Chapter 4 has landed people!
Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own anything from UtaPri no matter how much I wish I did… but I do own my OC and whatever crazy bull goes on in the rest of it apart from the various interchanges with the plot of course…
Chapter 4: Concern
The day after the epic in the rain Aika walked into the practice room to see all the members of Quartet Night and Starish gathered around the piano. They all turned when she walked in and immediately she was rushed into a violent hug by Reiji. The other members of Quartet Night gathered around her wearing displeased frowns and Starish looked on with concerned expressions. She sighed and hugged Reiji back tentatively, still not quite trusting the feeling of a practical strangers arms around her, no matter how gorgeous or comfy he was. She realized what all the worried expressions were about straight away, of course.
"You know you shouldn't stay outside in the cold and rain for so long Kal!" said Reiji, pulling away and looking into her eyes; it took her a moment to remember that they all knew her as Kal, or Kalliope. She sighed again, "It's not like I'm ill so stop worrying. All of you."She announced, pointedly looking at Starish. "But what were you even doing?!" yelled Ranmaru, his fury at her maybe-slightly-risky actions becoming apparent. "I was dancing." She replied bluntly, moving away from the boy band members to sit in her usual seat at the side of the practice room. Closing the topic once and for all.
After a moment Reiji followed to sit next to her, sitting oddly close considering he didn't know whether she was a boy or a girl. Ranmaru huffed over and did the same on the other side and if she hadn't known that neither of them knew her gender she would have thought they were coming onto her. She shifted slightly uncomfortably as Camus took his usual seat and Ai sat on the other side of Ranmaru. "Erm… why are you sitting so close?" she whispered to Reiji and Ranmaru, quietly so that Starish couldn't hear. Ai and Camus sniggered slightly as Reiji and Ranmaru shifted away, both blushing deeply and muttering apologies and excuses under their breath.
She couldn't resist smiling beneath her scarf; they were all so nice to her… A moment later Hyuuga walked in, his eyes narrowing at the sight of Aika surrounded by the beautiful boys of Quartet Night. "Kal." He said, beckoning her over to where he stood by the door, she could practically feel the watchful and suspicious gazes of Starish and Quartet Night on her back. Hyuuga pulled her out of sight of the others and spoke in a whisper in case the bands were trying to listen in.
"Saotome wants you to teach them how to dance." He told her woefully, knowing that she would complain. "But he knows how I feel about people watching me dance!" she replied, furious. "I know, and I told him that, but he says he only brought you here to bring you closer to more people, and he thinks you teaching them how to dance will help with that."
"Well damn! I guess there's nothing I can do though, is there?" She replied, since that was also the reason that she had accepted Saotome's invitation, loneliness. Hyuuga looked at her apologetically, "I tried, I really did, but he said Quartet Night are to be taught as well." He said to her sadly and she smiled at him reassuringly, "I can manage…I think." she said to him, at least she was teaching idols with a decent level of ability, especially Quartet Night,she thought, briefly pulling her scarf down so that Hyuuga could see her smile. He smiled back and made to give her a hug before pausing, rethinking it, and realizing that it might be a bit weird for him to hug her, then blushed at her surprised expression. He wandered back down the corridor, muttering to himself about being an idiot, and she returned to the practice room, as confused as she had been the night before.
"I am to teach you to dance." She announced to Starish, not-so-inwardly fuming at Saotome's audacity. "But we know how to dance!" protested Syo. "Saotome's orders." She replied shortly. "Trust me, it's a breach of my privacy making me teach you to dance because I don't like people watching me dance and I don't like teaching them, so I'm not happy about it either." She ranted, letting off a bit of steam on poor Syo. She must have seemed pretty annoyed because Syo shut up quickly. Meanwhile, Quartet Night still hadn't moved from their seats, obviously not realizing that the orders included them.
"That includes you." She informed them, finding a sliver of amusement in the angry shade of purple that Ranmaru and Camus turned at her demand. Before they could both complain or start ranting she held up a hand. "Don't care, never will," She said harshly, which probably wasn't fair to them but she was really not in a good mood after last night and now this. "Now stand up." That was definitely her annoyed voice right there. She had to get a hold of her emotions quickly or she would give herself away. Ai gave her a hard look, she knew he was a robot which meant he could analyse her voice patterns as male or female, so she had to be more careful.
Aika went into complete commando mode over the next few hours. She made sure never to do the dances herself, instead demonstrating using single actions and poses, and only when necessary. Reiji and Starish were all too happy to take her advice and direction, Ai practically needed her to manhandle him into shape and Camus and Ranmaru took her advice grudgingly but did what she said, and at the end they (still grudgingly) told her that her instructions hadn't been bad and asked when were they doing it again because they had only gotten through half of Quartet Night's dance. The same went for Starish, who had taken forever because Cecil kept breaking into the "Agnadance", which was annoying but still kinda amusing.
Reiji and Ranmaru were naturally good dancers, kind of surprisingly, whereas Camus was a little stiff at first but soon got into it. Ai just needed to either see the others do it or be pushed and pulled into shapes, which she didn't mind since she got to touch him that way (simple pleasures, huh?), but they soon figured out it was faster just to make him watch so that he could process the moves and then do it. It was 6:30 by the time she finished in the practice room, Starish had already left, not even the novelty of watching their seniors being taught to dance could have stopped them hunting down their dinner. Especially since it had taken them until 6:30, and even Aika was getting tired by this point.
She left Quartet Night still practicing and wandered back to her outhouse, all too happy to have a warm shower and start her composing assignment from Ringo. She worked at that on the piano for a while before she decided to hop into her pyjamas and sit on her bed strumming a few tunes on her guitar. When the clock on the wall hit 10, she decided to call it a draw and sleep.
The next morning was Saturday, and Aika awoke early, relying on the hope that Quartet Night and Starish would either be out doing work or sleeping in, so that she could get the practice room to herself. She stuffed her iPod into her pocket because she preferred to listen to the songs than hear herself sing them; and she wouldn't even be singing her own songs, since there was a certain song from her childhood at the orphanage that was quite close to her heart that she wanted to practice.
Unfortunately, when she got to the practice room with her guitar strapped over her back, both of the bands were assembled and Saotome was giving some weird speech about something weird, so she just walked over to the window silently and sat down waiting for him to finish.
He caught her eye and the bands followed his gaze to where she sat by the window. "Kal!" he yelled, unnecessarily loud. "Yes?" she said glaring at him, since she was still annoyed from yesterday.
"When did you get here?" interrupted Otoya incredulously. "Not that I'm complaining about you being here…obviously…" he trailed off blushing. The guy was just too cute! She turned her attention back to Saotome. "Why are you here, Kalliope?" he shouted, and she resisted the need to smack him into using his 'indoor voice'. Ranmaru must have noticed her annoyance because he sniggered slightly and nudged Camus who smirked at her. She glared evilly at them both and answered Saotome. "I came to practice obviously. Why else would I be here this early on a Saturday?" Saotome gave a wicked grin and swooped over to her in that weird way of moving that he had.
"Would you mind letting Starish and Quartet Night listen to you practice?" he asked in her ear, while the others looked on in confusion since for once they couldn't hear what he was saying. "Yes, I would mind." She deadpanned. "Well that's too bad because I was hoping that these young men could rely on you to teach them!" he grinned at her, and she knew he was going to make them watch her practice. Well she didn't damned well want them to! At least not yet…
Saotome moved away quickly, obviously sensing the anger she was barely managing to contain. He turned back to the assembled bands, "Kal is going to let you listen to her practice and maybe you will hear Kal's heart poured out to you!" That was it. She stood, trembling with fury, all too ready to give him a good whack over the head when Hyuuga stepped in front of her out of nowhere. He looked her in the eye and held her still, putting his hands on her shoulders. Slowly, very slowly, her shoulders relaxed under his warm hands and she bowed her head, defeated.
"You don't have to do anything too emotional, " he whispered to her, "just show them your beautiful voice and then leave, that's all he's actually asked you to do." He whispered. "Don't let Saotome get to you, he's just winding you up." She sighed shakily and met Hyuuga's intense gaze. He blushed a little and looked away, and she realized he had called her voice beautiful. She turned and followed his gaze to look at the band members, whose concern was obvious in their eyes. "You don't have to sing to us if you don't want to, Kal." Said Tokiya softly. "We can wait until you're ready to trust us?" said Masato, immediately grasping her trust issues.
"No, Saotome's right." She said softly, "I do need to trust people a bit more." The boys looked both relieved and pleased that they would get to listen to the famous Anonymous Idol practice in person. Then again, this also narrowed down the number of songs she could sing without giving away her gender. It definitely ruled out the one close to her heart, she wasn't ready to share that yet. Aika walked to the piano and hopped onto the flat top of it, folding her legs beneath her and bringing out her guitar.
Masato walked to the piano bench and sat down, fingers poised over the keys, ready to accompany her if necessary. And with the boys stood around her, her guitar strings under her fingers, she began to sing.
Bit of a dramatic ending but bear with me chapter 5 is already done so im happy XD