Chapter Text
“T, you know, you really should be getting to sleep,” the quiet voice of Yoshio spoke from his computer. “You mentioned you had a test earlier, no? You can’t get into any good music programs with poor grades.”
Touya looked back down to his phone, which he’d always used to multitask with his music and their calls. Toki and Gennai were already asleep, each giving vaguely similar reasons with school. As for Yoshio, he never seemed to mention being tired, despite always staying up late with T.
“Ah, I suppose you’re right,” Touya nodded to himself, thinking about that upcoming test. “You should get some rest too, Yoshio. I’ll be signing off now.”
“Good night then, T,” Yoshio answered. And with the chime of T signing off, that just left Yoshio alone in the call. He looked down at his notebook, he’d scrawled out some lyrics while in the call, but none of them managed to last long enough to fit the song they were working on. “It seems I’ll be up for a while longer…”
After a while of scrawling out lyrics, the other boy signed off, leaving the chatroom empty once more. Emptiness, a feeling everyone in the small group would be learning soon.
As morning struck, the room already had a couple of messages from Toki and Gennai, the two more early risers of the group.
Gennai at 5:43 am: fufu, it seems ive beaten toki to waking up today
oh, woe is me, it seems ive beaten everyone to waking up this time
Toki at 5:52 am: I was awake earlier than you, some of us just have better things to do than texting empty chat rooms at the crack of dawn.
And I’ll have you know, you won’t be waking up earlier than me, ever.
Gennai at 5:54 am: oh? is toki competitive? fufu, maybe hes more suited for sports than art
Toki at 5:55 am: I am not competitive, I’m just stating a fact. If you decided to figure out when I wake up and wake at the same time as me, I wouldn’t care.
Gennai at 5:56 am: hm? are you sure? most days, you seem to like to prove you woke up first, which sound like some competition to me
Toki at 5:56 am: you’re insufferable.
Gennai at 5:57 am: its my pleasure ;)
Touya smiled at their banter. At first, he’d worried they didn’t really get along. However, in their first few voice calls, they seemed to have a rhythm to their fights, and they even laughed together when things got too ridiculous. Toki might never admit to enjoying the banter, but Gennai always seemed to be in high spirits with it when he was asked.
As for Yoshio, nobody really knew anything about him. He was always rather quiet in calls, which he’d once mentioned having a sister, which Touya figured would explain that. He was always very polite and sweet, though some of his comments could be a bit blunt. Whenever he did speak louder, his voice always sounded familiar to Touya, though he wasn’t sure where from. Perhaps he’d heard someone similar at school.
As for Yoshio’s writing, he was always very good at it. He created very vivid images, ones that even Touya could envision. Plenty of commenters had given theories to the lyrics’ meanings before, though Yoshio never seemed to elaborate on them. Even Toki pressed him for answers, to which Yoshio would brush it off with him not knowing where the idea came from. More often than not, Touya could imagine Yoshio’s lyrics being part of some deep, emotional stage play. He wondered if showing Tsukasa some of Yoshio’s lyrics would lead to anything. Perhaps he’d be able to come up with the deeper meaning, and perhaps he’d like their songs for the lyrics. Well, he’d probably praise Touya for anything he made, regardless of if he actually liked it for any other reasons or not.
T at 6:34 am: I don’t believe waking up early should be a competition here, especially with how late we stay up most nights.
Toki at 6:35 am: Exactly! Why would I be competitive about something pointless?
T at 6:36 am: I was suggesting both of you wake up a bit later, actually. Or maybe we should move our meeting time to be a bit earlier?
Gennai at 6:40 am: i mentioned the idea to yoshio once, he said it wouldnt work with him
Toki at 6:42 am: And he didn’t elaborate anymore, that sounds just like that guy.
T at 6:43 am: He doesn’t need to elaborate anymore if he doesn’t want to.
Toki at 6:44 am: But aren’t you curious? He hardly tells us anything about him, don’t you want to know why?
Gennai at 6:46 am: while i am curious, i also like the idea of having a mysterious lyricist whom we never get to know
T at 6:47 am: I’m not particularly curious. Our outside lives don’t deeply matter here, anyway. If keeping it hidden keeps him comfortable, then I’m happy with it as well.
Toki at 6:48 am: You say that, but I know you’re just as curious as I am.
Gennai at 6:48 am: well, i could always go snooping if it bothers you that much ;)
T at 6:49 am: I’d prefer it if you didn’t. If he wanted us to know, he’d tell us, wouldn’t he?
Toki at 6:50 am: Well, yeah, but I feel like he could give us at least a little bit more to work with
Gennai at 6:51 am: fufu, what if our very io was actually a famous poet?
Toki at 6:52 am: If anything, that’s the most reasonable theory I’ve heard about him. Have you seen some of the comments we’ve gotten about his lyrics?
T at 6:53 am: I don’t believe I have, actually.
Toki sent a series of images soon after, plenty of different absurd theories and rumors about Yoshio were captured in them. Some were comments on their songs, others were posts on separate forums about them, as they’d garnered a decent fanbase.
‘I heard somewhere that their lyricist is a rooftop ghost, I wonder how they got it to write.’
‘Hey, does anyone know who fanta’s lyricist is? Their lyrics are haunting, are we sure they’re okay?’
‘Someone told me your lyricist is writing from an institution. How did you manage to contact them?’
‘Fanta’s lyrics remind me of STAR. speaking of, has anyone else listened to STAR’s stuff?’
‘I heard one of STAR’s songs, but I couldn’t listen for long. Fantasista isn’t like that, so unless their lyricist is also writing for STAR, I don’t see any similarities. I feel warm with Fanta, but STAR makes me feel like I need to run away. Maybe we should look into that instead of Fanta’s mysterious lyrics.’
The comments caught Touya by surprise, as he hadn’t seen them before. He checked the comments he got often, but these ones were vastly different from the positive ones they usually got.
Even weirder, Touya had never heard of STAR. He usually knew who their songs got compared to, but that comparison was new to him.
Perhaps, later, he’d give them a listen. Maybe their sound would inspire something new for him.