"How do you solve this?"

Seiun leant over and peered at her friend's worksheet. "I'm not that good at math, but...uh, try separating the logarithm first instead of using quotient rule from the start? It's simpler. By the way, do you know what's wrong with my working here?"

"Oh, that works," Evi muttered, writing it down before raising her head again. "Ah, you skipped a step. You're supposed to divide the percentage by the relative atomic mass of the element."

"So that was what it was," the girl grumbled, striking out her initial table and starting on a new one. "Ugh, I hate chemistry."

"Relatable. Empirical formula is easy once you remember the format of the table, though, so you should be fine." Evi crossed out a line and reached out to grab her calculator again. "I hate math, though. Some questions are two marks and the others are ten marks."

Before her friend could answer, their senior wandered over to them, causing Seiun to pause and shoot him a disgruntled glare.

"Studying for your tests?" His eyes ran over their worksheets. "It's math and chemistry, right?"

"No, it's English and Geography," Seiun bit back sarcastically. "You don't have any tests, so go practice for a while until we're done."

Evi gave up on the worksheet she was doing, deciding that collapsing on the hard ground was a much better option and choosing to lie there for a few moments. "It's all over. I don't know a single thing and I'm going to fail this test."

The other girl made a noncommittal sound as she finished up what she was writing. "I finished my notes for this unit. Are you done yet or do you still have more questions?"

"I'll finish it after practice," Evi groaned back. "My brain's dead right now. I need to dance a little to recharge."

"Oh, you're ready?" Haruki called, pausing his stretches to dig out his phone. "We'll keep this session short since your tests are next week. I was thinking that we could do it without the dance steps first before doing it with the dance."

Seiun held up her laptop. "I've finished the lyrics. I'll email them to you now, so we have something to practice with."

"Yeah, let's do that," Evi yawned. "Exams suck...we're in the idol course, why are our exams still so hard?"

"Well, at least we'll have somewhere to go if we can't make it as an idol," Haruki replied offhandedly, flicking through his emails until he managed to find the most recent one. "Even though idol activities make up a large part of our grades, we still won't do very well if we neglect our academics."

"Look at you," Seiun muttered under her breath, manoeuvring herself into a more comfortable position. "Acting like a responsible Student Council President and all. Is the only thing you're good at studying, then?"

The third-year glanced at her. "My grades are alright. Thank you for asking."

"No, you're completely missing the point...?"

Evi jumped to her feet, her exhaustion gone and replaced by a bright smile. "OK, I'm ready! What's the song about this time?"

"Well, it seemed like a ballad when you sent it to me, so I tried to make the lyrics more melancholic and stuff." Seiun sighed as she put her file down, taking a few moments to get up and join her two unit members. "Change them yourself if you don't like them."

"Ballads are your specialty, aren't they?" Haruki tilted his head as he glanced at the plum-haired girl. "In that case, should we put you as the center?"

The teenager wrinkled her nose. "Ew, no. That's too much work. Why can't you be the center? You're the leader."

"We can't always have me as the center. Things would get repetitive otherwise." The boy tried to hum the lyrics under his breath before continuing. "If you don't want to do it, shall we set Evi as the center?"

"What? But I wanted to be the center of the one I'm working on now," Evi pouted. "I wanna center for a happy song! Can't you do it, Seiun?"

The taller girl shook her head, glaring at the two of them as she spoke. "I don't like being in the center. Besides, I'm just joining for one performance, right? It doesn't make sense, so just use scissors-paper-stone to decide or something."

"Wait, you're leaving after our debut live? You can't do that!" The black-haired girl shouted. "Stay with us!"

"But you were the one saying that I only needed to join for one live," Seiun pointed out.

Haruki ran a hand through his hair as he sighed. "We're getting nowhere with all of this nonsense. How about we just try to sort out the lines first? We can see who fits what verses better and decide the center from there."

His juniors glanced at him for a moment before Seiun spoke. "Wow, I didn't know you could come up with good plans."

"When will we get along?" The boy sighed.

"We'll get along when pigs fly."

He blinked and pondered the statement for a couple of seconds. "Well, if you say that, I could—"

"No, shut up."

—

Trevor sighed as he rested his head on his desk, sheets of crumpled paper amidst his otherwise neat worksheets.

"Long day?" Kazura asked, patting him sympathetically as he took the seat next to him. "Ooh, are those lyrics for Milky Way's new song? Let me see!"

"Yeah, they're lyrics," the other boy muttered. "It's just that I haven't had much time to work on them between school and the Student Council stuff. We're only a two person unit, so both of us have a lot more to be in charge of."

His classmate smiled. "Poor you. If you're too busy, just tell me and I'll get Haruki to cover your share of the work or something."

"Mm, thanks for the offer. Although I'm not too sure Haruki will agree," Trevor laughed. "I guess I can ask Makoto if he's free enough to help out with some of the lyrics. It doesn't seem like the Literature club has started activities yet, so..."

"That's a good idea," Kazura hummed. "Anyway, don't overwork yourself! It wouldn't do you any good, after all."

"Thanks," his friend replied. "I don't plan to, either way. Milky Way just formed, so I need to make sure we're in good condition before we debut."

The taller boy was about to reply, but Kawarau walked in just then, waving to them before taking his seat at the table opposite them and rifling through a drawer for the documents he was supposed to be in charge of.

"Hey, Kawarau." The Vice-President grinned as his junior smiled back. "What's up?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary." He smiled as he dug through his back for his pencil case. "Is there anything else I need to fill up today?"

"Well, actually..." Kazura pretended to consider his words before speaking again. "As you can see, Trevor's soul has left him for the moment, so I was wondering if you had enough time to help him with his work. Of course, if you're busy, I can just ask Haruki."

The boy shook his head. "Nah, I'm free enough. I'm the youngest here, so I get the least work anyway—let me help out a little more. I can take about a quarter of Trevor's pile and get back to you by tomorrow, if that's early enough."

"They're due by tomorrow afternoon," Trevor mumbled into the desk. "Thanks, Kawarau. You're a blessing."

"Looks like that's sorted out, then." Kazura got to his feet, hastily dumping a stapler on his paperwork to make sure they didn't fly away. "I'll go check on Haruki. He's handling the arrangements for the next live, so I'll have to make sure that he's actually doing it."

Kawarau's mouth twitched upwards in amusement. "To be honest, I was a little concerned when he was elected as the President, but it looks like he's been doing his work lately."

"He's way more responsible than when he was in second year," Trevor agreed. "Though I didn't really talk to him then. He still complains about paperwork a lot, though."

"At least he does it, right?" Kazura spoke with a lighthearted tone. "I'll be going, then."

—

"Why is the art club being used for a photoshoot...?"

"Apparently they liked the setting." Jhorna shrugged as she tried to comfort Carin. "Although it's pretty ironic that we're not the ones having the shoot—that's rude."

Seiun glanced back from her place at the piano. "That's fine with me and all, but why are you two here? I was planning to ditch the club meeting today, but then you two come in and invade my space like it's no one's business."

"Uh, we know it's definitely taken by you?" Jhorna replied. "That, and it has air-conditioning and a table. It's good enough to work on stuff while we wait for the clubroom to be opened again. And besides, it's wrong to skip."

"Does Seiun not like our company?" Carin frowned, missing the flow of their conversation entirely. "Do you not like art anymore?"

"What? No, I didn't mean that..." She trailed off, her fingers absent-mindedly performing a hasty diminuendo until the room was silent. "I was just working on some stuff for Incarnation. Give me a break."

Jhorna leant forward until she managed to read the tiny text on her friend's phone. "You're the center for this song? That's rare. I don't think I've ever seen you with more than a seven-second solo."

"It wasn't my choice," Seiun shot back. "The stupid leader I have forced me to do it. Besides, don't you have a really long solo in your song with that person?"

"Wow, you suck at changing the topic," Jhorna uttered. "But yes, it can't be helped when we only have two people. Shoko's been really professional about it—she managed to rent a place to practice as well as come up with a schedule."

"Eh, don't like her." Her friend gave her a deadpan answer. "When are you holding a live?"

Jhorna hummed in excitement. "If things goes well, maybe in the next month! Why, does Incarnation want to hold their debut live with us?"

"...ew," was Seiun's only response for a long minute. "I think I'd rather stick my head in a boiling urn of red bean soup than stand on stage with those nasty third-years."

"I'd like to hold a live with both of you," Carin offered, humming to himself as he sketched. "Maybe we could make the lyrics all about art..."

The black-haired girl smiled from her place on the floor. "We're all quite busy now with our individual unit activities, but we could certainly consider that idea in the future. I think it'd be pretty fun to perform as a club."

"I mean, don't we already have photoshoots together?" Seiun shrugged as the song came to an end. "It wouldn't be much different."

"Then it's settled." The boy blinked before remembering to take out his phone, taking a minute to record it somewhere in his reminders. "We won't be able to do it before the Dream Tournament, though, since everyone will be busy too."

Jhorna nodded in agreement. "Yeah. Shoko's planning on entering it, and from what I hear, so is Incarnation and Zankyou."

"Mm...up until now, Kawarau and I have been content with just holding regular lives." Carin's expression was serene as he spoke. "But now we're at the top of Tengoku, and if we win the Tournament...we might have a shot at becoming idols for real, so he says we should try our luck."

"Evi finds the damn thing fun," Seiun exhaled. "It doesn't really matter to me, though. I don't mind either way."

Jhorna raised an eyebrow. "Seems like you plan on staying in that unit, then."

"I think it's just your imagination."

—

yay

"im studying" i say as i dump my meagre knowledge of differentiation and empirical formula into the chapter

also student council? do you mean haruki gossip club

also (x2): someone save trevor 2k18

anyway the moment you've been waiting for (not really)!!!1!!1 rankings from the previous poll,,, some results surprised me glad to see a couple of new faces in the top 3 (especially 1st dAmn)

1: Sou/Haruki (6 votes)

2: Seiun/Makoto (3 votes)

3: Kazura/Hayato (2 votes)

since i got enough votes (thanku), yes, the next poll will decide the new cards again! the pairings have already been decided and are subject to little change (unless i have a wild idea) so yepp

please note that kazura and aerien will not be included in the poll as they already have 5* cards! also, you may vote multiple times for different characters but no spam voting for the same character!!

link will be in the inline comment here!

thank you and have a nice Day