled, “but of course he has normal clothes, did you think he was taking us to Shibuya in a groundskeeper jumpsuit and gloves?”
The ensuing silence is accompanied by Honoka and Kotori avoiding anyone’s gaze.
“I’m offended,” Suzukawa invokes.
Honoka and Kotori throw their heads down, “we’re very sorry!”
“Whatever,” Suzukawa shrugs, turning around to open the car doors, “I’m driving you guys to Shibuya, but you better be prepared. Shibuya’s the musical hotspot, and you guys are going to get swallowed if you don’t play your cards right.”
Umi gulps. “Uhh… any advice, sir?”
Suzukawa levels her with an unimpressed stare.
“First of all, never call me sir ever again.”
“Stop crying,” Suzukawa groans, ten minutes into their car ride.
“I’m having a mental breakdown,” Umi wails into her hands.
“She is indeed,” Honoka says. “It’s one thing for me and Kotori-chan, but Umi-chan’s never had to do improvisation to this degree before.”
“We don’t know any of the venues, themes, and crowds,” Umi cracks, “we don’t even know what dresses to wear and what songs to sing, and even if we have enough cards in the right theme to not look like a hodgepodge unit, and we’re going to be performing in a field where no one knows who we are .”
“I wonder if I have any Shibuya fans,” Kotori says, “Minalinsky is popular in Akiba, but not really anywhere else.”
“I’m excited!” Honoka says. “There’ll be a lot of people there! Our first stop is a public square, right? It’s like the train station here, then.”
“Oh, I remember that,” Kotori says. “You almost got in trouble for performing without a permit here, right?”
“Yep! It’ll be a bigger space this time— wait,” Honoka blinks, “how’d you know about that?”
“Uh! No reason!”
“But what if they bully us?” Umi wails, “we’re newbies, we’re young, we’re not suited for the hyper-competitive modern impression of Shibuya—”
Suzukawa hates his day already.
“Look… our first stop is the middle of the Shibuya street performance square,” Suzukawa tells them. “What’s important there isn’t your brand, your setup, or even your dress. Just go there, make a powerful impact— and stand out at all costs.”
The second he started saying something useful, all three of them zero in on him like he’s some god providing sage advice.
“Kousaka, you’ve experienced it before in the city center— just think of that, but it’s got to be much bigger.”
That had Honoka grimacing. “But it’s much bigger than back then!”
“And there’s three of you,” Suzukawa says. “It’s not even peak hours right now, wait till nighttime and you’ll be consumed by the crowd.”
When he said that, Umi sobs into the corner.
“The song is important… we need something strong,” Kotori says. “There’s no guarantee most of them will stay to listen, so we need something impactful… something everyone recognizes. But nothing slow.”
Suzukawa nods at that. As expected, Kotori’s the one with the most experience in street lives. She usually gets a quiet crowd though, either outside her store in Akiba, or inside the store as a special event. She’s never been thrust blindly into the wild before.
“Then we want rock!” Honoka says. “Rock is always the most impactful!”
Umi wails, “no! I don’t want to be the center!”
Everyone grimaces in exasperation.
“Sonoda, we can’t sing your song without you in the center,” he says. “You’re the most popular of this group, of course you need to be in the center.”
“But Honoka is the most friendly,” she insists. “And Kotori’s the most charismatic.”
“Which is why you need to be in the center to balance out the energy.”
She wails. “But— I only sing my song when I’m confident! I practice it ten times before the actual performance because I don’t want to bring shame to the one that composed it for me. You’re telling me to bring it out unprepared??”
“If you’ve practiced it that much, surely you can do it once on the streets,” Suzukawa groans. “How about you stop whining and do it? I’m not here to be your therapist.”
Umi sobs.
Kotori and Honoka level Suzukawa with a judgemental glare.
Suzukawa wants to drive this van off a bridge.
“Look— if you want to survive on the streets, you better stop acting like the school will always give you a fallback when things are tough,” he picked up a guitar in the corner and pulled open the doors of the van to step out.
He pulled it over his shoulder and into the square. Hiking out the cabinet he plugs his electric guitar into it— and then strums it once, loud and violent.
Everyone turns and Umi shrieks, hiding into the corner of the car somewhere not visible from the open door, and so does Kotori and Honoka.
Suzukawa doesn’t turn around, but he does tell them.
“Decide if you want to come out. You have until the instrumental intro ends to decide on your coord. There’s a changing room in there.”
When Bokura wa Ima no Naka starts playing— let’s just say the three girls have never scrambled harder to get ready.
This was the first song they learned in school— it was their entrance exam audition song, after all. So they’ve practiced this song so many times, it’s muscle memory at this point.
Even at our most serious, our clumsy hearts clash against each other. But even so, I want to see it— I want to see that big dream ahead of us. It’s right there before our eyes, and it’s only just begun.
Suzukawa nods, satisfied with their first performance, even if it was stiff and nervous. He shreds through the last notes of the song as they catch their breaths.
“Alright,” he huffs, satisfied. Then, “onto the next stop, get back in there.”
He passes the guitar to Honoka and Umi yelps, “ what??”
He’s already in the car when Kotori beams at the confused crowd and waves, “we’re μ's! Thanks for listening!”
Honoka poses with the guitar, “we'll be here again tonight!”
Umi hefts up the speaker cabinet and chases, “S-Suzukawa-san!” the engine comes on, “we’re just going?? Like this??” She spins back to the crowd and fumbles, “uh- uhm! We’re from Starlight, my n-n-name is, I’m Sonoda Umi from Starlight Academy, we’re forming a unit called μ's…”
“Umi, no need for the long exit, we’re going to be late!” Kotori says, jumping onto the car from the side door.
Honoka pushes Umi in and winks at the crowd, “once again, this has been μ's! Not the soap, but now that we’re on that, everyone please wash your hands and don’t catch covid! OKAY BYE!”
And she slams the door shut.
Suzukawa drives off, ignoring Umi’s hysterical, “WHY ARE WE ESCAPING LIKE WE DON’T HAVE PERMISSION TO BE HERE?”
The rest of the day went similarly.
It took them until the third bar to realize why the Headmistress sent Suzukawa with them here.
While they did have permission to perform in some places, other places were on a ‘I’ll only let you perform if you’re good’ type of condition, and a lot of the times the scary bar owners were not impressed with idols in their rock bar.
Apparently, their school’s groundskeeper is moonlighting as a legendary rock band vocalist. This is most important for the fact that he has more experience than anyone in fighting his way onto street and bar stages.
“Oh really?” Suzukawa starts, confrontationally, “you’re not even gonna listen to them first?”
The bar owner, a tall, lanky man, simply scoffed. “You pretty, petite idols jump and dance all the same. We don’t need your cute little pop and classics here— this place is frequented by metalheads! It’s the haven of rock! If you want to be booed off the stage, be my guest, but I’m not taking anyone off for you.”
Suzukawa chuckles, smug, “that’s a lot of words to just admit your masculinity is so fragile, you’re too afraid to listen to girls sing.”
Kotori burst out laughing and hurried to stifle herself behind her hands.
Honoka is staring at Suzukawa like he’s some kind of god.
“You brat—” the bar owner howls, “you think you can come in here with some girls and start touting like you’re the shit? Who do you think you are?”
Suzukawa stares at him, blinking dumbly.
The bar owner misinterprets his expression and cackles, “see? We don’t need no girls in the hard rock music field! Now get out of my sight!”
“E-Excuse you?!” Umi exploded with bewilderment, “did you just— don’t you know this song playing over the speakers literally right now??”
Suzukawa just lets it happen, because he prefers when Sonoda Umi is angry to when she’s a cowardly, bumbling mess.
“It’s More Than True’s collaboration song with Toudou Erena! AND IT’S HER DEBUT SONG that launched her career to the moon!” Umi yells, stomping closer to the bar owner and making him take a step back, surprised. “It topped the charts for months, it is THE rock song of our era!”
The bar owner scoffs, “that’s only because she had More Than True’s name backing her up! It’s so obvious she was just a guest feature, they put her name up with the composer to sell her name, that’s all!”
“ExCUSE me?!” now it’s Suzukawa that’s raising his voice, “I had to YELL at them to get MY name off that stupid credit and they STILL put it up there! She did the whole damn song herself!”
“What?”
“What??”
Silence.
Suzukawa smacked Kotori over the head and she sneezed in the middle of her wheezing laughter. Honoka yelps, “are you okay Kotori-chan?!” She was not. She was going to asphyxiate from laughing too hard.
“Right, nevermind,” Suzukawa says. “Just shut up and let the girls on that fucking stage, you’re not using it anyways. Sonoda, you feel like taking that damn stage yet?”
Umi snaps out of it. “Oh— yeah!” she drags Kotori and Honoka in each arm, “it’s the open stage slot right now, right? Getting up there now! I’ll leave the sound checks to you, Suzukawa-san!”
So being cute isn't enough, is that right? You also need to be ladylike! Encapsulate strength and grace in harmony, just like a flower. Girls of Japan, if you aim to capture the essence of a Yamato Nadeshiko— let that heart of a maiden bloom gallantly!
“Cuteeee!!” Honoka squeals, “I hardly get the chance to wear a kimono on stage!”
“Me too!” Kotori beams, “it’s so far from MInalinsky’s image, but it works really well when we put Umi-chan in the center.”
Umi blushes at that. “Well, there’s no way we’d look bad in it. You’re lucky I had cards that suited you guys…”
“Oh! How about for the next stop we wear something from my album instead?” Kotori says, “I’m so excited! I want to see Umi-chan in Humming Leaf, it’d look so cute!”
“Eh?!”
“This is fun!” Honoka beams, “I’ve never worn Humming Leaf before, either!”
“Hey hey,” Umi was worried now, “we’re supposed to be a trio… How can we be this mismatched in aesthetic cohesion? No wonder we had so much difficulty finding a unit name. But what are we going to do with original songs?”
“Uh. We’ll worry about it when we get there?” Honoka supposes.
Umi bristles. “That’s a horrible attitude to take!”
Kotori jumps in to soothe them. “Now now… onto the next stop we go!”
Even as harried as the entire day was— as the time went by, they found themselves getting used to the pace. Growing accustomed to being thrust upon the stage onto a song they barely practiced, discussing coords and positions as they walked, and planning the next song as they finished up the first. They ad-libbed the lines they said, but always made sure to introduce themselves as their unit name.
They managed to have a lot of fun.
It was definitely an amazing experience to have as a growing unit, and they couldn’t deny that this challenge the Headmistress shoved them into was invaluable.
Toudou Erena wasn’t having all that great of a day.
Her recording for her new single ran late in Shibuya, but things happened with the arrangements for the stadium slot she was set to perform in next. So it’s been cancelled, so she decided to dejectedly walk around town for the rest of the time.
And that’s when she hears it.
More Than True’s iconic guitar riff rips through the cityscape, and her head spins before she thinks better of it. How could she not? There’s only one person that can make that very distinctive sound in the rock world, and it’s MoTru’s Nao.
(She performed with them very closely when she was still a fresh debut, but hasn’t been in contact recently. She does wonder how they’re doing.)
…except, More Than True isn’t performing.
It’s three girls, dressed in Swing Rock, and Erena recognizes them. She knows Umi, of course— and then Honoka, the girl that performed at the city center. Then, Minalinsky, it’s hard to not recognize her.
But the group of them were an up-and-coming trio unit, and Nozomi adored them. There was also a niche fanbase online, of people frantically posting clips and videos of their performances.
Today had been a whole tour with these girls, apparently. It made sense their last stop was the busiest part of the city— the street crossroads— right after work hours, where most people commuted this way.
Erena hears the first line of the song and she’s blown away .
For the first time, my heartbeat is pulsing through my body. Something’s about to be born right here at this moment— so don’t you dare look away now!
Of course she’s heard Kiss of the Alice Blue before. She’s even sung it before, countless times on the streets.
But these girls? They sang it like they owned it. Honoka led the charge, bringing the energy and power that this song needed, and Kotori rumbled through the tough parts with her flawless vibrato, mellowing out the whirr of rock to suit their lighter voices.
And then Umi blew through even the fiercest notes flawlessly. Her passion and emotion emanated through every syllable in her tongue, and made this a version of this that only they could sing.
When Erena’s eyes drifted to Nao, she caught him smiling with effort, twisting aside from the notes he wanted to play and improvising new ones that suited them better. He slammed the music down exactly where they needed it, places that his own voice was never able to take it to— and the whole time, the furrow in his brows and the conflicted grin growing on his face as his own music was stolen before his eyes—
—Erena felt the shiver of catharsis run down her spine, and she had to swallow down her saliva before she embarrassed herself with the mighty craving she felt for these three as a unit.
She wanted to write a song for them.
She wanted them to sing her song.
She wanted it, so badly, she would fistfight Nao to get that spot in the front of the line if she had to.