@ChocoChicken @WavePearl "Looks like we'll have to make another trip to Yuka Music for Maya-chan," Robin said. "I'm assuming Tamal-kun will take bass then? Unless Cordelia-chan wants to." He continued playing while Robyn and Alex continued practicing.
"Oh, sure, I can try that!" Tamal perked up immediately. "We do have the notes charted somewhere, right?" Alex made a quick mental note - she couldn't exactly speak up now, in the middle of singing, but one could tell she was trying to check if that was something else she needed to do.
Robin and Robyn smiled at Tamal's enthusiasm. After the first run-through of the song, Robyn said to Tamal, "Maya-chan has the chord chart with her. I think you've checked it out already? I can print another copy for you upstairs if you'd like." On the other hand, Robin was one of those people who could tell Alex wanted to speak up about something. "Hey, everything okay?"
@122 Generation For the moment, Maya decided to see how the song would sound on an acoustic, just for fun. But after a quick run through, she nudged the sheet in Tamal's direction. "Here...I'm done with the sheet for now."
"Oh, it's good! I can try bass. You did it last time, and it looked fun," Tamal quickly interjected. He still took the sheet, though, and quickly turned to Robyn for permission to borrow her guitar for a few notes. "Huh? Me? ...I'm fine." Alex shook her head. "Just... let me know if there's anything you- we need."
Before Robin could press Alex for more answers, he was interrupted by Robyn pausing her dance momentarily so that she could grab her guitar and hand it to Tamal. "Here you go, Tamal-kun! Best to practice with a guitar while you have the chance," she said with a smile. "You should be able to get used to it. It's in key of G, so... very simple." After Robyn had handed her guitar over, Robin tried talking to Alex again. If he didn't know better, there was a certain lonely vibe that Alex was giving. "Likewise," he said to her. Robyn then walked over to Alex and Robin. "Righto. Shall we take this from the top again?"
@122 Generation @ChocoChicken @WavePearl After the first run-through of Tiny Stars, while everyone else were squabbling over the bass part, Nora suddenly felt the need for a toilet break. She looked around to find a bathroom... but seems like there were none down here, so there had to be one upstairs. And seeing that Robin was busy, Nora went up to his (much younger) sister and asked her, "Uh, Morgan-chan, can I use the bathroom?"
@SAF Morgan giggled at being addressed by the girl who really wasn’t that much taller than her. So this was how smol Nora was! “Of course you can, Nora onee-chan! It’s really a shame there isn’t one down here, but that’s why there’s one above! I’ll get you a lemon puff too,” Morgan said. Having finished her shioyaki, she hopped onto her feet to lead Nora back to the front door and to the stairs on the right (all while Robyn and Robin were unaware of this). Nora would find herself at the top of the stairs afterward, with the kitchen and dinner table in front of her, the living room to the space on her right, and - to the left - a short hallway leading to three bedrooms. The bathroom was in the middle of the hallway. “Right over there, Nora onee-chan,” Morgan pointed at the bathroom door. “I’ll be heading back down.” (But she didn’t actually go downstairs yet until she grabbed a lemon puff)
So now Morgan led the violinist to the bathroom. The latter thanked the former afterwards as the younger girl went her merry way. One toilet break later, curiosity ensued on Nora's part when she saw one of the bedrooms -- what was supposed to be a guest room -- had its door somewhat opened for some reason. She walked over to the door only to find it slightly revealing what looked like how a teenage girl would decorate her room. Wondering what could be inside, Nora entered the room...
@SAF As Nora entered the guest room, she would find herself seeing several things that would be considered a little girly for Robin and a little mature for Morgan. There was a bed positioned before the window with an enormous Genshin-style Slime plushie, a Poketto plushie of Tepig, and very adorable cushions on top (with patterns of pink and white). Moreover there was a Meloetta doll before the pillow in addition to the plushies. There was also a desk complete with a lamp and laptop, a stack of shoujo manga (including the latest volume of Culinary Rivals, which arguably was or was not a shoujo), some beauty or skincare products (would Robin or Morgan actually use these?) and a bookshelf half-full of books. Figurines lined up on the edge of the window and on the other half of the bookshelf (which included protagonists from Poketto and Generals of Hyrule), with a poster of the Uta-loid Hatsune Miku. Lastly, there was what appeared to be a notebook beside the laptop (which really was a support log), along with a vaguely familiar Poketto notebook, and a closet built into the wall across the window. Hanged on the closet door was a girls' Plegia City School uniform and - if Nora looked even more closely - she would find lots of girls' clothes that were clearly too big for Morgan (let alone Nora herself) as well as a cosplay of White (the female player character from Poketto White). What kind of guest room was this?! For a guest room, it was almost like someone lived here.
@122 Generation The first thing in the room that caught Nora's attention was the Plegia City School uniform hanging on the closet door. It immediately struck her as odd because the uniform looked like a female version of Robin's uniform -- and there was quite a good amount of Plegia City School transfers in Ylisstol High. Also, skincare products? That pretty much screamed "a teenage girl lives here", for Naga's sake! As for who this teenage girl specifically was, the brunette caught on several clues about it: The Meloetta doll from the Clubs Day; The Wooper and Link papercrafts Nora and Kai had made for Robyn back when she was in a bad mood from Tala's departure; and An opened notebook beside the laptop that looked like a... diary? Curiosity ensued, Nora peered closer at the book... only for her face to tinge with pink. Why? Because some entries in the diary (?) were actually talking about her. That, and there were also some entries talking about the author's more-than-just-friends feelings to Robin with a brief mention of "my Morgan" in it... wait, what? Wasn't Morgan Robin's sister? @WavePearl @ChocoChicken Meanwhile, Kai Hansen was having too much fun playing Fantaisie Impromptu on the piano while waiting for everyone else to finish their squabble. So much that he failed to notice his little sister missing.
@SAF Maya, meanwhile, looked up from going over some tabs to notice someone was missing. "Um, Kai? Where did your sister get to?"
"Huh?" Kai stopped playing the piano upon hearing Maya calling him. "Wait-- wait, really?" he stuttered when she asked about Nora's whereabouts. The third-year brunet then scanned the room... Oh dear. Maya was right. Nora was nowhere to be seen.
(Still not feelin the greatest but good enough to type here again so) Tamal flashed Robyn a thumbs-up, before plucking at the notes. Yeah, this wasn't too bad. He could probably take it. "From the top it is," Alex responded, stretching for a moment before preparing to go again... "...should we wait for Nora? She is in the song, after all, even if not vocally."
@SAF @WavePearl @ChocoChicken Just when everyone seemed to be ready to practice Tiny Stars again and that the bass part had been settled, Maya raised the issue that Nora appeared to be missing. Then everyone else, including Robyn and Robin, became conscious that their violinist was not in their presence. That caused them to temporarily halt their session. “Um… She can’t just disappear like that,” Robin said. “Unless she stepped out?” “Oh! Onii-chan!” Morgan soon reappeared at the door from the foyer, with a box of lemon puffs for everyone no less. “No need to worry. Nora onee-chan needed to use the bathroom, so I showed her upstairs.” “You wha-? I… I see,” Robin replied, his voice trying to remain as calm as possible. Beside him, Robyn was trying hard to not show panic in her eyes. Then Robin said, “Excuse me, I’ll check if she is up there then.” He walked out of the door towards the staircase - at normal pace at first. But by the time he turned to go upstairs Robin had sprinted up and turned to the hallway to find the bathroom door open and the lights out. Wait… Could Nora possibly be in Morgan’s, his, or Robyn’s bedroom?! Crap. He had been through battles in the Halidom before, but this sort of battle was looking like one he couldn’t win. “Nora-chan?” he called. “You around?” At once his mind tried to create different kinds of conspiracies to explain things, whatever things Nora might ask.
“OMG!!! I asked Robin-kun if he had a girlfriend!!” Wait, what??? Nora curiously tilted her head. It did look like the author had some feelings for Robin. “…I asked him if I could be his girlfriend…he had the same feelings, but told me it wouldn’t work because we were the same. But we’re not the same!” Whoa, what's with the "we were the same" part? I mean, looking back, there were some things that seemed like Robyn and Robin copying each other yet didn't quite feel like it. So... could this be Robyn's diary Nora was reading all along? “…In the end, he accepted me!!!! He even said I was important to him and that I was quite pretty >_< He even confessed his love after!” Could it be... the talent-idol club's whiteheads were actually lovebirds all this time? And was this the case of a girlfriend staying long-term with her boyfriend for reasons only the couple and Naga knew? "Nora-chan? You around?" Oh no. Oh dear. Nora was not supposed to be there yet she did. So now the young brunette hastily flipped the diary back to the page it was open at when she first found it, then rolled under the bed -- and it actually fit considering how smol she was. For some reason she could hear her own heart beating wildly. This honestly felt like that one stealth minigame in Evo Quest where the main characters had to infiltrate Shadowblight Academy, come to think of it. (Yes, the Hansens have a co-op savefile in Evo Quest game where Nora plays as Aine and Kai plays as Blacky. And yes, this part of Robyn's diary is based on the Robyins' S-support story.)
('Some things' like holding their chopsticks in the same manner or eating at the exact same pace? Oh man, I can only imagine a fanart where Nora and Kai are playing Evo Quest together) At this point, Robin rushed to check the bedrooms at the end of the hallway. His bedroom to the left, Robyn's to the left front, and Morgan's to the right. Only Morgan's bedroom door was closed, and his and Robyn's were open. Briefly, he peered into each room to look for any possibility that Nora was in them. No one was in Morgan's room - instead Robin found a lot of tomes. Then he walked across to check his own room. His figurines and plushies were where they were supposed to be, along with his support log, books, laptop, and schoolbag. He smiled as he thought back to how long he had lived in this room, and how long Robyn had started living in the room beside. Then he went to push open the door to Robyn's room to see if anyone was in there. There better not be! Robin was only met by deafened silence when he walked into Robyn's room. He chuckled at the sight of the Slime plushie, as he remembered the painful lengths he had gone through to win the plushie for her. Those were good times, and looking back, he remembered it was one of those instances where he grew closer to Robyn. But seeing that Nora was not in Robyn's room, Robin breathed a sigh of relief. At least that was one thing to not worry about (or so he thought). "Nora-chan?" he called as he stepped out of the room. @ChocoChicken @WavePearl On the floor below, Morgan was happily handing out her lemon puffs to Cordelia and others while she watched the practice. Even though she had a sadistic side in crushing people with tomes, it was very sweet of her to be handing out treats like this. Even Robyn gladly took the one Morgan offered her. (Fun fact: the Slime plushie episode occurred in Robyn's B-support story)
Still hiding under the bed, Nora could see Robin coming in. She nervously watched him looking around, smiling for some reason, then left the room, all while holding her breath. It took her a little while to actually calm down -- at least until she could barely hear Robin's "Nora-chan?" -- before rolling out from under the bed and running downstairs for her dear life. Meanwhile, Kai helped himself to one of the lemon puffs Morgan had kindly offered. He was still debating on whether or not he should save one for Nora...
(Going to assume Robin walked as far as the living room because that’s the spot where his back will be facing the stairs) Based on the fact that she could hear the unusually loud thumping noise of the stairs, Robyn guessed something must have happened while Nora was upstairs. “Oh hey, Nora-chan. Welcome back! Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Robyn greeted as the younger Hansen reappeared at the lower floor, right as she was about to practice Tiny Stars again. Morgan went up to Nora after serving Kai his. “Here, Nora-neechan. Have a lemon puff.” Neither did it take long for Robin to appear after. Looking at Nora, whose face looked pale unless he was imagining it, he added, “Uh, is everything okay, everyone? Or can I get anyone a drink?”