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Shindou Yoshiki had not planned to die an early death, but here he was, talking to Mochizuki and trying to pretend he wasn’t worried about the state of the relationships in Leo/need. Getting involved in the romance drama of four teenage girls would never lead to anything good, he knew, but if something were to go wrong in their dynamic, it could be bad for the band and worse for their friendships. He knew how difficult it could be for a band when a romantic relationship went south. He sincerely hoped he’d never meet Hinomori's father for this reason; it would be awkward to say the least. Allowing the same fate to befall the four of them would be upsetting to say the least.
They were doing another recording today, the girls were used to the routine of it by now and Shindou had been through so many it was just muscle memory for him.
It was their second take, and in the middle of the song, someone messed up and Hinomori called a stop. “Saki,” they said, “minor or major augmented seventh?”
“Major,” she said. “Sorry, Shiho-chan.”
Mochizuki glanced at the synth. “Your volume’s awfully low, love. Maybe you just couldn’t hear yourself?” She fiddled with some dial, Tenma played a few chords, louder this time, and Mochizuki smiled. She gave Tenma a hug, whispered something in her ear, and went back to her drum kit. “Good to go, Shiho-chan.”
That couldn’t’ve been that platonic. It just couldn’t. Of course the hug could’ve been, but ‘love’ as a nickname definitely wasn’t. There were a lot of jumps in mental gymnastics you’d have to perform to make it platonic and Shindou was not a gymnast. He wasn’t going to call attention to it, though, especially as this third take was going almost perfectly. No mistakes, just a couple weak sections but they could call a break to rehearse them after this was done, and those were minimal, unnoticeable by any casual listener but those weren’t the people who made the band sell well. When the take finished, he realized he’d been staring at the wall for the entirety of it, and all four of the musicians in front of him were looking at him with matching looks of mild concern on their faces.
“Are you okay, Shindou-san?” Mochizuki asked.
He nodded. Do not get involved with the romance drama of teenage girls. Hoshino and Hinomori had their arms around each other’s waists. “I’m fine. Now, about the prechorus…”
It happened again a few days later. They were doing some promotional photoshoot for an upcoming release; Shindou was only there to supervise, and when Hoshino came out of the dressing room, Mochizuki noticed something wrong with her outfit. “Ichika-chan, love, come over here so I can fix that.” Then she straightened out Hoshino’s skirt, did up a zipper, and undid a button that appeared to have been incorrectly placed. “Better. I think you’re over by the stage.” The two of them headed off together holding hands, and as if that hadn’t been bad enough, Tenma and Hinomori came out of the dressing room holding hands.
“Shiho-chan, you forgot the zipper at the back. Could you-" Hinomori grabbed the zipper and pulled it all the way up. “Thanks!” She blew them a kiss.
“Quit it,” Hinomori muttered. “Don’t tease me right now.”
“But your face looks so cute when you-“
“Saki!” They raised their voice just a little. “Save it.”
She did, and Hinomori begrudgingly took her hand when she entwined their fingers. This contradicted both previous models of the situation Shindou had formed; the first one had been that Hoshino and Tenma were dating and Mochizuki and Hinomori were just oddly close, and the second had been that Mochizuki and Tenma were dating and so were Hoshino and Hinomori (one only tolerates so many bad jokes before it becomes romantic or a really bad shared sense of humour) as long as the gesture was romantic, which it seemed to be, which-
“Shindou-san? We do need the green light to begin..”
“Ah. Sorry, go ahead.”
“Thank you very much. Cameras, I want you over to the left a little.”
Three weeks later, they were waiting for Tenma and Hoshino to arrive. The two weren’t late per se, but they could start the meeting early if they showed up soon, and that seemed to be Hinomori’s intention. They were pacing the length of the meeting room and seemed to be wishing they were anywhere but here.
After about fifteen laps, they took out their phone to check their messages, rolled their eyes, and texted someone. “Saki says she’ll be another fifteen minutes. Something about her brother.” They resumed pacing, more frantically this time. Shindou tried to ignore it. Probably just a coping mechanism.
He sorted out his paperwork again and sat down. All they could do was wait.
Hoshino showed up a couple minutes later. She apologized profusely as she sat down, though technically she was right on time. Mochizuki gave her a hug, whispered something in her ear and then the two of them began to discuss the situation.
A sound like a thud echoed through the room. Hinomori swore a second later. Shindou looked over to see them with a hand over their knee. “Sorry,” they said. “Forgot that side table was there.”
Mochizuki got up. She put a hand on their shoulder. “Sit down, love, and I’ll have a look at it.”
There it was again. That word. Love. So had he been right and they were oddly-close-bordering-on-dating?
Hinomori sat down, Mochizuki checked their knee and soothed their concerns for Tenma and all was well when she arrived fifteen minutes later.
… He needed to tell them something so this didn’t get awkward for everyone involved.
About a month later, they were on location for a different photoshoot and maybe some filming, weather permitting. The last few weeks had been busy enough that Shindou hadn’t had much time to think over some of the things that could become an issue for the band if they went poorly. Now, though, as he walked down a long trail, the camera crew behind him, he had some time to think about how he should approach the issue. Likely he should just remind them all of the importance of open communication and leave it at that; they were smart, they’d hopefully figure it out. Today, Tenma was holding Hinomori’s hand even through the sections of trail where that was extremely impractical and had even pouted when they’d tried to convince her this was a bad idea.
He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could see weird tiny bruises peeking out from under Hinomori’s hoodie. Those were suspect, but not something the makeup team couldn’t handle.
He looked up again.
Wait.
Where were they? He could see Hoshino and Mochizuki up further ahead, but the others had disappeared. Mochizuki looked back, noticed the same thing and rolled her eyes. She told Hoshino about it and the two of them continued. Were they not concerned? Was that sort of disappearance somehow normal?
Ten minutes later, Shindou heard shuffling behind him. A mildly disgruntled Shiho, hair all a mess and clothes unkempt, pulled Saki back to the front of the group. “ ‘Applying bug spray’? That was your excuse?”
“Shiho-chan, the top two buttons on your shirt are undone.” Saki pointed out. For some reason, she sounded awfully proud of herself.
“And whose fault is that?” they asked.
“Couldn’t be mine!” Tenma skipped forward and almost tripped over a protruding root; Hinomori helped her keep her balance.
“Yeah, right.” Hinomori muttered. Then the two of them picked up their paces and Shindou could no longer hear their conversation.
There was no way any of that had been platonic. Right? Unless he was going insane and the two of them had fought some kind of animal, but they really didn’t look as if they had been through anything of the sort.
… why’d they choose to sign with his agency again? To make his life harder?
“Ah, Shindou-san, I need to speak to you about something,” Mochizuki said as they were getting ready to leave. Tenma pulled on her hand as if to say let’s go. “Saki-chan, love, it’ll only take a few minutes. We won’t lose any time on the tarts.” She gave Tenma a hug and maybe a kiss on the forehead to placate her, then sent her outside. Shindou hoped this was not news about whatever was going on between the four of them.
Mochizuki sat down across from him. “I just thought I should let you know that we’re dating.”
“We?” As in Mochizuki and Tenma, or Mochizuki and Hoshino, or—
“All four of us. As a unit.” She took a deep breath. “It won’t affect us as a band.”
“For how long?”
A pause. “About two months now?” So just after that photoshoot where Tenma and Hinomori had disappeared for unknown reasons. “Yes, I believe it’s been that long.” Everything he’d seen them do that had seemed romantic had just been strange ‘friendship quirks’? That was… well, it was certainly something.
“Alright. I’ll hold you to it,” he said. “It won’t affect the band.” They bowed to each other (Mochizuki seemed to be more of a stickler for tradition) and then she left.
Shindou had been misinterpreting the situation for months. But at least he had the answers now, knew why they’d seemed even more attached to each other in the past few weeks (Tenma had always been that way, it was the rest that had surprised him) and he trusted that they would figure it out. They were good kids with dreams and the talent and work ethic to back them up, and they’d need that in this industry.
Leo/need would be able to weather any storm thrown at them. Shindou was sure of it.
“So, Hona-chan, how’d it go?” Saki was sprawled out across Ichika and Shiho’s laps on Honami’s living room couch, head resting on the armrest. Shibao was curled up on the floor within perfect petting distance, and Saki occasionally scratched his ears. “Are we in trouble? Did I win the bet?”
“Well,” Honami began, setting her bag down on a chair, “Shindou-san appears to have believed we have been dating for a lot longer than we have.” Saki cheered, Shiho gave her a frustrated look, and Ichika began searching through Shiho’s wallet for money. “Please don’t do that again, any of you.” She sat down on the floor by Shibao. “We’re not in trouble with the label as long as it doesn’t affect anything we do as a band.”
“It won’t.” Shiho said. “Saki’s the one you have to worry about anyway.”
“Excuse me?” Saki sat up and brought her face very close to Shiho’s. “Who pulled me off the trail to make out and then pretended it was my fault?”
“You were both involved,” Ichika said. “Saki, how much does Shiho-“
“One bubble tea. We’ll sort it out later.”
“You just want to kiss me right now,” Shiho accused, then beat Saki to it. Ichika stood up from the couch and over Shibao, then left Shiho’s wallet on the couch.
“Follow me to the kitchen, Ichika-chan? We’ll get started on the tarts.” Honami waved her over and Ichika trailed behind her.
She loved all three of them more than she knew how to put into words. Maybe those weren’t necessary, she thought as Ichika handed her an apron and donned her own. Actions did all the talking you really needed.