All right, we're nearing the end of the Saten Ruiko Day Countdown stream (and, as selfish and arrogant as this sounds, the easier part of the countdown stream). So, shall we get right to it?
You all understand it already, right? Special thank you to Reiriniverse from Tumblr for making the cover image of today's oneshot!
Disclaimer: I do not own BanG Dream! Girls Band Party
It was a bright and sunny Saturday morning, something that did not happen very often this time of the year. The bright pools of sunlight breaking through the curtains signaled the start of the new day, forcing the sixteen-year-old girl to begrudgingly get out of bed. Her clothes were all messy and she had the worst case of bedhead that anyone who knew her ever had, but these did not stop her from stopping the sunlight from disturbing her peaceful slumber.
Slumping sleepily over to where the window was, the girl groggily opened the curtains in one fluid motion. Only after she has done this did she realize just how big of a mistake she had made. Cursing louder than she would have liked others within a three-kilometer radius to hear, Aoba Moca had to quickly cover her eyes to shield them from the bright rays of sunlight that flooded in her room all of a sudden.
As soon as Moca managed to get used to the sunlight, she opened her window and stuck her head out to enjoy the calm zephyr-like breeze. This, unfortunately, did not last forever, and the silence was broken when Moca heard the chirping of birds above her head.
Looking up to see the source of the sound, Moca saw that a group of grey thrushes was sitting on the branch right above Moca's window. Smiling softly to herself, having been reminded of a close and important friend of hers after seeing the birds, Moca nodded to herself in determination.
Today would be a weird day for Moca, and even Moca herself didn't know just how she felt about what she would be doing on this day. It was one of those weird days where none of Moca's friends were available for Moca to hang out with or annoy the living daylights out of. As a result of this, Moca didn't have anything to spend the day with and was kind of worried.
Despite this little setback, Moca was already thinking of all the things that she could potentially be doing to fill in the void. However…
"None of these really make a lot of sense…" Moca muttered to herself as she was going through the notes that she had on her phone, slowly but surely deleting all of the potential ideas for things to do on a lonely day. The suggestions ranged from shooting practice to traveling the world, none of which Moca thought were viable options considering the current circumstances.
With a sigh, Moca was about to plop down on her bed again to try and think of something when her phone lit up once again. Curious to see what was happening, Moca reached for her phone and saw that one of her friends had sent her a message.
"What does Hii-chan want of me now?" Moca muttered to herself as she opened the message, expecting to see a rant or even Himari's form of teasing Moca as a means of payback for what Moca usually does. As a matter of fact, Moca was kind of expecting that as she reminisced the prank that she pulled on Himari only two days ago. Moca was pleasantly surprised to find out that that was not what Himari had sent her.
Himari had sent Moca something that Moca could do to spend the day.
Moca had to admit that Himari's idea was very tempting for her to do, so she responded with a quick 'thank you' message with a defeated smile. Not looking forward to Himari's reaction, especially knowing that she was now indebted to Himari of all people, Moca looked up the fastest way to get there.
Moca finally knew what she could do, and she had to admit that she was actually really looking forward to this.
"I guess Hii-chan is good for something after all," Moca muttered to herself, smiling to herself as she held a certain hand-made doll close to her heart.
Making up her mind, Moca gently returned the doll to its rightful place by her bed before she hurried off to change her clothes and head out. She had to hurry if she wanted to get to that place in time…
"So this is the place…" Moca breathed out as she had to stretch her neck to see the top of what was only the entrance. Feeling somewhat unsure about this now that she was actually here, Moca pushed herself forward by reminding herself that this was the only thing that she could be doing now.
'Besides… I've made it this far to here already, I might as well, right?' Moca thought to herself as she stepped up and got her ticket. As Moca absent-mindedly looked at the cyan-colored strip of paper, she made a mental note to thank Himari for also giving her the discount coupon.
It wasn't long until Moca managed to get through the queue and make it inside, but that was when she realized that she had run into the next problem.
"Now what?" Moca muttered to herself, soft enough so as to avoid the people around her hearing her. This was the first time she was here, and without having looked up in advance what she could be doing or seeing here Moca had no idea where to go next.
Moca was about to try and look for somebody who could help her and guide her to somewhere interesting when she saw a familiar head of light-blue hair.
"Hina-senpai!" Moca called out before she knew what she was doing, trying to walk over to where her senior was in the crowd. Moca's shout was enough to get Hina's attention, but it also grabbed the attention of everybody in the surroundings.
Somewhat embarrassed and sheepishly so, Moca made her way through the sea of people to where Hina was standing. As soon as she reached her, the first thing that Moca noticed was that Hina was visibly happy to see her.
"Hi, Moca-chan, fancy seeing you here," Hina said in a cheerful voice as soon as the two of them managed to find a quieter area to stand; even Hina was feeling slightly uneasy at all the attention that she was getting from everybody. With a smile, Hina added, "Did you come and see the kingdom of the emperor penguins too, Moca-chan?"
"Eh?" Moca blinked, having been caught off-guard by Hina's question and needing some time to fully process what Hina was talking about. When Moca finally understood, she gently shook her head, "Actually… I don't know what there is to see here…"
"Is that so? Hm… let's see…" Hina trailed off, taking a moment to herself to think of something to say. It didn't take Hina too long to come up with something, however, and before Moca knew what was happening Hina had already grabbed her hand and started to drag her away, "We can just run and see everything in this aquarium! Let's go!"
And with that, Moca knew how she would be spending the rest of the day: getting dragged around by her senior around a place she didn't know anything about.
"And these little cuties are called the Bottlenose Dolphin," Hina said, motioning to the tank containing the marine mammals the guitarist was talking about. As Hina spoke, three of the dolphins swam close and played right in front of the glass, eliciting a giggle from Hina and a smile from Moca.
"They look playful," Moca said, trying to follow the movements of one of the dolphins with her eyes, but this proved to be a mistake on her end. The dolphin in question noticed what Moca was doing and took it as an excuse to swim around frantically to try and confuse Moca.
Whether or not that was the dolphin's original intention, it did succeed in making Moca slightly dizzy, forcing the girl with ivory-colored hair to look away for some time.
"It may not be a good idea to try and keep up with them, Moca-chan," Hina said with a knowing smile, looking back at the elegant swimmers before adding, "These swimmers can reach speeds over thirty kilometers an hour."
"That explains a lot…" Moca muttered, putting her hand on the wall beside her to try and steady herself before she tried to say something else. Moca didn't have to say anything, however, as her stomach chose that exact moment to growl loudly.
It wasn't just Hina who ended up laughing at Moca's expense after hearing that sound; Moca was sure that the dolphin's high-pitched clicks were their way of laughter as well. All that Moca could do was look away with a flustered face, hoping and praying that Hina would stop laughing at her soon.
Finally, after three minutes had passed, Hina wiped the tears in the corner of her eyes away before she turned to where Moca was standing.
"I-I'm sorry, Moca-chan," Hina's voice was still shaky, almost as if she was trying her hardest to try and regain her composure. Evidently, she wasn't doing a very good job at this, and Hina had to take a couple more seconds to regain her breathing before she dared say something again, "Come on, Moca-chan, there is a little café not too far from here."
Leading the way to where Moca could only imagine was the way to food, the two girls walked through the rooms much faster than the earlier rooms. Hina did take her time to tell the random piece of trivia for the marine animals she thought were interesting, but aside from those times, they remained relatively quiet.
Until Moca remembered something that she should have brought up much earlier.
"Hina-senpai, how do you know so much about the animals here?" Moca asked, trying to sound as respectful as possible as the words left her mouth. Before Hina could get the opportunity to properly answer Moca's question, however, Moca quickly added, "Hina-senpai didn't look at any of the labels or anything whenever we reached a tank with new animals."
"It's because we had a photo shoot here several months ago," Hina said casually without much thought for the answer, expertly dodging two people in front of her before she continued, "I liked this place a lot so I decided to stay here to work part-time here. Today just happened to be my off-day but I couldn't think of not being here for long."
Moca nodded absent-mindedly despite knowing that Hina probably wouldn't be able to see this action. Moca wanted to say something along the lines of saying how she was impressed at Hina's dedication to the marine animals when Hina suddenly stopped.
It took Moca exactly a fraction of a second to realize why.
"We're here!" Hina exclaimed cheerfully, motioning to the small area set aside with enough empty tables for them to sit at. The two girls didn't need much confirmation after that; they both headed to the nearest table and sat down, two sighs of relief at being able to rest their tired legs following soon after.
After they made their minds as to what to order, the two girls sat back down again and waited for their food. As they did so, Moca took the opportunity to thank Hina for showing her around the place.
"It's honestly no problem, I'm happy to see Moca-chan interested in the beautiful animals, too," Hina said with a smile while waving Moca's words of gratitude away. With a brighter smile, Hina added, "Whenever Moca-chan feels like coming here again, make sure to tell me and we can hang out here again."
"I will, senpai," Moca said with a grin, accepting the hand that she was being offered.
The conversation then shifted to the animals that they have seen on their little visit that day, Hina wasting no time or energy to describe every last one of them in great detail and how amazing they were. Moca, on the other hand, could only talk about how much of an impact those animals have made on her, but that seemed to please Hina enough.
It was soon after that that their orders arrived and the sound of chatter soon died down in favor of enjoying their food. But both girls knew, despite having stopped talking, what the other was about to say.
They wouldn't have wanted to spend the day any other way.
And that wraps up today's oneshot! Thank you for reading it, I hope that you enjoyed it, please leave a review telling me what you thought and until tomorrow for the next and last BanG Dream! oneshot of this countdown spree.
For those who do not know, here's a fun little piece of trivia: the friend that Moca thought of at the start of this oneshot was Hazawa Tsugumi; Tsugumi's given name can be translated as the "thrush" birds. This makes Afterglow's keyboardist the only girl from Afterglow whose name does not have any characters in her name that directly translate to something related to plants.
Countdown currently on: two!