Chika: *currently reading the reviews* Eh? Who wouldn't want a mikan? Although I guess you also get a new chapter today, so there's that... *puts the review down* Well, I guess I'll get going then.
Dia: You're switching out with the next person, right?
Chika: Yup! I'll see all of you *readers* later! *bounces out the door*
It was no use. Maki stared at the blank page before her. No matter how many times she had found a tune and scribbled it down, the time loop returned the sheet to its blank form. And yet, she always returned to the piano, sat down before it, and started writing the music again. From nothing except her memory, she played and wrote. Her efforts were for naught, she knew, as long as they were trapped in frozen time. "But still..." She raised her hands over the piano again, prepared to play the tune she had been practicing for so many years.
A strange feeling passed through her. If she were a poet, she would have called it a 'wave of new hope', because that's what it felt to her. "Did something happen?" She asked quietly, to herself. The rest of the members had already gone to tend to their daily tasks, with the exception of Honoka, who was still sleeping in the middle of the lounge. It occurred to her to check on Honoka. With a sigh, Maki got up from the bench and walked towards the lounge.
"What the-?" The futons were already put away. But she hadn't heard anyone moving, or seen anyone wander into the room from outside. A quick glance at the clock told her that it was after the time that Honoka woke up, yet it had never happened that she didn't notice the orange-haired girl getting up. The time loop had never changed before now, and she was distinctly uncomfortable. However, it wasn't as if she completely understood everything about the loop, so she wrote it off as just a random happening. Even though such a thing had never happened during their five years of being trapped.
Maki shook her head, refusing to dwell on the topic. She returned to the piano. She remembered the notes, even if the written form had been erased. She started playing, her fingers dancing across the piano keys with the muscle memory written into them.
Riko scowled. So, she had been right; they really should not have gone towards the villa. The strangeness of the whole situation was unsettling enough without all of her friends suddenly vanishing on her as well. The door suddenly shut in front of her, with a quiet deliberateness that made her think of someone being there. But there wasn't. She reached forward into the gap between herself and the door, where Chika had been just a few seconds ago, and felt nothing but air push against her hand.
No, she wanted nothing to do with this. She hadn't wanted to do any of this from the very beginning, even with the strange nagging feeling in the back of her mind. Okay, so maybe she had wanted this, a little, but not enough to welcome the current situation. "Calm down…" She told herself. "Think, Riko. There has to be something here that's causing this."
It was the villa that caused the ripple, and the subsequent separation. She had no idea where the rest of the group could have gone, but she knew them all quite well at this point. The idea of leaving without everyone present would never cross their minds…she hoped.
There was no point in standing around outside. She grabbed the doorknob, half-expecting another ripple to occur, and pushed the door open. Nothing happened, even as Riko tensely waited for the wave to hit her. After a few seconds passed without anything strange affecting her, she cautiously moved inside.
The first thing she noticed was the sound of piano playing.
Maki paused, stretching a bit. Maybe she shouldn't even write the notes down, with how easily the song came back to her. Yet, at the same time, she got the sense that the song she was playing wasn't correct. There was something missing about it, that made it wrong somehow. "It's better to write things down so I can correct them…" She lowered the cover over the piano keys, and placed the blank sheets on top of the polished wood. "Ah, but I don't have a pencil. I keep forgetting it gets put back in my bag." Once again, she got up from the bench. The lingering question of where Honoka had vanished to pressed against her mind as she walked out of the lounge, but it vanished before her confusion at seeing a complete stranger in the entryway. Something was definitely up with the time loop if a stranger had managed to wander in after five years of nothing. "Who are you?" She asked bluntly.
"Um, I'm Sakurauchi Riko." Riko responded immediately. She dipped her head immediately to the other girl, feeling like somehow that was the natural order to things, even the other girl felt younger than her. As she straightend back up, she studied the girl who was glaring so intensely at her. She felt like she should know who this was, yet her mind kept drawing a blank. Given the situation, she should ask for the other's name. Yet… "I know you." She said instead, earning her a look that was both confused and condescending at the same time.
Kanan stared at the door in confusion. She had watched it close, on its own, and then open again. There was no one near her who could have opened it; they had all gone somewhere else while she was incacipated with the ripple. If-no, when-she found them, she was going to give them all a good scolding for splitting up in such a weird place. Especially Mari and Dia, who she had at least thought had the good sense to stay put even if the others ran off.
"At any rate," she sighed, "I don't feel like going in now. I'll explore outside a bit longer, I guess…" She turned away from the door and headed back down the path. Something told her there was no point going into the fog. The white mist curled halfway down the overgrown path, even though there shouldn't be fog with the amount of sun shining down on her. Sighing once more, she turned away from the fog as well and walked around the side of the villa. "I wonder where everyone else went…"
Paper balls littered the floor. The trash can was empty, but Umi could care less as she haphazardly tossed another crumpled up sheet over her shoulder. It landed on the soft carpet amongst other paper balls, the rejected lyrics of Umi's creation.
She'd been at this for almost an hour now. Her time in the loop had taught her that she needed to do at least an hour of lyric-writing before she could feel satisfied with the day. Even if that hour was spent throwing paper all over the room, the urge to write would remain with her if she didn't do so. So, she'd come to the conclusion that she should spend an hour in the room as soon as she woke up so she could enjoy the rest of the day with her friends. There wasn't much else that she, or any of the other members, could do given their entrapment in this one single day.
"And time!" She shouted, throwing her pen down on the desk. It left a mark, but she didn't care. Like with everything else in the villa, the desk and floor would be cleared of all messes by the time the next looped day came by. She threw open the window, allowing wind to play with her papers and blow them out.
"Huh?" Kanan looked up at the sound of something opening, only to have a sheet of paper blow into her face. Momentarily disoriented, she gripped the page in one hand and threw it aside. Her confusion was mirrored by the girl peering down from the second floor window. "Hello!" She shouted, pushing her confusion aside. "My name's Kanan! I'm looking for my friends!"
The girl shook her head, and turned away from the window. Kanan could hear the faint sound of a door opening. It would be too slow to run around back to the front of the villa and enter it. By the time she made it upstairs, who knows where the girl could run off to. Instead, she walked over the base of the villa, directly below the window, and started to scale it. After all, she had great pride in the muscles she built from years spent swimming in the ocean.
Umi hurried down the stairs, hoping to find someone, anyone really, to confront the stranger with. She stopped at the lounge, surprised to see that Maki wasn't at the piano like she was supposed to be.
"Hey!"
She looked back, shocked to find that the strange girl standing at the rail of the second floor. Umi was terrified. Five years of unchanging time, all of sudden disrupted by someone new. She grabbed a pillow from the sofa and threw it at the other girl.
Kanan dodged it with ease. Strange, she thought, that she could understand the other girl's fright so easily. She dodged another pillow, still thinking about it. Maybe she had been too forward with her introduction.
A supersonic pillow hit her right in the face. Unable to dodge the overly-fast bullet, Kanan was knocked to the ground with the force of the throw. Her consciousness faded…
Dia: ...*sighs* Kanan-san, I can't believe that you went ahead and chased after her like that. Only to get knocked out.
Eri: Umi's supersonic pillows shouldn't be underestimated. *nods* I know from experience.
Dia: Oh. Hello. I see that you're next in the alphabetical order we've been placed in. My name is Kurosawa Dia.
Eri: I'm Ayase Eri. I look forward to working with you.
Dia: Even though I'll be switching out at the beginning of the next chapter?
Eri: Yes. Even with that. *smiles*
Dia: ...you are a strange one, aren't you.
