It was the day of the midterm exam.
The day started with an ironic cloudy sky. Even before it started raining, my uniform felt damp, and my steps naturally became heavier. Maybe it was my imagination, but the other students looked the same way.
It was 9:50 in the morning. Today’s examination would be held during second period, which was just about to begin.
Many students had gathered in the large auditorium, the one that had been used for the entrance ceremony.
Only ten people could take the exam at the same time. However, since any student was allowed to observe, many people gathered, from freshmen to seniors.
There were a lot of diligent students who hoped to learn something from watching the other students’ performances. Wait, no, that wasn’t the reason.
No other exam had garnered so much attention on any other day.
There were two main reasons why today’s exam had attracted so many people.
One reason was that Erio Shibuya and Shiika Ikebukuro, the two prodigies of the Music Department, were taking their exam together. Their spat in the Vocal Basics class had become a hot topic of gossip among the students and had now spread throughout the school. No doubt it would attract a lot of attention if the two were to be evaluated at the same time.
The second reason was that the judges themselves were very popular.
Three judges sat in the front row, in front of the auditorium’s stage. The lineup varied depending on the day, but it seemed that today’s trio was particularly popular among young people.
“Gah-ha-ha! All these eyes watching, wow. I must be too popular for my own good, huh?”
It was a big, bearlike man with a scruffy face, chewing peanuts with the shell on and laughing heartily. His name was Touyo Oomuta.
A legendary artist who made a name for himself as the guitarist and vocalist in a rock band famous for death metal and shouting vocals. Fans had a soft spot for his habit of wearing bathroom slippers out and about, and they called him Old Fart Level 100.
“Wow, you’re the optimistic type. Can you share some of that cheerfulness with me, too? Ah, I’m so unlucky. Oh, when will I find happiness?”
Sighing, head propped in one hand, the woman beside him was beautiful, with a sorrowful air and a sexy, mature aura. She was wearing a dress that exposed her cleavage. Her name was Hamako Ebina.
A world-renowned jazz violinist, she was considered some sort of world-saving Joan of Arc, sent to safeguard the future of Japan’s jazz violin world, as the number of violinists declined each year. At the same time, she was known for her low self-esteem, and one day, when she reached her mental limit, she was heard to remark, “Who are you calling Joan? Please, won’t someone save me?!” Which became a well-known meme.
“Ah yes. But perhaps these kids aren’t here to see us. Perhaps they’re here to see Kushiro?”
“Hmm! I think you could be right! After all, he’s a pop star who can make anyone’s heart flutter. Yep, no one can beat Kushiro!”
“Ah-ha-ha… Both of you are exaggerating. I still have a long way to go.”
The man who answered smartly, holding a porcelain cup, was a gentle-looking, handsome fellow with semi-long gray hair and a black glove on his left hand. His name was Reiri Kushiro.
He appeared younger than the other two judges, but it was clear from his career history that he deserved to stand alongside them. He began as a child actor at the age of seven, then at the age of thirteen, he became the vocalist of a male idol unit at a superlarge agency. At the age of twenty-three, he announced the dissolution of the group and his own solo project at their tenth-anniversary live performance. He’s been active under a private agency since then and was currently twenty-seven. When he was still working as an idol, he attracted many fans with his stunning dance moves and vocals. As an actor, he appeared in many dramas, movies, and commercials. In addition to that, he had ten million subscribers on WayTube. On the international stage, he was a highly active superstar who was gaining fans in Southeast Asia and North America.
On top of all that, he was said to have a great personality, as well. There were a lot of guys out there who were jealous of him and secretly wished horrible ailments on him, like halitosis or incurable athlete’s foot. I could kinda understand how they felt.
So this is what he looked like.
No wonder the students flocked to the auditorium to catch a glimpse of this superstar.
The students taking the exam looked nervous, perhaps because there were so many people watching.
Only two of them appeared calm.
One was Erio Shibuya.
She was gazing at her phone, checking the sound level on her headphones, not even looking at the judges at all.
It seemed she was double-checking the lyrics and vocal arrangement before her performance.
Her expression was solemn. It was proof that she was approaching this with the right amount of seriousness.
The other was my little sister, Shiika Ikebukuro.
“Gak. This is bad.”
“What’s wrong, Shiika? Are you nervous?”
“The slug I just found is exhausted.”
“Hand it over here before the performance starts. I’ll return it to its original place.”
I grabbed a leaf with a slug riding on it from Shiika.
It had emerged after sensing rain. Then it was plucked up by a human and brought to this large auditorium. What a shock to the senses. Poor li’l guy.
Even though Shiika was my sister, it was still a little gross to think that she’d pick up a slug to carry around and care for.
And right before a very important exam. Right before a major battle.
In this kind of situation, where you could hardly blame a person for running to the bathroom with a stress-induced stomachache, being this laid-back… Well, that was just fine.
(Not that Shiika had any reason to be nervous anyway.)
After all, she didn’t know a single celebrity, either from TV or WayTube.
No matter how famous a person may be, they were considered normal in the eyes of anyone who didn’t know who they were.
The WayTube videos Shiika watched were things like nature documentaries. Mysteries of the natural world. Animals. Or videos that had nothing to do with human beings, like philosophical explanation videos or reproductions of physics calculations in 3D.
A normal singer would have suffered from a lack of immersion, and their musical expressiveness could have been affected as a result.
But for Shiika, who never had a choice but to deal with the onslaught of all kinds of sounds since birth, keeping a measured distance from musical content was actually the right balance.
Just then, a bell rang. The lights in the auditorium grew dim. There was a hush, like before a movie screening, and the audience fell silent, the excited chattering melting away.
“It’s time. Can you go by yourself?”
“Yeah. I’m going.”
“Right. Good luck.”
After that brief exchange, Shiika jumped up from her chair and walked onstage.
The only ones left in the spectator seats were the slug and me. And…