ｄｅｐａｒｔｕｒｅ
『 your p.o.v 』
I readjusted the straps on my backpack some as I walked down the large expanse of the airport with a number of other students surrounding me, the clicks of our suitcases ringing out into the lively chatter of the other people waiting around for their flights. Today's the day we're to be leaving for our one-month pseudo vacation Shining is giving all of us students. It's kind of weird thinking that for the next month, I'll be stuck somewhere that isn't Japan with all of my closest friends along with Reiji being nowhere in sight. Now that will be a change.
Ever since I was adopted, Reiji made it his life's purpose to always be somewhat close or at the very least no more than a phone calls length away. I guess that hasn't really changed considering I'm just leaving the country for a month, not for the rest of my life. But, I'm sure he's going to find some sort of reason to call me every night the second he figures out I'm no longer staying at Saotome where he has the easiest ability to just show up on campus and take me out whenever he feels like it really- and yes, he has done that a handful of times and needless to say Ryuuya wasn't all that thrilled to have that loud brunette bursting into the classroom with the same amount of grace that an elephant possesses...
Rei-chan will learn one day how to be discreet... I hope.
Glancing around some, I managed to spot Haruka and Tomo-chan walking side by side a little way's in front of me. With my suitcase clicking some against the tiles, I hurried and did my best to maneuver my way through the large sea of students in order to reach my friends.
"___! I thought we lost you." The sweet pink haired girl said as her and her best friend looked to me with bright smiles.
"Yeah ___," Tomo-chan tacked on as she shot me a playful wink, "I was beginning to think that Otoya finally stole you all for himself."
I couldn't help but to scoff at that, the three of us now walking together wherever our teachers happen to be taking us. "Oh please, you know he wouldn't do that."
"Have you seen how clingy he's been with you lately?"
"The usual."
Haruka giggled some at that. "Otoya has been talking a lot about you in class." She said thoughtfully. "He always says the sweetest things about you, almost like he has a crush."
Laughing, I shook my head. "You know love is forbidden so what does it matter if he did have a little crush on me?"
"Wouldn't that make things weird between you two if he did?" Tomo-chan asked curiously. "I mean, you guys have always been close like siblings so wouldn't him like-liking you make that weird?"
I shrugged as we turned down a different area of the airport now, the loud chatter of the other students drowning out our conversation from prying ears. "I wouldn't care if he liked me. I mean, he's still Otoya and as long as he wasn't pushing his feelings onto me, I don't see a problem with it."
"You're such a good person ___, anyone would fall for you in a heartbeat." The pink haired girl said before looking between our burgundy haired friend and myself. "Ah, but not me! I wouldn't fall for you!"
Tomo-chan laughed loudly as she threw an arm around Haruka's shoulders and brought the smaller girl closer to her side. "Of course you wouldn't fall for anyone when I'm right here.~"
Shaking my head, I looked away from my roommates. "Get a room you two. I don't want to be subjected to watching you two act so domestic all the time if I don't have to." I teased.
Haruka's cheeks flared up with a bright red while the burgundy haired girl stuck her tongue out at me. Rolling my eyes, I stuck my tongue out right back at her and then scanned the surrounding students once more.
There's no one that we know really around us right now. Maybe it wasn't Shining's best of ideas in bringing all of us on some spontaneous vacation when there are hundreds if not near a thousand students that need to be boarded onto planes. If I can't find even just one of my six friends, then, we clearly have a problem here.
As if on cue, I spotted a certain orange haired individual walking beside a short blonde headed boy and another taller boy with dark navy blue hair. Well, I found the S-Class boys, but now that just leads the question of where the rest of A-Class happened to run off to.
Normally I wouldn't worry so much about them considering they're mature enough to look after themselves- and then I remember Otoya is also with them and possibly alone and that's a scary thought to entertain. Masato is more than capable of keeping himself alive, Natsuki is tall and is surprisingly adult-like when the situation calls for it- and then there's Otoya who's just about as lost as I am and him so being by himself isn't a good thing at all. Hopefully those three are sticking close together like the S-Class boys are. The last thing I need is hearing over the airport intercom that a young boy named Ittoki Otoya has somehow ended up lost...
Occasionally looking around to the other students, I walked with Haruka and Tomo-chan as we were led to the private part of the airport. Apparently Shining Saotome owns this airport and there's a part of it that's reserved just for his private planes and jets. The rich am I right? At least this isn't a totally private airport. It would be kind of pointless to not have it open to the public considering he has the money to keep this place up and running twenty-four-seven.
"Everyone!" Ringo called out on a megaphone so all of us could easily hear him as we stopped in a large terminal, his long pink wig a stark contrast to the flower printed black shirt he's wearing with a pair of white dress pants and his classic ruby red heels to top off his look. "This is where we're going to camp out until the planes are ready for us! Please find seats in this terminal as well as the next two and just rest up a bit before we take off. Ryuuya will keep you updated if there's anything important to say.~" He then sang as he nonchalantly thrusted the megaphone into Ryuuya's chest and waltzed off to the nearby café outlet.
The orange haired idol stared at his so-called "friend" before shaking his head and then lifting the megaphone to his lips. "You heard him, go take a seat somewhere and don't go breaking anything."
With that, Ryuuya followed after Ringo, also wanting a morning shot of espresso considering the two of them along with a number of the other idol and composer teachers have been forced into watching over us students since the second we left the academy earlier. My eyes caught the orange haired man's attention for just a split moment before he looked away once more, always looking like he wants to say something but is stopping himself from ever truly saying what's on his mind. That man is really a strange guy, but, he's incredibly nice despite acting so harshly so I guess him being a little strange isn't the end of the world.
"Should we find the others?" Haruka asked timidly as the other students began to disperse into their friend groups and walk off to find themselves a set of seats to sit in.
I glanced around some, Ren still sticking out because of his orange hair. "Well, I found the S-Class boys. Where's A-Class?" I asked, flicking my attention from my roommates back out to the sea of students.
Tomo-chan waved down Tokiya, Ren, and Syo before motioning to them to come over to us while Haruka and I looked for the three missing A-Class students. Just where could they be? If anyone should be sticking out like a sore thumb, it would be the three of them together considering their hair colors are literally the primary colors from the color wheel. How do we manage to lose track of three tall boys who couldn't blend into a crowd even if their lives depended on it?
Tokiya made his way over to our small group first, Syo following close behind while Ren glanced around some, seemingly weighing his options. Ever since our talk at the lake a few weeks ago, he's been slowly working his way back into our friend group. We aren't on the best of terms yet, but he thankfully isn't avoiding me like the plague anymore so even if it takes months for him and I to truly become friends, I'm fine with that. It's nice being able to at least talk with Ren occasionally again. I was beginning to really miss him when he wasn't talking to me at all or even bothering to come to class.
The day is surprisingly boring without Ren's usual flirtatious antics to keep the atmosphere warm and light-hearted.
"Have you found Ittoki yet?" The navy haired boy asked once he had stopped to stand beside me. "I haven't found Hijirikawa or Shinomiya just yet and I figured they'd be the easiest to look for."
Syo scoffed as he glanced around. "I'm betting on Natsuki being in a kids store surrounded by Piyo-chan plushies and not knowing that the rest of us left to come to the terminals." He said with a wry grin. "That would be funny."
I shook my head. "Let's not go assuming the worst here. Do you really trust those three on their own?"
"Hijirikawa is smart, Little Lamb. He'll be just fine." Ren responded smoothly. "Now Otoya I'm not so sure about."
You know Otoya is truly a lost cause when even Ren acknowledges it...
Sighing, I nodded over to some of the open seats at the front of the row. "Let's just go sit for now. They'll show up eventually." I said, already walking off towards the open seats so no one else tries to claim them.
"Where do you think we're going?" Tomo-chan asked as she looked to Haruka with a giddy grin.
The shorter pink haired girl thought for a moment. "Maybe to Europe?" She offered.
A smile tugged at the corners of my lips at that. Reiji never stops going on and on about how much he loves England so I think if we went there, he'd actually make the effort to fly out and crash this "vacation" I'm on with my friends. Hell, I wouldn't put it past him to find any reason to crash this vacation considering he's so protective over me.
"I'm sure wherever we go, it will be a waste of time," Tokiya muttered, sitting down beside me.
Syo plopped down on the floor in front of us along with Haruka and Tomo-chan. "You're really depressing to be around, you know that?" He said as he looked up to the navy haired boy with a bored expression.
"That's Ichi's charm." The orangette sitting on the other side of me mused. "All the girls go crazy for the unmotivated stoic types."
"You should know." Tomo-chan scoffed.
I shook my head. "You guys are too much. I'm hoping we're going somewhere cold with lots of snow and mountains." I then said. "I want to see how Ringo and his wig would fair in a blizzard."
"That's sadistic," Syo said with a wry grin. "But that would be funny."
Haruka giggled some. "Where do you three want to go?" She asked to my S-Class classmates.
Ren smirked. "To a romantic beach with a tropical backdrop."
The short blonde sitting on the floor rolled his eyes. "Playboy wanting to go to the beach- stereotypical."
"And where do you want to go, Ochibichan?"
"I just got out of the hospital and you're really going to treat me like this?"
"I wish to go to a ski resort," Tokiya spoke up. "Experiencing the cold in a beautiful location would be a nice change of pace from the dreary cold we get at the Academy."
"I just want to go to a place where we can do a ton of sightseeing." Syo finally said. "The more pictures the better."
The six of us continued to talk about this and that while we waited for the planes. Thankfully it didn't take long after we sat down for Masato to spot us. He then dragged both Natsuki and Otoya over to our group as to get them out of the children's store they were fixing to buy a ton of plushies from and to keep them as far away from that store as humanly possible.
Being friends with some of these boys feels like I'm a parent having to watch over these kids. One day Otoya and Natsuki are going to actually do something insane and something tells me Syo will be joining in on whatever hell they cause. Hopefully I'll be spared from that idiocy... Hopefully.
Otoya sat in the row behind the front one so that he could lean forward and wrap his arms loosely around my neck, placing his chin on my shoulder as he grins down to my roommates and Syo. "We finally found you guys!"
Tokiya tolled his eyes. "We weren't hiding from you three."
"Someone's touchy today." Ren then mused as he spared Otoya and I a fleeting glance, Tomo-chan nodding in agreement despite her keeping an arm wrapped protectively around Haruka's shoulders.
I leaned back into Otoya's makeshift embrace. "You all need to shut up." I said with a laugh. "You guys are always hugging each other, what's so different about this?"
On cue, Natsuki practically attacked Syo and forced him into a bone crushing hug where they sit side by side on the floor. "Let go of me!" Syo growled as he struggled to grab at and pry the taller blondes arms from around his torso.
Masato sighed. "It's clear to see the difference." He murmured as he sat down on the other side of Tokiya, being sure to sit as far away from Ren as he could. "But I guess ignorance is bliss after all."
Internally, I groaned. Why are they trying to call Otoya out for liking me when they all know that literally accomplishes nothing? Besides, so what if Otoya likes me? That doesn't concern them in the least bit so why make such a fuss over this? People wanting to start drama I swear.
The planes ended up being delayed a little bit and so it wasn't until about two hours had passed before we were finally being boarding. For Saotome owning his own airport and a fair amount of private planes, that sure took a while. There must be a lot of air traffic to have held the pilots up for long. That's the only explanation I can think of for things taking so long.
Unsurprisingly, our group stuck together as we boarded the second of the three planes brought for us students. Otoya kept an arm thrown around my shoulders so that we wouldn't get separated as we were slowly loaded onto the plane. Though when I noticed both Ringo and Ryuuya side eyeing the two of us from where they're standing more off to the side to watch the students and make sure no one get's left behind, I shrugged off my best friends protective hold on me and moved to stand more with Tokiya and Natsuki.
As much as I know that both Otoya and I acknowledge the fact we can't be together right now, everyone else is going to start catching on to the fact things aren't all that platonic between us anymore and something tells me that can start trouble for him so it's best I try to keep a respectable amount of distance between him and I. The last thing I would want is for Otoya's future idol career to have any sort of complications because of me. As long as we can keep our feelings in check, then, we'll be just fine.
"___-chan! Why don't you come sit next to me?" Natsuki asked as he helped me place my smaller carry on luggage up into the overhead storage, his height clearly an advantage in terms of storing things. Though sitting down in these small seats may cause a bit of a problem for those gangly legs of his...
Smiling, I glanced around some. "I was actually wanting to sit with Tokiya. On the ride back I'll sit with you though, I promise."
The navy haired boy standing a little in front of me glanced over his shoulder with a bored look. "You want to sit with me?" He asked.
Easily slipping past him and into the window seat, I offered him an innocent smile while I moved my backpack to sit on the floor between my feet. "C'mon Toki! You're holding up everyone else."
Haruka and Tomo-chan giggled some from the seats across the isle as Tokiya reluctantly sat down beside me, Otoya pouting a couple rows in front of us, looking to us from over the back of the seats almost like he's trying to guilt trip me into sitting with him. Thankfully Syo was getting annoyed of seeing that pout as well and promptly yanked on the collar to that red heads shirt and pulled him to sitting down correctly in his seat.
Masato ended up sitting with Natsuki while Ren sat behind mine and Tokiya's seats with that Shizu girl who was his composer for our last two projects. She's a sweet girl really, but Ren had said something about being able to tell that she's falling for him. Let's just hope she'll be able to move on because I can't help but think that it's going to take a long time before Ren is ready to accept being loved and love someone in return. She'll get her heart broken if she confesses and Ren won't be gentle either. His words are sharp and cut deeper than a katana. She should be careful...
"You know," Tokiya had spoken up once the flight had taken off and I was just beginning to take out my laptop from my backpack, our destination for this vacation still a mystery, "I don't think I've ever once seen you without your laptop nearby."
"My life revolves around this beauty." I mused. "Without it, I can't compose."
The navy haired boy beside me glanced to my laptop curiously. "Is it hard to compose on there when compared to a piano?"
I shrugged. "I don't know, I can't play the piano. Masa and I think it's more or less the same level of difficulty when composing it's just I do everything digitally rather than with paper, pencil, and a piano."
Slowly, he nodded. "I see. Are you going to compose now?"
"Yeah. I haven't started Ren and Masato's song just yet and I want to throw down some melody ideas before sitting down with the two of them and actually discussing the song."
"So you'll show them these melodies I'm guessing?"
"Yup!" I said with an added nod of my head as I plugged in my earbuds. "I'll make a fair number of them that I think might be more Masato's style and around the same amount fitting to more of Ren's style before trying to find a happy middle ground. Those middle ground melodies are what I'll flush out a little more and really focus on so that I can show them those ones and then have a better idea of what type of song they'd like."
A smirk tugged at the corners of Tokiya's lips as he pulled out a small book from his own backpack. "It's refreshing to see a composer working so hard to understand her idols."
I flicked my attention away from him and back to my laptop, creating a new project in the composing program. "I take it many of your songs were just given to you as is..?"
That smirk of his faltered some. "More or less." He agreed. "That's the industry standard."
Scoffing, I went ahead and renamed the project to "The MasaRen Cataclysm". "When I compose professionally, I won't do anything by the industry standard if that's what it is. What's the point in composing if your idols aren't going to connect to your songs?" I muttered. "It's a waste of time if you're not going to put your all into every song you compose so I'll work hard to ensure my idols success regardless of what everyone else is doing."
"I look forward to seeing your future works once we graduate then." Tokiya responded, his book already opened as he flips through to find the he left off on. "At this rate, you'll set a new precedent for composers within this industry."
Putting in my ear buds now, I offered the stoic and cold boy sitting beside me a warm smile. "Like I said, I'll work hard to ensure my idols success and that includes yours, Tokiya."
"I'm honored."
"Way to ruin the moment with your sarcasm."
Tokiya smirked once more as he silently began to read his book, leaving me to begin composing.
In terms of Masato and Ren, their personalities couldn't be more polar opposites and their attitude towards one another couldn't be any worse really. They more or less tolerate each other while throwing little insults back and forth whenever possible. It's hard to think of anything I could write for them to somehow link their hearts for a short period of time while they're singing. There must be something there that I can work with...
Letting out a small sigh, I began thinking of melodies that fit more in line with Ren's personaltiy. He's a natural flirt- actually, that's not it. After our talk at the lake, it's clear that he isn't genuinely flirting but rather just messing around with his fangirls because he's bored in a way. He's always being idolized and fawned over because he's good looking and has a sexy voice. Anyone would get fed up being reverred to such an extent when it's all based on something artificial. No one cares about his personality, about Ren as a person and not just some sex icon. It's sad, but, that's his reality.
Despite this, I can tell that he is passionate about singing. He may not be motivated because his family forced him into coming to Saotome, but it's still clear that he does love music. If he didn't, he would have already left after realizing there's nothing literally tying him down to this school.
Finishing off the third Ren centered melody, I began thinking about Masato. That awkward blue haired boy comes across as cold and antisocial which is true to his personality to some extent, but he's surprisingly gentle and sweet and just a great person over all. He's burdened by his father's expectations of him one day taking over the family business and was only allowed to attend Saotome and pursue music for this single year.
Masato doesn't want to return to his family unless it's on his own terms and right now, he wants to pursue music with everything he has. He wants to sing and spread his voice to all that will listen. Just like Ren, he wants to sing honestly-
That's it!
I smiled some as I began composing a couple of different melodies that had the both of them together in mind. Ren and Masato may be polar opposites in personality traits and would rather be stuck in a room with Natsuki and Otoya than with each other, but they do have one common link; their love for music and singing. If I can make a song that encompasses their honest love for music and my support for them both, then maybe they'll be willing to work on this duet together and put their differences aside if only for a short while.
I'm not hoping to fix their friendship or anything like that. It's up to them to do that legwork on their own and of their own volition. But, I will try and give them the groundwork to do so. I won't force anything on them, though I'm not going to watch as their dreams slip through their fingers all because they hold their pride above all else. They will work together for this duet and I'll make sure that we have the highest scoring song. Then we'll be one step closer to helping Masato earn his freedom from his father's tight grasp and one step closer to helping Ren overcome what's been on his mind lately and consequently helping him sing without holding back.
For them, I'll work harder than ever before to ensure that together, we'll be a true force to be reckoned with.
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chill transition chapter with just fluff and lowkey a tokiya moment thrown in too (because we all need more toki in our lives)
Question of the Chapter: What was your favorite song from season one of the anime (i don't think i've asked this question but we all know my memory is absolutely terrible lul)? I'm lowkey biased and fell in love with Orion de Shout Out by Natsuki simply because I love Taniyama Kishou! He's such a great singer and his voice gives me the chills. I listen to Natsuki's and AI's character songs the most probably since I just love the voices their seiyuus possess lul I'm trash for the voice actors and I accept my fate as a nerd.
Next chapter will be much more eventful than this one. This chapter was more or less like an intermission of sorts, the calm before all hell begins breaking loose over this vacation the protagonist and all the other students are on. Let's just say, something big is going to happen over this vacation and something tells me it'll be a very small turning point for her within the story.~ And we'll get more cute scenes with each of the boys so yay! Even the teachers will get some much-needed screen time.~ ^^
As always, I love each and every last one of you lovely cuties and thanks so much for taking the time to read this chapter <3
~ ｋａｔ ♡