After dropping out of school, I chose to join a girls' band.

"Xiao Xiang and the others are also at the airport?" Nagasaki Suze frowned upon hearing this news, and her tone became noticeably louder.

Ai Yin nodded and continued, "That's right! Xiao Xiang said that Tao Zi took leave to go home to visit her family, and then everyone in Ave Mujica decided to go to Tao Zi's house for a visit and do a tour while they're at it."

Upon hearing this, Yue thoughtfully twirled the comb in her hand, raising an eyebrow slightly, as if this action sounded somewhat familiar.

At the same time, Lixi also sensed something was amiss, and doubts began to surface in her mind. She tilted her head, pondered for a moment, and asked, "Did they say where they were going?"

The most recent flight was theirs, so it's impossible that... everyone in Ave Mujica went to the same place as them.

Ai Yin shrugged: "Xiangzi didn't say, but I guess he's probably not from the same place as us, right?"

----------------

"Ugh, why did you take so long? I was dying of thirst." Sakura Sakura leaned back in her seat and complained as soon as she saw Shoko finally return with water, her tone revealing obvious urgency.

She exaggeratedly covered her throat with her hand, as if she was about to faint from thirst at any moment.

Shoko Toyokawa sighed, carrying several bottles of mineral water in her hand, clearly used to Sakura Sakura's exaggerated reactions.

As she handed out water to everyone, she muttered under her breath, "Ms. Sakura, even if you can afford to use the budget, you can't be so wasteful, okay? Why didn't you bring water with you when you left this morning? The price of water here has more than doubled."

She handed a bottle of water to Sakura Sakura, her expression tinged with helplessness. As the pragmatist in the team, Shoko was clearly very sensitive to these unnecessary expenses.

She had expected the prices at the airport to be outrageously high, but Sakura Sakura clearly didn't care about these details at all.

Sakura Sakura took the water without a care, unscrewed the cap, took a big gulp, and then waved her hand with a smile: "Don't be so stingy. As long as you can get reimbursed, it's fine. Besides, airport water is expensive, but it's not like we'll go bankrupt."

Upon hearing the word "bankruptcy," a hint of displeasure flashed across Toyokawa Shoko's face, and she didn't want to argue with her manager any further, since she wouldn't be the one to handle the accounting in the end anyway.

Sakura Sakura will handle all the invoices and signing procedures herself.

Side Story: A Trip to the Mountain: Chapter 4 - Was it a Plum Falling from the Sky?

"By the way, there's something else I'd like to ask you, Ms. Sakura." Toyokawa Shoko suddenly remembered the question that had been bothering her, and looked directly at Sakura Sakura with a serious expression.

"Oh? Go ahead." Sakura Sakura glanced at Shoko while drinking water, then a slightly teasing smile appeared on her lips. "Is it about relationship issues? It's normal for girls your age to have some little romances. Come on, let's have a good chat."

As she spoke, Sakura Sakura's smile gradually became somewhat lewd. She even raised her eyebrows, as if she was looking forward to hearing some gossip, and her whole person exuded a kind of malicious interest.

Toyokawa Shoko paused for a moment, then sighed deeply, covered her face, and tried to suppress her impending outburst. "What on earth are you thinking about all day long? Aren't we supposed to be forbidden from dating?! You're a completely incompetent manager!"

Her voice was full of helplessness and complaints, with a hint of anger at their lack of ambition.

Xiangzi simply couldn't understand why Sakura Sakura, as a top agent, was always so careless, especially on such serious matters, where she could be so frivolous.

Xiangzi was speechless. The more she interacted with Sakura Sakura, the more unbelievable it seemed: how could someone like her become a top agent? Didn't the company have any more reliable candidates? Or had all the other agents in the company been eliminated?

Sakura Sakura waved her hand dismissively, leaned back in her chair, and said with a nonchalant and relaxed expression, "Well, don't be so rigid. I'm just concerned about your lives. Besides, take the no-dating thing with a grain of salt."

She paused briefly, a smile playing on her lips, and continued, "I've seen so many couples secretly dating, until even their agents were kept in the dark. By the time the scandal broke and the company came to clean up the mess, it was too late. So I thought, instead of simply forbidding it, I should offer relationship counseling and investigate the other person's background. That way, they'll usually give up the idea of ​​dating on their own."

Xiangzi frowned even more, a sense of unease creeping into her heart. She looked directly at Sakura Sakura, her tone tinged with confusion: "This...isn't that illegal?"

"Does it count?" Sakura Sakura shrugged dismissively. "Anyway, this was all handled by a private investigator, it has nothing to do with us. Okay, let's get back to the question you were asking earlier."

Xiangzi sighed helplessly, knowing that there was no point in continuing the topic, so she changed the subject and asked, "Um... actually, what I wanted to ask was, Ms. Sakura, do you know where Xiaoyue's home is? When she worked for you before, you should have recorded her place of origin, right?"

Sakura Sakura was slightly taken aback, a hint of doubt flashing in her eyes. After a moment of thought, she casually replied, "Why are you asking this? But I remember... it's Tokyo, isn't it?"

Upon hearing this answer, Toyokawa Shoko's tense expression finally relaxed, and she let out a long sigh of relief, as if a weight had been lifted from her heart: "When I saw the Mygo members at the airport just now, I wondered if it was such a coincidence that we were all going to the same place."

Upon hearing this, Sakura Sakura raised her eyelids slightly, a faint smile appearing on her face, tinged with a hint of teasing: "Oh? So that's what you're worried about. But don't overthink it, even if you set off at the same time, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to the same destination."

“That makes sense…” Xiangzi nodded, looking much more relaxed.

After all, there can't possibly be such a coincidence in this world, right?

-----------------

"..."

"..."

"..."

On the plane, in the quiet atmosphere, Hinasaki's gaze involuntarily turned to Momoko Kurosawa, who was sitting across the aisle.

Their eyes met, and they fell silent for a moment.

Hinasaki shifted uncomfortably, her throat tightening slightly. She finally cleared her throat and forced a word to break the silence: "What a coincidence..."

Upon hearing this, Momoko Kurosawa slightly raised her head, a hint of helplessness and confusion flashing in her eyes. Looking at Hinasaki opposite her, she forced a smile and replied, "Hmm...what a coincidence."

As soon as they finished speaking, the air fell into a brief stillness, as if the simple conversation had done nothing to ease the awkwardness.

Meanwhile, in the back of the cabin, Takamatsu Akari happened to be sitting next to Toyokawa Shoko.

On the other side, across the aisle, Yutenji Nyanmu was already chatting enthusiastically with her fan, Chihaya Aine, while Nagasaki Motoyo listened to their conversation with a helpless expression.

Miss Hailing, along with Xiaomu, wore blindfolds and closed their eyes. In the distance, one could vaguely see the figures of Sakura Sakura and Misumi Hatsuka.

"You guys from Ave Mujica are going to Aoyama Prefecture too?" Hinasaki Tsuki tried her best to find a topic to ease the suffocatingly awkward atmosphere, her tone slightly stiff.

Momoko Kurosawa nodded, her gaze calm: "Yeah, I'm going back to visit my family. Everyone from Ave Mujica said they want to come to my house to hang out, and it'll also be part of their tour."

Silence fell between them again until Hinasaki hesitated for a moment before finally speaking again, her voice lowered: "You guys... Ave Mujica aren't going to Mount Hikami, are you?"

Momoko Kurosawa paused slightly, remained silent for a moment, and then nodded gently: "Yes, our destination is Mount Hikami."

"Huh?" Shiina Riki, sitting to Hinasaki's left, suddenly exclaimed, breaking the momentary silence. His eyes widened, and his face was full of disbelief.

It was all too much of a coincidence. Mygo and Ave Mujica hadn't contacted each other beforehand, yet they were on the same flight at the same time, and even sat next to each other.

Even more coincidentally, they seemed to be going to the same place.

Hinasaki felt her heart race, swallowed hard, and couldn't help but recall a possibility that Riki had mentioned earlier.

"It can't be...it shouldn't be...I've never seen Momoko on Mount Hikami before..."

"It can't be that..."

Although Yue thought this way, she still couldn't help but want to confirm the answer.

She took a slow breath, a hint of nervousness appearing on her face, and cautiously asked again, "Just one more question... Momo, the person you're visiting this time isn't named Kurosawa Mitsuka, is he?"

Bonus Chapter: Mountain Trip - Chapter 5 This counts as meeting the parents, right?

"Let me ask you one more question... Momo, the person you're visiting this time isn't named Kurosawa Mitsuka, is he?"

Hinasaki spoke softly, but each word seemed to be a question that had been weighing on her heart for a long time, slowly uttered.

"Lu Liu 223 Dam Incident!!!"

Momoko Kurosawa reacted extremely quickly. She turned her head sharply, her eyes wide, and stared at Hinasaki in disbelief.

This question clearly frightened Peach quite a bit.

"You... what did you say?" Peach's voice trembled slightly, as if confirming whether what she heard was true. "Xiaoyue... you too?"

Faced with Momo's shock, Hinasaki seemed a little flustered, but she took a deep breath and nodded, softly replying, "Yes... that's right."

That "hmm" was like a hammer blow, definitively confirming her vague suspicions.

"This is too much of a coincidence..." Shiina Riki, who had been observing silently from the side, finally couldn't help but speak up and complain.

"..." Momoko Kurosawa quickly recovered from her initial shock, her expression gradually returning to calm, as if she had already processed everything.

She sighed softly, then gave a helpless smile: "I didn't expect that you, Xiaoyue, would know my mother... I always thought that since you had never been to Rishang Mountain, you shouldn't know her."

Hinasaki's tense expression, initially a result of the coincidence, suddenly changed as she caught a detail in Momoko's words. She frowned slightly, her tone revealing a hint of doubt: "Wait, Momoko, you just said 'Mom'?"

Peach paused for a moment, then smiled, a mischievous glint in her eyes: "Hmm? So you didn't know, Yue? Kurosawa Mika is my adoptive mother."

Hinasaki's eyes widened, her face full of disbelief. She couldn't understand for a moment: "Then why have I never seen you before!"

"I've never seen you before either."

“When I was little, I saw Aunt Yuri and Aunt Fuka the most and spent more time with them, so I was so shocked when you mentioned Mika’s mother just now.”

She paused, her gaze softening as if recalling something, "I always thought you probably didn't know her."

"So..." Hinasaki rubbed her forehead gently, trying to sort out this complicated relationship, "We actually... had crossed paths a long time ago, but we just didn't know it?"

Peach shrugged gently: "It seems so."

--------------

The plane was fast, and the Mygo and Ave Mujica groups arrived at Aomori Prefecture Airport smoothly in just one and a half hours.

When they came out of the exit, they saw Yuri and Fuka waiting for them at the airport entrance.

The two stood outside the crowd, talking quietly while looking around, clearly searching for a familiar figure.

When they finally saw Momoko Kurosawa and the members of Mygo walking out of the exit together, a hint of surprise appeared on their faces.

Yuri raised an eyebrow slightly, a hint of surprise on her face.

Clearly, they hadn't expected that Peach would be traveling with Xiaoyue and the others.

“I asked you when you would arrive, but you didn’t reply. I thought you weren’t planning to come.” Yuri smiled, her tone gentle and concerned, but the surprise in her eyes was obvious.

Momoko Kurosawa scratched her head somewhat sheepishly and explained, "Ah, I'm sorry, the procedures for requesting leave for the band's performances are quite complicated, so I've been busy. This time... actually, I was only able to squeeze in this time by using the excuse of going on tour." She smiled, her tone carrying a hint of helplessness and apology.

Upon hearing this, Shen Yu nodded, his gaze sweeping over Momoko's back before settling on a group of unfamiliar faces.

Her eyes were full of curiosity, clearly showing her interest in the people Peach had brought.

Noticing this, Momoko Kurosawa quickly turned around, made a simple gesture, and then began to formally introduce the band members beside her to Yuuri and Fukaba: "By the way, let me introduce you, these are the members of my band."

She first pointed to Toyokawa Shoko, who was standing at the front: "This is our keyboardist, and also the core of the band, Toyokawa Shoko."

Upon hearing this, Toyokawa Shoko nodded slightly, her expression somewhat reserved but still polite, and said, "Hello, nice to meet you."

"And then, this is our bassist, Hachiman Kairin," Momoko continued.

Yawata Kairin stood to the side, gently raised her hand in greeting, and said in a low voice, "Hello, nice to meet you."

Then, Momoko pointed to Wakaba Mutsu: "This is our guitarist, Wakaba Mutsu. Don't let her quiet demeanor fool you, she can be incredibly powerful when she plays the guitar."

When Ruoye Mu heard her name, she nodded slightly, her voice barely audible: "Um... hello."

"And our guitarist and lead vocalist, Mitsuba Hatsuka."

Mikasa flashed a bright smile and waved energetically: "Hello everyone! Nice to meet you all!"