"Shiina, Honoka and the others should be getting ready inside, right? Is it really okay for us to go in now?"
Standing at the entrance of the backstage area of the concert hall, Yoshino asked a little nervously. What if she accidentally disturbed them?
"Hmm~ They must be very nervous right now, after all, it's their school idol's first live performance, just like when you first had to give a speech under the national flag."
No, she had never given a speech under the national flag, Shiina. She wasn't a good student in her previous life.
"If we go in now, we might see them changing clothes, you know? Yoshino must really want to see them in their underwear, right? Ah~ To be honest, I don't know why girls aren't shy when wearing swimsuits, but they get terribly shy when seen in their underwear." It seriously folded its arms in front of itself, seemingly contemplating a serious question.
Yoshino also slowly imagined herself in her underwear in front of others and in a swimsuit in front of everyone, then came to the conclusion that she would be more embarrassed in her underwear than in a swimsuit.
"Hmm~ Maybe Asian countries are a bit more conservative, unlike those Western girls who are so open. And the education might be different too." She couldn't let Shiina see her like this, she didn't want to be mocked again.
"Hmm, you're right. But Yoshino, aren't you going in now?"
Shiina nodded, agreeing with Yoshino, then turned its head and asked with a smile.
"Eh?"
"Are you perhaps afraid of seeing Honoka and the others changing clothes if you go in? Don't worry, because Yoshino is also a girl now, isn't she? And Yoshino has showered with that woman Toujou Nozomi, right? What's there to be shy about?" Its tone became a little sour at the end.
"Um, Shiina?" Could it be that, like yesterday, as Toujou Nozomi said, Shiina was jealous now?
"Ah! I heard a sound outside the door, so I knew it was Yoshino! Come in quickly!"
While Yoshino was still thinking about how to comfort Shiina, the door in front of her suddenly opened from the inside, and then Yoshino was pulled in by Kousaka Honoka.
After Kousaka Honoka pulled Yoshino into the changing room, she showed Yoshino the clothes Minami Kotori had made for them.
"Yoshino, what do you think? These are the performance outfits Koto made, aren't they cute?"
Saying that, she even spun around in front of Yoshino, letting Yoshino evaluate them.
Looking at Kousaka Honoka in her performance outfit, she was already a beautiful girl, and now wearing such cute clothes, it added a lot of points.
"It really is true that fine clothes make the man, or in this case, the woman. Even Honoka looks instantly cuter in pretty clothes. Kotori's skill is really amazing."
Shiina said that if she was praised, she might get carried away, so she shouldn't be praised, she was too arrogant.
"What do you mean 'fine clothes make the man'? Are you saying I'm not cute, Shiina?"
Hearing Shiina's obviously pointed remark, Kousaka Honoka became unhappy.
She was so cute and adorable, how could you say that about her?
"Are you as cute as our Yoshino?" Yoshino didn't answer, but asked back.
"Uh… no." Looking at Yoshino's face, which was countless times cuter than her own, Kousaka Honoka was instantly defeated and couldn't recover.
"Don't you know? So, come talk to me when you're as cute as Yoshino."
After saying that, it looked at Kousaka Honoka with the eyes of someone looking at a salted fish.
"Now, now~ Shiina is just joking with you, Honoka. You look very cute like this right now. It suits you very well." Minami Kotori encouraged her from the side.
"Where's Little Umi?" Seeing that Sonoda Umi wasn't there, Kousaka Honoka asked curiously.
"Just a moment…" Her voice came from inside the changing room, so she must still be changing.
"Goodness, it's just us girls here, hurry up and get changed."
Since they were all girls here, Kousaka Honoka couldn't understand why Sonoda Umi was being shy.
"I know!" Sonoda Umi pulled open the changing room curtain, wearing a light blue performance outfit, and walked out with a look like she was going into battle, but there was a slight flaw… she seemed to be wearing something extra.
"H-how is it?"
Everyone looked at Sonoda Umi's athletic shorts under her skirt with black lines on their faces, utterly bewildered.
Even Yoshino and Shiina, who had known it would be like this from the start, looked at Sonoda Umi with a bit of cold sweat on their foreheads.
Sonoda Umi looked at Kousaka Honoka and the others, striking a beautiful pose.
"What do you mean, 'how is it'?"
Kousaka Honoka, a little forceful, said loudly. At this moment, she was truly Empress Honoka incarnate.
"What kind of unwilling outfit is this?"
She tugged at Sonoda Umi's skirt, expressing her dissatisfaction. They were idols, what kind of talk was it to wear athletic shorts?
"Where did Little Umi from just now go?" She looked at Sonoda Umi with a scrutinizing gaze, wondering if she had been swapped out.
"That… that… looking…" Sonoda Umi said hesitantly, her face flushed with shyness.
"Looking at what?"
"After looking in the mirror, suddenly…" Sonoda Umi found it difficult to speak.
"Although looking at herself was very cute, it was a bit too embarrassing, so she felt like her heart was about to leap out."
Shiina, knowing the situation, deliberately said playfully.
"Ah!" Her reaction showed that Shiina was right.
However, Kousaka Honoka directly went up and pulled down Sonoda Umi's athletic shorts.
Feeling her safety shorts being pulled down, Sonoda Umi's pretty face turned crimson, and she covered her skirt with her hands.
"No!" She turned away, not daring to look at Kousaka Honoka and the others.
"Little Umi, you look very cute right now." Seeing such a shy Sonoda Umi, Minami Kotori and Yoshino walked over to comfort her.
"Eh!?"
Before she could react, Sonoda Umi, still dragging her sweatpants, was pulled in front of the mirror by Kousaka Honoka.
Sonoda Umi unconsciously clasped her hands in front of her, nervously looking at herself in the mirror.
"This way, she shouldn't be shy."
Standing side by side with Minami Kotori, if one person was shy, then three people should be less shy, right?
"Hmm~ This way, it does feel much better." Sonoda Umi felt her nervous mood gradually calm down, but her face was still flushed.
"But Little Umi, your usual school uniform is also a short skirt, why are you so nervous wearing this one?"
After speaking, she reached out and patted her thigh. "As expected of the Archery Club's captain, her thighs are so elastic."
"If you also exercised constantly like me, you'd be the same. Also, a school uniform is a school uniform, it's different."
Sonoda Umi reached out and slapped away Kousaka Honoka's mischievous hand on her leg, glaring at Kousaka Honoka who stuck out her tongue.
"What's different? Aren't they both short skirts?" Shiina deliberately said from the side, fanning the flames.
"Exactly." Kousaka Honoka and Minami Kotori both nodded.
"It's just different, okay!"
"It's almost time for you, Little Umi, to perform. Do you remember what you said to Shiina last week?"
Yoshino stepped forward and looked at Kousaka Honoka, who was leading the trio.
"Remember, even if there's no one this time, in the future, you must make this once-empty audience full to the brim." She held out her small hand in a V-shape.
"Yes, isn't that obvious?" The three of them successively held out their hands in a V-shape, forming a circle with Yoshino's hand.
"Muse! Fighting!" * 5