ｙｏｕ＇ｒｅ ｍｙ ｒｉｖａｌ！

『 your p.o.v 』

Kuppuru walked around my dorm room a bit as I filled his bowl with some more cat food. I watched the onyx black cat as he wandered over to my bed and promptly hopped up ontop of it, making himself more than comfortable as he laid down and watched me with those emerald green eyes of his.

"What do you think you're doing on my bed?" I asked to the cat as if it can understand me. "I'm not placing this bowl of food up there so you're going to have to come down if you want to eat."

Staring at me, Kuppuru didn't make a move to get up for a moment, though after a few minutes had past he reluctantly stood up and stretched some before jumping back down onto the floor, landing with true feline finesse. Shaking my head, I went ahead and filled up the second bowl with some water. "Honestly Kuppuru, who's your real owner? Someone must miss you." I murmured as I crouched down to pet the cute lil cat as he ate his food. "I can't take care of you forever."

"I mean, you could." Tomo-chan said from where she's currently lying on Haruka's bed next to the small pink haired composer. "Nobody has to know that you have a cat."

Haruka nodded, looking up from her music score sheets and offering me a small smile as Tomo-chan places an arm over her back. "We wouldn't tell on you if you kept him permanently."

As if he agrees with me keeping him, Kuppuru meowed before brushing his side up against my leg, looking up at me and everything as he does so. "Oh don't give me those cute eyes." I groaned, standing back up and grabbing my laptop. "Besides, I can't keep a cat. I can barely keep myself alive so how am I supposed to look after this cutie?"

"You have a point. Maybe your mom could look after Kuppuru?" Tomo-chan then asked.

"I'm not going to have my mom look after a cat for me."

"Hey, don't knock my idea until you at least try it."

With a laugh, I waved the burgundy haired girl off. "You just don't want to see Kuppuru find a new and better owner." I mused. "Anyways, I have to get going guys. Otoya and I are going to start composing today so I might be a little late coming back to the dorms. Don't do anything crazy while I'm gone you hear?"

Haruka smiled. "Tell Otoya we said hi."

"We'll throw a rave while you're gone." Tomo-chan tacked on, smiling innocently as she falls completely back down onto the bed, nearly squishing Haruka in the process.

I shook my head at their cute dynamic before walking out of our dorm room, closing the door behind me as to give those two some privacy. They're just too cute together I swear. And, to make things better, they're working on this next song together as well so that's fun. I'm sure they'll make a higher grade this time around since they just work so well together- they might even beat Otoya and I.

Laughing at my thoughts, I continued down the hallway. "Who am I kidding, no one can beat Otoya and I.~" I murmured to myself.

The hallways of Saotome Academy were surprisingly lively this morning, everyone bustling about as I walked passed them. A few students glanced in my direction while many others blatantly stared. Trying my hardest to pay them no mind, I hugged my laptop a little closer to my chest as I walked. Their whispers are deafening as ever, but, I can't make out anything they say, their words spoken too softly for me to understand. I think that just makes it more eerie. Without knowing what they're truly saying, my mind can make up the horrible words for them.

Shaking my head some to clear my thoughts, I continued down the hallway with my head held high. They're just jealous that I'm a great composer, that my brother is a famous and successful idol, and that our idol teachers favor me. That's not my problem. I can't help that I've been composing for years now, that Reiji is famous, or that his friends happen to be our teachers. If they have a problem with me being here, then that's on them and I should continue onward without ever once looking back.

"Well would you look who it is." An all too familiar voice said from behind myself.

Turning around, I couldn't help but smile up at the orangette. "Ren! What are you doing up right now? It's pretty early still and we don't have classes today. I thought for sure you'd sleep in." I then said as the tall blue eyed boy made his way over to me.

Ren chuckled, his arm finding it's usual place wrapped around my shoulders as he began walking down the hallway with me by his side. "I was going to meet with my composer, little lamb. But finding you here is better than talking with her." He said smoothly.

Rolling my eyes, I couldn't help but laugh. "You shouldn't keep her waiting. Are you working with the same composer you were paired with for our first project?"

"Naturally. She's a pretty good composer and she's very nice, though Shizu is starting to catch a small crush on myself so I won't be able to work with her again after this project." He said with a small sigh. "The curse of being handsome..."

"It must be so hard for you." I mused.

"You'll be my composer next, won't you?"

"What, don't want any other girls falling for you?"

Ren chuckled, the two of us turning down a hallway that lines the center courtyard of the Academy. "If anything, I'd want you falling for me rather than any of these other girls."

Rolling my eyes, I shook my head. "Start taking this idol stuff seriously and maybe you'll have me falling for you."

"Really?"

"Of course not."

The orangette sighed. "How cruel of you to say."

Laughing, I shook Ren's arm off from around my shoulders and took a step back from him. "You shouldn't keep your composer waiting. I said before turning on my heels to head off in the opposite direction of that flirty idol student. "I'll see you tomorrow in class, Ren."

"Where are you headed off to, little lamb?" Ren called after me.

"I'm going to meet with Otoya for our song!" I called back, already disappearing into the crowds of students filling the early morning hallways now.

That orange haired boy is dangerous to be around- especially when it's just him and I together without our friends nearby. He's just so, so flirtatious! And loves to throw his arm around my shoulders, pulling me flush against his side and making all of his fangirls that are already staring at us further hate me more! He has to know that he's going to get me killed if he keeps this up, doesn't he?

Sighing, I walked back down the hallway Ren and I had just come from in order to backtrack and go meet up with Otoya. I was more or less trying to burn some time this morning by walking around a little considering Otoya always wakes up late, but I guess that wasn't the best of ideas what with rumors galore still making their rounds and a wild Ren appearing seemingly out of nowhere! That boy, I can't.

Making my way over to the guy's side of the dorms, I didn't hesitate in walking down hallway after hallway in order to get to Tokiya and Otoya's room. Plenty of the male students stared at me wide-eyed as I knocked on the door, standing there and patiently waiting with my laptop held in front of my hips now.

With a click, the door opened and standing there was none other than my cold and stoic classmate himself. "Morning Toki!" I greeted cheerfully, the idol student looking as though he's been up for a while now even though it's only eight in the morning. "Otoya still sleeping?"

The navy haired student stared at me for a moment longer before taking a step back, holding the door open for me to come in before closing it behind myself, leaving all the students out in the hallway gaping at what they've just seen. "He's in the shower right now. Do you need him for something?" Tokiya asked as he walked over to sit at his desk, his side of the room painted dark grays while Otoya's is a plain off-white color.

I plopped down on Otoya's bed, the springs making me bounce slightly. "We're working on our song today and, as usual, he was late meeting up with me so I came to see if he was still alive." I mused. "What are you going to be doing today?"

"I have work soon so I'm just waiting for the call from my manager before leaving," Tokiya responded coolly.

"Work huh?" I repeated as I placed my laptop down beside myself. "You still haven't told me what you do for work Toki. But you have a manager? And they have to call you to come out? Sounds an awful lot like an idol job if you ask me."

The navy haired boys eyes widened some, his usual stoic expression breaking for only a moment before returning to its usual coldness. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Laughing, I grabbed one of Otoya's pillows and hugged it to my chest, the familiar scent of his cologne emanating off of it. I haven't smelt this stuff since we roomed together back in the orphanage... "Reiji gets called into work whenever he has pending schedules," I said thoughtfully. "That's why I said that. But you're clearly coming to school to become an idol so I doubt you're actually an idol."

The tenseness in Tokiya's shoulders seemed to lessen some at my words, only peaking my curiosity more. I'd say I hit the nail right on the head if the way he's acting is any implication to go off of. But, if he really is an idol, why is he here at Saotome? And who even is he? I mean, his brother is insanely popular and they're twins so it's not like he could be Hayato- wait...

My eyes widened some at the sudden realization, Tokiya too busy typing away on his keyboard to notice my shock. He's Hayato! If I'm right and he really is an idol, then he'd have to be Hayato and that means Tokiya doesn't even have a brother! No wonder he got to the hospital so quickly after Reiji fainted, he was at the shows recording when it initially happened. And here I thought his brother talked to him about my brother. Ha, I'm an idiot. Of course Tokiya would be Hayato. He sounds just like him when he sings, they look the same (even for identical twins it would be considered scary how alike they are- even Haruka mistook Tokiya for Hayato when she first saw him), and just to top it all off, they've never been photographed together.

I'm not saying he's Batman or anything, but he's definitely Hayato.

The door to the bathroom opened with a loud click, a large puff of steam coming out and warming the air some. Otoya came walking out with one towel wrapped lowly around his hips, another in his hands as he dries off his hair in a messy manner, too busy covering half of his face with that smaller towel to notice me sitting on his bed.

You know, for as long as we've known each other, I can honestly say that this is the first time I've seen Otoya very nearly naked since we were kids and wow is he fit now- he has a six pack for heavens sakes. "Look at you Mr. Hotshot.~" I teased, scaring Otoya half to death as he practically tripped his way back into the bathroom, Tokiya sparring his roommate a brief glance before sighing and resuming his typing.

"___! What are you doing here?!" Otoya asked, peeking his head around the door frame to the bathroom with widened eyes, his hair still trickling with water droplets since he now has the smaller towel laying over the back of his neck.

"Came to see if you died in there. Did you already forget about us meeting up to work on our song?" I asked as I kicked my legs back and forth some. "Toki over there had to let me in because someone has been taking forever to get ready."

"I didn't forget! Can you, um, cover your eyes while I get changed?" Otoya asked sheepishly, offering me a shy smile. "My clothes are still in my dresser."

Stifling a laugh with the back of my hand, I went ahead and lifted his pillow I had been absentmindedly hugging and used it to cover my eyes. The sound of that red head shuffling passed where I sit on his bed had me smiling some. He's so skittish when he's embarrassed, almost like Kuppuru! It's cute. I'm glad I get to work with Otoya on a song again. It's been too long since we had any downtime to really spend together like we did back when we lived in the orphanage together.

Back then, it was simple for us. We did everything together. Writing songs, playing around, taking care of the younger children, being there when the staff needed some extra help with this and that; it was rare to see one of us without the other close by. We've always been more or less inseparable.

And then I was adopted. I left to live with mom while Otoya stayed back in the orphanage. I wouldn't say me moving out really affected our relationship all that much, but I was suddenly spending time with two people more than just Otoya and everything was a little too much for us to pretend like nothing had changed. He lost me having him as my sole priority and I lost him being there for me at every waking hour of the day.

Reiji and mom are always welcoming of Otoya, but that doesn't change the fact that things can't go back to how they used to be one-thousand percent which is why I wanted to work with Otoya as soon as possible. Even if we now have so many friends and are once again living more or less together like we did back then, it's not the same. I don't want to lose Otoya just like he doesn't want to lose me which is why I think he brought up going for a more lyrical and emotional approach with our song.

It's the song of how we came to be the partners in crime we are today.

"Okay ___, you can look again." Otoya spoke up, voice cheerful as always.

Tossing the pillow down beside me, I offered the red head a bright smile, the academy's uniform always looking great on him. "Now that you're no longer naked, where should we go to work on our song? Any place in mind?"

"Anywhere but here." Tokiya spoke up without ever once looking over to Otoya and myself.

Laughing, Otoya walked over to that stoic idol student and loosely wrapped his arms around his neck in a makeshift back hug, Tokiya instantly tensing up and looking seconds away from attacking my best friend. "You know you love us, Toki!"

With a sigh, Tokiya reached up with one of his hands and pushed Otoya away. "Now you're going to be calling me that as well?"

"Of course! We're friends after all, Toki!" The red head responded as he moved to lean against Tokiya's desk beside his laptop. "But first and foremost, we're rivals."

My eyes widened some at that. "Rivals?" I repeated. "Really, you want to make Toki your rival?"

Of everyone we've met, he chose the S-Class idol student who's actually a popular idol to become his rival. Of course Otoya would, I would be surprised if he didn't choose the most challenging opponent for himself to be his rival. It's just, even with something missing from Tokiya's voice, I'm not sure Otoya would be able to out perform him if it came down to it. Though I guess that makes Tokiya the perfect rival. Someone above him but still in reach of surpassing, a formidable foe.

"Tokiya sings amazingly and I want to beat him," Otoya said with a nod of his head just to further his point. "If there's anyone I want to try and be better than at everything- writing lyrics, dancing, singing, and so on, it'd be Tokiya."

The navy haired idol student glanced up from his laptop and to the red head. "You wish to be my rival?"

Otoya looked to him with a wolfish grin, almost like a challenge.

Tokiya scoffed. "Then I guess there's no getting around this. We're rivals from this day forward, Ittoki."

The grin on Otoya's face only seemed to widen into a genuine smile, his eyes closing and everything. "It's settled! We're rivals."

I shook my head. "What an interesting rivalry." I mused, pushing myself up off of my best friends bed to stand. "We better get going Otoya, Tokiya will be leaving soon for work himself and I'm sure you wouldn't want to stay in here to work on our song."

"It is nice outside." Otoya agreed as we walked over to the door to their dorm room, his signature guitar now in hand. "We'll be leaving first then Toki! See you later."

"Good bye, Toki.~" I called to the navy haired idol student, Otoya and I already walking out the door now.

Tokiya spared us a glance with a blank expression. "Work hard," was all he responded with, the door closing behind Otoya and I right after.

The walk through the halls this time around were filled with even louder whispers and just blatant gossip. Some people were speculating that I went into the boys dorm to meet with Tokiya, other's saying I'm dating Otoya. Some were still spiteful in me achieving two top-ranked songs in two different classes, others just didn't like me for me being, well, me. I guess you can't win everyone over...

Eventually, Otoya and I ended up sitting under the tree where we had first met up with all of our current friends just before classes had started. The tree next to the convenience store Masato and I had gone to that morning to be more specific, though Kuppuru isn't here this time. Strange, I wonder where that black cat runs off to during the day when he isn't trying to get into mine, Haruka, and Tomo-chan's dorm room.

I placed my laptop down on my lap as Otoya and I leaned our backs against the large tree, the hill we're on overlooking a large lake. A smile worked it's way onto my lips as I watched the suns light dance across the surface of the water, peeking out through the gaps in the thick light gray clouds rolling by up above. It's not going to rain thankfully, just a cloudy day with the temperatures still continueing to drop.

My eyes wandered a little to the left only to find Ren sitting with his composer on a bench overlooking the lake, no more than fifteenfeet from it's edge. Shizu was just getting up with a notebook held closely to her chest when I noticed them. Looks like Ren's already finished talking with her about their song. I wonder how good their next piece together will come out. If he got fifth with their first song, he's sure to go up in ranks now that they're more accustomed to one another. I wouldn't be surprised if he's the top idol student from our class in all honesty.

Once Shizu began walking away, Ren leaned back some into the bench and relaxed, his shoulders slouching ever so slightly as he crosses one long leg over the other and places an arm along the back of the bench. I watch him as Otoya gets comfortable beside me with his guitar resting on his lap. The orangette sitting down by the lake pulls out something from his pocket before putting in a pair of headphones. It's rare to see him alone and just, relaxing. He's usually surrounded by all of his fangirls, a flirtatious smile dancing across his lips with a completely different emotion floating around behind those ocean blue eyes of his as he entertains his fans. I guess even a playboy like him needs some time to himself every now and again.

Opening up my composing program, I flicked my attention away from that idol student and over to my best friend. "Alright, got any ideas on what you want our song to sound like?"

Otoya sat up some, adjusting his hold on his guitar to have it better situated. "Something with this kind of feel I think would be great." He said, playing a short little melody.

At first, the notes he strung together sounded almost sad, though there was more to it than just that. There was a response to the first melody with a second, a hand reaching back into the sadness offering warmth with a promise of happiness. I understand exactly what he's going for.

"I see. I can make it so there's a dialogue to the composition itself, a conversation type of thing if you will." I said, already playing around with a similar sounding melody on my composing program, the clicks of my laptop's keyboard coming swiftly. "I'll make it so when you sing, the song itself will respond with a hormonizing melody."

Otoya grinned at that. "You just get me." He said with a laugh. "I don't know why, but I kind of see this as a conversation between us." He then said a little more softly, the joking manner in his voice beginning to dissipate.

Glancing up from my laptop, I offered him a warm smile. "This is our song after all so it's only right that we have it between the two of us." I said as I went back to composing.

The red head relaxed a bit as he placed his guitar down flat across his lap. "We can't ever go back to how we used to be can we..?" He asked, voice calm with a melancholy feel to it.

"No," I agreed, "we weren't going to be able to stay like that forever Otoya. But, we can become something even better now that we've grown." Looking over to the red head, I offered him a bright smile. "We still have each other and that will never change so even if we can't go back to how things used to be, even if that chapter of our lives has closed, we've already opened a new chapter together to start anew."

A few minutes spent in silence passed before Otoya was smiling and pulling me into a hug, my face pressing into his chest as his chin rests on top of my head. "You're the best, you know that? I don't know what I would ever do without you ___."

Smiling, I hugged the red head back. Without Otoya, I wouldn't be the person I am today either so I feel the same. We owe each other so much and I hope we can convey that with this song. We'll be unstoppable from this day forward.

Pulling back from the red head, I couldn't help but smile as tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, Otoya looking as if he's on the verge of tears as well. "I love you, Otoya."

"I love you too, ___!" He said with a bright smile, one that will never cease to warm my heart every time I see it.

We can't return to how we used to be before I was adopted, back when we were younger and had no one but each other to rely on. But now we have much more than just each other, we have our friends, our family and that alone is what's going to let us become something much more than we ever were before.

Now it's time to show everyone just what we can become.

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         Is it just me or is anyone else weak af for Otoya smh I never even liked him before I started writing this fanfic ahhhhh who am I xD

Question of the Chapter: How do you feel about Ren? Do you think his advances towards your character are genuine or are they just a show he's putting on to see if he can truly win your character over like some final boss in a game?

First day of spring semester was eventful, but I still managed to write a couple new chapters and publish this one so I hope none of you are disappointed with the direction this fic is taking! I'm working really hard on this and want to make all of you lovely peeps happy by reading this even if there are some more saddening parts littered around here and there ^^ dynamic stories that aren't only filled with fluff are my favorites so hopefully you all feel the same ♡

I love each and every last one of you lovely cuties and thanks so much for taking the time to read this chapter <3

~ ｋａｔ ♡