Chapter Text
Comiket
A ‘ Love Live! School Idol Project ’ fanfiction by Yuuki.
(This story is a spin-off from my main AU story, “ It ’ s Soldier House !” )
Summer meant only one thing for the great fallen angel Yohane; NatsuComi.
Ever since she began streaming in Nico-Nico Nii Douga and gained quite a number of little demons, she had started to search for a place to meet with them. After days of googling, she had decided NatsuComi—its last day—was the place. Even though now she had to take the 2-hours train from Numazu—her hometown—to Tokyo, it was the best place for a meet-up because she could also spread the teaching of Yohane there.
She didn’t stick her hand out the window and pretended to be an air bender, by the way. She definitely didn’t.
Right after she arrived at the venue, people quickly crowded her. Some of them were obviously her little demons because they knew Yohane, but she was suspicious almost half of them wasn’t—i.e. people who thought she was only a cosplayer—but she decided to just ignore it.
Well, the more the merrier I guess.
Before long, she was already flashing her trademark poses—mostly a hand in her face and another in her waist—and talking about the great tales of Yohane-sama.
Though contrary to her expectation, none of them listen to her teaching.
“My little demons! This great Yoha-”
“Yoshiko-san, can you twirl around?”
“Who do you think you are to interrupt this great fallen angel? And my name is Yohane!”
“Ah, Tsushima-san, please don’t move around too much. At least hold that pose for around five more minutes.”
“I’ll get a cramp for sure, you know! And as I said, it’s Yohane!”
“Yoshiko-san! I’m your fan! Give me your autograph, please!”
“IT’S YOHANE!”
She was annoyed when people didn’t listen to her, but she was more annoyed when people called her Yoshiko. Yoshiko cursed herself for accidentally put her real name when she first began streaming on Nico Nico Nii Douga. Since then, no matter how much she told people that her true name was Yohane, people still called her Yoshiko. She started to doubt them, were they really her little demons?
But even so, she couldn’t deny that she enjoyed the attention. So she still posed here and there, gave some autographs, and even sang some game and anime soundtracks—pretty much what she did when she streamed. The more people knew her, spreading Yohane teaching would become easier.
It’s already past noon when she finally could break away from her fans. Fans. They weren’t qualified to be her little demons, yet.
“The way to spread Yohane’s teaching sure is hard, huh?” she thought as she strolled past the comic stalls and went to the food stalls. Shortly after, she arrived in front of a takoyaki stall and ordered a box of suspiciously red-colored takoyaki.
“Are you sure you want this, little miss?” asked the stallkeeper as he gave Yoshiko her order.
“Huh?” Yoshiko tilted her head in confusion as she received the box. “What do you mean?”
“I know it’s weird coming from me, but that’s abnormally spicy and hot you know. 70% of that thing is Tabasco.”
Yoshiko popped the takoyaki to her mouth before she retorted smugly, “I drink Tabasco after P.E. This much is nothing.”
The stallkeeper laughed before giving Yoshiko a free box of the red-colored takoyaki. “It doesn’t sell much, to be honest,” he said before returning to work.
That one free box made her hands suddenly full. As much as she was happy with free foods, Yoshiko knew that walking around NatsuComi with hands full of foods wasn’t a good idea. Given her bad luck, it wasn’t strange if she dropped them to the nearest doujin. Infecting people with her bad luck wasn’t her thing. The curse of bad luck is hers and hers alone, no one could bear it the same way she did.
She quickly scanned her surroundings to search for a good place to sit and eat. The only empty space around there was beside a pretty red-haired girl. The girl was sitting alone with paper bags circling around her like a wall protecting a princess.
“Now this girl is what you call ‘spicy and hot’, not this takoyaki. Look at how red she is,” Yoshiko thought as walked and sat down beside the girl. Indeed, not only the girl had red hair, her clothes also mostly red, and her cheeks flushed brightly because of the summer heat.
Yoshiko didn’t realize she was staring until the red-haired girl glanced at her and their gaze met. The girl quickly gave her a polite smile before quickly turned to her phone. Fast enough to not give Yoshiko the chance to smile back.
A little embarrassed, Yoshiko stopped staring and turned her attention to the takoyaki. But while she was munching her takoyaki, she couldn’t help but occasionally took a peek at the girl beside her. She was curious why a girl that seemed so normal—abnormally pretty though—could end at this place. She soon got her answer when she saw the red-haired girl’s purchases which placed in those paper bags. The red-haired girl was not, err, as normal as Yoshiko thought she’d be.
“Yuri? Kabedon? Agokui? And so many of them! Well, that’s unexpected.” Yoshiko widened her eyes in surprise. “A pretty middle schooler girl who loves yuri, eh? Sounds so guilty and sinful to me. A perfect candidate for my #1 little demon for sure. I should ask for her name,” she grinned while keep glancing at the girl. The grin soon disappeared though, as she realized she didn’t even know how to greet the girl, let alone getting acquainted with her.
For the first time in her life, she blamed her nature as a loner who rarely felt interested in other people and was okay with being alone. This was the first time she was interested in a person.
Feeling she couldn’t get another chance, in the end, Yoshiko gave up thinking and instead decided to just force her way. This was the first time she was interested in a person; there was no guarantee the second time would come.
Screw the proper greeting, I ’ ll just talk to her as I like.
But as Yoshiko turned her head and about to open her mouth, she realized that her mouth was still full of food. While swallowing it down she also saw the takoyaki boxes on her hands, so she decided to talk to the girl after she ate them all. After all, even she knew it wasn’t polite to greet a stranger while eating.
Unfortunately, the girl’s mother—or maybe sister—called out to her up before Yoshiko could even finish her first box. Just the fallen angel’s luck.
This year NatsuComi was Riko’s first since she found her love for, ehm, a few things. Fortunately, her mother gladly accompanied her to the event because no matter how much as she wanted to attend it, she wasn’t sure she could go alone. But well, it’s also her mother fault that she stumbled upon the lily garden, so... Yeah, that’s it.
It was around noon when Riko’s leg screamed for a break. Her Mother seemed to catch the tired look on Riko’s face, so she said, “Dear, can you wait for me here? Mom wants to greet a friend over there,” before pointing to a stall nearby. “It seems like you’re tired.”
“I am,” Riko nodded. “Sure, Mom. Take your time.”
But Riko soon regretted it when she saw some weird looking guys sat around her. She should just stick with her mother no matter what. “Damn it, Riko. You’re a middle schooler. You’re a big girl already. And your mom is only ten meters apart from you, you can always scream if something happens,” she told herself to erase her worries. But that didn’t work. Scary things were scary. She could do nothing about that.
That was why when Riko saw a raven-haired girl—that seemed about her age—walking alone confidently in the crowd, she felt awe toward the girl. Moreover, the girl was wearing a gothic dress and sticking a black feather to the small bun in her hair; a getup that Riko couldn’t even imagine herself to wear. Riko always felt that she was plain, but looking at the girl’s confidence, she was convinced that she was otherworldly plain.
She soon forgot about her unreasonable fear as her gaze unconsciously followed the raven-haired girl. Raven—that’s what she dubbed the raven-haired girl in her head—walked around the food stalls before stopped in front of a takoyaki stall. Riko watched in horror as Raven ate a bloody red takoyaki. “No way that red thing is Tabasco. Must be tomato sauce, yeah,” Riko tried to convince herself.
Riko was surprised when Raven looked at her. She thought maybe Raven caught her looking, so she hurriedly switched her gaze to her phone. She sighed when she realized that Raven was just searching for a place to sit. Riko took a glance at Raven when the said girl sat down and gave her best-but-polite smile when their gazes met. After that, she quickly turned back to her phone. She couldn’t explain it, but she felt she would lose in the girl’s violet eyes if she looked a little too long. So even though she could felt that the girl beside her glancing toward her—and mainly her purchases—she ignored it. It wasn’t like they would meet with again, so Riko didn’t really mind if Raven knew that she was a hardcore fan of yuri.
Well, actually Riko was very wrong. Throughout the rest of day, she saw Raven about five times. Raven looked like a cosplayer, so it wasn’t strange for her to be everywhere. And from the look of it, she was quite famous.
Along the way, Riko picked some information about Raven, mainly from the crowd that circled her. Raven’s name was Tsushima Yoshiko—Riko soon replaced Raven with Yoshiko—but she insisted to be called Yohane. She streamed at Nico-Nico Nii Douga as ‘The Fallen Angel Yohane’, she was quite famous, she didn’t come from Tokyo, she was also a middle schooler like Riko, and her singing voice was awesome. Again, Riko felt awe toward Yoshiko.
Should I make Nico-Nico Nii Douga account tonight?
It seemed like Riko had just become a little demon without Yoshiko needed to do anything.
It’d been four months since Riko saw Yoshiko for the first time in NatsuComi, and since then she never missed even once of Yoshiko’s streams, blog posts, and tweets. She had never really been a fan of any public figures before—except for some classical music composer—so she didn’t know whether her affection to Yoshiko was normal or not. Nevertheless, she enjoyed watching how silly and cool Yoshiko could be, so she didn’t think about it too much. After all, it wasn’t like fangirling over Yoshiko spent much money or time.
Talking about fangirling, Riko even came up with her own nickname for Yoshiko. Actually, she wanted to address Yoshiko by her real name, Yoshiko, but the raven-haired girl insisted to be called Yohane in almost every stream. As much as she wanted to use Yohane, Riko liked Yoshiko’s real name just as much. So she came up with the third option, Yocchan. Yo from both of Yohane and Yoshiko, and -cchan to show her affection toward Yoshiko. At first, she was a little embarrassed after she made that nickname, but she heard from her friends that giving nicknames for your favorite actress was normal.
Tonight, as usual, Riko was sitting in front of her laptop watching Yoshiko’s weekly stream. This time Yoshiko was telling them about her battle with Hades when she had just thrown to hell. Riko still felt amazed at how Yoshiko could make her stories so elaborate yet so solid at the same time. Sure, sometimes the stories sounded cliche and trashy, but there were not many plot holes in Yoshiko’s setting—or as Yoshiko insisted, tales—about Yohane, even when Yoshiko crammed gods from all over the world to her stories.
“And that’s, my little demons, how I became the ruler of the hell,” Yoshiko said dramatically as she struck her usual pose.
Riko giggled as she clapped her hand a little.
“Okay, that’s enough of my tales for tonight because I have to revise my plan to overthrow the heaven soon,” so Yoshiko said but Riko clearly could see the raven-haired girl was eager to say something else. “But before that,” Yoshiko continued, “I have good news for you little demons.”
Riko could see curious comments flooded the video. It seemed like Yoshiko could also see the comments, as she gave the camera—the viewers, the little demons—a smug smile. “Rejoice! This Yohane-sama will give you her presence on the last day of this year FuyuComi! Let’s all descend together!”
Riko didn’t waste any time. She didn’t even wait for Yoshiko to end the stream before she jumped out from her bed, stormed the kitchen, and shouted with all her might, “MUUUUM! LET’S GO TO THE FUYUCOMI!”
NatsuComi was a pleasant experience for Yoshiko, so she made sure to attend FuyuComi also at the end of the year.
“Lily’s here again,” Yoshiko thought when she saw a familiar red-head among the crowd of people. It was not every day you could see a pretty girl bought a bulk of yuri doujin, so Yoshiko pretty much remembered her already. “Isn’t it a fate? I mean, out of all three days of FuyuComi, she comes on the same day with me!”
Little did she know that Riko was actually her most faithful little demon and planned that fate all along.
By the way, ever since Yoshiko saw Riko for the first time in NatsuComi, she dubbed the redhead Lily in her head. It simply came from the genre that the redhead seemed to love so much, Yuri.
That aside, throughout the day, the fallen angel and the redhead gazes met so many times, more than Yoshiko could count. But despite the clear interest that grew inside them, they hesitated to call out to each other most of the times. And when at last one of them finally made their mind, Yoshiko’s bad luck would always strike. For example, when Riko finally gathered her courage to talk, someone spilled their drink at Yoshiko’s face, so she had to flee to the bathroom. How the heck a drink could end on someone’s face, anyway? Or when Yoshiko finally decided to call Riko, she tripped over nothing and then lost the redhead in the crowd. Similar things happened until the end of the event, and by the end of the FuyuComi, they were still strangers.
Damn.
It was only the first night of the year but Riko was already glooming. Not a good way to start a year, but she didn’t care. All she could think was how she could make a memorable Happy New Year tweet to Yoshiko.
Actually, this is her first attempt at tweeting to Yoshiko ever since they met. All this time Riko never bothered to tweet Yoshiko because she thought that tweeting Yoshiko wouldn’t make anything different. Yoshiko had many little demons who tweeted daily to her after all, so the chance of Yoshiko read her tweet was very slim. And even if Yoshiko happened to read her tweet, it wasn’t like Yoshiko know her so there was no meaning in that.
But after her attempt to get acquainted with Yoshiko failed a few days ago, she was tempted to do something. Maybe, just maybe, Yoshiko would notice her. And in the one in the million chance Yoshiko read her tweet, she wanted Yoshiko to be impressed by the tweet.
But nope, she couldn’t think of anything good. So after one last sigh, she decided to just tweet something normal.
She was the Normal Monster Riko-pi, after all.
It was only the first night of the year but Yoshiko was lazing in her bed already, doing nothing. That was what her mother said, but Yoshiko said she was not lazing; she was checking how her little demons were doing. Well, all she did was lie down in her bed while reading tweets from her little demons. But hey, that was something, not nothing.
Even though she never replied to her little demons’ tweets, Yoshiko actually read them if she had free time. Especially on holidays when she had a lot of free times, she made sure to read all the tweets she received as many as she could.
But today was a different case because she stopped at the fourth tweet from the top of her feed. Goodbye to the rest of the tweets. This particular tweet deserved all her time.
Sakurauchi Riko @ Sakura_Riko | 0m
Happy new year, Yoshiko-san!
That was all. That was maybe the most normal tweet she ever received since she made her Twitter account, but that was not the reason she stopped scrolling. It was the profile picture beside the tweet that shocked her. It’s Lily’s picture. Although it was small Yoshiko knew immediately it was her.
The heck? Lily? So she ’ s actually my little demon all along?
Yoshiko stared at her phone for literally full five minutes before she stood up, slammed it onto her bed, and screamed with all her might, “HELL YEAH!”
“Yoshiko! Keep your voice down!”
She immediately covered her mouth with her hands to calm herself. After she calmed down, she shouted back to her mother, “Sorry, Mum!” before picking up her smartphone and tapped at Riko’s profile. She didn’t even remember to sit down when she tapped the ‘Follow’ button.
Yoshiko realized that all she knew about Riko were the girl was very pretty and loved yuri doujin, but she couldn’t deny that she was quite interested in Riko. She wanted to know Riko more.
“And what now,” Yoshiko thought as she scrolled down past Riko’s twitter’s feed—this time she remembered to sit. She could wait for Riko to tweet again or even waited for a direct message; the great Yohane was already followed her, after all. Riko—Lily—was her little demon after all. But after some moment of thinking, she decided that it was enough of her wimpy act. It was clear that she wanted to know Riko more, so it was also clear that she needed to act. She blew up her chances at NatsuComi and FuyuComi, this time she had to do it right.
Yoshiko tapped Message button as she muttered, “I’ll text her, I guess.” But as she was about to type the message, she growled and wailed on her bed.
How the heck should I text her? Normal? What ’ s normal anyway? As the usual Yohane? Yohane never text anyone !
As much as she hated it, Yoshiko admitted that she didn’t know how to properly text someone. Her mother always preferred a call to texts, so she never texted her mother. She also never texted her friends in the school before, because she never needed to.
After minutes of thinking, she gave up and typed whatever she had in her mind. “Screw normal text, here we go,” Yoshiko cursed as she sent a direct message to Riko.
Yoha_Yohane: uh, hello?
Yoha_Yohane: thanks for following me
Yoha_Yohane: err, i believe we met somewhere before but i’m not sure so i text you
Yoshiko narrowed her eyes to her own text, half amazed and half annoyed at how wimpy she could be. She sneered at her own self as she once again read her lame excuese. But well, technically they did meet.
As she busy cursed herself, her phone vibrated.
Sakura_Riko: Ah!
Sakura_Riko:
Actually no, but do y
ou remember me?
“Wait, so she remembers me? So what’s the point of me making excuses, geez.”
Yoha_Yohane: no, that’s my question. you remember me?
Yoha_Yohane: i saw you a couple of times in comiket but we never really talk
Sakura_Riko: ?
Sakura_Riko: But you’ve just said we met before (?)
Yoshiko once again cursed herself for her stupidity.
Yoha_Yohane: ah, forget about that. that’s not important
Sakura_Riko: Um, okay (?)
Yoha_Yohane: so, uh, what’re you doing?
Yoshiko slammed her head immediately to the wall after she sent the message, shouting. “The heck Yoshiko! What the hell is ‘What are you doing?’! Are you stupid or what!”
“Yoshiko! Your voice!”
“Sorry, Mum!”
Sakura_Riko: I’ve just finished bathing minutes ago, but now I’m doing nothing.
Sakura_Riko: What about Tsushima-san?
Yoha_Yohane: i’m lazing in my bed if you can say that doing something
Yoha_Yohane: wait, how the heck you know my name?
Sakura_Riko: Because I’m one of your little demons?
Yoshiko clearly didn’t expect this ‘Sakura_Riko’ to play along with her. Not a bad feeling though, because she could feel the corners of her lip curled up by itself. Riko—Lily—was definitely a quality little demon.
That, and well… She was glad chatting with Riko wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be.
Yoha_Yohane: it seems like you know your place
She still didn’t know how casual she should talk but it seems her last message was too much. She was afraid Riko took it seriously, so she hurriedly added.
Yoha_Yohane: which is good
Yoha_Yohane: this yohane-sama is impressed
Sakura_Riko: Well, I’m honored, your highness.
Yoshiko grinned so hard when she read Riko’s last message.
Yoha_Yohane: but seriously, just Yoshiko is fine
Sakura_Riko: Oh? I thought you would insist to be called Yohane as usual.
Yoha_Yohane: then Yohane
Sakura_Riko: How about no. Yoshiko-chan, then.
Yoha_Yohane: five minutes and i already doubt your loyalty
Sakura_Riko: ;)
Yoha_Yohane: btw, as usual? do you watch my stream often?
Sakura_Riko: Well, actually more often than I want.
Yoshiko couldn’t tell it was a joke or not, but she could feel her cheek flushed. She giggled as she lied down in her bed. Wait, the great Yohane didn't giggle like a maiden.
Yoha_Yohane: more often than you want?
Yoha_Yohane: don’t worry, lily. no one can resist my charm after all
Sakura_Riko: Sure. No one can.
Sakura_Riko: Wait, Lily? Are you by any chance referring to me?
She didn’t want to sound that she remembered Riko only because Riko loved yuri doujin, so she omitted the explanation as for where ‘Lily’ come from.
Yoha_Yohane: of course
Yoha_Yohane: you’re the first little demon who get a name from me
Yoha_Yohane: be grateful
Yoha_Yohane: btw is it just me or your text before the last is a sarcasm
Sakura_Riko: No it isn’t.
Sakura_Riko: About my ‘name’, can I refuse?
Yoha_Yohane: no
Sakura_Riko: Do I have any other choices?
Yoha_Yohane: no
The big grin that showed in Yoshiko’s face didn’t disappear for the rest of the night. They talked about so many things, even the most stupid things like why dogs had four legs. Yoshiko’s explanation of why dogs had four legs includes her battle with Zeus and Riko didn’t even try to ask why.
At the end of the night, the exchanged the LINE ID and promise to talk to each other more the next day.
Riko woke up with a smile the next morning. She didn’t expect to enjoy her interaction with Yoshiko so much. The raven-haired girl was as fun as she thought all this time. If anything, more.
“Riko! Breakfast is ready!”
“Okay, Mum!”
She decided to check her LINE before went down and found new messages there. It’s from Yoshiko.
Yohane: A little gift for my little demon.
It followed by a picture of a very beautiful sunrise on a beach. Yoshiko told her last night that her house is close to a beach so most likely the fallen angel took the picture by herself.
Riko could feel her cheek blushed heavily as she thought that the message was, well, romantic.
What a good way to start a day.