Tuesday. After returning to Tokyo from Kyoto.
Unlike Nijika and the others, Aoki Kai had not taken just one day off.
Before school let out last Friday, he had gone straight to the teacher's office to find Hiratsuka Shizuka. He'd given her a heads-up, saying, "I'm not sure how long it will take, but I'll be back as soon as my business is finished."
Being the top student in the grade afforded him certain privileges, not to mention he was on good terms with Hiratsuka-sensei.
So, although she gave him a verbal scolding, she still approved his somewhat unreasonable request for leave fairly easily.
Back to Tuesday.
The reason Aoki wasn't at school was not because he had other business to attend to.
In fact, after the train ride back to Tokyo yesterday afternoon, all matters related to the "PVC Original Music Project" were concluded, aside from waiting for the email with the final rankings.
And waiting for an email was not something one needed to skip school for.
But—
Considering he had already self-studied everything the school was currently teaching, and he finally had some free time after several hectic days, he had tossed and turned in bed last night before deciding to take one more day off to rest.
Thus, at 9 AM on Tuesday, with no alarm set, Aoki Kai woke up naturally.
He groggily got out of bed, fumbled around for his phone, and, failing to find it, got up. He went to the bathroom in his pajamas and washed up.
The cold water on his face woke him up a bit. After brushing his teeth, he returned to his bed and finally found his phone.
He had left it to charge on his nightstand, but for some reason, it had ended up under his pillow.
Aoki didn't think he was a restless sleeper...
Well, never mind that.
He rubbed his eyes and lit up the screen. Before he could even unlock it, a flood of notifications poured in.
Most were spam or Yutube DMs, but as he scrolled, he found one that needed a reply.
[Hikitani: You weren't at school today. Are you sick?]
[Hikitani: If I'm not bothering you, can I visit you tomorrow?]
He had exchanged contact info with Hikitani Hachiman during a random chat. Aoki vaguely remembered the conversation—the first half was about Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, and the second half was about this year's new light novel, I Became the Strongest with the Failure Skill [Abnormal State] and Will Trample Everything.
He wasn't sure how they'd gone from Hugo to trash-tier isekai, but he scratched his head, yawned, and reined in his just-woken-up thoughts. He looked at Hikitani's message and replied.
[Not sick, just had some personal business. I took a few days off.]
[No need to visit. I'll be back tomorrow. But if you insist on coming, bring snacks. I've been craving chocolate daifuku.]
He hit send.
It was around 9 AM, probably break time after the first period. A reply came back almost immediately.
But Hikitani didn't respond to his flippant comments. Instead, his message was full of shock.
[Hikitani: I think I know why you weren't at school yesterday... I mean, Aoki, I never realized. Are you that super-famous music blogger from Yutube?!]
Aoki stared at the message, confused.
I don't use a voice changer, and my singing voice isn't that different from my speaking voice. Hikitani has even seen my guitar, the exact same one from the videos. So... what was there not to realize? And why does this have anything to do with me skipping school yesterday?
He replied:
[That I'm suki-san? I thought you knew. Can't you tell just by listening? What does that have to do with yesterday?]
He waited a moment. Hikitani explained.
[Hikitani: No, I'd never actually watched your videos before. But today, the video of your live performance in Kyoto yesterday showed up in my feed.]
[Hikitani: (video link)]
"..."
Aoki blinked, then clicked the link, curious.
The video title was a bit long: "[suki-san and Kessoku Band's Live Performance of 'Loser' is Mind-Blowing!]"
He instinctively checked the view count. It was already approaching two million.
Aoki was stunned.
He was confident in their performance, but he never imagined a fan-cam video would get this many views in a single day.
It was too exaggerated.
This was probably posted by a random audience member. For it to get this much traction without an established subscriber base was unbelievable.
Surprised, he hit play.
He watched it once through.
Because it was filmed on a phone from the audience, the picture was blurry, and the audio was less than ideal.
The upside was that it had captured the electric atmosphere of the crowd.
The performance itself was solid, but this simple video, even by sheer luck, shouldn't have this many views. His curiosity deepening, he opened the comment section.
He immediately saw the top-rated comment.
The user was "Flower Under the Starry Sky." Aoki remembered this person well.
An anime director with a huge fanbase, widely known in the industry, hailed as an "animation artist."
But that wasn't why Aoki remembered him.
Parallel worlds were a strange thing. Aoki had never studied quantum mechanics, so he didn't get the details.
He just knew that in this new world, some works from his previous life had vanished, while others had inexplicably been preserved.
For example, the works directed by this "Flower Under the Starry Sky"... like The Garden of Words and 5 Centimeters per Second.
In other words, this director, "Flower Under the Starry Sky"... though his name was different, was undoubtedly this world's version of "Makoto Shinkai."
That's why the name had stuck with him.
Seeing the comment, Aoki's confusion about the video's virality instantly cleared up.
As he'd just thought, "Flower Under the Starry Sky" had a massive following.
A public figure praising a work in a video's comment section would naturally attract attention.
Combined with the fact that Aoki's performance was good, this long-titled video had managed to rack up an insane view count in a short time.
So, a famous anime director gave me a signal boost...
He silently thanked the director in his head. His question answered, Aoki closed the video.
Hikitani hadn't sent any more messages. Figuring he might as well check his DMs since Yutube was already open, Aoki navigated to his inbox.
The number of DMs was absurd.
But even though the "Loser" video was blowing up, its influence hadn't fully fermented yet.
Most of his DMs were the usual: average users praising his singing and the quality of his songs.
But mixed in were a few different ones.
He scrolled down... until he saw that name he'd just seen. He stopped.
He opened the message.
[Flower Under the Starry Sky: Suki-sensei, hello.]
[Flower Under the Starry Sky: I am an animation director and a big fan of your music. Ever since I heard your first song, I have had the idea of collaborating with you. I am currently developing a new project, and I wanted to try and contact you. If you are interested... please call me at this number, or I can contact you. Thank you very much for your time.]
Below the messages was a phone number.
A famous anime director wants to collaborate?
Aoki blinked.
His original plan was that if he got good results in the PVC project, he would use the exposure to slowly release music, build his identity as a genius musician, and wait for people to offer him high-paying commissions.
Since joining Kessoku Band and growing closer to the girls, he'd also developed a desire to bring them along with him into the professional world.
But both goals required exposure. He, and the band, needed to be known.
The PVC results weren't even out yet, and now... a Plan B had just appeared.
A spark of excitement lit up in his eyes. Aoki copied the phone number.
An opportunity just fell right into my lap!
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