All right, the last chapter was a ton of fun, let's see where we get to in today's chapter, shall we~? The length of this chapter should be a testament to how busy I have been since I last published something. That being said, I will admit that between the 3k-4k for the word count has been my goal from the start for this story, so… at least I reached that?
Disclaimer's the same as always like Ran would say: I do not own BanG Dream! Girls Band Party
Special thanks to LightZephyr for the beta read!
Beta note: I take full responsibility for "making" Fal write that scene in, so try not to give him too bad of a time for allowing himself to be manipulated so easily, all right~?
"In that case, we'll leave it in your hands, Lisa-san, Ako," Ran dipped her head in the direction of the two Roselia members who were still conscious, with the rest of the Afterglow girls following soon after. Having completed her pleasantries, the five of them turned around and headed back to the stage to help cleaning the stage after their performance.
That is, to say, that that was their original plan. What actually ended up happening was something else entirely.
"What do you mean we 'don't need to do anything'?" Tomoe exclaimed when she was told the news. She and her four friends had all picked up a broom of their own to aid in the cleaning, but before any of them could begin they were approached by a girl about the same height as Himari. She had blue hair hanging loosely over her right shoulder, the ends of it were held together by a reddish-pink scrunchie, and an announcement to tell them.
"That is correct, Tomoe-san," the shorter girl nodded with a small smile. Both Ran and Moca could see that she had hoped to be able to leave it at that, but when Tomoe had opened her mouth again the blue-haired girl knew she had to initiate plan B, "Really, it is all right. Afterglow-san did great tonight and you should all go home and relax. Leave the cleaning to us, we can handle it just fine."
"But— " Tomoe tried desperately, only to have not one but two hands pushed in her face.
"We appreciate it, thank you," Ran tilted her head downwards in the younger girl's direction, an action that was mirrored almost instantaneously. As Himari and Tsugumi followed Ran's lead, Ran grabbed a fistful of Tomoe's shirt and used it to forcefully drag her friend away before she could escalate things some more.
"Bye, Rokka~ Don't stay up too late~," Moca waved after offering her broom to Rokka. With her farewell done as well, she jogged to try and catch up to Ran and the others. It wasn't until she was outside that she could walk side-by-side with the other members of Afterglow again. Moca contemplated simply rejoining the group, but an opening in one of her friends' defenses made her change her mind quite quickly.
"Uuuuu… eeeee… haaaaaaaaaa…" Moca trailed off as she tip-toed and crouched behind one of her friends. By now, all four remaining girls of Afterglow had realized that Moca was right behind them, but the poor victim of Moca's next move had no time to try and prevent what she knew was about to happen.
"RA!" Moca yelled enthusiastically as she jumped to a standing position. As Moca moved, she grabbed the outer edges of Himari's skirt and brought it up with her. The high-pitched scream that followed, accompanied by three bonks to Moca's head, told Moca that her plan had succeeded.
She knew that she would wake up in the morning with a throbbing headache, but to Moca, this was a price she was more than willing to pay up.
"So now that we don't have to do our chores… what's next?" Tsugumi asked, glancing at both Moca and Himari as she voiced the question. As neither of them were in the position to properly answer the brunette's question, Tsugumi directed it to Ran and Tomoe, "Do either of you two have any plans?"
"I was actually planning on joining you and staying over at your parents' café for an hour or two. My parents are working late today and Ako is still back there taking care of Rinko-san," Tomoe shrugged, subtly nodding her head in the direction they came from when she mentioned her sister's name. When Tomoe realized that she did not have much else to say, she turned to Ran with a raised eyebrow, "How about you?"
"I am fine with joining you, as always," Ran muttered, avoiding eye contact with the taller girl as she spoke. Unfortunately for her, this meant that she had to watch a laughing Moca being chased by a red-faced Himari. Suppressing the urge to sigh, Ran turned back to the two friends who appeared to be significantly calmer.
"Father told me to be home by nine, I am free to do what I want until then," Ran thought out loud as she recalled her father's words. The vocalist made the conscious decision to rephrase what her father had told her. Unbeknownst to Ran, however, the other four girls could see right through her and make an educated guess as to what he had actually told her.
The five girls of Afterglow then fell in somewhat of an awkward silence, one that none of them knew how to break. Himari at least had the foresight to pull her friends to the side, avoiding the situation where they would block off part of the road during their moment of indecision.
Depending on who one would ask, the memory of Ran and Tomoe standing still in the middle of the road while lost in thought would either be the most awkward or the most amusing scene the childhood friends had ever witnessed. Potentially second only to the first sleepover they had together after learning that Ran was scared of the dark.
Moca could still occasionally be seen snickering whenever she looked back to that night.
"Actually, about that…" Moca began, trailing off as she took a moment to look around her. It wasn't immediately apparent why she did so, but her four closest friends all came to the same conclusion: Moca was silently calculating how far away they were to the bakery and whether or not she'd be able to get there before it closed.
"I know I know, we should hurry up so that Moca can get her bread," Tomoe sighed, feeling like she had Moca all figured out. The redhead would, therefore, be very surprised when Moca reached out for and grabbed her wrist to stop her, "Is something wrong, Moca? If we don't hurry we might not make it in time."
"That… wasn't it, Tomo-chin," Moca said with a sheepish smile. Before Tomoe could ask the question that was on everybody's mind, Moca took the initiative to answer it for them, "Moca-chan has to be home in an hour—."
"But that means Moca-chan has enough time to join us for a quick snack, right?" Tsugumi asked, her curiosity pushing her to interrupt Moca before she could finish speaking. Tsugumi realized this too late and quickly apologized for that.
"If you let me finish, Tsugu, I was getting to that," Moca sighed, although the way the corners of her mouth quivered her friends could tell that she was not too upset by the interruption. After taking a deep breath, Moca looked at her friends and picked up where she left off as if Tsugumi had never spoken, "Moca-chan needs to be home in an hour, but Moca-chan also needs to make a bit of a detour before that."
"Which means you have to go now?" Tomoe asked, sounding somewhat disappointed that the group had to split up much sooner than she had expected them to. By the looks of the other girls standing beside her, Tomoe knew that she was not the only one who felt this way.
"Well, if it can't be helped… good luck, Moca-chan. And good night, we'll see you tomorrow," Tsugumi gave her friend a quick hug before watching Moca say goodbye to the other three as well. Right as Moca was about to run down a side alley, Tsugumi added, "Today was fun as always."
Moca's only acknowledgment to having heard the keyboardist was a small wave of her hand. And then she was gone, changing the group of five to merely an incomplete collection of four.
"That was weird," Himari thought out loud after a few moments had passed since Moca's departure. She was still smoothening out the edges of her skirt when she spoke again, "What do you think Moca needs to do if she feels that she can't tell us about it? Do you think we should follow her?"
"I really don't think we should follow a friend if she's made it clear she doesn't want to be followed," Tomoe reprimanded Himari with a gentle slap on the wrist. Then, in a mellower voice, Tomoe said, "Remember what happened when we followed Tsugu into that clothes store a few weeks back?"
"Yeah…" Tsugumi nodded in agreement, doing a double-take a split second later when her brain fully processed what Tomoe had just said, "Wait, you did what?!"
As Tomoe was doing everything she could to avoid the wrath of the brunette standing twelve centimeters shorter than her, Himari approached Ran after noticing the forlorn look in her eyes. The two stood there for a few moments until Himari eventually broke it.
"You're worried about Moca, aren't you?" Himari asked while placing her hand on top of Ran's shoulder. She could feel Ran's body stiffen slightly at the touch, but before Himari could pull her hand off again she saw how Ran relaxed again, "I'm sure Moca will be all right. She's a lot smarter than people might think, even if it hurts me to admit that. So there's no way that Moca will do anything that will get her in trouble. Well… get her in too much trouble, anyway."
"If something goes wrong, we can always get Tomoe to hunt her down or something," Ran joked, much to Himari's amusement. When Himari's laughter died down, Ran nodded in the direction of her other two friends, "Come on, let's separate those two and head to the café of Tsugumi's parents. I'll take Tsugumi, you take Tomoe."
Not waiting for a response and trusting Himari to follow her lead, Ran walked up to Tsugumi, grabbed her by arm and pulled her along with her. Tsugumi squirmed against Ran's hold at first but eventually allowed herself to be dragged away after realizing that she could not escape her friend's grip on her.
Glancing to her side, Ran saw that Himari had gotten a handful of Tomoe's shirt and was using it to make the drummer follow Ran's footsteps. When Ran and Himari noticed that the girls they were leading had calmed down again, they let go of their respective prisoner and walked along in silence.
They did not talk much after that as they hurried through the streets to get to the Hazawa Café faster. As a matter of fact, they did not talk at all, a common occurrence when they would be an incomplete group. Afterglow had been close friends for years, well over a decade had passed since they had first met, and the five of them no longer saw each other as friends; the five of them were family, five pieces strong enough to stand on their own but only truly shining when together.
This unity of them was their greatest strength. It allowed them to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles time after time, to keep going when the going went rough. And to compete with the numerous other bands that performed in the live houses that Afterglow liked to frequent.
"—an"
But it was also this bond that had proven to be Afterglow's biggest weakness. By relying so much on the presence of another, the five of them would require the other four to remain the same as always, to be exactly how they have been for so long. But, as they would soon realize, people grow, and when people grow… they change.
"Oi! Earth to Ran, anyone in there?"
"What?!" Ran whirled around to glare at the taller girl who had yanked the collar of her shirt in an effort to get her attention. As the vocalist was rubbing her sore throat, she added, "Weren't we planning to stay at Tsugumi's parents' café for a bit before going home? Why are you stopping me now?"
"You must really be out of it…" Tomoe sighed with a smile. Before Ran could burst and ask her what she was talking about, Tomoe grabbed Ran by the shoulder and guided her to turn around, "Noticed anything familiar?"
"I…" Ran trailed off when she saw what Tomoe wanted to show her.
Having been completely lost in thought, Ran hadn't been paying any attention to where they were going or even where they were. She had trusted her instincts and allowed her legs to drive her forth. And, in the case where she would put herself in a position that endangered her life, Ran knew her friends would try and stop her.
As Ran was trying to process the fact that she had almost just walked right past their destination, Tomoe led the group inside the warm and familiar building.
And warm and familiar it was.
The café had always been known for its bright lighting, and that late-afternoon it was no different. Although the sun had already set enough for it to become a non-factor in the lighting, the lamps inside the café were doing all the heavy lifting. With careful positioning and playing around with the intensity of each lamp, the owners managed to create enough light to properly illuminate the interior, but not hurt the eyes of their patrons. But that was not all that they did, either.
Tsugumi had told her friends about the mini-competition her parents were holding, a playful game where they recorded how well the workers had cleaned their assigned areas. Her parents knew that they needed to motivate the group of younger workers they employed, so they took a huge gambit in allowing the winner of the weekly competition to choose their own reward.
Playing with the odds could result in it going one of two ways, but based on how the wooden furniture was basically shining Tomoe, Himari, and Ran could make a very educated guess as to how that went. Even Tsugumi, who worked there more days of the week than she didn't, admitted to being surprised when she saw how hard she would have to work to try and close the gap with her colleague.
"Everybody wants the usual, I assume?" Tsugumi asked her friends, smiling in acknowledgment when all three of them nodded their heads. She then hurried off to talk with one of her newer colleagues, only to walk back a few minutes later to see her friends already seated. Tsugumi took her rightful place by Himari's side before speaking again, "So… did anybody actually have, well… any idea what to do now?"
"There is something we should probably talk about, but maybe we need to wait until Moca is here so we can discuss it together?" Himari asked after a momentary pause, looking at her friends to gauge their reactions. She should have known better than to hope to be given a way out, especially when she was stuck between a wall and a Tsugumi.
Neither Ran nor Tomoe seemed like they would let this go, and even Tsugumi was more interested than Himari would have expected or hoped her to be. Himari let out a sigh, resigning herself to her fate that she had doomed herself in before she eventually decided on what she wanted to do.
Himari knew better than anyone that her friends would not really have allowed her a way out.
Almost two hours had passed since the four members of Afterglow had arrived at the famous Hazawa Café. Having said their goodbyes to Himari and Tsugumi, Himari saying there were still some cakes she wanted to try out before going home, Ran and Tomoe split from the group and stepped outside. Compared to how it was before they entered the café, the air had gotten a lot colder; enough so that even Ran had to bundle herself up to try and keep warm.
The two friends had been walking side-by-side in relative silence, but when the familiar playground was quickly coming into view, they both knew that they had to break the silence. It was Tomoe who did so, but the way she did surprised Ran.
"Yes, I do," Ran confirmed with a firm nod, no signs of hesitation evident on her face. Ran recalled her earlier response at the café and offered a smile to Tomoe, "We need to split up here, right? I'll see you tomorrow, good night."
Ran tilted her head down and walked down the path to her right, knowing that Tomoe would be taking the path to the left. The vocalist quickened her pace in the hopes of getting out of sight of her friend faster, but even then she did not stop until she was three blocks further.
In… Out… In… Out… despite the training and practice she did to fulfill her responsibilities as the band's lead vocalist, Ran's breathing was ragged and irregular, a testament to how much exercise she got: barely any.
After she had calmed down and allowed her beating heart to slow down to a more manageable pace, Ran spared one last glance in the direction of the Hazawa Café. And, as she did, she couldn't help but feel more motivated by this, as if the mere thought of the earlier conversation she had with her friends was enough to rejuvenate her energy.
No matter what happened, she would stay by her choice. She would keep going at it again and again and make sure that she would get the results that she wanted to receive.
"As Minato-san might say…" Ran whispered to herself, closing her eyes to allow a stronger, more vivid image of her rival to pop up in her mind, "It is time to show the world the real me!"
And that is all for today's chapter! Yes, I know it isn't the same length as a typical chapter of Scarlet Sunlight was, but I never intended for Shining Sunlight to be the same kind of story. Different story, different writing style and, ultimately, different chapter lengths.
Quick plugin here: I have a Discord server now that pretty much takes over the role my Tumblr used to have; both of them, technically. The invite link to the server can be found on either one of my former Tumblrs as the most recent post.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter, leave a review telling me what you thought, and until next time! Take care!