Music Children

A Queen & Her Follower

Original Version: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7144334

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{Monday}

While the two schools can still visit each other due to the 3-hour train travel between their homes, they decided to take a break from traveling.

However, two particular girls decided to end their break early.

~Akihabara~

μ's had gathered at Akihabara for a simple hangout, but things got a bit heated when they turned to Nozomi.

Nozomi: *Fiddling with a bento box that she brought along*

Honoka: Hey, Nozomi.

Nozomi: Hm?

Honoka: There's something that we want to know.

Nozomi: What?

Honoka: Well, we already know about your past and all, what with the lack of friends that you had until you met Eli, but we were wondering...

Maki: ... Did you have any childhood friends?

This question catches Nozomi off guard. Granted, she's been good friends with μ's for a while now, but they weren't really the type to ask if Nozomi had other friends — not that Nozomi wouldn't mind answering their questions about them, though. Nozomi sighed before getting a strawberry from her parfait glass. She brought it to her mouth, and shivered slightly from the flurry of sweet and sour flavors.

Nozomi: *Swallows it* Well, I may have fibbed a little on that part about a lack of childhood friends. There was one particular person that I befriended. He's from Kansai.

The group raises their eyebrows at this. They had learned that she and her family had moved around for most of her childhood. However, she speaks in a relaxed Kansai dialect after having lived there for a few years. Eli leaves the spoon of her parfait in the glass. She rested her elbows on the circular table and knotted her fingers together. She gazed at Nozomi with fascination.

Eli: A boy, huh? Mind telling us about him?

Nozomi fought the urge to roll her eyes. Usually, half the gang faced interrogation about boys from the others. Now, it seems that she is now in that very position.

Nozomi: Eli-chi, there's not much to know about him. (Well, sort of.) What I know is that he was a year younger than me, his black hair always looked like a mess, and the way his bangs often fell in front of his... eyes.

Kotori: Wait. What about his eyes?

Nozomi: ... Oh, I could never be able to forget about him. Two iris colors. One was hued sapphire and the other was molten gold. Heterochromia was not something that my six-year-old self should be familiar with, and I should've probably found them creepy, but somehow, I was captivated by those eyes just as much as my mother's cards and fortune-telling had done so.

Nozomi also remembers, as clear as day, the day she first made contact with said boy.

*Flashback*

Mika Kagehira.

{Years Ago}

Nozomi discovered this, when she was quietly eavesdropping on a conversation between two other girls in the daycare center.

Girl: He's pretty cute.

Girl 2: But his eyes are scary, though. And have you seen his teeth? They're like a cat's! Momma said people with teeth like those sharpen them at night before they take away kids while they sleep!