°˖✧Gaijin✧˖°

°˖✧Shimi✧˖°

"I've got a good one for you today."

"Hm?" Ari lifts her brow in curiosity. She had just walked into Snowdrop Psychic Mediums alongside Shigeo, so the sudden proclamation makes her curious. The two of them trail to the desk where Micah sits, as casual as ever. "What do you mean you have a good one for me today? Is this one going to try to crush my skull too?"

"I already apologized for that," Micah crosses his arms over his chest with a pout. He then leans over and grabs a little paper from beside him and holds it out to her. "I would go with you to this one, but I've got one that's a pretty big deal in another city. Besides, you've got Mister Fantastic with you anyway."

"Who is 'Mister Fantastic'?" Shigeo asks, looking over at her.

"He's talking about you, Shigeo."

"Oh..."

She looks down at the paper with an interested expression. A local cover band has been having an issue with their equipment being messed with whenever they practice at a nearby abandoned factory, huh? She doesn't know why they would think a place like that would be a good place to practice, but whatever.

"Huh... sounds interesting, but I'm not too sure why you think this is up my alley," she remarks.

Micah clicks his tongue and wags his finger at her with a grin. "That's because I haven't told you the kicker, my dear disciple. This isn't just any cover band, you see..." He leans forward a little. "It's a Maximum the Hormone cover band."

"M-M-Maximum the Hormone?!" She exclaims, her eyes growing wide. Now she's definitely excited. She's loved their music for years at this point, and she's never found anyone else that likes them as much as she does! What a treat this will be!

Shigeo looks at the two of them, confused. "What's Maximum the Hormone?" He asks.

"They're only the best metal band in the entire country!" She cries. "I've wanted to see them live for ages - but this will be the next best thing!"

"M-Metal...?"

Thus they begin their journey to the abandoned factory with the help of the GPS on Ari's phone. She's so excited that she can't even contain it, practically skipping along the way. "I'm so excited! Maybe when we get rid of that spirit, we can get them to play a song or two for us! Wouldn't that be so fun?"

"I-I guess so..." He looks down, fiddling with the sleeves of his turtleneck with a somewhat unsure expression. His tone coupled with his expression immediately worries her.

"What's the matter?" She asks with a furrow in her brow. "You're super strong. You have no reason to worry about seeing a spirit! If anything, I think it'll be scared of seeing you!"

"It's not about the spirit. It's actually about the people we're seeing," he explains. "Metal... it's an aggressive, angry sounding genre. What if the clients are also aggressive and angry? We could accidentally do something to anger them..."

She blinks. Then she lets out a laugh. Leave it to him to be worried about something so trivial... it's cute. She steps closer to him and nudges him with her shoulder. "Hey, don't even worry about it! I'll protect you from those meanies if they give you trouble!"

He blushes softly and looks away from her. "T-Thanks."

He's so cute I think I'm going to combust, she thinks to herself, her heart fluttering.

They know they're in the right area when the robotic voice declares, "You have arrived at your destination." She tosses her phone back into her bag and they traverse the messy trail covered with fallen leaves until they are faced with a giant dilapidated building that looks like it will fall apart at any moment. Furthermore, three people are standing in front of it.