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Nayuta had always hated the crowd back in Hakodate. Coming to Tokyo, where everything was bigger and louder, on his first night alone without Satozuka Kenta hovering, he was faced with a swarm of locusts, and avoided the crowd as such. He took a blind, sharp turn, several turns in fact, and as the spectacle and the noise faded, so did any trace of the neighborhood he had some semblance of familiarity with. Although Nayuta was conscious not to stray too far from GYROAXIA's sharehouse, he found himself in an unknown residential area.
It was quiet, at least. Detached houses lined up the street. Nayuta walked aimlessly as his mind also wandered. Satozuka Kenta had told him not to wander around as tomorrow was the LR Fest. Well, to hell with him, Nayuta thought, and that damn cat too, whose fault it was that he'd left the sharehouse. In his foul mood made more foul by the sultry Tokyo summer air, Nayuta forgot that bringing Nyankotarou with them had been his demand.
It was very quiet. So quiet at first he thought he'd imagined it. A woman's voice singing. A siren calling for sailors lost in the southern seas. His feet followed it to the source. And there his cat was, sitting on a swing in a children's park. The singing had stopped, but Nyankotarou still paid her no mind. She reached out but held off at the last, reverent almost as if Nyankotarou was a sacred beast of a temple. Moonlight draped on her as a veil shy to sully her ethereal glow.
Then he scoffed at himself and approached them. "He's got picky ears," he said. "Spoiled rotten, that one."
She startled; the cat raised its head. Two sets of intelligent eyes turned to Nayuta. The cat yawned and curled into itself.
"You sound as if he's yours," she said. She sounded neutral on the surface, but Nayuta could hear the irony underneath.
"The cat chooses. Right, Nyankotarou?"
Said cat's choice was to ignore them both. Her lips curved in a pale imitation of a smile. Somehow he knew there was no scorn there, as keenly as he knew an extraordinary voice dwelled in such a delicate body. Not the lullaby she'd just sung to Nyankotarou, not in this laughable stage. Nayuta wasn't a man to waste his time with anything outside of music, nor a coward to be obsessed with competition. Unfortunately for Nayuta, GYROAXIA's drummer couldn't shut up about an up and coming indies band, supposedly one of the best Tokyo had to offer, and a girl band at that, as though gender had any bearing with music. So he was not completely ignorant of Roselia. Fortunately, after hearing a not-even-representative sample of what their vocalist was capable of. Not that he'd ever tell Miyuki.
The woman slid to her feet, gracefully smoothing her long skirt. She was a petit thing, barely coming up to his shoulder. The long, alabaster column of her neck adjoined to a haughty chin, and an even more imperious mouth. And none of that mattered but for the sound they could make. She met his judgement with her own, he could see the recognition dawning in her eyes. Like knew like. Like attracted like; like repelled like. He didn't care which it was, so long as it spurred her on. The greater his enemy, the greater his skills would have to be in order to defeat them — the more satisfying his victory would be. And this woman could fly as high as Nanahoshi Ren, higher and further.
With a brazen, dulcet tone, she provoked him. "If he is as picky as you say, it seems he's judged us both unworthy."
"On this stage, at this time? You're deluded if you think I'm on your level." Nayuta sneered. "I'm not so stupid to believe that was your real voice."
He walked around her and gingerly picked up his cat. Nyankotarou only pretended to be aloof, and he couldn't hold the charade for long. The cat settled on his arms like they were his bed at home. Spoiled rotten.
To his back, she said, "Yet I've never heard you sing at all."
Nayuta turned around to meet her stare. "Look for GYROAXIA at tomorrow's LR Fest. You will sing, you will wring out all that you have. And on that same stage, I will crush you."
For a second she was still, impassive. Again with that imitation of a smile. "For your sake, I hope you're not just another man thinking blustering hot air is the way to a woman's heart."
Then her eyes fell, and her fingers twitched with obvious desire. Nayuta's muscles were getting stiff anyway, so he extended his arms, and Nyankotarou consented to getting an ear scratch from a stranger.
Despite however many times Roselia had performed on outdoor stages, Yukina didn't think she'd ever get used to holding a show in summer. The sun beat down on her head, the humidity made breathing a chore, and it was too easy to overheat, within and without. Out of one mouth, Sayo had said it seemed to improve their performance, made the band more energetic, even spirited. Out of another —
"Hold on, so when you said you went for a walk yesterday evening, you went as far as Shinjuku? Alone? And this man approached you, alone, and challenged you to a duel? And nothing else happened?"
Yukina didn't immediately answer, still in the middle of dabbing her face with a towel. "He was looking for his cat. What else was supposed to happen?"
"You don't even know his name!"
"Because nothing happened. I do know his band's name, and I know they're coming up shortly," she said the last pointedly. The only reason this topic had come up at all was because Lisa had asked what she'd wanted to do. Not being subjected to an inquest, for one.
With Lisa's affinity for summer, no wonder the heat'd got to her. Even her ears were blazing, and she was at a loss for words, a rarity. Making a strangled noise, she looked to Sayo beseechingly. Even as Sayo pinched her eyebrows Yukina knew whose side she'd take. Summer made Sayo weak. How many words before she'd get to the big 'but Minato-san', Yukina wondered idly.
"I do not say this as though I'd rather trouble had befallen you, though I am thankful nothing untoward had happened, but Minato-san — " Ah, there it is. " — this is exceptionally boneheaded even by your standards."
"But indeed nothing happened," Yukina said calmly. "And didn't you just say yourself, Sayo, that I sang better than usual? Besides which, Lisa, I find your lack of trust in me — "
"After that time you got stuck in the tunnels in DisneySea because you thought there was a cat? A cat at DisneySea, of all places?"
Yukina threw the towel. Lisa caught it, worry still darkening her eyes. "And then as now nothing happened. I'm fine, Lisa. I had a good time. We'd agreed you'd let me act the adult I'm supposed to be. Now if that's all, there's a show I'd like to catch."
She left them gaping at her back, quickly weaving her way out of the backstage and back into the audience area. Ako and Rinko had already split off the group earlier, wanting to catch a show on a more removed platform. A vampire band, if she'd parsed Ako's squeals right. Though as the crowd surged around her, Yukina's bravado evaporated, and she didn't exactly regret ditching her overbearing bandmates, but it would've been nice to have buffers against the human bodies pressing around her. Yukina hated crowds.
Somehow she found a place where she didn't have to stand on her tiptoes. The platform shoes that came with the costume helped. Even the costume itself seemed to have warded people off her sides. Just in time, it was GYROAXIA's turn to come on stage. Yukina's gaze scanned past the other members and zoomed in on the lead. He seemed like a different man by day. No, like the king of the jungle patrolling his territory. Ridiculous, but Yukina only here for his music, and nothing more.
Aggressive was one word for it. The music grabbed her by the collar from the zero and never let go, surging at top velocity to the pinnacle and falling, rushing to meet the abyss. With one show Yukina knew all she needed to know about the band — it existed for the sake of backing up the vocalist, and therefore she needed to pay it no mind. And seeing the vocalist on stage, hearing his voice now confirmed what she'd suspected.
His arrogance last night was earned, she would give him that much. His skills were comparable to hers. It was like seeing the funhouse mirror version of herself. Here was a man who had something to prove, who gave his all into his music: rage and passion and drive biting at the world before it could bite him back. He sang as if his life would end if he ceased to sing. He was what she had been in the first few years of Roselia. Now Yukina had found a different reason to sing. The passion was there, but for its own sake. Still, occasionally she wondered what would've become of her if she'd never arrived at FWF. If after all that, her lust for vengeance was still unsatiated. She wondered how far that Yukina would've come, if without changing she could've achieved what the present her had, and even more besides.
So she wished GYROAXIA success. She hoped their star would continue rising, that at last he would find what he sought. And for her own sake, she vowed that even when he had exhausted his potential, Yukina's — Roselia's star would rise further still.