Chapter 3
Miyabi ran off stage after their goodbyes at the end of the afternoon concert amid the tears and sweat of the six other girls running along with her. While it may have started off not feeling much different from a normal concert day, the concert itself was truly as exciting as it was built to be. So much adrenaline was flowing through her that she hardly could keep still, and she hugged all the other girls as they all hugged each other. After getting through the first five, she looked for Risako to hug but the girl suddenly didn’t seem to be around. Thought about that just flitted through her mind though as her excitement brought her to a different subject: the subject of food!
“We should all have dinner together before our next concert!” Chinami shouted.
“I know this great place right down the street!” Maa-chan chipped in.
“Um… I already have dinner plans…” Saki said in a sympathetic voice.
“What? What are you talking about?” Momoko asked as if her feathers were ruffled. “Don’t tell us you’re meeting up with that boyfriend of yours!”
“I’m sorry!” Saki went on, carefully avoiding Momoko’s question, and scurried quickly down the hall.
“Well that leaves five of us…” Chinami said, counting on her fingers.
“Forget it,” Momoko said, now clearly disappointed. “I’ll find my own somewhere…” With that, she started down the hall away from them as well.
“Well that’s some exceptional Berryz team power we’ve got going there…” Maasa said, looking after her.
“Ehh,” Miyabi muttered. “We’ll be fine without them. We’ve still got the four of us, right?” She was disappointed that Captain wasn’t coming along, but if she really is meeting with her boyfriend, there’s no hope there. The girl may be the best and most caring leader when they were together, but whenever he got involved she seemed to just totally lose her mind. Miyabi didn’t like him very much. “Anyway, where’s Risako?”
“Who knows,” Yurina replied dismissively. “The smartest person in the world would have a field day trying to figure out what’s going on in her head sometimes. I haven’t seen her since the curtain fell, really.” Miyabi fell silent at Yurina’s words. That was true, but… what Risako had told her before the concert was bothering her. She hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to the girl about it since then with the activity surrounding the concert. Also, she hadn’t really thought about it until now when circumstances were killing her excitement from the event.
“So…” Maasa began, apparently trying to get the others back on the track of food. “How about that place I know down the street? It has great yakiniku.” The other three girls nodded in eager response, and they danced their way down the hall to their dressing rooms.
Once they were changed into their stylish casual clothes – they were the trendsetters for teenagers in Japan of course – they met up and found a staff member who led them to an exit they could use where they wouldn’t be hounded by fans. Sneaking out through it, they donned sunglasses and walked down the streets, chatting among themselves. They didn’t really talk about anything important; mainly just about different things that happened during the concert. Maasa almost fell during Fighting Pose, and Yurina complained about the set entrances being too low. Chinami told her she was just too tall, for which she received a hard poke.
They also had a great dinner. Maasa was right about the yakiniku. They were given a whole hour for their meal, so they filled it all with random chatter. Miyabi realized once more that she was glad to have such good friends.
On returning to the arena they separated, and as Miyabi was heading to her dressing room she ran into an oblivious Risako. “Hisashiburi!!” she yelled as she snuck up on the poor unsuspecting young girl.
“Iyaaa!” the girl shrieked, jumping in the air and spinning before she saw who it was. “That was not funny!” she said, holding her hand to her chest and breathing heavily as Miyabi broke into a giggle.
“You’re so out of shape!” Miyabi chided. “You get out of breath just from walking down a hallway…”
“Stop calling me fat!” Risako demanded in return.
“Fat? I didn’t say fat…” Miyabi said incredulously. The other girl just huffed and turned to stalk back down the hall.
“Hey! Wait up!” Miyabi called after, and ran to catch up with the other girl.
“Help! Help! I’m being stalked!” Risako yelled in a mock scream, causing some of the staff also passing down the hall to stop abruptly to see what the commotion was about. “There’s an old crazy girl trying to molest me!”
“I am not old!” Miyabi protested loudly as she continued running after her quarry.
Risako did her best, but unfortunately for her Miyabi wasn’t totally wrong about the shape she was in. Before long she was tackled kicking and screaming to the floor. “Ahhhh!”
“Ha! Gotcha!” Miyabi looked down at the girl who after the fall she found she was straddling the waist of. Risako looked back up at her as if she was fearful of her life. No other noises could be heard; apparently the staff who were around decided they didn’t want to be involved in Berryz Gone Wild. “Now… you shall be tickled!” Before she even said the word, she began administering her threat.
“Ahhh! Ahh… ahahahahhaa!” Risako giggled uncontrollably beneath her, wiggling around as she struggled to get free. After a minute, really when her arms got tired, Miyabi stopped her ministrations and looked back down at the girl, her own breath now heaving along with the other’s. She enjoyed seeing the smile that now graced her friend’s face.
“I was wondering if you were still that sensitive to tickling. I guess I got my answer,” she said with a smirk.
“Not funny…” the girl below said in mimicked offense, and raised her arm to push Miyabi’s shoulder. She couldn’t dislodge her captor from her superior position, however. “You can get off me anytime you know.” As she calmed, she seemed to begin to adopt a pleading look.
“Mmm… I don’t think so,” Miyabi replied. “Not yet at least…” As she looked into the deep youthful eyes of the other girl the spark of her exuberance shone back at her. She was suddenly very conscious of how close they were. Their faces were just centimeters apart. Something she couldn’t explain came over her and she began to lean closer…
“Ewww,” came a too-girly voice from behind them down the hall. “Get a room, you two!” Miyabi and Risako both jumped up and apart from each other as quickly as they could. “You’d better be quick about it though. We meet for first stage in ten minutes!” Momoko walked up to them as if reluctantly at first as she spoke, and then darted quickly between them, sparing them looks as if to make sure they didn’t try anything on her. She then continued running down the hall, yelling behind her back, “And put some better makeup on or everyone will know what you’ve been up to!”
Miyabi cast a quick glance at Risako who didn’t look back, her eyes lowered and face appearing a little flushed, before starting to head quickly straight down the hallway herself. They had not been up to anything! They… might have been… she supposed, though she didn’t know exactly what happened there. Either way, she was sure her makeup was just fine!
After a moment she noticed Risako was walking the same way as her. “Miya…” she breathed in not much more than a whisper. Miyabi stopped dead, the other girl catching up with her. She had no idea what she was going to say… “You’re going the wrong way. Your room is in the other direction.”
“Oh,” Miyabi replied, her sense lost to her. “Thanks…” She then just noticed Risako nod and begin walking straight on again without looking back. Miyabi watched after her for a moment, her feet rooted to the spot unsure of what to do, before the girl disappeared behind a corner.
As if that triggered something in Miyabi’s brain to make her feet work again, she turned around and headed back toward her dressing room. Okay, what just happened back there? she asked herself. However, her mind didn’t really seem to want to process it. Did I just almost… kiss Risako? It’s not like that would be the most earth-shattering thing in the world. They kind of went out a year or so ago, going on cute little dates and things and even sleeping in the same bed together when they could. It was nice being able to do that again last night… But they hadn’t quite gotten into a kissing stage yet, and school and work became busier and pushed them apart to where they didn’t see each other much at all or do much together… that is until Miyabi stole into her room last night.
As she found her dressing room and began changing for the performance, she began preparing mentally for it and tried pushing thoughts of what happened earlier out of her head. That was something for later tonight. Now, it was show time.
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And my original notes about the story from so long ago
A few notes about this story... This began with me just wanting to write something involving Berryz, since I felt they still didn't have much that portrayed their characters for everyone to get to know well. Also I've come to love them quite a bit and felt like I might have some fun things to write about them. I was inspired a bit by Wordsworth's and Loser87's works but I hadn't yet realized a bunch of others started writing Berryz fics around the same time... lol. I wonder what happened this month?
Anyway, when thinking about what to write about them I didn't know much more except for what the characters would be like. It's quite difficult to apply Berryz to traditional plots, mostly because of how young they are, so I got stuck for a little while (part of the reason I didn't write sooner). Then I looked at what I already had seen written about them and basically they were stories that focused on some sort of romance and other things that really just reminded me of teen dramas. So I thought, what the hey. I've got characters, let's throw a bit of backstory into them and start them in a certain setting and see what happens. I'm basically writing this story about what I think might be the random happenings of Berryz' daily life. Because of this, as in a teen drama, the plot and such might meander a bit, but hopefully it will be interesting nonetheless if nothing else than because of the characters. This also feels to me like the best way of keeping the Berryz spirit in what I write, which I consider more important than some other groups. Those dramas tend to acquire plots at some point and gain quite a bit of interest, and some people at least seem to enjoy the little I've written so far, so we'll see how it goes.
Thank you all for reading, and please let me know what you think about the girls!
I feel like working on Berryz Gakuen too!!