Heavy girl? I feel worse than Black Hole Trigger!

She just suddenly understood.

The innocent child named Xiangzi had died completely from the moment his mother cast the curse.

"Do you want to grow up ordinary?"

"Do you want to be sold as a 'commodity'?"

"——You can obviously do better."

A mother cursed by her surname.

A child cursed by his surname.

And a girl who was blinded by the curse and thought she could continue her childhood through hard work.

...Ah, ah.

If that "Xiangzi" was still there. If that keyboard could still make a sound.

Perhaps, she can also wait for the day when her shouts are sung into poems and poems are sung into songs.

but.

"From the very beginning, there was no me on my piano keys."

My mother's expectations. My family's expectations. The audience's expectations. My own expectations.

With this boring music.

With this useless talent.

With these weak hands——

"..."

The girl clenched her fists.

She rested her head on her arms, looking extremely tired and relaxed.

But the pair of eyes staring at the window were still emitting a dazzling flash.

"……call."

The girl suddenly straightened her back.

She finally put away her smile and showed a solemnity that didn't belong to this overly comfortable Tsukinomori Academy.

She had already decided to move forward.

To this end, her first and most insignificant step is to escape from this cage.

Toyokawa Shoko picked up her schoolbag and muttered to herself, "Well, today too..."

“…——.”

Carrying the slightly heavy schoolbag in one hand, her mind began to reel about the folding umbrella buried deep at the bottom of the bag.

The blue-haired girl stared at her schoolbag with her eyes lowered, slowly closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stood up.

After hesitating for a moment, she chose to hang the schoolbag on her shoulder with great care.

……

……

On the street illuminated by the setting sun, a girl was walking alone.

"You say that, but what you really want is just some resonance..."

Her shadow stretched very long on the ground. A pale song echoed in the silent alley.

"I almost became an ordinary person overwhelmed by desire—"

She is laughing.

“…That’s me.”

Lost Star Chapter 91 Summer Time Record: Chapter Dagger

"A balance between work and rest is the right way."

"...?"

Shiina Riki opened his mouth and squinted his eyes, looking like he was about to say "Huh?" the next moment.

At CRYCHIC's dedicated table (unofficial), Nagasaki Suyo straightened her body, resting her elbow on the palm of her other hand, wagging her fingers, and explaining something like a tutor explaining a point of knowledge:

"Especially as the performance gets closer, you need to relax a bit. For example... yeah, Xiao Deng's voice sounds a little hoarse today."

"Eh? Ah..."

When his name was called, Gao Songdeng first looked up subconsciously, then lowered his head when he met Su Shi's gaze, and made a few humming sounds, not knowing whether he was stubbornly trying to express that his throat was fine.

Su Shi ignored her and turned to Li Xi, extending her slender index finger. "Then there's little Li Xi."

"How am I doing?"

As if connected to the lamp, Li Xi looked directly into Su Shi's eyes without fear.

And Su Shi just smiled at those violet eyes, "The rhythm before the second chorus is a beat slower."

“Hah!? —Ah, it hurts, it hurts!”

Bang! Li Xi jumped up like a cat whose tail was stepped on, and then his knee hit the edge of the table directly.

Yes, Nascita's tables were nailed to the ground. She used to think it was convenient because she didn't have to worry about accidentally knocking them over...but now the pain in her knees made her think about why they were nailed so firmly.

Haha. You're not afraid of being robbed, are you? Not only are there no customers here, even thieves wouldn't bother coming here!

“…Ritsuki!?”

Gao Songdeng heard her scream and looked over in panic. She had to hold her expression tight and waved her hand to indicate that she was fine.

At this moment, Baodeng Zheli's lazy voice came at the perfect time -

"Hey, who is destroying my house?"

Shiina Riki immediately glared at him with a dark face.

The manager of the coffee shop, who claimed to be still open during business hours, was sitting by the counter with one hand supporting his cheek, looking over with interest - Li Xi even felt that the faint smile in his slightly unfocused eyes was mocking her embarrassment!

As for Nagasaki Suyo.

"Really~! Little Li Xi, you can't lose your temper on an innocent table~"

"……what?"

That's right. The way he covered his mouth and spoke in a strange tone was 120% laughing at her.

Although she will really solve problems when there are problems, she is the only one causing trouble when there is nothing to do!

Li Xi rubbed his aching knee, took a deep breath, and tried to regain his IQ.

"Hmph... You're right. I did make quite a few mistakes today."

Those mistakes weren't due to unfamiliarity with the sheet music. The drum sheet with Xiangzi's handwriting had been flipping through it so many times that it was wrinkled. She even made a photocopy and now used the photocopy when practicing.

She actually knew exactly why she made the mistake. … She was just tired.

Her attention began to drift from the tips of her drumsticks, and her wrists began to lose track of her thoughts. The harder she pushed her body to catch up to the missed beat, the heavier her arms felt swinging the sticks. Shiina Ritsuki considered herself a strong-willed person, so even though she could objectively assess her own performance as quite poor, she was still "only" a beat behind in Nagasaki Motoyo's eyes.

But a mistake is a mistake, and she won't shy away from it.

Li Xi paused, then looked up and looked directly into Su Shi's eyes again, "So, shall we take a break from tomorrow's group training?"

It was a rare moment when Shiina Riki didn't bother to argue with her and jumped straight to the conclusion. Seeing this, Su Shi blinked... then quietly shifted her gaze to the side.

"Don't worry, I haven't finished yet."

Because she hasn't acted enough.

So Su Shi leisurely turned to the last person, Ruo Ye Mu.

Mu Ben sipped from the straw with her neck hunched. The gurgling sound accompanied the cold mango juice entering her throat, which made her usually calm expression seem to have a bit more floating joy.

Until four pairs of eyes suddenly cast at her, causing her to freeze for a moment.

"The new arrangement that Lena-chan helped write is really great, but wouldn't it be too hard for Mu to play it alone?"

The new arrangement of "Spring Shadow" essentially uses guitar tones to fill in the original piano part, without significantly altering other parts, which would have rendered all the previous practice meaningless. This is naturally good news for the bassist and drummer, but as the band's only guitarist, Mu's workload doubled—she also had to play the original guitar sheet.

Logically speaking, before re-arranging the music, a new member should be added to share the work.

Everyone at CRYCHIC tacitly agreed not to make this suggestion.

Ruoye Mu listened to Su Shi's seemingly meaningful remarks, stared at the juice in the glass and thought for a few seconds. Unable to guess what she meant, he shook his head honestly and said softly:

"There are practices."

Originally, in her spare time while teaching at home, she would occasionally pick up the guitar and play her favorite music.

Recently, she has been using these fragmented time to familiarize herself with new guitar tabs.

When Toyokawa Shoko introduced her, she said that she "started playing guitar at a young age", which is indeed true, but what Shoko didn't know is that she actually only took guitar lessons at the very beginning, and later she taught herself.

Although she was the sole guitarist in CRYCHIC, her role was more like rhythm guitar, while the main melody was undoubtedly the piano of keyboardist and band leader Toyokawa Shoko. She was a little uncomfortable with the idea of Mu taking on the lead role at first, but after spending some time practicing, she quickly got the hang of it.

I don’t know if it’s because she had discussed composing the arrangement with Xiangzi before, but the score Baodeng Zheli wrote was as detailed as Xiangzi’s. She only had to play it a few times and could easily combine it with the original score.

But to be honest, she is better at piano than guitar.

She was still taking piano lessons until recently.

Now that I think about it, instead of re-arranging the music, it would be better to just transfer her to the keyboard position and let her switch to a double-keyboard electronic organ. Maybe that would solve all the problems.

"..."

The thoughts swirling in my heart suddenly stopped.

Ruo Yemu blinked, capturing the image that suddenly flashed through his mind:

I was standing behind everyone in CRYCHIC, standing where Shoko Toyokawa once stood, playing the electronic organ, connecting each instrument with beautiful melody.

Am I looking forward to this?

Wakaba Mu had no interest in the music of Morfonica, the school band formed by Tsukinomori's seniors, and naturally felt little connection to "Spring Shadow," a song Shoko had written in remembrance of Morfonica. But perhaps from days of practice, the familiar melody had become etched in her mind, and in a fleeting moment of imagination, she imagined herself playing the piece with great pleasure.

It's as enjoyable as the days when I was playing heavy metal alone in the room.

While thinking, the conversation continues.

"——I feel bad just putting the blame on Xiao Mu."

Nagasaki Suyo looked worried, as if the person who had given the responsibility of playing the lead guitar to Wakaba Mutsu was someone else.

"then."

A brilliant smile suddenly appeared on the girl's face.

"Tomorrow, do you want to go to a concert together?"

Lost Star Chapter 92 Summer Time Record: Chapter Balloon

Saturday.

Live House "RiNG".

Several young girls were standing at the door, looking up at the big sign.

"Ha...it's like this again."

Shiina Riki sighed helplessly.

Nagasaki Suyo was just about to take a step forward when she heard Riki sigh, which was clearly meant to attract her attention. She turned around in agreement, but she showed a smile that was so cheerful that it was almost hypocritical. "Oh, did Riki guess I was bringing you to RiNG? I really can't help it! After all, it's easier to get in at the live events here~"

"Hmph." Li Xi was too lazy to continue arguing with her, so he snorted and walked around her and into RiNG.

Nagasaki Suyo is a woman who usually treats Nascita as her own home. Even when she makes an appointment to meet with people from CRYCHIC, she usually meets directly at Nascita.

However, today, she unexpectedly arranged to meet at the exit of Ikebukuro Station and led everyone all the way to RiNG...

Haha, you can tell who she is here to see even with your knees.

Li Xi walked quickly into the Live House, which was much busier on weekends, and went straight to the blackboard with today's performance schedule. Sure enough, he saw a line of chalk words at the top: "14:30-15:00 Lost Band".