The NOVA Project orientation was held on a Monday.
Which meant thirty girls, selected from over 1,200 who had auditioned, were now standing in two rows inside a rehearsal room that smelled like floor polish and old mirrors, trying very hard to look like they weren't sizing each other up.
The Lumina Corp logo was on the wall opposite the mirrors. Clean. Silver. The kind of branding that said: we have been here a long time and we intend to stay.
They were absolutely sizing each other up.
Okay. Thirty people. Twenty-nine competitors.
Well, twenty-eight, technically, since Reina's probably going to debut no matter what.
Twenty-eight competitors. That's fine. Totally fine.
Aoi stood near the back, which was not a strategic decision. She'd just walked in and the back was where there was still space.
A girl next to her leaned over with the energy of someone who had decided they were going to be friends with everyone in this room within the next ten minutes.
"Hi! I'm Mika. I ranked 18th. You ranked 4th, right? I saw the board. Your score was insane."
Aoi blinked.
"Hoshino Aoi," she said. "And it really wasn't—"
"Don't be modest! I literally heard people talking about you in the hallway after. The girl with the original song."
( ^_^; ) Aoi : oh no. that's a nickname now isn't it.
Mika had short hair, bright eyes, and the kind of smile that made it genuinely hard to tell if she was being nice or just strategic. Maybe both. Probably both.
On Aoi's other side stood a girl who had not moved or spoken since she walked in. Just standing there, watching the room with calm, dark eyes.
"That's Sora," Mika whispered helpfully. "She doesn't really talk. But she ranked in the top three for the dance portion apparently."
Sora did not react to being talked about. Which was either very cool or very intimidating. Possibly both.
Further down the row, a girl Aoi didn't recognize was standing slightly apart from everyone else. Older-looking than most, with the kind of stillness that didn't come from shyness. She caught Aoi looking and didn't look away. Just held the eye contact for a second, then returned to watching the room.
Mika leaned in. "That's Rin. She was in a program before this one — didn't debut, not sure why. She doesn't really talk about it."
Aoi looked at Rin again. There was something in the way she stood — like someone who had been in this exact room before and was paying attention to everything she hadn't paid attention to last time.
— — —
The room went quiet the second Miyamoto Sae walked in.
Not because anyone told them to be quiet. Just, she had that kind of presence. The kind that didn't announce itself but was impossible to ignore.
She stood at the front of the room, looked at all thirty of them, and said nothing for about four seconds.
( o_o ) x30 [ everyone: trying very hard not to look nervous ]
"Thirty of you made it here," she started. "That's the good news."
She paused.
"The bad news is that most of you won't make it much further."
Silence.
Wow. No warm-up. Just straight to it.
"This program isn't looking for someone who can sing or dance or perform. It's looking for someone who can do all three, and make people feel something while doing it. If you're here just because you passed a test, that's not going to be enough."
She let that sit for a moment.
"You'll be grouped into teams of five starting this week. Teams will rotate every two rounds. Rankings update every Monday. Bottom five are on warning. Bottom two face elimination review."
She paused. Looked at the room once, slowly.
"One more thing. Your performance scores include an aura sub-metric. Most of you know what aura is. If you don't — you'll understand when you see it. It cannot be faked. It cannot be trained into existence directly. It either appears or it doesn't. And when it doesn't appear, everyone in the room knows."
Nobody raised their hand at that.
Nobody asked what it felt like when it didn't come.
They already knew.
Someone in the front row raised her hand.
"What's the elimination review?"
"A performance. In front of the full panel. If we decide you're not progressing, you go home."
The hand went down quickly.
( ;_;) [ front row girl : asking questions was a mistake ]
— — —
Break was fifteen minutes. Most people clustered into small groups immediately. The ones who already knew each other from other auditions, the ones who were aggressively trying to make allies, and the ones who stood alone and pretended to be on their phones.
Aoi was getting water from the dispenser when someone stopped beside her.
Tall. Sharp eyes. A kind of stillness that made her seem like she was always watching.
"You're the original song girl."
Aoi turned.
"I've heard that twice now," Aoi said. "It's going to stick, isn't it."
"Probably." The girl crossed her arms. "Akari. Ranked 9th."
"Aoi. 4th."
Akari looked her over, not rudely, but carefully. The way someone does when they're calculating something.
"I overheard two staff members talking before orientation started," Akari said. "They mentioned Sae-san wrote something specific in her notes about you. An unfinished song with more honesty than most finished ones."
Aoi went still.
"...She wrote that?"
"Word for word, as far as I could tell." Akari tilted her head slightly. "People are going to watch you now. Just so you know."
That's... not necessarily good.
Being watched means being a target.
"Why are you telling me this?" Aoi asked.
Akari smiled. It was a perfectly nice smile.
"Just being friendly."
She walked away.
( -_-) Aoi : ...was that friendly. was that a warning. was it both.
( -_-) Aoi : i genuinely cannot tell.
— — —
Aoi found a quiet spot near the window at the far end of the room and sat on the floor with her water bottle.
Thirty seconds later, someone sat down a little way from her.
Not next to her. Not far away. Just nearby. In that specific distance that meant either 'I'm not here to talk' or 'I'm here but I won't admit it.'
Reina Kurose.
( -_-) Reina : *opens notebook. starts writing something.*
Aoi watched her for a second.
"You could've sat anywhere."
"I know."
"There's more space over there."
"I know."
Aoi waited.
Reina kept writing.
Okay so she's just going to sit there and not explain herself.
Cool. Cool cool cool.
"What are you writing?" Aoi asked.
"Notes."
"On what?"
"Everyone in the room."
Aoi blinked.
"...Observations or evaluations?"
"Observations." Reina didn't look up. "Evaluations imply judgment. I'm just noting things."
She's been here forty minutes and she's already got notes on twenty-nine people.
That's either brilliant or terrifying.
Probably both.
"What's your note on me?" Aoi asked.
Reina glanced up for exactly one second. Then back down.
"Not finished yet."
Aoi stared at her.
Reina did not look up again.
( >_<) Aoi : WHY IS SHE LIKE THIS
— — —
The fifteen minutes ended faster than anyone wanted.
Miyamoto Sae walked back in with a tablet and read out the first team assignments without any preamble.
"Team A. Hoshino Aoi. Kurose Reina. Tanaka Mika. Yamada Sora. Fujiwara Yuna."
Aoi processed this slowly.
Me.
And Reina.
On the same team.
Starting now.
She looked sideways.
Reina was already writing in her notebook again.
( ^_^; ) Aoi : she doesn't even look surprised.
( ^_^; ) Aoi : did she know. how did she know.
Mika appeared at Aoi's elbow seemingly out of nowhere.
"OH we're on the same team! This is so good, I had a feeling, I literally had a feeling—"
"You had a feeling about a random team assignment?" Aoi asked.
"I have feelings about everything. It's a gift."
Sora drifted over silently, like a cloud. Just arrived. Standing there.
And then there was Yuna, who Aoi had not noticed before, a quiet girl with slightly tired eyes who was holding her own hands the way people do when they're trying to stop them from shaking.
"Hi," Aoi said to her. "Hoshino Aoi."
"Yamada Yuna," she said softly. "I... saw your audition. You were really good."
"Oh, thank you. Yours too."
"Mine wasn't." She said it simply. Not fishing. Just honest. "I almost didn't pass."
Aoi didn't know what to say to that, so she said the thing that felt true.
"But you did pass."
Yuna looked at her. Then, quietly, she smiled.
( ^ ^) Yuna : first real smile of the day probably
— — —
By the time orientation ended, Aoi's head was full.
Thirty names. Thirty faces. Rankings that already existed and would keep shifting. Teams that would rotate. A competition that had barely started but already felt like something alive, something with teeth.
She was walking to the exit when she heard two girls talking behind her. Not quietly enough.
"Did you see her ranking? She's 4th overall but her individual scores were all over the place. Vocal was decent, stage presence carried her."
"I know. She got lucky Sae-san liked the gimmick. One original song doesn't mean she can actually compete."
"Sae-san probably found it interesting for like five seconds. She'll forget by next week."
Aoi kept walking.
She didn't speed up. Didn't slow down. Kept the same pace.
Okay.
Okay.
That's fine.
It stung a little. That was just true. But she was used to things stinging a little. The trick was to let it land and then keep moving.
Outside, the evening air was cooler than yesterday. She stood on the steps for a second, just breathing.
Footsteps behind her. She turned.
Reina. Bag over one shoulder, notebook tucked under her arm, walking past without stopping.
But as she passed, she said, without looking at Aoi, without slowing down.
"Don't listen to people who haven't figured out what they're doing yet."
And then she was gone. Down the steps and around the corner.
Aoi stood there for a second.
...
Did Reina just...
Was that her way of being nice???
She looked at the empty corner where Reina had disappeared.
Then she laughed, a small quiet laugh, and started walking home.
Twenty-eight competitors.
One very confusing almost-rival.
And a song that still didn't have an ending.
Round two hadn't even started yet.