Haruki closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of warm sunlight streaming onto his face.

It wasn't so bad to attend club practice once in a while. In fact, it was the best part of school, more so than unit practice, and he had no idea why he didn't go more often. Perhaps it would be a better decision to quit the student council and live in the clubroom for the rest of his third-year days.

"Hey, you alive?"

Grudgingly, he opened his eyes to see the pink-haired girl bouncing in front of him, as if she hadn't been chugging tea for an hour straight like him.

Fool. Drinking tea for hours on end was, obviously, the right way to live life.

"What do you want?" he sighed. Mel looked as if she'd drunk coffee instead of tea, and what type of idiot would do that? Firstly, this was the Tea Club, and secondly, if one had the choice to choose between tea and coffee-was there even a choice in the first place?

"Nothing, you just looked funny sitting there," the second-year laughed. "You've been here ever since classes ended. Don't you have unit practice today or whatever? If you don't go, you'll get all rusty and you won't begin to compare to the likes of me."

He forced himself into a more presentable sitting position. "It's not like I care...you're my junior, so show a little respect for your seniors. And Incarnation doesn't have practice today. It wouldn't do us good to exhaust ourselves before we even perform live."

"Woah, don't go spouting lines of crappy advice like you're eighty," Mel groaned. "You're always so rigid-isn't tea supposed to calm you down?"

"It can't be helped. And if tea's supposed to calm you down, you're way too loud," Haruki shot back, taking another sip of tea and setting the glass down on their clubroom's table. "I have to worry about my unit. It would do you good to worry a proper amount at certain times too."

"Stop lecturing me," the girl uttered. "I don't worry because things will always go right in the end, OK? Because I'm a great person and all..."

"Yeah, shut up." Haruki's eyes flickered back to his phone, scrolling through without paying any more attention to his club member.

Ignoring the fact that the third-year wanted to be left alone at that moment, Mel stuck her head over his shoulder, swiping his phone from his hands. "What's this...? Costume design companies? Are you planning on ordering your outfits from some shitty foreign place?"

Haruki frowned at her comment. "It's not foreign. It's in Japan."

"That's the wrong thing to focus on," the girl sighed. "But seriously? I know you were stupid and all, but this is a new low. These factory pieces of shit are just huge scams out to steal your money in exchange for boring-ass outfits."

"Do you know any better, then?" He took another sip of tea. "No one in my unit can make outfits, so it's better to leave it to professionals."

The girl shrugged. "Professionals my ass. If you need someone to make costumes, what about me? You could let me do them for the small price of two thousand dollars."

"I'm not rich," Haruki replied, huffing as he looked down at his empty glass before standing to pour himself another cup of tea. "Do you want to join Incarnation, though? I know you don't have a unit yet, and your grades will slip if you don't join one."

"What, trying to bring me over to your side? Well, it would certainly benefit you, but what about me? What would I gain from being with a bunch of random people besides not failing the year?"

"We already have a certain amount of popularity and we haven't even debuted." The boy crossed his arms as he spoke. "I'd say you'd stand to benefit a fair amount."

Mel twirled a lock of her pink hair around her finger. "Ooh, that actually makes sense. Well, maybe I'll join to save your unit from the fate of awful costumes. Give me a day or two to consider it-maybe another unit will want me."

Most units are already formed, he thought, but he didn't voice it. "Sure. Get back to me by this weekend, because I'll need to update the paperwork for our first live."

The two of them then went back to drinking tea.

-

"So, you'll be helping us out in the cultural festival?"

Seiun shrugged as Carin tilted his head. "Sort of. Zankyou will be the main attraction of the stage, while Incarnation helps to support it and make it stand out even more. Haruki said that it would be best to work with another unit first. Is that alright with you?"

"Yeah, he already talked it over with me. We'd be glad to have assistance." Kawarau grinned. "So are you properly debuting in Tanabata?"

"Nope." She popped the "p" as she spoke. "There was an upcoming music festival that has a segment for public performances, and since both mine and Shithead Asshole's units performed there before, he pulled some strings and got us in last-minute. We might still perform in Tanabata, though."

The brown-haired boy across her sighed. "Being the Student Council President has its perks, huh?"

"Mm, still can't make up for his personality." The girl raised her head from her phone. "Anyway, I came here to study Zankyou's performances. We'll be working as backup dancers and stuff, so we'll need to harmonise for your songs and provide special effects with our magic. We only get to perform one of our songs at the end."

"Sounds cool," Carin mumbled. "Break time's over. Er, should we practice as we usually do?"

Seiun nodded. "That's fine for now. We can meet up when both units are free and discuss the formation, but I'd just like to get a feel on how we're supposed to move during your performance."

Kawarau nodded, jumping to his feet and nudging his bottle of water to the corner of the room with his foot. "That sounds good to me. Well, we can't embarrass ourselves in front of a guest, so we'll try our best to perform!"

With that, Carin hit the play button on his friend's phone, and music started to fill the room.

She had to say-Zankyou was good.

It was to be expected; after all, they were the peak of Tengoku's idol course right now, and they were the most popular unit in the school. She'd been to one of their lives before, but that was when Carin and Kawarau were still inexperienced, so the amount of improvement came as a shock.

The two of them were completely in sync, the allocated lines a perfect match to their voices, and she recognised the first song as one she'd heard when she'd went to their first live.

Even though they were just in a tiny practice room, their presence and performance made up for the lack of special effects or outfits.

Without thinking, she stood up as soon as the music had stopped playing, notebook and phone in hand as she gathered her belongings.

Carin looked at her in surprise. "Are you leaving already?"

"Yeah, sorry. I meant to stay for a while more, but I remembered something I had to do." She was too embarrassed that the level of their singing and dancing had made her feel bad about not working hard enough. "I'll stop by tomorrow if I'm free. Uh, should I text you or Kawarau...?"

"Carin forgets to check his phone a lot, so message me. Here, I'll enter my number into your phone." Seiun switched her notebook to her other hand and handed the boy her phone. "We're practicing here tomorrow too, so feel free to come with Evi and Haruki."

"Eh, I'll think about it." She waved to the two of them, stepping out of the door. "Good luck with the rest of practice."

She bit her lip as soon as she was out of sight. She'd been thinking Incarnation had been doing pretty well, but with the ragtag team they were now, Zankyou pretty much blew them out of the park. They'd been relying far too much on past successes.

Sighing, she walked past the piano room and headed towards the gates.

She'd practice at home instead.

-

"So, do you have any ideas for lives? We're a relatively new unit and neither of us were explosively successful last year, so not a lot of people would be willing to take us."

Shoko looked up from where she was. "Actually, I forgot to tell you. The school's theatre club are holding a drama production at the end of the month, and since I'm friends with some of the members, they asked if we'd like to make an appearance in their opening act."

"Where is it held?" Jhorna asked, interested in the proposal. Masquerade was a unit that fit well with dramas and plays, so it wasn't entirely uncalled for. "It might actually be a pretty good opportunity."

"It's not confirmed yet, but it's outside school. Apparently it's a stage at another school more well-known for the arts." The third-year smiled. "A lot of people will just be there for the production, but if we perform well enough, we might gain fans from there."

Her unit member grinned. "Why not? The theme fits us and all, so if the audience likes theatrics, it shouldn't be a problem."

"Great. I'll inform them after practice, then." Shoko smiled, moving to finish her stretches before speaking again. "We'll have to really cram for this, then. We only have one song finished, and I'd like to have at least three songs to pick from when we get more details."

"It can't be helped, " Jhorna sighed. "It'll be rewarding if we manage to pull it off, though."

"Fair enough. We might have to practice on the weekends too if we want to do this well-are you free then?" Shoko raised an eyebrow at her.

The black-haired girl nodded. "I can make some rearrangements in my schedule."

"I'll text you when I get home." The blonde tilted her head towards her phone on the shelf. "I guess we could work on vocals and dance for half an hour each and then try doing them together in the last fifteen minutes? That should be fine."

"Yeah, it should work." To be honest, it all sounded rather tiring, but she forced herself to agree. "Let's start, then."

Shoko hummed in response, moving into formation beside her friend and starting the music.

-

"Are we really starting practice again?" Kazura groaned, and Aerien shot him a sympathetic smile.

Sou fiddled with the guitars in the instrumental track, not paying his senior any attention. "We already had a break for a week. I watched the footage from our live yesterday-Aerien, you kind of went flat on a few notes in your solo. Kazura was way to happy in the bridge of our song too. Even I didn't sing as strong as I was supposed to in the chorus."

"You were attentive," Aerien hummed. "I guess there's no choice but to practice more, then. Still, we did manage to get a few fans, and more people are talking about us on social media."

"Yeah, but it's mainly people within the school. It's a good place to start, but I don't want us to start too late." Sou frowned as he continued to adjust the instrumentals of their new song. "Even if we become popular within the school, large scale Live Showdowns and the Dream Festival will have the public play a big part as well."

Kazura glanced at him. "Why are you worrying about this now? It's still early in the year, isn't it? Besides, you're only a first-year."

But you two aren't, his mind whispered, but he chose not to say it. Kazura was right-not even half the school year was over. There was no use worrying when they'd only had one live.

"Whatever," he huffed. "Let's just get to practice."

--

the new girl belongs to sinju! i didnt even expect this so dont ask me ™

(seiun stans zankyou and so do i)

but! happy birthday to haruki (june 16)! i only remembered it yesterday and rushed this chapter so i could finish it in time! also, happy early birthday to sou (june 18 i think)

unit profiles are also published, and they can be found at the start of the book! i think we know that i pulled those theme description/quote things out of my ass

we'll also be having our first unit poll of the book!!!! link in the inline comment here~

goodebye™