Live 2: Let's Start Becoming a Manager!
"Manager, you say?" the teacher asked, raising an eyebrow in doubt.
Awawawa. That's not going to work!
"Yup!" Honoka nodded, smiling with confidence.
"Is that so?" the teacher mumbled. She looked straight at me and asked, "Kousaka-san, what is your manager's name?"
"Eh?" Honoka gasped abruptly. I guess she wasn't prepared for that.
I, on the other hand, smiled. Why? Because I had just recalled my full name.
"Hotaka. I'm Hotaka Kiimu. It's a pleasure to meet you, sensei," I said with the utmost courtesy I could manage. To add to it, I bowed my head down, which luckily didn't feel forced or stiff.
The teacher was taken aback by my fluid and charming answer (it was charming in my point of view), but I felt the same way. I felt like an answer full of falsified etiquette would never fit with my personality, if I ever got to go about remembering it.
"Y-yes, it's a pleasure," the teacher replied. She turned towards Honoka and said, "Well then, be sure to go home soon. Classes ended a while ago."
"Okay~," Honoka answered.
Once the teacher had gone away, Honoka jumped up to me and asked, "Hey, hey. Is Hotaka really your name? Or did you make it up?"
"I-it's real. And your face is way too close!"
"Then I'll call you Hotaka-kun! Is that okay?" Honoka asked as she stepped back.
"That's fine with me, Honoka-san."
"Bubu!" Honoka stuck her tongue out, making an "X" sign with her index fingers. "Don't add the -san. It's uncomfortable."
"Then... Honoka-sama."
"What am I? A temple goddess?"
"Joking, joking." I smiled and asked, "Then is just Honoka alright with you?"
Honoka grinned and nodded, "Yeah!"
She pointed at me and asked, "By the way, I've been wondering, but is that a guitar you're carrying?"
I looked over my shoulder to realize that I was indeed, carrying a guitar-like case with something in it. How did I not notice it this entire time?
I placed it onto the ground lightly and unzipped the bag. A shiny electric guitar with a simple brown, wood-like pattern was in the case. The word Fender was printed on the guitar's head next to the tuning keys.
"Oh! That looks expensive!" Honoka whistled as she looked over my shoulder. Once we had confirmed what was inside the bag, I zipped it shut and slung it over my shoulder. Along with the guitar, I also had a small backpack with me. It was relatively light compared to the guitar.
Honoka walked towards the music room's door and said, "Well, let's get along from now on, Manager-san!"
"Yeah, let's," I replied. "Wait, am I really a manager?"
"By the way," Honoka suddenly said, ignoring my question, "do you have somewhere to stay?"
...
"And so, can Hotaka-kun stay here for a while?" Honoka finished her explanation.
Someway or another, Honoka dragged me to her house to ask her parents if I could live-in with them for a while. I wasn't exactly confident that they would accept it, but it was worth a shot.
"Absolutely not," Honoka's father rejected the idea.
That's true, a healthy adolescent boy living under the same roof of a healthy adolescent girl isn't exactly an idea treated fondly of (by most people anyways).
I picked up my bags and started to stand when Honoka's mother spoke up, "Isn't it fine? Hotoka-san doesn't remember anything and he doesn't have anywhere to stay."
Honoka's father grunted, a wordless form of surrender. He stood up and returned to the shop's kitchen. On the way, he gave me a quick glare.
Honoka's mother turned to Yukiho, Honoka's little sister, and said, "Go bring Hotaka-san to the guest room. That will be his room for the time being."
Yukiho nodded as I bowed awkwardly to Honoka's mother, "Sorry for imposing on you."
"It's fine, it's fine!" Honoka's mother laughed lightly.
The shop door opened and a girl called out from up front, "Excuse me, is Honoka here?"
Honoka stood up as she said, "Ah, it's Umi-chan. I'll be back." She darted off to the front of the store.
Yukiho got to her feet as she called, "Hotaka-san, let me show you to your room." She walked out of the living room and turned into the hallway.
Before I left to follow her, I took a good look the room. It really gave off an atmosphere of a traditional Japanese house, even though it was in the back of a sweets shop. The floor was padded with soft tatami mats, which were a deep shade of jade green.
It sort of... how to say it... made me feel at home. I don't really know. Maybe my home was like this too.
"Hotaka-san?" Yukiho called out.
"Ah! Sorry, I'm coming!" I said back, hurrying after her.
Yukiho guided me to the second floor and opened a door to a room in the corner of the hall. I stepped in.
The room itself wasn't that spacey, but it was big enough for a guest like me to lounge about comfortably. There was a wide study desk in one corner of the room and next to it was a medium sized bed. A half-open closet was next to the door and there were two windows on adjacent walls. In the center of the room, was a small low table.
It was a simple room, but it was much better than what I would be sleeping in if I never met Honoka.
"Sorry that it's a bit tight in here," Yukiho apologized ahead of time.
I placed my bags next to the bed as I shook my head, "No, no. I'm thankful to even be able to stay here." I slid open one of the windows and a gentle breeze rushed in, replacing the slightly dingy air with a clean freshness.
Yukiho turned from the room and said, "Well, I'm going to go back downstairs. You can rearrange the room if you want to." I could hear her descending the staircase after she left.
I looked around, studying the room again. The bed was covered neatly with a light pink blanket, but the pillow was pure white. As for the study desk... what to say? It was made out of wood like the low table.
Apart from my guitar, I didn't know what else I had, so I decided to go through my backpack. I unzipped the main compartment and pulled out several notebooks and a pencil case.
"Hm?" I murmured to myself as I sifted through the notebooks. There were two composition notebooks and two blank music scorebooks. In one of the notebooks, was a short piece of writing. Curious to what was written, I began reading it.
"Hey, Hotaka-kun," Honoka suddenly spoke up, peeking from the doorframe.
"What's up?" I asked, closing the notebook.
Honoka grinned, "Come with me for a minute."
"Sure..." I answered, getting up. I followed Honoka as she skipped down the corridor.
She took hold of my wrist and pulled me into her room as she half-shouted, "Here he is!"
There were two other girls in Honoka's room.
The girl sitting closer to us had grayish-brown hair with a side ponytail streaming under a small bun. Upon our entrance, she looked up with attentive amber eyes.
The other, who sat across from the first girl, had long dark blue hair which wasn't styled in any way. She stared at me with cautious brown eyes.
Both girls were wearing the same school uniform as Honoka.
"He's Hotaka-san?" the gray-brown haired girl asked with a cheerful voice. She smiled and introduced herself, "I'm Kotori Minami. Nice to meet you!"
"Ah," I replied, unsure what to say, "nice to meet you too."
"My name is Umi Sonoda," Umi, the blue-haired girl, said politely, "I hope to get along with you."
"Ah, yeah, same here," I answered in a casual tone.
"But did you really lose your memories?" Kotori asked, peering at my face. I guess Honoka told these two about me.
I nodded.
"Can you remember your birthday?" Kotori asked curiously.
"Birthday? Urm...," I sighed, "No luck." I couldn't remember even details that were particularly personal to me. If I couldn't remember my name from the point I lost my memories, then regaining other information would probably prove to be even more difficult.
"It must be troubling for you to not be able to remember much about yourself," Umi sympathized with me.
"Well," Honoka said, breaking the flow of the conversation, "let's put that aside for now. The real reason I brought Hotaka-kun here was so that you two could meet him, since he's going to be our manager and all."
"Eh?" I said, "I'm still going to be a manager? I thought you just said that so I could slip out of the school!"
Honoka chuckled strangely with an evil facial expression as she looked my way, "You're freeloading here, so you can at least do this, right?"
I couldn't say anything back.
"And besides," Honoka said, her demeanor back to normal, "you're probably a musician. You were carrying a guitar with you, and you did wake up at a piano." She smiled and said, "Isn't that plenty of evidence that you're a musician?"
"No, it could just be two coincidences," I murmured to myself.
Honoka started chatting with Kotori and Umi as I smiled to myself.
Well, this isn't bad either.
I remembered my notebook and spoke up, "Hey, I think I wrote some song lyrics before I lost my memories, wanna see?"
Honoka whirled around to me and nodded rapidly, "Show us!"
I got up and said, "Just wait a second then. I'll go grab my notebook." As the three girls continued their discussion about whether red bean paste sweets or chocolate was better, I walked back to the guest room which was now temporarily my room.
I pushed open the door to feel a surge of cool wind brush against my skin. It was soothing, but I shut the window and grabbed my notebook, which had flipped open in the wind.
Having retrieved the notebook, I headed back towards Honoka's room. But suddenly, I stumbled into the wall, my head pounding. It felt like a searing needle of steel was poking my brain. I clutched my forehead with my free hand, trying to ease the pain somehow. In a moment, the pain faded away. While I was confused to what caused it, I was glad it was over and continued into Honoka's room.
"You're slow, Hotaka-kun!" Honoka complained as I stepped into the room. She was seated around the low table with Kotori and Umi, munching on some rice crackers, her chin resting on the desk. Apparently, Honoka considered a few seconds too long. Then again, I did have that dizzy spell while I was coming back.
Instead of arguing against her, I took a seat. "Sorry, sorry. I mixed up a bunch of things," I said as I placed the notebook down on the page where I wrote the lyrics.
Honoka snatched it away and the three started reading. Before they even got through the first line, Umi had something to ask. "Does this song not have a title?"
"Ahhh," I said, grinning a little, "I thought of one a while ago."
"What is it?" Kotori asked.
I exhaled a little though my nose, and nodded, deciding that I liked this title. I looked at the girls and said,
"Kitto Seishun ga Kikoeru."
Hello~ This is Empyreum here.
I wrote this chapter rather quickly, but I'm quite satisfied with the results.
When I watched the anime, I was always wondering about the opening and the ending since μ's performed them, but didn't exactly, "make", them. From that, I decided to introduce those two songs in this story as something the protagonist wrote up.
I like how this is progressing, so I'll most likely update on this at a relatively quick pace (unless academics and/or personal reasons hinder me. Finals are approaching too, but I'm not one to study, but maybe I should study this time around).
Well then, until the next Live, adios!
*Also, just in case anyone didn't know, Kitto Seishun ga Kikoeru is the ending theme to the Love Live anime. And with that, adios until the next Live (for real)!
