Before you ask: yes, this will be going on for a while. And here we have an, uh… interesting pair to be writing for. I hope you all enjoy!
Special thanks to Reiriniverse from Tumblr for, again, making and providing the cover image of today's oneshot.
Disclaimer: I do not own BanG Dream! Girls Band Party
The past couple of days had been treating Shirokane Rinko very well, and the keyboardist of Roselia had to admit that she had not been this happy in a very long time. In a rare surge of self-confidence, Rinko decided to go out to a new and quiet café and get herself a treat for what she has accomplished in the last two weeks.
Roselia had a live a couple of days ago that, in Rinko's humble opinion, went really well. The live was something that she had been worrying about for a long time, so seeing it go without any problems was a big relief for her.
Rinko also had been doing very well in her classes as well, having survived the dreaded time of the year known to students worldwide as finals week. With the help of her bandmate creating a dedicated study schedule for everybody, Rinko was not the only who managed to pass her exams with flying colors.
But that wasn't what was putting that wide smile on Rinko's face. There was an event going on in one of the many games she played together with her best friend Udagawa Ako and the two of them had already gotten most of the event-exclusive rewards together. Among these rewards was the elusive legendary armor that Rinko was yearning for for the past two years.
"A lot… sure happened…" Rinko murmured to herself as she looked at the swirling surface of the hot milk in her glass. With a content sigh, the eighteen-year-old grabbed her glass and savored the taste of her drink.
"Shi-Shirokane-senpai?"
Rinko nearly choked on her drink, not having expected to hear her name getting called, much less so by a voice that sounded awfully familiar. Looking around frantically to try and find out who had called her, Rinko quickly found the culprit.
"Ichigaya-san?" Rinko breathed out when she recognized her junior standing right by her table.
The person who had called out to Rinko was indeed Ichigaya Arisa, Rinko's junior by a single year and the keyboardist of Poppin' Party. The younger girl looked somewhat uneasy, a small tray in her hands that carried a small bowl on it that she looked like she was anxious to enjoy.
"I-It's busy here…" Arisa trailed off, trying her hardest to look away from her senior while the words left her mouth, "So… does Shirokane-senpai mind if I sit here?"
Rinko looked back curiously after hearing what Arisa had said to her, finding to her surprise that the café had indeed become a lot more crowded than it was before. Much to Rinko's surprise, this was something that Rinko had not realized earlier. Seeing no reason to send her junior away, Rinko pulled all of her stuff to her side of the table and motioned for Arisa to sit down opposite from her.
"Thank you, Shirokane-senpai," Arisa said gratefully before gently sitting down in her seat. With a content smile, she took her little bowl and Rinko could see what was in it.
"Is that… anmitsu?" Rinko asked carefully, feeling like she recognized the treat that her junior had gotten for herself. Arisa looked up with an unreadable expression once she heard what Rinko had said, causing Rinko to flinch and prompting her to quickly add, "I'm sorry, it's just…"
"You're right, Shirokane-senpai…" Arisa mumbled off-handedly as she took a spoon and started to dig into her treat, "This café is the only place that they sell this around here, so I thought I should give it a try…"
The two keyboardists remained silent soon after, each of them relishing what they had ordered on their own. Rinko with her glass of warm milk and sweets, and Arisa with her bowl of anmitsu.
It would be a long time until one of them finally broke the silence between them again.
"So, Shirokane-senpai, how did you find this café?" Arisa asked, trying to sound casual but unable to hide the curiosity in her voice. Thankfully for her, Rinko did not seem to mind the question all that much.
Even if she did need a prolonged period of time to come up with her eventual answer.
"Well… Ako-chan found it… when she joined her sister two weeks ago…" Rinko recalled, remembering how Ako had come home one day and recounted her adventure to her. With a smile, and feeling like it would be all right to share it with Arisa, Rinko continued, "Ako-chan was invited to spend the day with her sister's band and one of them brought them all here… so Ako-chan told us about this place…"
"I see…" Arisa trailed off, lowering her half-full spoon back to her bowl and letting her senior's words sink in. The silence between them would have lasted significantly longer had Arisa not decided to bring up what Rinko had said earlier, "So Shirokane-senpai is very close with the other members of her band?"
"I am…" Rinko nodded with a smile, not hesitating in the slightest with her answer to this question and sounding surprisingly determined. With a look in her eyes that Arisa could not quite decipher, Rinko added, "Everyone in Roselia… they have helped me so much to improve and Ako-chan has been with me for so long…"
"Without Ako-chan… I may not have even found out about Roselia… or even join them…" Rinko continued her story with a somewhat downcast look on her face now, almost as if she had not fully realized this until Arisa made her talk about it. A prolonged period of silence followed that weighed heavily on both of their shoulders, but neither of them knew how to break it.
Just when Arisa had finally gathered enough courage to open her mouth, Rinko had started talking again.
"I am sorry, Ichigaya-san… it's just that I only now realized how much Ako-chan has done for me…" Rinko said with a small smile, her gaze never moving away from the swirling surface of her glass of milk. Arisa wanted to say something but had thought better, deciding that it would probably be better for Rinko to take her time to recollect her thoughts.
"Ako-chan and I… we met a couple of years ago…" Rinko was gingerly nodding along to her own words by now, and Arisa did not seem like she was about to stop her anytime soon, "We met in a game, an online game, and Ako-chan and I quickly became friends."
"Ako-chan keeps talking about this something that only I can do, but… I haven't found it yet…" Rinko admitted with a disappointed and downcast look on her face. Arisa was, much to her surprise, leaning in and waiting anxiously to hear the continuation of the story, but that was not something that would happen. Rinko had fallen silent, and Arisa took that as a cue to finally respond.
"She must really mean a lot to you if Shirokane-senpai talks about her like that," Arisa mused, looking at Rinko carefully to gauge her reaction to what she had said. In an unusual fit of comfort and confidence, Arisa had spouted the first words that came to her mind without realizing how rude they could have come across as.
Thankfully for Arisa, Rinko did not seem to mind Arisa's choice of words. As a matter of fact, Rinko was smiling at a fond memory while slowly lowering the glass of milk back down to the table in front of her.
"She does… I would not be here if it were not for Ako-chan…" Rinko said, not even needing to finish her sentence completely for Arisa to understand.
The two girls fell into a surprisingly comfortable period of silence in which neither of them did or said anything to try and break it. It was almost as if they both wanted the silence to continue.
"And how about Ichigaya-san?" Rinko asked, her voice being gentle and careful but her gaze never broke away from her glass. She knew that the younger of the two had heard her, and so Rinko continued, "Does Ichigaya-san… have someone like that? Someone who helped Ichigaya-san become who she is right now?"
Arisa did not respond directly. The truth was that she already knew the answer to Rinko's question, the figure of said person already popping into her mind almost instantly. Even so, for her to have to admit it out loud like this was still too much for Arisa.
The silent debate going on in Arisa's head did not go unnoticed by Rinko, who watched on with both a knowing and worried look on her face.
"You don't have to say anything if you don't want to, Ichigaya-san," Rinko muttered, fearing that she might have asked too much of her junior. It was then that Rinko remembered that she was talking with somebody who she had barely seen before today, and not with one of her fellow members of Roselia.
Rinko should have expected that it wasn't an easy thing for her to admit. Not only because of who she was talking to, but because she had to remember that they were not very close; they had effectively only started to get to know the other today.
Just as Rinko was about to open her mouth and apologize for asking such a personal question, she was shocked to hear a meek voice not far from her mutter something.
"I do…"
Looking up curiously, Rinko saw much to her surprise that Arisa looked uneasy but still very determined all the same. Before Rinko could say anything in response, Arisa had continued.
"The others in my band… I don't know what I would do without them…" Arisa mumbled softly but Rinko, who was focusing all of her attention on her, still managed to hear it. Arisa was looking away at this point, not feeling comfortable looking at her senior; and Rinko noticed this.
Both girls ended up looking away from each and remaining in a long period of silence that was only broken when one of the girls noticed the vibration in her pocket.
"Ah! I'm sorry…" Rinko apologized to Arisa before she pulled out her phone from her pocket. Rinko's eyes widened when she saw and recognized the name of the person who was calling her, and with one final look at Arisa she accepted the call and placed the device against her ear, "Hello? Ako-chan? … Yes… I-I see… right now? … All right, I will be right there."
Almost dejectedly, Rinko turned off her phone and slowly lowered her hand with it still in it. She took a couple seconds to process what she had just been told, but in actuality, she knew that she didn't need to.
"Do you have to go?" Arisa asked, almost off-handedly so as she looked up at her senior. Arisa didn't even wait for a response, feeling like she knew what the answer was anyway, so she decided to add off-handedly, "It was… nice… spending this time with you, Shirokane-senpai."
"Ichigaya-san…" Rinko beamed as Arisa's words reached her. Struggling to find the words for her own reply, Rinko took way to long to come up with her own response. When she did, she nodded gratefully, "I feel the same way, Ichigaya-san."
The two girls, gratefully enjoying the company of the other, fell in a comfortable silence after until Arisa reminded Rinko that her friends were waiting for her.
"R-Right… but before that, Ichigaya-san…" Rinko trailed off, fumbling around with her phone to try and get to something. This caught Arisa's attention, the younger of the two watching on curiously as Rinko was doing her things. With a somewhat shaky smile, Rinko turned back to Arisa, "Should we… share numbers? So we can meet up again in the future… if Ichigaya-san wants to?"
Arisa blinked a couple times after hearing Rinko's words, but she couldn't say that she hated the idea of it. After all, she did say that she enjoyed spending time with her senior earlier and both Arisa and Rinko knew that that was not a lie…
"All right," Arisa said, still rather unsure at this but bringing out her phone nonetheless. A few seconds later, she returned Rinko's phone back to her and the two smiled at the new contact that had been added to their respective contacts list.
"With this… Shirokane-senpai has to go, right?" Arisa asked, not intending to come over harsh or rude but the way she phrased her question, Arisa realized too late, may have been a bit too blunt. She was about to apologize for this, but Rinko had already nodded in response.
"Let's both work hard from now…" Rinko said with a content smile as she held her phone close to her. Arisa blinked a couple times, trying to find out what Rinko was trying to say, but Rinko had already continued before Arisa could do so, "That thing that only we can do… let's find it and work hard to do it!"
Arisa didn't need to hide how she felt about that nor did she need to take any time to think about it. She already knew the answer.
"Right!"
I didn't know how this oneshot would end up, as they're both characters I am not too used to writing, but I hope you all enjoyed it in the end! Stay tuned for tomorrow's oneshot that should go live at about the same time as this one did. Spoiler: thankfully, tomorrow's oneshot actually has a character in it that I am somewhat comfortable with depicting. Who might that character be? You just have to wait and find out tomorrow~
Current countdown: eight.