New Member

A Chance of Happiness Chapter 20: New Member

Kazuto stood beside Jin and Mina in their physics class. The students were stumbling about searching for their friends to form groups with.

“Are you two… really ok with this?” Jin asked.

“Of course! We’ll probably be working together in the future too. I’m glad Mina brought it up to you yesterday.” Kazuto turned to Mina, who was lying facedown on her desk. “Mina?”

Kazuto got no response.

“Yuriko-san? Is everything ok?”

Meanwhile… in Mina’s mind…

“Why why why why?! I didn’t sleep at all last night because of how stupid I sounded yesterday! He must think I’m a complete idiot because of that! Why did I have to make that as awkward as possible?! Why couldn’t I just say “Oh hey, Rento-kun, would you like to be in a group for this upcoming project?! Ugh, it should've been so easy! Why didn’t I say that?! I could have said that? Why didn’t I?! Great. Now my own consciousness is berating me! Why am I like this?!”

“Yuriko-san?” Jin tapped on her shoulder. “Are you–”

“Yes! Fine! Perfect, thank you. Good afternoon, how are you?” she stammered.

“Um, it’s–”

“Don’t worry about it, you get used to it.” Kazuto interrupted. “Did your parents take you to another scouting event yesterday?”

“Yeah. I didn’t get much sleep because–.” Mina paused. “ I had to meet and greet a lot of people! Yeah, that’s it.”

“Sounds like you’re pretty busy.” Jin added.

“I guess so…” Mina started to yawn, slightly looking like she was going to doze off any second.

“They happen pretty often, they want Mina to be familiar and make a lot of connections before she takes over for them.”

“I see… so, should we make time in between your schedule to work on this project? If you’re too busy we can–”

“No! You don’t have to do that for me, I can handle it. I can just tell my parents I have some school stuff to do and that usually works.”

Kazuto looked around the room as students began to settle in their groups. “Well I guess before we do anything, we need to find a fourth.”

“You rang?” Okimi dramatically slid in front of them.

“Oh no.” Jin and Kazuto thought simultaneously.

“Okimi-san?! Are you going to help us with this project?” Mina asked, caught off guard by her sudden appearance.

“I wish I could join your group Mina-san, but I’m currently looking to find a group for Aoyuki-san.”

“Who?” The three looked at her confused.

“Oh? Have you not met her? She’s…” Okimi looked to her left, almost as if she was expecting someone to be standing there. “Hmm…” Okimi turned around to see a girl with light brown hair looking as if she were trying to hide herself underneath her hoodie. “Right here!” Okimi yelled, quickly spinning around, yanking the girl out of the seat and placing her in front of her. “She actually sits next to Kazuto.”

“I didn’t know anyone sat next to Kazuto.”

“I didn’t either!” Kazuto thought to himself. “I must’ve been so focused on Rento-kun I totally ignored her for the first two days of school!” Kazuto’s face turned slightly red from the embarrassment, clearly feeling bad for not noticing.

“Hm? Well I guess she’s fairly short, it might be hard to tell there was someone sitting there.”

The girl in front of her stared blankly into what seemed like nothingness after hearing Okimi’s remark.

“Oh… well… nice to meet you…” Mina began, but then looked up to Okimi who was staring at her expectantly.

“Kashiwa-san.” Okimi sighed in defeat, reluctantly saying her last name.

“Nice to meet you, Kashiwa-san.” Mina waved.

Aoyuki quickly bowed her head, not saying a word.

“So, do you have any space in your group, Mina-san?”

“Sure, we have space. It’s just me, Kazuto, and Rento-kun.”

Okimi turned and gave Jin a smug stare. “And Rento-kun, hm?” She continued to stare, almost as if she knew something like this was going to happen.

Jin stared back at Okimi, clearly over the whole situation.

“Perfect! Then, if you wouldn’t mind, would you let Aoyuki-san join your group?”

“Of course, we were actually looking for a fourth as well.”

“Great! Then I’ll leave you all to it. Good luck!” Okimi yelled as she quickly darted off to the front of the room.

Aoyuki took her chair and turned it around, to face them, sitting with her feet on the chair. Jin looked at her for a moment, noticing a reddish pink highlight of her hair and a hoodie with a familiar design she was wearing with her uniform.

“Excuse me, Kashiwa-san.”

Aoyuki looked up and towards Jin.

“Is that… a Miku hoodie you’re wearing?”

Aoyuki gave him a look of surprise, clearly not expecting such a question.

“Miku?” Mina asked curiously.

Kazuto tilted his head. “Oh, they’re a singer of some kind right? I think I’ve heard of them.”

“Technically they are, they just aren’t actual people.”

Mina and Kazuto gave Jin a couple of confused looks.

“Hmm… how do I explain this…”

“They’re like computer generated voices taken from a sample of an actual person.” Aoyuki finally spoke. “There’s only a hologram or model of them singing but it’s just a computer generated voice.”

“So it is a Miku hoodie?”

Aoyuki nodded. “It is… I was just surprised you knew what it was…”

“I enjoy their music. I think it’s fun and interesting. It’s not the usual color though, is it?”

Aoyuki pulled the sleeve out of her uniform to show the sleeves had a unique mix of purple, teal, and black with kanji written all over it.

“No… it’s a different one. I… actually got it from an in-person concert in Osaka.”

“They have concerts?!” Mina and Kazuto yelled simultaneously, slightly shocking Aoyuki.

“Y–Yes.”

“Wow, that sounds super cool! I’d want to go see one of those someday!” Mina yelled.

Aoyuki looked away, slightly smiling.

Okimi rang a bell on her desk, grabbing the attention of the class.

“Thank you all for finding your groups, I’m glad to see everyone found one. Now, let me reveal what you’ll be doing. Your very first project will be creating an air rocket!” Okimi stepped back and pointed at the board, showing off diagrams of the project. “In your teams, you’ll be creating an aerodynamic rocket and launching pad that you’ll use to send the rocket outward with air pressure created by the use of force. You can take materials from here in the classroom if you so choose, or, if you’d prefer, you can go get your own materials from the store or your own homes. You’ll also need a poster of the model with everything you plan to use in it, the paper will be provided for you.”

Okimi walked away from the board and around her desk to stand in front of it.

“One more thing, I don’t want just ‘any’ air rockets, I want to see your geniuses at work! As long as it falls in line with the safety measures on the syllabus, anything is fair game to make your rocket! Whichever rocket has the smoothest flight, in other words, ascension, air time, and descension, will get some extra points as well as bragging rights! So I expect you all to bring your best!”