UmiNico 2: Training Day and Nico Chapter by Caribous

Summary:

Sleep-deprived, hung-over, Nico faces two hours of hell training from Umi at the family dojo. And that's not even
talking about the fact she has to do two performances of Chrysanthemum today! Plus, a nasty surprise awaits.


As promised, Nico was woken up two hours before she normally awoke. And as promised, she was a bit hungover, and extremely groggy and tired. You really noticed the difference between Kotori and Umi when they had their arms around you, Umi really was strong. Nico could now appreciate both sides of the Kotori/Umi dynamic — and she was the only person who could. Maybe Honoka had observed a lot, but not as "up close and personally" as Nico had.

"We are going to do this every day, Nico. Even the last day when you meet up with Honoka, to make sure she's still in. "

Umi had moved to her closet and she was back with sweatshirt and pants that would fit her. She looked at Umi, puzzled.

"These are from my first year in middle school. I kept them because Eli's sister asked for them. I told the Mu's girls I found it and was throwing it out, and Arisa said , no, she wanted them. But when I asked when she wanted to pick them up, she apparently got too embarrassed. Pretty soon, she may be too big for them. Her family runs to tallness."

That made Nico smile. Without any quibbling, she pulled on the gear and went out behind Umi to the dojo.

Much more surprisingly, Umi had all of her kendo gear from middle school, and it all fit Nico very well. Umi, Junior. That was what Kotori had called her. That's what Rin and Hanayo had said she looked like after yesterday's practice. Like everything else, this, too, called for an accepting attitude. She just thanked her lucky stars the equipment was there. Kendo was terrifying.

The first time Umi came at her, even though she had said beforehand she wouldn't contact her, but still charging and screaming - Nico cowered.

Not in the worst possible way, dropping her shinai, huddling into a ball and yelling "Don't hurt me!" which was what she felt like doing. But still, cringing down, using the sword as an umbrella as she drew herself in and hunched her shoulders and bent her knees somewhat, not even looking up.

"That won't do at all, Nico," Umi said, shaking her head. "The whole point of this is that you walk taller, more confidently. Regardless of whom you end up with - Maki or someone else — would you prefer they choose you out of pity?" When Nico shook her head, she continued, "Then, overcome yourself. I am an expert, you're safe, except for a few bruises."

They reset themselves and this time Nico stood tall, though with a small bend for stability, and looked straight at the incoming Umi, whose shinai stopped just in front of her body. "You know," Umi mused, "I almost wish we were training with Maki-chan."

Nico couldn't let that one go by without asking why…

"It's because both of you are strangely clumsy. You both can dance well, when you put your mind to it. On the other hand, I have seen both of you fall over your feet for no apparent reason. There's a kind of disconnect between mind and body you both suffer from. It would do her a great deal of good, make her far calmer, if she simply insisted to her parents that she needs to maintain her health. For doctors, they are inexcusably focused on sacrificing Maki's youthful years, and perhaps her health, to the enormous goals they've set for her. As it is, she's had to fight for what she's doing now, even though it does her concentration, stamina and overall stability wonders. All of which are needed in a doctor. And all of which they'd probably recommend if she were a patient, and not just their only daughter."

"Nico was like that when she joined Otonokizaka. Not getting into UTX, which had just started that year, was so disappointing, Nico determined to work twice as hard, and didn't sleep enough or remember to eat well. It's only lately I remember that, and I can understand some of what Maki's going through."

For two hours, with no let-up, they practiced. Nico swung the shinai in the same arcs hundreds of times. Her arms were shaking, she was all sweaty, and she had bruises. Umi had not caused them in practice per se, but in a way, by a worse method. She had Nico stand still and not respond, other than breathing in, as Umi thwacked her on the body with the shinai using various side attacks while yelling "DO!", thwacked her wrists with the shinai, yelling "KOTE!", bonked her gently on the headgear yelling "MEN!" and swung towards her throat without making contact, yelling "TSUKI!" But it wasn't over, as she then hit Nico with wrist-body strikes and wrist-head strikes, depending on where she had Nico hold her shinai.

When Nico asked why they did that, Umi said it was to separate the actual pain of being struck from the emotional pain of failing to prevent being struck. Nico had to admit that made it less of a big deal. Umi told her she was going to work Nico much harder at kendo, as their primary physical fitness activity, than at archery, which was simply for grace. Though sometimes they would only work out with kendo an hour, and spend the other hour running or doing calisthenics.

"If It ever seems too hard, Nico-chan, just remember: Honoka did this in middle school and her first year of high school. Like you, she promptly let herself get out of shape, though in her case, it took only a summer when she was supposed to be training but didn't."

As they were taking of their gear, Umi said, "Three of us are in the best condition. Me, Eli and Rin. But poor Rin was made to feel self-conscious about her athleticism. The girls at her grade school and middle school treated her like a boy and told her feminine things didn't suit her. If we had known her then, we would have recommended that she always keep her hair long and simply tie it back for sporting events. And that she wear dresses and skirts whenever she felt like it."

"But for two of us," she went on, "Being in good shape has added to our poise and maturity and confidence, I think. I want some of that in Nico as she goes down the hall. The girl that neglected her family, her grades, her friends and her dreams for more than a year to wallow in depression is part of Nico, but it's not all of Nico."

They reached the showers that were part of the dojo. Umi matter-of-factly had them scrub each other all over. She was putting her shame reflexes on hold. The hot water felt amazing to Nico. Umi commented that, once she was used to a routine like this, it would be better if Nico only took lukewarm showers, at most, unless she needed to ease something that had been strained. She told Nico she wouldn't need to moisturize if she simply didn't take hot showers, which stripped away the body's natural oils, and used a gentle soap and a cold rinse.

Two of the three, Nico experienced right then. The gentle soap was fine. The cold rinse was completely awful, but shocked her awake. The Sonodas had a coffee-maker, and Umi had foreseen Nico would need it. Guiltily, Nico recalled teasing Maki about her coffee addiction. Now that she was back on something like Maki's daily schedule, she understood her all too well.

They joined Honoka and Kotori walking to school. Everyone in µ's, with the possible exception of Maki, was going to attend the matinee performance and the evening performance. Honoka looked at Nico sympathetically. Something must have shown in Nico's appearance to indicate how strenuous the last day had been. Honoka and Kotori both looked at Umi expectantly, and she blushed and nodded.

All the way to school, Nico and Umi, and Honoka and Kotori, held hands. It felt completely natural to Nico.


By the time they arrived at school, Nico was indeed calm, if a bit yawn-y. But the coffee was helping. To supplement what she had at Umi's house, she'd bought a can from a machine on the way there. Kotori and Honoka had both laughed, but in a friendly way. The second coffee seemed to do the trick. Nico could concentrate on her homework and studying, she found. She had to put it away and get ready before the performance at noon, of course. Umi had made a small snack for her, since she wouldn't have time to eat a bento full of food. Hanayo had anticipated that, and met Nico with a very nice onigiri at the school entrance. Nico could eat it while relocating herself around the auditorium.

With everything else going on in her life, she wasn't a bit nervous about her debut as an actress. She was going to do her best, she understood clearly what was wanted, and it wasn't like a scholarship or a contract was on the line. They could very easily all fail, if you were objective about it. The nature of Chrysanthemum was such that it could easily be taken as too artsy for the general student audience. Both the English classes and the History classes would get class credit for attending, which should help, and partly explained why so many were there on a Sunday. Otonokizaka Academy couldn't stand on ceremony.

After the school visit, there had been some hopeful signs, but if Mu's didn't make the cut for love live, or didn't have a bunch of good performances to replace that, then it didn't look good for Otonokizaka's future. Anything they could do to make the school look livelier helped, including assisting the drama and dance clubs and their home-grown school idols, so that's what Headmistress Minami did.

She didn't have to worry, it turned out. Not only were Otonokizaka students there, but also some from other schools, who had friends or relatives who went to Otonokizaka. Even more startling, one of the big draws was that one of the mysterious Otonokizaka idols — who had been rocketing up the popularity polls lately — was going to star in a musical about very mature themes. So Nico was helping to pull in the crowd, without ever thinking about it. It was very ironic.

Well, not never thinking about it. The park concert with A-RISE had probably brought half the people all by itself.

Even Maki went, probably out of Mu's loyalty. She was silent during the whole abbreviated performance — some of the narration had been condensed, and so on — but she did applaud at the end, before leaving abruptly just like she did after practice.

The students were, miraculously, charmed. They muttered to each other that it was like seeing a professional performance. In truth, the drama club, though humble and jovial, was a hidden gem that Honoka, Umi and Kotori hadn't considered when they were trying to list good things about their school. Some in the audience compared it to the Takarazuka revue — which nearly all could only have been familiar with through videos.

Because they were told at least a third of the play had been cut out for the matinee, many students pledge to attend the after-school performance as well. The performers got a standing ovation, mainly because the Mu's girls and Hideki, Mika and Fumiko stood up and cheered so strongly. Because her thoughts ran that way naturally, Nico wondered briefly if Maki had had any piano recitals since they got to know her. If so, no one she knew here had gone to cheer her on.


"What made you want to do such an unusual play?" the reporter asked. The write-up should be small, and probably not include any quotes, but it never hurt to ask. That it had been made into an American movie, but never before performed in Japan, made a good this cute young actress wanted to do serious, artistic plays and would have good insights.

"Well," Nico replied, pensively. "Umm … I was recruited by Kaneko Kanako-san, and by my fellow school idol, Minami Kotori. And then Kanako directed me, and that's about it. She knows all about the play. I just wanted to do my best." She hoped that wasn't a terrible answer.

At any rate, the reporter did turn to the director with future questions. Nico had to admit that even in her new, calm and subdued existence, it was a bit heady to have a school play written up in a newspaper.


Nico had gotten congratulated by girls in every class. µ's had decided to have a special practice which she'd have to skip, of course, but that should be over in time for the Mu's girls to attend, which all the ones she was still talking to pledged to turned out Hideko, Fumiko and Mika were helping with the evening performance. They were auditorium experts by this point, and even familiar with Nico's singing needs.

Mama Yazawa had taken the very rare step of getting a babysitter for Cocoa and Cotarou. The play was too mature for them, and Cocoro had wanted to see it, badly, so it would have been cruel to deny her. Nico remembered, guiltily, that that had been a little more common when she was wallowing in misery in the club room every evening and telling her family it was idol practice.

Next to her mother, on the other side from Cocoro, was Principal Minami. Nico didn't think they'd gone to the same schools, but they seemed to know each other, nonetheless.

Nico hadn't really enjoyed the matinee performance that much. She felt stressed and the whole production felt too rushed and abbreviated. Kanako had told her that adapting to that was part of an actress's training — and a director's, too. She said they'd managed not to lose their audience with the plot, and to get good rumors circulating for the evening performance, which was all you could ask.

Maki had, of course, not been there. If Nico and her had still been speaking, she would have wished to see her for this one, when she could give her utmost to her role, instead of the matinee, but she counted her blessings. Actually, she had been too focused and busy to be sure, but it felt like the Mu's girls had been bothered by something they weren't sharing with Nico. She didn't want to assume what it was, and anyway, tonight was for the play, and, if she was honest, for Nico.

Everything went perfectly, except perhaps her interview with a reporter afterward (she guessed that, too, was something she needed to train on, now that reality was catching up with hopeless fantasies). A couple of the Mu's girls and a few others in the audience were actually crying (it was a strange comedy with a lot of drama). And the standing ovation this time didn't need to be prompted. The other cast members told Nico she'd been the catalyst they needed, and they asked her to try to commit to one more play this term. After this performance, the club would get a few new members, they guessed, and they could recruit a full cast from the student population on a one-time basis. Nico agreed. No doubt this policy of agree to everything would crash up against her limitations sometime soon, but until then, she was going with it.

To see her family, her friends, her school being so proud of her, started to heal some things that had been broken inside Nico for a very long time.


They had expected to practice without Nico, but Maki didn't show up, either, even though she'd been informed of the Sunday session. Despite their worry, they realized they needed practice as much as ever. The group was excited about seeing Nico debut in a musical after today's practice, and it inspired them to practice harder. Who knew whether the publicity wouldn't end up helping them? They'd all heard that the association of Nico with Mu's had been a big draw for people going to the play. In addition to being happy for Nico, they knew Kotori and Umi had been working hard to get Nico back on her feet, and they were happy for them.

Maki did arrive, towards the end of the practice hour. She was in her school uniform. With her, she had a binder full of Umi's songs, and a CD.

She walked over to where Honoka was standing and handed her both.

"I'm sorry," was all Maki said at first.

Then she steeled herself, though she looked down a little.

"I quit."

With that, she opened the door to the stairwell and went through it, not looking back.