Going on Some Trips with the Group (Karaoke)

Akane had a great idea how to bring the girls form her group together! And what brings friends closer together than going on a trip together? Right! A death situation, also known as the suspension bridge effect!

But Akane didn't want to go to such lengths. What if the two of them think that they fall in love with each other. She wanted to them to get closer, not fall in love with each other! So Akane organized some trips of them that they could go along with!

The first trip! A trip to Tokyo, to Japans capital city! It was just next to Musutafu and could be reached by train in about an hour or so. But what Akanes' goal for today was, was visiting the various shopping centers in it!

What, they could do that in Musutafu? Boring, Tokyo was just bustling with life 24/7, visiting that would be more fun than just visiting here around the city you live in.

Overeager Akane caught the two of her group and pulled them along with her, following the unreasonable demand of the group leader should strengthen the bond of the group.

"Seriously, Akane-san, why pull us along to Tokyo if we could have done the same here?"

"Where is your sense of fun Kameko-san? Just visiting the shopping mall, I already know the ins and outs of is boring, I want to see new shops, new arcades, new stuff!"

"But I already had plans for today!"

"Who cares Hoshi-san, today will be one of our group days, let's just go!"

"Calm down! We are still in the train and people are looking at us!"

"Teehee."

Kameko and Hoshi just sighed, both of them had different plans for today.

Kameko wanted to drag her brother out of his apartment again, to let him have his necessary amount of sunlight, she was the last obstacle for him to turn into a complete hikkikomori.

Hoshi wanted to go on a gaming tournament that was supposed to take place today in Musutafu, the first price was 15.000 Yen and Hoshi wanted to have that money, to buy the new console that was newly released. Well this opportunity was gone now.

The two of them got dragged to Tokyo by their group leader, and there wasn't much they could do about that. Once that girl set her goals on something there was nothing that could stop her anymore. They both sighed again, this time resigning to their fate.

As they noticed that they were both in sync, both looked at each other and smiled, they just had to follow their group leader's unreasonable decision for today.

And so, the three of them reached Tokyo and spend the day there. They went shopping in various malls, visited various stalls to buy some snacks and they all started to enjoy their day.

They especially found the situation in the arcade funny.

"Wow, Akane you are so skilled in these games! You literally topped all the high scores and even maxed out the scoreboards! Everyone is going to wonder who 'losers ↓' is and they will angrily try to surpass the highest score, just so they can't be losers anymore."

"Anyways, do we want to raid the crane game?"

Akane smirked.

"Always."

And on that day the three girls were house banned from that arcade, never to enter again.

The girls this kind of thing for another three arcades before they got bored from that.

"Well, what do we do with all these plushies we just won?"

"Yeah, they are heavy and I don't think I even have enough acquaintances to give these all away now!"

"Well, we could donate these to charity, you know?"

Akane said casually while pointing at a building that accepted donations for orphans.

"Do you really think they are going to be happy about crane game plushies?"

Akane chuckled before she put on a melancholy face.

"Believe me, Hoshi. Orphans are happy about anything, some of them would even take someone's toy away, because they want two."

The girl felt as if she stepped on a landmine just now and wanted to quickly apologize.

"Anyways, lets donate them, it isn't as if we need them, right?"

The two girls nodded, before following their group leader. She always had a fitting answer ready.

As the girls entered the lady at the counter was surprised at the bags the girls wanted to donate, after finishing all the legal trouble the girls were all pretty worn out, but Akanes plan wasn't over yet.

"We still have one last station left before going home, and I am going to promise that it's going to be exciting!"

Kameko and Hoshi looked at each other again, before shaking their heads together.

""Let's just get this over with! I can only be fun with you!""

Hearing this Akane didn't know what to say for a moment, but at the end she just decided to give them a beaming smile. The two girls' hearts skipped a beat at that sight, the girl was pretty, especially when she was beaming like that.

They were caught off guard as Akane grabbed both of their hands and pulled them along.

"Let's go, we are going to have lots of fun during this evening!"

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And so, the three of them arrived at a karaoke bar, Akane rented a room for an hour or so and started ordering some food.

"Seriously, your idea for fun tonight was a karaoke bar? Couldn't this get any more boring?"

"Kameko, don't be so mean! I too think that this idea isn't really creative, but I am sure Akane had a plan."

She was currently looking at the song pad and looked like she was about to choose a song, but she stopped looking at the question of the girl.

"Not really, I don't have a plan, I just thought that we should show each other our singing talent before legitimately going on stage. We are idols! So, what can be more fun than competing with your fellow members?"

Hoshi looked at Akane as if she just lost the red string of the conversation, but Kameko started to look pumped up. She stood up and pulled her sleeve back, before grabbing a microphone herself.

"Testing my skills, leader? Don't underestimate me! I am fairly confident in my singing skills! Enough for that I am sure that I will do great on stage! Now give me the pad, I will show you how great of a singer I am!"

Kameko overeagerly grabbed the choosing pad from Akanes hand, looking like she already had a perfect choice.

"Only from the original soundtrack from anime. I want to know more about your choice of culture and childhood."

Hearing this Kameko froze, dammit. She was so sure that she had a good one and now she was forced to choose from an anime. Well, she had enough of a childhood to know what she wanted to choose.

(Digimon Adventure Tri Opening, Butterfly, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-04i20RV_s)

She started to sing the opening of Digimon Adventure, she at first seemed to be embarrassed, but after she looked around and realized that nobody is going to judge her choice and that this is a competition between, she started to go all out.

She sang the full version that went for about four minutes with absolute passion, she remembered her childhood where her brother showed her this old anime, she remembered how she went with her brother to the sequel films and watched them with absolute excitement.

She sang this opening with the memories of her childhood and the memories of her brother spoiling her, after remembering these memories tears started to build in her eyes and she was about to cry. But she held back, she had to end the performance on a perfect note, she was currently on stage and nothing should distract her.

Finally, the four long minutes were over and the tears finally broke out.

"Kameko! Are you okay? Why are you crying?! Should I get you something?"

"It's nothing, just remembered some fond memories, this will get over in a few minutes."

She sat down again after wiping her tears from her face and looked at Akane, she had a smile on her face and gave her thumps up.

"I commend you for not breaking into tears midsong. This needs a lot of willpower and strength to do, but you made it. You definitely have the quality for an idol."

Kameko just chuckled.

"Whatever, just show me my score!"

"Well, here it is."

They all looked at the screen and saw a '98' pop-up, almost perfect!

"98! How am I supposed to defeat that!"

"Just try, nobody is going to shame you here as long as you have a high-score, so just go ahead and chose a song, we won't laugh at you as long as it scores at least an 85!"

Hoshi started to fidget at these words, Akane just made it harder for her.

"Akane! You just made it harder for me!"

But the girl still chose a song, after all she didn't want to lose, because she didn't compete.

(Satsuriku no Tenshi Ending, Pray, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBNB3Xe1ivo)

Hoshis choice was a completely different choice than Kamekos, she chooses a more emotional, sad piece, it was the complete difference then the upbeat 'Butterfly' of Digimon Adventure.

Hoshi started to sing and follow the melody, she sang with emotions, but not with the same kind as Kameko. While Kamekos piece reminded her of her personal time with her brother, Hoshis piece reminded of her time watching the series.

She fevered alongside the characters, was excited with them, was sad them and was scared with them. She remembered Rachel, the emotional dead girl that wanted to get killed by Zach, Zach the psychotic killer that was the purest out of the bunch and planned to kill Rachel, only if she smiled for him. The crazy doctor Danny at his weird eye fetish, little Eddy that buried his victims to make him his treasure, she remembered Catherine and the priest. She remembered how she enjoyed watching the series.

At the end of the ending she remembered the ending of the series and one lonely tear flowed down from the corner of her eye.

She wordlessly sat down and watched the score board. It showed a 95. An excellent point if this was a test.

Kameko looked at Hoshi with a smug grin.

"You lost to me."

"Hmph, who cares, I might not be as good as you, but just you look and wait, Akane is going to sweep the floors with us."

The smile on Kameko disappeared.

"Way to go kill the mood."

"I am sorry."

Both of the girls looked at each other and laughed, they knew beforehand that they are going to lose to her, but at least both tried to do their best.

(The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, God Knows, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxFQeIniK1w)

Akane literally pulled a guitar out of her outfit and started to play alongside it. No emotions, no attachment, no deeper feelings, she just played and sang with pure skill.

She started to smile, she enjoyed it, but that was it, in this moment the song was the protagonist and not her, just as in the series.

She played and sang alongside the song with absolute perfection as it meant to be and after four minutes that felt like two Akane ended the song.

Everyone in the room was impressed with her display. Even the waiter that brought the orders in was extremely impressed. Everyone waited for the scoreboard.

It showed the secret option of 999 points that could be only reached, if the player played a fitting instrument alongside singing with the song of their choice.

Akane was smug and showed them a peace sign.

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The waiter:

"Believe me, you won't believe it, but I saw a score of 999 points today!"

"I know."

"BUT YOU HAVE TO... What? You know?"

"Yep, we all looked at the recording of that footage, want to see it again?"

The waiter just nodded.