Hiya! Hello, my dears :D New chapter! You could say this is a buildup chapter, but there's a lot of OtoTomo brotp in it soooooooo :D I love it :D

Disclaimer: I don't own Uta no Prince-sama or any of its characters.

The next morning ~

Haruka woke up to the sound of her alarm clock. 7:30 am. What an awful time to be awake in the middle of the winter cold.

With one arm she tried to turn it off, but after taking it out of the covers, the chillness of the room made her shiver. She instantly put her arm back in, covering her face with the sheets now. Of course, that was the time her phone alarm started sounding. She'd always put at least two alarms just in case she slept through one. But now she was regretting that, she didn't even want to move, much less get out of bed. But she had a meeting at their record label at 9 am. She couldn't just bail on it.

Somehow she fell back into sleep, but someone wasn't having any of that. A particular teacher was standing at the side of her bed, ready to wake her up whatever it took. He turned on the megaphone he had so thoughtfully brought and said: "Haruka-chan, get up and take a shower, I won't tolerate any slackers"

She rushed to the bathroom so fast that all he could see before she closed the door was a blur of pink.

Ringo sighed, and complained out loud: "Teenagers".

~h~o~~h~o~~h~o~~h~o~~h~o~~h~o~~h~o~~h~o~~h~o~~h~o~~h~o~

After weeks of no free time, Otoya finally had a day off. Unfortunately he was the only one so he had to figure out something to do by himself. That wouldn't have been too hard during the summer, but the cold didn't leave him too many options. He would practice any or all sports and have the time of his life, but that wasn't possible at the moment. Before any of that brought him down, he remembered he hadn't visited his old orphanage in a while, maybe it was time to go back.

He took his phone out to call for a cab and that's when he noticed that he had received a text message.

It read: "Good morning, Otoya-kun!JI hope you have fun on your day off, or relax… whichever you pick. I'll see you at dinner. I'll have a long day today" Oh, that's right. He remembered: she had work really early that day… Or at least far enough to wake up early and leave before he even had a chance to get out of bed. They hadn't been able to greet each other.

He quickly started typing out a reply. "You forgot to say 'I love you'! :-P Hehe. But thnx! Pls don't strss yrslf out, k? I'll save you a seat!" The last time he had used the typical text abbreviations (and the not-so-typical-made-by-himself ones) she had complained about how she had to re-read his message over and over in order to get what he was trying to say, but it was just against his nature to waste time writing whole words. He'd rather talk over the phone if anything, but since she had texted… He figured she could at least guess what he was trying to say… hopefully.

Either way, she had to work and he needed to call a cab if he wanted to get to the orphanage sometime that day so he couldn't really linger on the thought of whether she would get mad at his typing skills or not.

With that settled, he dialed up his preferred company and after being told it would take half an hour for the car to arrive, he went to make himself some quick breakfast. It was only 10 am after all. And the only thing he needed to get going was a glass of milk and a couple of toasts with butter so it wasn't any accomplishment to get that down in less than thirty minutes.

After he ate and the cab finally got there, he got ready for a long trip. The orphanage wasn't that far away, but the weather was so cold that the usual roads were filled with ice, that made travelling harder and was the whole reason why he didn't just ride his bike or call the cab just up to the train station.

And it was indeed long. It took one hour for them to get there. And that had its upsides and downsides. The good part was that it was almost lunch time… The bad part was that it was almost lunch time. He hadn't really planned that well, but if he got there by that time then they would surely offer him some food and considering how much he ate, he couldn't afford to take any. So, making a last minute change of plans, he told the driver to take him to a nearby ramen place, at least that way he was still close to the orphanage and he wouldn't be hungry after all the kids ate.

By 12:30 pm he had already eaten, but he guessed the kids wouldn't have finished until at least one more hour and surely a little walk through the icy streets would be nice for his digestion.

Not worried about food or what to do in the day anymore, he walked into a park just down the street and sat on a bench right in front of what seemed to be a river. He pulled his scarf a bit upwards to cover his nose and put his hands in his pockets, finally finding a more comfortable position to sit at.

The silence brought by the lack of people in the place and the calmness of the static weather made him relax his back into the bench. He closed his eyes and, without a second to spare, started thinking about Shining's offer again. The idea of going solo after Starish's inevitable end wasn't really unappreciated. It made sense in his eyes that he'll have to keep going on his own one day. But to have that brought up so early… It felt cheap. Almost as if his boss had lost all confidence he had in the group. And that thought only made him blame himself. Because truly, when he had first started dating Haruka he didn't exactly act responsibly. And even the whole existence of a new nature in their relationship had brought conflict in and on itself. The fact that they had made some sort of peace to it, and got relatively back on track was definitely an improvement, and he was sure that with time they would only get better, but clearly time isn't a disposable resource in the music business and Shining wasn't going to waste any of it. He had shown that when he tested Haruka to see if she had what it took to be a professional composer for the band, and once again when they had to compete against Heavens.

The difference with those occasions was that they could solve the problem together. Even when Haruka went back to her grandmother's house they had been able to make it as a group. But this time he had been asked alone. His own father had presented him with an ultimatum all the while his girlfriend was busting her brains off to make a song that'd he find deserving enough to let them stay together. Otoya almost wanted to laugh, but just the thought of the cold air going that fast inside his throat made his skin ache.

But what if it was all a trick? What if he had allowed them to date to accomplish something of his own, and no matter how good of a song she wrote he was still going to turn them down in the end? What if this was another test though? A way to see how united as a group they were. And after unfortunately not passing it, he was now going to move on to his plan b: solo debuts. That surely made sense, but then Saotome Shining wasn't exactly known for doing logical things. And he had made it clear in the past how groundbreaking he found Starish to be. They made "Happy vibes" or something like that. So maybe it wasn't that easy… Maybe…

Suddenly, Otoya felt someone tap on his shoulder interrupting his train of thought. He turned, and to his surprise: he found Tomochika standing there.

"Good afternoon, Otoya" she said.

He stood up in response and replied: "Good afternoon, Tomo-chan" before gesturing for her to sit by his side. After doing so, she unknowingly imitated his prior move: pulled up her scarf and then put her hands in her pockets. "What are you doing here?" he asked after she had accommodated herself.

"… Just… walking through the park" she said in a low tone.

"Is that so?" He turned to her after hearing her uncommon manner of speech. It could've been the cold, but the way she stared at the ground ahead of her gave him second thoughts. "Are you okay, Tomo-chan?"

At his question she moved her eyes to look at him and try and give a more proper reply. But when she found him already staring she quickly went back to look at the river. "I'm… I'm fine"

He figured she just didn't want to talk about whatever it was for the time being so he settled for making some small talk to pass the time. "You got the day off?"

"Ah, yes… Not a very pretty one to have, but I kinda needed it after all the work I've been doing lately"

"Yeah, to be honest there isn't a single show or idol magazine that I haven't seen you on over the past week or so. I think you may be catching up to Starish" he said, smiling proudly.

What he got in response though wasn't what he was expecting. She was grabbing onto her scarf in a shy manner he couldn't have possibly ever imagine her doing. She locked eyes with him for a moment and gave him what he figured was her attempt at a smile. It came out as a grimace instead and she realized that when she saw the worry in his expression. "Sorry… I don't think that's possible" she said.

"That's not true, you can-" She could tell he was going to give her an entire motivational speech if she didn't stop him so she just raised both hands and moved them in front of him. Now he was truly confused, what was going on?

"Are you not going to tell me what happened?" he asked after some moments of silence.

She was starting to shake her head when her eyes lit up and she turned happily towards him. "You can help me!" she yelled.

"Is that a question?"

She ignored what he said and kept going. "I need you to tell me something"

Before she could add anything to the statement or he respond: his phone started buzzing in his pocket. "Oh, excuse me" he said, standing up so that she wouldn't be bothered by his conversation. But she held onto his sleeve and forced him to sit back down.

"It's cold, stay here"

He wanted to argue, but he couldn't waste any more time. He finally took out his phone and picked up without even checking the caller id. "Haruka"

"Wow! How did you know it was me?"

"Well, this isn't your first meeting, I figured you'd have lunch break"

"… That's impressive"

"Nah… Anyways, how is it going?"

"The meeting? It's… pretty monotonous… We keep going back to discussing whether the Japan tour is a good idea or not, and… With Shining here there isn't much space for logic so it hasn't exactly been that civil"

"Mmmm, I see…"

"What about you? How are you spending your day off?"

"I was going to visit the orphanage, but then… I kinda remembered that it wouldn't really be a good idea to do that during lunch time so I'm making time in this really cold park that's nearby"

"Oh… You're alone, then?"

"I would've, but then… I ran into someone here"

Hearing those words, Tomochika extended her arm for him to pass her the phone. "Hello, Haruka" she said, trying to sound as cheerful as possible.

"Tomo-chan! What are you doing there?"

"Ah… it's just a coincidence"

Haruka's reply took longer than even before to come, which made Tomochika wonder about whether it meant that her friend was eating or actually analyzing the truthfulness of her words. "…Tomo-chan, would it be too much trouble for you to come by the Starish's dorms later today?"

Her friend's question took her completely by surprise as she stayed quiet for a long while before remembering that she was expecting her answer. "Umm… I don't know. I have work tomorrow and…" she said, slowly stopping her argument altogether trying to get the point across.

"I know, it'll be short, I promise"

"Okay… I'll see what I can do"

With that said: she passed the phone back to Otoya right after bidding Haruka goodbye and waited for him to end the call.

"What was that?" he asked right after picking up again.

"It's nothing... Hey, I should probably go back to eating if I want to get in time to the meeting room"

"Is that your subtle way of telling me you don't want to talk to me anymore?" he asked, smiling.

"Wouldn't be very subtle, would it?" she said before giggling. "But no, I really gotta go"

"Okay, I get it! I love you"

"I love you too, see you soon"

And after exchanging greetings, the phone call was over.

Silence settled as Tomochika tried to remain calm and go back to asking what she wanted to know. But Haruka's request… or rather, Haruka's order made her feel anxious. She hoped her friend wasn't thinking there was something going on between her and Otoya because she honestly couldn't handle any more drama.

"You wanted to tell me something?" he asked in a completely relaxed manner.

"I… yes…"

"So?"

"Sorry, Haruka kind of took me off guard there… Do you think she might be…? No, she couldn't…"

"Mmm? What do you mean?"

"No, it's nothing… I wanted to ask if you knew something about Jinguji"

"Ren? What about him?"

"Well, he went by my place yesterday and he acted… really weird. He was really sensitive and mean… I don't know what's up with him, but he kinda made it clear that he doesn't want to see me again, and I'm not sure if it's because of something I did or because he's going through some stuff"

"Oh…" Otoya pondered over Tomochika's words, thinking back about his friend's behavior. He tried to remember if there was any particularly strange action that he had made recently, but he honestly couldn't tell. But it wasn't as if they spent that much time together, and considering that it wasn't very common for both of them to have the same day off. There was also the fact that after their fallout their interactions had been even fewer than ever before. "… I don't know, sorry. I'm not that close to him" he finally said.

"I see… Maybe I should ask Masato when he's free" she said. 'Maybe I can ask him tonight so that I get something off traveling late to be scolded' she added mentally.

A/N: LOL at dat review though. Liiiiike ok, read you guys next chapter! :D