Chapter 8

Deceiving Ten Thousand People

Even from the backstage, Hina could already feel the atmosphere on the stage. Like most concerts out there, the arena was shrouded in darkness during the moments before performers came out to the stage. Contrary to the lighting, cheers from the audience filled the whole concert hall with life. The girl caught a glimpse of lightsticks being waved around by fans.

Hina turned to face her bandmates. Aya was fidgeting around, Chisato wore her usual calm demeanor, Eve did some kind of meditation, while Maya used her drumming sticks as incense. It was kinda funny to see the variety of their reactions before going on stage.

"That's a lot of people out there." Hina pointed at the stage and grinned. "Funny how we've gotta get up there and make them all believe we're actually performing, right?"

The remaining four didn't respond at Hina's remark. Aya's face, she noticed, became even paler than before. Eve stopped her meditation and comforted the vocalist. Chisato joined the party and gave her words of encouragement.

"Y-yeah... You're right...!" Aya's face brightened and her eyes were filled with resolve. "We're going to give our best performance for our ten thousand audiences!"

Hina nodded. "Yup, minus the singing and playing instruments~"

"Hmph… Please don't ruin the mood, Hina-chan!" Aya whined.

"Sorry, sorry!" The guitarist laughed. "But I have a serious question, tho: is Marmalade lip-syncing?"

Aya shook her head. "They're always singing live, even when their voices become hoarse due to hours of singing and dancing..."

Hina nodded. "Wow, that's a pro for ya!"

"Pro, huh…" Chisato quietly muttered.

A backstage staff then approached the girls and said, "Pastel✽Palettes, you're up next!"

Pastel✽Palettes' members exclaimed "Okay!" in unison.

"Please welcome to the stage, here for their debut performance…" an MC said from the center of the stage. "The latest and greatest new idol band, Pastel✽Palettes!"

Aya headed out to the stage first; followed by Hina, Chisato, Eve, and finally Maya. Each girl was illuminated by a spotlight. They waved to the audiences, who welcomed them with a wave of cheer. Hina and the others walked to their stations—the instruments were already there for them to use—and readied their instruments at once.

The lights then brightened, giving Hina ease to look around. The stage was decorated with pastel-colored sweets like lollipops, macarons, and ice creams. It somehow matched with their stage costumes, frilly no-sleeve dresses in five different colors for each girl. She wondered whether the staff made the stage to match Pastel✽Palettes' image, or Marmalade happened to have a pastel color scheme as well. The correct answer would be the latter, most likely. Marmalade was the star of the show, after all.

Aya took a mic from its stand. "Hello, everyone! We are Pastel✽Palettes, a new idol band that's going to perform as the opening act for our seniors in Marmalade." She waved at the audience again. "Thank you so much for coming out to see Marmalade today!"

Hina smiled. Aya was nervous as heck on the backstage, but she turned out to be a smooth talker when she must.

"I think you'll get to know us best if we just go ahead and perform a song for you!" Aya carried on. She raised her hands and shouted, "Here is Shuwarin Drea~min!"

Hina strummed the strings of her blue guitar right away, syncing with the pre-recorded music. The girl had done it every single day that it became second nature to her. She hoped that the others were able to match their pretend-play with the music as well.

The audiences were cheering and waving their lightsticks around. Adding to Hina's excitement, they even switched the color of their lightsticks into pastel green, Pastel✽Palettes' band color. That was a warm reception for a group of newborn idols.

"Shuwa, shuwa! Dori dori~mi—"

The voice, as well as the music, suddenly stopped; yet Hina and her bandmates were still faking around for two or three seconds after that abrupt end. Silence fell, followed by thousands of murmurs from the audience. She couldn't tell what they said, but even an emotionally-dense person like Hina knew it must be bad.

Hina turned to Chisato and whispered, "What happened to the audio?!"

Chisato only shook her head. Even the actress couldn't hide her anxiety in this situation.

Aya, meanwhile, just froze. She held a mic, yet couldn't utter anything except a terribly nervous attempt to speak. And just then, Chisato grabbed a mic positioned at the bass guitar section and gave an announcement.

"We're sorry, everyone. It seems like due to some technical difficulties, we won't be able to continue our performance today." Chisato spoke in a calm manner, yet Hina knew she must be struggling to keep the panic from showing up. "We have many more shows planned for the near future and we hope you'll be back to see them."

Chisato ended her talk with a smile. "That's all for now from Pastel✽Palettes!"

The crowd was in a state of confusion.

Hina could hear Eve's voice from the rear, asking whether their show truly ended. Her voice was so weak, unlike her usual cheeriness.

"...I guess it has to be." Hina let out a sigh. "Let's get out of here."

Hina walked away, with her bandmates following suit. As the five returned backstage, she realized that Aya had it the worst. Her eyes were in tears and her body trembled. To make matters worse, they crossed paths with the members of Marmalade who were preparing to go out to the stage.

Aya ran past Ayumi and the rest of Marmalade members without saying a word, while Hina and the remaining Pastel✽Palettes girls could only say hello in total awkwardness.

»↠ ≈ ≈ ↞«

When the girls returned to the dressing room, they were approached by Miyagi. The manager said that the staff was finding out the problem as they spoke. But then she got a call from someone and went outside.

Hina couldn't believe what happened just minutes back. Their fake performance went smoothly during the first half, with people cheering and—most importantly—believed that they performed for real. The girl was about to say what she had in mind, yet Chisato beat her.

"...We just lied to ten thousand people and they all found out within minutes."

Silence befell the group. Hina couldn't find any word to lift up the mood. If there were any, though, she doubted it'll be useful to cheer her bandmates. She gazed at Aya, who was accompanied by Eve and Maya. Hina smiled wryly. Not with Aya sobbing around like that.

Then one of them spoke, followed by the others.

First, Eve questioned why the music suddenly stopped. Maya, as the music equipment geek of the group, gave a possible cause that it might be due to a fault on speakers, amps, or transformers. But soon after, an unexpected person spoke.

"I'm sorry, everyone…" Aya wiped the tears in her eyes. "I knew I had to do something, but I couldn't make a sound up there…"

"It's not your fault, Aya-san…!" Maya said reassuringly. "And there's no use crying over spilled milk, anyway." She shook her head and smiled. "We've just gotta make the next show even better!"

Eve and Chisato didn't share the same optimism, though.

Chisato got up from her seat and walked to the door. "I'm going to ask the staff what's going on."

As Chisato closed the door, lively music accompanied by the cheers of the audience, came from a TV placed in the dressing room. The screen showed live footage of what happened on stage. The arena was already cleared from any musical instruments Pastel✽Palettes had used before.

Ayumi and the rest of Marmalade's members came out from backstage and sang their hearts out. After the first song ended, they had an MC session, which didn't mention anything about what happened a few minutes prior, as if Pastel✽Palettes wasn't there.

Hina let out a dry laugh. Their senior idols must be ashamed with a lip-syncing bunch like them.

But then came a wave of discord amongst the audience. Some of them demanded a proper explanation of what happened with Pastel✽Palettes and gave an accusation that Marmalade did the same act of lip-syncing.

"Oh, no…" Aya's shoulders declined. "Wh-what should we do? We dragged Marmalade into our mess!"

Maya said, "Wait, don't they know how to tell whether a singer lip-syncing or not…?"

"If they could, they would boo-ing at us, even without that technical fault incident~" replied Hina.

"Whoa, that escalated quickly!" Ayumi said from the screen. Her astonishment didn't last long, though, as she smiled and said calmly, "Please lower your voices so we can talk, okay?"

And it didn't take long for the yelling to die out. Hina was impressed. Although Ayumi seemed like an adorkable person—based on what happened at the vending machine—she surely had an immense amount of charisma.

"The staff are still investigating the problem as we speak. I believe the management will address this matter properly soon enough." Ayumi explained. "But no matter what happens, please don't be too harsh to our cute juniors, alright?"

Aya gasped. "Ayumi-san still acknowledges us as her juniors…!" She was overflowing with tears once more.

"And a cute one at that." Hina patted Aya's shoulder. "C'mon, give us your pretty pink wink, Aya-chan!" She grinned and raised her thumb.

Aya gave a weak smile and winked at Hina.

"As of whether we sing for real or lip-syncing…" Ayumi said. Her smile was still intact. "How about we play a little game, everyone?"

The game that Ayumi spoke of was an improv. She challenged the audience to pick a Marmalade song to be performed in a cappella. Various titles came from the crowd, which later were voted based on the volume of cheers.

Before long the idol group performed a song without instrumental accompaniment. And what dazed Pastel✽Palettes, especially Aya, was the moment when Ayumi went "la la la" instead of uttering the correct words. As the song ended, the center of the group jokingly admitted that she forgot the lyrics because it was an old song.

"I'm not sure whether Ayumi-san truly forgot the lyrics or she intentionally made a mistake… But either way, it made the performance feel more natural." Maya touched her chin. "And I doubt anyone will accuse them of lip-syncing anymore."

Aya let out a fangirl squeal. But seconds later, she realized that Chisato hadn't returned to the dressing room.

"Is this all we can do right now? Just wait?" Eve asked. "I want to try to help…" Her face grew weary with anxiety. "And Chisato-san being out there is a little worrying."

"Ah~, I'm so bored just sitting around like this!" Hina raised from her chair. "Imma go see if I can find her."

"Ah, Hina-chan, I want to go too!"

Hina shook her head. "Nah, hold your horses~" She reached for the doorknob and gave a smirk. "Your makeup is so messed up that you looked like a ghost lady!"

As Hina closed the door behind, she could hear Aya screaming about her ruined makeup in agony.

"Now where could Chisato-chan be…?"

The guitarist of Pastel✽Palettes walked in a random direction and looked around. The staff was still busy with Marmalade's ongoing gig. Her eyes later spotted a girl in a yellow frilly dress—identical to Hina's blue one—talking to one of the backstage staff.

"Chisato-chan!" exclaimed Hina while she ran toward the bassist. As the distance was close enough to talk, she continued, "You were taking so long—But forget about that~ What were you guys talking about?"

"Hina-chan. I'm sorry, you must have been worried," said Chisato. "I was just having the staff here explain to me exactly what went wrong today."

"Oh, right." Hina nodded. "All I know is, the other girls are all looking pretty unnerved right now."

"Of course, it was a big problem we faced today. But I need you all to grow stronger from experiences like these." Chisato gave a tender smile. "...So strong that you won't even need me around."

"Huh?"

Chisato chuckled. "However much more experienced I am, there's still a limit to what I can do, after all."

"No, what did you mean by—"

Hina's sentence got cut as Chisato invited her to return to the dressing room. The girl quietly abided and walked behind the actress.

Their debut today was terrible enough as it was, but... Did their bassist just give away a hint that she would bail out the band real soon?

Hina sighed.

The thought didn't sound boppin'.