It was the day of the school festival, and the members at the light music club, Yui, Ritsu, Mio and Mugi were doing their very first performance. Most of the pressure was on Mio as she had to take center stage as the lead singer. It was something she never saw herself doing, but she was essentially forced into that corner due to Yui losing her voice just a day before the festival. After building up the courage, with some encouragement from her band members, Mio was able to sing the lyrics to their song, Fuwa Fuwa Time, without a hitch, with any semblance of shyness seemingly gone.
Seeing the audience cheering and applauding this much, plus compliments from her friends, Mio felt a growth in confidence inside. But as the bassist was about to walk off the stage feeling satisfied, she ends up tripping on the wire of her own instrument, falling flat on her face. She lifted herself up, only to discover what the audience was looking at as they got their phones out and starting taking pictures. It was the most embarrassing moment of Mio's life as she started to get flustered and almost broke down into tears.
All the while, Ritsu couldn't bear to see her childhood friend like this. Before the festival, she was teasing the nervous bassist for getting frightened over stuff like this, but here she knew she had to do something to ensure that Mio doesn't endure life long trauma over this. She promptly ran over, went behind Mio, and lifted herself down to cover up what the students were taking pictures of.
"Hey! No more pictures!" Ritsu yelled. "No more pictures! Unless you want to get some of me. Then in that case, go right ahead." Despite an attempt to inflate her own ego, saving her friend from lifelong embarrassment was her top priority here.
While the tomboy drummer was covering for Mio, Yui and Mugi rushed over to grab her hands and pull her up, getting her off stage as quickly as possible. While all this was happening, Mio still had a flustered look on her face, nearly dying from the embarrassment she just faced.
How could something like this happen?
A few minutes later, the light music club members and Sawako were celebrating their first performance.
"I must say, for your first time playing in front of an audience, you did really well, Yui." Sawako said. "Same for you, Mugi. Your keyboard skills were exquisite."
These compliments caused both Yui and Mugi to blush and giggle.
"Wait. What about Mio-chan?" Mugi wondered.
"Well, I found out that she did so great as the vocalist that she has her own fanclub now!" Sawako replied. "Maybe we should discuss what we should do with that fact."
Yui turned to Mio with a super concerned face. "I don't think Mio-chan's ready to talk right now." Mugi and Sawako both turned to the bassist as well, also feeling sorry for her.
Mio was sat in a corner, traumatised from her trip up and what occurred from it. All the while, Ritsu had her arms wrapped around her, doing her best to comfort her.
"It wasn't all bad, right? I mean, your singing was so great that you even have a fanclub. I could only dream of having that many people admiring me."
"I g-guess s-so." Mio stuttered trying to contain herself. "B-but they t-took p-pictures of my p-panties."
"They'll get over it by the end of the day. And if they don't, I'll make things personal and make them forget it. This whole situation will blow over no matter how it happens. I promise."
Mio slightly smiled, with the emotional trauma still overtaking her relief, but is still at enough ease to tell Ritsu one more thing after hugging her back. "T-thank you."
The two remained like this until Mio calmed down and was emotionally stable enough to move. They went ovet to the table and took a seat, follwed up with Mugi offering Mio more tea and cake than usual.
"I felt like you needed more of this after what you just went through, Mio-chan." she politely said.
"I appreciate the concern, but I don't need 5 cups of tea." Mio replied. "2 is fine, though."
Ritsu is right. The performance was admittedly a success. And I actually managed to sing all the vocals without any screw ups. I didn't think I had the strength to do that. The way it ended was the most embarrassing moment of my life, without a doubt, but I kinda feel at ease knowing that it'll become a distant memory in a day or two. Even though Ritsu likes to play around with my fears sometimes, I'm glad to have a friend like her.
After school, Ritsu decided to walk home with Mio and stay with her for a while just to ensure that she doesn't think about the incident that recently occurred by tomorrow. The time was spent with Ritsu messing around with some of Mio's stuff, but since it was nothing too personal, Mio took no objections to it. She was just happy to have someone like her be this supportive.