So Kazura was right...he really is in a bad mood...

Aerien gulped as he glanced in front, wondering what he should say to lighten the mood. He was never sure what the other boy was thinking, despite his multiple attempts to hold a conversation with him, and if he were to go by Kazura's words, he was stressed beyond reasoning.

"Uh—Haruki—"

The white-haired boy turned around from whatever he was doing, furrowing his eyebrows and holding his face in what seemed like a displeased expression. "What do you want?"

"Just wanted to say hi. I mean, you haven't spoken at all today..." Aerien tried to play the situation off with a nervous laugh. "Are you alright? You've had a lot of work lately."

"I'm doing fine, thank you." Haruki's response was clipped, and it was clear that he was annoyed, but he didn't know what else to do to steer the conversation in another direction. "Seriously, people always comment on how much I slack off, but when I'm actually doing my work, they tell me to take a break. What's up with you guys?"

"Guys, shut up," Shoko groaned. "You're being way too obvious in the middle of class, and it's disrupting the lessons. Though, if you want my opinion on this whole thing—"

Haruki shot her a glare. "Absolutely no one asked for your opinion."

The blonde-haired girl muttered something under her breath before turning back to her seat, and Aerien watched them worriedly.

"I meant that you can always come to us if you need help." Aerien smiled at his friend, but Haruki didn't return it. "There's also your unitmates in Incarnation, right? I'm sure they'd be willing to hear you out as well—"

Haruki scowled at him, slamming his pen on the table and gripping the table as he bit back a response. "I'd like to concentrate on class, so kindly shut up."

"Right," the blue-haired boy stammered, deciding not to bother his classmate any further. "I'm sorry."

The President didn't reply after that, so all he could do was stifle a sigh and return his gaze to his half-finished physics worksheet. If Haruki didn't want to talk, there was nothing he could do, but the boy looked so stressed that it hurt to look at him.

What do I do? He wanted to help in whatever way he could, but it wasn't like he was particularly close to the Student Council President in the first place. I guess I should leave it to his unit, since he would be closer to them. Then again, if he's stressed because of their debut...

The bell rung at that moment, and he was startled out of his thoughts, rushing to scribble in the rest of his answers and pass it to the front.

Haruki slung his bag over his shoulder, ignoring Shoko's attempts of making conversation, and headed out of the door before anyone else did.

Shoko raised an eyebrow at him. "Don't you think he's been behaving weird lately?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, kind of."

—

"Seiun, could you work out the answer to this question on the whiteboard?"

The girl sighed, grabbing her worksheet and setting down the pencil she'd been playing with. Jhorna glanced at her, wondering just how she was planning on solving the question if she hadn't been paying attention in class.

To her surprise, her classmate had actually managed to write down a coherent answer—she'd even remembered to use the special angles table; now that was new—and her only mistake was a small presentation error and her forgetting to write c is an arbitrary constant next to her working.

"Never knew you were a good student," Jhorna whispered, and her friend's impassive face didn't change as she returned to her seat.

"I did my homework," she mumbled, collapsing on her desk again and starting to fiddle with her stationary again. "If you're a good student, Jhorna, you wouldn't talk in the middle of class."

Evi looked as if she wanted to say something, but the teacher then called on her to answer the next question and that idea was forgotten as soon as she stood up. Jhorna looked between the two of them, trying to figure out just what had happened.

"Did anything happen between you two?" the Masquerade member whispered. "She was like this during club meeting too. Is is about Incarnation?"

"Uh—sort of?" Evi let out a groan, the troubled expression on her face refusing to fade. "It wasn't really me, but Seiun and Haruki got into a really big argument and stuff...it's right before our debut too, so the whole group's morale is down."

"That sucks," Jhorna commented. "No wonder both of you seem out of it. The class atmosphere isn't as bright without you talking a million miles per day."

The black-haired girl puffed up her cheeks. "Is that supposed to be a compliment or an insult—?"

"Sheesh, it was a compliment. Don't worry." The taller girl forced a smile. "There's only four days until your debut, though. If you don't resolve this, it could turn into a huge problem. I'm cheering you guys on, alright?"

Evi tried to slam her head into her desk as discreetly as she could. "Hah...I know Incarnation's image is pretty dark, but that doesn't mean we have to fit the image too..."

Jhorna laughed. "You don't seem like the type, but you get depressed pretty easily, huh?"

"I do?" Evi turned her head. "Now that you mention it..."

"Kind of. Still, though, you're like Incarnation's mood-maker, so if even you feel down, there's nothing much the whole group can do about it. Well, I don't know much about Mel, but if both of you work together—"

She was cut off as the bell rung, but Evi seemed to get the gist of whatever she was trying to say. "I guess you're right. Prez and Seiun are both really important to me, so I want to help them make up too. I'm sure if I can get them to remember the promise we made that day, when all the flowers were sparkling—"

"Alright, now I have no idea what you're talking about. Seems like a memory that should only be shared between the three of you, though." Jhorna gave her a smile. "If they're that important to you, then you shouldn't wait any further, right?"

"Yeah! Thanks, Jhorna!" She shot her a grin, cheered up by the other girl's words, and she moved to grab her bag from where it rested on the ground. "Hey, Seiun! Let's go to practice together!"

Her unitmate glanced at her annoyedly. "Do we have to? Besides, I wasn't planning on attending practice today, so can go yourself."

"But you have to! There's only so little time before our live, and Prez will get even angrier." Evi tugged on her friend's arm. "Besides, Incarnation needs you, so—!"

Seiun glared at her with the most deadpan expression she could muster. "I cringed."

"Really? I didn't mean it, but that doesn't matter," Evi replied. "Still, though! If we want to get to the practice room in time, we'll have to run, so I hope you aren't too tired!"

"I told you I didn't want to go!"

—

Mel glanced between Seiun and Haruki as they finished up their warm-ups. "So, are we not addressing the elephant in the room? I mean—"

"We'll just end up arguing again." Haruki didn't pay the pink-haired girl any mind. "If we're going to talk about this, then save it for after practice. Right now, we're just going to waste an entire session if we do this now."

"But then the mood won't improve, and..." Evi trailed off. "I'm not meaning to criticise you, Prez, but if we practice like this, won't it be just as bad as not practicing as all?"

"She's right, you know." Mel took a step closer to her fellow-second year, looking at her club member with disdain—she didn't like troublesome things, and this situation was the definition of troublesome. "Let's get this over with now so that we won't have to worry about it in future."

Haruki rubbed his temples. "There's nothing to say, is there? I wouldn't have said what I did if Seiun was up to par."

"Up to par? Just what constitutes your idea of that?" the purple-hair girl shot back, swinging her bag off her shoulder and dumping it on the ground. "Why should I even come for practices when you only know how to criticise people?"

"Well, maybe if you actually put in effort, we wouldn't have been having this conversation now!" the boy exclaimed. "What's wrong with you? I didn't mention it at first, since you could keep up with us despite everything, but did I mistake your potential?"

"Yeah, you did. I have no potential whatsoever, and you were wrong." Seiun scowled, pushing past Evi and ignoring the shorter girl's words. "Accept that already and move on. I'm a completely normal person with zero talent, so you should just give up and leave me alone—stop expecting things out of me."

Haruki huffed. "I just want this group to succeed. You may not feel the same way, but can't you at least try for the sake of the unit? Didn't you make that promise with Evi?"

"Don't drag Evi into this," Seiun got out. "God, can't you get anything past your thick skull?"

"At this point, we're going nowhere," Haruki snapped. "Why are you so reluctant to try your best when you seemed to put in so much effort in your first year?"

"As if you know what's going on!" The girl clenched her fists, feeling her already non-existence patience start to thin. "People like you just can't read anyone or tell the atmosphere—is that why your stupid unit flopped in your first year? You got cocky and landed that leader of yours in the hospital, didn't you?"

Silence filled the room, and it was then that she realised just what she'd said.

Evi and Mel looked at her with a mix of confusion and shock, and Haruki was only able to stare at her blankly, taking a step backwards and stumbling as his foot hit the leg of a table—it was as if she'd just kicked a puppy or something.

Still, her stupid mouth was too caught up in the heat of the moment.

"What? Don't look at me with that pathetic expression!" she shouted, watching as her unit leader continued to gape at her. "I'm just stating the facts, aren't I? You're just a dirty coward who can't even do things right, aren't you? Didn't you resort to all those cheap tactics until your unitmates ditched you?"

"Seiun! You shouldn't have said that." Evi's voice was small. "Things are already bad enough...I'm sure he's learnt..."

She shot her friend down with a cold stare. "You think? Isn't he still the same? He doesn't bother thinking about anyone's feelings besides himself!"

"I..." Haruki took a shallow breath. "I—At least I'm still better than someone who only existed for their manipulative, piece-of-shit excuse for a unit!"

Seiun paused at that. "What did you just call Stellarium?"

"Wasn't it that way? You only uselessly followed along with whatever commands they ordered you first-years to do, and yet you still act like some big-shot! Step down a notch already!" Haruki was the one raising his voice now. "I saw you around school then. You didn't even bother wasting your breath on anyone else besides your unit. What, did you think you were cool or something?"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" His junior's voice cracked. "You don't know the first thing about Stellarium. You don't know the first thing about my first year."

"Then what gives you the right to assume things about mine?" Haruki retorted, struggling to regain his composure now that he had already lost it. "If you want to whine about people not getting anything, then tell them, for god's sake!"

The second-year attempted to take a deep breath, but it came out as a hiccup instead. "...that's it. I've had enough."

Her voice was small, and Evi's voice was shaky as she ran forward. "Wait, what? Seiun, what do you mean?"

"I'm...I'm really trying my best already—it's so hard, and it's never enough—" She raised her head. "If you think I'm going to pull you down, then fine. Fill out the paperwork on my behalf, student council president. There, happy that I finally called you by your title?"

Evi tugged on her friend's sleeve, but she shook her off angrily. "Wait a moment, are you—"

Seiun yanked her bag from the floor, throwing it over her shoulder and wrenching the door to the practice room open.

Her expression softened for a moment. "Sorry I didn't keep my promise in the end."

Then, the door slammed shut.

--

uwu

incarnation is so problematic i swear,, also !! more haruki n seiun backstory make them suffer more

me and peeno made the planning 3 pages long are you ready for a wild ride i sure am

poll results (33 votes!! i'll be continuing the chapter polls then oho) (literally so many ties i give up)

1. Haruki/Sou/Carin (4 votes)

2. Seiun/Hayato/Kawarau/Aerien/Kazura (3 votes)

the rest of them won't be mentioned bc literally everyone is tied

poll will be in the inline comment link here! made it a checklist format so its easier to submit more than one vote aha

bye bye