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The balcony of their hotel provided a beautiful view of the city.
Hitori tip-toed out of the hotel room just after the lights were turned off and she saw Sasaki shut her phone. She heaved a sigh of relief as she leaned onto the railing. The air came in slow, cold breezes. Hitori watched as her exhale formed clouds of mist in front of her like smoke coming out of a cigarette. The idea of her being smoking scares her, but she also internally swooned over the image of herself as a hot, black leather jacket and boots clad smoking rockstar. She felt like the epitome of women’s desires in that image. The cold, distant, dangerous aura was certainly popular among womenfolk .
She then sighed again at the realization she can never pull it off.
“Hitori?”
She nearly tripped on her feet at the sudden sound. Gripping the railing, she turned around, though she didn't really need to to know who was there.
“Kita”
Ikuyo stepped forward to stand beside her. She leaned on the railing herself, taking in the scenery in front of her. Some lights around the city were turning off, some turning on. The sky was clear, the moon was nearly full.
“I should ‘gram this” she whispered, and took out her phone. Hitori didn’t interrupt her as she heard the snap of her phone and her nails clicking against the phone screen and her tongue clicking as she no doubt put on multiple filters and stickers to ‘glam’ the picture. Satisfied, she tucked the phone in the pocket of her yukata.
“You should definitely make an Isosta account, Hitori”
“Ah, I really shouldn’t…” she mumbled, gulping at the memory of what happened with her Zwitter. She has a nice amount of money saved up once again and she would hate for it to drown in her addiction for validation. It seems that Ikuyo remembered the same phase, because she hurriedly added
“If you want, I can be the manager of your account! I will decide what you post and when, and we’ll keep your likes invisible so you won’t obsess over them”
“I guess that’s a plan…”
“Come on! It’ll be fun to show the world a more personal side of you! Now that our band is growing, I bet fans will be curious on what your interests outside the band are. I bet no one knows about Jimihen- oh! Jimihen would garner a huge amount of likes for you”
“I suppose…”
Maybe it was Hitori’s natural yielding nature, maybe it was Ikuyo’s aura, maybe it was both, but Hitori found it hard not to get caught up in Ikuyo’s flow; because in her mind she was seriously considering . If she allows herself to think about this too much, she feels a strange mix of scared and awestruck at this fact.
“And I’ll be your first follower! I’ll even convince the girls to follow. The dance club follows whatever Sasaki follows, and I bet if Mei’s group follows you half the school will eventually too. So you wouldn’t have to worry about gaining followers either!”
Every word coming out of Ikuyo’s mouth left Hitori giggling behind her elbow at the thought of her account being the school’s- soon, the world’s- new popular account to follow. The shower of likes and praises on her, she felt amazing just thinking of all the heart and smile emojis that she would find scrolling down her comment section.
And then a sudden alarm rang in her head that no, she will be spiraling back to her social media addiction. There was a reason her Zwitter account was forcefully shut down by Nijika. If she went down this terrible, terrible path again she could be facing a possible loss about a couple million Yen, maybe the possibility of having to sell her liver and all her guitar equipment and surrendering herself to a minimum wage 9-5 to earn all the money back and god Ikuyo must have forgotten that phase of hers because she wasn’t stopping her tirade of how good this would be for Hitori
“And if you’re confident enough someday, you can reveal who Guitar Hero really is. Oh, imagine how the topic will blow up everywhere, trending hashtags everywhere, threads on how it all makes sense, on how it doesn’t, it would be the event of the-”
“Who’s Mei?” Hitori asked abruptly before Ikuyo would all but whip Hitori’s phone out and make the account for herwhile Hitori helplessly allows her to. Ikuyo stopped in her tracks and looked at Hitori, tilting her head in confusion
“Mei. The one in pigtails”
Hitori simply stared back, dumbfounded.
“The girls who came by earlier?”
Hitori suddenly recalled just who she was talking about.
“Oh…are her and her friends really popular?”
“Really popular? I’d say they’re some of the most popular in our entire school”
“Is that so?”
Hitori wondered why she hadn’t heard of either of them before. Then again, Ikuyo was probably as high up in the popularity ranks as them, and she never heard of her before the Kessoku Band vocalist scouting either. She was just very out of the loop when it came to classmates that weren’t Ikuyo or occasionally, Sasaki.
“Yeah, they average about three of five confessions per week, about a hundred chocolates for Valentine’s, and knows every morsel of gossip, including teacher’s gossip”
Hitori gasps, half impressed, half scandalized. She doesn’t even know the names of her teachers, much less what they do outside the school.
Ikuyo nodded and continued
“Oh right, they were already there when I came from the bath. What were you all talking about?”
“They wanted to girls’ talk. They, uh, asked me who I liked”
Ikuyo’s expression changed to one of concern.
“Hitori, I really hope you didn’t tell them anything. Chances are if the person you liked is in school, they're following either one of the three and receiving a text message about your feelings right about now”
“No, I didn't reveal anything!” she waved her hands in front of her. She then stopped, and looked away “However…”
I did make up an imaginary boy that was essentially the amalgamation of the entire Kessoku Band and Hiroi to not kill the mood, Hitori couldn’t say. There was a solid chance that Ikuyo would understand her reasons and sympathize with her, but what might go down if she didn’t was what scared her. Worst case scenario, she gets kicked out of the band for the possible insinuation that she saw all her friends in that light. And that was too nightmarish to gamble upon.
“I made someone up” she decided on telling, hiding her face in her hands with her face flushed. It wouldn’t be fair for her to totally lie to Ikuyo about it either. And it would be worse if she found out about her little lie through the pipelines of gossip.
She heard Ikuyo giggle
“That’s certainly one way to go about it”
She looked back at Hitori and scooted close to her. Hitori didn’t notice it until Ikuyo playfully nudged her shoulders with her’s. Hitori took her face out of her hands and found Ikuyo gently smiling at her, hand reaching to her back to give consoling pats
“At least in your case, they’d only obsess about it till the end of the trip at most. Though if someone does end up matching the description…”
Hitori shook her head “I don’t think that’s possible”
Ikuyo shrugged, “You never know. But what you do know now is to keep your mouth as shut as possible with them. Especially in these matters. They’re obsessed. I lost count on how many romance related questions they asked me”
Hitori didn’t know why this question came to her, but before she knew it she asked
“So were you lying to them tonight?”
She felt Ikuyo tense up and freeze. Her voice sounded squeaky and broken as she went “Huh?”
Hitori sensed she might have overstepped her bounds. She slid away from her, hands flailing animatedly as she desperately tried to explain herself after a few more seconds of Ikuyo not saying or moving
“I just thought, since you said it’s always better to hide stuff like this from them, that maybe you were doing so tonight as well! And, I mean, even if you were, it’s none of my business. You don’t have to answer this. Or anything I ever say. I’m just…saying stuff, you know. It’s never that important...”
Ikuyo blinked and Hitori realized she was rambling. Hitori took a deep breath and whispered out
“Sorry. Just forget I asked anything at all”
The atmosphere around them grew silent and tense, the chirp of crickets and honking of cars and buses being the only perceivable movement around them. Hitori briefly did the math of how much it would hurt if she just jumped from the balcony then and there, but took that out of consideration since she was failing both math and science so for all she knew she could actually die. She also considered the possibility of rushing over to the station and taking the first train back home, but the streets were scary at night and she felt so relaxed after the bath to move any faster than a snail.
“Don’t be sorry, Hitori”
Hitori whipped her head towards Ikuyo to confirm that she really did say that. Judging by her small smile and kind expression, she probably did.
“As friends, it’s only natural you’d want to know this about me”
Hitori only nodded. Ikuyo took a long exhale and stretched her arms in front of her
“To answer your question, and you can’t tell this to anyone”
Hitori shook her hand and placed a hand on her heart in promise.
“I won’t, '' she said, determinedly.
Ikuyo grinned. She looked back to the door leading to their room for a moment. Hitori followed her line of vision. There were no shadows of anyone except Sasaki sleeping in the dim light of their room, no sound came out either. Whatever Ikuyo was about to tell her right now, she could count on no one listening.
When she turned back again, Ikuyo was three steps closer to her.
When did she come near? And now that Hitori feels it, when did her hand place itself on her arm? And why is she leaning closer still? They're bodies were nearly pressing against each other. And why is Ikuyo looking her straight in the eye? Is she testing Hitori’s loyalty?
Hitori felt her breath lodge in her throat when she felt Ikuyo’s breath on her ear and fingers tucking the hair falling on her face behind it. An elegant action that left her skin tingling and very possibly red.
“Yes”
Hitori isn’t able to comprehend it.
“Yes, I do” Ikuyo repeated, quieter, a tinge of mischief in her voice. Hitori’s brain stayed in a state of utter blankness until she felt a sudden rush of cold hitting her as Ikuyo parted. Ikuyo winked at her and kept smiling while Hitori stared blankly. She heard the door open and Ikuyo wishing her a good night.
…what was the question again?
Oh.
And Ikuyo just said…
Oh.
Hitori yelped “Wait!” to the empty air. Ikuyo must have fallen asleep, because she heard no response.
She felt her face grow hotter. She felt her heart beating loud against her chest. She felt light headed. And she had a truckload of questions she didn’t even know where to begin with. Who was it? How did she know her? Did she ever tell her? What was she like? Was it still Ryo or did she move on and find someone else? She knew if she started fixating on them she would be up all night and she really didn’t want to wake up late the next day. Being stranded in an empty hotel room while the entire school was out would bring her right back to where she was in middle school; and even though the thought of privacy was practically heaven, she didn’t want to be…alone again. Not when she has a group that willingly invited her to be a part of. Not when she has friends. Not when she has Ikuyo, the reason she has a more social, less unpleasant time at school.
A stronger blast of cold wind hit her, and she ran inside and tucked herself in the warmth of her futon.
Hitori drifted off with the idle thought that whoever Ikuyo liked, must be very lucky.