Chapter Text
One final landing and strike of a pose and Minori had gotten through the dance choreo with the rest of MORE MORE JUMP. Chest heaving from the exercise of the dance, she stood confidently with both her feet planted on the ground at shoulder length apart with one hand on her hips and another pointing towards the designated streaming phone, which they had decided Haruka should keep for the most part.
“Alright! How about that?” Airi shifted from her ending pose to a more relaxed position as she turned to face the rest of the girls, acknowledging their job well done, and then the camera.
Minori relaxed out of her pose too and walked over to the edge of the rooftop to the bench where she put her water bottle. Taking a few gulps of it so as to not drain it before finishing their stream, she noticed Haruka joining her by the bench, grabbing her own water bottle. After hydrating herself, she shot a warm smile towards her.
“Nice work there Minori. I noticed you finally perfected the turn in the bridge section of the song.” Her hand went to pat her approvingly on the shoulder. Minori was moments away from collapsing from the touch alone. Shizuku, Airi and the phone containing all the audience faded from her mind as her own heartbeat was beginning to ring out in her ears and she felt herself growing hotter than she already was.
“Thanks.” She squeaked. Haruka chuckled at the reaction.
“I’m sure Airi will have better feedback for you but she should be able to tell you’ve improved too. I know it. Keep up the good work.” The blue haired idol smiled again and headed towards the two other idols.
Trying to contain the excitement she felt at being praised by her idol, she found herself doing small jumps on the spot. Going from her tippy toes then back to standing properly, over and over again. She couldn’t exhaust her remaining energy trying to calm herself down. As much as she wanted to represent the fans in the audience and how they probably felt, she had to be thankful she was out of view of the camera. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Airi rolling her eyes teasingly at her before turning her attention back to the audience.
They had to be reading out the comments. From her spot she couldn’t read them properly from the phone but she could hear the three others as they read some of them outloud. They had all decided that they shouldn’t only read out what they had called the “fan comments” but she could still hear them say a few of them such as
“SHIZUKU!!! YOUWEREW SO PRETY!! OMG!!!”
or
“Haruka you were amazing!!!”
and one that read
“Airi! Airi! Airi!”
The three corresponding idols were giggling at the loving comments and thanking each of the commenters for their kind words.
One thing Minori noticed was that none of the comments were directed at her. Reasoning that they were only reading out comments for them, she gave herself an extra moment to catch her breath. The dance wasn’t easy so she would take any extra seconds to regain herself. It was still a long way to go before she would be as good as them. Though she had heard Airi read out comments meant for Shizuku. The comment pointed out how she was more balanced as of late and Airi made sure to tell the audience that she had noticed the same, which of course elicited a response from Shizuku as well. They probably would have called out to Minori and read out a comment for her. So why hadn’t they?
Figuring that she had to go over and join the rest of them by now, she made her way over to the phone to see some of the comments and she found out exactly why they hadn’t read out any of the ones she had gotten.
“The newbie is way worse than the rest of you.”
“Is there a reason you keep the other girl around? I mean I guess you need someone else for a four person choreo but why her?”
“Who’s teaching Minori to dance lol”
But Haruka said she’d improved. She thought she did an okay job at least. The comments said otherwise though. Maybe she wasn’t bad but the skill gap between her and the others was noticeable enough to make her look worse than she actually was. She did her best not to look too disappointed when reading the comments. It wouldn’t look good on her as an idol. She had to be cheerful to inspire hope for tomorrow. She tried her best to look for at least one positive comment or at the very least one with more constructive criticism. A few had cropped up in the comment section but they were gone by the time she had noticed them and they went by too quickly for her to properly read them.
“Well then that concludes today's stream.” Haruka announced, stepping back from the phone to allow space for the rest of them to be on-screen. More comments popped up thanking the three of them for a good performance and for a fun segment they had done before it. Once all four of them gave their farewells, Haruka stepped towards the phone and pressed the button to end the stream.
“I think our stream went well.” Shizuku piped up happily.
“Yeah, and we got the dance down too. Of course, I saw a few things from each of you that you might need to improve on but overall it was a solid performance from all of you.” Airi beamed proudly, putting both of her hands on her hips.
Minori didn’t know what to say. There was something that was becoming increasingly apparent to her now that they were becoming MORE MORE JUMP. She wasn’t good enough to be in a group with Haruka, Shizuku and Airi. She knew she needed to work hard to get to their level but she was beginning to realize the scope of the skill gap she needed to close. Haruka told her not to look at hateful or negative comments for too long. It’s bad for your mindset, she had told her. Having negative comments was one thing Minori knew she’d have to face. No matter who you were or what you did, there were always going to be corners of the internet that would share how much they did not like you. It didn’t even stop at people. Games, books, movies, TV shows; anything could be hated. She would just have to ignore them. How could she ignore them though? How could she ignore them when they seemed to be the only kinds of comments she’d get on streams? She could more easily count how many positive comments she had gotten than negative ones.
There was one solution to all of this that Minori could think of. To work harder than ever. Practice every day. Wring every bit of feedback from Airi, Haruka, Shizuku and the Virtual Singers to work on everything she’s doing wrong. She’d resolve to do everything she can to be worthy of being in MORE MORE JUMP.
Though there was, of course, another possible solution.
When they had been trying to find an agency to sign with, they all had very similar demands. None of them wanted all four of them. There was the problem that small agencies might be intimidated by signing with such famous idols which didn’t help either but they all wanted to pick and choose which of them they would sign with. Sometimes they only wanted one of them. It was even rarer for them to only want two of them. What happened the most however, was that they would want Haruka, Airi and Shizuku, but not Minori. None of the many agencies they talked to wanted Minori. During that period, a thought had come across Minori’s mind. If none of the agencies wanted her, then she could leave MORE MORE JUMP so that the other three could pursue their dreams of becoming an idol. Mathematically and logically, it was better to dash one member’s hopes then for all four of them to be rejected for the sake of the aforementioned one person.
She didn’t like the solution. It hurt to think about both outcomes. When they decided to turn down the offers in order to keep Minori with them, she felt as though her only role was to drag them down. To be a parasite leeching off of their kindness, hospitality and talent. She was the talentless one who was struggling to keep up with them. She was the weak link who failed fifty auditions because she wasn’t good enough. Why should she continue to be with the group if she brought nothing to it?
Yet, the idea of having to leave MORE MORE JUMP scared her too. Where would she go? What would she do? Could she still keep in contact with them? What would happen to the SEKAI and would she still be able to visit? Whatever the answer was, she didn’t want to leave them.
“Minori, are you ok?” Shizuku looked like she was pouting. The two other girls turned to focus their attention on the brunette after hearing Shizuku’s comment.
Having been broken out of her own thought bubble, she shook her head clear before speaking. “Yeah I’m fine. I just want to know what I’m doing wrong on the streams so I can improve on it during practice.” She beamed, holding a motivated fist to her chest.
“Oh ok. You seemed a little upset, that’s all.” The way Shizuku’s eyes narrowed made it seem as though she was unconvinced but wasn’t going to question any further.
“Just make sure to take breaks in between. We can’t have you overworking yourself." Haruka reminded Minori, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. Minori had to stop herself from flinching at the touch. Her face felt flushed and even sweatier than it had been when they were dancing. She didn’t have to think hard to know there was a good chance it had turned a vibrant red or perhaps a hot pink.
“That’s rich coming from you.” Airi raised an eyebrow at the blue haired girl, crossing her arms and tilting her head to one side in a teasing manner.
“I suppose it is.” Haruka laughed.
Around half an hour later, the girls had been talking over all the key points of their stream. The good, the bad and some new ideas for segments and such that spawned from what they did in the stream. They had come up with a few base ideas for their next stream and were thinking about going home.
“I think it’s time I leave.” Shizuku stood up and packed her things in the small backpack she had brought to the rooftop.
“I think I’m going to go too. See you all tomorrow.” Haruka followed after Shizuku once her things, as well as the streaming phone and stand to hold it, were packed into her sports bag.
Following their disappearance, Airi began packing up too. Minori couldn’t. She had to stay and practice. Although she could practice at home, the rooftop is where they did their streams and it had a bigger space to work with. There’d be a much higher chance she would bump into or break something in her room if she tried to practice at home. The breeze and fresh air of the outside would keep her cool. Her mom might not like it if her room became a stuffy, sweaty mess from practicing in it for too long. Heading to check her phone for the next choreography they had to master, Airi was at the door before she seemed to notice that Minori wasn’t joining her.
“Aren’t you going to go home too?” She leaned on the frame of the thick metal doors that opened to the stairwell down, holding one of them with her outstretched arm so that it wouldn’t close on her. It’s not like it would kill her but the doors don’t stay open on their own and it doesn’t sound like it’d be nice being squished against metal.
“No, I’m going to stay here for a bit and practice." Minori said casually whilst analysing the dance that was playing on her phone.
“Then I’ll stay and help you practice for a bit. I was going to try and learn some of it at home anyways.” The pink haired girl pushed the door so it would open wide enough for her to walk out of the frame as the heavy door slammed behind her. Minori was overjoyed and she knew it was showing on her face.
“Alright then, where should we start?” The more experienced idol crouched down next to Minori to watch the video of the dance, she promptly scrubbed the video back to the start so the two could take in the dance together and break it down from there.
She appreciated the help from Airi. She needed all the help she could get if the comments in the streams were anything to go by. Airi was a good teacher too. Strict to be sure, but she wasn’t so strict that it made her want to learn less. It made her want to try more and more. To give everything she had. Airi was good at motivating better performances out of her while also knowing enough to point out what she was doing wrong and ways to fix it. Minori really owed her.
An hour or so later and it was going to be late soon enough. The two of them were panting as they had just gone through the dance for somewhere around the twelfth time.
“That’s enough practice for now. We’ll be going through it together tomorrow so how about we pack up, go home and get some rest alright?” Airi got up from being sat on the ground and went over to her bag that was still packed up neatly from when she was going to leave earlier.
Minori stayed where she was. Sweat dripped down her forehead and down the side of her face. The back of her shirt felt uncomfortably moist and the cool breeze that frequented the rooftop was causing her to shiver slightly. The feeling of dryness in her mouth and throat made the air she breathed in feel like shards of ice scrapping at her from the inside. Her water bottle had long since been emptied.
“Ok then! I’m going to stay here a little longer, just to cool down. Do some post exercise stretches. I’ve been meaning to try the ones Haruka recommended to me.” It was the first convincing lie that came to her mind. Not to say that it was a complete lie. She was going to do those stretches eventually since they had been recommended to her so kindly by the idol she admired so dearly.
“Alright, just don’t stay up here for too long.” Airi warned before waving her goodbye.
Waiting a few seconds after she heard the unmistakable squeak and clang of the rooftop doors being closed, Minori took out her phone, watched over a part Airi had said she was messing up, and then repeated the dance with all the tips and advice she had heard from the girl while they had just practiced as well as other advice she had heard from the others at various times in her mind.
She continued this cycle again, and again, and again.
Another hour passed and it was time for the school to close. She only realized this because a teacher came to the rooftop and kicked her out of the campus. It seemed as though she was going to have to practice at home after all. Late into the evening. She had to master that bit. Airi could do it so she had to do it too. For the sake of being a member of MORE MORE JUMP.
Unfortunately she needed to work on hiding the tiredness as Shizuku asked the next day again if she was ok.