- Rihona -

 

"You are 'Orbeat:71', aren't you?"

The girl in front of me, Inuzuka Nanai, twirled her blue strand of hair with her finger as her eyes drifted away from me.

"W-what if I am?"

"Don't worry, I'm not planning on telling anyone," I took a step forward, and another, then one more. "Just promise me something."

With the distance between us reduced, she finally faced me. When our eyes met, I continued. "If Akaishi Ryu asks if you are Orbeat, deny it. Deny it as if your life depended on it. Even if he seems convinced, even if he shows undeniable proof, you must do everything in your power to convince him that you are not Orbeat:71."

Inuzuka blinked twice. "Huh? Why?"

"Just promise me! Also, if you could stop spying on me and Ryu...."

"But, I wasn't-"

"And, don't tell anyone about my art."

"Eh? But it was really g-"

"Silence!"

She took a step back. "Why are you doing this? You are not a fan, are you?"

"Actually, I do like your channel, but this and that are different things."

Inuzuka sighed, then she started pacing around the room, pondering something, until she snapped her fingers, "I got it! Back then, you said that this Ryu guy follows my channel, right? You must be afraid that I will-"

"Lalalala~!!!"

I left that classroom while covering my ears. Once I was in the hallway, I saw Ryu walking a bit ahead of where I was. 

Right, I shouldn't run here.

Since he wasn't walking particularly fast, I tried to catch up to him by walking a bit faster until he, probably having felt a presence, turned around.

"Rihona? I thought you had left already."

"Yeah, well, you know."

"I know...? What, exactly?"

"If you know, you know, you know?"

"I don't!"

After masterfully evading his question, we headed home together.

 

 

- Ryu - 

 

It was Wednesday. When we arrived at school, Rihona and I found someone putting up posters everywhere.

He was a first-year student with ash brown hair and blue eyes. Wearing a confident smile, he carried a large stack of posters and taped several of them on each wall. If I recalled correctly, he was with that voyeur girl the other day.

I got closer and took a look at one of the posters.

"Orbeat:71 Fan Club?"

I walked up to the guy putting up those posters. "You..."

"Yes?" he said, turning around.

"You are a gentleman of refined taste. May I shake your hand?"

"Huh? Oh, are you a fan?" he said with a grin, pointing to the posters he held.

"You bet I am! I love her voice, it is so... How should I put it?"

Rihona tugged at my sleeve. For some reason, it felt like she was trying to skewer me with her gaze.

"Ryu, shouldn't we get going?"

"Just a minute," I turned back to our underclassman, "like I was saying, her voice is..."

"Reinvigorating?"

"Yeah! It fills me with energy."

"Right? The first time I heard her sing, I was entranced.  Her voice is so passionate that I can't help but jump around whenever I listen to her."

"Say, if you met her in real life," Rihona asked him, "what would you do?"

"Hmm? I would probably fall-"

A girl's voice interrupted him. "What's this?!"

We all turned in the direction of that scream. It came from a certain girl. I was becoming accustomed to seeing that black-haired, shorter-than-average person.

"Voyeur-chan?"

"I have a name, you know? It's Inuzuka Nanai! But more importantly," she approached the brown-haired boy, "what's the meaning of this, Kimura?"

He smirked. "Can't you read? It says what it is right here. Look."

He tapped on one of the posters, but she slapped his hand away and scowled.

"That's not what I mean! Why did you do this without consul- Uh, I mean... Ugh!"

She turned her gaze towards me. "You guys are not planning on joining, are you?"

"Well..."

"Don't! This guy is a jerk!"

"What? No way, to me he seems like such an upstanding individual," I said.

Rihona nodded, "Yeah, he is so passionate about Orbeat. You said you were her fan, right, Inuzuka-chan? You should try to get along with him since you two have that in common."

His eyes glittered as he put his hands on Inuzuka's. "Is that true?"

"Ahh, d-don't touch me!"

She pulled out her hands and tried to leave, but he followed her closely while reminding her that they were in the same class.

"Well, we gotta get going, right, Ryu?"

Rihona grabbed my arm and dragged me to our classroom. 

"But they are-"

"It's just banter between friends. Let's go."

Hmm, I think I heard someone crying "Senpai!". Must have been my imagination.

 

 

As we got closer to our classroom, I remembered that I had been meaning to ask something to Rihona.

"What are you going to do about the TCG club? They invited you to join, didn't they?"

Earlier this week, Kamihoriuchi had tried to recruit Rihona into the club, but she only replied that she would consider it.

"I'm not sure."

We entered the classroom. Receiving the usual greeting from our classmates, we sat down. 

Back to our conversation, I told her that she should consider their invitation to join, but the moment I said that, Nakajima jumped on her seat and turned around to face us.

"Hey, hey, whatcha talking about?"

"Remember how Kamihoriuchi wanted Rihona to join her club?"

"Ah, yes, that. But it would be a waste if you didn't join the art c- Uh..."

Nakajima stopped. After being frozen in place for a while, she broke into nervous laughter.

"Ha, ha, haar, ar-ar-ar, archoo? I sneezed."

Rihona tilted her head, only to let out a laugh that was just as awkward.

"Ha...ha...ha... Yeah, you sure sneezed. Be careful not to catch a cold, will you?"

Must be code for something in girl language, I thought. That, or I had just witnessed someone losing their marbles. Whatever the case, I deemed it as something I shouldn't strive to comprehend.

Other than that strange scene, the day was nothing out of the ordinary. We had morning classes, lunch, and then another bunch of classes. After that, it was time to head home.

As we prepared to leave the classroom, Rihona poked my arm.

"Uhm..."

"Yes?"

"I... Ah, I was, well... Uh, no. It's nothing."

"'Nothing'? You sure?"

"Huh? Yeah, it's... nothing."

Her eyes shifted around until someone called out to her.

"Rihona-chan, can we talk?"

Nicole, Miyazawa, and Nakajima gathered around Rihona. After saying something about "borrowing" her, they went off.

"Oh, man, you know what that means," Daisuke said, putting a notebook inside his bag.

"Girls' talk?"

"Yep."

As Rihona was swept away by those three, I finished picking up my stuff. I was about to leave, but the sound of someone giggling made me turn my head.

Tanaka and Kowasugi were chatting, as had become usual these days. I couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but the book she held was probably related.

"Those two have become quite close, haven't they?" I said.

"Yeah, it caught me by surprise."

Of course, since your absence was kinda the reason those two ended up talking to each other.

"I would have never thought this would happen when we invited them to eat lunch together. It is nice, though."

"I think he will make progress faster than you, too," he said, tapping my shoulder while sporting a huge grin.

"Oi, what's that supposed to mean?!"

"Ryu, my man. You know exactly what I mean."

Another classmate was passing by us. Upon hearing our conversation, she turned around, drawing an arc with her long, violet hair.

"Well, what's wrong with taking things at one's pace?"

Daisuke and I looked at her.

"Wakabayashi?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude. It's just, observing people has become a habit of mine."

Don't tell me... is she a weirdo like Voyeur-chan?

"Do you need to be a weirdo to become a songwriter or something?" I said.

"Huh? No, no. It's just that, when all kinds of people interact with each other... That's when stories are born, you know? Like, take those two, for example," said Wakabayashi, looking at Tanaka and Kowasugi, who were still talking and laughing across the classroom, "a boy and a girl, who only shared a couple of words before realizing they had something in common. Now, it may be a bit early to tell what kind of story will bloom here, but it will be their story and no one else's. Akaishi-kun and Aoyagi-chan will have one of their own, eventually."

"I guess you are right. After all," I pointed at Daisuke with my chin, "this guy here took his sweet time to ask Nicole out."

"Oi, that was..."

"Ah, wait a sec." Wakabayashi took out a notepad and a pencil from her pocket and jotted down something.

Come to think of it, didn't what's-her-name do something like that when Miyazawa played against Fukuda-senpai? And that time Rihona and I ran into her at the bookstore, she was buying a book about writing lyrics.

"You write Spiralusion's lyrics, right?" I asked.

"I do. Erika-chan composes, and then I come up with something fitting. Well, it's not that straightforward because sometimes-"

"Kanon! You ready?"

Someone called out to Wakabayashi from the classroom's door; a girl with blonde hair, the tips dyed a bright red. Next to her were three other girls; one of them had short navy blue hair, another had light brown hair tied in a bun, and the last one had magenta hair, tied to form a big ponytail.

It was that last girl, Seta Masami, that made me flinch a little. The reason? She was friends with my ex-girlfriend. But, as luck would have it, at that moment she was too focused on my female classmate to pay any heed to me.

Being ignored by a girl has never felt better.

"I gotta go. See you tomorrow, guys."

With those parting words, Wakabayashi went on the join her bandmates. 

"We gotta get going, too."

"Yeah, I'm gonna look for Niko-chan."

Once the five members of Spiralusion left, Daisuke walked out of the classroom behind them. Before I could do the same, I saw a boy standing outside the classroom. He was the one trying to start an Orbeat:71 fan club.

"Senpai! I have been looking for you. Fortunately, my sister told me in which class you were."

If I recalled correctly, that girl called him "Kimura" this morning. His sister must have been the blonde from earlier, Kimura Erika. I was curious about how, exactly, she had learned in which class I was. She may have heard from Wakabayashi, but that brought the question of why would I pop up in a conversation between them. 

I decided to leave that riddle for another day.

"So, what did you need from me, Kimura-kun?"

Although, I already had a pretty good idea of why he came here.

"Isn't it obvious? I want you to join my Orbeat:71 fan club."

It went without saying that I was interested, but just like this morning, we were interrupted by a certain girl's scream. 

"Kimura!"

Truly a hard worker, that girl.

Even though I had run into this girl several times by now, I still struggled to attach a name to her face.

"Ah, it's you!" I said.

"I told you, I have a name!"

"Did you finally muster the courage to ask me to join Orbeat's fan club?," he asked her, then turned to me, "You see, I have tried to recruit her all day, but she gets embarrassed and ends up using her gift to distract me and get away." 

I recalled how she had used her gift to run away after being caught peeping on the TCG club. Naturally, it didn't work on me, meaning her gift required her to manually choose her target(s).

"If that's how you interpreted it, you are hopeless, Kimura," she said with a scowl before looking at me, "and you, you should stay away from this jerk."

She peered inside my classroom. "Did she leave already? You know, that girl you like."

"How did you k- I mean, what are you talking about?"

As expected from a voyeur!

"She headed somewhere with her friends. You know, girls' talk or something like that."

"Friends..." she said while staring into the distance.

"Now that I think about it, you are always by yourself, Inuzuka. Are you having trouble making friends?"

"Shut it, Kimura. It's not like I have never had any friends. I had a friend in middle school, but..." she trailed off and shook her head "Yeah, and what about you? You are always following me around, being a nuisance and stuff. Don't you have any friends to hang out with?"

Ah, I get it now. She says Kimura-kun is a bother, but he is probably...

"Of course I have a friend! Can't you see that Akaishi-senpai and I get along?"

"Me? Uh, sure. We are both fans of Orbeat:71, after all. Rihona said you were a fan too, um..."

"...Inuzuka. I'm Inuzuka Nanai, get it through your thick head already!"

"Sorry. So, you like music, don't you? The other day, you bought a book on how to write lyrics and I think you mentioned uploading songs to-"

"You can sing, Inuzuka?" 

"Huh? Y-yeah..."

Kimura's eyes lit up.  After that, a barrage of questions assaulted that girl.

I wonder if Rihona is done with that girls' talk.

As I left my two underclassmen behind, I saw her coming this way. Everyone else was with her, even Daisuke. Hikaru was the one to call out to me.

"Akaishi-kun, you better be free today 'cause we are all going to hang out!"