The New Old

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Edited by RedPandaChick

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Unlike on Earth, there were no proper spaceports on Furenoora, only a couple of landing platforms in the middle of its cities.

We walked away from the platform our ship had landed on, carrying what little equipment we'd brought to use for the performance at the bar.

Some Furenoos stared back at us. Humans were a rare sight for them, but it was even rarer to see a Furenoo on Earth because not many could afford the trip. The ones that could afford it did it mostly for business matters, so seeing a Furenoo on the street was absurdly rare.

Just like Astra said before coming to the planet, they looked like teddy bears. Although their height was imposing, their fur and chubby physique still made them look cute. It was a conflicting feeling, to say the least.

Fortunately, we didn't have to walk much. My contact was already waiting for us on the corner of the block. He smirked as soon as he saw us, then he extended his arm when we approached him.

"Miyahara, it's great to see you again after so long."

I extended my arm and he shook my hand with too much energy. He also slapped my shoulder.

"Likewise," I replied.

"You look like a man now."

"…Thanks?"

"Don't mention it."

He glanced over my shoulder, so I turned around to introduce him to everyone else.

"This is part of the GIMA team. I didn't bring everyone because it would've been crazily expensive."

"Wise decision."

"I guess you already know Astra, Risa, Sanae, Aki, and Umi. They are Blostars."

"Of course, I do. It's an honor to be standing in front of such big stars."

The girls didn't say anything, but their smiles said enough already.

"The big guy behind them is Gorō, our bodyguard, but you can call him Butcher. And the guy standing beside him is Miki, the sound engineer."

My contact bowed.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all."

I continued, "Guys, he's the contact I mentioned before. I met him in the only school strip I had during university. He was our guide, and he has written many articles and books about his experience in the business. He even was one of the people in charge of making the Business Administration course. He's a legend in business management, basically."

"You flatter me, Miyahara, but that's correct. I only gave my contact information to two people in your class, including you. Although the rest seemed eager to graduate, I didn't see the fire in their eyes."

Here comes the fire thing again….

"Fire?" wondered Aki.

"It'll take too long to explain," my contact answered. "Why don't we head to the bar?"

"Sure," I replied. "Is it far?"

"It's several blocks away. We better take a taxi."

We followed him down the block until we reached a post, where a couple of Furenoos stood. We lined up behind them for a minute until a car with a symbol painted beneath it flew down from the air and parked in front of them. The two Furenoos climbed into the car, then it flew up again.

My contact approached the post and pressed a button, making the symbol above us light up to indicate someone was waiting for a taxi.

Unlike on Earth, the cars didn't have tires and only flew since there were no streets on Furenoora. They didn't have the time to come up with the concept before humans arrived; they had barely been able to produce electricity cheaply and consistently.

When humans arrived, there was a huge debate on Earth about whether or not it was a good idea to share our knowledge with them. Many were against it because they feared that Furenoos would use it against us, which made sense, but the majority voted in favor of at least sharing basic knowledge.

We shared better ways of producing electricity, concepts like city planning, technologies like flying cars, and many other things. Obviously, they had to adapt the ideas to the resources available on Furenoora, and mass-producing tires for cars was too costly for them. So, they skipped them entirely.

A van parked in front of us after a couple of minutes. We put the equipment in the trunk, then we climbed in. It was weird seeing how much space was left despite being a group of nine people.

"Where you going?" the Furenoo driver asked. Her voice didn't sound too different from a human voice.

Just like on Earth, glasses were capable of translating any language in real-time. However, the translation of the language of other species was set to be literal by default, so I configured the glasses to improve the sentences accordingly.

As soon as my contact answered with the name of the bar, the van flew up and lined up with the rest of the flying vehicles, which weren't many. That and the fact that there were far fewer buildings than on Earth allowed us to see more of the exotic landscape.

It didn't last long, sadly. We reached the bar in less than five minutes. The van parked and we climbed out. We grabbed our equipment from the trunk while my contact paid the driver with physical coins.

We stepped into the bar after the van flew off. Leaving the size aside, I was able to recognize that it was a bar. The tables were arranged in a typical pattern and the counter was surprisingly similar to bar counters on Earth with hundreds of bottles, glasses, and drinks.

I already expected half of the customers to be humans, but even some of the waiters were human. Still, it was nice to see humans and Furenoos talking to each other peacefully.

Out of nowhere, an intimidating Furenoo approached me.

"Are you Blostars?" he asked with a scaringly-deep voice.

I had to look up to be able to look him in the eye.

"Yes, we are Blostars…," I stammered.

The glasses were also able to translate what I said in real-time and play it through its speakers while making sure other people wearing glasses didn't hear me with an echo. It was a feature made specifically to talk with other species since they didn't have glasses.

He stared at me for a few seconds before grasping my hand and shaking it too energetically.

"It's good to meet you."

Even though I had visited Furenoora before, I had never touched a Furenoo. The skin of the palm of his hand felt quite a bit rough, but the little fur I was able to touch felt like touching a very fluffy cat.

I was so puzzled that I couldn't reply. Fortunately, my contact intervened.

"What did I tell you?" he asked the Furenoo.

"You told me to shake their hands."

"Yes, but you shouldn't pull their arms like that. Extend your arm with your hand open and wait for them to grab it. Only then you should shake their hand carefully, remember you're much stronger than us."

"Okay."

He let go of my hand and left his arm extended with his hand open. I grabbed it hesitantly. Luckily, he was gentle this time.

"Good job," smirked my contact. "Miyahara, he's the owner and bartender of this place. We've been friends for several years."

"Nice to meet you," I said.

Finally, the Furenoo smiled. His intimidating aura vanished and he even looked cute.

He then proceeded to shake everyone's hands. Astra seemed the most excited of all.

"Why don't you show them the place?" my contact asked the Furenoo.

"Yes," he answered.

We only spent five minutes walking around the bar since it was small. There also weren't many things to see since it was very similar to the bars on Earth, especially the ones that tried to imitate the bars from a thousand years ago.

The spot we wanted to see the most was where the girls were going to perform. My contact made sure that they moved the chairs and tables to make space, so there didn't seem to be any problems.

The tour ended in the storage room, where we were going to get ready for the performance. It reminded me of our first performance at Kiku's café, the main differences being that the boxes were made out of what looked like wood and that there was no shower in the bathroom. At least we had given them the knowledge of nice toilets.

Miki wasted no time connecting the two speakers we brought with us to the outlets of the bar by using the adapters we had bought. Meanwhile, I just had to make sure that the girls were comfortable and ready to perform.

In the blink of an eye, it was time.

Butcher escorted the girls to the performance spot and stood beside them to guard them.

Even if the glasses could translate what the girls said, we decided to avoid any problems and the girls went straight into performing Blossom Stars, the best song to introduce Blostars.

The Furenoos in the bar stared at them with no expression throughout the entire song. Even after the song ended, they had no reaction whatsoever until some of the humans started clapping. The Furenoos looked at them in confusion, but they now seemed interested in what was happening.

The girls proceeded to perform the rest of our top ten, most streamed songs. We had no idea how they were going to react to our typical setlists, so we chose the most popular songs to set a proper baseline.

It was a relief to see the Furenoos smiling and chatting more with their friends as more songs were performed. They gradually joined the humans in their clapping.

The show ended with Sunbeam Supernova. Most of the humans stood up to clap, then several Furenoos imitated them. Some of them even cried shamelessly as if they had never heard a sad story.

The girls introduced themselves this time, and they said goodbye by announcing the name of the group.

I handed them their towels and high-fived them as they stepped into the storage room.

"Girls, that was a wonderful performance as always," I smiled, "but I have something to say."

Their smiles disappeared as soon as mine did.

"We might've not been the first band to perform on another planet, but we definitely are the first idol group to do so."

Their smiles returned.

"We've officially become galactical."