The day of the festival was a blur of controlled chaos. My body moved through the motions of a normal school day, but my mind was a thousand miles away, on a stage that was being built in the schoolyard, under a sky that was still a pale morning blue. I spent every spare second with my notebook, the lyrics to my song a mantra, a prayer, a declaration of war.
The world outside my own head was just noise. I was aware of the whispers, the stares, the strange new energy that seemed to follow Ren Takanashi wherever he went. I had seen him in the cafeteria, a solitary, defiant island in a sea of noise, and our shared, silent look had been a jolt of electricity. But I couldn't afford to think about that now. I had a performance to prepare for. I had a ghost to exorcise.
At lunch, I tried to retreat to the rooftop, my usual sanctuary, but Emi and Yui intercepted me at the stairwell, their expressions a mixture of friendly concern and prosecutorial zeal.
"Not so fast," Emi said, planting herself in front of me, her hands on her hips. Yui stood beside her, a silent, watchful partner.
"We need to talk," Emi announced. "About Ren Takanashi."
My heart gave a nervous little flutter. "What about him?" I asked, trying to sound casual.
"Don't play dumb with us, Hotaru-chan!" Emi said, jabbing a finger in my direction. "The entire school is freaking out. He was awake all day yesterday. He ate in the cafeteria. Mio told me he actually spoke to Mr. Itō at the hardware store. And then," she leaned in, her voice dropping to a dramatic whisper, "he told you he liked your hair. In front of us. This is a Category 5 Takanashi anomaly. And you are at the epicenter of it."
"He's been acting differently ever since you got kicked out of the band," Yui added, her quiet voice cutting through the air with analytical precision. "The two events are correlated. We know you did something."
I felt like a cornered animal. I couldn't tell them the truth. I couldn't tell them that he had held me while I fell apart in the middle of a dark street. It was a moment that was too raw, too real, too private to be shared. It was the only thing that was truly mine.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said, the lie feeling thin and brittle. "Look, I appreciate the concern, but I really don't have time for this. I have to practice. The festival is tomorrow." I tried to sidestep them, using my performance as a shield. It was the lamest excuse, and they didn't fall for it.
Emi didn't move. Her cheerful, easy-going expression was gone, replaced by a look of genuine, stubborn worry. "No," she said, her voice firm. "That's not good enough. We're your friends, Hotaru. We're worried about you. You've been a ghost for the past few days, and he's been acting like a different person. Something happened between you two. Something big."
"We just want to make sure you're okay," Yui said, her eyes full of a gentle, unwavering concern. "He has a reputation for a reason. We don't want you to get hurt."
I looked at their faces, at their beautiful, honest, intrusive friendship, and I felt a pang of something that was equal parts gratitude and pure, unadulterated panic. They were trying to get close, and getting close was the most dangerous thing in the world.
"Nothing happened," I insisted, my voice harder than I intended. "I'm fine. And I'm busy. Now, if you'll excuse me."
I pushed past them, my heart hammering in my chest. I didn't look back but I knew they knew.
I didn't look back. I couldn't. The wounded, suspicious looks on Emi and Yui's faces were a weight I couldn't bear. I just ran, my footsteps echoing in the hallway, a frantic, panicked rhythm. I wasn't just running from them; I was running from their kindness, from the warmth that threatened to melt the cold, hard shell I needed to survive the next twenty-four hours.
I needed to be alone. I needed to hum. The song was my armor, my mantra, the only thing that could drown out the noise of my own fracturing life. I found what I was looking for: an empty corridor in the old building, far from the festival preparations, where the air was cool and smelled of dust and silence.
I leaned against the wall, my chest heaving, my heart hammering against my ribs. I closed my eyes, trying to find the melody in the chaos of my own head.
"Running from your friends, Abe-san? That's not very becoming of a role model."
The voice, smooth and sharp as a shard of glass, cut through the silence. My eyes snapped open. Ayame Kurokawa was standing at the end of the hallway, as if she had materialized from the shadows themselves. It was her classic move. She was always there, always watching.
She walked toward me, her footsteps a slow, deliberate, confident click on the worn linoleum. She stopped a few feet away, her expression a mask of pleasant, condescending concern.
"You look stressed," she said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "You shouldn't be. You should be happy. I've given you the perfect identity. The sole musical representative of the school. A goddess on a pedestal, with no noisy, untalented boys to drag you down. Isn't that what you wanted?"
She took another step closer, her eyes, dark and analytical, scanning my face. "Now, you just have to do your part. Go up on that stage tomorrow and give me the best performance of your life. Don't have a single mistake."
Her voice dropped to a low, conspiratorial purr. "That's all you want, right? The spotlight? Well, there it is. Go get it. Every perfect note you sing, every head you turn, will be one step closer to my legacy."
I just stared at her, my silence a wall she couldn't seem to comprehend. Her smile tightened, a flicker of irritation in her eyes.
"You should be grateful, you know," she said, her voice losing a fraction of its sweetness. "It's so tiresome when people are selfish. So... ungrateful, kid."
The word.
That single, simple, poison-laced word.
It was a key, turning a lock deep inside me, opening a door to a room I had kept sealed for a decade. A room filled with the echo of another voice, Ryouko's voice, whispering the same word over and over again. Ungrateful, for the clothes I put on your back. Ungrateful, for the food I put in your mouth. Ungrateful, for the life I gave you.
The word "ungrateful" ignited something in me. A white-hot, silent rage that burned away the fear, the confusion, the despair. I had spent my entire life terrified of that word. It was the ultimate accusation, the final, damning verdict on my worth as a human being. I hated that word.
I looked at Ayame Kurokawa, at her perfect face and her perfect, condescending smile. And for the first time, I didn't see a queen or a predator or a master of the game. I saw a sad, pathetic imitation. A cheap copy of the real monster.
She was still talking, still weaving her web of control, but I wasn't listening anymore. The fear was gone, replaced by a cold, hard clarity. This performance wasn't for my friends. It wasn't for Ren. It wasn't even for me anymore.
It was for them. For Ryouko, and for this pale imitation standing before me. It was for every person who had ever called me a product, a project, a doll. I was going to stand on that stage, and I was going to sing a song of my own creation. And with every note, I would be telling them the same thing.
You don't control me.
The white-hot rage that had ignited inside me finally found a voice. The fear was gone, burned away, and the person who spoke was not the timid runaway or the polished idol. It was someone new. It was me.
Ayame was still smiling her perfect, condescending smile, waiting for my silent, grateful submission. She didn't get it.
"Oh, I will," I said, my voice a low, dangerous thing I didn't recognize as my own. "I will give the best performance of my life tomorrow. But not for you."
Her smile faltered, the first real crack in her perfect facade.
"I don't care about you, you insecure freak," I spat, the words a torrent of pure, undiluted venom. "I don't care about your stupid legacy. All this nonsense, this obsession with control, this 'fancy girl this, fancy girl that'—it's pathetic. You're just a sad little copy of a monster I've already met. And you're not even a good one."
I took a step closer, and for the first time, I saw her flinch. I saw the flash of the powerless middle school girl in her eyes. "You think you're a queen? You're just a warden of a high school prison you built yourself because you're terrified of what happens when you have to leave it. Well, I'm leaving my prison. And you can stay here and rot in yours."
I didn't wait for a reply. I didn't give her the satisfaction of a final word. I turned my back on her, on her shocked, furious face, and I just walked away.
I left her standing alone in the empty, silent hallway.
For a long moment, Ayame Kurokawa didn't move. The echo of the words—insecure freak, pathetic, sad little copy—ricocheted around the inside of her skull. The girl, her project, her perfect, beautiful vessel, had not just bitten the hand that fed her; she had tried to sever it at the wrist.
The shock was a physical thing, a cold wave that washed over her. But underneath the shock, something else was stirring. A slow, hot, and deeply familiar rage.
She saw it, Ayame thought, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. She saw the girl in the corner of the classroom, the one no one would talk to.
The defiance wasn't just a rejection of her authority. It was a rejection of her entire identity, the carefully constructed fortress she had built around that weak, pathetic girl from her past. Hotaru hadn't just fought back. She had looked inside, and she had seen the truth.
The amusement was gone. The game was no longer interesting. It was personal.
You want to sing your own song, little bird? Ayame thought, a slow, cold smile finally returning to her lips. It was a different smile now, devoid of any warmth or condescension. It was the smile of a predator that has finally been given a reason to stop playing with its food.
"Fine. Sing it. Pour your entire, broken little heart out on that stage. And I will be there, in the front row. And I will make sure that by the time you are finished, everyone in this pathetic little town sees you not as a goddess, but as exactly what you are: a hysterical, unstable, ungrateful little runaway. I won't just break you. I will erase you."
The rage was a fire, but Ayame Kurokawa was a master of controlled burns. She let it fuel her, sharpen her senses, cool her thoughts into a single, diamond-hard point of purpose. She did not act on impulse. She planned.
Late that night, long after the last light in her neighborhood had gone out, she slipped out of her house. She was dressed in black, a shadow moving through the sleeping town. The school, usually a place of rigid order, was a ghost of itself, the festival grounds a chaotic mess of half-built stalls and colorful, sleeping banners.
The main stage, set up in the center of the schoolyard, was a skeletal thing under the cold, indifferent light of the moon. Paper lanterns, unlit, swayed gently in the breeze. The air was full of the smell of sawdust and the promise of tomorrow's joy. It was a promise Ayame intended to break.
She moved with a silent, practiced grace, her feet making no sound on the packed dirt. Her target was the sound booth, a small, tented area to the side of the stage where the mixing board and amplifiers were housed under a heavy plastic tarp.
She slipped under the tarp. The equipment was new, rented for the occasion. It was professional-grade, far better than the school's usual pathetic setup. She ran a hand over the mixing board, her fingers tracing the sliders and knobs. Amateurs. They would have checked if it turned on, but they would never have checked the integrity of the wiring.
She hadn't come unprepared. From her pocket, she produced a small, elegant craft knife, the blade no bigger than her thumbnail. She located the main output cable, a thick, black serpent that ran from the board to the primary speakers. She knelt, her movements precise and economical. She found a spot near the connector, a place that would be under the most strain.
With the tip of the blade, she made a single, tiny, surgical incision. Not a cut, but a deep, almost invisible score through the rubber insulation and into the delicate copper wiring beneath. It was a work of art. The connection was still there. The circuit was still complete. The sound system would work. A sound check would reveal nothing.
But under the stress of a full performance, with the power surging through it, with the vibrations of a voice pushed to its emotional and technical limit, the scored wire would heat up. It would fray. And then, at the song's climax, at the moment of highest emotional vulnerability, it would fail. It would not be a quiet death. It would be a scream of feedback, a gunshot of static, and then a sudden, deafening, humiliating silence. It might not be long enough for her performance to be good.
She pictured it. The silver-haired girl on the stage, her heart torn open for the whole world to see. And then, at the peak of her power, silence. She would be left alone, a fool in the spotlight, her big, emotional moment turned into a pathetic, technical failure. The crowd wouldn't see a goddess. They would see a joke.
Ayame stood up, wiping the blade clean before retracting it. She slipped back out from under the tarp, leaving no trace that she had ever been there. The trap was set. The world was not going to go away with a bang. It was going to go away with a pathetic, screeching fizzle. And she would be in the front row to watch.