the idols race for love, are you ready? | book one | utapri

chapter forty-three

ｎａｔｕｒａｌ   ｓｕｎｓｈｉｎｅ
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『 your p.o.v 』

With my laptop open on my desk, I tuned in and out of today's lesson while Ryuuya droned on and on about the importance for idols to land themselves a longterm job on some sort of program whether that be a movie series, a television show that airs weekly, or some weekend radio show and everything in between. Most of his lessons are directed at the idol students nowadays considering more and more composers continue to drop out of Saotome Academy. It's almost sad really. Now a little less than a third of our S-Class are composer students and that's including myself.

          I glanced around some, my eyes stalling on the orangette sitting behind Syo who's eating up every last one of Ryuuya's words like they're the holiest words to have ever been spoken. Ren looks, to put it shortly, bored. He's resting the side of his face on the palm of his hand as he lazily looks on to our teacher, surprisingly still listening despite obviously not being even remotely as interested in all this as Syo and some of the other students are. But, you have to give him some credit for at least trying to pay attention. He's doing better than Tokiya who's dozing in and out of sleep behind me right now.

          Tokiya's recording yesterday for that Piyo-Chan jingle ended up taking far longer than expected and, without him knowing, his manager decided to book him on two variety shows later in the evening so he didn't return to the dorms until a little after three in the morning. Poor thing is dead tired right now and could really use the sleep. Maybe I should tell him we can discuss his and Otoya's duet ideas another day when he isn't so drained. Tokiya should catch up on sleep while he can before we're swamped with more work...

          "That's it for today's lesson." Ryuuya said as he moved to lean against the front of his desk. "But before I dismiss you all, I have the final grades for the duet project as well as the specifications for your next assignment so listen up."

          Ren sat up a little straighter at the mention of the duet projects while I simply saved the song for Otoya I had been working on and began shutting down my laptop. The other students flicked their attention to myself and the orangette before refocusing their gazes on our teacher.

          Ryuuya cleared his throat. "As many of you have already guessed, the group with the top scores this duet project and the winners who get to perform at the Saotome Music Festival next week are none other than Jinguji Ren, Hijirikawa Masato, and Kotobuki ___." He said, glancing to Ren and I now. "You two along with Hijirikawa should stop by the teacher's lounge tomorrow morning for more information on the Music Festival and how to prepare for it, understood?"

          "We hear you loud and clear." Ren said with an absentminded wave of his hand while I simply nodded with a smile in response.

          "Anyways," the orange haired actor continued as he scanned over the other students, "no one else came even relatively close to beating their scores. At this rate, none of you are going to get to have your professional debuts so start taking this far more seriously than you have been. Also keep in mind that even if you don't win the graduation auditions, having consistent high marks on songs will look appealing to future employers so just because you feel defeated now, don't let that stop you from putting forth your best effort or else you're just shooting yourselves in the foot for no reason."

          Shizu, the composer student Ren had initially worked with, rose her hand from where she sits more near the center of all the desks. Ryuuya nodded to her to speak. "Um, I'm sure everyone's thinking this so I'll just go right out and ask- is it really fair for Kotobuki ___ to be getting the top marks on everything when she's already the composer to Shining Saotome's new boy group? I heard they'll be debuting officially at the Saotome Music Festival and everyone knows one of the idols is her brother so why should she also win the chance for the two idols she composed for to perform there as well?"