She hadn't intended to end up in the music hall, but here she was.
Masumi Kotsu sighed, although it came out more like a growl as she stalked down the hallway. Stupid rock-paper-scissors, she bet that Yaiba had cheated. Somehow. She wasn't sure how you cheated at rock-paper-scissors, but she was positive that Yaiba had. Now she was stuck running errands for the teacher, having to drop off all of these envelopes of paperwork at the administration office. Didn't being the top student in the Fusion course excuse her from having to be errand girl? And she had to cross through the music hall of all places. During the day the place was a cacophony of second-rate instrumentalists. LDS didn't have a very large student base in its music clubs, but it rented the hall out to other schools, and thus they got too many non-LDS students goofing off around here.
Well, luckily, at least, it seemed that the hall was quiet for once after school hours. Not a single practicing instrument to be heard. Thank the heavens above.
She was halfway down the hall when she heard it.
Was that...singing?
Masumi paused in front of a partially open practice room door. A voice floated from through the crack, light, airy...peaceful.
"As soon as Bon comes, I will leave for my hometown...the sooner Bon comes, the sooner I will go home."
Masumi couldn't move. The song seemed, somehow, to wrap around her, holding her in place. She found her eyes fluttering shut so that she could do nothing but listen, her arms slackening a bit. Relaxing. Who was that? It was...the most beautiful thing she had ever heard.
"I am no better than a beggar, they are rich people. With good sashes and good dresses."
The melody twisted up and over itself, whispering around Masumi like a summer breeze. She felt...tears springing to her eyes somehow.
"Who will cry for me when I die? Only the cicadas in the mountain beyond the house."
Her eyes flickered open. Who was singing? Who...who was the owner of that beautiful voice?
Masumi took a step towards the practice room. And then another. And one more. Her hand was against the door, pressing lightly against the wood as the voice continued.
"No, it's not the cicadas...it's my little sister; don't cry little sister, or I will worry for you."
She pushed gently on the door, just intending for it to open just enough so that she could see who was sitting at the piano, pluncking out soft notes in accompaniment to her voice.
"When I am dead, bury me at the roadside—oh? Is someone there?"
The song stopped abruptly at the sound of the door squeaking softly. Masumi swore, stumbling back, almost tripping over her own feet. She felt heat explode in her cheeks and for a moment, she couldn't speak for the shock and embarrassment—she had just been spying on this girl and—
She heard the chair of the piano scootch out.
She fled before she could think of what else to do. Clutching the envelope to her chest and sprinting down the hall with her cheeks warm and her heart hammering, until she was at the end of the hallway and able to press herself against the wall around the corner, safe.
She didn't see the girl with the pink hair poke her head curiously out the door, or her deep blue eyes noting the disappearance of her own black hair around the corner.
She did, however, hear the girl close the door behind her, and the faint notes of her song drift out, muffled, through the far away door when she started to sing again.
Masumi didn't move from that corner for a long, long moment.
"So would one of you three like to take these down to administration for me again? Sorry, I know I've been doing this a lot—"
"I've got it."
"Ah, thank you, Kotsu-san. I appreciate it."
Yaiba froze in the middle of turning towards Masumi with his fist ready for rock-paper-scissors. Masumi was already plucking the envelope from their teacher's hand and tucking it under her arm, sauntering off down the hall. Yaiba threw Hokuto a sideways glance, but Hokuto was busy flicking through messages on his Duel Disk, and thus not paying attention.
"This is the third time she's done that," he said, trying to catch Hokuto's attention.
"Huh? Third time she's done what?"
"Taken the errand from the teacher without complaining about it. Think she's up to something?"
Hokuto glanced up from his screen, blinking at Yaiba.
"Masumi? What the hell could she be up to?"
Yaiba frowned.
"I dunno. But it's not like her to just, ya know, do things like that without complaining."
Hokuto just shrugged.
"Well, whatever, as long as we don't have to do it, right?"
"Guess so."
Yaiba glanced after Masumi, but the girl was already long gone.
Wonder what put her in such a good mood, he thought. Never seen her grin like that before.
Masumi stood outside the door again, her back pressed against the wall. Once again, the mystery girl had left the door slightly open, her voice floating through the crack. Masumi sighed, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the wall just to listen.
Part of her wanted to try to peek inside again. She still didn't know who the girl was.
But the other part of her kind of didn't want the mysterious singer to know that Masumi had been...well, kind of stalking her in way.
It was enough to just listen to that melody, for now.
Masumi sighed softly again, and let the voice sink into her mind.
Masumi barely acknowledged Himika's words of praise for defeating the You Show duelist; she was in a hurry to leave now that this silly farce of fighting the You Show people was over.
Will she still be there? Masumi thought worriedly. I don't know how long she stays.
She tried to still her impatience enough to walk instead of full out running, but she felt an uncommon amount of tension in her arms. She wanted...she wanted to go hear that voice again. She wanted to listen to the melody wrap around the air again. She just wanted to listen again...
She made it back to the school, and left off all pretenses, jogging up the stairs to the second floor of the music hall. She was panting when she reached the end of the hall.
I'm going to introduce myself today, she thought with a sudden rush of conviction. I'm going to tell her how much I like her singing.
She didn't know where the sudden burst of courage had come from—maybe it was the win she had just gotten and Akaba Himika's praise. Either way, it didn't matter. She had decided, today was the day she was finally going to find out who the singer was, and...and then she didn't know, but she wanted to finally maybe...see her face to face.
Bolstered by this decision, Masumi squared her shoulders and marched down the hall. She was on such a high from her rush of confidence that she was putting her hand on the door to the practice room before she realized that...it was silent.
She blinked.
Not here today? she thought, stomach immediately dropping. Oh, really? Come on!
She turned the knob quietly and pushed the door half open anyway, peeking through.
The piano was empty of a player, the room empty of a voice.
She's...not here today.
Masumi closed the door, feeling her confidence and the rush of conviction sink under a surface of deep disappointment.
...tomorrow, then...
The singer wasn't back tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. Masumi found herself standing outside the practice room for hours after school, waiting to see if she would show up. Even in between searching for Marco, and tracking down that person attacking LDS, she would find a few spare minutes to check.
She wanted to hear her again. Just...just one more time, even. Her nerves were getting so frazzled by everything that was happening, and she wanted to grab onto that peace that the singer's voice had brought her. Where...where was she?
The Maiami Grand Championship was upon her, and she had to try and forget about it. She had to focus.
The ghost memory of the singer lingered at the edge of her brain anyway.
Masumi felt so incredibly frazzled, despite keeping herself composed on the surface. She hadn't expected to lose, but she found herself not minding, which was distressing in and of itself.
I can't believe I just gave her that card, she thought. Is she going to use it? Will she like it? She damn well better take care of it—oh, I swear to God if that girl doesn't win the whole tournament I'm going to—
Her thoughts wandered to the luster of the light refracting across Yuzu's eyes, the way that they had shone when she had smiled down at Masumi after Bloom Diva had caught her, the way that they had brightened her entire face when she had accepted the card from Masumi and waved goodbye.
Masumi tried to force the heat away from her cheeks by rubbing at them with her cold hands.
She was in the music hallway again, pacing up and down in front of her usual practice room—or, well, not hers, but the mysterious singer's. She didn't know why. There hadn't even been any school that day. If her mystery singer was anywhere, she wasn't going to be here.
She'll probably never come back at all, Masumi thought with a little more disappointment than she had expected.
Yuzu popped into her mind again and the disappointment lessened slightly. Then she shook her head furiously—oh, god, what was her brain doing today?
She heard a squeak of a sneaker on the floor, and a soft "oh?" Her eyes flashed up. W-what?
"H-Hiragi Yuzu?" she said. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you that..." Yuzu said.
Yuzu cocked her head slightly, causing her pigtails to tilt around her head. She carried a large shoulder bag clutched to her shoulder and she was no longer in her school uniform, but instead a light cream sweater and a black skirt. The light that filtered through the windows painted her in shades of orange and yellow, as though she were made from the rays of the sunset itself.
Masumi felt heat in her cheeks at that incredibly sappy thoughts and folded her arms tightly to try and hide how embarrassed she was by her brain.
"Well, I happen to be an LDS student, you know! I'm allowed to be in my own school! Don't you have that silly little You Shoo place or something?"
"You Show," Yuzu corrected, smiling a little. "And the music hall isn't just for LDS..."
"But you have to have a keycard to get in here," Masumi said. "You have to be registered to use it..."
Yuzu held up her keycard in response, causing Masumi to trail off. They stood there, for a moment, in the awkward silence.
"So..." Yuzu said. "What are you doing here? Are you in a music club at LDS?"
"N-no...a-and since when are you so musically inclined?"
Masumi could have kicked herself.
Have you forgotten her damn deck? she thought at herself.
Yuzu breathed out sharply through her nose. For a moment, Masumi thought she was snorting at her—but then she realized, Yuzu was giggling! The girl pressed a hand to her lips for a moment, shoulders shaking softly.
"What?" Masumi demanded. "What's so funny?"
"You are," Yuzu said. "You're just...you're so—I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing, I promise, I'm not laughing at you, it's just—the situation, I mean..."
She couldn't speak for her tiny little giggles, pressing her hand to her mouth harder in an attempt to still them. Masumi bristled for a beat. But then she gave up, because...what was she even angry about...? And Yuzu's laughs were...kind of cute...
"Seriously, though," Masumi said. "Are you some kind of instrumentalist?"
Yuzu managed to still her giggles and composed herself.
"Yes—or, well, I'm a vocalist. I'm...an amateur, I guess. I don't have time for the choir at school because of You Show, but I take a few lessons here and there and my teacher got me a pass here so that I could practice. I come whenever I can—it's been so busy the past couple of weeks, though, what with the tournament and...everything..."
She trailed off, her eyes going out of focus. Masumi had opened her mouth to agree, that yes, this had been a very busy—and ridiculous—couple of weeks, but then—
"Wait," she said. "You mean...you use...this practice room? This one?"
She pointed to the door right next to her.
"Huh? Oh, yeah! That's the one I always use...I like it because there's a window that looks right out onto that cherry tree in the courtyard. Puts me in just the right mood to sing, you know?"
Masumi couldn't speak for a moment. She could barely even breathe.
All this time, it was her? she thought.
But the longer she looked at Yuzu...the more she took in her slight frame, the flipping of her hair at the ends, the...luster of her eyes...Masumi wondered how she could have thought it was anyone else at all.
"Masumi? Is something wrong?" Yuzu asked.
Masumi blinked and realized with a jolt that she had been staring. She dropped her eyes with a flush to her cheeks.
"N-no, nothing is wrong!" she said. "Of course nothing's wrong!"
Her breathe caught at the ghost memory of Yuzu's voice dancing through her mind. She swallowed, fingers twisting into the hem of her shorts nervously. She couldn't look up to see Yuzu's expression—she was kind of afraid to. She looked everywhere but at Yuzu, the floor, the ceiling, the spiderweb in the corner there, out the window.
"I..." she said. "I was just thinking that...ah...I might like to hear you sing sometime. That's all."
She stared at the floor for a few more beats before finally chancing to look up at Yuzu. Yuzu's mouth had parted with surprise, the sunset glimmering in her eyes.
Then she smiled. And it was possibly the most beautiful thing that Masumi had ever seen.
"Do you...want to join me for a bit, then?" she asked, blushing shyly as she pointed towards the practice room. "I won't be here for very long...I just felt like...I'd like to sing today."
Masumi met Yuzu's eyes full on, without looking away, or trying to find some flaw in them, for perhaps the first time. She found herself smiling, even through the heat on her cheeks.
"I'd...yes, I'd like to...if you don't mind, that is."
Yuzu smiled. Then she pushed the door open, and beckoned Masumi after her.
Masumi followed, and the door closed quietly behind them.
Masumi sat with her back against the door, her knees hugged to her chest, and her face buried in her legs.
The music room was quiet behind her. As it had been the day before, and the day before that. Yuzu had not come home. She wasn't even in this dimension anymore.
Come back, dammit, Masumi thought, her whole body shaking with anger again. Come...back...
She was glad that the hall was empty right now.
That way no one would hear her cry.
A/N: welcome to Lustershipping Week! Y'all should join in, it's going on at fyeahlustershipping on Tumblr and it's great (I'm totally not just saying that because I'm running it, lol).
Anyway, I just wanted to tell you here that the song that Yuzu is singing at the beginning is a real song, it's a traditional Japanese lullaby called Itsuki Lullaby. Clearly I have her singing a translation (only a semi good one though).
Well, that's it for day one of Lustershipping Week! Hope you stick around for the whole week (and maybe even participate with something? Edits, writing, art, videos, playlists, anything? Please feed my poor sad Lustershipping heart)