Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shizuku’s footsteps danced on the rooftop as she went through the motions of up-and-coming idol Harumi Wakui’s new choreography, practicing in secret after school hours. No one bothered her up here. She was free from stolen lunches or rotten names or the mocking glances of her classmates. The evening air stung her cheeks as energetic cries of “Hai!!” blasted from her low-quality phone speaker, the rhythm hard to keep up with as she struggled to hit the motions in proper time. Once, Mone onee-san had told her that she bounced too much off the balls of her feet when she danced, and that it made her lose too much energy too quickly, but Shizuku could never learn to do things properly no matter how hard she tried. How worthless.

As the sun started to set over Hoshimi pier in the distance, Shizuku folded in on herself like a love-letter left out in the rain by someone who couldn’t care less about her. She didn’t cry, no, but the wind whipped against her face and left her forehead sore from how hard her bangs’d whipped back and forth against it, again and again. One of her pigtails was half-undone, to say nothing about her hairpins, which were now in a state of disarray rather than their typical, carefully-maintained shape. She was sweaty and tired and didn’t want to walk home, damnit, because all that she’d return to would be an empty dining table and a sorry note.

She’d sleep up here if she had to- she didn’t care. She didn’t care at all. As long as she didn’t have to go back to her ghost town of a “home” yet, where she’d been sneaking out almost daily since the second grade and only been caught once, she’d be okay. It was like a game to her, at this point- to see how long she could go without her family noticing that she was gone. At one point, it’d taken almost a week of her crashing on the couch of a friend and fellow otaku before she returned of her own volition to pick up something from her room, and even then, there hadn’t been a single question.

…eh, whatever. She wasn’t doing anything, really, just whittling away at what little time was left in the evening before the springtime weather got too cold for her to bear in just her uniform blazer. There was a rip in the left knee of her tights, and she’s pulled the thread too much, so a thin band of fabric kept rolling against her leg, irritating it, constricting it, making the tingly ache in her whole body feel more like a freezing, numb thing. She couldn’t put It off forever, she knew that she should return home soon, but a few more minutes surely couldn’t hurt, right?

Pushing herself up off to the backs of her knuckles, Shizuku rose to her feet. One more practice before she went home, that was it. A slow song, this time- not one that Mone onee-san had performed with her group, but close enough, considering that her groupmate had made it as a solo piece. The music was laden with tied notes and long, breathy choruses, and Shizuku swayed up in the wind, twirling in the night air as the rolled-down sleeves of her too-long blazer stopped her from feeling sick. It was a solemn moment, just her atop the school rooftop, but not an uncommon one.

She sighed as she picked up her phone from the ground. It was time for her to begin her walk home.

The streets weren’t bright- they never were, in this part of Hoshimi City. There was the occasional neon sign in the shop windows she’d cross, or flashing lights from the window of a nightclub whose queue extended around the block, but otherwise she made her way in relative peace. Her headphone wire had been cut sometime last week, so she couldn’t distract herself from the world around her like she’d normally like to- instead, she looked at her reflection in every puddle.

An odd sense of satisfaction rippled over her every time she stepped in one and distorted the image. She shouldn’t have been ruining her good shoes like this, or even bringing the into the rain at all. Regardless, she did it again and again and again.

In the cloudy water, she almost felt as if she could be a different person. Someone better, someone prettier. She blinked away tears in her eyes, pretending instead that they were just drops of water that’d splashed up on her face after she’d stomped in the water too aggressively, never mind their fleeting warmth.

“Does she really think that she can be an idol, with that face? Anyone can see that she’s not idol material.”

…forget it. Shit, shit, shit. She’d already said that she wasn’t going to chase after petty, kiddie dreams anymore, hadn’t she? She’d never had a shot at any of this, anyway. So, she should just calm down. Nothing mattered anymore. Her classmates had only ever been telling her the truth, the stubborn, real truths that she didn’t want to hear, that she’d covered her ears and eyes and mouth not to scream at.

She stepped on another dozen puddles on her way back to the empty house.

Chapter Text

Shizuku’s lunch was cold.

It always was, by the time she made it up the stairs, slipped past the rusted door, and settled on her usual spot—the far left corner of the school rooftop, where the cement cracked in places and the wind howled just enough to drown out the clamor of the rest of the school. She picked at the rice with the back of her chopsticks, not really tasting it. The bento box was one of those pre-packaged types from the corner convenience store—egg roll, two cherry tomatoes, a soggy croquette. The croquette had mashed itself flat against the plastic divider, leaking sauce onto the rice.

Still, she ate it. Slowly.

Below, the sounds of laughter, shouting, and the occasional blast of the lunch bell filtered up from the courtyard. Every now and then, she'd catch someone calling a friend’s name, and her shoulders would flinch. Like she thought, just for a second, that someone might be calling for her. They never were.

The breeze lifted her bangs, already messy from gym class. She hadn’t had time to fix them before running up here, and the mirror in the girl’s bathroom just made her feel worse these days, anyway. Her reflection was like a cruel joke—something drawn without care, blurred around the edges. If she looked too long, she'd start counting everything wrong again: the pinkish-red color of her eyes, the way her mouth slanted a little too far downward even when she wasn’t frowning, the way she could never seem to smile in a way that reached her eyes. Someone who looks like you could never be an idol.

One of the cherry tomatoes rolled out of her bento and hit the concrete with a quiet thmp. Shizuku stared at it for a second, then laughed.

“…Of course.”

It was the kind of laugh that didn’t mean anything. Not humor, not joy—just a release. A weird, breathless thing, empty like the gap in her chest she kept trying not to acknowledge.

She leaned back on her elbows, letting her blazer bunch up behind her. Above her, the sky was a messy shade of almost-blue. The kind of color that felt like it couldn't make up its mind about whether it wanted to be day or night, just like her.

Her phone vibrated weakly in her pocket. A notification from one of her idol update accounts—Nagase Mana had posted a new behind-the-scenes clip. Shizuku opened it on instinct, but muted it immediately. She didn't need the other girls in class finding her up here, thinking she was trying to reach some foolish dream like they had last year. That had earned her months of hell.

She watched the screen with the volume off.

Mana was laughing in the clip, tugging the hem of her skirt awkwardly as she messed up a dance move and got playfully scolded by her instructor. Even muted, the warmth of the moment was obvious. The way she leaned on her manager and her friends, even from other groups and agencies, without hesitation, the way someone reached out to ruffle her hair at the end.

Shizuku locked her phone. The screen went black, and she caught a glimpse of her own reflection again—faint and pale and distorted against the dark glass.

That same voice from last night came back, uninvited.

“Does she really think she can be an idol, with that face?”

She jammed the phone back into her blazer pocket.

"I know I’m not idol material," she whispered aloud, even though no one could hear her. "You don’t have to keep reminding me."

But she wanted it. That was the worst part. That no matter how much she told herself to stop, to grow up, to be realistic—she still wanted to be someone who was seen. Someone who could make people feel like Harumi and Mana made her feel. Like they mattered.

She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin there, finishing the rest of her lunch without looking at it. When the wind picked up again, it tugged at her hairties, and one of them fell out completely. She didn’t bother to pick it up.

“Hey, are you eating lunch up here alone, again? It must get lonely, right?”

The voice startled her so badly she dropped her chopsticks. She twisted around, eyes wide.

A girl stood at the rooftop door, holding a convenience store bag in one hand. Her hair was short and uneven, with a dyed pink streak on one side. Her uniform was oversized, with her untucked cardigan hanging loose and almost to the bottom of her school skirt. She spit out a piece of gum in the trash receptacle before making her way over to the blue-haired wannabe.

Shizuku froze.

“…You’re that second-year, right? What’s your name? Something with a ‘H’…”

“…Hyōdo,” she muttered. “Shizuku.”

“Right. Hyōdo.” The girl strolled over casually, like they were old friends. “Mind if I join you?”

Shizuku shook her head, even though she did mind. A little. This was her place. Her only place. But she didn’t say anything, because the other seemed friendly enough, and she didn't want yet another person to hate her just for being a loner.

The girl plopped down beside her, pulled out a spicy ramen bun and tore the wrapper with her teeth.

“I’m Daiya. Daiya Jitsukawa. A third-year.” She took a bite, chewed, swallowed. “I’ve seen you dancing up here before.”

Shizuku’s face went pale. Her heart raced. “You—you have?”

“Relax. I’m not gonna post it or anything.” Jitsukawa smirked, elbowing her lightly. “You’re not bad. You bounce too much, though.”

That knocked the breath out of her. Word for word what Mone onee-san had told her months ago.

Shizuku didn’t reply. She stared straight ahead, past the schoolyard, toward the pale sky.

Jitsukawa watched her for a second. “You want to be an idol, right?”

The words caught in Shizuku’s throat like thorns. Her lips parted, then closed again. After a moment, she just nodded.

“Then keep dancing,” Jitsukawa said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “Even if no one’s clapping yet.”

She crumpled up the ramen bun wrapper, stood up, and stretched. “Anyway, see ya. I’ve got math next. You probably aren't coming, huh?”

Shizuku blinked. “Huh?”

“You’ve got the eyes of someone who’s already given up on today,” Jitsukawa said, grinning. “But you still climbed up here anyway. That counts for something.”

And with that, she disappeared through the rooftop door, leaving Shizuku alone again—with her empty bento, her tangled hair, and her shaken heart.

She sat there long after the bell rang.

Chapter Text

The wind knew her better than anyone.

It curled around her ankles like a question, lifted her blazer cuffs, tugged at the loose threads in her skirt hem as if trying to pull her back inside. But Shizuku stayed where she was, arms folded around her knees, forehead resting on her sleeves.

She had come up to the rooftop without even realizing it.

No plan. No music queued. No lunch in hand. Just the quiet kind of ache that lived in the center of her chest, one that didn’t cry or shout anymore. It simply pressed there, taking on the shape of something that used to hurt more.

This place was all that she had. Or maybe it never really was. Maybe rooftops didn’t belong to lonely girls with dreams too soft to survive under fluorescent lights. Maybe they belonged to the sky, and she was just borrowing a corner of it for now.

Shizuku tilted her head back.

The clouds were smeared in long strokes, like someone had tried to wipe them off the canvas and only half-finished the job. She liked skies like this, ones that didn’t try too hard to be beautiful. Just messy enough to be honest.

Her phone was cold in her hand. When she tapped the screen, it lit up to a paused video from the night before—a backstage vlog she’d watched five times already. Mana again, of course. Always Mana. Laughing as she adjusted her hairpins. Winking into the camera even when she was clearly exhausted. There was a part where she nearly tripped over a stage cable, and everyone laughed with her, not at her.

Shizuku watched that part again.

Then she closed the video and opened her camera app.

She propped the phone against her water bottle, tilted it until it framed the far edge of the rooftop. She didn’t really think about what she was doing. She just stood up and pressed record.

The choreography wasn’t memorized yet—only the first half, the part before the tempo picked up and the formation spun out. But she knew enough. Knew how the song swelled on the third measure, how the singer’s voice dipped into breathy half-notes that never quite resolved.

She moved through it slowly. Not like a performance—more like a ritual. No sharp lines. No polished smiles. Just the shape of the music translated into motion, uncertain and quiet and hers.

When she stumbled on a step—she didn’t stop.

She laughed. For real, this time. Soft and a little breathless, like she'd surprised herself.

And then she started over.

Not because she wanted it to be perfect. But because this time, she knew what came next.

Later, after the sky had gone from blue to slate gray, she sat with her back to the fence and watched the video.

It wasn’t good.

Her posture was uneven. Her left hand lagged behind on transitions. Her sleeves looked too big, and the wind had pushed her bangs completely off-center.

But she watched the whole thing, anyway.

Then, without thinking too hard about it, she saved the clip. Created a folder on her phone:
「Try #01」

She didn’t name it practice or attempt. Just Try. It felt more honest.

Her fingers hovered over the home button, but didn’t press it.

Instead, she opened the messaging app she hadn’t touched in months and stared at a blank chat window for several minutes. Then she typed one word:

“Hey.”

No one on the other end would see it right away—not that she expected them to. Not the girl she used to talk to about idol groups before things got weird. Not the one who’d let her crash on the couch that one time in sixth grade.

But she hit send, anyway.

The message hung there, unread. Quiet.

But so was she.

And for the first time in a long while, that didn’t feel like defeat.

It felt like something beginning.

Chapter Text

The rooftop felt heavier without her.

Shizuku hadn’t known Daiya well—barely at all, really—but now that the third-year was gone, transferred away without warning, the emptiness pressed closer than it had before. She hadn’t even said goodbye. Not that there was anyone to say goodbye to. The news had been passed around casually in class, half-whispered while people exchanged worksheets. “She’s moving. Osaka, I think? Something about her parents’ jobs.” Just like that, she was gone.

Shizuku wondered if Daiya even remembered their single conversation. It had been brief. Strange. Like a shard of color against weeks of gray. Maybe she had already forgotten. Shizuku told herself it didn’t matter. She wasn’t supposed to care.

Still, she found herself glancing at the rooftop door more often than before.

The wind filled the silence, tugging listlessly at her blazer. The same sky stretched above, the same cracked concrete below. But something about it felt wrong. As if the place had shifted, subtly, and Shizuku was the only one who noticed.

She didn’t bother bringing lunch today. She only sat there, knees drawn up to her chest, staring at the horizon until her phone buzzed in her pocket.

A group chat lit up, one she’d nearly forgotten about. The online friends she’d met through idol forums. Their usernames blinked cheerfully on the screen:

[trashcan.ae]: concert tickets came thruuu!!
[clover-qt]: it’s happening this weekend! everyone better show up lol
[heart.swann]: @punimochi.drop drop-chan, you’re coming too, right?

Her thumb hovered. For a moment, she considered ignoring it. She didn’t know these people, not really. Just icons and text bubbles. But they were the closest thing to friends she had.

“…yeah,” she typed back, before she could second-guess herself. “I’ll come.”

The concert hall was louder than anything she’d braced for.

Neon wristbands glowed on every arm. Voices overlapped, buzzing with anticipation. Shizuku stood at the edge of it all, clutching the hem of her jacket, searching for the faces she’d only ever seen through selfies and profile pictures.

“Drop-chan?” A voice called from the crowd.

She turned. A girl (clover-qt) waved her over, grinning wide. She was in a group with around six of their other mutual friends: two high school boys, two older friends (who Shizuku knew owned all of the good merch, considering their actual jobs), a high-school girl, and a boy in college. Their hair was styled, their clothes casual but sharp in a way she could never quite pull off. They looked even brighter in person than their online presence suggested.

“You made it!” one said. Another looped a wristband over Shizuku’s hand before she could protest.

And just like that, she was pulled into their circle.

The lights dimmed. The music surged.

For a moment, all Shizuku could see were the silhouettes of idols on stage, the sweep of glowsticks, the flood of sound so huge it drowned out everything else inside her head. Her throat tightened. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry or laugh or run away.

But then the girls beside her shouted the call-and-response chants, waving their arms with dizzying enthusiasm, and one shoved a spare glowstick into her hand.

“Come on, drop-chan! Don’t just stand there—cheer with us!”

The beat thrummed through her chest. The stage lights blurred. And almost against her will, she raised her arm and joined in.

Her voice was thin, unsteady. But it was there.

For once, she wasn’t alone in the noise.

When the final song ended, and the idols bowed against the blinding stage glow, Shizuku clutched her glowstick tighter. She thought of Daiya’s voice—Then keep dancing. She didn’t know if she believed it. Not yet.

But surrounded by strangers who’d called her “drop-chan” like it wasn’t strange to care she existed, she let herself believe it might not always be impossible.

Chapter Text

The concert hall emptied in waves, voices echoing off the steel beams and plaster walls as the crowd funneled toward the exits. Shizuku lingered where she stood, glowstick still clutched in her hand, its faint neon pulse dimming with every second. Her ears rang from the volume of the last encore, a hollow buzz that made the silence between chants feel even louder.

“Drop-chan!”

She turned. The brown-haired girl from the group chat, clover_qt, pushed her way through the dispersing crowd, cheeks flushed with heat and excitement. In her hand was a thin, braided bracelet, woven with alternating blue and white thread. She pressed it into Shizuku’s palm before Shizuku could ask what it was.

“For you,” she said simply. Her grin softened into something warmer, steadier. “I've been meaning to give you something for ages, drop-chan. Or- Shizuku- chan, right?" Her name rolled off the other girl's tongue smoothly, and when she nodded, the brunette's face lit up. "My real name’s Minori, by the way. It feels weird to only go by my screen name now that we’ve met face-to-face, right?”

Shizuku blinked at her, stunned into silence for a moment.

“Minori,” she repeated under her breath, as if trying it out, feeling how the syllables sat on her tongue.

“Yeah.” Minori nodded, brushing her hair behind her ear. “I live in Tokyo, a few cities away. It’s not too far, but it’s kind of a pain for me to come to Hoshimi unless it’s for something like this.” She tilted her head, smiling again. “So, you’d better come to the next live too. I don’t want this to be the only time we meet in person.”

The bracelet’s threads dug lightly against Shizuku’s skin where she held it. She nodded, though words didn’t quite reach her lips.

“Awesome!” Minori gave a small wave before disappearing back into the sea of fans, still laughing and snapping pictures by the stage doors.

By the time she turned back, only three of their group remained.

“Drop-tan! You didn’t sneak out on us,” said the blond college boy, heart.swann, tucking his phone into his back pocket. His hair caught the glow of the streetlamps, strands almost gold under the artificial light. He always seemed to have his phone out, editing clips or memes for their little corner of the fandom.

“I was just… watching,” Shizuku murmured.

“Watching’s a start,” he said, smiling, before falling in step beside her as they drifted out of the venue.

idol.chu trailed a little behind, tugging uncomfortably at the sleeves of his wrinkled gray suit. The tie was crooked, the blazer stiff; he must’ve run here straight from the office, no time to change into his usual pastels. Even so, the faintest pink clung to the tips of his short hair, just visible where the dye spray had worn off. He looked exhausted, but when she glanced at him, he only grinned. “You’ll get the chants down next time. We’ll drill you.”

Shizuku ducked her head, unsure whether to smile back.

At the rear was hoshibito, stride unhurried but purposeful, coat buttoned neatly despite the late hour. He didn’t say much as they crossed the plaza, only scanning the thinning clusters of fans and the darkened side streets. When his eyes flicked to hers, they were sharp but not unkind, like someone accustomed to looking out for others.

Their conversation flowed easily as they walked together, mostly about the concert; they rambled about their favorite songs, surprise setlist choices, which call was best that night. heart.swann described his next fan edit in bursts of excited detail. idol.chu kept poking fun at how serious hoshibito looked, even while cheering earlier. “You’re, like, the only guy I know who can look like a detective and still scream the bridge lyrics word-for-word.”

hoshibito coughed into his fist, muttering something about “supporting properly,” and Shizuku almost laughed. Almost.

She didn’t notice the pair of classmates across the street, loitering by the convenience store, phones raised. The flashless clicks followed her as she walked between her three companions, all too absorbed in the rhythm of their chatter to hear.

By the time they reached the quieter part of town, the night air felt heavier, the lamps fewer. idol.chu yawned, stretching his arms over his head. “This is where we turn back, yeah?”

“Message the chat when you’re in, drop-tan,” heart.swann added, already pulling out his phone again.

hoshibito gave her a short nod. “We’ll wait nearby a bit longer. Just in case.”

Shizuku dipped her head, unable to find words, and let them peel away into the darkness.