Friendly Rivals

The band entered the fast food restaurant and took their seats. Nahida, Kokomi and Albert went to order while Carter, Beyond and Simon stayed behind. The boys sat at a booth, the booth beside them was occupied by familiar faces seen before at Putra University. Including a very familiar pair of nosey twins.

"Hey Simon! What are you doing here?", Rajesh called out excitedly.

"Who's calling?", Carter asked.

Simon turned towards the source of the voice and then ducked his head under the table with his hands over it.

"Nooo, what are they doing here?", Simon whispered. Beyond heard that whisper and looked towards the left and saw Rajesh waving at them. His twin sat opposite of him with a girl, as the put it 'one of the five bassists'. Ranni was just staring at Carter, trying to figure out his identity. Rajesh got up from his seat and proceeded to walk towards the three boy's table, Ranni decided to follow suit.

The twins reached towards the boy's table. Rajesh grabbed Simon's arm and dragged him towards their table so they could sit and chat. Simon tried to resist but to his avail, Rajesh was far too strong and tall. Ranni then occupied Simon's seat beside Beyond. Beyond scooted a few centimeters away from her.

"Beyond", Ranni called out, whilst crossing her arms.

"Ranni", Beyond acknowledge her with a nod.

"Who's this cutie?", Ranni questioned, pointing at Carter.

"I'm Carter", Carter introduced himself, looking at her.

"I see, what he's the new assistant or something?", Ranni asked.

"Of course not, Nahida's still with us", Beyond answered without skipping a beat.

"I see, I wonder why she stook around still. You men are just boys, too much to handle", Ranni stated.

"I'm 19", Carter stated, clearly offended by Ranni calling him a child.

"I know, it's an expression. No need to get offended so easily", Ranni smirked.

"What do you want? We're just here minding our business before you ruined it", Beyond questioned strictly.

"What got you panties twisted? I'm just here to have a chat", Ranni said, slightly amused by Beyond's anger.

"Clearly not, I'm not that dumb. Return Simon straight away after you've finished", Beyond demanded.

Carter kept eavesdropping on the conversation and decided to keep quiet, he didn't want to arouse any additional conflict between this weird woman and Beyond. Carter decided to play games on his phone instead. Carter's vision isn't entirely gone, he could see but only if he moved things closer towards his face. That also resulted in just a blurry image, only slightly clearer.

Soon, Albert, Kokomi and Nahida came back towards their table, holding trays of their orders in hand. They set down the orders on their table. Albert was not amused to see Ranni sitting at their table. Nahida furrowed her eyebrows at Ranni and slammed her hand on the table which made the drinks almost jump out of their cups. Kokomi grabbed Nahida's shoulder, gesturing to be quiet since they're out in public.

Nahida ignored her. "What's she's doing here?".

"Hi Nahida, how are you?", Ranni asked cheerfully.

"Where's Simon", Kokomi asked Carter.

"He's over there", Carter placed his phone back into his pocket and pointed towards Rajesh's table.

Albert took a seat next to Carter after asking him to scoot over. Kokomi sat Nahida down next to Albert and proceeded towards Rajesh's table.

"What do you want?", Nahida spat.

"Relax, I was about to tell Beyond before you came over here", Ranni coaxed.

Ranni explained that her band wanted to join the Battle of The Bands competition. Since she saw Nahida picked up the flyer for the competition that her band decided to join. Ranni just wanted to make her band look menacing since she's already recruited one of the five bassists which was Cherry and also a vocalist named Shahirah. She only needed a keyboardist for the extra atmosphere that the electric guitar and bass can't produce.

She wanted to recruit Albert.

Beyond denied that request.

Kokomi came back from Rajesh's table after greeting them and brought back Simon. She pulled gently on Ranni's arm to gesture her to get up from Simon's seat. Ranni got up with no questions asked. She just obeyed her senior. Which most didn't know because Ranni was quite tall, taller than Kokomi as Albert had told Carter.

Carter had asked Albert a favor, to describe the unknown person (Ranni) that was sitting in front of them. Albert told him that Ranni had long black hair tied into a braid, with hair framing the sides of her face. Carter then asked him her height.

"She's taller than Kokomi", Albert whispered.

Carter nodded his head in acknowledgement.

They both then turned back to see Simon was back in his seat while Ranni was standing beside Kokomi with her hands interlocked in front of her like an innocent school girl. Nahida was flabbergasted at Ranni's innocent act. Seems there's a history between her and Kokomi that she didn't know.

"Ranni, so nice to see you again!", Kokomi embraced Ranni, as if she's a close friend.

"Yes, good to see you again Aoyama", Ranni awkwardly patted her head.

"Now please release me".

Kokomi released her and gave her a bright smile. She took a seat nest to Simon. She then glanced behind Ranni to see Rajesh and Cherry eavesdropping on them. She then she looked back at Ranni.

"Look like your brother's getting anxious. You should go attend to him immediately", Kokomi advised as she popped a french fry into her mouth.

Ranni without scoffing, immediatly leaves their table and back to hers.

Kokomi then turned to face her friends to find them all staring at her with wide eyes.

"What?", Kokomi asked.

"She clearly hates you, what's your secret?", Nahida asked inching forwards with her hands on the table.

"Nothing and she doesn't hates me. She's just shy", Kokomi explained as she unwrapped her cheese burger.

Everyone then followed as they began eating, Carter's planned has seen a breakthrough. Joining the band is indeed the best way to get to know Kokomi, as per the result that happened just now. 'So she does have enemies as well', Carter thought. He decided to take a step forward and ask who Ranni was.

"Who was that?", Carter asked the group.

"A snob", Nahida answered quickly, then went back to munching her fried chicken.

"A witch", Simon said, slurping his soda.

"Uh, I guess a minor inconvenience", Albert said, munching on his spicy chicken burger.

"Not a minor inconvenience", Beyond added, dipping his french fry in cili sauce.

"An adorable junior of mine", Kokomi said, looking right at Carter with a smile.

"Okay...?", Carter said, then went back to chowing down his onion rings.

"It's nothing personal, she won't affect the band. Don't you worry", Nahida assured him.

"Okay, but how did Kokomi made her tuck her tail between her legs or more like got her to skidaddle", Carter questioned.

"She's just pretty shy around me because I'm her senior. I don't wanna reveal details cause she's still watching us", Kokomi whispered at the end and subtly pointed at Ranni.

Albert took a small glance and saw her staring back at him, menacingly. Albert quickly looked away with brows furrowed in disbelief. 'Yep, not doing that again' he thought.

"Enough chit-chat, we have lots to do. Now, snarf down your menus", Beyond ordered.

Before they could begin gobbling their food up, Nahida interrupted them.

"Not too quickly, you'll choke. Kokomi and I can't handle performing Heimlich maneuver on you guys yet cause of your goddamn hard muscles", Nahida added sternly.

Everyone began eating normally again, then they went out as soon as they're finished. The Meerkats left the fast food restaurant, leaving their friendly rivals behind.