Uneasy daily life

"Huh? Didn't I make myself very clear?!"

"What kind of clarity is that..."

Bai Ying shook her head: "Because your sister is a typical tsundere."

Store manager: "?"

Nijika Ijichi: "Uh..."

boom!

You passed! You passed! You passed!

The incantation spun and spun in the vortex, finally reaching its center and falling down, transforming into a powerful arrow.

"Ah! Goto-san has collapsed! Goto-san! Are you alright?!"

"Guluuluulu..."

"Pochi is foaming at the mouth... Could it be a crab?"

The review concluded amidst a chaotic commotion.

……

……

"I'm sorry, it was all my fault... Please punish me, please condemn me..."

"Hehe... I passed the test..."

"I'm just a presumptuous little slug..."

"Red bean paste private Marseille..."

Inside the brand-new trash can, a pink creature huddled, uttering muffled murmurs.

"Poch-chan, come out quickly, there's cola here~"

Ichi Nijika tried to persuade her.

"Goto-kun! This isn't your fault, we've already passed the test!"

Kita tried to comfort him.

At first glance, it looks like two high school girls using a trash can as a confessional.

Bai Ying sat at the table and said with great interest, "So the Brave Pro has a habit of crawling into trash cans? No wonder there are two trash cans here."

"The culprit should reflect on his own actions," Mai Sakurajima remarked.

"How dare you!" Bai Ying declared emphatically, "Who spoke for the shopkeeper's true feelings? It was me! Who ripped off the arrogant and stern mask? It was me! Who gave encouragement and recognition to the End Band? It was me! The one standing before you is a hero!"

Beside the trash can, two high school girls who were trying to persuade the pink, cowering creature simultaneously cast sharp glances at them.

Sakurajima Mai couldn't help but add, "It was you who caused this accident in the first place."

Yamada Ryo leaned back slightly and said, "What a terrible shamelessness."

The store manager, wiping the glasses, shouted with veins bulging on his forehead, "This is outside of business hours! Unauthorized personnel should not linger!"

"Oh dear, this is the lyricist I invited! Shop manager, please be lenient this once!"

Yukinoshita Haruno smiled and placed the paper and pen on the table, pushing them toward Shiro: "You'd better hurry, I have a performance tonight."

"I feel more comfortable staring at a blank computer screen than with paper and pen."

Bai Ying sighed and pulled out her notebook, then began to stare at it, lost in thought about the lyrics.

Yukino took out her guitar and gently plucked the strings. The melody, sometimes high and sometimes low, was the very piece she had written.

Mai Sakurajima suddenly found herself bored.

Black Fan is scratching his head while creating something, Yukino Yukinoshita is casually practicing her guitar, the three who are temporarily alive after the band ended are continuing their part-time jobs and discussing training, the shop manager and another employee are working on the performance hall... and there's also the half-dead Trash Can Limited Edition Goto Ichiri.

Brave Pro.

Mai Sakurajima pondered for a moment and began to observe.

The fact that the hater calls himself "Hero Plus" likely means he thinks his actions of being honest with his mother and leaving home to be independent are brave. What about Goto Ichiri? It's undeniable that the hater has a terrifyingly keen sense for people, able to extract the crucial thread from their hearts.

However, he really did come here to write lyrics; I thought he was investigating puberty syndrome.

"Hey hater, what lyrics are you planning to write?"

"The song title has been decided: 'Metamorphosis'."

The white figure swayed, trying to shake the inspiration out of his head. He said in a monotone tone, "I'm still thinking about the lyrics. To put it simply, it's about metamorphosis..."

"From cocoon to butterfly?" Mai Sakurajima pondered the Japanese word for a moment, then said strangely, "Shouldn't it be from cocoon to moth?"

"Transformation from a cocoon into a moth?"

Yukino Yukinoshita paused slightly, then said subtly, "If it's this word, it does have an interesting meaning..."

“I don’t know the meaning of that word or phrase, and I’ve forgotten where I saw it.” Mai Sakurajima recalled for a moment and then chatted, “Butterfly larvae don’t spin cocoons. The ones that do spin cocoons are silkworms, and when silkworms grow up, they become moths. So there’s no such thing as a butterfly emerging from a cocoon.”

"I probably saw it online by chance. That's how the internet works; you'll occasionally be bombarded with obscure and strange knowledge."

Bai Ying had already taken out her phone and started searching. She looked at the results with a thoughtful expression, comparing most of them, and muttered, "Butterfly larvae basically don't spin silk to form cocoons. They just harden directly from the larval stage into pupae, and then the butterfly emerges from the pupa. Silkworms, on the other hand, spin silk to form cocoons, become pupae inside the cocoons, grow into moths, and then emerge from the cocoons..."

Thinking of something, Bai Ying looked it up in a Chinese idiom dictionary and complained, "Damn, there's no such idiom as 'transformation from a cocoon into a butterfly'."

Yukinoshita asked, "Are you going to overturn your original ideas and rewrite it?"

"That's not important. Just like whoever first took the metaphor of metamorphosis from cocoon to butterfly to express the transformation through suffering—metamorphosis from cocoon to butterfly is an unscientific and unconventional way of saying it, so he could change it to refining stone to extract gold, carving stone into images, and cutting wood into plowshares... Nonsense is a basic skill."

"Inspiration strikes! Take off!"

Bai Ying unleashed a torrent of typing on the keyboard. A moment later, he leaned back in his chair, pleased with himself, making room for others to appreciate the lyrics.

"Oh dear, you rascal, you've missed your chance to touch my hand..."

Yukino looked at the lyrics, glanced at them briefly, and her eyebrows twitched involuntarily: "You really enjoy stabbing me in the back, you bastard."

Mai Sakurajima glanced at the other person, carefully considered the lyrics on the screen, and couldn't help but ask, "Hate Fan, are you implying something about me?"

Their voices overlapped, and they instinctively exchanged a glance.

"Yes, yes, you are all my mouth ulcers."

Bai Ying retorted, "There are more than a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand readers, and maybe even a thousand Harry Potters."

"That's true."

Yukinoshita smiled and lowered her head.

"Hmm... After a few practice sessions, I'll be ready to perform on stage by evening."

So cool! So dazzling! I'm about to be vaporized by that powerful aura of confidence!

Inside the trash can, the pink object shrank inward.

so good……

Chapter Sixty-Six: Emergence from the Cocoon (Part Two)

With the lyrics in hand, Yukinoshita Haruno borrowed the nearby Starry Night practice room to prepare for the stage performance she had arranged for that evening.

Bai Ying, now with some free time, easily closed the laptop.

Mai Sakurajima crossed her arms and watched him silently.

Bai Ying was taken aback, then adopted a serious and solemn expression, as if attending a funeral, and silently looked back.

What childish game are you playing now? A contest to see whose eyes get dry first?

Mai Sakurajima really wanted to ask how to deal with adolescent syndrome, but she felt a subtle sense of unease, so she returned a calm and composed gaze.

Ten seconds later.

With an excited yet subtle expression, Bai Ying reopened the laptop she had closed.

"...What are you doing?" Mai Sakurajima spoke up, breaking the silence.

"Creation. Although I really want to travel around and have some fun, inspiration always comes at the wrong time."

Bai Ying succinctly stated: "Luck never arrives as expected, while suffering mostly comes on time. What one desires and sees is often uneven."

The clatter of keyboards filled the air as Bai Ying immersed herself in her creative work once again.

Sakurajima Mai found herself bored again, but not wanting to disturb Shirakage's work, she lowered her head, took out her phone, and aimlessly tapped and sketched, checking what news had recently surfaced, keeping up with the movie promotions, and looking at any new comments on her previously inactive social media accounts...

Hmm? Under the post announcing his retirement from the entertainment industry, the hater had previously told people that he would definitely go back on his word and make a comeback.

Before, I might have thought that once I adjusted my situation and confirmed my direction, I might make a comeback?

Mai Sakurajima is also quite confused. Now that she's entangled in some strange things, a comeback is out of the question.

Time is of the essence; someone is waiting for me! Throughout history, countless writers and philosophers have lamented the preciousness of time. Even emperors, burdened by time constraints, tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Such an expensive thing cannot be wasted so leisurely! I must pedal this bicycle with all my might, charging forward like a knight in arms!

The second law of thermodynamics states that high-temperature energy will transfer to low-temperature energy. It's like enthusiastically pedaling a bicycle, the bike speeding along, but my legs going numb and my mood cooling down.

[Don't believe me? Then how did I come up with the second law of thermodynamics while I was riding my bike?]

Talking at length about fragmented knowledge is mostly a sign of idleness.

……

As Mai Sakurajima put away her phone, she suddenly realized that it was already evening, the performance hall had already opened, and some guests were gradually buying tickets and entering.

"Let's go, let's see how 9528 sings that song."

Bai Ying put away her laptop with great interest, looking like she was about to watch a good show.

Hmm... should I prepare a mask or something to cover myself?

Sakurajima Mai thought about it and decided against it, so she got up and followed the white figure to the edge of the stage.

Starlight is a relatively small performance hall, which can accommodate about a hundred guests.

As soon as the venue opened, about ten people arrived, mostly audience members vying for front-row seats on the performance stage. The only seating was a long bench against the wall at the back, reserved for those who weren't interested in interacting with the singers in the front and simply wanted to listen to the music, as well as those who thought, "This song is good, this song isn't so good, I don't care whether the singer is male or female, beautiful or ugly."

It seems that no one around me recognizes me.

Mai Sakurajima didn't know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or feel melancholy and troubled.

Looking around, the four members of the band seemed to have temporarily skipped work, staying in a relatively peripheral position to wait for the show to start—Nijika Ichichi, Kita, and Ryo Yamada formed a defensive line, naturally separating them from the crowd, while Ichiri Goto pressed himself against the wall, as if he were being squeezed by the crowd and the sound of the crowd, wishing he could become a painting on the wall.

She must be a girl who is extremely socially anxious, shy, and timid, right? Why would she join a band?

Mai Sakurajima was a little curious.

As the performance begins, let's turn the clock back a little and skip over the random bands (A, B, and C) who are hyping up the atmosphere.

The noise around the stage gradually grew louder, and the front row became quite crowded. As the lights flickered on and off, Yukino Yukinoshita, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a knee-length skirt, stood on the stage.

She smiled, reached for the microphone, winked her left eye at the white figure in the front row, and said softly, "Good evening, everyone. Today I'm bringing you an original song that I composed—'Metamorphosis'."

"An original song? I think it's always been covers before?"

"Yeah, it was a cover song before, and I've been a fan for ten years."

"She only showed up two weeks ago."

"His singing and guitar skills must have been practiced for a long time..."

"We were lucky to be able to listen to music quietly."

All the chatter, along with the lights that had been turning from bright to dim, went out.

Do I like music?

Yukino lowered her eyes slightly, her expression calming down, her emotions sinking with the dimming of the stage.

Probably just to find something to do and make themselves seem less bored.

A deep melody flowed from the edge of the stage, as calm as a hidden spring seeping from the soil and rocks beneath a lake, quietly permeating the air.

Yukino Yukino glanced at the white figure below the stage, forcing him to look at his wounds. What a jerk.

She began to sing into the microphone with a blank expression.

……