Asahina Mafuyu
Mafuyu is a good girl. She gets good grades, she is popular among her peers, she excels in her after-school club, and most importantly, she does what her parents told her too. Put her clothes away? Yep! Eat all her vegetables? Yep! Go to this middle school? Yep! Join the archery club? Yep! Become a doctor instead of a nurse?
Mafuyu really really wants to be a good girl. She was told by everyone she is a good girl. But good girls do what their parents tell them too, and she really, really doesn't want to be a doctor instead of a nurse. She's worried about it, and about how her mother would react to this news, she loves her mother, and knows her mother loves her, but will this love protect her?
She continues going to school, she keeps on smiling, but slowly, that smile stretches. It is still a smile, she still loves what she does, but was this weight always there?
Mafuyu is drowning and she is starting to think that maybe her mother won't be the one to throw her the life preserver.
She will have to swim to shore herself, but how can one swim when they never learnt? They start.
So, Mafuyu looks into hobbies, maybe starting something new will get this weight off her back, in her third year of middle school she asks her parents if she could join a second after-school club, if she could start poetry.
To her surprise, her mother says yes (only if her grades continue to stay this good, of course) and so she joins. To her surprise, for that hour after school, two days a week, the weight is lifted, if only a little. She continues to write her poems, keeping them as organised as her cram school notes.
Eventually she starts high-school, she continues being a good girl. She gets good grades. She is popular among her peers. She excels in both archery and poetry clubs. She goes to her cram school every Friday and Saturday. She doesn't want to be a doctor.
All of a sudden the weight bears down on her again. Why? Why? Why? It was meant to be bearable, it was meant to be easier.
Mafuyu hasn't been learning to swim at all, her frantic kicking has just simply been enough to keep her head above water, but there is a reason they tell you not to panic when you drown, fear is exhausting, and Mafuyu can't breathe.
She needs air, she needs to be able to see the sky again, so, one day, when her cram school lets out on a Saturday afternoon she goes for a walk. She doesn't know where she will end up, she isn't sure she wants to return. She walks past stores, and cafes, and restaurants and families happily existing together, no weights upon their backs.
Eventually she comes to a place called 'Vivid Street'. It's different to the refined and delicate areas her parents surround themselves, and by extension her, with. It is imperfect, its is loud, its is scary, it is beautiful. She walks for what feels like hours, but is honestly probably not even one.
Eventually, she comes upon a cafe, and realizing she hasn't eaten since her breakfast that morning, goes in and orders a meal. Whilst waiting her ears are drawn to the stage, the music she had heard when she walked in isn't simply playing over the speakers, it's being played, no, made live!
On the stage stands a girl, long, pale blue hair tied into a ponytail, concentration and joy covering her face as she creates a song right in front of Mafuyu's own eyes. She is enamored. How can someone be so concentrated yet enjoy something so much? She's experienced this concentration before, she's experienced this joy before, but, well, never the two together.
And the song! Oh! the song! It is absolutely incredible, rising and falling, swaying from side to side, it seems to bring her on a journey through a world shes never seen before. And, before she knows it, the weight that had been holding her below water lets up, and she can breathe.
After the show she finds the long-haired girl, and asks one simple question,
"How did you do that?"
"I-I'm sorry? I don't think I understand.."
"How did you look so happy yet so concentrated? Every time I try to do that I failed."
"Oh, uh, I think its because I really like playing music? I always put everything into a song and performance, no matter how small they may seem, because they're not small to me."
"Oh, I think I understand," She did understand, however she also understood that this wasn't something she would be able to do, she just simply didn't see anything like that. "Sorry for bothering you..?"
"Oh, Yoisaki Kanade, just call me K, everyone in Vivid Street does anyway."
"Thank you Miss. K then, I really liked your song by the way, it helped me a little."
With that Mafuyu turned to leave, but not before Kanade realized what she had said. Helped? Her music had helped someone, no, that can't be right, she loved her music, but it wasn't meant to help, it was meant to win, to be good, not to help.
"Uhh, wait! What do you mean helped?"
"Oh! Uhh," It was Mafuyu's turn to be confused, when she had said that she didn't really mean anything by it, but it was true, how had her music helped her? "I suppose it just made things feel lighter, are you going to be performing again soon? I'd love to come see!"
"Oh! Yes, there's a competition soon, I was going to compete, you can come see me then!"
Kanade had to know why her music had helped her, it compelled her, surely it couldn't hurt to have two goals, and maybe learning about this would help her beat that event..
Mafuyu was surprised as she walked home, flyer in her book-bag, she hadn't expected to learn something like that today, she wasn't sure what she expected to learn today.
She was still stuck though, as a good girl would tell her parents before going to this event, but she wasn't sure she wanted to.