The iDOLM@STER: Unison Voice

Volume 1 Chapter 13: Flower Melody

"I'll be going now," Hana said aloud. She bumped into one of her classmates as she backed up to leave. "Ah, sorry!"

"Aren't you leaving a little early?" the classmate responded. Her pair of glasses framed her face along with her pale blonde braids. "You're usually still writing in your diary by now."

"Today is important," Hana said, putting her broom against the wall and emptying her dustpan. "I have my first song meeting soon."

"Didn't you have your first concert less than two weeks ago?" the classmate asked.

Hana nodded. "We have another one in a few months, but we need songs first. And my unit is one of the first ones, so our songs are recording the soonest."

"I guess I can't hold you back from work. Good luck, Hana-san."

The pink-haired idol bowed as she put her cleaning supplies to the side of the room. "I'll do my best!"

She grabbed her bag and ran out of the classroom, running past some other members of her school as they cleaned the halls. She did her best to not run into anyone as she passed by them, including coming to a complete stop as someone else turned the corner at the same time as her.

"Sorry!"

"You're in a hurry. Our practice isn't until 5," the person responded. Looking up at the other girl, Hana found herself face to face with her friend- and now her fellow unit member- Watanabe Akari.

"I have my meeting at the recording studio... soon," Hana said.

When the office's assistant, Harumi, gave her a potential time, she accepted immediately without further questions. The only issue was that she hadn't checked the day of the week. She hadn't known at the time that the session would be immediately after school on a weekday, and by the time she found out, it was far too late to reschedule.

"How soon?" Akari asked. The older girl was wearing her gym outfit, a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and was carrying a stack of papers. Thankfully, Hana hadn't knocked them over and caused a scene.

"Um..." Hana started to say. "In half an hour."

That's why she finished her cleaning duties in the classroom as quickly as she could. Her diary time would have to wait until she was on the train ride to the recording studio.

"I was going to tell you about how my session went, but you probably need to go right now."

"We can talk later at the office?"

"See you then!" Akari waved with her free hand. "Later."

Hana arrived at the shoe lockers at the entrance of the school shortly after, opening up hers to switch out her pair of school slippers with her outside shoes.

After quickly putting on her right shoe, she made a few uneasy hops towards the door as she tried to leave while still putting on her second shoe. With nothing left to do at the high school, she exited the school gates running towards the station.

She was glad her school had switched uniforms in the last month. Otherwise, she'd be sweating even harder as she rushed to catch the train on time. Her summer uniform only carried over the red tartan skirt and tie from the winter variant, forgoing the gray blazer and switching to a short-sleeved dress shirt since it was hotter outside.

Normally she would have wanted to enjoy the hot June day, take a few minutes to appreciate the flowers growing by her school, and enjoy the summer heat as she walked to her meeting, but today she had to rush. If anything, she felt her idol training starting to come to fruition after noticing she could run for longer than a minute without slowing down.