“Oooh...?”
“Maki said you hadn’t touched any of the stuff that our group’s done. I figured it wouldn’t kill you to watch a single movie that we were in, right?”
“Ugh... Sorry,” I said with a wince. “But also, thanks! I’ll watch it for sure!”
“Great, you do that. Oh, and this won’t be for a little while, but the four of us—like, all our members except Maki—are gonna be having a concert! It’ll be a little smaller scale than our usual shows, but we’re making sure all the music and stuff meshes with the small-scale vibe. We’re doing everything we can to make sure we’ll power up something major by the time Maki comes back!” Mio declared in a very spirited tone. “Some of our fans’ll probably pitch a fit about us carrying on without her, I guess, but we don’t have time to spin our wheels. If she’s not coming back right away, we’ll just have to see what we can do without her—and there’s plenty of stuff we’ll only be able to try out while she’s away, so this is our moment to throw all that at the wall and see what sticks!”
“Bwuuuh...”
“What’s that groan supposed to mean, doofus?”
“Wha—?! Nothing! I mean, I was just thinking, ‘Wow, that’s amazing,’ and couldn’t quite figure out how to put it into words just right...” I said.
I realize that this might come across as being pretty backhanded in a condescending sort of way, but I was shocked, honestly. There I was, completely occupied with choosing whether I should even try to get into college, and meanwhile Mio was out there grabbing life itself by the horns.
“You know, you’re really cool, Mio...”
“Huh? O-Oh, you think? Can’t say I disagree,” said Mio. The way she’d barely hesitated before agreeing was just like her, somehow, but that ever so slight moment of bashfulness that had preceded her boast also nearly made me crack up. “But, like...I wasn’t telling you all this to show off, for the record! Anyway, do you wanna come watch?”
“Wait, watch what?”
“Our show! I can get you an invite, so you wouldn’t need to buy a ticket. Think of it as thanks for showing me your cultural-festival performance.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say I showed it to you...”
“Plus, I’m the sort of idol who likes making sure her friends all get the chance to see what I’m really made of.”
H-Her friends! She just called me a friend just now, didn’t she?! There’s that extroversion in action again! I can’t believe she’s accepting enough to call someone like me a friend!
“I mean...probably,” Mio added a second later.
“Probably?!”
“The thing is, looking back, I haven’t really had all that many real friend-friends...? I always had to prioritize work and practice when I was a kid, so I never got to go out to play or hang out much.”
Wait. Does that mean...?
“S-So when they told me I could invite people to the show if I wanted to, you were the first person who came to mind, and I was like, ‘Oh, I guess I’m the shows-off-to-her-friends type, it turns out!’ That’s all! You don’t even have to come, if you don’t—”
“Of course I’ll come!” I exclaimed. “I’d love to! For sure!”
Mio’s not the ultra-social extrovert I took her for after all! It turns out...I really am just friends with her, plain and simple! Sorry, Mio! I’ve totally been assuming that I was just one of a bunch of friends for you this whole time!
“Oh? Well, good,” said Mio. “I’ll send you all the deets later.”
“Great!”
“Oh, and also...” Mio continued, her voice fading into a slight mumble. “Tell Maki that the four of us are moving on ahead. If she wants to come reclaim her spot with us, she’s gonna have to earn it, or there might not be a spot left anymore!”
“Wait, why me?! Didn’t you say you talked with her on the phone just a minute ago?! Why didn’t you just say all that to her?!”
“Ugh... It wasn’t that sort of phone call, okay? We were just chatting, basically.”
“Oh. Really?”
“We’ve never done the ‘just chatting’ thing before, you know? It’s always been all about work for us, which is probably why our relationship’s been so weirdly tense for so long... So I decided that it’s about time I tried to learn more about her, you know? Like, Maki herself,” Mio muttered in a way that really made it sound like she was making up excuses for herself. In a weird sort of way, the contrast that cut with her usual straight-to-the-point persona made it easier to take her words at face value.
Considering how the two of them had come across during their confrontation at the cultural festival, I saw them trying to get to know each other more personally as a step in the right direction. After all, I was positive that Shooting Star was just as important to Makina as it was to Mio. It was a place where she belonged, in her own sort of way.
“So saying that sorta stuff myself would be, well... It can wait for a little longer, that’s all. It’s not that I’m too scared to say it to her face, okay?!”
“Ha ha ha! Yeah, I know. I get the picture—especially the part where you made sure to say there only might not be a spot for her at the end,” I said.
Mio let out a strangled gasp. Knowing how she tended to act, it would’ve been incredibly in character for her to flat out say that there wouldn’t be a spot left for Makina, period. The fact that she’d gone out of her way to phrase around that implication almost felt like it was asserting the opposite—like she was saying that when Makina finally came back to the group, Mio would make a spot for her, no matter what it took.
“Wh-Whatever! Not my problem how you read into it,” said Mio.
She hadn’t even been able to bring herself to deny it, so obviously, I was onto something. Hee hee! You know, she’s actually surprisingly easy to read now that I know her a little better.
“Anyway,” Mio said after a pause, “I’m getting pretty close to the place I’m heading, so I’m gonna hang up now.”
“Got it,” I replied. “Oh! Hey, Mio?”
“What?”
“Good luck with your work!”
“Oh... Come on, as if I’d need luck! But also...thanks!”
With that, Mio hung up.
I slumped onto the couch, flopping listlessly onto my back. Talking about Makina with Mio...well, it hadn’t made me nervous, per se, but it did prompt all sorts of questions for me. Mio had still seemed a little awkward and stuff during that part of our conversation, but if sneaking her into the cultural festival had helped the two of them get at least a little closer to each other, then I liked to think that my efforts hadn’t been in vain. Or Mukai’s, Koganezaki’s, and everyone else’s efforts, of course!
“I’m kind of excited to see Mio’s show...but I hope I get to see them all together someday. The whole group, Makina included,” I muttered to myself. When the opportunity arose, I wanted to earn the money for tickets and pay my own way into one of their concerts. Which would be pretty hard, considering how tough it would probably be to get tickets and how I’d first have to find a part-time job I could actually succeed at, but it would be nice if I could manage it. “Guess I’ll start by watching that movie Mio recommended.”
A frighteningly believable image of myself failing to deal with a customer at a convenience store’s counter was beginning to form in my mind, and I escaped it—along with reality—by hitting the “play” button.