It was old, dusty, and some of the pages were missing when Dia found it. A magazine that had been tucked away in some long-forgotten box in a corner of the clubroom nobody had searched in near three years. Not since a group of three girls got the idea to form Uranohoshi's first school idol group. A relic of a past that she'd told herself to forget about and move on from, but thoughts like that were never easy to follow through on when confronted with something so dear.
The cover was what she remembered, and not all too different from even the most recent school idol magazine. Covered with cheery and bright girls on the verge of their big break at the Love Live competition. Names of would-be idols that most people had come to forget were littered across the page, but the one big standout was A-RISE. Taking up the center of the cover as the odds-on favorites to win the competition just as they had the year before the magazine was published.
Dia was lost in the memories as she sat and stared. It was all anyone who had a passing interest in idols could talk about, and her young, middle-school self was no exception. Late nights explaining to an impressionable Ruby what made each of the groups unique were something she'd always held dear, and the dusty old magazine was at the center of it all. What outfits each group would wear, what songs they would sing, and the names of each of the girls were at one time memorized like schoolwork.
Words were starting to fade on the cheap paper as Dia found it in herself to flip through. It was as she remembered. Filled to the brim with information anyone but the biggest school idol fanatics would cast off as useless. Full page spreads of favored groups and even an even larger display for reigning champs A-RISE. They were never DIa's favorite, but she could never stop herself from admiring the group's overwhelming professionalism. She would often tell Ruby that they were as close to pro idols that a school idol could ever get, and even as years had gone by, she couldn't think of any group that got as close.
Page after page of smiles and cheery poses. Some groups wrote up as dark horses who could make waves at the competition, and others wrote off entirely in little blurbs mentioning how lucky they are to have even made it. Dia hadn't picked up an idol magazine in years, but she knew how these things worked, and Aqours would have been written off in one of those few short sentences at the bottom of a page. She could picture the tagline 'Country Idols outshone by big city lights', or something similar. A couple of sentences and a picture if they were lucky, and if she were younger it would have been thought of as truth.
Dia knew better now. WInning Love Live had a funny way of building confidence, after all.
Each write-up was a hazy memory stored away somewhere in Dia's mind. A part of her she could look back on with a smile instead of pushing down and hiding away. With each turn of the page came with it a distinct memory of singing along to a group's song with Ruby. Nearing the end, Dia flipped to a page marked off with tape and with more wear than any other. She stopped to admire an inspiration that she had not seen in years. A simple, forgettable blurb on the last half-page that sparked a dream that became reality years later, but not without bumps and bruises along the way.
Meet the up and comers from Tokyo ready to try and take on A-RISE
A single, small picture of Honoka Kousaka was all the group was afforded, and looking back on it now Dia wanted to scoff at their naivety. How could they not see what she had in μ's? It was a smug sort of feeling, knowing that even then, she had been able to see that μ's, the group that would become school idol legends and her own personal inspiration, were destined for something special. A group of special girls from a school on the brink of closing whose biggest rivals were the odds-on favorites to win the whole thing. Everything was stacked against them, but Dia knew they would win, and she made sure Ruby believed it, too.
The club room was still dead silent as Dia sat at the table and read. Her final day at Uranohoshi spent cleaning and walking down memories she'd once told herself to forget, but with everything Aqours had come to accomplish, it felt right to look back at where her own passion began. A goal that she'd often thought of as just a delusion had been achieved, and she had eight other girls to share that joy in, and nine others to thank for giving her that goal. It was just a dusty, musty, old magazine now, but Dia would be the first to understand that it was the starting point in achieving something amazing.
Dia couldn't bring herself to flip the magazine close. Her throat was scratchy and she gnawed on her bottom lip as she stared at what started it all as it came to an end much too soon. Honoka's smile was just as mesmerizing as it was when she first saw it, and she couldn't look in fear of thinking too much about an end that would come in just a few hours.
"What're ya looking at?"
An unmistakable voice jolted Dia from her nostalgia-fueled stupor. There was a face framed with orange hair sitting in the chair just across. Red eyes that Dia never could look straight at, filling her with so much of something.
Dia took a moment to recompose before speaking, making sure that itch in her throat was well hidden.
"Nothing," Dia said but knew better than to hide from those inquiring eyes. "And what are you doing here?"
"Hey, no fair. I asked first." Chika looked down to the magazine than back up to Dia's eyes. "What is that?"
"some old magazine." Dia kept her palm flat on the cover.
"Well, duh. I can see that." Chika tilted her head, not letting up on her stare. "But it's your last day and you're sitting in here reading that instead of celebrating with everyone else. So it's gotta be important, right?"
Dia looked away, heart beating quicker than she was ever comfortable with. Her hand sitting on the cover threatened to slide with the building sweat. "I wanted to go through some things in the clubroom before I left. I found this tucked away in one of the boxes from years ago."
"So it's from when it was just you, Mari and Kanan?"
Dia nodded slow. Not talking, but watching Chika light up as if finding some long sought-after information. A past that Dia wasn't one to put out in the open piqued an obvious interest in the one person she never saw herself telling. Was it fear of being looked down on, or a fear of disappointing Chika? Dia was well aware it was the latter, but never stopped trying to convince herself it was the former. The delusion helped hide the flutters in her stomach and red on her cheeks.
"Really?" Chika asked with bright eyes.
Dia gave another slow, deliberate nod.
"Can I see it?" Chika's butt was out of her chair as she leaned forward with clasped hands and stars in her eyes.
Dia couldn't say no and slid the magazine forward. "If you insist, but I'm not sure you'll find it all that interesting."
Another lie. Dia knew as soon as the page was turned to that well-worn and marked page toward the back, Chika would light up in the way she would always say she couldn't.
Chika inspected the cover with a broad smile. "It's an old-school idol magazine. That's so cool, and isn't that A-RISE on the cover?"
"It is."
"Weren't they μ's rivals or something?"
"They were." There was a warm nostalgia to Chika's question that Dia missed. "A-RISE won Love Live the competition before, and were the favorites to win again, but μ's surprised everyone and won."
"Were they really that good?" Chika opened the cover and flipped to the group profiles. The first being A-RISE full page spread.
Dia's hand stopped shaking, and she was not too sure when it even started. A clenching pain in her stomach was replaced by fluttering butterflies as she looked on at an inquisitive Chika.
"They were the closest a school idol group has ever been to being actual pro idols." It rolled off the tongue so easily as Dia answered. "And I don't think a group will ever be as professional as they were."
"Wow." Chika looked on at another page, a group of four different girls all smiling and flashing peace signs. "And μ's still beat them."
"That's because μ's is special," Dia said. An old spiel she would often bore Kanan and Mari with sat at the tip of her tongue, but she could bite it back. "But you already know that."
"Of course." Chika looked up from the dulled paper to make sure Dia knew she was serious. "They're only the greatest and most amazing idols to ever exist. Nobody could ever be as special as they were."
"They were incredible."
The club room wasn't quiet anymore. Distant cheers and voices rang throughout the entire school as the final day was done, but Dia's attention was taken. A moment that she'd long tried to imagine herself in. How she'd react to graduating and leaving a school that's closing for newer things. She could never picture it being spent alone in a dusty old room with Chika, fawning and regaling with knowledge that, no matter how far she tried to tuck away, burst open to the surface.
With each turn of the page, Dia was quick to point out what made each of the groups unique. Whether it was the pitch of their voice or outfit style, there was always something that made an idol special, or that's what Dia always told herself, and Chika hung on every word.
Page after page, and anecdote after anecdote. Dia was in her comfort zone for the first time in years. There was still fear of what would come next. How she would move on from, not just Uranohoshi and all the memories it held, but Aqours and the girl sitting across from her. Panic, anxiety, and fear were all kept at bay for at least one small moment. A respite from all of the tears and farewells that were sure to come in a few hours.
Chika flipped the that last marked off page. "Wow, It's μ's."
Dia didn't say anything, just watching as Chika shined as she predicted. A shiny smile and shiny eyes all fit so well for the person Dia thought shined brighter than any other. Maybe even brighter than Honoka's bright blue on the page, but she'd have to make sure never to tell Ruby that one.
"But they only got one picture, and like five words." Chika flipped to the next page then back again as if to find more.
"They were big underdogs going into the competition," Dia said, allowing a vulnerability to her voice as Chika closed the magazine. "Nobody thought they'd be able to do it. Sort of like how we were when we first started."
A comparison to μ's was seen as blasphemous in Dia's eyes. Nobody could compare to the most inspiring idol group of all time, right? The group that started with Chika made her rethink. It wasn't winning Love Live that made Dia think Aqours was truly something special in the idol world. No, it was when she watched and realized nine girls were brighter than any she'd ever seen.
"So we're kinda like μ's than?" Chika asked with pure, childlike anticipation.
"Not really," Dia said on instinct, but before Chika's expression could drop any further, she spoke back up. "I think we became special in our own way."
Chika tapped her chin, giving a second before answering. "You know, you're right."
Dia sat in silence, waiting for Chika to make the first move as their conversation came to its natural end, but Chika never spoke up. A quiet that lasted for minutes held tight on the room as the only sound were all the students still sticking around even an hour after school.
It all sank in during the lull. Dia's last time in the clubroom. Her last time talking about nothing with a friend after school. Her last time sitting in Uranohoshi as a student. Breathing was harder as if the air was constricting her throat. A heartbeat that had been at idol-talking levels was now beating all too quick. She couldn't look at Chika anymore. The beautiful girl who made a simple walk down memories possible, but Dia couldn't even spare a glance. It was all over, and even the sight of Chika wasn't enough to soothe the fears.
"So." Chika broke the silence, her own voice lacking joy as she tapped the closed magazine. "What're you going to do with this?"
"This is-" Going in the trash, was how Dia wanted to end the sentence, and as the realities of what was coming sank it, it seemed like the right answer. With all the time spent hiding and shutting that side of herself away, maybe it was the right way to go about things, but she knew better. Aqours changed how she looked back. Chika changed how she looked back. She could never come close to expressing her gratitude, or what Dia thought of as gratitude, to Chika. The magazine wasn't the point. Keeping it was. "This is for you."
It was an off the cuff answer, and Dia had to wait odd, scary seconds for an answer from a calm Chika.
"I can keep this?"
Dia nodded.
Chika was out of her seat, around the table, and wrapped around Dia in an instant. Her arms around Dia's neck and cheek to cheek. "You're the best, Dia."
Dia reveled in it. The warmth, the contact, and the giddiness that replaced grueling pain in her stomach. She'd graduate and Uranohoshi would close, but there wouldn't be any regret. A relief all spurred on by Chika who squeezed just a smidge to tight but backed up by memories and dreams formed in old magazines.