Chapter Text
Mizuki awoke on some random day in June, to see that Ena had blown up their phone last night. Mizuki held off on checking the texts, since normally it was just Ena sending them an ungodly amount of cat videos at 3am. After they had brushed their teeth, made a pancake or two, gotten dressed, and made their bed, they unlocked their phone only to find that Ena had won an art contest she entered a few weeks ago and was taking N25 to a beach vacation far away from all of their problems and responsibilities! They practically jumped back a bit, after reading that message, and instantly went into a packing frenzy, even though the vacation was a week away.
After a couple of hours of wrangling snacks and plushies and little trinkets they wanted to give to Ena anyways, their alarm went off. It had completely missed their mind that they were meeting up with Mafuyu to get the lyrics for their next song, to get started early on the music video. They normally did this every few weeks now as Mafuyu liked to keep her lyrics from everyone until they were perfect, but Mizuki had to at least start planning around them for the music video, so they made this deal. Mizuki had to be at the meet up in around 15 minutes, and they couldn't miss it, because if they did Mafuyu would be stuck at home for the rest of the week, and by then they'd be behind schedule on making the music video, and they'd dissappoint all the fans and-
Before Mizuki could spiral further their alarm rang again. They scrambled to turn it off, almost dropping their phone in the process. They then chucked it onto their bed, before picking up the first outfit they saw, and running off to the metro.
It took Mizuki a minute or two to figure out what the metro maps were even remotely saying, as normally they'd have their mom drive them, but she was busy. Eventually when Mizuki got onto the... probably... correct train they scanned the crowd of people in there. Mostly tired business men, a couple children, and whoever's school hadn't let out for break yet. Among the crow, right in the midst of it, was Ena, mindlessly scrolling on her phone.
Mizuki just stared at her, not expecting her to be there. Ena looked up, and just for a second, they locked eyes. It wasn't awkward but it wasn't normal either, it just briefly happened, and then they went back to ignoring the other's existence, with the air between the two slightly thicker now. Before Mizuki could say anything, Ena's stop came and she rushed off without another word, or even a glance back at Mizuki. Mizuki just pushed it to the back of their mind as their stop came. They didn't know why that bothered them so much, but that wasn't important as they made their way over to the cafe where they and Mafuyu met ever single week, and 11am sharp.
There Mafuyu sat, staring into the distance, not even remotely paying attention to the milkshake she had ordered. It was bright pink, and had whipped cream and sprinkles, along with every other topic imagineable. It didn't look like anything Mafuyu would ever take interest in. Their train of though was derailed as they sat down opposite from Mafuyu in the booth's red leather couch's, as they always had.
"So Maf, did you order a snack already or were you waiting for me~" Mizuki said, coyly, still eyeing Mafuyu's milkshake.
"Don't call me that. I also ate before I came here, I don't want to eat the confectionaries they serve here. They're a bit too..." Mafuyu just waved her hand slightly to show her distaste at all the pancakes, crepes, croissants, and anything in between really.
"You over-analyse things a little bit, sometimes maybe you should just have something because it's sweet, not because it's perfect." Mizuki chuckled slightly. They'd been trying to make Mafuyu have some more fun recently, and judging by that milkshake, it was working.
Mafuyu idly nodded, agreeing that she probably should do that, but that she probably wouldn't take any steps to change. She took a sip of her extravagant strawberry milkshake, before coughing and shaking her head. "Blegh... Mizuki this tastes like something you'd like... you uhhh... you want it?" Mafuyu slid the drink over to them. Mizuki couldn't deny something that looked that appetizing and bright, so they took a sip. It tasted like a sweet berry explosion in their mouth, which just a little bit of the toppings seeping into the flavor. It was straight up heaven, how could Mafuyu even hate it?
Mizuki just sat there, processing the amazing flavor that just exploded into their mouth for a second, before replying, "I mean of course I want it!!" almost instantly, as if it would be ripped out of their hands by Mafuyu if they waited for too long. "Anyways, can I have your lyric draft right about now? I mean no reason to delay it... right...?" They questioned with a slightly nervous laugh.
"Oh yeah. I don't have the bridge done yet. Hope that's enough progress for you to start chipping away at it." Mafuyu said, the tiniest bit of emotion from before, completely gone from her voice. That was... a hell of a problem. The bridge was normally the hardest part to animate for, since Mafuyu normally writes it so that is changes the entire energy of the song, so Mizuki always does it first. But if Mafuyu didn't have it then... Mafuyu didn't have it.
Mizuki could do nothing but slightly nod, take the lyrics from Mafuyu and slip it in their bag, and go their seperate ways another week. Mizuki was now back on the subway, sipping their drink, mulling over how they could deal with the bridge issue. Their phone buzzed once again, derailing their thoughts. It wasn't an alarm this time, but instead a text from Ena. A bunch of them. Mizuki just hadn't paid attention to their phone during their little snack with Mafuyu. It was a series of texts explaining when they were going, down to exact times, and the name of the hotel they would go to. Mizuki reviewed it and thought that 'Hyatt' was a weird name for anything, let along a hotel, but thought nothing of it until it came to the room division. The trip included two rooms, so Mizuki and Ena would share a room. They could feel their cheeks dust a little pink just at the thought of sharing a room with Ena. The best, or worst part depending how you look at it, is that they didn't know whether they would have seperate beds. Ena, of course, decided to include that detail at the very end of the string of texts. Mizuki was just frozen for a few seconds, thinking about what excactly that might be like... they weren't repulsed by the idea-
Once again their thoughts got cut off by the ding of the train coming to it's stop, which was Mizuki's stop so they got off, shoving their phone deep into their pocket, trying not to think about possibly sharing a bed with Ena, as that would just distract them from their final bits of packing.
After they had packed all the essentials of clothes, a swimsuit, a beach ball, a little pusheen plushie, some foundation, snacks for the plane, a sketchbook, and their backup laptop so maybe they could chip away at some MVs during the lulls in the trips, or when they plainly couldn't sleep. They checked over their room for the final things they needed, when their eyes had fallen on a little Ena plushie. It looked so stupid, it was like one of those they made for anime girls. Nothing like Ena at all... yet Mizuki kept it, on their bedside table, always sitting there.
They gently picked it up by it's little waist, and put it into an empty pocket in their suitcase, shutting it, and putting it in the corner of their room. They then just sat in their bed, unsure of why she did that. It was like an instinct, their limbs moved on autopilot. They decided to just stop dwelling on it, since it didn't matter so much... it meant nothing, right? It meant... nothing...
Mizuki decided to look back at the lyrics Mafuyu gave them, which sat on their bedside table. They felt... lighter than normal. Yes they had the normal Mafuyu doom and gloom to them, but they were slightly happier. Maybe this trip would change her for the better... maybe... maybe she was better. Mizuki kept reading until they tossed themselves into their office chair, which Yuuki had left behind for them. They absently slid their laptop towards them, opened it, and typed the password, all with one hand as the other still held the lyrics that they were still midway through reading. They had a couple new Nightcord notifications, which was just Kanade asking them which layout looked better for her PC. They just jokingly answered 'no pc set up, go outside-' before opening up adobe premiere pro, which Yuuki gifted them a pass to last year.
They edited as normal, messing around with filters and cuts and all for their song in progress, using Ena's drawing in progress as a stand in for where the finished artwork will be used. It felt like only a couple of minutes until their mom called out that it was time for dinner. Mizuki paid no mind to it, but as soon as they got up, the realization hit that this meant that they had been editing for literal hours without a break, or water, or acknowledgement of the outside world.
Mizuki dug through their drawer, and pulled out a post it note, writing themselves a reminder to get some water before sitting down to edit for another day.
After dinner they kept working with general silence from the nightcord, as Mafuyu was studying, Kanade was probably dealing with technology problems after rearranging her setup, and Ena was just going to night school. After they had created the basic outline for the lyric video with all the resources the others had given them, they had gotten... bored. They had packed, checked their texts, made the MV, ate, seen Mafuyu... What more was there left to do...?
Mizuki glanced over at their bed, which had a single pusheen plushie, innocently eating chips, sitting there in all of it's rotund glory. Mizuki debated themselves as to whether to pack it or not. They had slept with it ever since they were a small child, Yuuki had given it to them long ago when they scratched their knee, by falling off their bike, and were too scared to learn to ride a bike after that. Yuuki had bribed them by saying she'd get her any plushie in the expensive plushie store by their house, if they'd get back on and learned to ride it. That somehow worked on their little tiny child self, so they learned to ride a bike, and as promised they got the plushie. Once they got there they got overwhelmed by choices, so they just picked a random option, which was this round cat shaped little guy. They just slept with it ever since. Mizuki wasn't sure whether they could even sleep without it at this point, but if they brought it along then Ena would see them sleeping with a dumb little plushie... They didn't have much else to do so they just sat there, weighing their options.
"To hug or not to hug..." Mizuki muttered to essentially nobody. Eventually the child in them won, and they opened their suitcase back up, and shoved it in with the little Ena plush.
Mizuki had then settled on scrolling tiktoks in bed, waiting until they heard the ringtone noise from Nightcord for literal hours. Then they checked their phone clock to see it was 2am by now, and they had still gotten no nightcord call. They sprang up out of bed and rushed over to their computer, concerned about what happened to their normal 1am nightcord call. Chucking aside their desk chair, they frantically opened their laptop, to see that they had missed it. Their hands just... froze. If they missed the call, then they definetely missed a bunch of important information for their next song which mean they missed a bunch of stuff for their MV-
Their thoughts were cut off by a nightcord notification. More like notifications, they sent so many messages that they could swear their ears rang a little bit.
Ena: "Hey guys since Mizuki probably fell asleep early can either of you paraphrase what we did-?"
Ena: "I forgot... ONE OF YOU BETTER HAVE GOOD MEMORY-"
Kanade: "I just sent them it in PMs."
Kanade: "Relax."
Kanade: "You're so high strung."
Mafuyu: "Your vocals would work really well for this next song. Wanna do it?"
None of the members seemed mad at them... With Ena still typing dramatically as normal, Kanade never daring to type more than 30 characters, and Mafuyu being weirdly proffessional about the whole thing. Though Ena was being weirdly considerate about them today, as normally she would compare well to an angry bull dog who was only holding back because someone gave them a seasoned tomahawk to gnaw on. Mizuki just couldn't let themselves dwell on it for too long, and after skimming what Kanade sent them, they turned into bed as the drowsiness was already getting to them at this hour.
Tomorrow would be yet another day, another day closer to going to the beach, away from every single stress in their life.