Idol (Selection Project rewrite/inspired story)

After another day of rehearsals, we were making good progress. Both Nagisa and Kasumi were doing much better than I had expected they would. When I asked them about it, Kasumi simply replied, "V-tubers need to know how to sing and dance for our 3D concerts you know." Nagisa, on the other hand, avoided the question.

Just as we were about to start heading out separate ways, I remembered something that I had been meaning to bring up. "Oh yeah, our outfits for the performance just came in today." I reached into my bag and pulled out three sets of matching outfits for us. I had been quite pleased with how the outfits turned out, but Nagisa and Kasumi both looked quite hesitant upon inspecting theirs more closely.

"Um...this is showing a decent bit of skin isn't it?"

"Y-yeah, I think it's a bit too much for me..."

"Really?" I asked, surprised. "It's just the midriff area though. Aqua wears this kind of thing all the time for her performances."

"But there aren't even any sleeves. I want long sleeves like these." Kasumi indicated the sleeves on the clothes she was currently wearing.

"Don't you think this kind of thing is cuter?" I insisted..

"You think so?"

"A-and the skirt is way too short..." Nagisa stammered.

"Hm...alright maybe I send them back and ask them to make some changes. It's a shame though, I wanted something like what Aqua used to wear."

"You really love Aqua, don't you, Suzune." Nagisa giggled daintily after she spoke.

"Well yeah," I replied flatly.

Suddenly, Kasumi let out a loud gasp, her eyes glued to her phone. "Woah, what's going on? You two need to take a look at this!" 

As the two of us walked over to see what she was looking at, she turned the screen to us to show Project Starlight's official social media page. The latest post came with an image of Kyouko's group.

"They're going to be performing tomorrow?" I asked incredulously.

"I guess so. The post doesn't say why though..."

"Maybe they're just that confident they won't be disqualified."

"Yeah, maybe. It's crazy, they got a bunch of Hearts just from their announcement. I guess they're right to be confident." Kasumi pointed to the Hearts section of the screen. Kyouko's group was sitting comfortably with around 10,000 Hearts. Our group was in second place with only 2,000 Hearts, and Shiori's was in last with barely over 1,000. It's improbable that Kyouko's group managed to get so many votes just off of their announcement, so there must be more to the story than I'm aware of.

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After my team separated, I decided to get started on the modifications for the outfit. I went to the staff room in the main building at the base of the cliff where the lodge was located to speak to one of the producers about it. As I was talking to him, however, it quickly became apparent that I wasn't exactly sure of what modifications they wanted to the outfit. "I get that you want a less revealing outfit, but that's going to be a pretty big change overall," he had said. "Do you have an idea of how exactly you want it to look?

 "Ugh, I guess I should've asked for specifics from the others. I could do that now but..." My voice trailed off.

"But?"

I buried my face in my hands. "I'd have to walk up the hill to talk to them and then back down again to tell you."

"Here's some good news: you can just use the landline to contact us, so you just need to make the trip once."