Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hana opened her eyes and she couldn’t see anything, though she smelled warmth and cotton. Instinctively her hand shot up to her eyes only to feel something soft on her face. She pulled it away and squinted as sun hit her in the face. It took her a minute to register that it was her jacket. Her official, brand spanking new Normal Boots jacket.

A wave of glee passed over her as she remembered what had happened the day before. To celebrate the new member of Normal Boots, the guys, Mai, and her had a big party at Jon’s and PBG’s room with pizza, soft (and a few hard) drinks, and a rousing Stomping Sisters tournament. Mai had left after she lost in the first round, saying that she had some last minute homework left over and Hana elected to stay. She ended up losing to Paul, but only after beating PBG in the initial round. She remember trying to stay awake to see who won but the last thing she remembered was Jared hooting about beating his husband (she can only assume he meant Satch).

She suddenly became very aware that this was not her blanket that was covering her. Hana turned beat red and shot up. She fell asleep in their room. A plaid blanket fell from her shoulder. She was on the bottom bunk of the bed. She does not recall sitting on the bed at all. Oh no, did she accidently take PBG or Jon’s bed? Where did they sleep?

She looked out and stifled a giggle, her worries erased. Looks like the party ended up being a slumber party. There was a leg just hanging out of the upper part of the bed. The Continue? guys were in a dogpile and Paul’s face had black scribbles on his face that looked like Nick and Josh’s facial hair. Jirard’s body was positioned around the OuiU like a mother fox protecting their young one hand on a stack of video game cases. Satch seemed to have managed to fall asleep on a chair and Jared was splayed out on his lap, using the armrests to support his bride positioning, an arm around Satch’s neck and Satch’s glasses on his head. PBG was standing in the corner, head lolling to the side. Hana became concerned until she realized that his eyes were closed, so he was doing that standing while sleeping thing. Shane was just laying facedown spread eagle on the floor.

Hana felt around for her phone and finally found it in the folds of the blanket and unlocked it. There was a couple of missed calls and texts from Mai, one coming from a couple minutes ago.

Hana! Where are you? Class is going to start soon!

Hana let out a cry of shock, jolting most of the other Normal Boots guys out of sleep. Satch shot up, causing Jared to plop onto the floor and Jared let out a pained wheeze. Squinting, he crouched down and grabbed his glasses off of Jared’s head. The Continue? pile stirred and Josh rolled off the top and Nick followed, colliding with Shane, who groaned loudly. Paul got up and rubbed his face, smearing some of his faux facial hair.

PBG stumbled out of slumber. “HWAZ ATTACKING US??”

“CLASS IS STARTING SOON!” Hana jumped out of the bed, phone in hand and ran to find her bag, nearly tripping over Jirard who was stretching himself out.

“Oh,” PBG calmed down and shrugged. “Aite.”

Jirard, Paul and Satch, registering this, started their own scramble for their belongings. Shane shoved Josh and Nick up and got up himself, scratching his head and yawning. Jared groaned before getting up and heading to the bathroom to check his hair, pushing PBG’s bag into him on his way. PBG let out an eeeuugh before brushing over his hair with his hand. Jon ech’ed before falling off from the top bunk landing on a pile of pillows next to the bottom bunk and just didn’t move.

Shane caught a glimpse of his chest. “Ok, guys, very funny. Now where’s my shirt?” Shane deadpanned. Everything stopped for a second and they all just stared at him. His face was painted like the Union Jack and his arms were covered up in black scrawlings, shirt missing. She could make out MURDER CHICKEN and DON’T SHANE ME as some of the bigger words on his chest. They all bursted out laughing.

“Sorry, man, that’s what happens when you fall asleep first!” PBG laughed and tossed Shane a spare shirt. Hana caught a glimpse of some ragged white fabric disappear behind his back.

“Hmm, pretty sure Hana fell asleep first,” Shane said, shooting a glance at Hana with none of the bite that it used to have. Rather, it was filled with warmth. He pulled on the shirt and it covered most of the writings on his arms, especially after he put on the jacket.

“New member immunity. Hana won’t be off the hook next time though,” Paul laughed, currently wiping his faux facial hair with a wet wipe. He winked at Hana. “I’m thinking cat face emoji.”

Hana laughed. She mentally added Outsleep The Boys on her bucket list.

Shane shrugged. “Alright then. I’m going to head out first.” With that, he stepped out of the room.

Hana and PBG exchanged glances. “Do you think he noticed the face paint?” Not five seconds after there was a furious banging on the door. PBG opened it and a still-union-jacked Shane stomped in, snatched Paul’s wet wipes from his hands and stomped out. There was a second before they all bursted out laughing again.

Satch, Jirard, and the Continue? guys left first running. Jared left next, after strolling in to grab his stuff and then strolling out.

Finally, after Jon had recovered from his fall and PBG got his stuff together, the three of them left for class.
—
“MISS Mizuno? MISTER Jafari? MISTER Buttergamer? I can see that celebrations were done due to current events, but that should not impede on education!”

A smattering of giggles spread through the class. All three of them cringed and, muttering apologies, hurried to their seats. On the way Hana noticed Shane was steel faced looking ahead, face flushed red from wiping the paint off his face. Hana stifled a grin.

When she reached her seat, Mai turned around to face her.

“So~ You, PBG and Jon sure came in late. Must have been one hell of a party huh?” she whispered, a grin pulling at the sides of her mouth.

“I refuse to feed your fantasies, Mai.” Hana smiled innocently.

Mai’s mouth dropped open. “So, wait, did something-“

Hana frantically shook her head. “Nonono, I was just joking. I just fell asleep super early.”

Mai pouted. “Dang, I was hoping to hear something juicy!”

Ms. Shizuka cleared her throat and stared at Mai and Hana. Hana shrugged and Mai turned around.

Hana absentmindedly toyed with the collar of her jacket. Her Normal Boots Jacket. Hana could hear whispering and saw glances from out of the corner of her eye. Looks like the rest of the class was surprised to see her in Normal Boots uniform. She didn’t know if anyone outside of Mai and the club knew about the wager, so suddenly seeing her with the jacket must have been very sudden. Then again, she supposed that people should have expected it. She’s spent a lot of time with the club, through better and worst, leading up to the tournament.

She caught the eyes of Luke and Ian. Quickly checking to see if Ms. Shizuka was watching, Luke tugged at his own jacket, pointed at Hana, and gave her thumbs ups. Ian only smiled and nodded. She shyly nodded back at both of them, hoping to convey her thanks for the congratulations. She turned back to the lesson with newfound determination. A lesson on monster/human dynamics in battle will be defeated!

Chapter Text

After class, Hana and Mai started to head to the cafeteria. A lot of the people they passed stopped and looked at Hana’s new jacket and then turn to each other and whisper… something. It was kind of nervewracking.

“-Hana?”

“Yes!?” She jumped, breaking out of her mindhaze.

Mai looked worriedly at Hana. “You alright?”

Hana blushed. “Uh, yeah, sorry, still a little tired from last night,” she said, laughing nervously, “Can you repeat that?”

“Yeah, I was just asking what you thought about the canceled concert.”

Hana tilted her head. “Concert?” Maybe it was due to how busy she had been with getting ready for the tournament but she definitely didn’t recall anything about a concert.

“There was supposed to be a concert in a month, but apparently the stars who were supposed to perform all dropped out.” Mai groaned and threw her arms behind her head. “I was really looking forward to it, there are some really cool guys coming to perform here!”

“Really? Like who?”

Mai’s eyes light up. “I’m glad you asked!” She stopped and dug into her bag before pulling out her phone. She started to pull up and swipe past pictures of idols faster than Hana could register. “So Star Bomb was supposed to open for the concert and then from there the Blockers play, then it’s the part that I was super excited for.” Her swiping finally stopped at what looked like an album cover. It had only heads on a black background, but they all had something odd about them. “The Intoxiblox.”

“Intox…what?” Out of the corner of her eyes, she thought that she saw someone staring at her but before she could turn Mai started to squeal.

“Oh my gosh, yes! The Intoxiblox!”

Hana stared at Mai. “Who are the Intoxiblox?”

Mai stared back before gently pulling Hana into an embrace. “Oh my sweet child, you have been so deprived.” Once again out of the corner of her eye she sees what looks like the same guy from before quickly turning when they make eye contact again.

“Haha, very funny.” Hana pulled away from the hug, grinning. “Now are you going to tell me who they are?”

“Right right, well…” She pulled up a picture of a black and white album cover featuring four guys. “The Intoxiblox is like this group who has done the most amazing collabs ever! I personally found them when they did a song with the Conspiricist and I’ve been hooked ever since. Of course their main albums are amazing too!”

“Right…” Hana couldn’t take the album art seriously. All of the people were posing in goofy ways had some sort of odd decoration that hid most of their face in some way. Maybe it would have been a little intimidating if it wasn’t for what they were wearing. One had a giant cartoony mustache and ladder shades, one was just wearing a giant eyeball, one had giant goggles over his eyes, and the last one had a skii mask with googly eye glasses.

“H-hey! Don’t judge them on their covers, they’re weird in person but their songs,” Mai raised her hand up, thumb and pointer together and, closing her eyes, smiles, “oh man, too perfect.”

“I heard they drink before their performances so they’re never sober on stage.” Suddenly Shane showed up, slinging a bag behind, breathing slightly heavy. Hana got the feeling he was running. He stopped between them.

Mai’s eyes widened. “Right, I always forget about that! That’s why they’re named Intoxiblox, right?” Shane nodded.

Hana raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t seem like it’d be true. How would that even be allowed.”

“It happens all the time in America. It’s always on the news.”

“Huh,” Hana took a closer look, “is that why they look so funny in this picture?”

“Of course not!” Suddenly the student Hana saw before had popped up right behind her. Hana jumped forward and squeaked. “Oh, uh, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that I heard that you two were talking about Intoxiblox and I couldn’t help popping in.”

“Ooh, so you’re a fan too?” Mai asked,

The student laughed a little. “I…uh…guess so yeah?” He cleared his voice. “A-anyways, they don’t drink at all before their performances. Their eccentricness is just who they are.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Oh you’re one of those fans.” He started to speed up. The student sped up as well and intercepted him.

“Oh no you don’t!” The student, to Hana’s shock, got up to Shane’s face and glared at him. “You are being super disrespectful to a group of wonderful guys and it’s totally uncalled for!”

Shane gave him the once over and stared for a second. He sighed. “Great. You’re one of those.” He half-shoved the student out of the way and stomped his way out.

“What’s his deal?” the student huffed, staring after Shane, an upset look on his face.

“I’m sorry about Shane, he does tend to be like this,” Hana said, recalling back to when she and Mai were first caught handling the boots.

“Don’t worry about him, he gets salty about the smallest things, but he’s a pretty nice guy,” Mai assured him, but paused. “…Uh, somewhere…”

“Well, whatever.” The student held out his hand. “I’m Nate! Nice to meet you!” He grinned.

Hana hesitantly took his hand and he enthusiastically shook it, nearly knocking both of their glasses off. "My-name-is-Ha-na-nice-to-meet-you!” Her voice shook with every shake.

“Aaaand I’m Mai, nice to meet you too, Nate!” Mai just waved, keeping a safe distance from Nate, though Hana wasn’t sure if it was for his or her sake considering how strong Mai was.

“Always nice to meet some new people!” Nate grinned. His eyes wandered to the clock on the wall. “Oh geeze, is that the time? I have a thing to get to! Bye!” With that, Nate dashed off.

Mai and Hana just stood there in silence. “Well that was an experience.”

Hana stared, then shrugged. She shelved the odd student to the back of her mind and she and Mai started off to the cafeteria. They joined the rest of the Normal Boots guys just as Jirard started to recount about how Saitomo was on all of their butts when they came in late. With Paul and Nick playing the scared boys and Josh as a disgruntled Saitomo, Hana found herself forgetting about the peculiar student. He’ll probably won't come up again.
__

After they were all done eating, Hana volunteered, or rather was coerced, into helping out the Continue? guys clean out old papers in the storage rooms. Apparently, the three of them never bothered cleaning it up the year before but the school wanted to use the rooms for event storage, so the student council was tasked with cleaning it up. They had split up because the rooms can only fit up to two people comfortably. Hana and Paul were stacking boxes when one slipped out from the box. Paul managed to grab it, but paused.

“Hey, Hana, check this out!”

Hana leaned over to look at the paper in Paul’s hand. It was wrinkled and slightly torn. BATTLE OF THE BANDS – AJISAI, AYAME, AND ASAGAO FACE OFF! She recognized the names Ajisai and Ayame as relatively close by schools. “A battle of the bands?”

“Yeah, I remember this back when I was a first year!” Paul held the paper to his chest and sighed whimsically.

“Were you in it?” Hana asked.

“Oh no, I was way too busy preparing for student council, I had no time to check it out,” Paul shrugged, tossing the paper into the box.

Hana fished it out and looked over it. It had a set of drum being wrapped in a mic’s cord as the main decoration. There were names of bands on either side of it, two names emphasized in particular – The Grumples and DentalBloss. “I haven’t heard of there being an event like this happening here?”

“Oh, Asagao hasn’t participated since I was a freshman,” Paul grunted as he dragged one of the boxes outside for recycling.

“Really?” Hana looked at the box where the flier fell from. It was covered in music themed stickers like music notes and instruments and was filled with more of the fliers. “Shame, it looked like it could be a lot of fun.” Hana placed the flier into the box carefully as though it never fell out of the box.

Paul peeked his head in, eyebrow raised. “You think so?”

Hana shrugged. “Y-yeah, it kind of reminds me of back home where we’d have talent shows and those who won got to get a prize but everyone loved watching each other’s acts. I hadn’t really been to one for a while…” Hana trailed of.

Paul was silent. Then his eyes lit up. “Hana, I may have the best idea ever.” He ran in, grabbed some of the fliers from the box, turned heel and raced away.

“Paul?!” Hana yelled, but yielded no response. Huffing, she turned back and realized that he left her to clean the storage room. With a groan, she got started on cleaning it out. Alone.

Chapter Text

It took three days for Hana to ever see the Continue? guys again. From what she heard from Jirard, the three had been very secretive lately, with lots of whispering and looking around. They come in late for class and the minute class was over they zoomed out of the classroom without a word to anyone else but themselves. They hadn’t even been coming to the Normal Boots table, opting instead to take the food out with them straight to their room. No one in the club knew what was up, so Hana was resolved to just leave the three alone.

As Hana and PBG waited for the others by the door, they heard a desperate “WAIT!”. They turned and saw a heavy breathing Nick barreling at them.

“Nick?” Hana was slightly shocked. He looked like he’s just been chased by zombies by how fast he was going.

He stopped in front of them, bending over to catch his breath. “Need…all…of…Normal…Boots …with…us…now!”

PBG and Hana exchanged glances. “Uhh ok…” PBG leaned back in and hollered, “HEY! Call for Normal Boots!”

Jon and Shane came out, both shooting PBG confused looks “What’s going on PBG?” Jon asked while Shane only gave him his patented what-the-hell eyebrow raises. PBG only shrugged at them and pointed at Nick.

“OK, let’s go. Let’s go!” Nick waved his arms and started running towards the clubroom. Filled with apprehension, they all followed.

Arriving at the clubroom, they were silent, either out of shock or out of awe. The lights were dim, save for a spotlight on a makeshift stage with a karaoke machine set up on the side of it and a lone mic stand in the middle of the spotlight. The tables were all pushed to the side and rows of chairs were facing the stage. In front of the stage was one table set up. Paul was reclining on a swivel chair next to it. Josh pushed pass PBG and jumped on the table, quickly assuming a seductive pose. Nick followed and kneeled next to Josh’s head, leaning on the table.

“What’s going on?” Hana turned and saw that Jirard, Satch, and Jared had arrived as well.

Paul swiveled around to face the group. “Hello guys… and gal,” he added hastily, glancing at Hana, “I bet you are all wondering why I have called you here.”

“You’re planning on taking over the world and you want us to bear witness to the destruction you’ll wrought?” Jared asked.

“Nope.”

“You’re building a giant robot and need us all to pool in resources and be pilots?”

“Not quite but close~.”

“The three of you are breaking up and need us to take you all in emotionally so you won’t feel alone in this world that will end with Nick shaving his beard, Josh stripping, and Paul never achieving his dream of being a star?”

Josh got a far off look and Jon coughed. “Never again,” Josh whispered.

“No, my dear booties. You may have already noticed the setup we have here,” Paul waved his arm at the room. “Well.” Paul jumped up and got on stage. He grabbed the mic and flicked it on. With a little feedback, he brought the mic to his face. His voice boomed. “We’re going to have a…” he paused for drama, “…karaoke competition.”

“I’m out.” Satch turned and walked out.

“Same.” Shane turned and followed Satch out.

“Wait, no! Josh I choose you!” Paul pointed at the door. Josh jumped off the table and sprinted out.

Paul coughed. “Ok, well, anyways. As you may know, back when I was a freshman, there was a Battle of the Bands with the other schools Ajisai Institute and Ayame High School.”

Hana didn’t quite recognize the names. She could only recall it from the old fliers in the storeroom from days ago. She could only assume it was schools nearby to Asagao, maybe in nearby cities.

“After that year, we never had one again. But!” he pointed at the group, “not anymore! This year, we break the pattern! This year, we rise to the occasion and show them what Asagao can really do!” Eyes glinting, he finished his rousing speech and looked at the group expectantly. “Any questions?”

PBG raised his hand. “Yeah, why us?”

“Ah yes, well, there are…certain prerequisites in order to get in and one of them is having a certain size of fanbase and well look at us! We’re Normal Boots! We’re strapping, we’re handsome, and we even got Jared and Hana to ensure complete enrapture of the student body. There will be no survivors!” Hana withdrew a little and blushed bright red while Jared only laughed and tossed his hair. “Anyways, it’s not like you guys will be the only band, it’ll be announced for the general public tomorrow! We thought that we may as well get the best candidates together in one band for extra care!” Hana wondered if that was even ethical.

“What about Hidden Block? They’re pretty popular too, why not ask them too?” Jirard asked.

Paul laughed awkwardly. “Yeah, about that… rules state that established bands aren’t allowed to join and well…” Paul stretched out his hand and Nick placed a rolled up piece of paper on it. Paul rolled it out for everyone. It was a poster with six guys posing with the title Forbidden Cube. Hana’s face only grew more red when she recognized the snapback and the moles. Taking a quick glance around informed her it was just as much of a surprise to the rest of the club but PBG who only shrugged. “Yeah apparently they’re a reasonably popular boy band…”

“OK, then what if none of us can sing?” Jon asked, arms crossed.

“Coming from you, that wouldn’t be happening, but should that be the case, I’m choosing based on prettiness which means Jared you’re on the team if that’s the case,” Paul pointed at Jared who laughed and flipped his hair. “Hana, you too.”

Hana sputtered out, “E-excuse me?”

PBG glanced at Hana, then back at Paul. “Well, if that’s the case, sure! Sounds like fun.”

“Yeah! I think that it’ll be really cool to be able to perform and meet people from other schools!” Jirard added.

PBG cheeks tinged with pink. “Y-yeah! That too…” He immediately shrunk down and suddenly became very interested at a crack in the wall on the other side of the room.

“Hey, I’m always up for performing. I can’t deny the chance to share this,” Jared waved towards himself.

“You just indicated to all of you,” Jon said. Jared gave him a pointed look like ‘yeah that’s the point’.

Hana raised her hand hesitantly. “W-what if-“

Josh barged in, carrying Shane under his arm. “SATCH GOT AWAY BUT I HAVE SHANE.” Shane only grumbled and glared at Paul. Hana tried to ask her question again, but Shane accidently hits her with his leg as Josh carried him out, interrupting her. He dropped Shane in front of the group and, grabbing a chair, went to go sit by Nick at the table in front of the stage.

“Dang, oh well,” Paul shrugged, “Well I guess if there’s no more questions-“

“WHAT IF.” Hana said in an outburst. Everyone turned to her and she floundered a bit before continuing. “W-what if we don’t want to perform?”

Paul thought for a minute, clearly not prepared for that kind of answer, then shrugged. “Condition them to want to perform?” Before Hana can tell him off about how that’s not a solution, Paul jumped off the stage and before anyone can react Shane was on stage looking just as confused as everyone else on how he got there.

“Since Shane doesn’t want to be here, let’s let him go first!” Placing the mic back onto the stand, Paul jumped back to his seat behind the table. The Continue? boys all took out clipboards and leaned back, watching Shane expectantly. Paul looked back. “Well? Take a seat!” Sharing glances with each other, the rest of them just shimmied over until they sat down.

Shane looked at the others almost pleadingly, but all Hana did was shrug awkwardly. Not much she can do now. Sighing, he picked up the mic. “I’m a baby girl. In a baby world.” Shane droned the words, contrasting the bouncy tune.

The Continue? boys furiously scribbled on their clipboards. When Shane finished his song, they held the clipboards up, which Shane scowled at. They pointed the clipboards at the audience, which all had a number on it, adding up to 4. “Thank you Shane. No no, we’ll call you.” Paul finger gunned at Shane who grunted and jumped off the stage, slinked to a chair, and slumped on it. Paul clapped his hands and then pointed at PBG.

“Next!”

--

“Ey Ey, ghost ride the ship!”

PBG swung his arms around awkwardly. The three shook their heads and gave him a one each. He just shrugs and gets off.

--

“Hana! You’re up!”

Hana just crossed her arms to make an X. There was nothing that was going to make her do this, no matter the amount of puppy dog eyes the three gave her.

--

“AND IIIIIIIIIIIEEEIIIIIII WILL ALWAYS ADOOOORRRREE YOOOUU!”

As Jon sang his heart out, the three nodded and gave him straight 8s.

--

Jared didn’t even sing, he just danced. The three looked at each other and then just held up clipboards with question marks on them. Jared just laughed and tossed his hair before walking off. Hana started to wonder whether she should keep a hair flip counter.

--

Jirard awkwardly walked up to the mic. “Uh... can you put up the Nokemon Rap on my phone?” Jirard tossed the phone at Paul.

“Sure Jir,” Catching the phone, Paul fiddled with the machinery a bit before finally connecting the phone. The poppy tunes of the rap started to play. At first Jirard started off a little awkward but then he really started to get into the groove. Everyone could feel it, even Hana who was only vaguely familiar with the franchise.

“Catch em catch em gotta catch em all. Gotta catch em all-“

“NOKEMON!” With a bang, the door swung open and a strangely familiar student popped up, arms stretched out like in a musical. Everyone’s heads swiveled towards him.

Hana recognized him immediately. “Nate… oh my gosh…” She buried her face in her hands.

Jirard’s eyes widened, but he pointed at Nate and continued singing. He pointed back and they started to rap the words together as he got closer to the stage. When he reached the stage, Jirard stretched out his hand and helped him on the stage. Together they finished the song with a bang.

Paul jumped on the stage and clapped furiously. “Bravo Jirard and random kid I’ve never met before!” Nick and Josh both held up clipboards with tens.

Nate blushed. “Eheh, sorry about this I heard the rap and I couldn’t resist.”

“No problem buddy. I’m Jirard.” Jirard extended his arm out.

“The name’s Nate.” Nate accepted the hand and gave it a strong shake.

“So, Nate,” Paul sidled up right by him, “Ever wanted to be in a boy band? Cause I’m thinkin you, Jon, and Jirard get together and do the Battle of the Bands thing!.”

“For the record, I didn’t sign up for that yet,” Jon piped up from the audience.

Nate coughed. “A-a band? Like with singing and performing-“

“And the fans,” Nick added, jumping onto the stage as well.

“And the publicity,” Josh said, joining on stage.

“Right. And all that…”Nate crossed his arms and tilted his head, eyes closed. “Hmm…”

“Hey, it could be fun!” Jirard added, “Not that you should feel pressured if you don’t want to.”

“No, I want to do it! But-”

“Perfect!” With that validation, Paul hooked his arms around Nate and Jirard’s necks. “It’s official! We got a band! And we’re going to call it…” he moved his arm as though envisioning a sign, “Paul and the Paulettes!”

A silence fell over the room, broken by only the smack of a hand to the face. Hana could already feel a headache coming on.

__

The room was rearranged back to it’s original form with the circle of tables. Nick and Josh were at the front by the chalkboard while everyone else was placed around the circle. PBG and Jon were sitting at the other side of the room. Shane was at the corner with his head on his hand, looking extremely board. Jirard and Jirard was sitting near the window. Nate had elected to sit near Hana, since she was the only person he really knew save for Shane, who he really didn’t want to sit next to. They all had a piece of paper with an outline for following along to whatever Nick, Josh, and Paul were going to talk about.

Nick pulled out note cards while Josh held a piece of chalk in both hands.

“So,” Nick started, “The Battle of the Bands.”

Josh scrawled out BATTLE OF THE BANDS and underlined it 3 times.

“An old tradition hailing all the way back to the 2000s that brought Ayame High and Asagao Academy together. What used to be a way to bring schools together became a competition when Ajisai Institute came into the picture. From a fun festival of talents coming together to share what they could do to a bloodbath of music and prestige coming head to head.” Nick mashed his hands together to represent the ‘bloodbath’.

Josh wrote ASAGAO and AYAME next to each other and drew a smiley face between the two schools. Then he wrote AJISAI below the two and drew a frowny face between it and the other two names.

“Up to three years ago, when us fourth years were first years, Asagao Academy and Ajisai Institute were neck to neck rivals in the Battle of the Bands and poor Ayame High was off to the side.”

Josh drew a line between ASAGAO and AJISAI and drew an angry face on that line. Next to AYAME he drew a sad face.

“Ever since then, though, Asagao has never entered another Battle of the Band. No one knows why… Since then it’s been more of a ‘Lookie what Ajisai can do’ event while Ayame kind of hung out in the background.”

Josh scribbled out ASAGAO. Then he drew lots of lines and stars around AJISAI. Then he drew another sad face next to AYAME.

“However, the three of us has all gone to the other two schools and interviewed the students there about why they think Asagao Academy has stopped entering the Battle of the Bands.” Nick motioned at Josh.

Josh pulled out his phone and put it on the table. He pulled up an audio file and pressed play.

“Asagao? I bet it’s cause they finally realized that Ajisai would never lose to them and wanted to save face.”

“The rich kids school? Maybe their parents finally stopped paying for them to play on stage.”

“Wasn’t that the year that Ayame beat them? I’d drop out too if I got beat by that school. The disrespect.”

Josh pressed stop and took back his phone.

“Is this what you guys have been doing these past few days?” Jirard asked.

“It’s important!” Paul said, shrugging.

“As you can see, no one knows why we stopped joining, but one thing for sure – our rep as a school is pretty low with the other schools because of it.” Nick put down his cards.

“I don’t get it. Why do we care about what other schools think of us?” PBG asked.

“Ahh, PBG PBG PBG…” Paul shook his head, “WE don’t. The principal does. You see, ever since I had the idea to bring it back we’ve been trying to convince the principal to let us do it, but for some reason she didn’t want to let us do it. The minute she heard what other people were saying though,” he snapped his fingers, “bang, we got her! She put us in contact with the principals of the other schools to get us back into the game.”

“Thing is though…” Josh piped up at last, “it’s gotten harder for bands to qualify for it since Asagao last joined three years ago.” He kneeled down, and pulled up a thick packet of papers and started to rifle through it. “It’s not just a pick up and play event anymore. All bands who hope to win need to think like a professional band. Set lists, social medias, costuming, music design, advertising, everything. One little mishap and everything could go down the drain.”

“Geeze,” Shane said, “how do you expect anyone to be able to do all of that?”

“Well, according to the Ayame student principal, a past winning band from Asagao is supposed to come in and help with all of that. However, all past Asagao winning bands are either disbanded or in a different country. Since we as a school are joining in sort of late, we’re going to get help from the bands helping Ayame and Ajisai - Intoxiblox and Starbomb.”

Nate’s face turned white and slid down his seat. Hana was puzzled by the sight. “Nate, don’t you like Intoxiblox?” Nate only wheezed out a pitiful deathrattle.

She looked at the others and noticed that Jon was not looking much better. His head was in one of his hands, the other tightly gripping the paper outline, and he seemed to have shrunken in his seat. PBG, noticing this, had his hand on Jon’s shoulder and whispering something she couldn’t hear into Jon’s ear.

Jared, however, was ecstatic. “That’s so cool! I didn’t realize that they were coming here! Is that why their concert was canceled here?”

Paul shrugged. “I guess. Apparently the band choices were last minute so they had to really scramble. Don’t tell anyone just yet, but I do believe those bands are going to have guest songs in the concerts, though nothing is in stone.”

Oh Mai is going to be so happy to hear that.

Jon suddenly got up. “Sorry, but I don’t think I can be part of this.” Before anyone can ask why, Jon tossed the crumpled outline onto the table and stomped out of the room.

“Jon, hold on!” PBG shot and, quickly shooting an apologetic glance, followed Jon out.

“Oh geeze, did I say something wrong?” Nick said, picking his notecards back up. He started flipping through them.

“I don’t know… but if Jon’s out, we’re down a singer... no offense Jirard, Nate, but I don’t know if your voices will be able to compete on their own…” Paul looked down, eyebrows furrowed.

“Well, I guess we don’t have to win then, right Nate?” Jirard said cheerfully. Nate only weakly raised a thumbs up.

“No, we need to win. Asagao has to win!” Paul closed his eyes.

“Paul?” Hana looked at him. He was… shaking? Before he was so casual about the band, but why is he suddenly so upset at the chance of losing?

Before she can react, Paul looked at the door. “I’m going to go talk to him. Meeting on hold for now.” He quickly left the room, in the direction of Jon.

“I wonder what was up with that?” Jared said, “I don’t think I have seen Jon so out of sorts before.”

“I hope he’s ok…” Hana looked down at her hands. Does his reaction have something to do with the bands?

“Well, I guess until we figure out the singer issue, I guess we can’t do much of anything else…”

“Um…” Everyone looked to see Nate with most of his color back, his hand raised. “I…may know where to find singers?”

“Really? Who?” Josh asked excitedly.

“Well… I have a friend who’s a pretty good singer… and…” Nate paused, as though he wasn’t sure whether he should continue.

“And?” Nick joined Josh as they both stared at Nate.

“Well, on my floor at Bluebell, I heard someone singing in the shower when I was leaving the bathroom. His voice was…” Nate sighed, smitten, “like if the most perfect cheese fondue had a voice. Or if butter was able to become angels and sang in a chorus. Or if the richest hot chocolate with the whipped cream and-“ His stomach growled. He blushed. “Sorry, guess I was hungrier than I thought. Anyways someone on my floor has the most amazing singing voice. If that guy and my friend joins, I think you,” he pointed at Jirard, “and I and them can make pretty great band.”

“That… could actually work!” Nick snapped his fingers. “Nate, I’m putting you in charge of getting your friend and mystery angel singer in this. The sooner we get it all figured out, the sooner we can get started on working on our submission!”

“OK!” Nate’s stomach growled again. “Uh, I don’t suppose – “

Jared got up. “I think it’s time to finish for dinner, right?” Nate nodded eagerly at him. With that everyone got up and started to file out.

Hana started to follow, but then thought about it. As everyone was filing out, she grabbed Josh before he can leave.

“Hana?”

“Is there something you guys aren’t telling us? Why was Paul so upset about potentially losing?”

Josh tighten his lips and shook his head. Hana stared at him longer. Beads of sweat started to form on his face. Finally he sighed. “Ok Hana, you win. But I really can’t tell you much. Paul made us promise not to tell anyone.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t want to worry anyone. But…it was a lot harder to bring Asagao back into the Battle of the Bands then anyone of us thought. Ajisai didn’t want us back but Paul really thought that this was important to bring back to Asagao. So... he made a wager with them.”

“A wager?” Hana cocked her head at him.

“Yeah… If Asagao wins, then Asagao will be invited back in future years.”

“Uhuh… and what if we lose?”

Josh didn’t really want to say, so Hana upped the power on her stare.

Finally he crumbled. “I’m sorry, Hana, but I really can’t tell you. All I can say is that Paul and Asagao could get into really big trouble if we lose.” Before she can react, Josh spun out and ran out the door.

She just stood there. “What could have Paul gotten us into?"

Chapter Text

Dinner was rambunctious and loud. Despite being an outsider, Nate managed to blend into the group so well that Hana almost felt that he had been there longer than she had. While he talked on about horror games, Hana kept looking up and around, but Jon and Paul never joined them for dinner. But soon she was pulled in as Nate booted up a new game of Four Nights at Frida’s for Jirard to try, despite her claims that she couldn’t handle horror games.

By the time they wrapped it up on night two she was frazzled and jumpy, seeing animatronics in the darkness. PBG had offered to walk her back to her room after seeing her in the state and she accepted, not willing to walk in the dark. Before they left though they decided to pick up hot drinks to protect against the cold night. Now their drinks were keeping their hands warm while they walked back.

“…and man those jumpscares! If I was playing I don’t think I could have been as cool headed as Jirard was!”

“PBG, wasn’t Jirard screaming too?”

“Yeah! I was shrieking like a banshee! Man if only I was as calm…”

Hana giggled and they fell into a comfortable quiet, enjoying the chill air. As she took a sip of her drink, her thoughts wandered back to what had happened during the meeting with Jon and Paul. Since PBG was Jon’s roommate, maybe…?  She turned her head and PBG was looking at her, but quickly swiveled her head away. “PBG?”

“Uh, YES, Hana?” he blurted out, causing Hana to raise an eyebrow in question at him.

“Uhh, about the meeting earlier, do you know why Jon reacted the way he did?”

PBG stopped. “Earlier, huh?” He was quiet, taking a long drink of his drink. Just when Hana was about to tell him to just forget what she asked PBG looked at her again. “Sorry Hana, but it’s stuff that I’m not too sure of myself, and even then if it’s what I’m thinking of it’s really not my business to talk about. Real sensitive stuff, you know?”

Hana deflated a bit and looked down. Of course, a reaction like that would be too personal for PBG to talk to some just like that, wouldn’t it? How inconsiderate of her.  

Seeing Hana disappointed, PBG rested his hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s ok. It’s just that if it’s really what I’m thinking I wouldn’t want it out there and if not it may just make things worse for Jon. Gotta tiptoe for now until I know more about it. If Jon is really struggling though and it’s ok to say, you’ll be the first to know, ok?”

Hana nodded. “Would… would it be ok if before I go back we could maybe…check on Jon?”

“Check on…?” PBG stared before softening, “Of course, I’m sure you want to hear from him, huh?”

Hana nodded. With that they changed course to the Bluebell House.

Once inside, PBG took her to the front of his room. He knocked on the door. “Hey, Jon! You in there?”

A moment passed before hearing a slightly congested “Yes”.

PBG turned back to Hana. “I better talk to Jon myself before you talk to him. He may not want to talk to anyone but if that’s the case I can talk to him about talking to you k?” With that, he slipped inside the room.

Hana stood around, trying desperately to resist listening in to preserve Jon’s privacy. Minutes ticked by and she started to count the little pockmarks on the wall. One…two…three… She soon became aware of a melodic humming in the air. It must have been coming from the bathroom nearby, considering how echoey it was. It was very soothing and smooth. She abandoned her mission to count all of the pockmarks and started to listen to the humming. It soon graduated to singing what sounded like a deep mountain song that made her think of dwarves and lost treasure.

She was almost lulled into sleep when suddenly a shocked scream pierced the air, jolting her out of her trance. Only seconds later she sees Satch running out the bathroom, a shower caddy in hand, his face bright red. “That is completely unacceptable and you should know that!”

Nate followed soon after and, oh gosh, he was dripping wet and wearing only a towel. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t help it and I’m totally at fault and please just listen!”

Satch turned around, a frazzled look on his face that was just so uncharacteristic on his face. “Listen? Ok, why would you just open another guy’s shower when you know someone was in it and start yelling about, what was it?”

Nate looked away, a slight reddening on his cheeks showing. “A-about how you’re the butter.”

“Yeah, that. How does that even make sense?”

By this time people had started to peek their heads out of their doors to see what the commotion was about.

“Hey Hana,” Jirard came out of his room from next to her “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, please take me out of here.” Hana pleaded half dead.

Nate and Satch turned and saw Hana. “Hana!” they both yelled. She yelped as the sudden attention startled her.

“Hana, he’s what I was talking about in the meeting! The angel’s voice! The butter of the toast!” Nate started gesticulating, his towel sliding down slowly.

Hana quickly changed her glance to Satch. “I have no idea what this kid is talking about, but he’s starting to scare me a little. What is this meeting he’s talking about?”

“Uh well…” Hana nervously.

“I’ll explain.” Jirard quickly updated Satch on the Battle of the Bands and what had occurred during the meeting with Nate adding in bits and readjusting his towel now and then.

“So you want me to be in your band for this event?” Satch finally said. Nate furiously nodded at Satch.  “W-well… I don’t think I’m a good fit for anything like that. My singing is not exactly anything to praise.”

“WHAT.” Nate blurted out. “Are you kidding me? Your voice is like syrup poured down on the pancake of music! How could you think like that?”

“First of all, that’s weird. Second of all, I just don’t think I’m a good fit, so I’m going to take my shower and finish my night in peace, thank you.” Hana was surprised by the annoyance in his voice. She never remembered hearing Satch this upset before. With that said, Satch turned and walked back to the bathroom.

She turned back to Jirard and Nate. Jirard was looking at Nate with a questioning look. “You think Satch would be a good addition as a singer?”

Nate nodded furiously. “You should have heard him. It was like the world stopped so that everything can listen to the literal meaning of harmony.”

“But you went into his shower stall…?” Hana asked.

Jirard raised an eyebrow. “You did?”

Nate deflated. “Yeah,” he said in a small voice, “I did. I shouldn’t have done that. I couldn’t stop myself, I had to find out who was singing.”

Jirard stared at Nate. “You should really apologize. That’s not cool.

Nate nodded.

“But, first, maybe you should be dressed?” Jirard pointed out and Hana remembered that Nate was only wearing a towel. She turn red and covered her eyes quickly. She heard Nate walking away with an apology.

“Ok Hana he’s gone.” She lowered her hands at Jirard’s words. “That was not something I was expecting to have happen,” He shook his head.

“Same. That was very surprising.”

“Hana, was Satch really that good?” Jirard asked. Hana thought back to the singing that she had heard only moments before the fiasco.

“It was… really soothing. Warm. It felt relaxing.” Hana could feel herself relaxing just from the memory from the singing.

“Wow, that good?” Jirard scratched his cheek. “I’ll talk to Satch about maybe joining, but after what happened Satch may not be up for it.”

“Oh, okay.” Hana would most definitely not mind hearing Satch sing again. She popped that thought as fast as it was thought with pink cheeks.

“So what brings you to Bluebell anyways?” Hana quickly told him about how she was waiting for PBG to let her talk to Jon. Jirard quickly frowned. “Oh, I guess you couldn’t hear with the commotion out here. It sounded like they were arguing from my room.”

“Arguing?”

“Yeah, thin walls. I’m assuming it’s the same at Primrose?”

Hana nodded, grimacing at the things she’s heard from across the hall alone. “I’m sorry. They might have started to fight because I wanted to know why Jon reacted the way he did in the meeting.” She shifted her gaze away from Jirard.

“Nonono, it’s fine, if they’re fighting it’s in no way your fault Hana. Though…” Jirard paused, seemingly unsure on how to proceed before continuing, “It may be best to drop it for now. It could be too soon for Jon. At least wait til it’s a less charged time.”

Hana nodded, a pit forming in her stomach. Just because she was a member doesn’t mean she was that close yet to the members. She could have overstepped boundaries. “Thanks Jirard,” she murmured, “I’m going to go back now. Tell PBG thanks anyways.” Before Jirard had the chance to react Hana turned and walked away.

The chill was even harsher now that she was alone but she trudged on.

By the time she got to the room she was shivering and her jacket was buttoned up in an attempt to fight the cold.

“Hey, you’re ba- Hana!” Turning from her desk, Mai jumped when she saw the state that Hana was in. “Oh my gosh get in!” The minute Hana closed the door she found herself covered in blankets and warm hands leading her to her bed. The minute her legs touched the bed it felt like all of her strength left her and she collapsed with a sigh.

“Hana, you look totally drained, what happened? You just left right after class and you never even answered any of my messages!” Mai sat next to her, adding more blankets and pillows to the Hana pile until it felt like she couldn’t move.

Hana told Mai everything, from the karaoke to the meeting to what had happened at Bluebell. With every word Hana felt lighter and lighter until, finally, she had exhausted the events and she was just laying there like a deflated balloon.

“Wow. Like wow.” Mai was at a loss for words. “Wow.”

“Yeah. Wow.” Hana sighed.

“Looks like some skeletons are being dug up, huh?” Hana looked at her, questioningly. “You know. Skeletons in closets? Anyways, sounds like some really personal stuff is being dug up here.”

“I know,” Hana moaned, burrowing deeper into her blanket mountain. The pit in her stomach is only growing bigger. And she didn’t even tell Mai about what Josh had told her at the end of the meeting.

Mai was quiet for a couple minutes. “Hey, do you want to watch a movie? I think Rude Girls is finally on Netfilms.”

Hana nodded and they spent the rest of the evening laughing at the ridiculousness of high school hierarchy and cliques.

–

The next day after class Hana found herself on a train speeding its way into the city with Mai chattering animatedly on the seat opposite to her. Mai wanted to go to the city to get some pretzels and Hana agreed to go with her, just so that she could get out of the school.

All day during class she saw PBG constantly peeking back at her questioningly and she had to fight the urge every time to ask what had happened to avoid sounding nosy. And then there was Jon who was just outright avoiding her and PBG. He just stared straight ahead. When class had finished he just left without a word. PBG had shot her a look of sadness before leaving as well.

The sound of the train car door opening jolted her out of her thoughts. “Hey, sorry, the train is near packed, is it ok to sit here?”

“Huh? Oh sure,” Mai said, moving to the side to leave space.

“Thanks. Oh, Hana, hi!” Hana looked up and there was Nate, smiling and waving.

“Hi Nate,” Hana waved back hesitantly. Nate sat by Mai across from Hana. “Uh, Mai, this is-“

“Right, right I remember Nate here!” Mai turned to Nate and waved. “So I heard you terrified poor Satch out of his wits last night?”

Nate looked at Hana incredulously. “You told her?” He groaned and his head fell onto his hands. “Don’t remind me. That was the dumbest thing I could have ever done. I’m still cringing from the memory.”

“Sorry…” Hana said.

He sighed. “It’s fine, I guess it would make for a funny story down the road. But he was such a great singer I moved without thinking.”

“Is Satch really that great of a singer? I always thought he was more of a band kid,” Mai mused.

Nate’s eyes widened. “Oh my gosh, you have to hear.” He pulled out his phone and, after fiddling with it, handed it to Mai. “Here, have a listen.”

She pressed play and the phone started to play a recording of someone singing. It was no mistaken, it was Satch singing. Hana recognized it even with the echoing and the tininess of the recording.

“Holy crap that’s Satch? That’s so good,” Mai exclaimed with wide eyes.

“I know, right?” Nate took the phone back. “That’s why I want him in the band, Hana. He’s got the tones now he just needs the tunes!”

“Yeah, I can see that… But I don’t think Satch was all that willing to join after what happened.”

Nate’s face fell and he slides down his seat, groaning. “I knoooow, that’s what hurts me. I need to at least apologize for what I did and explain. Maybe he’ll be more willing to join then?”

Hana shrugged. “Satch is pretty reasonable. I’m sure that if you talk to him he’ll at least listen.”

“You think so?” Nate looked at Hana with hopeful eyes.

“Probably.” She couldn’t speak for Satch, but from her experience he was always understanding to her, so why not Nate?

The train ride continued in silence until Mai brought up teachers and the two of them struck up a conversation about the faculty at school. Hana just stared out the window at the fast moving trees.

“So what are you two doing in the city anyways?” Nate asked.

“We’re going to get pretzels!” Mai said enthusiastically.

“Oh really? Mind if I tag along? I was just going to be wandering around anyways just checking out the city.”

Mai glanced at Hana, who just shrugged. “Sure, you can come with us.” Nate smiled widely and the two went back to their original conversation.

By the time they got off Mai and Nate had started  a debate on the origins of Dr. Creep’s mask and Hana was just amusedly watching with little anecdotes of her own added to the conversation.

As they walked towards to the pretzel shop they passed by a music store. Mai suddenly screeched to a halt. “Oh my gosh.” She ran inside, dragging Hana and Nate with her.

Inside the music store was full of shelves and boxes of CDs and records with people milling about, rifling through or listening to music samples through oversized headphones. Mai, however, made a beeline for a display table emblazoned with the name INTOXIBLOX in big bold logo lettering complete with a pink-mustached one-eyed cat alien. It was stacked with CDs, though the number was dwindling every minute before Hana’s eyes.

“Look! I didn’t even realize that their new album was out!” Mai immediately swiped one off the table and held it up for Nate and Hana to see.

“Oh cool!” Nate said, enthusiastically, though he made no move to grab a CD for himself.

Mai’s eyes wandered to the side and she squealed with joy.  “Starbomb!” She dashed to a nearby shelf and grabbed another CD. “I don’t think they’ve come out with an album in months!”

“Starbomb?” Hana looked closer at the CD cover. She could see a more understated design of a star compared to the Intoxiblox’s album which featured a cheerleader pyramid with the members.

“They’re a smaller local band,” Mai turned the case around. Hana sees three guys posing, one in a leotard with crazy hair, one with chins that can challenge Jared for most aesthetically pleasing, and one covered from head to toe save for piercing blue eyes and indecent finger gestures. “They were part of like some nationwide music thing as underdogs and got on the news for like a whole week here. Their music is so funny and so good!” Hana laughed.

They separated from there, with Mai going off to pay while Nate and Hana milled around. Hana caught a glance of a familiar cover. “Oh, my father listened to this a lot.” She picked it up.

Nate peeked over her shoulder. “Oh hey, those guys are classic!”

“I remember hearing their music from middle school,” Hana said, as memories of long hours in her room listening to the ambient music coming from her father’s studio resurface. She wonders if her father still listened to them now.

Suddenly a large growl could be heard and Nate covered his stomach. “Oops, sorry, guess I was a little more hungry than I thought. Would it be ok if I just meet you guys here? You can text me what pretzel you want and I can pick them up for you two.”

Hana looked at Mai, who looked like she was still waiting in line to pay. “Sure thing, I’ll let Mai know.”

“Awesome!” With a grin, he handed Hana a slip with a string of numbers and left quickly.

Hana made her way to Mai. “Hey Mai, Nate went ahead to get pretzels so you should text him on what pretzel you want.”

“Oooh, can you hold these?” Mai gave Hana the albums and Hana gave her the number he gave her. While Mai tapped away furiously on her phone, Hana looked at the albums she was given. The name struck her as odd, as it was not very grammatically correct.

“This is an odd band name.”

“Hmm?” Mai looked up from her phone. “Oh, no, that’s a stage name. NateWantsToBattle is one of those musicians that don’t use their real name for performing. You know, for when you want a personal life away from that.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Hold up,” Mai said, “Have you not heard of him before?” Hana shook her head and Mai just hung her head. “Hana, have you been living under a musical rock? When we get back we’re listening to every single song on every single album here.”

After Mai finally paid for the albums, they made their way to the entrance when their path was suddenly blocked by a short girl. She was wearing a long dark green uniform that Hana didn’t recognize and she was carrying a bag full of what looked like shiny fabric.

“Uh, hi? Can we help you?” Hana asked, nervously. She was even more uncomfortable when she noticed the girl’s eyes were glued on Hana.

“That uniform… so you’re from Asagao, huh? Did your parents buy you that hair?” The girl finally said, raising her eyebrow.

Hana shrunk away, but couldn’t escape the girl’s stare.

“Excuse me? Do you have a problem with her hair?” Mai stepped in front of Hana and stared the girl down.”

The girl didn’t let down her stare. “Nah. I’m just saying. Pink hair isn’t a natural thing, is it? So I’m asking if you bought that hair.”

Hana raised her hand to her hair, brushing it away from her face and trying to hide it. “N-no, it’s been pink as long as I can remember…”

“Hey, how about you leave us alone, kid. Don’t you have, like, tutoring or something to go to?”

The girl crossed her arms, frowning. “Typical rich kids feeling entitled. I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to be in here. What, did your parents buy this store?”

“Excuse me??” Mai looked close to rolling up her sleeves when a taller girl in the same uniform approached the shorter girl.

“Elly, are you ready to go?”

The shorter girl, Elly, looked up. “Yeah, just talking to-“ she looked down at Hana and Mai “- some people from Asagao Academy.”

“Ooh, I see.” The girl paused and looked at Hana and Mai. “Ok, no big deal, come on the others are waiting, we have rehearsals to go to.”

The two turned around, but then Elly turned around. “Heard that Asagao Academy is finally joining up on the battle of the bands. Well, when you go back to your little education playground, tell them that Girls on Duty is going to wipe the floors with them and whatever band they manage to buy off the internet!”

“Elly!” The other girl said in shock. Finished with what she was saying, Elly tilted her head to the side and walked out of the store.

“Sorry about her. She can go off like that.” The girl apologized.

“I’d say it’s fine but it’s not, what the hell was up with that?” Mai asked, glaring at where Elly had left.

“No one back in Ajisai really likes Asagao Academy, unfortunately,” the girl replied, “and, with the announcement that you guys are come back to BOTB, the upset has really been growing since.”

Hearing this brought the memory of talking to Josh after the meeting back to Hana’s mind. “Did something happen between our schools?”

The girl shrugged. “I don’t really know, but I can only say that a lot of these feelings are mainly from past events because nothing recent comes to mind.”

“GLORY!” Elly popped her head back into the store. “I set up a dramatic exit, you can’t just stand around like that, let’s go!”

Glory bowed and left the store.

“Wow, I wonder what the heck is up with that school.” Mai scoffed. “Talk about baseless accusations. I mean, yeah a lot of us are rich, but most of us aren’t like money wasters, geez.”

Hana just looked in silence, in her thoughts. Could this be linked to what Josh was talking about? Ajisai was the school who didn’t want Asagao in the competition.

By the time they had reunited with Nate, Hana’s mind was filled with thoughts about the battle of the band and what Elly had said. Nate handed Mai and Hana pretzels. Hana looked at it blankly, not taking it.

“Nate? I didn’t need a pretzel?”

“Yeah, well, I thought I’d treat you two. Hope you like cinnamon sugar. No need for paybacks!”

“Sweet, thanks!” Mai pocketed her wallet and started to devour it.

Hana carefully took it from him. The pretzel was warm and smelled of sugar. “Thank you, Nate.”

Nate grinned. “No problem!”

As Hana started to eat, Mai finished her off. “Nate,” Mai said, “You’re going to be in the botb, right?”

“The battle of the bands? Uh, yeah.”

“Good, cause I expect you to utterly destroy the Ajisai bands,” Mai crushed the pretzel wrapping in her hands.

“Wait, what?” Nate asked.

“We met some girls from a different school who were going to be in it too and one of them didn’t like our school very much,” Hana recounted.

“Ooh, competition, huh?”

“Nate, as a pretty boy singer I expect you to destroy them.” Mai said.

“You think I’m pretty?” Nate asked.

Mai just looked at him. “Well no duh, look at you, you’ve got that swoop of hair and a smile that could outshine like five lightbulbs! In fact you can almost beat NateWantsToBattle in the looks department!”

He raised his eyebrow. “Really? I don’t think he looks all that great. Then again I don’t really look that great, but uuhh…”

Mai looked at Nate closely. “Hmmm…” Hana could almost see sweat beading on his forehead. “…yeah no NateWantsToBattle would beat you, he’s just got that brooding dark feel to him that makes him so much hotter.”

“B-brooding?” Nate stuttered, though he sounded almost more aghast then scared of Mai’s staredown.

Hana started to laugh and Mai joined in. It took Nate a moment before he started to laugh too.

Finishing off their pretzels, they all went back on the train. As Nate and Mai were engaged in another discussion about theories involving Ms. Shizuka’s dating history, Hana took out her phone and opened a chat with Paul.

Hana: need to talk to you about botb

Paul: What’s up, Hana?

Hana: met some ajisai girls in the city

Hana: did not like asagao for some reason

Hana: does this have to do with the wager Josh was talking about

Paul: …

Paul: …JOSH.

Hana: well?

Paul: I neither confirm nor deny

Hana: PAUL

Hana: …

Hana: either way, I’m in.

Paul: ?

Hana: I want to help with this band thing

Paul: HANA THANKS

Hana closed her phone and watched the environment go by outside her window. Something about the Ajisai girls’ reaction to them was really bothering her, especially with what Josh had told her about the wager. If Paul really got them into something more serious than what she was thinking, then she wants to help to keep the worst from happening.

Also deep inside she wanted to wipe that smirk off of Elly’s face. No pettiness, clearly.

Chapter Text

Leaning onto the desk, Hana took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She and Paul were back in the classroom sorting out forms and flyers, though it was more Hana sorting out the papers into the proper piles while Paul was taking a break. The moon shone through the window, which would have worried Hana if Paul didn’t get permission from the headmistress to use the classroom for student council business. Nevertheless the silence would have scared her if it wasn’t for the beeping sound that rang out now and then from Paul’s phone. “Paul…”

“Hmmmyes Hana?”

“What is all of this?” Hana gestured to all of the small print on the poster she was holding.

“Oh, that. I just copy pasted all of the audition information that we were sent by email,” Paul said, nonchalantly, sitting back on his chair still playing some kind of runner game on his phone.

“Paul, did you actually read this?” Hana started reading off the poster. “To be eligible you must create at least four songs completely from scratch and be prepared to perform any of them at any round of the BOTB, etc. The more professional a performance is the more points it will receive for that round.” She stopped and looked at Paul. “What do they mean by professional?”.

“Oh yeah, they just want it to be like a concert,” Paul waved a hand while continuing his game one-handed.

“Concert?”

“You know, flashy lights, choreography, the works. A concert.”

Hana was starting to feel a headache grow. “Isn’t that a little extreme for a high school band? Where would we even get the resources for this?”

Paul, not even stopping his game, leaned over and grabbed a paper off a pile from the middle and handed it to Hana.

Release Form for Equipment Rental

“Oh ok, but what about choreography? Is a dance teacher considered equipment?” Hana imagined Jirard and Satch dancing, first trying to breakdance (key word trying) then ballet. Not that she’d ever deny the possibility that they couldn’t do it, the mental image regardless made her internally giggle.

“Past band’s going to help us, either Intoxiblox or Starbomb, not only with dancing but with technical assistance and managing too. Either way, not something people should be worried about until after they pass the audition.” Paul didn’t even look up, but continued to play.

Hana felt her headache gain a headache. She reached over and grabbed Paul’s phone.

His hands for a split second froze, as though he still had the phone in his hand. Then his head snapped up, confused. “Why did you do that?”

“You’re not focused! You were the one who wanted to do this, the least you can do is work with me here!” Hana turned his phone off and tossed it back to him. “Now, how about we really focus here?”

Almost fumbling the catch, Paul managed to catch it. He stared at her, then sighed. He ran his fingers through his hair and ruffled his hair. “Sorry Hana, I’ll be more focused now.”

Looking closely, Hana noticed that Paul’s eyes had bags under them and that his eyes looked duller than normal. His hair, already messy from his ruffling, didn’t look like they had the usual thought and care Paul gave it in the past. “Are you ok, Paul?” Hana asked.

“Y-yeah, I’m just tired, just stayed up late last night going over plans for BOTB.” Paul pulled at his cheek as far as his cheeks would let him and then squished them back in. “I think I can focus better now.” He hunched over the table and started to sort the papers out. “These papers need to go to class 406 and these still need to be stapled onto the bulletin boards and this needs to go to the newspaper club for approving for week’s issue and-“

“Paul, slow down!” Hana, having found a piece of paper and pencil to write it all down, was scrambling to write it all down but was barely able to keep up.

“Oh, oops, sorry.” Paul waited for Hana to finish before he continued, at a slower pace for her. As they were finishing the last pile, Hana heard the classroom door slam open from behind her. She jolted and squeaked at the sound.

“What are you two doing in here?” Shane was staring at them, a pair of garden shears in his hands.

“Shane?” Hana rested her hand on her heart, trying to calm it down from it’s rapid beats.

“Oh, hey Shane. Just doing some BOTB stuff, what about you?” Paul said casually, still looking at the papers.

“I-uh, was picking up some stuff I forgot in my locker.”

“What do you need garden shears for?” Hana stared at him and raised an eyebrow.

Shane stared at the shears for a second like he forgot he was holding them. “Right, the shears, they were, uh, I needed them for, uh, the plants upstairs needed trimming so I thought I’d pick them up now and save myself a trip to the janitor closet.”

Hana debated for a second whether to pursue the subject, but then Paul popped up right next to her, making her jump in surprise.

“Shane, you came at the perfect time, can you help Hana tape the flyers up on the lockers?” Paul strolled up to Shane and held up a strung up pack of papers for Shane to take. “I need to figure out some logistics for the preliminaries and unfortunately neither of you will be much use to me.”

“Uh, sure Paul,” Shane said and took the package. Paul then handed Hana a similar package and a roll of masking tape.

“Paul, maybe you should finish for the night? It’s getting pretty late and we can lock up for you?” Hana asked him, noting that the bags under his eyes looked heavier now.

Paul only waved his hand at them. “Naw naw, you go on and I’ll finish up here.”

Exchanging glances, Hana and Shane exited the room, leaving Paul to his work.

Outside, the hallway lights were still on. Walking up to the 4rth floor, they quickly got to work taping the fliers up. Now and then, Hana would catch a glimpse of Shane looking around before taping up another flyer. He almost seemed…nervous?

“Hey Shane?” Hana finally said.

Shane jolted and almost dropped his flyers. After a minute of him trying to make sure the flyers didn’t fall, he shot a glare at Hana. “Don’t scare me like that!”

She raised both hands in defense. “S-sorry! I just thought that you seemed a little jumpy.”

“Well I am!” Shane huffed and went back to taping up flyers.

“Does it have something to do with the garden shears?”

Shane spun around and looked at Hana. “Just forget about the shears ok, it has nothing to do wi-“

The lights started to flicker. Hana looked up. “Weird, are the lights going out?”

In one quick movement, Shane pulled Hana behind him and picked up the garden shears he left on the ground while taping. “Do you hear that?”

Now that he mentioned it she heard a low droning sound coming from the opposite side of the hallway. “Yeah, what is that?”

She could see Shane’s shoulders almost relax. “Ok, so I’m not going crazy, that’s good.”

“What?”

The droning noise suddenly raises to a high pitched wailing. It felt like her head was splitting from the sound. She clasped her hands over her ears. Shane did the same, dropping the shears in a panic.

The hallway lights started to turn off one by one, at first one at a time, then it sped up, going towards Hana and Shane.

Shane grabbed Hana’s hand and, pulling her behind him, started to run away from the lights shutting off. The lights followed, turning off faster and faster.

“Shane? What’s going on?” Hana yelled, stumbling to keep up.

The wailing, still in the background, made it hard to hear, but she managed to hear Shane above it. “Don’t know, worry about it later!”

They flew down the stairs until they reached the first floor, where Paul was working.

“Wait, we have to get Paul!”

Shane halted in front of the room that Paul was in and pulled open the door. Hana jumped in and Shane slammed the door shut. Suddenly the wailing disappeared and the lights turned completely off outside before turning back on.

Hana and Shane held their breath for a minute. When nothing happened they both exhaled. Hana stumbled to a chair and flopped on it while Shane just straight sat on the table.

“Wha-what was that?” Hana stammered.

Shane said nothing, but only stared outside the window. He finally looked at Hana. “Dunno… Probably a prankster.”

Hana wasn’t believing that, but after what had happened, she had no will to actually pursue the issue considering how hesitant about talking before.

A snore interrupted Hana’s thinking and she turned around. She found Paul face down, snoring softly.

Shane walked over to Paul and started to shake him awake. Finally Paul roused awake. “Hmm? Mornin guys.”

Shane let out a chuckle. “Lets get you back to the dorms.”

“Wha ‘bout the flyers?” Paul murmured while Paul started to haul him up.

“I’ll come back tomorrow before class and finish them,” Hana said, wincing internally thinking about how early that was going to be.

Paul mumbled out a thanks as Shane helped him out. “Don’t worry, I’ll come by too,” Shane said, looking back at Hana before leaving the room.

--

That next morning the flyers were up. Hana and Shane had been able to get all of them up before the first students started to trickle in. She tried to bring up the events that had occurred the night before, but Shane only deflected or ignored the attempts at talking about it. It ended with them just posting the flyers in silence.

There was a confused atmosphere in the air as students found the posters.

“Battle Of The Bands?”

“Compete with Ajisai Institute and Ayame High to win Band of the year?”

“Auditions next week?”

“Wow, look at all of these requirements!”

“Should we do it?”

“Oh my god we get to work with Intoxiblox!”

“Well sign me up, slap me silly and call me Suzanne!”

As Hana arrived to class, Mai came to her desk and pulled out the flyer for the Battle of the Bands. “I feel only a little insulted that you didn’t tell me that Intoxiblox was involved!”

Hana could only shrug. “Sorry, I promised not to say anything.”

“Well, in that case if those guys really pass auditions I totally need you to help me meet them!”

“Sure thing Mai,” Hana laughed and Mai returned to her seat, chipper.

Shane and Jon was already in their seat, but Hana noticed that PBG had yet to be in class. Hana look.ed out the window in hopes of seeing him running towards the building with toast in his mouth or something like that, but no luck in that.

Ms. Shizuka walked in and Hana turned her attention back to class. While Ms. Shizuka reviewed the difference between rpgs and roguelikes, Hana kept stealing glances out the window, but there was no such luck.

When the bell rang for lunch, Hana, quickly telling Mai that she’d meet her at the cafeteria, quickly walked up to Jon, who was almost all packed up to leave. “Jon? Could I speak to you for a moment alone?”

He looked up at her quizzically. “Uuh, sure?”

They waited for the room to clear out, which didn’t take too long. Honestly, Hana hoped it would take longer. Jon was just sitting there, absentmindedly fingering his right shoulder.

Once the room was completely empty, Hana faced Jon, eyebrows furrowed. “I’m sorry!” She bowed so low that she could see the wall from between her legs.

Jon started to sputter and wave his arms. “Wait, wha- no, you didn’t do anything? Oh geeze uuhh…”

Hana kept her head down. “That night, after the meeting, I asked PBG if he could see if you were ok and then Jirard heard you two fighting so…”

He stared at her, then sighed and scratched his head. “Aw, geeze, that wasn’t… uuh… well it…It really didn’t…uh…” He turned away from Hana and started to mutter to himself.

She got up, puzzled.

Finally, he turned around and rested his hand on her shoulder. “I’m fine. PBG and I were just… He was just getting too close for comfort for me. We’re fine now though. I appreciate that you were worried though.” He flashed a thumbs up at her. “Members should look out for each other like this.” With that he left the class with a wave.

Suddenly she felt her phone vibrate. She pulled it out and saw a text message from Paul.

Meeting with Intoxiblox and Starbomb after school in clubroom. You should come!

She sighed and started to type in her reply. Can I bring Mai?

Ding. Sure, but this is a pretty important meeting, so if she’s going to be acting around them like she is with Jared, I’d recommend benching her.

 I’ll let her know.

__

Chapter Text

It was at lunch when Hana broke the news to Mai, as the first two people at the Normal Boots table. Mai stared at Hana, mouth ajar. Luckily for Hana, Mai had swallowed her food, so she didn’t need to be graced with the sight of chewed up food. “No way.”

Hana giggled. “Uuh, yes?”

“No, WAY!” Mai squealed and tackled Hana into a big hug.

“Oh, but Paul said-”

“Yeah yeah, no fangirling, I got it, I got it. I’ll be super mature during the meeting.” Pulling away from Hana, she crossed her heart, “Scouts honor!” She turned her attention back to her grilled cheese, though slower with the fantasies of meeting Intoxiblox.

Hana suddenly heard a loud commotion at the entrance of the cafeteria. She turned and saw a gaggle of girls giggling gregariously grouped around a certain hair flipping boot.

“Isn’t that Jared over there?” Hana asked Mai.

Mai choked on a particularly big chunk of grilled cheese. After she pounded on her chest to let the food pass, she look at the group. “Yeah, I think so? I wonder what’s gotten them so riled up?”

With a rising level of fear for Hana, the group of girls started migrating towards the Normal Boots table. Soon Hana was able to hear what they were saying.

“Jared, Jared! Are you going to be doing Battle of the Band?”

“OMG what if you dress up like a boy band, I’m like literally swooning!”

“I’m totally going to audition with my friends, will you cheer us on?”

“Oh my gosh same, look for us we’re the ones with cat ears!”

“Wow, they are really riled up about this,” Mai commented.

At least Jared looked pretty calm in the maelstrom of maids. Carrying his lunch, he was just laughing and replying with the same ease he always had.

“I, unfortunately, will not be planning to be in a band for it,” he paused to let the sad cries die down before continuing. “I’ll be helping my friends for their entry, so please support them when you can, ladies,” he winked and you could hear the implosion of happiness happening in every girl in that group.

As he finally sat at the table, the girls slowly dispersed until it was just the three of them. It took a minute, but Jared finally relaxed from his pretty boy look.

“Wow, a lot of people were excited about the battle, aren’t they?” Hana asked.

“Well, this is one of the first events that’s ever happened here like this, as far as I can remember,” Jared shrugged, “It’s pretty game changing.”

“Why aren’t you going to go in it yourself, anyways?” Hana asked, “I’m sure you can get a group together and audition.”

“No no,” Jared waved his hand at her. “I’m a model. I don’t sing.” He posed dramatically. “I DANCE.”

“Can you sing?” Mai asked. Hana could already see plans of hiding recorders dancing in Mai’s eyes.

“Ahah, now there’s a secret that I’ll take to my grave,” Jared smiled, “but you can assume it’s as perfect as you can imagine.”

Hana was pretty sure Mai just died on the inside at the mental image (sound?).

The boys started to trickle in and soon everyone was chattering amongst themselves, Mai arguing with PBG about proper athletic bandaging usage, Shane and Jared starting to discuss proper model etiquette for art class and so on.

“Hey guys!” Nate plopped down next to Hana, lunch in one hand, confused boy in the other. Wait...

“Nate, why did you drag me here? I was in the middle of a battle with Kellz!” The boy protested.

“Sorry, Al, but remember when I brought up the battle of the bands with you earlier today?” The boy nodded. “Well, I wanted to introduce you to the everyone now before you lose your nerve about it.”

“Yeah, ok, that makes things one hundred percent better,” the boy huffed but sat down regardless.

“Uuh, Nate...?” Hana asked, meekly. All of the people at the table was now staring at Nate and the boy.

“Oh yeah, guys, this is Alex! He’s a great singer and he said he’d be game with helping the band out!” Nate said, cheerfully.

“Ooh, Alex, hey!” Jirard said, cheerfully.

Alex relaxed. “Hey, Jirard!”

Nate gaped at the two of them. “You two know each other?”

They both stroked their beards at the same time. “Yeah, we’re totally beard bros!” Jirard beamed. “You remember when I told you about the club right?”

“Yeah, I remember.” He pointed at Jon."The actor.” “The model.” Jared shrugged as if to say, true true. “The bookish one.” Satch raised an eyebrow before smiling and waving. “The british one.” Shane sputtered in his drink before regaining his composure. “The clique.” While Paul was carefully watching Alex, Josh and Nick just burst out laughing. “The jock.” PBG looked down at the soccer ball he was carrying and shrugged. “And the hot one,” Alex broke out a grin and high-fived Jirard.

Nate looked stunned for a second, but shook out of it. “Yeah, so Alex can sing really well! You want to show them?”

Alex turned incredulously to Nate. “Here? In the cafeteria?”

Paul got up and leaned over the table towards Alex. “Please, do so! We really need singers!”

Nate patted him on the back. “Come on, I’ll duet with you if you want!”

Alex stared at him before sighing. “Fine, but can we at least do this outside?”

“I’ll come with!” Jirard volunteered.

Nate, Paul, Alex and Jirard got up and left the cafeteria. Hana was burning with curiosity, but she wouldn’t intrude on something that one of them were uncomfor-

“Hana, let's go listen!” Mai tugged at Hana’s sleeve.

Dang it.

Hana let Mai drag her to the entrance of the cafeteria, despite her misgivings about it, just because she was so curious. They could hear Paul talking to Alex from just the other side of the doors.

“OK, just go whenever you’re ready.”

Alex let out a deep breath. “OK, ok, I got this.”

“Do you think he’s good?” Josh whispered in her ear.

Hana yelped before realizing that the literal entire club had followed her and Mai to the entrance. Satch was standing a little far behind shaking his head in disappointment. She didn’t know what else to do but raise a finger to her lips and shh him. He was taken aback and put his hand on his chest in mock-upsetness, but quieted down.

It was quiet on the other side, but then some music started to play and Alex started to sing. Nate joined in and they harmonized as they sang. Looking around, Hana could see that everyone else was enjoying it just as much as she was. She was surprised to see that Satch had joined the crowd. He was muttering under his breath, but Hana had a sneaking suspicion that he was actually singing along, though quietly.

The singing was interrupted by furious clapping. they could hear Paul loudly yelling about how good Alex was. Everyone on the other side exchanged glances and suddenly raced back to the seats, colliding and spilling from left and right.

Paul, Jirard, Alex, and Nate walked back through the entrance.

“-like dude, you never told me how good you...were...” The four of them stopped. In front of them was a pathway of slight destruction. There were people groaning in pain, people lamenting fallen food, and it all lead to the Normal Boots table, where everyone was trying so hard to look natural.

“Well.” Nate said. The four of them reunited with the rest of the table.

“Gentlemen and ladies, may I introduce the third member of the band, Alex...” Paul looked at Alex.

“...Faciane.”

“Faciane!” Everyone clapped for Alex.

“There you are, Alex!” A girl appeared behind Alex. “What the hey, we had a battle!” She turned her attention to Nate. “And you, we’ll talk about how you just kidnapped him for something later!”

“Oh, Kellz! Sorry, I’ll come with you now,” Alex laughed. She huffed, but was smiling. She and Alex walked away together. Hana could catch the girl saying “for all the nerve, after a whole year, too!” A year?

Paul started to talk with the others regarding the battle, but Satch caught her eye. He looked almost sad. His book was in his hand, but his mind was somewhere else.

She was about to talk to Satch before Paul asked her a question that pulled her into the conversation.

--

The day went on as normal, but as soon as class was over, Hana ran up to the fourth floor. Her eyes scanned over all of the people in the hallway until she spotted a familiar bespectacled student. “Satch!” Pushing past the people, she waved at him to catch his attention.

He turned to her. “Oh, Hana! What’s up?”

She stopped in front of him. “I wanted to talk to you about something. Could we talk in the classroom?”

“Sure thing, Hana,” he smiled warmly.

Once inside, she decided to go straight to the point. “Satch, back at the dorms a couple nights ago, with Nate...”

Satch’s eyes widened and his face darken to a rosy red. He let his head fall onto his chest and he covered it with his hands. “Oh no, don’t remind me...”

“Sorry!” Hana quickly said, “It’s just...you were really good before...in the bit I heard at least, and I wanted to know if you were interested in joining the group for the battle of the bands?” The sentence ended in a quiet uptilt.

He sighed and looked away, his face darkening from a rosy red to a burgundy. “I-I don’t think I’m that good. It’s...not something I like to show.”

“But Satch, you’re really good!”

“I’m not, really. Anyways, it’ll feel weird with that other guy...”

Right, Nate. That’d be awkward. “I talked to Nate, and he’s really regretting what happened. If he talks to you about what happened that time, would you be ok with trying the battle of the bands with the others?”

Satch sighed. “Sorry, Hana. I could forgive him about what happened, but performing really makes me freeze up. I wouldn’t want to mess the other guys’ chance because I got a bad case of stage fright.”

Hana looked down at her feet. Of course, she never thought that a guy like Satch would be scared like that. He just seemed so sure of himself, especially after the tournament, but maybe that was different. He wasn’t the focus, it was his invention that people focused on. “I understand, but I’ll ask Nate to talk to you and you two can talk it out?”

He looked at her and smiled. “Sure, I’d like to have it cleared up between the two of us too.”

There was a knock on the door. Paul peeked in. “Yo, Hana, thought I saw you come in here. Meeting’s happening in like five minutes at the cafeteria.”

Hana looked at the clock. “Oh no, I forgot about that! I’ll go there now! Thanks for taking the time to talk to me Satch!” She started to leave, but noticed that Paul wasn’t following. “Paul?”

Paul waved his hand. “I’ll meet you  there, I have to talk to Satch about something real quick.”

Hana raised her eyebrow, but quickly turned and ran out. If Paul wasn’t going to be there first, she better be there to meet everyone.

--

By the time she arrived she was breathing heavily and her bow was askew. The cafeteria was mostly deserted, a teacher probably cleared it out for them. She scanned the cafeteria until her eyes landed on two people sitting at a farther table and no normal boots jackets in sight. She rushed over there and bowed for them. “I’m sorry for being so late! Thank you for taking time out of your schedule for this meeting!”

One of them raised a hand up. He had a yellow streak in his hair and was wearing an orange sweater, not unlike the jacket she was wearing complete with its own patch.“Whoa, no need to worry, we were just chatting and catching up on stuff.”

“Yeah, no problems, we were already told that you were going to be a little late, but now that you’re here, we can start. Paul, right?” The other raised his hand, waiting for a handshake. Unlike the other, he was wearing a somewhat old fashioned school uniform. She noticed that he had really vibrant red hair and she vaguely wondered if the color was real. Why she’s paying so much attention to their hair she has no idea.

Hana could only stare at the hand. “Oh,n-no, I’m not Paul, I’m just helping him out. He wanted to quickly talk to someone before coming, so that’s why I’m here,” she quickly said.

The one with his hand out kept his hand out. “Well, what’s your name so that we know what to call you?”

She tentatively held his hand and shook it. “My name is Hana Mizuno.”

“Call me Mark. That charming bastard over there is Arin.”

The other waved his hand. “Yo.”

They seemed like affable folks. “So are you two the managers of the two bands? You seem pretty young.”

The two of them suddenly had a dumbfounded looking face on them. They looked at each other in confusion and Hana realized that she may have gotten it wrong.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, you two must be assistants like me!”

Their dumbfounded faces only got dumber.

“...friends?” She squeaked out at last.

Mark put on a charming grin. He slung his arm around Arin’s shoulder. “Arin, can you believe it. She doesn’t recognize me. ME.” He started to flex. “I.” Flex. “Cannot.” Flex. “Believe.” Flex. “This.” Flex.

Hana had no idea how to feel about this, but she knows that she feels mildly threatened by this. She was almost tempted to flex back.

“We’re from the bands, the ones that everyone else voted to be leader so that they wouldn’t have to deal with this kind of stuff,” Arin finally explained.

Hana flushed red. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize!”

Mark finally stopped his flexing. “No problemo, how could you ever expect two hunks like us to be in something so small as a boy band.” He managed to fit in one last flex before Arin bopped him on the head.

Hana felt her phone vibrate and she took it out.

Done with thing, heading back now.

“Paul says that he’s done and coming this way now.”

Arin stretched. “Cool. Any questions you wanted to ask us before he gets here?”

“Off the record of course,” Mark waggled his eyebrows.

Hana thought for a second, then turned to Mark. “Is your voice real?”

--

By the time Paul had arrived, Hana was sitting comfortably at a table with Arin and Mark, chatting.

“And then I just yelled MARK ZUCKERBURG and - oh hey dude.”

“Hey,” Paul waved and joined the three. “I see the three of you are enjoying your time together.”

“Oh yeah,” Mark said enthusiastically, “Hana’s been such a good sport in listening to the two of us babbling on.”

Hana turned to Paul, a slight dead look on her face. Her face said cool, but her eyes said save me.

Paul snickered a bit, but hid it behind his hand. “Well, anyways, let's get to talking, then?”

He joined the three of them and they started to talk about the Battle of the Bands. Both Hana and Paul bombarded Arin and Mark with questions concerning the event and Mark and Arin in turn answered with ease.

“Yeah, it’s a long process, going for like a month, but it was such a life-enriching one,” Mark assured them, “When I was in mine, sure we all went slightly stir crazy but, in the end, we wouldn’t have traded it for anything else.”

Hana was grateful for the chance to ask questions, but one question stuck in her mind. “Sorry, but the two of you were winners from past battles, right?” Arin nodded as well as Mark. “Which one of you is from Ajisai?”

Mark raised his hand. “Guilty as charged,” he grinned.

Hana drew in a shaky breath. “Last weekend, I had a...less than pleasant encounter with a girl from that school who claimed that we were going to just use money to have Asagao win and I heard that other students agreed with that. So I was just wondering...do you...?”

Mark frowned and leaned back. “Hmm...”

Oh no, did she just offend him? He was so nice, if somewhat odd, in the short time she knew him, oh no oh no-

“Sorry, but that was a mostly new development. Intoxiblox won the first one after Asagao wasn’t included and then we took a break from school for a year to perform. All of that was new for me too.” Mark shrugged and looked at Arin.

“Uh, yeah, sorry, can’t give you much insight here either,” Arin quickly added. Paul raised an eyebrow, but didn’t respond.

“Well, anyways, I gotta go back to the boys,” Mark said, getting up.

“Same, got some tables to flip, you know what I’m saying,” Arin grinned, getting up as well, “Oh, Paul, I have some papers that potential managers need to sign, can I drop them off at your clubroom?”

“Sure thing,” Paul said, then paused, “Oh wait, shoot, what time is it?”

Hana looked at the clock. “Half past four?”

Paul slapped himself in the face. “Oh geeze I needed to meet Nick and Josh at the station in like 5 minutes!”

“You go on, then. I can take Arin to the clubroom,” Hana volunteered. Paul thanked her like a million times before running off.

The two of them headed off towards the clubroom.

“Uh, Arin?”

“Yeah, Hana?” Arin looked at her.

“I was just curious... that jacket....” Hana gestured at the jacket he wore. Looking at it closer, it looked more like a cardigan, made of a sort of soft orange wool fabric. It had a blue patch on the right side of the front. All together it looked very similar to the Normal Boots and Hidden Block jacket.

“Oh, it’s my club jacket. The majority of clubs back at Ayame use jackets like these to show their affiliation. I think Ajisai do the same, but it’s like badges for specialties for them?” Arin held the patch in his hand. “This means I’m the Game Grumps club!”

“Oh, that’s pretty neat,” Hana said, “We have something like that, but only two clubs have jackets like this as far as I know, Normal Boots which is what I’m in,” she showed her own patch, “And Hidden Block, who I’m sure you’ll see sometime.”

A little far behind, a girl in a dark blue and grey jacket with a green patch sneezed and looked around confusedly, before shrugging and going on plotting a flashmob with purple striped jumpsuits and saxophones.

“Interesting. It’s like a branch off from a family tree, huh?” Arin said, sagely.

Hana stared at him, a giant question mark on her face.

“You know? Similar descendants? Missing link? Ah never mind.”

They finally reached the club room. Hana entered in first, intending to quickly at least shove any easily fixed messes to the side before Arin came in and judged the club, but was surprised to see Jon inside, reading what appears to be a script. “Oh, Jon!”

“Hana?” Jon raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing here? There’s no meeting today?”

“Oh, someone needed to drop off some papers at the office, so I showed him here!” Hana said as she quickly pushed some Itty Bitty Kitties to the side.

“Hana, it’s ok, I’m sure our club room back in Ayame is way worse,” Arin popped his way in. He was about to shoulder his bag off when he made eye contact with Jon, who definitely had enough real estate in his eyes to warrant eye contact.

Hana suddenly thought, you know what, Paul could have been late by a couple minutes why did he agree to do this she did not deserve this suffering.

“Oh...Jon, hey,” Arin rubbed the back of his neck.

“Hi, Arin...” Jon said, carefully.

A long uneasy silence settled between the two.

“So... Normal Boots, huh?”

“Yeah...” Jon averted his gaze and stared at his book.

“Well... That’s good.”

More long uneasy silences.

“So... How’s Jacque?”

Jon’s head popped up and Hana could almost swear that she could feel the aura of anger or upset radiating from his eyes. Arin froze a bit and made no more comment.

Another long uneasy silence. Hana was this close to just yelling for them to finish when Arin quickly pulled out the papers from his bag and placed them on the table.

“Sorry for bothering you all, I better get going,” Arin mumbled and walked right out.

Hana and Jon stared at the papers. “Well... I guess, I’ll just clean this up-”

Jon’s hand slammed onto the papers. Hana squeaked in fear and jumped back. He pulled the papers to him. “These are forms for signing up as managers for a specific band.” He stated plainly.

Hana recalled that Arin was talking about that in the meeting. People who wanted to manage a band had to attend a separate mandatory audition. It wasn’t required for bands to have that, but bands with managers usually had a better chance of going through the rounds of the battle of the bands.

“Yes? They are?”

Jon dug around under the table and came out with a pen. He signed it and shoved it to Hana. “Ok Hana, I’m trusting you, don’t let me take that back ok. I’ve left the band name blank so you guys can write it in whenever, but do not let me get out of this, I need this ok?”

Jon got up with his book and left the room, leaving an extremely confused Hana in the clubroom. She looked down at the paper. Jon Jafari was written in the top slot. She carefully folded it up and slipped it in her pocket.

--

“HANAAAA~” Mai was suspended from the top bunk and all Hana could see was her suffering face, arms, and curtain of hair from her bunk.

Hana winced. “I’m so sorry, Mai, I really did want you to come, but I forgot about the meeting and all just became a blur...”

Mai huffed and started swaying side to side. “Next time, Hana, you have to promise me!”

“I promise, Mai.”

Mai lifted up a pinkie finger. “Pinkie promise?”

Hana laughed and hooked pinkies. “Pinkie promise.”