EE Chapter 1

# Chapter One - "The Aihara Ryokan"

### Junko

    "I can't believe we get to stay in a fancy inn and eat all sorts of homemade food and go see all kinds of really exciting things and…"

    Even though we'd been on the train to Kyoto for nearly three hours, our verdant little companion was still chittering away excitedly, recounting to her traveling companions all the things she wanted to do this weekend. The girl riding next to me snapped a picture of one of said traveling companions from over the back of our seats, giggling to herself as she did so.

    "Rinko, cut that out. It's a little creepy."

    "But she's so cuuute."

    The girl next to Chiyo was leaned back in her seat, headphones on, a blissfully blank expression on her face as she snoozed her way from Tokyo to Kyoto. Despite this, her seat partner had still managed to talk away the entire trip to the small, brightly colored plastic cage sitting securely in her lap - Momo's "vacation home" - occasionally opening the lid just a crack to give the little ball of peach fuzz a treat or nuzzle her furry cheek with a finger. Despite being quite different in temperament and personality, the two girls had become the absolute best of friends in just a couple short months and, despite being naturally quite adorable on their own, somehow they're never cuter than when they're together. They weren't the only ones to have become great friends among our group either. In fact, all of us have become, collectively, among the best friends each of us has ever had. Things are going so well that even those of us who didn't exactly see eye to eye at first now get along like old friends.

    More or less.

    "Okay, send me that picture. Kanon's too cute sleeping there like that."

    "Do you think Ms. Mitsuboshi would approve of you sneaking that sort of picture of her, Ms. Hanazawa? Or your sharing it with Ms. Aihara?" Megumi - another of our friends - asked, an accusing tone in her voice.

    "Well, for one, it's not technically sneaking if you can do it in broad daylight. And for two, you're Ms. Aihara, not me."

    "Are you sure? It occurred to me that you've been awfully confident that I wouldn't be able to guess your surname, and couldn't it be possible that's because we share one? Even if the kanji are different, you must admit, it's not something I would be expected to guess."

    "That's very well-reasoned thinking on your part, Megumi." She beamed with pride, staring me down with green eyes that were far too sure of themselves. "It's still completely wrong, though."

    "It's not even a little close, Ms. Junko?"

    "Well, I guess that-" A loud voice came through the train's loudspeaker, announcing that we should prepare to depart the cabin and thanking us for riding the train. "Nope, not even a little close, sorry. But try again tomorrow!" She furrowed her brow at me, unhappy at the imaginary hint I had just dangled in front of her and then yanked away. I had to have been smirking as I grabbed Rinko's bag along with mine from above our seat, then pulled two more down for the two shorter girls behind us. Glancing across the aisle, I couldn't resist offering my help to our other height-challenged traveling companion. In the most genuinely polite way, of course. "Eimi, do you need help getting your bags down too?"

     She didn't respond, except to stick out her tongue at me. And here I was just trying to be helpful.

    "Don't worry Juney, she already asked me to do it. Never thought I'd be one of the tall ones…" Eimi turned slightly red as Dam-Bi patted her on the head daintily, then uttered a quiet thanks as she took hold of a large pink duffle bag. "Uh, Hanarin?"

    I swiveled my head to the other side, and caught my seatmate half over the back of her seat, reaching out a hand to attempt to tickle our sleeping junior.

    "What are you doing?"

    "Someone needs to wake her up, and this is the most fun way. You never complain when I wake you up like this."

    "I… I always complain whenever you wake me up like that… Chiyo, will you please wake up Kanon?"

    She giggled, slightly mischievously, then tickled the girl's neck herself. Kanon awoke with a slap as she hit herself in the neck trying to brush away the pest assaulting her.

    "I meant… nicely…"

    The newly conscious girl shook her head back and forth, then looked around as though trying to remember where she was. She let out a huge yawn and stretched her arms out, grabbing the backpack I was holding.

    "Are we there already…?"

    You may be wondering what we're doing outside of the relative familiarity of Tokyo, especially so soon after our big debut. The chain of events that led us here is rather simple. Our debut was a big success. The biggest most of us have had, in fact, and with success comes fame, adoration, and for our manager Lina Fujimura, lots and lots of paperwork. This was her idea - one part to give us a chance to relax after all of our hard work, one part to let her work in peace, and one part to keep Rinko away from all the newly signed idols she's chomping at the bit to invite to join Interlunium. Megumi volunteered the venue - her parents own a ryokan here in Kyoto - and that brings us back to right now.

    Even though most of the journey had been accomplished in the relative luxury of a train, the Aihara family inn was a good twenty minute walk from the station. The ambiance was as though the most laid-back sections of Tokyo had been plucked from the city and formed into a place all their own, and there were more traditional buildings, shrines, and vendors along the route to the inn than you would be likely to see walking for hours through the streets of our home. It isn't necessary to take in much of the scenery to understand why Megumi is the way she is, having grown up surrounded by all this beautiful culture. On the subject of Megumi, our twenty minute walk through the chilly streets of Kyoto took almost triple that thanks to her popping in and out of the various shops we passed to say hello to neighbors, though it was delightful how her stories of how friendly the people she had grown up around were true. It's kind of nice being someplace where I'm not sure they've ever even heard of idols.

    "Now, when I asked for permission last weekend to use a few rooms, there were no other reservations. But in the time since, an important party has made a reservation, so it seems we won't have the entire inn to ourselves like I had hoped. While I want us to have as much fun as possible, I have to remind everyone to please be on your best behavior while we're inside - at least until the guests leave tomorrow."

    "That shouldn't be a problem! How much trouble can we be, Megumin?”

    "Oh, and Ms. Watanabe, I'm sure you don't need a reminder that-"

    "I know, Momo needs to stay in our room, especially when other guests are around… But don't worry, Momo, we're still gonna have lots of fun at the shrines, and at the waterfall, and the baths…"

    "See? You won't have a single problem with us. Idol's honor!"

    "Thank you, Ms. Han. I look forward to spending a delightful weekend with all of you. Now, here we are."

    A short walk along a cute little stone path led us off of the street and into a small, immaculately maintained garden. The building Megumi led us to was nearly identical in every way to the images of ryokan you see on travel advertisements for the city, or the sort of imagery that even a foreigner could conjure up if you asked them to describe a mental image of old Japan. Even though the city surrounding us was much more docile and quiet than I was used to, the change in ambiance that had occurred in only a few meters was still stunning, as confirmed by the quiet awe of my friends.

    Stepping inside the building felt exactly like stepping into a period drama or an old painting, right down to the tatami mats on the floor and the paper-covered walls. Uncountable pieces of art and sculpture decorated the room, all carefully curated to fit the season we were currently in. A group of men - the other guests Megumi had mentioned - were seated around a short but large table near the far wall, sipping drinks and talking boisterously as a pair of women in dark crimson yukata circled the table, refilling their cups and clearing away small empty plates. A similarly dressed man - frantically moving while balancing what I would estimate were far too many plates on his outstretched arms - stepped up to the table and moved with the women as they rapidly placed the new dishes down in front of each diner, impressing the men with their speed and earning a loud cheer. It was deserved. I don't even know how to start calculating the number of dishes I would break trying to learn how to serve like that. Noticing us waiting near the entryway, the man tapped one of the women on the shoulder, who quickly started walking our way.

    "No, come on, that buff looking guy can come over here instead…" Our resident blonde, Eimi, lamented their choice of welcoming party, getting a giggle out of several of the girls. Ok, and me too. The man is kind of handsome in a hard-working, salt of the earth sort of way. The woman in red approached us ever faster, then kept going into the middle of our clump, practically diving between us to give a great big hug to the cause for her excitement.

    "Welcome home, my daughter! These must be your friends I've heard so much about. Come, quickly. Let's get you settled in so you can prepare for dinner." She waved us after her, leading us down a hallway and then to the left, and finally into a rather cozy room near the end of the corridor. "We'll be dining once those gentlemen are done. Megumi thought it'd be best for everyone to eat together rather than in your rooms, since we want to meet you all so much. Sweetie, please get them settled in? I have to get back, this group's needier than most. You know how men can be. I look forward to getting to know all you girls better at dinner. Bye-bye now." The woman dashed out of the room before popping back in a second later, peering into the cage in Chiyo's hands and tapping it lightly twice with a smile before dashing out again. The speed and confusion of the entire transaction reminded me of trying to deal with Rinko when she's in one of her motivated moods, and it was impossible to imagine Megumi acting anything at all like the woman we had just met, even if they bore each other a definite resemblance in other ways.

    "It appears that it falls to me to welcome you all properly. Welcome to the Aihara family ryokan. This inn has been in my family for over ten generations, when our family history says one of our ancestors left the inn which his family had run for even longer outside Nagoya to move here and marry the woman he loved. I hope that every one of you, my friends, will be able to feel that history as we take care of you this weekend. Please make yourselves at home."

    "Thank you, Megumin! That's very-" Dam-Bi barely got out a partial thought before Megumi continued.

    "To that end, I have managed to secure a pair of rooms for you this weekend - both this room and the room directly across the hallway. Even though we don't have many guests this weekend, this is the slowest season. Aside from my parents, it will only be myself and Ms. Kimura working this weekend - you may have seen her helping with the dinner service - and so we want to make sure we can properly serve you."

    "Wait… Megumi? I don't think any of us wanted you to have to work this weekend…" We had all been thinking the same thing as Kanon. This was supposed to be a relaxing getaway for all of us, and that includes Megumi.

    "Thank you for your concern, but I won't really be working. You're all guests in my home. I'll merely be helping to make sure that you're all properly fed and cared for just as any of you would do were I a guest in yours, were you to find us in a similar situation."

    "My dad's place has people to do that for us." Eimi chimed in, fairly unhelpfully. "So don't work too hard or we'll *make* you relax."

    "Yeah!"

    "We don't want to be any trouble!"

    "Thank you all. In that case, please just pick up after yourselves and refrain from making any large messes. That would make it much easier."

    "W-Why are you looking at us like that?" Judging by the way she was clinging to her best friend, Chiyo was very concerned that the last part of Megumi's request may have been addressing her and Kanon specifically, and none of us could hold in our laughter at the implication.

    "We'll make sure Momo doesn't make a mess..."

    "M-Momo wouldn't do that!"

    "Of course she wouldn't. She wouldn't leave her clothes on the floor either. Momo is a perfect houseguest." Eimi put her arms around the shoulders of the two girls. "But she does love chewing on stuff to keep her teeth nice and sharp, right? So let's keep an extra good eye on her this weekend so she doesn't chew up Megumi's walls."

    "Right! We'll be careful, Megumi! We promise!"

    "Well then, you should decide on your room arrangements. Please make sure to dress for dinner. If you'd like to clean up beforehand, the women's bath is right next door. I'll make sure to check with you in a while, before I make use of it myself."

    "Whoa, what do you mean? Aren't you staying with us? You have to! It won't be the same without you!" Rinko was rather insistent in pointing out that particular fact.

    "I was planning on staying in my childhood room. I haven't been home in quite some time, and I have to admit I've been missing the familiarity."

    "B-But it won't be a real sleepover without you!"

    "I'll still be happy to spend as much time as possible with everyone. I'll merely be indulging in some nostalgia, if you'll please allow me that, Ms. Watanabe." Chiyo grumbled a bit, but finally accepted that denying Megumi that luxury would only serve to ruin the trip for her after all she was doing to make us at home. Though not in so many words.

    "So, how should we split up? Any ideas? It looks like we'll be three per room." A trio of fingers held in front of her face illustrated Dam-Bi's math.

    "Megumi, how much for a private room? You're all real great and all but I don't really do sleepovers. I need perfect quiet to get my beauty sleep, and some of you seem like you may snore." The blonde patted the top of the colorful plastic cage gently. "Not you though sweetie, you're perfect."

    The look she then shot in my direction was, frankly, insulting.

    "I'm afraid we simply don't have the staff to accommodate that request, Ms. Inagawa. But if you'd prefer, you can keep me company in my room, as long as you don't mind things being a bit cozy. I promise, I don't snore even the slightest."

    Eimi, contrary to what I think we were all expecting, accepted that compromise with a minimum of fuss. And here I'd been preparing for five of us to get jammed into one room so she could have her "beauty sleep". If that weren't going to be the case though, maybe it was worth shooting for what I really wanted. Even though we'd spent plenty of time rooming together - years, quite literally - Rinko and I had never spent the night in a hotel, and especially not one as beautiful as this. And with the quiet atmosphere, the art everywhere you look, the yukata we'd be expected to wear and the beautiful view of the garden…

    "In that case, I think Rinko and I should stick together in one room, and the three of you can take the other."

    "That doesn't seem very fair, Juney. You and Hanarin room together every night! You should share her."

    "Yeah! And me and Kanon do too. This is supposed to be special!"

    "And… I kinda hoped we'd get to room together…"

    It was the way Kanon spoke as though her little heart had just been broken that removed my final ounce of resolution. Why does she have to be so tiny and cute all the time…

    "Ok, ok. Then Kanon and I across the hall, the rest of you in here. How does that sound?"

\_\_\_\_

# Chapter Navigation

* Next Chapter
* Previous Chapter
* Back to Contents