Chapter Three: Downfall!
Everything was perfect for Mio. She remained 'BFFs' with Ritsu, she got herself a boyfriend, and the culture festival is coming.
Life was delightful.
Yes, that's right, readers. It was
too delightful.
~~~~~~
"You seem happy, Mio," observed Yui, drinking tea with the other members of After School Teatime.
"Huh?" she replied with surprise, jerking her chin away from her palms she had rested on. "Yeah… I'm just glad Ritsu's fever has gone down."
"Heh heh, don't you mean that you're glad the 'love-fever' in your life has gone up?" teased Ritsu from the other side of the table, scanning between Mio and Flare's faces.
"Shut up, Ritsu!" Mio wailed, gaining the same red, embarrassed look as Flare.
Mosugi 'Flare' Tenjiru, who had just joined the band recently, had been practicing playing each of the four main instruments the band uses, so as to stand in for them - if it ever comes to that.
"But seriously," Flare began, after giving a cough, "a guy being in a tea party-like setting… feels a bit weird."
"But this is not a tea party. We're just having a break," Ritsu remarked, shrugging. "Besides, if it's any similar to a tea party, it'd be too silly for my taste, either, anyway."
"Ritsu needs to get more in touch with her feminine side," commented Tsumugi, holding up her teacup with her pinky raised.
"Tch! My personality is just fine the way it is."
Yes, everything for the Keion Club, the After School Teatime was back to normal. Little did anyone expected the path to take such a sharp turn ahead…
~~~~~~
"Eh?! A Mio fanclub?" commented Yui, who had, along with the others, learned about the existence of a Mio fanclub - an official one, rather than the panties-tease-parade that Ritsu had tried and conjure together. "Supah-cool!"
"Isn't it?!" added Ritsu, wrapping her arm around a very embarrassed Mio, whose eyes desperately sought help from a slightly annoyed Flare.
"Really?" remarked Flare with a stern look, his hand held around Mio's. "I don't think it's very good to have obsessive fanboys chasing Mio down like she's some kind of trophy."
"Of course you don't think so…" Ritsu couldn't help giggling at the thought of Flare being jealous. "That's why I need you to be Mio's knight and make sure her fans don't get too friendly when I'm not around, alright?"
Her wink somewhat reassured Flare and Mio of her innocence in the partake of this fanclub. Ritsu could get really mischievous in the act of teasing Mio, but they all knew she would never put Mio in harm's way.
"Sigh, guess there's no choice," responded Flare, trying to hide his grin beneath a distressed expression. "I'll just have to kick some ass if any of your fans try anything funny with you. Right, Mio?"
"Yeah, yeah…" replied Mio sarcastically, but with an amused smile across her cheeks. "If there's anyone whom I should be concerned about, it'd be you."
"Ouch. Burned, senpai!" inserted Azusa, who had been entertained by the conversation from the side. Though she was as happy as the rest of the gang about Mio finally being more sociable with her attainment of a boyfriend, she couldn't help feeling a little envious of her status, secretly wishing…
"…That you have a boyfriend, too, right, Azusa?" whispered Ritsu behind Azusa's ear all of the sudden.
"What are you mumbling about, Ritsu?" She looked away shyly. Being envious was one thing, but gaining an actual boyfriend was a responsibility she didn't want to have added to her life. She felt she wouldn't be able to cope with her studies as well as Mio would.
"It's alright, Azusa," assured Tsumugi by her side with a warm smile, "I'm sure someone as cute as you would get a boyfriend in no time, too, if your heart desires for it."
Azusa exchanged a friendly smile with Tsumugi in response. Out of the five, Tsumugi was probably the best person she could had connected with - second to Mio, of course.
As the six innocent people walked down the corridor with warmth and laughter, a sudden comment set the pieces down for the destruction of this carefree fairy tale.
"I think she's just a hypocrite," said a voice from one of the rooms the group passed by, "Akiyama Mio, that is."
Naturally, the gang stopped. They didn't catch every word, but some of the more important ones were quite distinct. Such as 'hypocrite' and 'Mio.'
"She puts up a mature persona, but I think she secretly enjoys winning over those boys with her cuteness. I'll bet she purposely tripped just to flash her panties."
The gang couldn't believe such ugly statements could be made with such innocent words. They listened with disgust, and wanted to get away.
"Mio…" murmured Ritsu by her side. She stared at Mio's emotionless face, just looking down on the ground, as if just waiting for her critic to finish judging her.
Ritsu felt powerless, that she couldn't help her bestfriend… just like that time. A surge of anger rushed through her body, asking every inch of her muscle to charge in and beat the crap out of the bitch… but she knew it would just make matters worse, especially for Mio.
"Sigh, such a shallow person," a more rugged voice remarked, seeming that of a male. "I don't really like her, either. She seems like the most childish of the band."
"Mio, let's just go!" whispered Ritsu loudly, but making sure to keep her voice down. "You don't have to listen to this!"
"She's right, Mio," added Tsumugi, tugging on her friend's arm lightly. "Don't listen to these pointless comments!"
""Yeah… you're right," answered Mio, raising her head to smile weakly at the both of them. "Sorry."
"There's nothing to apologize about, Mio," remarked Ritsu, beginning to walk away from the room while clutching Mio's hand firmly. "You've done nothing wrong."
"What was that class anyway…?" wondered Azusa, looking back to the closed door of the room.
"Class 3-A, Senior class," informed Flare bluntly. Among the gang, Ritsu and Flare naturally had the most distressed expressions of all, with Flare's face even hinting an intent to kill. "Freaking stuck-up people. They feel they have the right to judge anyone they don't like, like gods of their own in this helpless world."
It was a side of Flare they had not seen in the number of weeks they hung out with him. Though the natural response to this should be comfort for Mio, knowing that her boyfriend cared about her so much, it was also the face of a stranger that somewhat frightened her, even the other bolder members of the gang as well.