#figuring out how i wanna do chibi + flat color & not too certain about the highlights

[escuerel]

[ryqoshay]

How to Handle a Nico: Rhythm Game

Primary Pairing: NicoMaki Words: ~2.3k Rating: G Time Frame: Late in Maki’s 1st year and Nico’s 3rd year in high school Story Arc: Stand Alone

List of all HtHaN scenes

Author’s Note: It wasn’t exactly my intent to write a scene for this adorable pic, but after I wrote the last one, I couldn’t help it. @lolitomatobunny has really made some good works. Who could blame me for being inspired by such wonderful images?

Also, double woo!  ♡ ＼(≧▽≦)／ ♡ Not only does this make my fifth chapter posted in as many days, but it’s 2k words, not just 1 or less.

“Ughn… Not again, nya!” Rin cried, tossing her phone, rather carelessly onto the table.

“Failed another song, Rin-chan?” Hanayo asked with a sympathetic tone as she moved over to her friend’s side.

“The beatmap just doesn’t make any sense!” The cat-like girl complained. “And the notes that require special gestures are just nyannoying!”

“Well, you did just start playing a few days ago.” The youngest µ’s member assured. “I didn’t figure things out right away either. And there are plenty of Expert level songs I still cannot complete, much less Full Combo.”

“But that was only Hard!” Rin whined, dropping her forehead onto the table in defeat.

“You’ll get the hang of it in time.” Hanayo patted her friend’s back. “You still like the game, right?”

“Of course.” Rin admitted with a sigh before pushing herself back up enough to prop her head on her hands. “The music is really good and makes me happy listening to it.”

That got the attention of a certain redhead sitting across the table, though she did not look away from the book in her hand.

Rin tilted her head onto one hand before reaching out with the other to retrieve her phone. As soon as the screen was unlocked, a peppy tune began to play through the speaker.

Maki blinked. If Rin had been playing earlier, why hadn’t she noticed the music before? Had the other girl been wearing headphones? Maybe said device had been disconnected when she tossed her phone away? Maybe she had just ignored it because it sounded like the music to which Nico was always listening. It was just another embarrassingly happy tune, the likes of which A-RISE might create. Or East Heart. Or Midnight cats. Or µ’s… Well, it wasn’t like Maki hadn’t helped create pieces like that herself. Quite a few, actually.

“Does that interest you, Maki-chan?”

“Buweeh?” Maki balked back to reality and looked up from her book.

Rin grinned at her friend.

“W-what?”

“You can’t fool Rin, Maki-chan!” Rin jumped up from her chair and practically skipped around the table. “I could see that you were interested even though you tried to hide it.”

“I wasn’t really…”

“It can be a little hard at times, but it really is a fun game.” Hanayo explained.

The orange-haired girl held her phone out in front of the redhead. “I’ll do an Easy song as an example.” She explained before hitting Start.

“Hmmm…” Maki watched with more interest than she was willing to admit.

Rin’s thumbs tapped certain points on the screen as moving circles crossed a threshold. In the background, various girls popped up occasionally to say something encouraging, though Maki couldn’t quite tell if the lines were supposed to be directed at the player or to the other girls in the group.

For some reason, Maki found herself paying more attention when a dark-haired girl sporting twin-tails came on to the screen. Not that she reminded Maki of anyone, of course. The character’s eyes were a different color, there was no pink to be found in her outfit, and her smile was nowhere near as brilliant. Yes, there was no way the character in the game was anything like her. Not that Maki was thinking about her, of course.

“And that’s how you play, nya!” Rin proclaimed proudly as the English words, Full Combo! appeared across the screen.

Shortly after, a girl with a reasonable resemblance to Hanayo appeared to give one final congratulatory line. Wasn’t that the girl who had been in the center of the group? Of course, Rin would set things up that way. Maki couldn’t help wondering if the twin-tailed girl ever mentioned wanting to be the center. Oh, what the heck. She shook her head. She was definitely thinking too much about this. It was just a silly mobile game.

“Bet you wanna play now, huh, Maki-chan?” Rin asked after a moment.

“Not really…”

“Hmmm, maybe if they included some classical music, then Maki-chan might be more interested.”

“I doubt it…”

“Are there classical songs that have lyrics for the girls to sing?” Hanayo wondered out loud.

“There are a lot of songs with lyrics.” Maki stated. “Though sometimes the lyrics are written at a later time by a different individual.”

“So maybe someday they’ll make a classical themed rhythm game.” Rin seemed excited about the concept.

“Probably not.” Maki shook her head as thoughts of a group comprising Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Rossini and Tchaikovsky wearing stylized outfits danced through her mind.

“Rin-chan.” Hanayo spoke up as she glanced her phone. “We should probably get going if we want to beat the rush at the ramen shop.”

“Iku-nya!” Rin cheered, running over to grab her bag.

“Do you want to come with us, Maki-chan?” The brunette asked.

“Thank you for the offer.” Maki replied. “But, I already have plans for the evening.”

“Oh? Wha’cha doin’?” Rin asked.

“Uhm, Nico-chan asked if I would help her study for an upcoming… What?” Maki stared back as her fellow first years smiled at her.

“Nico-chan’s lucky to have someone smart like Maki-chan help her, nya.” Rin explained. “And Rin is lucky to have someone as amazing as Kayo-chin to help her!” She grabbed the arm of the girl in question.

“Rin-chan…” Pink dusted Hanayo’s cheeks, though she continued to smile.

“You two have fun.” Maki nodded toward the door. “Nico-chan should be done with cleaning duty soon, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

After saying their goodbyes, the other two girls departed, leaving Maki alone in the clubroom. She was just about to go back to reading when her phone vibrated.

NicoNii: Sorry, going to be delayed a little bit

NicoNii: Eli and Nozomi need me to do something

NicoNii: I’ll try to make it quick

NishikinoMaki: That’s fine

NishikinoMaki: I’ll see you when you get here

Maki returned to the home screen and was about to turn off the screen when the icon for the app store caught her eye. Surely, it wouldn’t hurt to take just one more quick peek at that game, right? Downloading it didn’t mean she was really interested, right? After all, the music was in the same genre of everything she had heard from school idols, µ’s included, so if anyone asked, she could just pass it off as research and inspiration. Yes, that was it; research and inspiration. Those were the only reasons.

Apparently, the initial download wasn’t enough, and more data started loading once Maki had opened the app. However, chibi versions of several of the girls appeared on screen, including the twin-tailed girl she had noticed before. Out of curiosity, she tapped the character and jumped when a voice came out of the speaker telling her to stop touching her. That was her voice? It was actually… kind of cute. Kind of. Not as cute as someone else’s though. Not that Maki was thinking about her, of course.

After finally getting to the game itself, an opening scene began that introduced what Maki assumed were the main characters. For some reason, she found herself relieved that the twin-tailed girl was among the main cast. The characters talked, explained the player’s role in the story and then walked her through a quick tutorial concerning gameplay. And finally, it was time to play her first song. She pressed Start and…

“Buweehh?!” Maki practically jumped out of her chair as arms draped across her shoulders from behind.

“Maki-chan plays that game?” A voice asked from next to her ear.

Pause! Pause! Where is the pause button?! Surely there is a Pause button, right?

The notes scrolled down the screen and with hands trembling, Maki began to tap at the screen.

Maybe… Maybe this isn’t so bad. Actually, even with Nico-chan scaring me, this is pretty ea… What?

The game made a dissonant sound as it did not accept Maki’s attempt to tap one of the special notes.

Maki grimaced as she heard Nico giggle, but continued to hit the normal notes with perfect timing. Nico giggled again when another special note was missed and Maki held back a growl. Finally, the song ended and the game tallied her performance; all Perfects, sans two Misses for the special notes.

“Still learning those notes, eh?” Nico asked.

“I… I only missed them because you scared me.” Maki grumbled.

“Uh-huh. Look here.” Nico held out one hand flat to mimic a phone before holding it with the other. “For those notes, you have to make this kind of gesture” She moved her thumb across her other hand as though it was a screen. “And for the other type you will see, you do this.” She moved her thumb again. “The tutorial doesn’t really do a good job of explaining them. Even Nico had to look it up online.”

“Hmmm...” Maki mimicked the gestures she had seen.

“Yeah, like that. That’s good, Maki-chan. Practice that for a few more songs on Easy.”

“Easy?”

“Yeah, I can see you got the normal notes down, but that was still on a slower speed. And the real world is full of distractions so you’ll have to learn how to do the special notes even if someone scares you.”

“Hmmm…” Maki wasn’t quite sure if she detected teasing in that tone.

“Maki-chan may be a prodigy with the piano but it will be years before she catches up to Nico-nii on rhythm games.”

Now that was definitely teasing. Maki’s brow furrowed as she tapped the screen again.

“Wha? Maki-chan that’s…”

“Mmph.” Maki grunted.

The song started again, but this time there was a significant increase in the number of notes cascading down the screen. And their speed had at least doubled. But Maki didn’t care. She knew the rhythm of this song now; it wasn’t overly complex. And as expected, the notes matched perfectly, meaning the only thing she had to watch was placement. Well, and the special notes, but Maki was confident she knew how to handle those, so long as Nico’s demonstration was accurate.

As her thumbs danced across the screen, Maki wondered if it might be easier to hold her phone in one hand and play with the fingers of her other. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her thumbs to keep up, just that she was more accustomed to using all of her fingers in tandem.

“Wow…” Nico breathed, about halfway through the song.

Almost there. The end was in sight. Maki felt her jaw clench as she concentrated on the last few… the arms around her shifted ever so slightly. A finger barely brushed her arm.

Maki’s breath hissed with a rapid intake through her teeth as the game released another discordant clash and her combo was shattered. With her concentration in shambles, her saving grace was that the remaining notes that were missed were not enough to completely deplete her stamina.

“Oh! Oops… Sorry, Maki-chan!” Nico pulled away quickly. In her haste she ended up backing straight into the bookshelf behind her. “Keh…”

“Nico-chan…” Maki griped, turning toward her senior.

“I’m sorry!” Nico repeated, throwing up her hands defensively. “Really, I am! I-I-I was just so impressed with your skills that I didn’t realize what else I was doing and… and… I don’t know! I’m sorry!”

Maki paused. She couldn’t recall seeing Nico like this; truly repentant. She wasn’t apologizing, grudgingly, because she was told she had to. She also wasn’t pulling the puppy dog eyes or falling into her idol persona. Rather, she seemed honestly upset after having disrupted Maki’s game. Was a mobile game really worth such a reaction?

And sure, Maki was annoyed, but she wouldn’t say she was actually angry with Nico. As such, she let her posture relax and opened her mouth to speak.

“That really was impressive, though.” Nico probably didn’t realize she was interrupting, as technically, Maki hadn’t actually spoken yet. “How long have you been playing?”

“I just downloaded it before you got here.”

Nico blinked. “Really? That’s impressive, Maki-chan.”

Maki felt a smile tug at her lips. “Thanks.”

“So, uhm… you aren’t… actually mad at me, are you?”

“Not really, no.” Maki admitted. “Just… don’t do that again.”

“You don’t want me to hug you anymore?” There was no mistaking the concern in Nico’s voice.

Ah, so that’s what she was worried about. Maki couldn’t help laughing a little. If she were being completely honest, she knew she would miss the hugs if Nico actually stopped.

“No, that’s not it.” Maki shook her head. “Maybe just not while I’m trying to concentrate on something?”

“I’ll try to remember that.” Nico said earnestly. “But Maki-chan is really cute when she’s focused and Nico can’t help wanting to hug her…”

Maki felt heat building in her cheeks. “W-well just t-try, alright?” Geez, why was she stuttering?

“Alright.” Nico smiled, finally. “So, uhm, we never did decide if we were going to your place or mine.”

“Either is fine, though it might be quieter at my place.”

“Sounds like we’re going to your place.”

“Alright.” Maki nodded.

“Oh, and maybe when we take a break, we can play together?”

“What do you mean?”

“There is a function that lets you set up private rooms, so you can play in a team with your friends to get higher scores and better rewards.” Nico explained. “And since you’re a new player, your teams won’t be that strong, even if Maki-chan’s skills are amazing, so Nico can lend you the strength of her teams and get you some nice early bonuses!”

“Sounds fun.”

“Then let’s get going!” Nico cheered with renewed vigor. Her smile was now as brilliant as... no, more brilliant than that of the character in the game as she held out a hand to her junior.

“Alright.” Maki agreed, grabbing her bag before taking her senior’s hand and letting her lead her out of the clubroom.

Author’s Note Continued: No, the game in the scene is not SIF. I still maintain that SIF does not exist in HtHaN. However, with as many mobile rhythm games as there are in the real word, it’s not hard to imagine some iteration of them occurring in this world. And since at least one is themed around idols, of course Nico and Hanayo play that one. However, just because the game isn’t actually SIF, or any other game from our world, doesn’t mean I can’t reference certain parts from any real world game. So, I’ll see where things go.

So, HtHaN has a rhythm game in it now. I guess I’ll probably want to bring it up again at some point. More notes for the collection!