Chapter 1

Woohoo! Yippee! Wheeee…! ♪

Quit running around, Akehoshi. The AV room has a lot of delicate equipment in it; you don’t want to accidentally kick something and break it.

But I’m so excited! Getting to watch stuff on that ginormous screen makes me feel like I’m in a movie theater!

Oh, we should all go see a movie with Anzu, wouldn’t that be fun? I hear there’s even movies that give you a hands-on experience!

A movie? I’ve been so busy with the student council lately that I haven’t had the time to see any, so I’d be down.

If that’s the plan, I’ll find some coupons online so we don’t have to pay as much. It’s a better value that way~ ♪

You guys… You realize we’re here for a review session, right? But you’re all just messing around.

Sorries~

Eve pounded us into dirt at Summer Live the other day, so we’re here to watch the recording together and sort things out.¹

We did have that one meeting right after the live, but we couldn’t really take our time with it ‘cause it was late at night. So let’s go slow and steady today!

Yeah. It helps that Anzu also joined us for this. I’m sure you’ll be able to notice more things since you weren’t the producer this time around.

Some thoughts about how disappointing we were after you go through it another time, maybe…

You want to cheer me up? Yeah, you’re right. We can’t let ourselves stop here. Thanks, Anzu.

Hang on, it’s so not fair that you’re only talking to Hokke! You’re the producer for all of us, right? So talk to me too ♪

C’mon Subaru, don’t pull on her arm. You’re freaking her out. Or more like, you get way too friendly with girls.

I’m actually a little jealous of you, Akehoshi-kun. I can’t be like you at all.

Well why not? You can talk to Anzu too, y’know. C’mere, sit next to me~

Enough, I’m starting the video now. We don’t have the AV room forever, so don’t get distracted with pointless conversation.

From here on out, no more talking. Concentrate on the video.

…Yeah, Eve really is amazing.

I thought the same thing during the live, but watching it on-screen like this you can really see how polished their performance is.

Yeah. It was supposed to be a joint live between Trickstar and Eve, but nearly everyone’s eyes were drawn to Eve.

Our performance was something we learned by studying them. That’s not to say the audience wasn’t also watching us, but they definitely didn’t give us the same amount of attention.

I’ll bet all the fans that came thought we were just backup dancers for Eve.

Agreed. You did say that Eve had a lot of publicity to attract a huge crowd.

And on top of that, they cleverly timed the live to coincide with the release of the game they were affiliated with.

Yep. It made me realize just how important marketing tactics are.

But thanks to all of that, even more people came to see Summer Live than we originally planned.

Most of them may have been Eve fans, but we did manage to turn some of them into Trickstar fans too.

They may have creamed us, but I don’t think it was all bad.

Me too me too~! I had lots of fun singing and dancing with Eve! You think we could do it again sometime?

I’m not sure. According to Tomoe-senpai, the student council president wants us to face off against Adam, so there’s a good chance they’ll be our next opponents.

Face off…? Wouldn’t it just be another joint live like we did with Eve? So we shouldn’t get too crazy here.

He also said that they aren’t as nice as Eve is.

Though I’m not sure exactly what’s so “nice” about Eve. Regardless, it’ll be good to stay on guard.

Well, this isn’t a meeting to think about our battle against Adam—It’s about Eve right now. We’re trying to really take the time to reflect in detail…

I think a major point is that we simply don’t have as much experience with lives as Eve does.

So we need to get up on stage more and get that experience.

Yeah, but it’s summer vacation. It’s not like there’s an abundance of stages for us to get up on.

If it doesn’t have to be a Dream Fes, we could look on the school’s social media to see if there’s any recruitment for lives? I’ll log on and see if I can find us a gig that sounds good.

Please do. …But it’s already so late into the summer. Even if there are a lot of festivals or lives, I doubt they’ll still have slots open.

Mm… Oh, what about this one? They have an opening, and it looks like they’re desperate for performers!

Sunflower Live…? It’ll be held at the beach nearby?

That is pretty sudden, though… I can’t help but wonder why they had this spot open up, but it’s a godsend for us now.

Yuuki, can you get us in?

Sure th—

H–hold on a sec!

What’s wrong, Isara? Is there a problem with this?

Not really a problem, but… Urgh, it’s just. It’s hard to just come out and say it, but Trickstar’s kinda broke.

Oh… Because we haven’t had the chance to participate in many of the school’s Dream Fests, we haven’t been able to earn a lot of in-school money.

Ah, right. And then we’ve been pouring all our funds into off-campus gigs and work with other schools, so it’s like we’re just making our savings go up in smoke.

Huh? Whatcha mean, Anzu? We shouldn’t worry ‘cause you’ll make the costumes?

No. I appreciate the sentiment, but there’s still the cost of fabric and materials to worry about.

It’s not ideal, but we’ll have to skip out on Sunflower Live. Right now our priority should be saving our in-school funds.

Right. Without that, we can’t get costumes or set our stages.

Well this sucks, but let’s try saving up for the next chance that comes around.

Hold up…!

C’mon, why are you guys giving up the fight so easily? The next chance? If we keep waiting, summer’s gonna pass us by in no time.

So we should do a live before summer’s gone!

Wouldn’t you guys be pissed if summer ended with just our crappy memories from Summer Live? I know I would!

A live in the summer’s supposed to be sparkly and fun, so I don’t wanna ruin it with bad memories!

…I mean, we got a lot from Summer Live, and it wasn’t all bad.

But if we don’t do anything about it, then every single time summer rolls around, I’m just gonna think about Eve…

So that’s why I wanna make more summer memories, happy summer memories with everyone!

…Yeah, okay. I get how you feel. And I’m pissed too, y’know. I wanna make some good memories with you guys too.

But the fact of the matter is, it’s just not possible to have a live without money.

Even if we all took jobs on campus, we still wouldn’t have enough for the event.

Mm… Can I ask you something, Isara-kun? Would it be possible to borrow funds from the student council?

It’s happened before, so I don’t think it’s impossible. I’ve got some student council work after this, so I could try asking about it then?

I wonder if they’d let us. I was looking at the application for Sunflower Live and saw they’re also seeking out people to run booths.

So I figured we could try turning a profit with some merch and pay them back later.

Gotcha. I’ll ask the President about it.

‘Kay then, I’m heading out for now. Let’s hope for the best, guys~ ♪