Disclaimer: I do not own own anything else beside this story.
Prologue
Part 1
Ayase Eli knows that being the student council president is not easy, especially now when she has to take part in Love Live together with her friends from μ's, she has much more work to do than before as she has to balance between her student council work and practicing for Love Live.
"What's wrong Elicchi?" Noticing her friend was looking out of the window for some unknown reasons with her chin on her right hand, Toujou Nozomi asked her friend out of concern.
"Eh.. Nothing, Nozomi! I'm fine." Hearing her friend called out her name, Eli stuttered in surprise before replied with a small smile before returning back to her work with a large pile of paper in front of her. The student council vice-president noticed something was wrong but decided to let it slide only for this time and went back to do her work as usual. While the vice-president was performing very well on her work, the same thing could not be said for our blonde president. Although she was trying to focus on her work, it only ended with her looking out of the window, thinking about something else on her mind.
"Are you sure that you're alright Elicchi? You seems to be distracted lately." Nozomi called her again, worrying what's wrong with her friend.
"Hah… I don't know, Nozomi." The blonde just let out a long sigh. "It's just that I can't get my mind off something."
"What is it exactly?"
"Well, it's just that we're participating Love Live while taking care everything as the student council president at the same time makes me feel a little bit tired. I really want to stop and rest for a while, but with this huge amount of work was denying me from relaxing for just a bit." Eli answered her friend with a tiring voice.
"Sounds like you're in stress Elichi. Perhaps you should take a break and go out and relax a little bit. Just leave the rest of your paperwork to me." The purple haired girl made an offer just only to be refused by the blonde.
"No, it's fine Nozomi! I'm really appreciate the offer but I can't just dump all the work on your head and relax."
"Are you sure?" Nozomi asked her friend uneasily.
"Yeah. I'm gonna finish today's work and then head home, therefore don't worry about me." Eli declared to the emerald eyed girl before returning back to her work. Nozomi was still unconvinced but she could not do anything to stop her friend because she's certain that Eli is a very stubborn person, especially if it's related to study or work. She decided to leave it alone and came back to finish all of her paperwork before leaving. After an hour, Nozomi was be able to finish everything. She headed to the student council president and asked if she needed any help with her paperwork but the blonde only refused and gave her permission to leave without forgetting to remind Nozomi to tell everyone from μ's that she could not come. With that, the purple haired girl decided to gather her things and went up to the school roof to practice with the others despite that fact that she was still worrying for her friend.
(5 p.m, Otonokizaka Academy)
Two hours had passed since Nozomi left for practicing and Eli had finished all of the papers. She decided that it's a good time to leave school, go back home, prepare dinner for her and Arisa before calling it a day since there's no homework today. After gathering all of her things and left the room without forgetting to lock the door. She was walking along the hallway, trying to head to the school lockers to change her shoes and go home until a certain noise caught her attention.
'It's the sound of a piano.' She thought. 'It's strange. Maki is still here? I thought the practice was finished an hour ago or so.' Curious what's happening, the blue eyed girl decided to head to the source of the melody. The closer she got, the louder the sound and eventually, she could hear a faint voice of someone that she's not familiar with, or more correctly...
'It's a male voice. If it's not Maki, then who would be in this hour?' Wondering who it might be, she was getting closer step by step, she could heard the voice much clearer.
"Goodbye to you my trusted friend
We've known each other since we were nine or ten
Together we've climbed hills and trees
Learned of love and ABC's, skinned our hearts and skinned our knees."
Standing in front of a room where she presumed the song came from, she noticed that the door was not closed. On top of the entrance, she could see a sign which read "The Music Club". Suddenly, she remembered of a male student who came to her and asked to open a music club when she was still a second-year. Although she had long forgotten his appearance, she still remembered his name correctly.
"Goodbye friend it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that spring is in the air
Pretty girls are everywhere
Think of me and I'll be there"
After for a few moments of hesitation, Eli decided to take a peek of a person who's singing and as well as playing the piano. With a single step of her left foot, she had a full view of the room. Inside there's a lot of musical instrument located around the room: a drum set, a keyboard, some guitars along with some other things around the room. But those aren't the things that she focused her eyes on.
"We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time"
In front of the blonde was a young teenage boy wearing a male Otonokizaka High School's uniform, containing a white shirt with a blue blazer, sitting in front of the piano beside opened windows as the wind blew in and delivered some cherry blossoms inside the room with the boy was playing the piano while singing under the orange sunlight. It was like the world had stopped for a moment as the blue eyed girl was being fascinated by the dreamy scenery as she could only utter one word:
"Kirei…"
Suddenly, the boy stopped, leaving the song mid-track and turned back as he saw a girl, standing in front of the club's door. Right then, they're starting to have a better look on each other's face and to Eli's surprise, the appearance of the male of student was completely different from what she known or expected: black as midnight on the right and white as snow on the left for his hair and as for his eyes, icy blue on the left and blood red on the right. Beside those traits, she couldn't pinpoint any other special thing about him. But as she stared those eyes of his for a little bit longer, she couldn't help but noticed that something was off about the boy in front of her.
'Those eyes… They're so… distant and emotionless.' Eli thought to herself as she kept staring at him.
"How can I help you, Ayase-senpai?" Suddenly, the boy spoke up, caught the blonde off guard. She struggled for a moment to find suitable words for her sentence.
"Eh!? Anou,... I-It's nothing, Kuroba-kun!" She answered while managing to keep her blush from being visible to her kouhai. "I-It's just that, the song you sang earlier… It's very beautiful."
"Thank you very much, Ayase-senpai." He slightly bowed to his senpai with gratitude. Eli shook her head with a small smile on her lips. "It's nothing, Kuroba-kun."
'Kuroba Kuroto-kun. A second year, study in class 2-A. His average score in the previous year was 93, stood at the first place and 3 points more than Umi who was at the second. Kuroba-kun is especially good in Mathematics and English as he always get perfect scores for those two subjects. A transfer student from since the second semester of his first year, Kuroba-kun never receive any complaint among the teachers except for one: Tsurumi Rumi, Modern Literature teacher for his unbelievably pessimistic essays during his second year. Tsurumi-sensei is rather close to Kuroba-kun as she is the one advise him to open the music club and being the adviser of his club.' Eli went through some of the basic information of her kouhai in her mind quickly.
"Ne, Kuroba-kun" The young blonde called his name, without noticing his strange stare at her. "The song earlier you just sang, what's its name?"
"The name of the song is "Seasons in the sun", although originally, the song name's "Le Moribond", which means "The Dying Man" in French." Kuroto started explaining to his senpai who's looking at him both curiously. "The song's written by a Belgian singer-songwriter named Jacques Brel in French and the English lyrics by an American singer-poet named Rod McKuen. Although there's a lot of versions and covers from many artists, the most famous one is the version in 1974 of Terry Jacks, a Canadian singer. In 1999, Westlife, an Irish boy band covered this song again into their own version." Kuroto looked back at his piano and stood up, preparing his bag and ready to go home. "Does that answer to your question, Ayase-senpai?"
Startled at her underclassman sudden question, the Student Council president answered nervously with a small blush on her face. "Y-Yes, t-thank you, Kuroba-kun!" Hearing his upperclassman reply, Kuroto walked towards the club's door. "Well then, it's getting late already so we should go home."
Realizing what he meant, Eli quickly bowed to the young teen without forgetting to bid him farewell. "A-ah, I see. Then, have a good day, Kuroba-kun." She turned around and walked away, left the teen alone did his locking before leaving school.
On her way back home, the blue eyed girl couldn't help but wondered one thing about their small talk earlier, leaving her really confused. 'Is it just me, or did Kuroba-kun was sweating when he's talking to me?' She kept thinking for a while, hoping that she was not hallucinated but left it alone for now when she got back to her home as she thought it couldn't do her much if she kept thinking about it forever. The blonde girl then finished her day by preparing food for both herself and her younger sister, Alisa and then got to bed.
'I should take a look of Kuroba-kun's essays that Tsurumi-sensei kept complaining about.' Eli reminded herself for tomorrow's task before closed her eyes and sunk to sleep.
"Whatcha looking at, Elicchi?" The busty vice-president asked her friend with interest as she saw the blonde hold a piece of paper on her hand that seems to be a modern literature essay. At first she thought it's her friend's, but as she looked at bit closer, she noticed that it's not her friend's handwriting, or any handwritings she's familiar with and it just ignited the dark purple haired girl's curiosity even more since she knows her best friend wouldn't take interest in anybody she doesn't know or familiar with and she highly doubt that Eli's familiar someone outside members of μ's and her family.
"Oh Nozomi!" The blue eyed girl turned around looked at her friend with her usual smile. "Nothing, it's just that this essay… Let's just say it's peaked my interest." She said before returning to the paper and continued her reading.
"Hum…It's really rare for Elicchi to take notice of someone, ya know." The green eyed girl said, before leaning in closer to her friend in order to read the text clearly along with her friend. The president just kept silent while blushing slightly at her friend's words as this is the second time of the day someone told her the same sentence. She still remembered correctly of this morning recess when she looked for Tsurumi-sensei in the teacher's office for some of Kuroto's assignments in Modern Literature.
(Flashback)
"You want to take a look at Kuroba's essays?" The young teacher raised her eyebrows as she heard the blonde's unexpected request. "May I ask why, Ayase?"
"It's just that I'm really interest in his essays that you always talk about, sensei." She answered while looking at her teacher, hoping that she would granted the permission for her to read her underclassman's infamous assignment.
"Alright then, wait for a bit while I'll try to find his papers. I remember putting them in my bag or somewhere around here." The teacher muttered to herself the latter sentence as she tried to look for the them in her bag.
"Here they are!" She exclaimed loudly, holding a few pieces of paper on her hand before handling them to the blonde. "Remember to return them when you finish reading, Ayase!" Eli hold the papers carefully and nodded at her teacher before turning around and headed to the doors.
"It's really rare for you to take notice of someone, Ayase." The sentence caught Eli off-guard, her cheeks reddened due to embarrassment as she stopped mid-way but continued to walk after a second or two before the teacher said something that she couldn't expect.
"If you ever meet him again, Ayase, please, help him!"
"Elicchi? What's wrong?" Asked the emerald eyed girl as she worried for her friend who's seemed to be very distracted, but soon replied with a small charming giggle. "Nothing in particular, Nozomi. It's just that I met a very..., how should I put it…" The girl was pondering for the right word to say before continuing "...interesting individual yesterday."
'Elicchi seems to be out of character lately.' Nozomi thought to herself as she looked at the blonde with a smile. The purple haired girl just wondered what happened yesterday after she left to the school's rooftops with her friends, but the girl just decided it's for the latter matter as right now, they had to read the essay in the blonde president's hands. As she skimmed through the name and class section, she already recognized the writer of this topic but decided to continue silence as she began to read the first line of the passage.
"Looking back on High School Life
By: Kuroba Kuroto
Class: 2-B
Youth is simply a delusion of life. An intangible form of true mischief itself.
Those around us are being deceived so easily by this ugliness. By living their whole teenage life with such joy and happiness, they can only perpetually fooled themselves and those around them. Looking at the reality around us with such positiveness and yet, fail to notice the opposite. They treat every possibility, every outcome as a game, and a mistake could be written down as a golden page of their so-called youth. "At least we lived our life." is what I think they'd say.
Think about this way, that if they ever failed one of the test, they would say school is not the place for studying only. Their endless distortion could only led to their own downfall and yet, so common among in their social norms and beliefs.
Under their discretion, lies, secrets, crimes and even failure are nothing but the spice of one's youth. And in their corrupt ways of thinking, they discover something peculiar about failure. They conclude that while their own failures are generally a part of relishing in youth, others' failures should be shot down as just failures and nothing more. In conclusion: youth, just go and blow yourself up."
If failure is seen proof of one's youth, isn't it strange not to consider those who fail to make friends as experiencing the height of their youth? Not that they acknowledge that.
It amounts to nothing. This is simply opportunism. Therefore, it is a sham, full of damnable lies, deception, secrets and fraud.
They are evil.
That is to say, sarcastically as it is, those who do not glorify their youth are the truly righteous ones.
"This is rather disturbing, isn't it?" The blonde shook her head tiredly, putting a hand on her head after finished reading the essay.
"Unfortunately, I have to agree with you, Elicchi." Nozomi nodded slightly with a sarcastic grin on her face. "Despite that, I find this rather interesting, as you put it in before. Besides..." The busty girl leaned in closer to her friend, whispering to her left ear "...the boy seems to remind me of you in some ways, Elicchi."
"Mou, Nozomi!" The president replied in embarrassment, blushing crazily due to her friend's way of words. "At least I'm not that twisted as Kuroba-kun is, you know." She pouted cutely, which Nozomi finds it rather… cute. Putting that thought away, the vice-president asked in curious. "That aside, how do you have the pleasure to meet Kuroba-kun?" The blue eyed girl then told her everything about her meeting with Kuroto yesterday, without leaving any details out.
"So what do you think, Nozomi?" The blonde asked her friend with a serious tone after finishing her part of story. "Honestly, I really don't know, since I never meet him directly before. But if we have a chance to talk to him, maybe we can understand a bit more about him and his behavior." The busty girl replied as she put her hand on her chin, thinking about what she would say, or ask if she ever had a chance to speak with the young philosopher.
"Then how about after we finish our today idol activities then?" The blonde suggested, while still thinking about an excuse for their sudden visit to the Music Club, or specifically, Kuroto as the fact that the way he acted around the blue eyed girl made her want to help him. 'But… why do I want to help Kuroba-kun?' Eli queried herself as she was thinking where such passion came from. Then she thought the event of yesterday when she encountered with black-white haired boy, she remembered the look of his eyes, it's piercing right into her soul, making the blonde shaking herself slightly. Is it because she could understand a bit why the boy behaved like that. When looking at him, she thought that she just saw an image of her old self: incredulous and diligent in front of other people. So similar, and yet, so different. She just didn't know the reason for his isolated, distant behavior.
"Oh! Why the sudden interest, Elicchi?" The purple haired girl looked at her friend with an amused grin, teasing her. "Don't tell me that you have…"
"Mou, Nozomi! It's not funny!" The blonde pouted at her friend, stopped the vice-president from what she's going to say next. "Let's just get back to work." She said and put the paper down, resuming her job as the student council president.
Seeing that, the emerald eyed girl decided not to say anything and get back to work as well, but she couldn't helped that she had found the situation quite amusing to see. After all, it's rare to see her friend blush like that.
As for the blonde, she just looked outside the window and thought about something before concentrated back to her paperwork.
'I just hope that Kuroba-kun would answer the questions that I instore for him. But it's going to be a bit difficult to get to him.'
"See you tomorrow, Eli-senpai, Nozomi-senpai!" Kousaka Honoka waved goodbye at her upperclassmen cheerfully after their practice together despite not having every single member due to a certain reason. Eli and Nozomi just smile at their underclassmen and went out of the school's rooftop, heading towards the Music Club as they planned before.
"It's really strange for Umi-chan and Kotori-chan to go home early, right Elicchi?" Nozomi asked as she walked along side with her friend.
"Yeah." Replied the blonde as she thought about it. Lately, Kotori has been home early, even she has to cancelled her training with everyone in μ's as well. As for Umi-chan, she said that she had an important business with her family and she could not missed it, so she decided to have a day off in order to get back home as her parents required her to be back right after school.
As they reached to the Music Clubroom, the pair noticed a silhouette stood in front of the door, closing it slowly.
"Anou!" Eli called out, making the person's head turned towards them with a surprise look. Standing in front of them was a brown haired boy with green emerald eyes same as the vice-president has, wearing a male Otonokizaka High uniform. They noticed that he's a second year, due to the tie he's currently wearing. "Yes? How may I help you, kaichou, fuku-kaichou?" He questioned after recognizing the two girls standing in front of him.
"If I may ask, Hidari-kun, is Kuroba Kuroto-kun here in the club?" The president asked, looking at the captain of the football club, Hidari Houtaro, studying in class 2-A, and one of a few people who is well acquainted with the music club president as many students see them regularly walk with each other, making some girls in school develop some unhealthy fantasies, which Eli finds it rather disturbing. She usually hear about it, but barely put her mind into those meaningless conversation.
"Why do you ask, Kaichou? Did Kuro cause any trouble for you?" Eli noticed the way the brunette called Kuroto, which made she state that the two is just not well acquainted but also very close to one and another. But before she could replied, Nozomi had already done the job for the blonde girl. "No, he didn't. Actually, we would like to speak to him about something related to one of his essays that Tsurumi-sensei handled to him, so we wonder if Kuroba-kun is available for the moment?"
"I'm afraid that you're 2 hours late then." The girls widened their eyes as they heard the brunette sentence clearly, continuing to listen the rest of his words. "It seems that he has to return home early as his family require him to be back for important business. He left me a message, said that he couldn't attend to the club activity so I shouldn't go to the club." After taking his phone out of his blazer's left pocket, the brunette showed it with a message on the screen. "But I forgot to check my phone since I was pretty busy with the football club's activity myself so I just got here like usual. Not until a few moments earlier for my sister's call that I was able to check my messages." Houtaro finished his story, closed his phone and put it back into his pocket.
"Thank you very much, Hidari-kun!" The purple haired thanked with a kind smile, before leaving a small bow to her underclassman and turned to her friend. "Well then we should take our leave. Let's go, Elicchi!"
"Ah right! Thank you, Hidari-kun! Wait for me, Nozomi!" The blonde girl bowed as well and turned around, preparing to leave when they accidentally caught a small whisper from the brunette as he started walking away.
"Finally, someone besides us takes notice of him huh?"
After parting away with her friend Eli, Nozomi went back to her apartment with a groceries bag on her hand, knowing what she should made for today's dinner. Dropping her groceries bag in the kitchen, she decided to have a bath first before returning to the topic later. She went into the bathroom without forgetting to bring her clothes and towel along, undressing her uniform and refreshed herself under the shower before sinking in the hot tub filled with water. Touching her exposed white skin on her shoulder, she couldn't help but thinking about her underclassman's previous sentence.
"Besides us…" She pondered, trying to get the meaning behind his words. But after a while, she couldn't get the word as she knows very little about Kuroto and his relationship with others. At least she does know about Hidari Houtaro and his clubmate are the only one he's acquainted with. The purple haired girl just shrugged it off and stepped out of the tub and dried herself before putting her clothes on.
The busty girl went into the kitchen, put on her apron and readied the ingredients quickly as she decided to have a healthy bowl of ramen for tonight's dinner. After finishing, she went washing her dishes and cleaned out the table and went in her room, doing her homework for tomorrow. As she finished all of her homework and prepared her bag, it's already over 10 p.m so she thought it's the time to go to sleep. Before climbing on her bed, she took a glance at her tarot cards on her table, she thought of Kuroto with three questions in her mind. Sitting down, she inquired of her underclassman as she drew out each card randomly one by one after each question she asked herself and held them upside down and turned them up to see the answer before going to bed.
The next day, every member of μ's was gathered in the Idol Research Club, discussing about their next event as they need to find a way to improve their ranking on the Love Live official website. As they was in a middle of their discussion, a few knocks was heard on the club room's door.
"Please come in." Honoka was the first to say after hearing the knocking. "Pardon the intrusion." It was a woman's voice that they're very familiar with, at least for the second and the third year. Opening the door was woman in her early 30's, she has long black hair reach to her hips and light gray eyes, wearing a black shirt with her identical white lab coat outside and black pants.
"Tsurumi-sensei, what're you doing here?" Eli was bewildered at her teacher's sudden appearance as she question the elder. Not just Eli, but also almost everyone who has studied or is studying with Tsurumi-sensei were rather surprised as well.
"Hey there Ayase, sorry to interrupt you and your friends' club activity but I have a favor to ask you guys."
"What is it, sensei?" The bluenette, Sonoda Umi asked intriguingly and so did everyone else.
Instead of answering the girl's question, the teacher just looked outside of the door and dragged someone in, forcefully. "Get in here brat!"
In front of them was the scene Tsurumi-sensei holding a young boy's collar whose face and voice that Eli, Nozomi and a few others recognized, struggling to get off the teacher's strong grip. "Let me go, sensei!"
"I want you guys to let this little brat join your club as an advisor, a manager."
"Oi, I'm not even agree to this thing!" The boy protested angrily, only to receive the teacher's hard glare before she got back to her words.
"Well then, I leave this brat for you guys to handle. If you have any trouble or problem with him, just ask me, okay?" Not even wait for an answer, the black haired teacher released the boy, stepped outside and closed the door rather quickly.
"Tch… That damn old wench!" The black-white haired boy silently cursed, not wanting anyone to hear that, especially the teacher. But luckily for him, there's no sign that she'll be come back in any moment. 'Or she's just standing outside, already heard my curse but decide to let it slide.' He thought to himself, trying to fix his shirt's collar and headphone hanging around his neck.
"Kuroba-kun!?"
"Kuroto-kun!?"
"Kuroto-senpai!?"
He lifted his head up as he heard the first three familiar voices, only to bewildered even more than before.
'Oh shit… What did I just get myself into? I regret writing that essay already!' He execrated, couldn't believe what he saw in front of him. The voices were belonged to three people: Ayase Eli, Sonoda Umi and Nishikino Maki, looking at him with their eyes widened.
Meanwhile, Toujou Nozomi looked at the scene with an amused expression, thinking about last night.
'So that's what the card trying to say? This'll be getting interesting enough soon.'
What happened to Kuroba Kuroto-kun in the past?
[The Hermit]
Isolation
What're the reasons of his behavior?
[The Fool]
Naivety
What'll be his solution?
[The Lovers]
Genuine Relationship
End Prologue 1
Preview Prologue 2
(In 4 sentence)
"I want to be a hero of justice."
'That is why I admired him so much.'
"I like you, Umi-chan!"
"I-I'd rather if w-we're just friends.'
Author note: Hey there guys! It's been awhile since my last update. So I've decided to do with this little story of mine when I was trying to think of a plot for my story, and then *pop*, this idea came up. You probably wondering why there's a lot of Oregairu references (or not). Well, it's mainly because the plot I was thinking about and it hit me like a bang. So there it is! I hope you enjoy and I'll see you next chapter, which probably about another flashback *spoiler* but in another POV.
Oh, and if anyone's saying my character is a bit OOC or something like that, it's my intention to do so. I've planned this for a long time (at least till chapter 4) :)) And this is not a crossover! I repeat, this is not a crossover! Why? Because this story is not focused about Hikigaya Hachiman (if you don't know who he is, just google it), who'll be mentioned in the future, *spoiler again* but about the life of the main OC who's similar to him.
See you guys in the next chapter!
(1): Based on Looking back in High School Life by Hikigaya Hachiman. I want to keep the original version as close as possible. So I ended up copied the whole thing (please forgive me Watari-sensei!)