It took a lot to confuse, annoy or stump Ran Mitake. She wouldn't exactly call herself the pinnacle of keeping composure or logical thinking, especially (and relunctantly) considering how easily her bandmates in Afterglow can sometimes make her aloof side drop altogether. However, of most of the people she knew, she was definitely one of the most cool-headed and hard-to-confound. There were few occurrences that could change that fact.
This, however, was one of those occurrences.
"... Why is everyone on their phone?" Ran suddenly asked with an emotionless tone to her four fellow band members and childhood friends, whom all had their eyes directly on their devices' screen, with most of them tapping rapidly on it. "This is band practice, you all know that, right?"
"Ah, don't worry about it Ran~ We'll practice later~" Moca dismissed, not even lifting her eyes off her phone's screen. The said girl raised her eyebrows.
"When is later?" Ran asked, though the tone of the question was rather rhetorical.
"Uh…" Moca said out loud. After a moment, she replied. "When I'm done with my Live Boosts~" All of the other Afterglow members gave general sounds of approval at this.
This answer, which they all gave as though the most normal thing in the world, only confused Ran even more. "Live Boosts? What are you even talking about?" Suddenly, all eyes in the room were on Ran, only serving to add to her confusion and discomfort even more. Tomoe then scratched her cheek in realization.
"Right, we didn't tell her about it, did we?" Tomoe stated. "Oops."
"What did you not tell me about?" Ran pressed on, her annoyance at not knowing what was going on steadily increasing (and secretly, a bit of sadness that all of her friends were hiding something seemingly important or interesting from her). Himari then walked up to the Afterglow vocalist and handed her her phone, showing her her phone's contents.
Ran, a bit relieved and hoping for her feeling of confusion to disappear, looked at Himari's phone…
And that confusion only doubled.
"Bandori! Girls Band Party!"
From the phone came, the title screen sharing the same text. The screen showed a bright display, showing a bunch of excited girls, seemingly on a stage. The weird part, however, was that all of those girls were people she knew, including Kasumi, Tae, Yukina, Kokoro, Aya, and…
"!?"
Hey, was that her!?
Himari took back her phone and smiled at Ran. "We've all been playing Bandori as of late! It's a really fun rhythm game!"
"Why am I there!?" Ran, still bewildered at seeing herself in the phone game's title screen, cried out. Tomoe came up to her.
"Yeah, see, that's where we forgot to tell you about." Tomoe cleared up, phone in hand. "When Marina told us about the opportunity of adding us to a mobile game, we all agreed to do so, but you weren't feeling well at the time. We would've discussed it when you were feeling better, but Marina stated that it was a one-time chance and we wouldn't be able to take it up at a later date. So we agreed right away, since we knew that you'd agree with us anyways. And we just forgot to tell you after that." Tomoe then smirked right at the black haired girl. "So you don't need to think that we were keeping something from you, Ran~"
"I-I wasn't thinking that!" Ran blushed and looked away, flustered at Tomoe's remark (mainly due to its accuracy). After a few moments, though, her blush subsided, and she posed a question.
"Wouldn't I have need to sign a contract to get me in, though?" Ran questioned the hot-blooded redhead. Tomoe pointed at Moca, who was now looking at the conversation in amusement, though she was still occasionally flicking her screen.
"... She forged my signature, didn't she." Ran stated in deadpan, with all of the other members chuckling at her tone. Moca smiled.
"Your signature's super simple and I've seen you do it dozens of time~" She stated happily, waving her hand in the air as though writing Ran's signature. Ran rolled her eyes.
"Anyways, what even is this game? Himari said it was a rhythm game?" Ran began, wanting to know more about this game that she didn't know she was in.
Tsugumi talked up. "Yep! You tap the notes when they come!"
"Really? That sounds simple enough." Ran said. Tsugumi, however, shook her head rapidly at Ran's statement.
"It's not that simple! There's a lot more to it!" Tsugumi exclaimed, a lot more passionately and excited than her fellow bandmates had seen from her in a while. "There's different types of notes, the regular ones that you just tap, the green ones that you hold and sometimes drag, and the pink ones that you flick! There's also the gold ones, which make you use your character's skill! Speaking of, all of the band members have different skill that help during the song itself, like giving you more health and increasing your score! And there's a lot of variety in it, too! There are different cards, ranging from 1 star to 4 star, of the same girls that you can pull for with different abilities and really cool and cute art in them! And there's also a lot of variety of songs, since all five bands sing, and they use both original songs and covers, and they add more in the weekly events! Oh, oh, and there are even story parts with us in them that are super-" Tomoe suddenly covered Tsugumi's mouth with her hand to prevent her from going on more, her own face flinching a little.
"Heh, I think Ran gets it now, Tsugu." Tomoe said, both amused and impressed at the keyboard player's "small" summary.
Said keyboard player immediately blushed before immediately staring down. "S-sorry, Ran." She started fiddling with her thumbs. "I've just been really into this game…"
Ran dismissed it with smile, despite the fact that she was completely overwhelmed by all of Tsugumi's information. "Don't worry about it, Tsugu."
Himari, who didn't seem affected at all by this, went on. "But yeah, Bandori's a super fun game! Even all of the other bands have been playing it!" While the thought of Minato Yukina tapping furiously away at a mobile game was quite honestly incredibly amusing and funny to her, Ran asked yet another question.
"There are story parts with us in it? Isn't seeing us like that a little weird?" The lead guitarist of Afterglow inquired. Himari shrugged.
"At first, it was a bit weird, especially when they make up scenarios, but you eventually get used it." Himari responded, crossing her arms.
"But what about-"
"Rannnnnnn… stop asking questions!" Moca declared in faux-anger, walking up to her best friend. "If you keep asking questions, we're going to be wasting more Live Boosts…!" Before Ran could even reply, Moca practically shoved her phone into Ran's hands, the screen showing a list of songs..
"Here~ Just play a song~" Moca asserted, scrolling to one of Afterglow's original songs, 'That is How I Roll!', and tapping on it. From there, it showed Moca's band, which consisted of the entire band of Afterglow, with the Moca card being 3 star, and her own card, surprisingly, being a 4 star. From what she remembered from Tsugu's big rant, 4 star was the rarest and presumably the best card in the game. Even though it was most likely a matter of pure chance, Ran still got fairly flustered and tried her best to hide her blush from Moca.
"Let's see, what's the best difficulty for Ran~" Moca asked herself, her finger hovering all four of the difficulties (Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert). "It's her first time, so Easy's probably the best choice~"
Ran playfully narrowed her eyes. "I think I can handle something harder than Easy." Moca narrowed her eyes, accepting the "challenge".
"Fine… big girl Ran gets the Normal difficulty~" Moca stated, selecting the difficulty and handing the phone to Ran, who then started the song. "Good luck, Ran~"
The song started and the notes began slowly but surely appearing. Even though she never played a rhythm game in her life before, she was confident enough in her abilities that she would be able to complete this task. In addition, she literally made this song. She knows everything about it inside out, so she would easily be able to go through this song just by following the rhythm. This was essentially a gift wrapped and signed just for her.
However, less than a quarter way through the song, that gift promptly lit itself on fire.
Ran stared at the screen stating that she ran out of health for what felt like hours. She had no idea how she screwed up something that should've been the easiest thing in the world for her. Moca, amused, put her hands on her phone, wanting to take it back.
"Aw~ Big girl Ran wasn't big enough~" The white-haired girl stated playfully. However, Ran suddenly pulled herself and the phone away from Moca.
"No!" Ran yelled, quickly clicking through messages in order to get back to the song she failed. "I just didn't know what was going on at first! I'll beat it now!" Moca put her hands on her hips.
"Hey! You'll waste my Live Boosts!" Moca exclaimed in mild annoyance, though she clearly wasn't taking herself seriously. But in the end, Ran ignored her anyways, as she had already begun playing again. Tomoe laughed.
"Looks like she's already sucked in." She commented, before turning to the rest of Afterglow. "Alright everyone, let's hurry up and finish with Bandori so that we can get to practicing. I'll open up a Multi-Live room!" Everyone nodded, before going back to playing on their phones. Moca, though, stared a nearby table where Ran's phone lay, and suddenly got an idea…
After six more tries, Ran had finally been able to finish 'That is How I Roll! on Normal. It took a lot more effort than Ran would've thought (including a mysterious 50 Stars that Moca may or not ever get back), but at that moment, Ran felt way more happy, excited and proud in herself than she should feel a mobile game.
"See Moca? I did it-" Ran announced ecstatically, pointing towards the phone screen, before she realized that Moca was on her own phone. She approached.
"What are you doing, Moca?" Ran asked. Moca showed her, revealing that she had just installed Bandori on her phone.
"Oh, I just this for you, Ran~" Moca explained, waving the phone. "I already added everyone in Afterglow to your friends list~"
"Hey, who said you could download it onto my phone?" Ran asked her best friend, who promptly smirked at her.
"Oh? If Ran doesn't want to play it, I guess I'll just delete it-" Ran quickly grabbed her phone from Moca.
"Hey, I didn't say I didn't want to play it!" Ran retorted, once again feeling flustered. Looking down at her screen, though, she noticed something in her inbox. Clicking on it, she saw what look like a ticket with 4 stars on it. After having given Moca her phone, she showed it to her, questioning what it was.
"Oh, that?" Moca said. "It's a reward because the game just started~ You get to choose your own 4 star~" Ran's eyes suddenly darted downwards, and her face started to slowly get tinted with pink.
"Y-you get to choose your own 4 star, huh?" Ran stuttered, as realization came to her. When Ran saw Moca's band, Ran was her only 4 star, which means that Moca chose…
"Yeah~ I chose you as my 4 star, Ran~" Moca confessed happily. Ran's face suddenly turned as red as her shirt. "Hey~ Choose me as your 4 star, okay, Ran?~"
Ran has almost never felt her face so red, her heart pounding so much, her knees buckling so much.
"S-sure, M-Moca."
From that day on, all of Afterglow would play Bandori right before practice.