Chapter Text
To many students, college is either the greatest opportunity of their life or the worst thing they’ve ever experienced.
College somewhat gives you an idea of how adulthood will be for you. Whether it’s being responsible or forgetful, it ultimately depends on how your school years are, with college being the most impactful in life.
This student we’ll be talking about strives to succeed in life. Someone who was known in her friend group as a leader of sorts. One who strived to get their childhood friends’ relationship back on track. One who formed a band with said childhood friends, and was the lead guitarist and vocalist. That person was…
“…”
“…ka…”
“..chika…”
“…”
“ICHIKA HOSHINO!!”
…about to be late for her first day.
—
“Everything in college shows how ready you’ll be for adulthood.”
If quotes were 100% realistic, it’s safe to say new freshman Ichika Hoshino is already off to a rough start.
Truth be told, she was nervous. VEEEEERY nervous.
She’s been living with her parents for her whole life, and all of a sudden, she’d moved to the school dorms. While it’s normal for it to feel so unreal that after a while you’d have to move out with your parents, it still doesn’t sit well with Ichika. She would be leaving not only her house but her neighborhood altogether. It’s hard to say goodbye to all of that.
After all, all of her memories were made here.
But Ichika can’t spend all her time thinking about all of that, she has a welcome ceremony to attend in about 3 hours, and it won’t give any potential friends a good impression of her if she’s late on her first day.
Ichika gets out of bed and slides her feet into her Miku-themed bunny slippers and enters the bathroom. She scrambles around the bathroom trying to find her toothbrush, then remembers that she went to pack it last night, so she started digging into her bag and pulls out her Miku-themed toothbrush and toothpaste, and finished up what she was doing in the bathroom.
After that, she repacked the toiletries, grabbed her bags, and headed toward the dining area. Her mother finished cooking breakfast for Ichika and herself (her father was out for a business meeting).
She sat down and started eating breakfast, albeit in a rushing manner due to her waking up past her alarms.
“So Ichika, honey. Do you have everything you need for college?” her mother asks. Ichika looks up from her plate with an egg in her mouth. She swallows the egg, wipes her mouth with a napkin, and responds with, “Mhm, I spent the whole night packing all my essentials and such. Everything should be in order as far as I know.”
Her mother finishes her plate of food and leans with both elbows on the table. “I can’t believe it. It’s finally happening. My baby is finally ready to start her life independently!”
“Moooooom, we’ve talked about this before” Ichika embarrassingly states. “I'm not a ‘baby’ anymore,” she says, playing with a strand of hair.
“But you’re my baby, Ichika, and you always will be forever and ever.”
Ichika chuckles. “Heh, I know, Mom. I was only joking.”
Her mother takes her plate to go wash in the sink. “So, are you excited for your first day of college?”
Ichika smiles, “Mhm. It’ll be a new experience for me.”
“And you’ll be able to find and make many new friends there. How’re the other three girls doing?”
That last sentence slowly turned Ichika’s smile into a frown. She looked down at the table.
The other three girls.
How were they doing?
Unfortunately, after Ichika finally got her group of friends back together, although she was incredibly happy to get together with them all, it still felt a little …off.
And without any of them knowing, their relationship together would slowly crumble once again.
Shiho Hinomori was the first to break apart. He went on to go pursue her career as a professional bassist with another band.
After that incident, Honami Mochizuki also steadily drifted away from the other girls. She never told the reason why, but before they knew it, she was gone.
That only left Saki Tenma.
The one who was forced to rest in the hospital for the majority of her life. The one who was forced to suffer under the consequences of the friend group initially breaking up and leaving each other.
She still had Saki Tenma left. Even though the other two girls left, maybe things wouldn’t be as bad anymore. That’s what Ichika wanted to think.
One day, during a quick stroll through the park, Saki suddenly collapsed onto the floor, unable to get up. She was breathing heavily and crying a waterfall of tears. Ichika watched as other surrounding park visitors surrounded the two. She doesn’t remember much about what happened that day after she called for an ambulance. All she remembers is her final childhood friend is gone.
This brings us to what she’s doing now.
She doesn’t want her mother to worry about her broken relationship with her friends, so she decides to put on a fake smile and lie about it all.
“We’re doing fine, mom. Don’t worry about us.”
“Oh don’t worry, dear. I wasn’t worried one bit. You all were the greatest of friends during high school. I’m sure it’ll all be good in college. Now, come on dear, it’s time for us to go.”
“Alright, mom.”
Ichika and her mother leave their home and walk to their car. Upon arrival, they take a look at the house across the street, the Tenma residence.
Ichika’s mother puts one of her arms on her hips. “That poor Saki. She was born with a very weak body compared to everyone, and now she’s back in the hospital because of it!” Ichika looks at the residence with a frown on her face.
After that, they both enter the car and start the drive to Ichika’s college. On the way, Ichika looks out the window at the surrounding pieces outside, and wonders to herself.
Is everything going to be alright?
—
After an hour of driving in Japan, they finally arrive at college. As Ichika steps out of the car, she eyes the college she’s going to. One of the top colleges in all of Japan, and ranked as one of the best in the world. To this day, she wonders how she got into it.
“You sure you’ll be alright on your own, honey?” Ichika’s mother questions.
Ichika turns and faces her mother, “Oh yeah I’ll be fine! Gotta start being independent at some point.”
“Alright, if you say so. Call me if anything goes wrong, okay?”
Ichika gives her mother one final hug and kiss, and waves goodbye as she watches the car drive off in the distance. After a couple of seconds, it’s out of sight.
Ichika sighs and turns to face the huge building towering over her. This is it. Once she steps inside, she’ll be considered a college student in one of the highest-quality colleges in the world.
She takes a deep breath and starts her walk towards the building, dragging her suitcases, along with her guitar on her back.
—
After she opens the doors to the entrance, she is greeted with the many conversations of other future peers. Everything in the main area was so sparkly and clean to the point where it makes Ichika’s room look dirty.
Ichika looks around for any sign to help her locate where the dorms are so she can start settling into this new chapter of her life. In the corner of her eye, she catches a map directory and heads towards it to find out. After a bit of looking, she figures out the directions to the dorms and starts her journey.
Upon exiting the main building, Ichika is greeted with a campus filled with different buildings and grassy areas to sit down in. There was even a river you can sit by. Walking through the area, she finds the cafeteria, the library, the science building, and the auditorium, where she needs to go in about 1 1/2 hours. After that short walk, she arrives at the dorms.
Upon entering the main area of the dorm, she approaches the help desk, gives her information, and is given the key for it. She wanders around the building looking for room 214. As she finds it, she unlocks the door and reaches for the handle, but hesitates and pulls it back. She remembers something.
She spent all night packing her things to stay over at the college dorms. She hoped that against all odds, she would be able to stay in a dorm with someone she knew. However, the odds are rarely in favor, and she landed in a dorm with another freshman. What were they like?
She doesn’t know. The information was all scattered on the website. The only way to find out is in person. If they end up being a horrible person, this year would be horrendous for her, emotionally and academically.
After a couple of deep breaths, she calms herself and reaches for the handle, and upon her entry, she is greeted with…
…nothing.
“Oh?” Ichika questions. She was sure she had a roommate in this dorm. There were two separate beds in the room, one on the left and one on the right. However, to her surprise, there was no one there. After a bit of thinking about why there is no one there, she just assumes that they haven’t arrived yet and probably with after the ceremony. Speaking of which, she has about an hour before she has to attend that.
She starts unpacking her suitcases and taking out her clothing, school supplies, and her laptop, which she places on the desk next to the bed on the left, which she claimed. She then opens her guitar case and places her guitar on the wall. She hopes she can find a guitar stand for it.
After sorting and organizing her supplies for around 15 minutes, she feels content with her side of the room, making it feel a little bit like home. As she sits down on her bed, her stomach starts to growl. Despite having breakfast 1 1/2 hours ago, she still felt like it wasn’t enough, so she gets off of her bed, leaves the dorm, locks the door, and headed towards the cafeteria.
After purchasing lunch from the cafeteria, as well as some other smaller meals to snack on later, Ichika returns to her dorm to drop them off and starts heading towards the auditorium for the welcome ceremony. Upon entry, she was given a pamphlet filled to the brim with information on things such as the campus, clubs, classes, and other college information. It started to make Ichika feel a little overwhelmed. She opened the doors and was met with a grand auditorium with thousands of seats and students interacting with each other. Ichika looked around to see if she could spot anyone she recognized, but she couldn’t, so she just decided to seat herself in a random empty seat, surrounded by people she doesn’t know.
This is it. Her college life starts now.
Little does she know, there’s a LOT that can happen in college, and suffices to say, she is not at all ready for this.
“Here we go…” she tells herself, and with that, the ceremony starts.