Miss Heir wasn't very kind to me.

Chapter 62:28. "Performance·New"

The rain gradually subsided.

Taking the train back to Hanekawa, a wet Hanekawa Kaizuki was quite eye-catching, but thankfully the train was empty. However, the air conditioner was on, making her feel a bit chilly, so the girl huddled closer to Masumi.

He was only wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and Haiyue's cold body temperature was transmitted to him through the fabric.

Masumi glanced at the girl worriedly. Her snow-white skin was almost transparent, as if devoid of any blood. Could she be catching a cold?
Thinking of this, he gently used his fingertips to push away the bangs that were pressed against Haiyue's forehead, wanting to test her body temperature, but his outstretched hand was pushed away by the girl's fingers.

The soft fingertips are quite slender.

“…Metoo.”

The slight murmur seemed to be squeezed out from the vocal cords.

Masumi was stunned: Metoo?

After realizing what Haiyue meant, he quickly explained: "Don't get me wrong, I don't have any dangerous thoughts of trampling on the law or violating women's wishes."

"Ok, I know."

Kaitsuki's blue eyes stared directly at Masumi, acting more understanding than he thought.

"Kozue told me... if there's a man with bad intentions... who wants to get close to me... he should use the tool she gave me..."

"But... I didn't bring..."

"That's it." Masumi, sweating profusely, agreed hesitantly.

So dangerous.

Fortunately, she didn't bring those dangerous goods.

"But...if it were you...you wouldn't have to be so cautious..."

The girl had no expression on her face and murmured in a childlike tone.

"I think... you're a good person... so... I won't use those props on you..."

"Oh, thank you."

Masumi gratefully accepted the good guy card she gave him, thought for a moment, and then said, "But it's better to be a little cautious."

"Ah."

Haiyue responded softly, her eyes flickering as if she was thinking something.

When I got off the train at the platform, the raindrops were so fine that they looked like mist. Under the light of the street lamps, they looked like scintillans floating on the crest of the twilight waves of the Seto Inland Sea.

Pushing open the glass door, the sound of wind chimes drowned out the sound of rain. The three girls were waiting on the first floor.

After seeing the two men come back, the tall girl stood up first and walked in front of them.

"Hey, Xiao Haiyue, how did you get yourself into this state again?"

Mami showed a troubled expression, pulled Haiyue from Masumi's hand, and walked away with her, "I'll take her to take a hot bath first, so she won't catch a cold."

"Ah."

Masumi responded calmly, then naturally sat down opposite Rinne and Mirai.

He first carefully peeked at the latter's expression before slowly asking.

"…How is the situation?"

"very bad."

Kuon Mirai said in a low voice, with a tone of understandable loss: "...But in the end, I gritted my teeth and continued singing."

"Really?" Masumi was visibly relieved. "That's not the worst yet."

"Huh?" The girl looked surprised.

Masumi glanced at the stairs. Asami and Kaizuki had already disappeared there. He paused and said gently:
"Since I've chosen to go on stage, I absolutely cannot stop playing. Even if something unexpected happens during the performance, as long as I don't collapse and run away, then the worst hasn't happened yet."

Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll end up like Hanekawa, with an unsolvable knot in my heart.

"Thank you, Mr. Masumi."

Kuon Mirai narrowed her eyes and smiled gently, "It's the same words that Toyama-senpai and the others used to comfort me."

"But... this performance was indeed ruined because of me."

She kept her face down for a long time, and her tone did not hide her depression and self-blame.

Masumi took a deep breath and glanced at Kamishiro Rinne next to him. She was sitting quietly in a corner of the table, listening to their conversation silently.

As if his thoughts were lost in memory, Masumi carefully selected his words and whispered to the future:

“I’m not saying failure doesn’t matter and there’s no need to reflect on it.”

"But being dejected won't solve anything. Just like if you make a mistake on stage, you can't stop halfway."

"So, first of all, you have to hold your head up, even if it's just for show and to force yourself to be cheerful."

"Songs sung by dejected people will not resonate with anyone."

After Masumi finished speaking, Kuon Mirai raised her face slightly, her expression wavering beneath her long brown hair, and a faint smile appeared on her lips.

"Thank you for telling me this. I always feel that Mr. Masumi is a very reliable senior."

Masumi shook his head: "I was just repeating what my senior said to me."

"Is he Masumi-san's senior in the band?"

"Well, yes."

As he said this, he noticed that Rinone glanced at him once more.

"He must be a very gentle senior, right?"

Masumi narrowed his eyes and thought for a moment before answering, "Although he usually pretends to be serious and earnest, he always tries to touch others gently and delve into their hearts. He is someone who can understand others and empathize with their affairs."

"Is this so?"

Kuon Mirai smiled at him and said, "That's very similar to Mr. Masumi."

"I?"

Masumi pointed at himself in confusion.

"Yeah." Kuon Mirai nodded affirmatively.

"And I think Sister Rinone has the same opinion as me."

What is the view of the Age of Gods?
Masumi then shifted his gaze to Rin's face. The black-haired girl still had her usual cold expression and shook her head slowly: "We've strayed a bit from the topic."

"Sorry." Kuon said softly, then turned to look at Masumi.

"Would you like to see what happens back there, Mr. Masumi?"

She suggested so.

"Did you record it?"

"Yeah." Kuyuan looked at Jindai: "Sister Rinone, please use your phone to record it for me."

After Masumi nodded, Rinne silently took out her phone, slid open the screen, and clicked play.

Because it was recorded with a mobile phone, the image and sound quality are a bit rough, and all the noise from the scene was also included, but the camera was held very steadily and there was almost no visible shaking.

In the video, the atmosphere at the performance was quite bad.

After a few complaints, the audience walked away indifferently, without further malice. Besides Seno and Kamishiro, there were only about a dozen people left on the stage.

Under such circumstances, Toyama sent a signal to the drummer with his eyes to start the game, and the sound of the instruments began to play again.

After the prelude, this time the distant future finally took over smoothly.

Maybe it wasn't at its full potential, but that's how it was in a live performance.

To give your full performance is either because the band happens to be in great shape that day, or because they've practiced so much that playing has become a habit. An occasional exceptional performance is as rare as a shooting star.

After watching the entire video carefully, Masumi asked her, "What do you think?"

"Very bad." Jiuyuan sighed.

"That's not what I'm talking about."

Masumi shook his head slowly. "What I want to ask is - after this incident, how do you view the band and the performance?"

After asking the question, he carefully observed the changes in Jiuyuan's expression, and his mood couldn't help but tremble in the rainy night.

What answer was he fearing and expecting? Masumi didn't have the confidence to outline it. Then he heard a voice from the distant future saying:

"Regarding the performance... there are indeed some significant differences from what I initially thought. The audience is also more cruel than I imagined."

Jiuyuan closed his eyes gently when he said this.

There is a layer of mist between the musicians on the stage and the audience below.

When she was an outsider, she always had wild fantasies about the performance, but when she actually participated in it, the clouds dispersed, and the face revealed was very different from the world she imagined.

"But... facing this reality, I actually feel a sense of security."

She opened her eyes again, and bright emotions overflowed from her eyes.

“Before I came to power, whatever I had imagined it would be like was just a castle in the air, unattainable.”

“Only after I got on stage did I truly experience that feeling.”

"And the sparkle is just the same, even more exaggerated than I thought."

The blazing lights on the stage and the scorching gazes of the audience, these artificial lights together projected onto the musicians, are like the morning light that leaves loneliness nowhere to hide.

Because of this, Masumi realized what his senior once said to him: "A band is a place where even a loner can shine."

The lips of the distant future trembled slightly, and the words that came out of them were firm.

"...As expected, I still like the feeling of singing on stage."

“So, I don’t think I’ll ever stop playing.”

After hearing her answer, Masumi slowly loosened his hand, which had been clenched at some point, leaving a crescent-shaped mark on his palm.

"so."

He withdrew his gaze from the mark and saw Jiuyuan's lips trembling, as if he wanted to say something but stopped. His resolute courage seemed to leak out from the gap.

"What's wrong? Is there anything else?"

"Hmm..." Jiuyuan hesitated and said:
"Actually... I received a call from my family before the performance."

"Are you asking about tonight's performance?"

"It's just a casual greeting." The girl shook her head slightly. "I haven't told them about forming a band yet."

"why?"

"Because I feel like I'm doing something very selfish."

"You mean... the band?"

"Um……"

After saying that, it seemed as if all his courage had disappeared. Jiuyuan lowered his eyelashes again and murmured softly.

"I clearly don't have the talent to form a band... If I'm just doing this for my own pleasure, I think it's really selfish."

"But no matter what, I don't want to give up the band..."

The Beigao Cultural Festival last September was the first time that Jiuyuan Mirai mustered up the courage to pursue music, and the first time he stood on a stage in front of so many people. It was not just the first time he imitated a popular singer and sang a few lines during a lunch break, and then received cheers from his friends, saying, "Mirai, you sing well!"

However, her poor performance at LiveHouse caused her budding music dream to retreat a little, and she began to doubt whether she had the talent to perform.

But there is no doubt that I like singing.

After the performance, whether it was guilt or unwillingness, it all ended up being organized into the same sentence in Mirai's mind:

“I want to keep singing.”

That’s why the future is so tangled when my parents call.

Her parents have always had high expectations of her, believing that she is a sensible child, and Future will also feel satisfied in the process of responding to these expectations.

But if you take advantage of this expectation and secretly satisfy your own selfish desires without their knowledge, you will inevitably hate yourself for being like this.

She paused here.

Masumi gently opened his lips as if to fill the silence, but he couldn't squeeze any sound out of his vocal cords.

But in this matter, Masumi felt that he had no right and no room for him to have any say.

Before the atmosphere was swallowed by silence, the stern voice of the beautiful girl with black hair and purple eyes came from the air.

"In that case, how about going home this weekend and talking it over?"

"Eh?"

Both of them fixed their gaze on Rin's face.

"If you have to make a decision sooner or later, I think you should make it while you still have a choice."

Linyin's voice landed on the ground with a resounding sound.

There was no fluctuation in her expression. The moment her red lips opened, Masumi and Mirai were both stunned and momentarily lost in thought because of the determination in her tone.

Kamishiro Rinone has always been someone who isn't afraid to express her opinions.

Because of this, sometimes when facing her, Masumi always feels weak, cowardly, and immature.

"How can it be said so easily..."

Kuon Mirai looked away and scratched his ear anxiously.

“The courage to speak up is no different than the courage to not give up.”

Those amethyst eyes stared straight at her, and he suddenly suggested, "This weekend, I want to go to Tajima Hot Springs with everyone. As for whether or not to tell her about it, it's entirely up to you to decide in the future."

"Well……"

Jiuyuan hesitated.

"Clang clang! We're back."

In the silence, Mami's energetic voice resounded throughout the space on the first floor, and she staggered out with Hanekawa Kaizuki, who had just finished taking a shower.

"What are you guys talking about? Are you still dwelling on the mistake you made earlier? Seriously, now that it's over, don't dwell on the unhappy things..."

"Ms. Mami."

Linyin interrupted her softly.

"Ah? What's the matter?"

"Let's go on a short trip together this weekend."

"Eh? A short trip? Why so sudden?"

Asami looked around at the three of them in surprise, their expressions revealing nothing. She smiled broadly and said, "Okay, okay! Where are you going?"

"Tajima's hot spring resort."

Rinyin said softly.

　Metoo, an Internet buzzword, is an anti-sexual harassment movement.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)