Music for the Silence

Our Music is the Best

After her little jam session in the studio room, Shizuka had checked up on all the equipment there and gave maintenance to whichever needed it most. Once she was done with that, she hurried out of the studio and went to a room that held many more rental instruments, returning the guitar she borrowed. With the instrument returned, she walked out the room and saw Afterglow entering the building.

"Ah! Shizuka-chan! Heya~!" Himari greeted.

"Good afternoon, Shizuka-san," Tsugumi also greeted.

Shizuka bowed at them in her own greeting.

"What are you doing in that room?" Tomoe asked.

The girl took out her notepad and wrote, "I was checking on the equipments."

"Equipments? You have instruments that can be rented out here?" Shizuka nodded in response to Tomoe's question.

"This is quite rare. The live house we usually go to don't have instruments to rent," Moca stated.

"They do. We just never bother to ask for a rental since we have our own instruments," Ran corrected.

"Is that so?"

"Yes, it's so." Ran turned back to Shizuka. "I know we're here early, but any chance we still use the studio?"

Shizuka nodded and wrote "Studio Room 4" and pointed down the hall.

"Okay. Thanks," Ran thanked, as she and the rest of Afterglow headed to their room.

"Later~" Moca waved.

Shizuka waved back and walked out the live house to the cafe, where Marina was handing a pair of ice cream to two customers.

"Thank you. Come again," she said, as the two left with their treats.

Shizuka approached Marina and tapped her shoulder, getting the manager's attention.

"Oh, Shizuka-chan! How was your break?" the manager asked.

The mute gave her a thumbs up in response to the question.

"I see. That's good to hear. PoPiPa and PasuPare finished their joint session for the day. I know it's only the first day, but it looks like the joint practice is going well. At least from what I could tell when they left. Next is Afterglow and Roselia..."

Shizuka noticed a worried expression on her guardian's face and wrote, "What's wrong?"

"Ah, nothing's wrong, per say. It's just those two practically already clashed on the very first time they met. I'm just not so sure if things will be okay today..."

Shizuka could tell how worried Marina was, and she couldn't blame her. Even she knew how prideful the two bands seemed, especially the vocalists.

"Would you like me to observe them?" Shizuka offered.

"Huh? Are you sure?" Marina asked back. "I don't know... I think it will be okay to leave them be. But... if they get into an argument big enough to decide to not enter the event..."

Shizuka knew how worrying the situation was for Marina, and wrote, "I'll be okay. I'm sure their joint session won't be that bad."

******

... How wrong and naive the part-timer of CiRCLE was...

"I keep telling you, there's degrees to this whole merit system of yours," Ran argued with Yukina.

The vocalist of Roselia simply sighed at her words and said, "And I keep telling you, I'm not saying you are not good performers. I don't know how many times I've said this."