Ordinary

The bell rings, signalling the end of class. Within minutes, the students of Otonokizaka High are roaming the school grounds. Some are on cleanup duty, some are going straight home, but most are on their way to their club activities for the day. This is what the school always looks like at this time, and it will continue to be like this until its gates are shut down (which is, apparently, going to be very soon).

A small, no, diminutive girl walks through the halls in silence. She does not talk to or even look at anyone, and no one else seems to notice her either. She makes her way to the back of the school, where few people pass through and equally little light shines in. This too is not out of the ordinary, for the raven-haired girl goes to the same room every single day, although no one else can say what exactly that room is.

She is Nico Yazawa, president of Otonokizaka High’s Idol Research Club. Her slight frame and apparent timidity would suggest that she is a lonely first-year, but the green ribbon on her chest and the pride in her eyes declare that she is in fact a third-year and no she is not at all lonely thank you very much. Except those eyes are fixed on the ground because that way she doesn’t have to look at the other third-years walking around with their friends talking about whatever it is friends talk about, or at the new first-years discussing which clubs they’re planning on joining. She stops at a door that looks as lonely as she does. Somewhere behind her, two girls make plans to hang out at a new family restaurant after school, and they decide to see if any of their club members want to come too. There is nothing surprising about that; people spending time with their friends is ordinary too, after all.

But for Nico Yazawa, ordinary means opening that door and being greeted by silence and emptiness. Ordinary means spending all her time locked away in the Idol Research Club room, which was considered small but is in fact entirely too big for a club president with no one to preside over. Ordinary means pretending that one day she’ll make it big as an idol and then everyone will want to know her, to be around her, and sometimes she’s even able to believe in that lie.

Ordinary means a lot of things, but for Nico Yazawa, it does not mean the lights flicking on to reveal six underclassmen sitting at the table, looking at her with–is that expectation? She opens her mouth, but before she can even ask “ What are you doing here?!” they are all talking, abuzz with questions about club activities and idols. They are calling her president, and asking her for advice about their–the Idol Research Club’s–next live show, where the orange-haired one says all seven members of their idol group will sing. Seven, she says. Nico Yazawa’s grades may be less than desirable, but even she can do basic addition.

None of this is normal, and even once they are in the middle of practice on the rooftop, she is not sure if this is really happening or if it is all just a dream. She feels tears in her eyes, a very familiar sensation by now, but somehow this does not feel like all the times she’s broken down crying in that dark and empty clubroom.

She wakes up the next day, and the day after that, and the next one, and the next, and slowly this becomes her ordinary. She is Nico Yazawa, president of Otonokizaka High’s Idol Research Club.