Spending time with your senior is definitely important.
If you're going to be around them almost all the time, and are expected to learn from them, might as well understand their personality and interests, right?
Of course, this was going fine within the individual groups of the Master Course. Their relationships, though varying, can be described as "getting along" or at least understand each other very well by now.
But.. Since idol work bombards them, and they really only spend time with their assigned seniors, Starish only has an idea of what the other seniors that aren't assigned to them are like. Although they do see them very often, they don't have any long discussions or conversations with each other, because they're not bothered to do so. And this affects them negatively.
That is Shining Saotome's.. Logic.
And so the president of the company whipped up a plan: to have every bandmate of Starish spend an individual day with a senior, including the two already assigned to the senior, because Shining feels it would still be beneficial.
When he presented this idea to everyone, he proposed having a test run first. The first senior that Starish was going to be with individual is: Ai.
"Wait, what exactly is the point of this, again?" Masato asks in confusion. The whole thing was hard to process, with how Shining was explaining it.
"Bonding is veryyyyy.. Important.. It is what generates the Happy Pulse when performing.. Without such bondssss.. It would be difficult to create the feeling of joy.." The president explains whilst beginning his dramatic exit. A rope cascaded from the ceiling as he grabbed onto it, whisking him up in the air. "After this exercises.. You all will understand in a way…"
And the president vanished in a cloud of smoke.
"Why am I the test run?" Ai says aloud suddenly. Though not clear on his usual stoic face, the cyanette felt irritated that he had to be the first run. He didn't quite understand what Shining meant by "bonding." What did it have to do with their songs?
Nobody in the room could really tell him an answer. In fact, the juniors, besides Syo and Natsuki, shifted uncomfortably.
~In Team Reiji's room~
"This is weird!" Otoya sighs, lying face-down on his bunk bed. "I mean, I'm completely okay with Rei-chan because Rei-chan is Rei-chan! But.." He rolled around. "I don't know why I'm nervous."
Reiji laughed, picking up his maracas. "I think this a great idea, though! It'd be fun to spend a day just with the kouhais~!" Reiji paused. "I have to say I'm jealous~ you both get to spend a day with Ai-Ai. I wouldn't get that assignment and Ai-Ai doesn't voluntarily want to spend time with me!"
The brunette's juniors sweat dropped. They had an idea as to why that is.
Tokiya sat on one of the couches, reading. But his mind couldn't focus on the words in the page at all.
Tokiya had remained calm throughout the whole presentation and all, but upon hearing that the first person he'd have to spend a day with.. Was Mikaze-san.
Now, Tokiya doesn't dislike Ai. Not at all. He also doesn't have any particular grudge against him or whatever.
It was just..
Tokiya was… so self-conscious around Ai. This is due to the cyanette's extremely detailed knowledge of Tokiya's career as Hayato. And this sent him through an invisible flurry of panic.
Tokiya felt his grip tighten on the book, his own thoughts drowning out the sounds of Reiji and Otoya's conversation.
"And I have to be first, huh?" Otoya hugged his pillow tightly as he sat up, peering at Reiji. "Hey, Rei-chan! What's Ai-senpai like?"
Reiji shook his maracas as he thought. "Hmm.. I don't know how to explain it.. Ai-Ai is very cute, that's all. He's quiet, and he's very information-oriented."
Otoya pursed his lips, and he frowned. "Cute and quiet..?" He murmured.
Reiji grinned. "He acts all mature and that, but really, he's just adorable! Ai-Ai's only fifteen, you know, and he's just a kid in a way, because he's fascinated by some of the silliest things. It's really fun to just be with him alone and walk around town or something." Reiji explains.
Reiji's juniors look at him in surprise, and Reiji's explanation had reached Tokiya and snapped him out of his daze.
"Mikaze-san's only fifteen?" Tokiya asks in disbelief.
"Eh? You two didn't know?" Reiji rests on his bed's backboard. "He's really young, yeah."
The two stared at him, blank faced.
Otoya blushed hard, and he smiled. "Ah, that really is cute!" The redhead seemed lost in sweet thoughts as he rested his chin on his arms. Tokiya, on the other hand, knit his eyebrows as his mind wandered off and created images of the cyanette acting adorably childish. He blinked rapidly, flustered at these thoughts.
Reiji just tilts his head, wondering why the two suddenly started acting weird.
~In Team Ranmaru's Room~
The three in the room weren't discussing at all about the very recent announcement, as usual. Ren was lying on his bunk, staring at the ceiling. Masato sat on the couch, holding a sketchpad and his calligraphy pen. Ranmaru leaned against the backboard of his bed, headphones on.
Thing is, there was an unusual tension in the group.
The sketchpad was blank of strokes. Masato just held it, looking at it, wondering why his mind was wandering off.
The music hooked up to Ranmaru's headphones was paused, so he was just sitting in silence, and he knew it.
And Ren? Well, he was the only one who knew why he was in a trance: the project. With Ai. He figured the other two just didn't know it yet, but obviously, if Ren brought up the topic, he'd be ruthlessly shot down. The silver-haired tsundere and Hijirikawa would just deny it, since he brought it up,
He let out an inaudible sigh.
Almost in response, Masato coughed. He had finally caught on, somehow.
"Should we discuss the president's announcement?" Masato suggests firmly.
Ren sits up. "Probably."
"Tch, what's there to discuss?" Ranmaru grunted, but he slid the headphones off his head.
Ren shrugs. He smirks slightly. "Shouldn't you tell us everything you know about Aiichi? In order to make our days with him easier. Like, conversation-starters."
The rock idol paused, and he knit his eyebrows. "Why would I know anything about Ai?" He says.
"Aren't you bandmates? You know some things, right?" Masato adds.
Ranmaru was silent again. "I don't know a lot, and you better deal with that. But I'll tell a few things, just personal shit." He finally speaks.
Ranmaru's never mentioned personal things around Ren and Masato, so it interested the two greatly that he said the specific word.
"Ai's the peacemaker. If I had to choose between him, Reiji, and Camus, I'd obviously choose him. He's the least annoying, to say the least." It bothered Ranmaru slightly when he realized how limited he knew of Ai besides the fact that the kid was quiet. "Right- he's a kid. Fifteen. I admit, he's mature. Very mature." Ranmaru frowns. "But he's not that street-smart. He doesn't understand a lot of things."
Ren and Masato have never heard this information about the cyanette before. To be strictly honest, the two really didn't know anything about the mysterious Mikaze-senpai either. The only things they've ever heard was from Natsuki and Syo, who were they now realized were obviously.. Unreliable. Natsuki would ramble on about how cute the senpai was while Syo would rebuttal with flustered claims that Ai was in fact a demon in disguise.
One, Natsuki wasn't really the type to ask this kind of thing to. And two, it was acknowledged, or at least by Ren, that Syo and Ai had a strange atmosphere about them. It wasn't hate at all, though Ai would call Syo useless and Syo would call Ai soulless. It was interesting, to say the least. The two cared a lot of each other, and that was what got Ren interested in Ai in the first place.
"I didn't realize he was fifteen." Masato says suddenly.
"Yeah. Doesn't seem like it at all. Although, he does have a feminine face.. So I can kind of understand now…" Ren agrees.
Ai's feminine face was a very clear fact to Ren, considering the huge mistake he made at the beginning of the course when he.. Flirted with the cyanette thinking he was female.
"That's rather admirable.. Being so young yet so talented and hardworking.." Masato murmurs.
Masato has fairly limited information about Ai as well, but he does witness Ai's relationships with his juniors.
The only reason for this is because there was a unit where he was placed with the cyanette and Syo. Masato noticed very quickly that Ai just simply did not make mistakes ever. Masato knows well that the other seniors, and even Tokiya, who technically is already a professional, will mess up noticeably from time to time. But with Ai? He just.. Never did. Ai's singing and acting was perfection all the time.
Masato had asked Syo about this, and Syo had responded that he knew this too, but was unsure why as well.
When recording "Beautiful Love", when Ai was in another room, the topic grew to where Masato and Syo both wondered what Ai's childhood was like, and how he was so statically perfect at being an idol. Prodigies were clearly common in idols, but it was just strange.
Syo never told Masato or anyone Ai was an android. He assumed only he, Natsuki, Haruka, and maybe the seniors knew. But still, even knowing this, Syo couldn't connect the dots to realize Ai didn't even have a childhood.
As for Masato, he wished he had the time to learn more about Mikaze-senpai. And now, he felt like he had a chance.