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Instruments sync in tune.
strings play in tone.
Music enlightens the room around the four girls, sounds from the instrument becoming ever so stronger. The bassist’s fingers dig into the strings, playing in rhythm with the rest of her band. Her face tense, eyes with precision on the bass.
Her body moves with passion, every step, every string played, corresponds to the flow of sound throughout the room turning what once was a dream of hers in a wonderful reality she's living in.
A state she wishes would last forever, however like every dream it comes to an end as she plays her last string all the sounds she hears became silent, gone leaving no trace of it behind. Turning to the blonde who was bobbing her head left to right, as if she could still hear the music.
“Saki, your timing during two of the sections are off by a bit.” Her voice high, making Saki jump. “Especially the last section.”
“So- rry, I lost focus on the last section.” Saki embarrass, as she twiddles with her fingers. “I promise I’ll put on a better performance on the last section, Shiho!”
Shiho returns a faint smile to Saki, before turning to face the other two bandmates who patiently stood.
“Honami, you need to speed up the pace of hitting the hats and toms. Ichika, I don’t have anything you need to work on, so keep up what you’re doing.” Both nod, upon hearing Shiho's advice.
“Thanks for the feedback, you’re keen at pointing out flaws we have during our practices.” Honami’s smile radiates a warm texture from Shiho.
“I suppose she has keen eyes” Ichika states.
“Wouldn’t it be keen ears?” Saki chimes in, a devious smirk.
“That's enough from you, Saki” Shiho bats at Saki’s statement.
“But it's true you have some special ability with your hearing!” Saki blissfully not hearing Shiho’s quells.
“Honami, Ichika could you tell her to stop?” She looks back at the two girls for support.
“I think Saki is right, you might have some hearing power we don’t know about!” All she sees is Honami’s smile, while Ichika giggles to herself.
“Of course you’ll join in with her.” Shiho sighs “Anyways, I think it's time we should call it for today.” she starts walking towards her instrument case laid on the wall, she carefully puts back the bass inside the case.
Shiho turns to see her bandmates packing away their instruments, except from Honami, Shiho can’t imagine her carrying around drums throughout the day she’d likely be crush under the tons of pressure.
“Our practice was so amazing, can’t wait to perform this with all of you during our next performance!” Saki’s arms swaying in excitement.
“Yeah, our music strengthens around us whenever we play with each other.” Ichika claps her hands together, endear by Saki’s statement.
Shiho nods, she looks to see if Honami has anything to say however her bright smile tells her all she needs. They all head out from the music studio side by side chatting about various topics, sometimes disrupt by Saki’s antics, defuse by Shiho who keeps on berating her about said antics. Chances of her successfully overcoming the blonde’s antics decreases over time as Ichika and Honami keeps on siding with the mischievous troublemaker, making her give up entirely.
The four of them exit the building out into the quiet streets, the sun enabling an orange light onto the area, cold air sweeping the hair of Shiho's and her bandmates. Taking in the view around her, reminding her of the sweet memories she used to look up into the late-night sky with her childhood friends, white stars in the deep blue horizon, their eyes gleam as bright as the stars they watched. She keeps those moments close to her heart, not wanting to let go of them.
“Honami, Shiho and Ichika, do you guys want to spend some time at the park before we go our separate ways?” Shiho returns from daydreaming, facing towards Saki.
“You don’t have to come, if any of you have anything important to do at home!” She smiles, as her centre of attention is on Honami who is caught off guard by Saki’s adorable eyes looking at her.
“Sorry Saki! I don’t think I will be able to, I have homework to do when I get back home, and I think I won’t enough time to finish it in time if I chose to hang out with you.” an apologetic smile appears on Honami’s face.
Shiho speaks up “You don’t need to apologise for something you can’t control, Honami.” The brunette perks up upon hearing her name.
“I agree, no need to feel guilty for not joining on my fun adventure to the park! There’s always next time!” Saki chimes in, her voice high as ever. Shiho sees Ichika nod in approval.
In return, she smiles upon hearing her friend’s words “Thank you all, I’ll hopefully be able to hang out with you all next time!” Honami waves them goodbye.
“Bye Honami!!! Get home safe!” Saki waves her hands faster than the others, as Honami turns the corner disappearing out of their sight. Saki’s bright, shining eyes are now on Shiho, the girl giving an unamusing look towards the blonde.
“I have nothing important leftover at home, so I’ll be able to join you Saki.” Shiho could see her friend buzzing with joy over her announcement, she gives a smirk crossing her arms “However, you better behave yourself and not get us into trouble, when we get there.”
“Does that include hugging?” Saki clutches her hands together, asking out of curiosity and hope.
“Yes, yes it does.” Shiho lets out a sigh, Saki puts her hands together pleading like her life dependant on it, all she receives is Shiho’s countless ‘No’s as her woes come with unsatisfactory results. In the corner of her eyes, she could see Ichika amaze yet confuse by the conversation withdrawing Infront of her.
“Your pleading doesn’t seem to be working, perhaps Shiho has become too cold-hearted for hugs.” Shiho’s head focuses on Ichika, who didn’t try to hide the huge smile on her face, before Shiho could talk Saki beats her to it.
“She must have a freezing body, if her heart is shi-vering with cold! A hug from me will definitely warm it up in no time!” Shiho slowly turns her head back to the troublemaker, an obvious grin is on her face widening upon seeing Shiho face her.
“First off that was a bad pun, second my body is not suffering from the cold and last of all, you’re not hugging me!” her eyebrows furrow, a small giggle comes from Saki.
Saki whips her attention on the next and last member “Oh, oh oh! Ichika are you able to come with us!” her eyes on Ichika.
“I won’t be able to come with you and Shiho to the park, today practicing took a chunk out of my energy and I need to take a rest.” Ichika stretches her arms.
“Okay! You did so well with our practice you deserve the break, Ichika!” Saki smiles, Shiho next to her gives a thumbs up to Ichika.
“Hopefully you two will have fun! I’ll take my leave, goodbye!” Ichika waves, the two of them doing the same action as hers. She takes the opposite path as she blends into the crowd of people.
Shiho looks to the only person left, who is currently staring right into her eyes with a face she knew too well that spelt out trouble.
“Well, Shi Shi! Let's get going to the park!” Saki no longer trying to contain the excitement in her, grabs onto Shiho’s arm as she drags her to the location of the park. She should tell Saki to stop pulling too hard on her arm, although seeing the blonde’s mood sparking tells her not to. She wishes it won’t take a while to get to the park, her arm will likely detach from her body if it takes a whole mile to get there.
-...-
Sunlight peering through.
Girls running together in two.
Shiho’s entire arm feels stiff, the grip of Saki’s hand didn’t seem to loosen at all instead keeps on getting tighter. Ahead of her she sees the park coming into view, the density of trees and green bushes in the area, a clue that the journey will finally lead to their destination.
Their sprint comes to a slow pace, right infront of them is the park in its glory, ember sunlight glistens the grass, the wind sways the leaves right to left to right to left a pattern never ending, the white flowerbed blooms, Shiho could see how beautiful the flowers look from a distance away from where they were standing. She wishes that the others went with her and Saki.
Although, the moment is ruin as she realizes that Saki was still holding onto her arm. She looks up to face her head. The girl mesmerize by the view of the park.
“Could you let go of your hand? My arm is starting to hurt.” Shiho politely askes, Saki snaps out of her daze releasing her grip from Shiho’s arm.
“o-h Oh, I didn’t mean to hurt your arm Shiho, I-I was just too excit-”
“I get it Saki.” Shiho doesn’t let Saki finish. “You don’t need to apologize my arm is still intact, so no need to worry.”
“But are you sure? I reallyreally didn’t mean to grip onto your arm that badly.” Saki looks down.
“Saki. I promise to you I am fine.” Shiho replies.
Saki’s expression wilts away for a second, Shiho feels like her heart is swelling seeing her friend’s face dwindle.
“Okay...” she mumbles under her mouth “we should find a bench to rest on and enjoy the view!” before switching to her positive voice. Shiho nods in response, they both walk into the park side by side.
Shiho notices that their walk was oddly silent. Saki’s charming and energetic nature wasn’t present during their tour in the vibrant green park, she was the first one to open up conversations throughout their walk instead of Saki being the first one, moving from the gorgeous flowerbeds to walking around the small glittering lake, it stayed the same. The troublemaker she use to know wasn’t apparent anymore.
Was I too harsh on her?
After their little walk around, they finally found a wooden bench under a tree to rest on. Shiho takes off the bass on her back and puts it on the side of the bench, they sit on the bench one taking the opposite sides of each other, the wind was blowing the tree under them, green leaves detaching from the branches. Shiho looks back at her friend, she sees a few leaves on Saki’s bright yellow hair she couldn’t help but smile at the occurrence.
Saki turns around to face her “Shiho, what's with that funny face you have?” titling her head.
“Have you ever touched your hair once in a while?” Shiho smirks, Saki raising an eyebrow.
“Uh, well only when I am doing my hair to go out! Whys that?” Saki confuse on what's going on.
“You should touch it now.” Her smirk still strong as Saki raises her hand to her hair and then after a while her hand comes in contact with one of the leaves. She picks it up as she holds it in front of her eyes, then focusing on Shiho.
“Is this what you were smiling at? Leaves on my hair? Shi!” Saki’s cute angry face makes Shiho giggle.
“It took you so long to notice...eh, Saki why do you look so surprise?” Shiho’s attention shifts to Saki’s face, her mouth an ‘o’ until she puts up a shy look. Shiho confuse by the whole ordeal waits until she receives an answer.
“You’re not mad at me?” Saki tilts her head at Shiho.
“W-what!?” Shiho’s voice rings through the park, scarring any nearby birds and Saki herself. “When was I ever mad at you in the first place?”
“What you said earlier...I thought you were mad at me due to it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.” Saki’s quiet voice makes Shiho feel guilty.
“Listen, I might've sounded harsh, but it wasn’t out of frustration” Shiho puts her hand on Saki’s shoulder “I’ll never be mad at you for a small problem.”
“But your voice was scary! It was like you were super, super mad at me!” Saki puffs her cheeks at Shiho.
“Apologies Saki, I’ll remember to be less scary whenever your silly antics go too far” Shiho says.
“They aren’t silly!” Saki replies.
“They are!” Shiho replies back.
“Okay, they are! But I know you like them!” A small mischievous small on Saki reveals itself.
A sigh of relief comes from Shiho, guilt that used to weigh on her shoulders were gone. Saki’s endearing face tells her everything, she no longer needs to worry.
“If I could give you a hug, I think I’ll feel even more better!” Saki’s puppy eyes didn’t give Shiho much of a choice.
This girl.
“Alright, alright you can give me a hug, if makes you stop with your mischiefs.” Saki nods, as Shiho scoots closer to Saki’s side, she opens up her arms waiting for Saki to jump in. Saki immediately springs into action as her upper body lunges towards Shiho her arms wrapping around her. Shiho feels the warmth from the girl’s hug, she returns the warmth by wrapping her arms around Saki slowly. Rush of emotions surge throughout Shiho’s mind, a mixture of embarrassment and happiness floods in.
“Okay, that's enough from you.” Shiho pulls away from the hug as she puts her hands on Saki’s shoulders. “Did that make you feel better now?” She could feel her cheeks becoming hot.
“Yes, it really did!!! And seeing your face was funny!” Saki smirks, Shiho’s face getting redder. “See, I told you it would warm you up!” Shiho facepalms, before looking at Saki who's grinning.
“I wasn’t even cold to begin with!” Saki points and laughs at her. Shiho sighs, although she feels happy to see Saki having fun with her, to see her bright smile and receive her warm hugs. It feels like a dream come true, however it feels incomplete with the others.
“Saki, I had an amazing time spending time with you in the park. Even if you were a bit of trouble.” Shiho could see her friend’s expression enlighten.
“It wouldn’t be as much fun without you Shi! I was filled with excitement when you accepted my request! You really made my day shine brighter than it was before.” Her words fills the air with joy around them, her sweet voice effects Shiho as Saki opens her mouth.
“Thank you, Shiho!”