Vol 1 Chapter 13 (1/2)

The first day’s weather was bad, but we had fair weather for the second day.

The record number of attendees crowd around the stage that was set up in the courtyard this year as well.

Outside the circle, the teachers were among the guests who couldn’t get their hands on a ticket.

The inescapable heat impatiently reached all the way backstage.

“I did expect it, but that’s an incredible number of people, huh……”

Growing restless and unable to calm down, I end up checking the keyboard’s settings over and over again.

The chipper music that the dance club before us plays barely reaches my ears.

“Huuuhhh? What is it Rin-chan, could it be that you’ve gotten nervous?”

“……Well, in a way.”

“I see, but it’s alright! Or rather, it’s needless worry? Because those guests, they came to see Aisaka Academy’s Prince, aka Kagami Len☆  ”

“……Len-kun…… it’s too late for that kind of unreasonable character.”

“Waaaaa!? Wait, you’ll understand if we talk it over! I really can’t stand it when you retort so terribly calmly! And looking at me with that pitiful gaze, stoooooooooooop.”

““Shut up, you’re annoying.””

Eh? Now, my voice collided with someone’s?

Turning around in a flash, Miku-san was there, dressed in her costume.

Though it’s before singing, her aura is impressive.

Everyone’s hands suddenly stop, even the staff members who were moving in a hurry.

I ran up to her without hesitation, and vigorously bowed.

Putting all my grateful feelings into it.

“Eh, Rin-chan!? Don’t do that, raise your head.”

“Miku-san! Thank you so, so very much!”

While saying that, the tears overflow.

Miku-san gently brushes them away with her finger, bursting into an extraordinary smile.

“Isn’t it too soon to express your grat.i.tude? Let’s all put on the greatest performance!”

When I stand up on stage, it feels just as if I’m drifting in the ocean.

But, the helplessness is only at the start.

The wave surging from the audience, it carries us far away.

Making that wave even bigger, we send the sound from the stage.

(More and always, I want to be with everyone like this.)

Naturally thinking like that, I shake my head a little.

It’s good because it has an end, because it has a limit.

Concentrating on this moment now, I pour everything into it.

Perhaps spinning every moment is what it means to keep living.

In the blink of an eye, we’re in the second half of the concert.

Wrapped in outstandingly big cheers and applause, Miku-san comes up on stage.

“I’m back.”

To Miku-san’s opening words, the ‘welcome back’ completes it as if it had been practiced.

Stepping back from the mike, Len-kun and I shouted it with all our might, too.

Miku-san, who usually does the MC-ing without faltering, is at a loss for words.

(……Miku-san, are you crying……?)

Since there’s no large screen here, I don’t think they saw it in the audience.

But standing behind her at an angle, I saw the sparkling drop spill onto Miku-san’s cheek.

It was a warm, endlessly clear teardrop.

“There are a lot of meetings and farewells in life, you can’t come to a stop though……

But goodbye isn’t the end, it’s the beginning.”

When I realized it, the grounds had fallen deadly silent to Miku-san’s words.

The new song’s name is announced to the lulled ocean.

“I’m going to be singing a new song now.

Please listen, to ‘Beginning’s Goodbye’.”

I won’t forget this day.

I think that Len-kun, Miku-san and the people in the grounds, surely feel the same.

This day, when the continuation of ‘Like Hate’, the legendary song called ‘Beginning’s Goodbye’ was born.

I can see that Megurine-san is waiting in the car.

Not only that, the ma.s.s media was crowding around the school.

I understood that we barely had any time left.

(But, though…… I don’t want to be separated from Miku-san yet……)

“Geez Rin-chan, you’ve been crying all along. If you cry so much, the water in your body will disappear and you’ll dry up?”

“The same goes for Mi-Miku-san……”

Regretting the farewell, Miku-san and I are hugging each other.

Len-kun’s sending us a jealous gaze, but we’re absolutely not letting him join in!

“……. Miku-san, I admire you. Even if you go to America, I’ll always, always support you! So, please come back to j.a.pan sometimes, okay?”