No doubt had the group started to become more tense, with the first concert rapidly arriving. Also the fact is that the group does not seem to be improving that quickly, as a group. The group individually is improving but they are not improving together.
" I just do not feel like we are performing in time." says Liana drinking some water covered in sweat.
"Me neither" was a unison sort of response by everyone.
"Oh, are the little rookies having a bit of trouble." came a nice but annoying voice from a short girl with two pigtails, with an evil grin. Next to her was a taller girl who looked completely over the smaller ones' antics.
Most people seemed to think to themselves 'who is the bitch'. However unlike them
Sanaka says
"Who is this bitch." Everyone looked at her briefly thinking that they were also thinking that.
"Come on, that is no way to speak to a senior, oh wait most of you guys are probably older than me" she teases, with the same annoying smile.
"So this is Cylei, her real personality." Hosta whispers. The other girls nod.
"I had heard she was bad backstage, and well I guess she lives up to her reputation."
"Then why do they put up with her?"
"Because she is bloody good" Liana interjects this time with a nod of agreement by the others.
"She also knows her place, she won't give crap to any of her seniors."
"Oh so you are all stunned by seeing me in person. And I was here to help you fix that, that performance." she adds, now seeing the room deadly silence, her friend just sighs, looks like she's waiting for her child to finish petting a dog or something.
However I think they are all wrong. This girl seems slightly different, could she be the cliche bully who really just takes shots at her juniors? probably not because no one would really act like that in real life. So obviously the true purpose of motivating us, is that why she only does it to her juniors to enlighten them. I guess I'll play along with her storyline.
"We weren't even trying you idiot. These routines that are given to us that you guys do, we find them utterly boring." Sanaka yells out to her.
'boring ' no one, not even Sayaki thought this, but they all understood that Sanaka was declaring war.
"Hey that was secret Sanaka, now they might give us slightly challenging one's" Hosta yells out energetically. Everyone joins in with these remarks.
"Then prove it." Says Cylei confidently.
Perfect response I would say, asking us to prove it, then we will outperform what we usually do and she would have secretly achieved her goal, to help us.
As I predicted with everyone motivated at peak ability, everything ran completely smoothly. My body felt energized by the people around me, like rowing with a good crew around you. The best performance we had ever done, all united against her.
I kind of feel bad because she is such a nice person to do this for us. Well I expect her to give us a motivational speech after this telling us how when you are motivated by a singular person you can perform so well. However she stomped her feet with a pout face and left, everyone cheered and gave her bad remarks as she left.
And I'm shocked, she is so dedicated to the cause of helping us get better that she is going to allow her reputation to be tarnished. Keeping up the act, I almost feel a tear fall down my eye. I was contemplating telling everyone about what she was actually doing but I don't want to negate her sacrifice. So I will just go thank her.
…
"What the hell was that?" Cylei says with the same pout face as before.
"How could a bunch of idiots improve that much?" her reputation was tarnished, they had made her look like a fool. She was already renowned for tormenting people, but now they would all think she was just a straight loser.
"Calm down, just show them next time in your performance." the taller girl finally spoke, her Name is Keele.
However Cylei didn't listen, she just grabbed her own pigtails in frustration. The whole purpose of the other girl was to redirect Cylei incredible talent towards the right direction.
The other girl was by no means not good, even currently you would say that she on average is better, purely because Cylei has really good performances and then really bad performances.
"Cylei is that you."
A girl says walking around the corner where Cyle quickly made sure that her hair was neat again.
"Yeh" she says, raising one eyebrow as a taller than her girl with black hair, pretty ugly and unremarkable face. She recognises the girl to be the one who called out that she was a bitch and the one who said the routine's were easy. Cylei struggled to contain her anger at this girl, but before Cylei could have any other thoughts the girl was on her knees.
"Thank you, for sacrificing your image for the sake of our group." she says with complete gratitude.
"What are you talking about, crazy girl." Cylei replies, pushing over the girl. However instead of the girl showing anger, she smiles while getting up.
"Still sticking to it now, thankyou." she says bowing and leaving.
"What the hell was that"
"I do not know"
Cylei knew for sure however, that this was a form of mockery. That girl wanted to mock and ridicule her.
"That girl has officially declared war." Cylei said as her pigtails seemed to defy gravity sticking straight upwards.
…
The last changes to the squad will be made after the rehearsal on two days. Apparently their shouldn't be many changes, like a change to the centers. But most people were getting anxious. Our performances had all improved thanks to that Cylei's noble acts. I'm considering giving her a present if everything goes well.
"What's wrong Hayate?" I ask, as Hayate is looking extremely gloomy at the moment. We are currently in the change rooms after practice, getting ready to go home.
"I don't know, I just feel like I'm falling behind, even though I know I'm improving I'm just not standing out, like you and Sayaki both stand out a lot, like when you are performing you look like a completely different person" she says gloomily.
I look like a different person. Well that's because I use the look from the book.
"Well I know you are skeptical of the book. But whenever I'm on stage I do this look, that apparently helps me standout." as I demonstrate it Hayate looks shocked.
"That really does work well."
I pull out the book.
"So there are different looks for different people."
"Which one did you use?" she asks, marveling at the information. I gulp
"The one for the good looking person. You should do the one for the cute, I think that will work. You also can take the book home to practice"
"Thank you so much"
We say goodbyes and leave, I feel like a good person.
…
So I don't really know what happened even with a good performance on my part. Me and Sayaki have been downgraded to row 2.
"What the fu–" yells Sayaki looking at the changes attached to the board.
"You said no major changes, specifically like changing the center. " Sayaki was probably seeing more than red at this point. Maybe she was staring at a red giant sun, and had been for the last 10 hours.
Well the person sitting at the center was none other than Hayate.
When we had met the day after I had given her the book she did give a different aura, and throughout the whole of the performance I had a weird urge to look behind me.
I thought to myself when I looked at her and saw Hayate looking as cute as our new dog that I had made a mistake giving the book to her for a day. But then I remembered that I also had my special look so I should be fine anyway.
…
"You gave the one and only advantage you have on the looks department away?" my brother says whacking his head against the table.
"But we both have the look, it should be equal shouldn't it." I protest.
"No, you dumbass. The ugly face brings someone from ugly to okay, while the cute face brings them from cute to mega cute. Do you remember what face you had to use?"
"Ugly" Sid calls out, catching both of us off guard, thinking 'he's here?'.
"So I am basically screwed?" I ask in despair.
I'll never be able to catch up to her. Long lost, forever in her shadow. I just jump on the couch burying my face into the inbetween of the cushion, lost forever I am.
"No you are not." my brother says, consideringly.
"Can you elaborate please?" calls Sid.
Is he eavesdropping from the walls?
"It was an inevitable thing that was going to be done. But preferably down the track. When I was doing research I learnt a lot about Amano. And if things go as expected you will be forced to team up with Hayate and Sayaki in a three way Idol group. So you were gonna be giving her the look in order for your group anyway" my brother says, pulling out a carrot from the fridge and eating it.
"But aren't three person Idol groups really competitive?"
"That's the whole point, to see if you crumbled against stars of the Idol industry." my brother says casually. Well I guess he doesn't have to do it, or has never done it. My brother seems to notice my look of doubt.
"If you knew anything you would know that Mayaki, Hayate, and Tayaki, All went down this route." well he did know how to motivate me.
"Back to the point, however, you have lost your center position. And you cannot change that unless you injure your opponent, which she is your friend? So I assume that's out of the picture? The reason for the rookie concerts is just to help you get good enough to be selected by the leaders of the 8 separate groups. So it's time to start trying to make connections with members of these groups, make yourself noticeable."
"I think I have already been noticed by the prodigy Cylei"
"You mean crazy C-, nevermind "
"Okay here is the list of people, they may be slightly outdated." my brother says laying the book down showing a bunch of names with pictures and description.
"Why would it be outdated"
"The information was from weird unknown sources."
Well I guess that clarifies some things.
"Okay I think your target should be this girl, in terms of getting to know her." my brother points to a cute girl with dark black hair in a high ponytail. Her face is quite petite and that of a child with a little button nose. Hataya's photo makes her look really young, wait and the girl next to her is Mayaki. She actually doesn't really look that special. So this is a quite outdated picture thing.
"Isia Irinsta"
"Why choose her?"
"Well the book says that she is kind, and helpful."
"But is she good?"
"She was Osiki's number 1 rival, throughout their haydays."
Is it good to be compared with Osiki? My brother seems to be picking up on my lack of knowledge of who Osiki is and gives me a frown.
"You don't know who Osiki is?"
"No I met her, but I've never seen her perform"
"Well they were the Tayaki and Hataya equivalents."
Tayaki and Hataya equivalents? Does Mayaki not fit within the picture, was there someone like Mayaki before the Mayaki. Okay I was probably getting caught too much up with the crappy details.
"Will I be able to even get a conversation with her?"
"You should" he says unconfidently. "Nah you will be fine, just ask for help, and then she will see all your flaws and never leave you alone until you have perfected them."
I look down at her face, how am I meant to get this girl to help me?"
…
Well that was quite easy.
I am currently on my fifth hour of practice, after my CX training had just finished with this girl.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, THIS LEG IS BEING A SPASTIC." she yells why slapping my left leg with a bamboo stick.
She is little, probably doesn't come up to my shoulder, she is friendly and seems kind when you talk to her, but as soon as I started practicing her mind got switched out with a monster.
"MY BRAIN DID NOT GET SWITCHED OUT WITH A MONSTERS, YOU ARE WORST THAN A HEADLESS FISH ."
Please have mercy on me.
…
"That was really good and well done." she says smiling after we finish. Her voice seemed to change again to a nice cute small person voice.
"Well you didn't seem very pleased" I say miserably looking down.
"Oh did I, I am so sorry, I just get a little pumped up whenever we start training."
She calls that a little pumped up?
she said in a shy sorrowful voice. I don't think I can stay mad for very long.
"Oh looks like your friends waiting, " she says pointing at Hayate who was waiting outside the hall. I suspect she went home and came back. "I'll see you monday" she says smiling, but also like she is forcing me to come monday, I smile scaredly as I say my goodbyes.
"Hi Hayate, sorry I have been too busy to talk this week" I say as I walk towards her.
"That's fine, I'm sorry for taking your spot" she says shyly. I just laugh it off, but the other half of me wants to make her feel guilty.
"Maybe I shouldn't have given you the book."
"I didn't realize the book was so powerful. It's almost like magic. When I was practicing in the park, a whole bunch of people started asking to go out with me, some of them even had partners."
"yeh, powerful stuff"
"Where did your brother find this stuff?"
"The dark web, apparently websites that shouldn't even exist, and some that never even did." Hayate seems a little confused by what I just said, and It doesn't make sense so she should be extremely confused.
"You know I honestly feel bad for that Cylei girl."
"Why? Wasn't she quite mean to everyone?"
"Don't you see, she did it for our benefit, a charade she put on to motivate us."
"Are you sure?"
"Why wouldn't I be? "
"That does make decent sense. Now I kind of feel bad for hating her. We should thank her, maybe get her a big present or something." we both nod in agreement, it is settled.
"Also you should join in with practicing with Iria, she is really friendly."
"Are you sure, I don't want to intrude? But that would be great getting personal lessons from her."
I secretly laugh to myself, you will join me in the pain.