AMBiTiON/Story/Ch. 13

## Chapter 13 - No More Rain! ...?

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Guess there was nothing to worry about, after all.

Since Izumi stayed behind with Sorae and Mai on Monday, when Sorae visited Haneoka, Chihiro didn't get to see those two Haneoka girls afterschool that day. However, right after that mysterious "talk" Sorae had with Mai or whatever, the small drummer suddenly started telling Chihiro and Aki all about "the real Mai-chan". From text messages, to in person with Chihiro on the train, where Mai was sitting right beside them, listening in shameful dismay.

It sounded impossible for the aloof girl to be someone so "nice and caring", but if she had a change of heart, Chihiro wasn't about to change her back.

"Raa-kun! Hiro-tan, Aki-yan~!" Izumi was standing right at the platform stairs when Chihiro, Aki, and Sorae arrived at the train station. "Roll on over here, ya gotta check this out!"

The three stepped onto the platform to be met with Mai, standing behind Izumi... carrying a guitar case on her back.

"W-Woah." Aki's eyes widened. "Did you actually get your own guitar?"

The long-haired girl nodded, a bit too calmly for the current situation. Izumi grinned excitedly, "Right?! I was so surprised too!! Mai-chan wouldn't let me see what it looks like though," she pouted.

Aki let a small, heartfelt smile show on her face. "Mai-san…"

Chihiro stared in disbelief. She decided to get something so expensive just thanks to Sorae talking with her? And in the span of four days? It seemed like a rather bold decision for the rational Mai, but Chihiro was perfectly okay with it, if it meant their band could progress faster.

Soon the train arrived and the five girls stepped aboard. Thankfully for everyone, this time the atmosphere was a lot more lighthearted.

"So like, can you play anything on that guitar~?" Lazily sitting on the train seat, Izumi glanced up at Mai. She shook her head no, her dark-green hair brushing against her arm as she held onto the train handle overhead.

Standing beside Mai, Sorae added, "Um, apparently the first four strings' notes for a guitar is the same as a-- a bass guitar… So maybe I can help."

Mai turned to the bassist and smiled. "That would be nice."

"How many strings does the guitar have, again?" Chihiro asked.

"Six."

Aki chimed in. "Makes sense. The guitar takes care of melody, so it needs more access to notes. And the bass sits below everything and acts as the-- well, base!"

"Honestly, isn't it kinda hard to hear the bass sometimes, in some songs?" commented Chihiro.

"But when it's gone, it's super noticeable." Izumi turned her gaze to Sorae with a smug grin. "I guess some people are like that?"

Everyone simultaneously looked over at Sorae, the strawberry-pink-haired girl suddenly getting flustered. "W-Wha? No, i-it doesn't apply to the person like that…"

"Would it be bad if it did?" Mai replied with a completely neutral face.

"Yes-- I-I mean, no… I-- I don't know!"

Instantly upon entering the studio, Izumi urged Mai to take her new guitar out with a "Dude, come on! Show us it~!".

"Will you wait?" The girl with moss-green hair was placing her guitar case on the floor with extreme care. With a reluctant grumble, Izumi complied. "Fine," she said, slowly zoning out as she stood around.

The zippers from Sorae, Aki, and Mai's respective instrument cases could be heard as they took out their instruments. In suspense, Chihiro intently eyed Mai's guitar.

It was an emerald hue, she could tell even from the hidden glimpse. As Mai heaved it out and held it between her hands and her kneeled legs, the guitar glistened in the studio light.

Izumi snapped out of her excessively concentrated air-drumming session to see the new instrument. The curly-haired girl jumped up to the girl kneeling beside her guitar case, and began yapping uncontrollably.

"Oh holy crap! That's so cool, oh my god...!!" Izumi bent down and plucked one of the strings, making a noise. Eyes sparkling in wonder, she squealed. "Aw! Rad! This guitar's awesome~!"

Mai put the guitar strap around her body and stood up, looking even more like a proper guitarist. "It's a used guitar. It would have been too expensive otherwise." She twirled her hair around her finger, ever so slightly bashful.

"But still, it's cool!" Aki came up to Mai with a friendly smile.

"I-It matches your hair," happily noted Sorae with her cloudy white bass guitar.

A hopeful feeling appeared as a tingle in Chihiro's chest when she fully accounted for the realization. Now with Mai as their official guitarist, would this be their true start as a band...? "Hey, Sorae-chan, think you can help Mai-san set up now?" Chihiro asked carefully.

There was a determined glint in Sorae's amber eyes. "Okay." With her bass, Sorae shuffled to the amps in the room's corner while Mai trailed behind her. Both of them seemed much more relaxed than before, to everyone's relief.

The five girls chatted idly while setting up. Sorae taught as much of the basics as she could to Mai, and when everyone seemed to be ready…

"Alright! Let's get started. Izumin, wanna start?" Aki announced.

Their usual practice song of Twinkle Twinkle suddenly sounded more cheerful than normal. Perhaps it was the faster tempo, or the lighter atmosphere. Or Izumi's overly rapid drumming like, calm down, how many vitamin gummies did she take? But even with Mai trying out her guitar and tripping up, carrying only the info from Sorae's less-than-brief explanation, it felt more… alive.

"Damn it. You heard her teach you, now do it." Chihiro faintly heard Mai cursing under her breath.

Aki glanced over at Sorae, either unaware of or completely brushing over Mai's 'criticism'. "Hey, Sora-chin!" The indigo-haired girl called. "Did you make the bassline different?"

The pink-haired bassist nodded. "Umm, I saw bass music sheets for… some anime songs, a-and they were all stable and not moving like that. And then I saw that I've been playing, like, guitar-y parts, so then I tried playing it a different way."

"Now that I think about it, we really need to learn actual songs," pointed out Chihiro, showing an exasperated smile. "This is so lame."

Izumi did a loud, dramatic gasp. "Are we gonna write our own song?!?!?!?!"

At that impulsive query, Chihiro's mind went haywire. Finally, they got to the stage of songwriting! Did that mean Chihiro would finally get the chance to go onstage and p-perform? What kind of song would they write? What would it be about? How did one write a song, anyways?!

Then Chihiro forcibly kicked her excited imagination back into unimagination. "No way! We're literally beginners!" The auburn-haired vocalist refused with a frantic shake of her head. Those moments where she let her excitement take the wheel were the worst in terms of immediate hindsight. Case One: That "New Chihiro Satou" crap from however long ago.

"T-Then, how about covering an anime opening?" Sorae stepped closer to everyone, a sparkle in her gaze.

Mai looked up from her guitar and spoke. "What does it sound like?"

Sorae pulled out her phone from a pocket and typed something. "C-Chihiro-chan, you'd know it... It's the MagiGal opening!"

Before the strawberry-haired girl got to play the video, Chihiro interrupted. "Wait~! Wait wait wait wait wait wait. The opening's like, super upbeat though! That's too hard."

A blank expression of momentary confusion appeared, followed by Sorae blinking. "U-Um, then… the ending?" She tapped something else on the phone, which led to the ending song of Majika MagiGal playing among the circle of the five girls.

Chihiro could feel herself cringing with the awkwardness of loudly playing an anime song, half expecting Sorae to pull out an anime cosplay from sparkly-eyes-hell, but Aki seemed pleased. "That could work!" Her crystal blue gaze swept across the other four. "It's relatively slow and simple, so I'm sure we could do it with enough practice!"

A smile showed on Sorae's face, then accompanied with excited determination as she single-mindedly stared back down at the phone in her hands. "I-I'll see if there's band scores online!"

Izumi had gotten her own phone out at some point. "E-N-D-I-N-G… Oh, found it! The title's called 'ganbare! magic'." The short girl grinned.

"God, that's so cool. Just imagine! 'MagiGal ED, ganbare! magic, covered by…' uh, covered by…" Her sentence trailed off, uncharacteristic of Izumi's normally confident self.

"So like, what's our band name~?"

Silence. A lot of it, actually.

Mai was the one to respond. "Good question. Needs more thought than this."

The five stood there aimlessly, quietly corralling what little brain cells they had together. Sorae piped up in a shaky voice, "... I found band scores…"

The remainder of their abnormal rehearsal session was spent individually looking over the new music scores from MagiGal's ending song. It was a bit boring, but Chihiro would take this over the disaster that was last Friday any day. Plus, it gave Sorae a chance to help Mai a bit more.

Although Chihiro was sure that, like herself, everyone's minds were occupied with the consideration of their band name. How could they have missed that this whole time? A band name. Something that represents all five of them as a whole. A word or phrase to connect them all...

By now, Chihiro and Izumi had sent off Aki, Sorae, and Mai to the train station, and had left HorizoN for perhaps a minute or so, when:

"Hmm. Chickin Nuggy."

"What?" Chihiro looked at Izumi, who suddenly blurted nonsense out of nowhere.

"What, 'What'? I'm thinkin' 'bout band names."

"Izumin. We are NOT naming our band Chickin Nuggy."

"You don't understand, Hiro-tan." She stared deeply into Chihiro's eyes, maybe even her soul, speaking words so profound it would seem Izumi was a messenger of a deity this whole time. The carrier pigeon of a great nation's king, the water to the Slide N' Slip (product displaced), the wifi to the kids these days. "I don't want Chickin Nuggy. I NEED Chicken Nuggy."

Then the short curly-haired girl began to shake with laughter at her own joke, giggling like a gremlin on unlawful medication, "Eheheh, Chickin Nuggy. Comedic genius."

"Yeah, yeah." With an adoring sigh, Chihiro shook her head. Things were so laid-back and lighthearted now, it felt like the past week got skipped as if it were a board game turn. She had to wonder why she even worried so much, in the long run.

Wait… Why DID she?

That question struck Chihiro with unexpected confusion like a dart. On one hand, as their unnamed band's leader, it made sense that she would care - or rather, she should. But on the other hand, it was never her problem to begin with! It was never her fault that it happened! Not to mention, why should any of it matter to Chihiro when she never planned on caring about any of these people for even a second? Did she truly care in the first place? Did anyone else?

"Hello~? Earth to Hiro-tan?"

Izumi swiped her hand in front of Chihiro's distant eyes, and the vocalist returned to reality. "H-Huh? Yeah, I'm here."

There was no point in caring about them. These people were probably just playing nice as an act this entire time. Who in their right minds would want to work with Chihiro, anyways? And she'd been doing things on her lonesome since forever. It sounded wrong, the prospect that she was… "with people". Eugh.

Yet all the same on the flip side, it sounded wrong, the prospect that she wasn't with people. These people, particularly.

Why did everything involved with her seem wrong?

It seemed Chihiro had a different problem in her own hands.

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## Trivia

* Upon reading this story, the song ganbare! magic is unlocked.