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“Okay, you remember the choreography for this cut, right?” Anzu asks, looking away from her clipboard and over to the rest of Trickstar for confirmation.
“We walk backwards in the hallway and turn when we reach the middle corridor, right?” Makoto parrots back what Anzu has drilled into them for the past ten minutes, and her shoulders sag in relief.
“Right,” she confirms, “and you all know the lyrics here, correct?”
“Tobikiri no Charming-" Subaru sings, draping himself over Mao’s back, and all five of them laugh, the sound light and echoing in the hall.
“From Subaru’s tobikiri no Charming to my focus line,” Mao finishes, reaching back behind himself to pat Subaru on the head. The other smiles happily at the touch.
Anzu claps her hands together. “Perfect! Alright then, let’s go! Places everyone!”
They all pump their fists and cheer, though Hokuto, Anzu and Makoto’s are significantly quieter than Mao’s and Subaru’s, whose voices reverberate down the corridor. They disperse afterwards, Anzu moving out of the camera’s view and the boys heading to their places.
Anzu goes behind the camera and sets up the recording. She uses one hand to pull up the studio recording of Finder Girl on her phone so they can stay on-tempo, raising her other arm to signal to them. “Alright!” she calls, “Three… two… one… go!”
They don’t even finish Makoto’s verse before the cut goes wrong.
As Makoto starts singing, Hokuto pivots on his heel and moves to enter the corridor. Unfortunately, instead of empty air, he trots into a head-on collision with one Koga Oogami. The two of them crash into each other violently before tumbling back and, in Hokuto’s case, falling to the floor.
“Oh, dear,” Mao says from off-screen.
“What the hell are you guys doing out here?” Koga grumbles, rubbing at his neck awkwardly. He has his guitar case strapped across his back, and–oh yeah, the light music’s main clubroom is just down the hall from where Trickstar are.
“Uh… r-recording…” Makoto trails off awkwardly.
“Recording?” Koga quirks an eyebrow at that, looking over their recycled Yumenosaki uniforms and then over to where Anzu holds the camera. “... in school uniforms and no production staff.”
The five members of Trickstar remain quiet.
Koga sighs. “Alright, I won’t question it. C’mon, get off the floor, you idiot.” Koga bends down to offer Hokuto a hand, but in doing so the head of his guitar case comes forward and smacks Subaru square in the face.
“Ow, shit–”
“Ah, Subaru–”
“Akehoshi-kun!”
“Are you okay?”
Hokuto scrambles to his feet, past Koga’s offered hand as the rest of Trickstar stumbles forward to check on the ginger, leaving Koga more than a little bewildered.
Subaru pulls his hand away from his face, and there’s blood dripping onto his fingers. “Ah,” he starts, raising his other, (thankfully) not-bloodied fist high in the air and smiling. “Good news! You didn’t break my nose Gami-san! You did just give me a nosebleed though!”
“What,” Koga says.
“Infirmary!” Makoto shouts, looking utterly panicked. The others seem to agree with him, because Mao yanks a spare handkerchief out of his pocket in a rush and pushes it into a confused Subaru’s hands. Hokuto and Anzu grab either arm and start tugging him along towards the infirmary.
“Eh? Wha– I’m fine, guys! Just give me a few minutes and I’ll be okay!”
Subaru’s reassurances go ignored; Makoto moves behind Subaru and starts pushing at the shorter boy’s back, with Mao hurrying ahead of them to inform whoever’s on duty.
Within moments the hall is silent. Anzu’s camera is still recording.
Koga blinks. “... Okay, then.”
While the cut they’re filming at the shoe lockers is by no means complicated, it is difficult in that it is one long cut with no breaks in between verses. It’s why they’ve had to retake it so many times; Mao tripped over the door frame, Subaru mixed up his lyrics on accident, Makoto bumped into Hokuto–
Well, to sum it all up, they’re still by the shoe lockers, and Anzu’s knees and ankles are starting to ache with how long she’s spent crouching behind the camera.
Makoto taps the side of his glasses with downturned lips, clearly perplexed about something, and the expression is concerning enough that Anzu doesn’t start recording right away. “Are you okay, Yuuki-kun?”
“Huh? Oh, yes! I’m fine, don’t worry!” Makoto says, lowering his hand. “You can start recording now!”
Anzu isn’t quite convinced, but they’re on a bit of a tight schedule, so she’ll ask him about it later. “Okay, got it!” she calls, so that the rest of Trickstar can hear her. “We’re rolling now!”
Makoto starts stepping backwards and singing his verse, perfectly in time with the recording. Anzu follows, keeping her hands steady on the camera as best as she can. Part of her expects this take to go absolutely haywire, and–
One of the arms on Makoto’s glasses snaps off, and his glasses fall right off his face. They hit the floor with a clatter, comically quiet compared to the sound of Finder Girl on Anzu’s dinky phone speaker.
–yep, it does.
“Ukki? What just happened to your glasses?” Subaru asks, alternating between staring at the frames sitting on the ground and the glasses arm still sitting on Makoto’s ear.
“I… think a screw came loose,” Makoto says, still a little surprised. "But I didn't think it would just... fall off like that."
“A screw,” Hokuto states flatly.
“Um… yes.”
Mao coughs. It sounds suspiciously like a laugh.
Anzu stops the camera and sets it to the side. “C’mon, we should all look for it. If we’re quick, I can see if we can catch Kunugi-sensei or Sagami-sensei before they leave and ask if they know where we can find a screwdriver.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Hokuto comments. Then, to the other boys: “You heard her. Let’s get looking.”
“Thanks, everyone,” Makoto says, his eyes sparkling with gratitude.
Subaru claps him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry ‘bout it! What does the screw look like? Oh, is it shiny? Please tell me it’s shiny.”
Makoto exhales, exasperated but affectionate nonetheless. “Yes, Akehoshi-kun, it’s shiny. It’s very small, though, so you might miss it if you’re not really looking.”
“Got it!”
And with that the five of them disperse to search around the lockers, eyes seeking out anything small, metallic, and shiny. It doesn’t take them long, though, thankfully–not that it should have, with five people looking for it, but it’s not like Trickstar’s ever been known to be lucky with… much of anything, really.
“I got it!” Subaru crows, holding the screw up to the light pouring in through the window.
“Ah– thank you so much!” Makoto exclaims. Mao whistles and Anzu claps. Hokuto rolls his eyes.
“Now it’s off to see Sagami-sensei!” Subaru sprints off after that declaration, leaving the four of them by the lockers.
“Wha–” Mao blinks a couple of times. “Wait, he didn’t even take the glasses!”
“Eh? Ah, Akehoshi-kun, wait–!”
Mao and Makoto take off after their genius, leaving Hokuto and Anzu in the dust.
“Um,” Anzu starts nervously. “Should we go after them, or…?”
Hokuto pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a long breath. Holds it. Lets out another long breath. “Yes, we probably should. Who knows what trouble they’ll get into without us playing damage control. For the gods’ sake…”
For all that he grumbles and complains, though, Hokuto is fast when he jogs after them. Anzu feels her lips quirk up at the corners as she goes to grab the camera and phone.
Well, if they don’t finish filming today, there’s always tomorrow.
Mao’s voice echoes through the school courtyard, strong and steady and soft all at once, and right in time with Makoto, Hokuto, and Subaru’s choreography. Behind the camera, Anzu smiles to herself; she’d been worried that the noise from the water pouring into the fountain would prevent them from hearing the recording, but they’re managing just fine.
(Really, Mao doesn’t even need to be singing his heart out like this to begin with, not with the recording already completed, but she won’t discourage him when he’s smiling as warmly as the sun welcoming the spring. Outside of SS and BIGBANG, she’s rarely ever seen him so happy.)
As the four of them gather close to the fountain edge and twirl on their feet, something emerges from the water with such suddenness that Makoto shrieks in shock. The noise startles Mao so badly that he loses his balance mid-spin and stumbles back on his feet, tripping on the lip of the fountain and falling into the shallow water.
“Isara!” Hokuto shouts, hurrying to the fountain’s edge to check on the boy. Makoto, Anzu, and Subaru would go to check up on him, too, if not for who stood a meter or two away from him, soaked from head to toe in water with a frog perched on his shoulder.
“Shinkai-senpai,” Anzu addresses Kanata awkwardly, “um… I thought you graduated. While we’re all very happy to see you, uh… why are you here?”
Hokuto grabs Mao’s wrist and moves to pull him out; Mao’s sneaker slips on the tile under his feet and he falls back again, this time taking Hokuto with him. Water splashes all over the courtyard. Subaru cackles loudly.
“Oh, ‘hello’ there,” Kanata says, lifting a hand to wave. The frog hops from his shoulder and up onto his head. “‘I’ was ‘visiting’ today. All the ‘fish’ here ‘missed’ me.”
This… doesn’t bring any clarity to the situation at all, but Anzu dismisses it. She is very familiar with the whims and spontaneous decisions the graduates tend to make, and she has learned that the best solution is to simply not ask questions.
“Ah, well, um…” Makoto pipes up, going quiet when Kanata glances at him and tilts his head. The frog croaks at the gesture, and Kanata returns his head to its original position. “We hate to ask this of you, Shinkai-senpai, but could you please leave the fountain for the time being? We need to finish filming for our new song here…”
Kanata hums in thought, glancing over at where Hokuto and Mao drag themselves out of the fountain and let themselves sink to the ground in a tired heap. Their wet fringe sticks to their face, and the Yumenosaki jackets hang like weights off their frame.
“‘I’ can ‘do’ that,” Kanata says finally, and Anzu and Makoto both let out a pent-in breath in relief. “Chiaki always ‘says’ to ‘help’ others… after all, that is what heroes ‘do.’”
“Thank you very much!” Anzu says, bowing low. Makoto does the same, though not before hooking his hand in the back of Subaru’s collar and making the other boy also duck forward, deliberately ignoring the ginger’s yelp.
Kanata leaves the premises quickly after that, apparently uncaring or unaware of how his clothes are dripping onto the pavement and the little frog still perched carelessly on his head. Anzu leaves him be.
Hokuto and Mao get to their feet, trying to wring out their uniforms as best as they can. Mao tries to take his clip out of his hair, perhaps hoping to let the magenta locks dry before putting it back in, but it catches on a tangle and he winces.
“Are you guys okay?” Makoto asks, going over to check on them. Subaru trails after him, and Anzu abandons her camera to follow.
“Yes, we’re all right,” Hokuto answers, wringing out the fabric of the tie at his hip and frowning at the sheer amount of water that drips to the ground.
Mao offers a nervous smile, lifting the strap on his jacket to show how soaked his clothes are. “I’m not too sure what we’ll do about the uniform, though… we’re really sorry, Anzu.”
“It’s alright, don’t worry!” Anzu says, clapping her hands with a smile. “They’re school uniforms, remember? We may have customized them some, but they can still be washed and dried like any other uniform! I think I have my blow dryer in the cosmetics kit I brought, so we can see if that helps speed up the drying process.”
“That’s our producer,” Mao says fondly, “always prepared for anything.”
Anzu smiles at the four of them–four of the five points that make their shooting star, and she can’t help but think that she wouldn’t trade them for anything. “Of course I am,” she laughs. “You kind of have to be prepared when you’re friends with Yumenosaki’s rebellion stars. Now c’mon, let’s go get those uniforms dry!”
“Ha! Hokke and Sari both look like wet cats!” Subaru giggles.
“Thanks,” Mao says, unimpressed.
Hokuto punches Subaru in the arm.
“–And all you need to do for this last shot is take a picture and smile, ‘kay?”
“Understood!” Mao says, tacking on a sloppy salute to top it all off. It has Anzu huffing a quiet laugh.
“Do we need to do anything else?” Makoto asks, already in the process of shrugging off his jacket. Hokuto has already removed himself of his own and loosened his tie, now opening one of the water bottles from the cooler Anzu brought.
Anzu shakes her head. “Nope, you all are finished! Once we get this last shot, you all can change out of your uniforms and head home.”
“Are you going to stay back and do some editing?” Subaru asks, clambering on top of a desk. Kunugi would scold him harshly for that, but evidently he must not care.
“Ah.” Anzu stiffens.
Subaru frowns. “Producer, we’ve talked to you about this!”
Anzu sighs. “I know, I know, I’m sorry… but I was thinking I could try and finish editing it tonight! It wouldn’t take long, just me picking out the right clips and piecing them together to the music!”
Makoto crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow.
It doesn’t take long for Anzu to break, her shoulder drooping as she gives up. Of course a Broadcasting Committee member would know how long editing a music video really takes. “Okay, I’m sorry…”
Hokuto lowers his water bottle from his lips, contemplating something for a moment before looking up at them. “Why don’t we all just stay late tonight? Isara and Yuuki could offer insight to Producer on editing, and Akehoshi and I could give you our opinions as audience members if you need extra feedback.”
“Works for me,” Mao says, offering an encouraging thumbs-up. Makoto nods and Subaru hums in agreement.
Something warm and fuzzy bubbles up in Anzu’s chest, and suddenly she wants to cry. “Thank you,” she says, genuine.
“You don’t have to thank us!” Subaru says. “You’re part of Trickstar too, and we’ll always be there for each other!”
Anzu’s not sure she can say anything else without bursting into tears, so she ducks her head and gives herself a moment to breathe. The other four wait patiently all the while, and when she gathers herself and lifts her head they all beam at her.
“Alright! Then we’re good to go!” Anzu cheers, and the boys all cheer after her. “It’s the final stretch everyone! Let’s get back to work!”
All five of them return to their places, burning with the determination to finish this last cut for the day.
But, well–they’ve barely started filming when Subaru starts wheezing, the sound almost identical to a tea kettle.
“S- Subaru?” Mao stutters, lowering his camera and dropping out of character for a second to check on his friend.
“It’s– Sari’s taking a picture of a camera with another camera,” Subaru chokes out in between high peals of laughter, and that’s when Hokuto grips his water bottle so tightly the plastic crunches under his fingers.
Makoto sputters, covering his mouth when Hokuto shoots a glare his way.
“Akehoshi, I swear to the gods above and below,” Hokuto starts ominously, but if he finishes that threat Anzu doesn’t hear it, because Subaru’s cackling now, so loud that his voice blooms in the quiet classroom.
Mao looks down at his camera, rotating the device around in his hand a couple of times. Then he shifts his gaze up to Anzu’s own camera, and after a moment passes, his blank expression breaks out into a grin and he’s chuckling too, bright and unrestrained.
Anzu doesn’t get it at all, but Subaru and Mao have infectious laughter, and before she knows it she’s breaking out into giggles behind the camera. Hokuto’s look of betrayal directed at her just makes it funnier.
“Come on, Hokuto, it’s pretty funny,” Mao says between little chuckles, waving his camera around with one hand. Makoto openly snickers at the action and Subaru has to bite back another high wheeze.
“It’s really not,” Hokuto asserts, raising a judging eyebrow at them.
“Well then, agree to disagree,” Anzu sings. Subaru whoops and leans across his desk to high-five her.
“You four cannot be serious,” he remarks. His voice is sharp and cutting, but his eyes are soft with fondness, and Anzu’s heart swells with joy.
As the sun starts to set outside, dipping behind the horizon, the room blossoms with golds and roses. The stars may have yet to show in the sky, but Anzu knows there are five of them right here in this classroom, dressed in thrifted Yumenosaki uniforms and laughing at something that isn’t even remotely funny.
They are all teenagers doing what they can to make this life their own.
They are all stars, bright and lovely in all their own ways.