"Wha... wha... wha..." Aira said one day when he had gone back from a favorite cafe of his with a brand new cake out that he couldn't wait to try out with a hot cup of tea. He almost dropped the cake when he opened the door to see...

"Ah, Shiratori-kun, welcome back," Eichi greeted warmly.

"How was your day, Shiratori-kun?" Rei asked politely.

Aira didn't hear any of that but was focused on something... horrifying, recalling a moment when he felt this 'horror' crept up to him and seized him until he was left frozen in shock and broken in speech before his senses started up once again as, with a less broken speech, he asked:

"What are you doing with that?!" Aira asked, completely astonished as he pointed at what Eichi and Rei had been holding between them just before or maybe a long time before Aira came back... a file, his file. One of the many files that he had hoped Eichi and Rei never discovered, let alone look into it.

If it was the Idol Research file, God knows that he might bite his tongue on the spot if his top idol roommates discovered analysis threads which did contain a lot of information and speculation about their dynamic, written with his own notes he did not dare to post on SNS and were for himself.

 There were also some cringe fanfiction notes inspired during his younger days of beta reading idol fanfiction through online friends which explored dynamics and also based on real life events that Aira had no knowledge about and demanded sources. Those dynamics, of course, included ones about Rei and Eichi so...

It was as bad as the time Tatsumi discovered his files inside his mobile phone on many ideas if he were to become an idol, which he already was, many years ago.

Yet, this was also worse because Tatsumi was a close friend and fellow unit member he cherished yet the people who were looking at the file were his two roommates who were wonderful top idols that he had admired deeply and one of them is technically his boss. Exactly how should he even feel about this?!

"I'm sorry Shiratori-kun," Eichi said sincerely, although there was a small smile that said he enjoyed this, "It seemed that one of your files accidentally dropped when I bumped into your shelf while I wasn't looking, and the files had scattered all over."

"Indeed," Rei said, "How careless of Tenshouin-kun to be in such a daze after just watching TV~ I decided to help him out because it was such a mess and we didn't know when you would come back."

How careless of Aira. He had gotten too complacent honestly. Usually he would have hidden these files better but there was an ongoing SNS thread about Knights which Aira deemed worthy enough to put into his files... for research purposes and... inspiration before he had became so engrossed that he almost didn't hear the door opening.

But he did. Usually he was alone when he did this type of research because he didn't want either of his roommates to know and make him out as a lame ass otaku, so the moment that one of his roommates which turned out to be Rei at that time came in, Aira had hastily stuffed his files between his other books at the shelf next to his bed with the hopes that neither Eichi nor Rei would notice it.

Around that time, he had another errand to run off to and thought it was safe enough to leave his files as it is before hiding them somewhere once again when neither Eichi nor Rei are there, preferably when they were both asleep maybe. Alas, that was not the case. Now, he might face the consequences.

"More like, you stood back and watched with a smile on your face while I cleaned up. In any case, some of the papers had dropped from your files and while I picked them up, I couldn't help but look into them... since they caught my eye," Eichi said.

"It was the same for me. I thought what made Tenshouin-kun so curious and was about to scold him for looking into our kouhai's privacy until I saw what he saw..." Rei said.

Aira did not like the sound of that. Did they see his musings and notes about one of his fanfictions between them?

It was not a ship fic or anything, but could be implied as such because about a year ago, he had been inspired by a shaky footage in SNS of a battle between fine and UNDEAD during DDD and when the two leaders just... it was so rabui, so passionate... so 'he needed to know as much as he can' and when that failed, he just written something to let out all that excess passion.

Anyway, if that was what Eichi and Rei found...

'I'm gonna die of embarrassment. I'm doomed. I'm gonna lose any respect I ever had from these two top idols,' Aira pessimistically thought, cake in his hand already forgotten.

"Yeah, I couldn't help but be interested in the designs and ongoing story of 'ES Musical series: Pending tittle'. I wonder... what is that all about?" Eichi asked.

"O- oh..." Aira said, in his relief that the both of them did not find his little notes about their dynamic and remembered the cake still in his hands. No longer having the appetite to eat it, Aira excused himself for now to put it in the fridge while thinking of what to say to his senpais about-

As Aira put the cake neatly inside the fridge and closed the door, a sudden thought smacked Aira with full force of a freight train that he almost stumbled.

'Wait... did Tenshouin-senpai say ES musical series? That ES musical series? Aaaah...!' Aira thought as he wished, absolutely freaking wished, that he never put dumb stuff like that in physical files, which he kept in his own room and where his roommates could accidentally find them at anytime. He could have just done everything in his phone where at least it's secure... unless someone you decided to share your phone with to look at your ideas accidentally clicked onto your secret files.

Yea... Aira was still embarrassed about that. Yet, Aira knew why he still kept hard copies of anything that he could have just uploaded in his phone. Chief among the reasons were that he had never drawn or written better than with just a pencil in hand on a sketchbook or notepad.

It might be old school, what with drawing and memo pad apps  but nothing just beats drawing with a pencil and feeling it on paper as the ideas just flowed from his fingertips to the paper. Maybe just like how some people still prefer paperbacks to e-books, Aira guessed. Even though he had physical copies, he still kept files in his phone with additional Internet research and pictures for any of his ideas and his own remarks...

Ah, the real joy of childhood dreams... but enough of that! What was he supposed to do now? He could only stall for so long. It was definitely not as bad as the Idol Research file, but what could he do now...? He was basically showing his absolutely silly fantasies to two top idols and one of them was technically his boss! Something he could not stress enough.

Also on how he even came to ES Musical... so far, there had been a lot of idol movies coming out, and not only had Aira watched the trailers, he had watched all those movies as soon as the tickets came out. He loved watching Fist Of Shangri-La, Midnight Butlers and so on... He really did.

It was also around that time when Aira, as the hardcore idol fan he was, thought how about joining Lives and movies together which would create musicals. Before idols had expanded their work repertoire, they mainly focused on Lives with their songs and dance which Aira attended as much as he could and always enjoyed the feeling those Lives gave off, of hope and love from their powerful songs and dances.

So, Aira's silly ideas went for musical, which to him was a combination of Lives and movies which would be awesome, and where he thought 'What would I wear?' , 'What would my unitmates wear?' , 'What would my room-'

'Oh... oh no...' Aira thought, as he knew he could no longer stall and chose to face the music. He started expecting the worst, and couldn't help feel dread in the smiles shown by both roommates.

"So, Shiratori-kun~" Eichi said, "So can you explain this?" 

"I'm sorry that we invaded your privacy in the first place, but we can't unsee this now and we might as well satisfy our curiosity~" Rei said.

Aira slightly paled, pushing back his anxious thoughts as he looked at the sheet of paper which contained exactly what Aira dreaded.

It was drawings of costumes with little notes for each of them. He had even put a freaking storyline for one of his musical ideas and what music would suit it and etc.

"So I'm the angel, Sakuma-kun is the devil, and Keito is the priest and Wataru is the mage... supposedly main characters in one of the musical ideas about..." Eichi started off, reading the kinda coherent notes which made Aira want to blush and cradle his face in hands but it was taking all his willpower not to do so.

"Yeah, I get it, I get it. It was just a silly idea I had among others. I just thought after all the movies idols have been doing, what if movies were combined with Lives idols are more familiar with doing and got to the idea of musicals. Whatever you saw... were just silly fantasies with outfit ideas and possible songs that could go with it... that's all," Aira rambled, just wanting to get this over with. Hopefully, he will forget this soon enough but probably like the incident with Tatsumi, he would never forget this... ever.

"Hmm... for a 'silly idea', the story plot and song choice looked well thought out although it could use some work," Eichi said, giving a sincere smile that blew Aira away.

"Mmm, and the outfit sketches really look good," Rei said, looking at the sheet of paper which used to belong to a sketchbook before Aira tore it off and put in a specific file, "I really like the demon outfit and I would really like to see Hasumi-san in the priest costume."

"Yes, I really would like too," Eichi agreed, "He would have a chance to embrace his Buddhist priest role once again, wouldn't he?"

"Ah yes... something we can agree on once in a while Tenshouin-kun," Rei agreed, "And I'm sure the costume would look great on Hasumi-kun. Do you think we should show this to Jou-chan? I really want to see it come true~"

"I understand that feeling," Eichi said, as Aira was shocked to see his two roommates, who were usually indifferent and barely tolerated each other that they even put a partition between them because even Aira wasn't blind to the strange animosity those two have at times  (although Aira attributed it to the fine and UNDEAD strong rivalry), so united in something.

"It would also be fun to see how this plays out. After all, we have tried movies but a musical itself... it would be a great. Shiratori-kun, would you please let us show this to Anzu-chan? It would make a pretty good base for a musical performance," Eichi said, actually giving thought to Aira's idea that he simply made for the fun of it and... well, not this.

"But... but..." Aira said, "It's just an idea I made in the spur of the moment, and not to mention, they are all unpolished and unprofessional that I don't think Anzu-san would take it seriously..."

'Please don't add into my embarrassment,' Aira couldn't help but thought. He was sure that Anzu wouldn't really appreciate such a childish idea presented to her when she had other pressing matters to attend-

"Shiratori-kun," Eichi said, "You were the one who came up with the idea of Feather Touch, with the performance details and costumes that were tooled and improved by the Producer, to liven up the Music Zone, didn't you?"

"Oh yes, that. I had watched the Live along with Adonis-kun just to see how the Music Zone was faring. We really enjoyed the Live back there, with such a great concept and wonderful performance," Rei commented.

Aira.exe has stopped working. Please wait for reboot. Seriously, he couldn't believe that Eichi and Rei were both praising... him like that, with one of his ideas from childhood made reality. Then, there was fact half of UNDEAD actually watched ALKALOID life, which was unbelievable to Aira already, and the fact that... Ah, Aira still had a long way to go from being an underachiever to a real idol, but this meant everything and more...

Aira couldn't stop the blush coming from cheeks as Rei and Eichi gave gentle smiles to his kouhai as they hit the final nail to the coffin. It was later that Aira learnt they really wanted the chance to have Keito dress up as a priest for purposes beyond him. Until then, he was strangely basking in this limelight.

'Ah... is this a dream or a nightmare? Because I'm so happy yet embarrassed,' Aira thought.

"You really do have some talent for performance details and these outfit sketches are actually good. Just like Feather Touch, it wouldn't be so bad if you give a hand in making this musical together with the Producer," Eichi encouraged.

"Also, as Tenshouin-kun said, the idea will only serve a base before the real product comes out. At least, we got an idea to improve from and go from there. We could even add on things and let the idea become reality. At least I would like to see that happen," Rei said.

"I... I..." Aira said, because despite everything they said, he still wasn't sure. There was getting encouraged by his idol senpai and just going for it and then there's his embarrassment.

"Shiratori-kun," Eichi said gently, "Actually there is a reason why I wanted your musical to come true. It's because it reminds me of a story in a manga I had read... I have it with me, give me a moment~"

After getting over and absolutely taking note that Eichi Tenshouin has a hobby of reading manga which is really surprising to Aira considering Eichi's image as fine leader but he had learned since long ago that the idols he knew through SNS could be different than what he first assumed, Eichi came back with a worn looking book with the author's name 'Mizuhanome-sensei' penned on the cover. 

Aira had never heard of this Mizuhanome-sensei although he admittedly didn't follow mangakas closely. Eichi started flipping through the work, and both Aira and Rei both came closer to take a look, not before the former took back his file and placed it on his bed to put back... somewhere later. Aira wasn't going to burn his files or anything but he promised himself to make sure they were in a better hiding spot from now on.

The manga didn't look professional as any of the manga Aira had read but it had a homely feel and passion emitting from the pages. Whoever Mizuhanome-sensei is, they had great skills and Aira felt he could read a few issues of their work just for inspiration just like that one fashion manga which inspired him on outfit designs.

In the manga, he saw drawings of a young angel, demon and boy. What was funny was that the boy claims to be a son of a priest who somehow has the ability to see the supernatural like the angel and the demon. Reading the text bubbles, it seemed that the angel and demon do not get along while the boy tried to bridge the gap.

"Oh, how familiar~" Rei mused, "It's also similar to the story that Shiratori-kun had for our musical, except more... plotted out."

Aira hummed in agreement because it was true that his ideas were in the end, just ideas where he had outlined a story to go with the outfits he went full-ham in sketching and what would go with the music that could inspire the musical. It was just that, in the end so Aira won't mind if  this story was used for the plot in the musical.

'Wait, am I seriously accepting the fact that my silly idea of a musical just be sent over the Anzu-san to be used? And also, isn't there the fact that Mizuhanome-sensei, whoever they are, has to agree to share their work before we can do anything?' Aira thought.

"Although, unlike in Shiratori-kun's idea, there is no mage but maybe it's because Mizuhanome-sensei didn't meet anyone who could be his inspiration to be the mage. Maybe it is a character that could be added in the sequel of this manga if he chose to pick up the pen again~"

"Hmm... did Mizuhanome-sensei stop making manga, Tenshouin-senpai?" Aira asked curiously, and Eichi gave a somewhat wry smile.

"You can say that," Eichi said, "And it's such a shame since I am a huge fan of his works. If only he could continue his works, but maybe with this... I could make him at least consider it~ After all, I love his stories as much as I do the manga itself."

Is this Mizuhanome-sensei really that good that Eichi was a fan of his work. Aira made a mental note to search him up later.

"Yes, the manga really is good," Rei hummed, "It really is familiar, in more ways than one. Where did you get this, Tenshouin-kun?"

Eichi winked, something that would give many fans a heart attack and Aira was one of them honestly, as he said, "That's a secret~"

Aira couldn't contain his curiosity but he wasn't so rude to pry further, so he didn't.

"Well, so what do you say, Shiratori-kun?" Rei asked calmly, "Will you consider the idea of your work being shown to Jou-chan? Whatever happens, I look forward to the results."

Aira was between seriously considering the idea to being embarrassed by how this came to be in the first place along with self-doubt that always came when the consequences of what would happen if his idea was shown invaded his mind.

'What if she laughs at me? What if it's no good? What if this makes me lose respect for me because of this?' 

Aira knew the thoughts were stupid deep down but he also couldn't help it. In fact, he wasn't even sure why Eichi and Rei were endorsing the silly idea like this. To Aira, it made no-

"Please don't sell yourself and your talents short, Shiratori-kun," Rei said, "You won't know unless you make the first step, you know? After all, you are an idol just like all of us, so have confidence. I'm sure the Producer would take your idea into consideration and won't look down on you."

Ehh, could Rei read Aira's mind or was it just that obvious? Maybe he spent enough time with his roommates for them to know each other and read each other better? After all Aira would have never known the 'true' dynamic between Eichi and Rei had he not lived with them in this dorm room for so long.

Their little tea parties also helped him understand them better. Aira was the one who initiated the tea parties whenever he bought extra cakes for Eichi and Rei if he had the budget for it while they agree to eat it together. Sometimes, Eichi and Rei would buy their own sweets to share and... it just became a thing.

"This is your rabui side as an idol who is a fan of idols, you know, Shiratori-kun? I hoped that you could express your ideas more like this and during Feather Touch to make the most of it and become an idol that shines brighter," Eichi states calmly. 

"It's... it's still weird for me to hear anyone else other than myself use my catchphrase," Aira muttered, even though he heard his unit members in ALKALOID, especially Mayoi, use it from time to time. The thought of that was used to distract himself that he got amazing  advice and encouragement from both these top idols which he should appreciate with every fiber of his being.

But if he didn't distract himself, the idol fan in him would overheat and combust. Aira knew it would definitely happen, so he tried to keep his cool and remind himself that he was now an idol... and somewhat had equal standing as the idols before him.

... Nope, he could not convince himself of that. He could not convince himself because it was definitely true that he did not have  equal standing to these two top idols, where one of them was his boss.

At the very least though, he was an idol just like them so he had to accept it as an idol and not as a fan. Draw the line, draw the line...

When Aira did not answer in a long while, Eichi said, "Don't worry about it, Shiratori-kun. Nothing has been established yet. Until you are ready, then you can-"

"Wait!" Aira interrupted when his jumbled up thoughts decided to reach a final conclusion, "If Tenshouin-senpai and Sakuma-senpai think so, I will show it to Anzu-san."

"Thank you, Shiratori-kun. Fufufu~ I wonder how Keito will take it if we can star him as a priest character and not only that, convince Anzu-chan to incorporate Mizuhanome-sensei's work in it. She admires him as much as I do, so this should be an easy endeavour~ Maybe it would convince him to finally come out of retirement. I always wanted to read his new works and so does Anzu-chan I'm sure," Eichi said in deep thought.

Aira wondered whether Eichi meant to say all that, but he also wondered how good Mizuhanome-sensei is to get both Eichi and Anzu's seal of approval. He really wanted to research about this mangaka now. 

"It seems like a fun endeavor. Let me join you when you are ready to present this idea to Jou-chan. The sooner, the better and maybe now it's the perfect time if she's not busy... but before that..." Rei said.

"Ah, you are curious too?" Eichi asked, with his eyes sparkling as they both turned to Aira expectantly. Aira suddenly got a bad feeling.

"Shiratori-kun~ You had been planning out a musical series, right? I am very interested in one of your ideas about me and Ritsu that had also caught my eye among the papers that have dropped from your file. If I could make a few suggestions..."

"Oh, but I'm actually also interested in the musical about Itsuki-kun and Tsukinaga-kun warring it out in a revolution between arts and music. Really... how do you get these ideas, Shiratori-kun?" Eichi asked.

... Nope, he can't do this. His embarrassment won the day, and although he agreed to share one of his works, he still wasn't comfortable with all of them, as the one that his roommates insisted on showing to Anzu was the more through one of his ideas while the others...

'Please have mercy on me,' Aira thought as he tried to wave away his own embarrassment and his roommates' insistent questions to no avail. It was going to be a long day, but he felt he got something good out of it, with a surge of confidence he had to remind himself once again to hold onto. When his roommates finally backed down, Aira promised himself that he should never slack off his guard like that again and secure his files every time no matter what. 

He had also tried to search for Mizuhanome-sensei throughout the Internet with no results, which made Aira more curious. Could the mangaka be someone Eichi and Anzu knew personally? But who could these two people have the same connection with who could draw manga pretty well? Aira was drawing a blank there, and decided to ask around later.

Despite what his roommates had said about how he should not sell himself short, Aira could not get rid of his doubts and anxieties and chose to tweak the concept before showing the final product to Anzu. This would take a span of a few days before he gained enough confidence to show it to her without chickening out. His roommates insisted they come along, and Aira could only comply.

Who knew when the day came that he would be met with a lot of shouting, lectures and mind-blowing things that his idol fan self couldn't help scream in delight? But that was another story for another time.