“Makina!” I shouted as I burst through the classroom doors!
“Yotsy...?” Makina said, her eyes wide with shock. And, standing across from her...
Oh nooo, Mio’s here already! And she took her wig off too!
Yuna and Rinka were also in the classroom, looking completely bewildered. They definitely had no idea what on earth was going on. Koganezaki, meanwhile, was standing right beside the door, doing her absolute best to fade into the background. Those three aside, nobody else was around at the moment.
“You’re late,” Koganezaki whispered in a sort of accusatory tone.
“Umm... What’s going on, exactly...?” I asked.
“Kuruma barged into the classroom, and as you might expect, her sudden appearance threw the whole room into a state of pandemonium. Oda managed to calm things down, more or less, and had just coaxed all uninvolved parties to leave shortly before you arrived. As for me and those two...well, frankly, we missed our chance to leave at a natural moment.”
“O-Oh. Got it,” I replied. That settles it. Mio’s busted for sure! And wait—since I’m the one who snuck her in here, doesn’t that mean I’m busted too?! Everyone’s gonna know I broke the school rules! A-Am I gonna get expelled?! Wh-What should I do?!
“Sorry, Yotsuba,” said Mio. “There was just no way I could pack up and go home without saying something after that.”
“‘Yotsuba’...?” Makina repeated, glancing in my direction. She must have been wondering why Mio was on a first-name basis with me, and judging by the looks they were giving me, Yuna and Rinka were as well. “Oh... I see. I was wondering why on earth you would be here, Mio...but whatever it is you’re after, I see you’ve gotten Yotsy wrapped up in it.”
Makina shot Mio a frigid glare. The look in her eyes was so openly hostile, it actually made Mio’s shoulders quiver.
“I’d prefer not to consider it, but did you come here because you still haven’t given up on convincing me to return from my hiatus?” asked Makina.
“That’s exactly right,” Mio replied.
“Of course. You’re still not ready to accept it, then.”
“How the hell could I accept it?!” Mio bellowed.
I reeled back with shock, of course, and even Yuna and Rinka looked caught off guard...but Makina’s expression didn’t budge in the slightest.
“How... How could I ever accept you just up and leaving without even bothering to ask how we felt about it?! Our lives are riding on this! Don’t you get that?!”
Makina didn’t say a word. She looked Mio squarely in the eye, never so much as flinching throughout the whole tirade. The air in the classroom was excruciatingly tense...and while part of me thought I had to do something to stop Mio, I knew that I was an outsider here. This was their problem, and none of the rest of us had any right to involve ourselves.
“That’s why...I went to Yotsuba,” Mio continued. “I asked her to help me convince you to come back to us and work as an idol again.”
“You...what? Why would you go out of your way to pick Yotsy, of all people?” Makina asked.
“Because you looked like you were friends. Pretty close too. I’ve never seen you call anyone by a nickname before.”
Makina paused. “Stage names are more or less nicknames.”
“Oh, don’t even start. If you’re that desperate to change the subject, it’s pretty obvious I hit the nail on the head,” Mio countered.
This time, the look on Makina’s face shifted ever so slightly.
Mio seemed to catch it too, and probably took it as further proof of the influence that I held over Makina. “Don’t blame her, though. She said no at first. Then she spilled the beans about you performing at the festival and I strong-armed her into playing along, but, well, she tried, anyway.”
“S-Sorry...” I muttered.
“Don’t apologize, Yotsy,” said Makina. “Mio’s always been like this. She just has to have her way, or she won’t be satisfied.”
“Pot, meet kettle!”
Eeek! The tension was unrelenting as the two of them traded verbal bullets. What should I do... What even can I do?!
“Okay, everyone—let’s calm down for a moment, shall we?”
“Mio...Kuruma, right? Did you seriously come all the way here just to pick a fight with Makina?”
Rinka! Yuna! The two of them dove straight in, not faltering in the slightest in the face of the oppressive atmosphere!
“Oh... You two were the ones from the performance, weren’t you?” asked Mio.
“Yeah. What about it?” said Yuna.
“Okay,” said Mio. She finally turned away from Makina and walked over toward Yuna and Rinka.
O-Oh jeez, oh jeez! Don’t tell me she’s targeting them next...?! Now I really, really have to stop her!
“Wh-What?” Yuna stammered. She took a step back, intimidated by Mio’s approach, while Rinka sucked in a sharp breath and stepped forward to stand in front of her.
Mio, however, didn’t even seem to register either of their reactions. She closed in briskly, step by step, until finally...
“You two were sooooooooo good!!!”
...she raised her voice in such an elated, excited tone, it was almost hard to believe that she’d seemed about to come to blows with Makina just seconds before!
“Huh?” grunted Yuna.
“What...?” Rinka muttered.
The two of them were completely bewildered. And, I mean, I was too! In fact, I think everyone was shocked...except Makina, apparently?
“Was this really your first time onstage? Because you both looked like you belong up there! And wow, the way your voices projected! Oh, and even more than that, the way you were, like, totally in sync with each other! You can’t make that sort of coordination happen without crazy amounts of practice! And it’s even better because you’re such totally different types, and you present yourselves in such wildly different ways, but then when you look at the two of you together you end up thinking, ‘You know, those two just mesh’ anyway! I wanna see you put on a whole show by yourselves now! If you ever do one, you’ve gotta tell me, okay?!”
“U-Umm,” grunted Yuna.
“Th-Thank you...?” said Rinka.
“Mio,” Makina sighed. Yuna and Rinka had been totally befuddled by Mio’s rapid-fire, impassioned impressions of their show, leaving it to Makina—the only person present who was still keeping her cool—to intervene.
“What, Maki?” Mio snapped.