She gritted her teeth as she missed yet another turn, watching as her unit's leader moved to pause the music and glare at her.

"What are you even doing? There's only six days until our debut." Haruki sighed, a hard expression settling on his face as he spoke. "You can't afford to let your focus slip now. With the way things are, you're going to pull us down on the actual day."

"I—" Seiun could feel the other two second years, but she clenched her fists and kept her tone cool. "Let's take it from the top one more time."

Evi glanced at her worriedly. "Are you sure? You haven't been looking well for the entire practice session."

"Yeah," Mel chimed in. "You and Haruki are the two people who're supposed to carry us during our live because you're experienced and all. If you're ill or something, you should sit out so that you can recover before it."

"I'm feeling fine." The purple-haired girl returned Haruki's icy gaze—she was just distracted. If she did it one more time, she'd get it for sure. "Let's try it one more time. Start the music."

She could feel Haruki's stare linger on her for a moment longer, but it wasn't like she cared much about him in the first place. The first few beats of the song filled the room, and she bit her lip as she watched Mel perform the first solo.

Her thoughts still lingered on the incident at the shopping mall, and she couldn't concentrate when she knew that they were coming to attend Incarnation's performance.

Shit. She tried not her best to let her wince show when she hit a note wrong, and the rest of her unitmates stared at her as she rushed to get her solo over with.

Even her vocals were falling short—if she couldn't even get that down, she wouldn't even have the right to stand on stage as a member of the unit.

"Alright, let's stop for a minute." Her leader's voice was tight, his finger hitting the pause button with more force than necessary. "Is there anything wrong with you today? Both your dancing and singing is unsatisfactory, and it's like you're not invested in this at all."

"Shut up," she grumbled back. "As if you know what being invested in something means."

"Hey, don't argue," Evi piped up, trying to intervene as best as she could, but the tension in the air was unsettling. "It'll be bad for the unit. I'm sure Seiun will be fine by tomorrow. Right, Seiun?"

The girl's brow creased. "Whatever."

"See? There you go again." The white-haired boy crossed his arms, and the two members uninvolved with the conversation glanced at each other as he spoke. "You always complain during our practices, and you look like you'd rather be anywhere else. Do you even care about Incarnation?"

Seiun stepped forward. "And what if I don't? You won't need to care about that if I live up to your expectations in the end. Besides, aren't you just using the unit as a means to pass the year so you can graduate?"

"You're putting words in my mouth at this point," Haruki replied, raising his voice in frustration. "Unlike you, I want Incarnation to succeed. If you're going to be all talk and not show results—"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Get off your high horse already." She walked around him and grabbed her bag, wrenching the door open and stepping out. "I'm leaving. There's no point to this."

"Wait—!" Evi moved towards Seiun, but the girl had already slammed the door behind her. She turned to Haruki with a troubled look. "Maybe she was stressed about something, Prez! You were a little hard on her, weren't you?"

"I'm merely doing what's best for Incarnation," Haruki replied. "If I'm lax with her and her skills continue to deteriorate, she'll give us a bad reputation."

Mel sighed, running a hand through her pink hair and flopping down onto the ground. "Man, you've been unusually strict these past few days. Maybe it's just me, but should we take a break from practice tomorrow if you're stressed out?"

The boy shot her down with a cold look. "Absolutely not. We've wasted too much time; let's get back to practice."

The tension in the room didn't dissipate even when the music started playing again.

—

Carin looked up from what he was drawing when the door to the art club's room clicked open.

"Oh, so you chose to attend the club meeting today," Jhorna hummed, watching as the girl dumped her bag on the ground and dropped into the nearest seat. "You seem kinda pissed off today for some reason. Did anything happen during practice?"

"Shut up," Seiun mumbled, resting her head on the table and not moving to take out her sketchbook. "It's none of your business, so leave me alone. I wanna sleep."

The boy frowned. "Isn't your performance soon? It's not good if you aren't getting along with your unitmates now."

"Carin's right," her classmate uttered. "You seemed more on edge during class too. If something's happened and you're feeling sad, then you know we're your friends too. I'm sure it'd do you good to talk it out with someone."

"Ugh, what are you? My mother?" Seiun looked up for a second to shoot a glare at her. "Why are you assuming something even happened in the first place? I'm going home if you're going to keep on bothering me."

"No, I'm just—" She paused as her classmate collapsed back on the table. "Never mind. You're not going to listen anyway."

Carin shrugged. "I hope Incarnation will get everything sorted out before their live. Kawarau told me Haruki's been more intense with the Student Council lately too."

"Yeah. If they're like this, it's as if Seiun's bad side is showing..." Jhorna trailed off. "This kind of atmosphere reminds me of how Stellarium was last year. It was really stifling, wasn't it?"

"Hey, I'm still here." The girl didn't even bother to glance up this time. "Stop talking about me as if I'm transparent."

"Sorry, sorry." Jhorna looked back at her half-finished drawing, her motivation to finish it dropping along with the mood in the room. "Really, though. You seemed pretty invested in Incarnation this time, so I just thought..."

"Shut up."

—

"Haruharu, your debut is soon, isn't it? I can help with your share of work if you're too busy."

The third year scowled, stamping the document he was working on far too forcefully. "I'm the Student Council President. I'll handle my share of paperwork before the day ends, so don't worry about it and go away."

"It's good to see you're working hard, but isn't this a little unusual?" Kazura laughed, but the sound was a little nervous. "Like, if you do too much, you'll end up tiring yourself out before your live. You haven't really been feeling like Haruharu these days."

"I was elected as President because I was capable enough to handle the position while carrying on idol activities," Haruki shot back.

Kazura rubbed the back of his head. "I'm not doubting your capability; you're great at stuff when you try, but have you been able to catch a break lately?"

"Everyone's asking me to take a break for some reason," the shorter boy snapped back. "Do you have nothing better to do with your free time?"

"Yeah, you're definitely stressed out," the other boy muttered under his breath before raising his voice again. "We're just worried! The rest of the student council exists for a reason, and besides, we're already used to you dumping work on us!"

Haruki's glare then was venomous. "I'm handling both Incarnation and my student council work perfectly fine. There, now will you get out? There're only twenty-four hours in a day and you're wasting my time."

"Yeah, I get the hint. I'm leaving." Kazura raised his hands in a joking manner, backing away towards the door as he spoke. The President had already seemed to have forgotten about his existence, turning back to his work with a scowl on his face.

Incarnation's definitely going to crumble if he keeps this up. He knew it was a possibility, but he didn't know how Haruki would take the news if he told him that. Maybe I should tell Evi to look out for him...? Ah, but she's not attending club meetings because their live is coming up...

He let out a sigh as he closed the door behind him.

Aerien was in the same class as Haruki, so maybe he'd be able to help.

—

Her phone buzzed for the third time in fifteen minutes, and she knew it would be a message from Evi before she even switched her phone on.

Without paying the device a second glance, she chucked it across her bed, watching blankly as it bounced thrice over soft cotton and turning back to her piano.

It was no use. She didn't even know why she was trying in the first place, when she knew it wasn't going to help one bit. Her fingers glided across the surface of the keys, but the sound they made was empty and hollow.

She'd snapped earlier today, and even if it was just Haruki, she felt bad. It felt just like her middle school days, and to top it off, she'd been rude to the art club members when they had done nothing wrong.

I'm the worst, aren't I... She huffed, trying her best to sing and restore her vocals to the state they were in when she was in her first year, but the lump in her throat stopped her from doing so. He just doesn't get it. Someone like him doesn't get anything.

Why had Evi wanted her to join in the first place? Because she was shiny or something like that? She didn't feel very shiny at that moment.

Frustrated, she bashed her fingers on the keys of the piano, relieved that her parents weren't home to hear the screech that rang across her room, but her singing voice was still shaky and unworthy of belonging to an idol.

She hated to admit it, but Haruki was right about one thing. With how she was performing now, she would be nothing but a burden to Incarnation. She'd go on stage just to make a fool out of herself.

Sighing, Seiun glanced around for something—anything—to do rather than torture herself in front of the piano, but she'd already finished her homework and she wasn't in the mood to do any of her hobbies. It was still too early in the night to go to sleep.

She unlocked her phone out of sheer boredom, hoping to get out a reply to Evi before she got spammed any further, and she raised an eyebrow when she saw that Mel had messaged her as well.

—

From: Evi

seiun!!!!!! are you okay?? i'm really sorry about everything!

everyone's really down right now, so please come back for practice tomorrow!!!

are you mad at me???

—

From: Mel

yo look i don't really know you that well but this is affecting incarnation as a whole

i thought this was a unit was something that could help my brilliant self shine, and i still do, trust me

but if you don't sort this out with Haruki, the mood of the group will be affected. i don't want my costumes to go to waste, okay?

the two of you have that intimidating elegant ass aura around you, so it's seriously scary when you're both mad at the same time.

—

"Yeah, I get it already! I was wrong!" she exclaimed to no one in particular, making her replies as short as possible to avoid sounding even more pissed off. "Just shut up and leave me alone, won't you?"

She muted her notifications, jamming her phone into its charger and flopping onto her bed in defeat.

Is this really what I wanted?

—

drama drama drama

early update !! drama is definitely much easier to write than the normal mohumohu fluff this book is :"D

stop being mean @ seishit @ shithead asshole

no poll this chapter since i updated early ^^