rubestie

Season: Summer

Location: Rooftop

Characters: Jin, Hokuto, Chiaki, Tori, Anzu

TW: mention of weight/calories.

Jin: Anyways. The outfits you’re looking at are just prototypes, so if you find any problems with them, we can have them fixed. The transfer student is also saying she’ll make us a few more outfits if we want.

jin+chiaki

Chiaki: It should be enough with just this one. It’s still just our first live as Rain-bows, after all…

If we keep doing costume changes before cementing a clear image of ourselves as a unit, we will just be making it harder for our audience to recognize us.

Hokuto: I agree. It would be hard on the transfer student as well. She has a lot of other jobs to attend to besides making our outfits, after all.

This outfit is really well-made, so there should be no problem at all to make this our official outfit.

Tori: Agreed~. I feel like these need some fine-tuning, though. To be honest, I’ve lost a bit of weight since entering school…

If this was made based on the measurements taken back then, then it might be a bit big.

Chiaki: Hm? Is that true, Himemiya? You’re already pretty slim… do you really have any weight to lose?

Tori: It’s true. Not only am I burning lots of calories with all these lessons, but I stopped eating sweets because I don’t want to risk getting pimples.

It’s no wonder I’ve lost some weight.

Chiaki: That’s not good, Himemiya, more meat equals more power! You need to eat lots and build up your strength! Here, I’ll give you the rest of my bento ♪

This one has eggplant in it so I could never eat it…!

Tori: Don’t push your leftovers onto me! I-I’m okay! I usually gain weight easily, so I’ll probably go back to my original weight in no time!

Jin: Hahaha. Uuuhm, summing up… Everyone’s happy with these outfits, right?

The transfer student ended up finishing them before I could run the design through you guys, so I was a bit worried actually.

Hokuto: Don’t say that as if the transfer student did something wrong. You should be praising her for how effective her work is.

Jin: Yup. You’re a good kid. Honestly, this applies to all of you, but… the transfer student is really evolving at a surprising speed. Youth really is an amazing thing.

Moving on. For our songs and choreography, we had Hidaka ask his father’s connections, or rather, friends, to help us out.

From what I could gather from today’s lesson, we’ll have memorized them all in time for the live.

And since the outfits are looking to be fine as well, we should be able to perform live without any problems. Of course, we’ll still have to advertise ourselves beforehand, as well as practice our fan-service in preparation.

Ah, that reminds me. Apparently, the magazine serializing Project-Saga will also be advertising for us, so we might be getting audience members even from outside of the school…

It seems like Project-Saga has been picking up popularity lately, so we can expect there to be quite a lot of people coming to see us.

Hokuto: I see. Since there will be guests coming from outside of the school, does that mean our live will be ranked as an “S1” dreamfes?

Jin: No, it won’t be anything that grandiose. This live is being treated as if it was an official dreamfes, but in reality, it’s more like a special event that has nothing to do with that system.

I feel like this kind of thing will become the norm moving forward. Call it a hunch.

Yumenosaki has become somewhat out of touch with the current trends, so I think the dreamfes system itself is due to be reformed.

jin+tori

Tori: Ah, the president also said something like that.

He rarely shows himself in the student council room, but each time he comes over, he will end up bickering with the vice president about those kinds of topics.

They always look like they’re having fun together… I’m still not at a place where I can join their discussions.

Well, whatever. Then, uhm, does that mean things are going well for now? Is all we need to focus on for now to do our best to improve the level of our performance, even just by a bit?

Jin: That’s the most important thing, yeah. But there is a slight problem. That’s what I wanted to ask you guys’ advice about.

You see~, I don’t really get what’s going on, but… It seems there’s another unit that wants to participate in that live alongside us.

Hokuto: Right. What’s the problem with that?

It’s not like we really need it to be a solo live, and I feel like having more units participating would raise the overall quality of the live and make it more exciting, no?

Chiaki: Yup! More people will come to see that unit as well, so it’s a win-win situation for everyone! We should always accept all challengers… ✰

Jin: How are both of you this confident already, we haven’t even achieved any results with Rain-bows yet… And also, there’s something even weirder to this.

Apparently, the unit in question was formed by Kunugi-sensei.

It’s like he’s imitating us, he’s got himself a first-year, second-year and a third-year to create a unit with him as their mentor.

Hokuto: Kunugi-sensei? I wonder why?

Jin: You tell me… I tried asking him directly, but he refused to give me an answer. I don’t really get it.

Based on the unit, maybe he also wanted to participate in Project-Saga?

Chiaki: Fufu. Maybe he didn’t want Sagami-sensei to be the only one in the spotlight.

Jin: He’s not really that type of person, though. Anyways, I don’t really know why he created that unit…

It somehow creeps me out, so let’s keep our guards up.

This isn’t like Kunugi-sensei, after all. This might be due to someone meddling unnecessarily.

Chiaki: Someone, huh…But who would that be? Don’t tell me there is a mysterious organization behind Project-Saga scheming to conquer the world!?

Jin: Yeah, no. That’s such an overused plot that even if some drama TV show tried to use it they would just be cancelled for being unrealistic.

But then again, I can’t help but have this bad feeling… I’ll try bothering Kunugi-sensei again to find out more.

Well, leaving that aside. Since we’ll be performing together at the live, we’ll need to tweak our performance to match up with theirs.

It seems like they want to do a live battle, so if things go down that route we’ll have to be proactive and come up with countermeasures.

In a live battle, the winners stand alone on top, while the losers gain almost nothing at all, after all.

We’re supposed to be the main characters of Project-Saga, so it would just be shameful if we lost.

If that happened, we could end up being kicked out of the project, with Kunugi-sensei and his unit replacing us and taking over the center position for Project-Saga.

Tori: H, hmph… Well, I wouldn’t want to be involved in this stupid project forever, so I wouldn’t really mind though.

But it would feel a little frustrating, I guess. I hate losing, after all.

Hokuto: Yeah. I agree. Of course, we’ll be going in with the intention of winning.

Chiaki: Fufu. If we can resolve the conflict through the power of friendship and words, then that would be best, though.

If it comes down to it, then it can’t be helped… It would be pathetic if we showed up to a fight without preparing ourselves and got our asses kicked.

We should do whatever we can to prepare ourselves in case we end up fighting. What exactly is Kunugi-sensei’s unit like?

Jin: N~, I still don’t have a lot of info on them. They’re another temporary unit, formed later than us - the day before yesterday, I think.

As of now, I don’t think they’ve done any activities at all.

I used my authority as a teacher to look over their application form, for what it’s worth. But the only thing on there was their unit name, as well as the names of the members.

Chiaki: Even that is important information. If we’re familiar with any of the members, we might be able to estimate their abilities somewhat.

Jin: Right. Well, let’s start by going over the members. The leader is, obviously, Kunugi-sensei.

Unlike me, Kunugi-sensei didn’t stop his training regimen even after retiring, so I think he’s a pretty formidable enemy.

Tori: If only Sagami-sensei had kept training on his own, then we would have had less trouble as well… Well, I guess continuing to do lessons after retiring is weirder than stopping them.

Jin: N~. It hasn’t been that long since Kunugi-sensei retired, after all, I guess he hasn’t lost all of his old habits yet.

As for me, it’s been long enough that I sometimes forget that I used to be an idol at all.

Hokuto: Don’t forget that. Even if you were to forget, the world will keep remembering.