Chapter 9

# Chapter Nine - "Coming Together"

### Dam-Bi

    The next morning, after everyone had a light breakfast to keep our energy up, we met in one of the practice dance rooms to learn a routine, just in case the talk show wanted us to perform. Everyone had been given the homework of showing up with some ideas of what exactly we should prepare, or ways that we could stand out from other groups. And everyone had such great ideas!

    Some were just a bit more… practical… than others…

    "It should be something big and flashy! Really complex, and with sparkly outfits to really get their attention! We need to be amazing!" Hanarin laid out some very grand ideas which drew everyone's attention even more than she normally did, until excitement started to become nervous energy and, in the case of our two juniors who had yet to even debut, a look of dread.

    Hanarin's enthusiasm was exactly where we needed it to be to motivate us, but with only a week to prepare…

    "We probably don't have the time for new outfits to be made, Ms. Hanazawa. I imagine that we'll be somewhat limited to whatever the costumers have on hand in our sizes."

    "Megumin is right. They'll probably give us something pretty standard for this appearance, so we'll need to do our best with our hair and makeup if we want to stand out. Juney's pretty great at that! What'd you come up with?!"

    I steered the conversation in a certain direction that I thought would be productive. Every one of us has our strengths and weaknesses, and that's why I have such high hopes that we can be successful. Knowing my Hanarin as well as I do, her exuberance isn't at all a surprise, and I'm bought in one hundred and fifty percent! Whatever she needs from me she won't even have to ask.

    Buuut… we still have only a week, and that isn't a lot of time to create and learn a completely new routine from scratch, especially if most of us have never performed together before. I think it would be wonderful if this could be a real group effort, and I want all of my new friends to have their ideas incorporated, but if we work without regard for what each of us is good at then we're going to end up one big mess! Acknowledging that fact, Junko seemed a good bet for adding a little flair to whatever Lina digs up for us. Of course, I have some ideas myself, but I have a feeling my particular expertise may end up focused elsewhere for the immediate future.

    "Well… I was thinking about that a little bit. We're all pretty different, right? I mean, look at you and Megumi. Your style is so different, but you both pull it off so well."

    "Thank you so much, Ms. Yamada! You have a lovely look as well!" Juney shook her head side to side to refute Megumi's daily guess - another in a string of predictable failures to punch through the girl's aura of mystique.

    "Maybe we should do something with that? Everyone could accessorize with stuff they'd normally wear, or our favorite color, or… something…"

    "Junko! That's a great idea!" This basic sentiment was echoed around the practice room four more times.

    I could see where she was going with her idea, though. Each of us does have our own sense of style that would have to be hidden away if we tried to look like a cookie cutter idol group, and while the results may be fun if we chose one girl's trademark look for all of us - I bet we'd look gorgeous in matching kimonos or coordinated upscale European haute couture - there's no way all of us could agree on which one style we should go with. Junko herself is sort of edgy and mysterious, but stylishly cute. Megumin is a traditionalist in all the best ways. Chiyo has an adorable aura that surrounds her even in simple overalls, and Kanon's look is stylish and modern, but really laid back and comfortable. Hanarin, of course, pulls off the perfect schoolgirl-next-door. Maybe there could be a way to blend each of those with an "average" idol look to really sell what kind of girls we all are while still keeping us coordinated as a unit?

    "I had some ideas for our song selection, Ms. Han. There's a lovely traditional piece that I think may make a good first impression."

    "Hmm. I'm not sure we could all pull something like that off though. Not in just a week… Maybe something more upbeat and peppy! That way, if nothing else, our mistakes won't last as long!"

    "Oh! I've got it! I know the perfect song!" Chiyo spoke up for the first time this meeting, sitting up straight and clasping her knees with her hands. "I can't stop listening to it! And they play it all the time on the radio!"

    She had our rapt attention while we waited for her to give us the title of the perfect song.

    "It's that new Milk Tea song! The one by Eimi Inaga…wuhh…" Chiyo caught the flaw in her plan just before she finished her thought, slumping back down to the floor. Most of us giggled a bit at the suggestion, not because it was bad, but by how quickly her enthusiasm had waned as she realized.

    "Um, Dam-Bi, it may be silly…" Our other junior weighed in on the subject. "...but at open mic night, there are always these three girls who sing one of your songs… the boba one. So, maybe-"

    "*Boba Jubilee*?! People sing my songs at karaoke?! That's amazing!!! But… I don't think it would be right for our first performance as a group to be one of our member's original songs."

    "That's a good point. Maybe… hey, didn't you perform one of the same songs in your debut as Rinko and I?

    "Did I? Oh! Yeah, we did! I remember helping Hanarin with your choreography for it. How did it go…" It only took a couple of minutes for the routine to come back to me. I had performed it solo with my own choreography, and then not too long after had helped my friend iron out a duo version, and had put more hours than I could recount into rehearsing it both times. Junko seemed to remember it too, and the two of us practically had our muscle memory back by the time we finished. "If we do this we won't need to change up the moves too much for three more, and half of us already know the lyrics. What a great idea, Kanon! Way to use that thinking cap!"

    I gave my junior a round of polite applause for having the idea that *led* to the idea we ultimately chose to go with.

    "But, I didn't really…" Her protest was short-lived as the other girls joined me, Kanon instead opting to lower her attention to the floor and wait for us to stop, a slight tinge of amaranth playing peek-a-boo from behind her two-toned hair.

    With Hanarin agreeing with the choice of song - a standard among new I MY ME idols, since the studio owns it outright - it was easy for her, Junko, and I to break down how half of our group would do with certain tasks. We'd known each other for a long time and so had a decent idea of what we were each capable of - but also found it sort of impossible to predict how the other half would handle things. Though Megumi - by virtue of being an idol at my school - is a factor I'm a little bit familiar with, if not overly so, and what I do know of her indicates that she'll probably need much more work learning her choreography than her vocals.

    The rest of this rehearsal was spent making sure everyone was familiar with the melody, and working with the girls to make sure we had the basics of the choreography we were piecing together on the fly down pat. My mind was racing with ideas, both for my outfit and for the number, and even after the rest of the girls called it a night I lingered for about another hour in the practice room, making sure I knew it well enough that I could go through the motions without much thought at all. If I were going to be helping the other girls out with their moves, there was no way I could do it with confidence if I didn't have them memorized perfectly myself.

    On Sunday, with only five days to learn pretty much everything, Megumin surprised everyone by showing up with an arrangement of the song we had agreed on. Although we all hailed her as some kind of musical genius, it turns out that she was simply rather a normal genius, having been the only one of us to think to check in the archives to see if such a thing already existed. The better part of the day went toward learning our parts and harmonies, and for some of us who'd performed it before - training ourselves when *not* to sing. To everyone's delight, we all sounded pretty great! Kanon was a natural singer, and even Chiyo, who wouldn't be there with us at the studio, rehearsed anyway so she wasn't left out.

    The next few days were filled with limited opportunities to rehearse thanks to school and homework. We settled into a routine of trying to practice as much as we could withstand from mid-afternoon all the way to lights out. I tried to help keep things running smoothly the best I could - helping everyone with the movements, sharing tips on how to be sharp and precise - while making sure not to step on our leader's toes… literally or metaphorically, and leaving the vocal coaching up to her. And at that, Hanarin did better than any of the rest of us likely could. Singing was where she shone brighter than anything, and by Tuesday she could switch between her part and anyone else's in a breath, always ready to coach them on how to sound better. She assigned us exercises, telling us to hum our parts quietly when doing other things to help memorize them and sending us all breathing techniques to strengthen our sound and stamina. By Wednesday evening, with only one rehearsal left, we all retired from practice to scrounge up dinner together, only to get worried about how we were progressing and sneaking back into the practice room after lights out to go through our movements again and again quietly, with only our penlights to show our motion. On Thursday, with the television appearance in less than twenty four hours and exhausted from the prior day's marathon, we held only a short dress rehearsal with the costumes Lina had secured for us before tackling our final issue while we rested our voices.

    Just as Megumin had predicted, the costumes that were able to be supplied within one week were fairly standard idol outfits, the kind that every idol wears dozens of times over her career. White blouses with delicate red embellishments in the stitching and reddish tan plaid skirts - a basic seifuku outfit, not entirely unlike what I'd worn in middle school. We looked nice! Not fabulous, or enchanting, or particularly stylish, but we were unmistakably idols - or at least schoolgirls - which I guess was sort of the point.  Most importantly, the decoration on them wasn't overly prominent or flashy, which meant that they would take well to a little personalization.

    On the performance front our movements were crisp - even Chiyo's, who had the most catching up to do - and our voices blended well. Even though there were plenty of ideas to give it a little extra something special still rattling around in my head, we were all proud of how hard we had worked to come together and look like a real team. Not bad at all for just one week's worth!

    Now we just had to look less like a generic idol group and more like ***Interlunium!*** Juney had a plan for that:

    "Let's go to the mall and see what we find?"

    So that's what we did for our official Interlunium evening-before-the-big-day field trip. There wasn't much we could do to the costumes to make them our own - we had to return them, and altering them directly probably wouldn't go over too well with the company costumers, plus we only had the evening to work on them - but we could accessorize all we wanted! I'd been thinking about it for nearly a week, and I knew exactly what I was looking for - an oversized sheer indigo ribbon to tie around my bun, a matching slim silk sash to tie around my waist over some of the outfit's natural detailing, and a pair of thin black gloves with small Phoenician purple bows fastened to the wrists. I'd been eyeing the gloves for awhile now, and this was the perfect excuse to indulge in them.

    Normally, earrings would have also been a part of my process, but sometimes you just have to make due with what's already in your jewelry box.

    "Wow! Those will look great with your hair!" One of the juniors chirped. "Aw, but does that mean I'm going to get stuck wearing green all the time?"

    "Ms. Watanabe, if you don't mind, I've always been told I look pleasant in verdant hues, and my debut was in a forest green kimono. I was thinking of something in the same color, for good luck as it were." Megumin was holding up two green bows, one wide and one slender, as though asking for an opinion.

    "The thin one would look great around your neck! It'll show off your eyes! Oh, and waitasec…" I popped away to a spinning rack we had passed a few aisles away and grabbed something that I thought would look spectacular, a small hair pin with a bough of spring-green leaves and buds decorating it. I excitedly thrust my hand toward Megumin as I returned. "This'll look great on you!"

    She examined my offering for a moment, then smiled at me warmly.

    "Why thank you, Ms. Han. I'll trust your expert judgment on this matter."

    Happily returning the smile, I wandered off to find the rest of our friends, leaving Megumin and Chiyo to sort out the details of their accouterments. On the way I lightly browsed through the racks and shelves I passed by, seeing a great number of things that would look absolutely chic, elegant, or adorable on one or another of my group. Only one item stood out to me though as being absolutely PERFECT for our performance tomorrow, the ideal blend of shine and color to command attention. I snatched it up the instant I saw it, knowing I had to deliver it safely to my Hanarin. I was so excited over the find that I nearly crashed into someone the moment I started moving again.

    "S-Sorry!"

    "No, it's my fault! I… Ah, there you are! How's shopping going?" Kanon slid her headphones down to her neck, looking rather embarrassed at our near collision.

    "It's, uh…" The rather embarrassed girl clutched something behind her back. She reluctantly produced it, as though I'd caught her stealing. "I was gonna get something like this, but…" A petit hand with glossy midnight blue nails held ribbons of a matching shade. Given the shortness of her hair - which also sported a similarly matching blue patch over her right eye - she had probably been thinking of wearing it somewhere else, but her coordination was superb. Gesturing with a minimum of effort, Kanon directed my attention toward the remainder of our group. Several aisles away, Hanarin still appeared to be empty handed, while her shadow was holding the same items as Kanon. A problem, for sure, both for fashion and because I honestly couldn't tell you which girl would wear the color better.

    "I see. And you probably don't want to match Junko." Kanon coughed slightly and made a funny face. "Are you ok?!"

    "Y-Yeah. Just swallowed funny. I think maybe I probably *shouldn't* match someone else…"

    "Hm. How about this…" I took her by the hand to make sure she didn't disappear on me and backtracked an aisle, locating a hairpin shaped like a small star, about an inch to each arm, in a brilliant Indian yellow about the same color as the hat she seldom ever took off. Holding it up to her head, I was already so used to seeing that particular combination - white, deep blue, and warm yellow - that it looked practically perfect. "Knowing Juney it'll probably still match her earrings, but the color looks beautiful on you! Maybe that and a blue band on your wrists to highlight your moves?"

    This seemed an acceptable compromise to Kanon, who took the hairpin from me, nodded enthusiastically, and walked away silently to pick out the rest of her embellishments. Returning to where I had seen them a few minutes ago, Hanarin was looking at a glass-topped display of the more ornate or fragile hairpins on offer, while Juney was out of sight, no doubt searching for the perfect compliment to her ribbons. I seized my chance.

    "Hanarin! You won't believe what I found! I thought of you IMMEDIATELY!"

    I presented her with my find - a lovely decorative hairpin, just the thing to keep her lovely auburn locks in place no matter what happens during our big appearance. It was a trio of roses, cast in a slightly translucent reddish-pink resin and accentuated by shiny silver stems. A few silver dewdrops were inset into the petals of the flowers, giving the entire piece a strong presence when under bright lights, like those on a soundstage. Hanarin's eyes were a nearly perfect match for the petals, and it complimented her complexion stunningly well when she smiled.

    She looked at it intently for a long moment as I held my breath, anxious about what she would think of the trinket. I started to worry, then exhaled loudly when she pronounced her verdict.

    "It's beautiful! I love roses!"

    "I know! You came to mind immediately when I saw it and I just knew it would be absolutely perfect!"

    "I can't believe you and Junko both thought the exact same thing!" Hanarin giggled excitedly, as she held up two of the hairpins, one in each hand, and placed them to either side of her face. "What do you think? Can I pull off two? I bet I'll be double-cute!"

     Now of course, it made sense that Juney would have also selected something for Hanarin if she saw it. The two are *serious* BFFs. Practically sisters in some ways. And her sensibilities were obviously spot on - the pins will look great on Hanarin, of course. Still, I pride myself on my abilities as a fashionista, and knowing that my best shot at making her look even more amazing had been duplicated exactly by someone else was - at least a tiny bit - disappointing. It wouldn't do to let that disappointment spoil the day though, so I nodded my agreement that she would look great come tomorrow.

    "At *least* double-cute! Maybe even triple!" Hanarin couldn't seem to stop smiling and giggling, as though that was the best compliment she'd ever been given.

    "You're the best, Dam-Bi! We couldn't do this without you!"

    I tittered like a schoolgirl - ignoring that the saying is somewhat unnecessary given that I am, in fact, a schoolgirl - and couldn't seem to stop smiling, as though *that* was the best compliment *I'd* ever been given.

  \_\_\_\_

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