The iDOLM@STER: Unison Voice

Volume 2 Chapter 02: Romantic Never

"Pardon my intrusion," Reina said as she opened the door to the teachers' lounge. "Excuse me, Mister Sakamoto."

The mid-30's science instructor was currently sitting next to a mountain of homework that he was in the middle of grading. A half-empty mug of coffee was dangerously close to his writing hand. "One moment, Fukuyama-san."

"I'm going to be missing school on Thursday and Friday, so I'd like to request my homework in advance."

Mister Sakamoto looked away from his work, turning to greet Reina with a confused expression. His sleeves were hastily rolled up, which essentially ruined the effort he put in to iron the light-blue dress shirt. "What day of the week is it?"

"Monday, why?"

Her teacher gave a sigh of relief. "I thought I lost track of the day of the week."

Reina wanted to question his current mental state, but it would've taken her too much time to do so. She was just here to get her homework. "Isn't it preferable to ask for alternative work well over a day in advance?" she asked instead.

"It is, but some people don't think that courteously," Mister Sakamoto sifted through his stack of papers to take out over a dozen sheets. "Like your friend Ryoma. He really thought he wouldn't get a grade reduction if he handed in this many papers over a week late! And then he asked me earlier today to give him tomorrow's homework. I don't even know what tomorrow's homework is."

"He's not my friend," Reina tried to correct him quickly. "I actually wouldn't even consider him to have been my coworker."

"Either way, it's hard enough to come up with alternate schedules for people like the two of you," her teacher rubbed the back of his head. "The odds I'd have one person who would almost always be out of class, let alone three or how many of you go to this school, I still can't believe it."

"So, may I receive my homework?" Reina asked him again.

"Er, right. I'll get it to you tomorrow," Sakamoto said. He had one more thing to say before she left. "I was working on your test earlier today, by the way. So far, you've got perfect marks."

"Thank you for teaching me so well," Reina said to him, bowing.

She briskly walked out of the teachers' lounge and towards her school's entrance as her teacher went back to the pile of papers on his desk.

With how much time she spent practicing at the office, she had to spend even less time at her school after classes ended. As usual, she had finished her cleaning duties rapidly, and surprisingly without getting her school uniform dirty. Since it was the middle of summer, none of her classmates had to wear their usual cream blazers. Her white shirt stayed untouched while her tie and charcoal-colored skirt remained perfectly unwrinkled.

She quickly replaced her school shoes with a pair of black flats in her locker and walked from the school's doors to its main gate. Usually, she would have immediately been found by Chiyoko and would have been on her way to the office, but today it seemed like her housemaid was running a little late.

That left Reina standing outside in the summer heat while her classmates and other people in her school passed her and went along with their lives. Checking her phone, she didn't have any new messages that she usually would have received when the housemaid was still running errands or was stuck in traffic.

While she was still using it, Reina figured she could pass the time by informing Hana about how she wouldn't be early to practice today.

Surprisingly, she found a new notification telling her about someone wanting to connect with her. She hadn't checked her notifications until now, but she saw that this was dated from yesterday evening.