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Dia adjusted her bag on her shoulder as she walked down the busy street, doing her utmost not to bump into people as she walked. She needed to catch her train if she was going to get back to her apartment in time to video call Ruby before her younger sister went to school she was going to have to hurry. Given the time difference between Japan and New York, it wasn’t all that often that she got to speak to Ruby anymore. For that reason it was a relief to her that she was only studying abroad for the next nine months.
She’d already been in New York for two and a half months but she still wasn’t used to how busy it could be. As much as she liked where she was she missed home and she missed her sister and their friends.
She gasped as she turned the corner only to bump into someone’s shoulder. “Sorry!” She exclaimed hurriedly. She received a grunt of acknowledgement in response and rolled her eyes. She sighed and continued on her way, catching the sound of music playing nearby. She didn’t pay much attention until after a couple of minutes when it started to get louder. She caught the sound of singing and gradually slowed down until she came to a complete stop.
The singing was close now and she glanced around, noticing a woman standing on the opposite side of the road. Without thinking about what she was doing, she crossed the street, her eyes trained to the woman.
She stopped a couple of feet in front of the woman singing into her microphone and she simply stared. Something about her was strikingly familiar. She had ginger hair, let down and blue eyes that shimmered in the streetlights. “Wait…” She muttered to herself, her heart leaping in her chest as she realized something.
The girl stopped singing, catching Dia’s gaze. “You like music?” She asked, stepping around her microphone stand.
“Huh? Me?” Dia pointed to herself, glancing around briefly.Nobody else had stopped. “Um...yes. You’re a good singer.”
“Thank you.” The girl smiled broadly at the compliment. “Kousaka Honoka. And y-” She was cutt off, her eyes widened when Dia let out a surprised yell.
“I KNEW IT!” Dia felt a stab of alarm as Honoka’s eyes widened in surprise. “Uh...sorry, I just mean that you’re Kousaka Honoka. You’re kind of famous in the school idol community. I’m Kurosawa Dia.”
“Kurosawa Dia, Kurosawa Dia…” Honoka mumbled to herself, her brow furrowed as she tried to place where she’d heard that name. “Oh, you were a member of Aquors, right? You have a sister too?”
Dia stared at Honoka speechlessly for a moment, surprised that Honoka had even heard of the group, let alone knew of her specifically. “W-Well yes. How did you know that?”
Honoka smiled broadly at the fact that she was right. “You could say I’m a fan.”
“A-A fan?” Dia was sure she would faint at any second. “I’m a fan too! Of Muse, of course. You really inspired our group. Especially our leader. You’re her idol.”
Honoka gave a sheepish laugh. “That’s nice of you to say. Oh um...do you want to go somewhere with me and get coffee maybe? I know a little coffee shop around the corner.”
“Yes!” Dia exclaimed without hesitation. She blushed after, hoping she didn’t sound too eager. “I mean I would like that. Oh but I have to call my sister.” She took her phone out and looked down at it, her brow furrowing when she noticed a text from Ruby saying that she was going to school early and that they could talk later that night if Dia was available. “I guess she left already…”
“Is she still in Japan?” Honoka asked curiously as she packed her things away. She glanced up just as Dia looked down at her. “Kurosawa Ruby, right? That’s your sister’s name?”
“Yes.” Dia answered, finding herself taken aback once more by the fact that Honoka seemed to know so much about them. “She’s in her third year now so she’s usually busy with studying.”
“You miss her?” Honoka asked as she straightened up with her bag. She stepped forward, gesturing for Dia to follow her and began to make her way down the street.
“Of course.” Dia said softly, her mood souring a little bit. The only bad thing about leaving for New York was the fact that she’d had to leave Ruby behind. She only had nine months left but still, it was a long time to go without seeing her sister. By the time she got back Ruby would have graduated already.
Silence settled between them for a moment and Dia glanced at Honoka, noticing the young woman looked a little worried. She supposed the decline in her mood must have shown on her face. “Um...so how do you know so much about Aqours if you don’t mind me asking?”
“My friends are really into other idol groups, especially Nico-chan and Hanayo-chan.” Honoka casually explained. “So they used to talk about your group sometimes and how you were trying to get to Love Live. The rest of us didn’t know much about Aqours at first until Nico-chan and Hanayo-chan showed us your performances.”
Dia was sure she would pass out at any second. One some level she’d known that Honoka would have seen them perform if she was ‘a fan’ as she put it but hearing her say it was completely different. Thankfully they reached the coffee shop and Honoka led her inside.
“Sit down, I’ll place our order.” Honoka said with a small smile as she gestured toward one of the tables.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.” Dia said quickly, her eyes widening. “You’ve been on your feet all night. Let me go.”
“Alright. A latte then please. But pay with this.” Honoka took a card out of her pocket, handing it over to Dia.
“You’re just gonna trust me with your credit card?” Dia asked in surprise as she looked down at the card. “I could be anyone.”
“But you’re not anyone, you’re Dia-chan.” Honoka said with an innocent smile. “I trust you. I’ll wait here for you. Order anything you want.”
“Right, I’ll be right back.” Dia waited for a nod from Honoka before she went to the counter. She ordered two lattes and waited as the barista made them, her gaze shifting to Honoka. The girl was staring out of the window, her chin resting on the open palm of her hand. It was clear to Dia that Honoka’s mind was elsewhere. She couldn’t help but wonder what exactly Honoka was thinking about.
After a couple of minutes her order was set in front of her. She picked up the cups and made her way over to Honoka, sitting down across from her.
Honoka shook her head, broken from her thoughts as Dia set her coffee and her credit card in front of her. “Oh, thanks. I hope you weren’t busy by the way.”
“I was just going back to my apartment.” Dia said honestly, shaking her head. She had planned to speak to Ruby and then she would inevitably spend the night alone, either studying or worse, overthinking things. She seemed to do that a lot more than when she had moved away.
Honoka hummed in response. “So you’re studying over here?”
“For a year.” Dia said with a nod of her head. “I’m moving back to Japan in nine months. I wanted to experience more of the world so I decided to go away for a year.”
“You regret it?” Honoka asked with a small, knowing smile.
“A little. I miss Ruby and my friends. I don’t want to grow apart from them.” Dia looked down at the table, a little embarrassed that she was admitting so much. As much as she looked up to Honoka the girl was still a stranger. Someone she had met barely thirty minutes earlier. “I wanted to come her for the experience but it’s a little…”
“Lonely.” Honoka finished knowingly. She took a sip of her coffee, amused by the look of surprise on Dia’s face. “I miss my friends too. Kotori-chan and Umi-chan. And the others...I’ll see them when I go back to Japan in a few months and I video call them all of the time but it’s not the same.”
“Yeah.” Dia bit her lower lip, looking down at the table. “I don't have many friends here yet. I suppose in a way Kanan-san and Mari-san made me more confident.”
Honoka reached across the table and placed her hand on Dia’s. When Dia looked up at her she smiled broadly. “We could be friends.” She noticed Dia once again looked shocked and continued. “There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? We could hang out when you’re not at college. Oh we could get coffee together more often and get lunch maybe and if things really work out you could come to my apartment…”
Dia gave a nervous laugh in response. “Are you asking me out or saying you want to be my friend?”
Honoka thought about that for a moment before she shrugged, smiling brightly. “I think we could be really good friends!”
Dia hesitated though she wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as though she had any other friends in the city and of all the people who would have wanted to be her friend, it was Kousaka Honoka. She didn’t know why she wasn’t jumping at the opportunity. Chika would have.
Dia felt a sharp pang in her chest at the thought of Chika. She quickly turned her thoughts away from the girl. She couldn’t think about her right now, as much as she missed the vibrant girl. “Okay. We can be friends. Um...I can give you my phone number and maybe we can meet up again?”
“I would like that.” Honoka slid her phone across the table to Dia who took it to enter her phone number. When Dia was done, Honoka took the phone back, glancing at the time. “Oh, I have to go! I promised Kotori-chan I would call her. I’ll see you later, Dia-chan!”
“Oh um…” Dia watched as Honoka got up from her seat and grabbed her back, quickly rushing for the door. “Bye.”
-----
“Has she called you yet?!”
Dia sighed at Mari’s excited exclamation. She paused at a crossing, glancing this way and that. She had been on her way home when Mari called her. She had felt relieved if she was honest. It was nice to talk to someone familiar. “You’ve been asking me that every time I’ve called you for the past three weeks, Mari-san. No, she hasn’t called. She’s not going to call.”
“She still might!” Mari disagreed hopefully. “She said she would, didn’t she?”
“Yes but that was three weeks ago. Maybe she was just being polite.” Dia said reasonably as she slowly crossed the road. She trembled slightly against a sudden gust of cold wind. She could barely wait to get back to her apartment. “It’s Kousaka Honoka. Why would she want to hang out with me?”
“Nonsense!” Mari replied in English. She quickly switched back to Japanese. “Anyone would be lucky to be Dia’s friend. Right, Kanan?”
“Right. What Mari said.” Kanan’s voice said after a few seconds of silence. “And if she doesn’t want to be, it’s her loss!”
Dia smiled at their response. She could always rely on them to make her feel better. “I suppose you’re right.”
“You were really hoping for her to be your friend, huh?” Kanan asked, recognizing the sullen tone of Dia’s voice.
Dia blushed at the comment. “Maybe. She reminded me of Chika-san.”
Kanan sighed softly on the other end of the line. “Dia-san…”
“We don’t have to talk about it.” Dia said quickly, not wanting to get into the discussion of how she’d missed her chance with Chika. “I’m…”
“DIA-CHAN! DIAAAAA-CHAAAAAN!”
Dia looked up, her brow furrowed in confusion as she heard someone calling her name. She turned to look to the other side of the road, her heart leaping in her chest when she saw Honoka running across toward her. “Ah, I-I have to go!”
“Dia-chan!” Honoka exclaimed breathlessly as she skidded to a stop in front of Dia. She pressed her hand to her chest, breathing heavily. “I-I can explain! I lost my phone after I left the coffee shop and I didn’t give you my number so I couldn’t call you back. I’m sorry! I was hoping I would see you here again, that’s why um...I’ve been waiting for you!”
“You have?” Dia’s eyes widened in surprise, her phone loose in her hand. She’d long since ended the call with Kanan and Mari. “I’ve been taking the bus lately so I don’t walk this way. How long have you been waiting?”
“Uh...every day?” Honoka asked sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck. “I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten about you.”
Dia couldn’t help it. She gave a laugh of relief even as her chest swelled with emotion.
“I know, it’s stupid.” Honoka grumbled, a little embarrassed.
“No, it’s not that. It’s okay.” Dia said, shaking her head. “Let’s get coffee, Honoka-san.”
Honoka beamed brightly at the offer and reached out, taking Dia’s hand in her own.
As she let Honoka tug her along, Dia couldn’t help but notice the warmth in her hand and in her chest. Suddenly she didn’t feel quite so lonely.
THE END.