Standing still in the middle of the room, I wondered, "Surprise?"

Aya crossed her arms and nodded. "Do you want to hear it or not?"

"Just spit it out already."

"Three venue managers have called us so far."

"Venue managers? For what?" I frowned.

"What do you mean for what, you idiot? They called to ask us to perform at their venues."

My mind went blank. "Huh?"

She sighed and raised her voice, "They want Blostars to perform—"

"I understood that!" I yelled. "Did three venues really reach out to us to perform at their venues?"

"Why would I lie about that?"

The gears in my brain started spinning again. "Alright. How big are they?"

"One has capacity for one thousand people, another one for fifteen hundred, and the last one for two thousand two hundred people."

Contradicting feelings tightened my chest. "I believe we can fill the first two, but two thousand and two hundred people is a lot."

"Not if we announce the show months prior," replied Tomokazu. "We can advertise it as the closing show of the tour as well."

"But we haven't planned a tour," I said.

"Dear friend, it's the next natural step to take."

"Yeah, I know. It's just that we haven't even announced the album yet. I'll decide on a date after talking with the girls. Talking about dates, what days do the venues want us to perform on?"

"We haven't come to an agreement yet," answered Aya.

"What? Why?"

"Because that's something you should do. I did tell them that we'll get back to them within a week, so please keep that in mind."

"Okay, I will. Did they tell you anything about the terms?"

She nodded. "Two of them would pay us in advance but take a large cut of the ticket sales."

"How much?"

"One of them would give us fifty thousand terras and the other one, thirty. We would get thirty percent of the ticket sales from both."

My head struggled to process it. "That's a lot. What about the other venue?"

"No payment in advance, but we would get eighty percent of the ticket sales."

"Sounds good too, but it's somewhat useless since I have no numbers to compare them to. That'll be my task for the afternoon after talking with the girls, which I should do now."

Finally, I set off upstairs to the dance studio. To my surprise, they weren't dancing. Instead, they were quarreling about what the next movement should be in the choreography. I was even hesitant to interrupt them.

Satō eventually glanced at me, then the girls turned around. Astra immediately ran to hug me, while everyone else's frowns switched into smiles.

"I'm so happy you're back!" grinned Astra.

"We all are," added Risa.

"I am too," I smiled. "Sorry for interrupting your work."

"Don't worry, I'm sure you have a lot to discuss with them," Satō replied. "We also need to cool off a little bit," she laughed nervously.

The girls merely sat down on the wooden floor, while Satō pulled one of the chairs to the middle of the room to join the meeting. I didn't expect the simple thing of standing in front of them to raise my mood this much.

"Summary of the past three days; go," I said.

Everyone snapped their heads toward Umi, who looked back at them in confusion.

"We recorded Sanae's present song, making a total of three recorded songs, and I finished writing the song Aeryx will record with us. I still need to work on Rain In Heart, the song about my past, and Silent Harmony, the song about Risa's past."

"Perfect," I replied. "Do you—"

"I have two suggestions, though."

"Oh. What are they?"

"Do you really want the titles of the songs about our present to be our names? I still think it's too simple."

"We already held a vote for this."

"I know, but…"

"Yes, it's simple, but it works for an album introducing each of you. Only Sanae and you voted against the idea, while everyone else is okay with it."

She sighed. "Fine. The other suggestion is to make the song with Aeryx the title track."

"Wasn't it going to be the bonus song?"

"Yes, but the story of the song is about Aeryx bringing us together, which would be the best way to end the album. And because 'auras' is used a lot in the song, I decided to name it Auras, which is the name of the album."

During the trip back home on the bus, Umi told us the ideas she had for the collaboration song with Aeryx, which was to represent her as a godly entity that brought Blostars together. Although it obviously wasn't true, Umi wanted to create fictional lore for the group, giving us more room for ideas for the albums to follow.

More importantly, she had come up with the title for the album: AURAS, an acronym from Astra, Umi, Risa, Aki, and Sanae.

"It's not a bad idea," I replied, "but that means we won't have a bonus song to include in the deluxe edition. What would we offer instead?"

Umi answered, "A bonus song is not necessary, but I can write another one if you want. Covers, remixes, or other versions of the songs could also work."

"What about behind-the-scenes content?" suggested Sanae. "Aeryx included that in her latest album."

The idea instantly clicked. "Why didn't I think about that before? Now we can only record content for the second half of the album since the first half is already done."

"We've only recorded three songs," Umi said, "there's still plenty of work to do."

Aki added, "We also have recordings of us coming up with the choreography for each song, including those from the first album."

"Seriously?" I asked.

"Of course. We don't want to forget the steps as we work on them, and having references is essential."

"Why didn't I know about this?"

"Because you didn't have to."

"True. Talking about choreography, were you having trouble with that when I arrived?"

The five of them glanced at each other before laughing nervously.

"You could say that," answered Risa. "We've only finished the choreography for one song so far."

"Really?"

She nodded, while the rest of them lowered their heads.

I continued, "This brings me to the most important topic of today's meeting: the release date for the album. How long do you think it'll take to finish it?"

They all glanced at each other.

"Before this, I would've been confident to say one month," answered Sanae. "Now, it could be a month and a half or even two months. Maybe more."

The rest of them nodded.

After thinking in silence, I replied, "We have to make the announcement in three or four days to take advantage of the controversy. At the same time, it wouldn't be ideal to announce a date too far away. Do you think it'll take that long because you need to come up with the choreography for all the songs?"

"Pretty much," answered Aki.

"But releasing the album doesn't require the choreography to be complete, does it?"

Confused, they glanced at each other.

"Not really," Risa answered.

Astra asked, "But wouldn't it be ideal to start the tour the same day we release the album as Aeryx did?"

"I haven't said anything about a tour," I replied.

"Ah, I'm sorry. I assumed there would be one."

"There will be one, we just haven't discussed that yet."

Her eyes sparkled and her grin returned.

Sanae added, "It would be ideal, yes, but it's not necessary. It depends on the artist and even varies with each album."

"What she said," Umi replied.

I asked, "Then do you agree to set the release date for a month and a half from now?"

Their eyes opened wide. They glanced at each other and stayed silent for a while until finally nodding with confidence.

"Good. Let's get to work."

And so, the final stretch for the second album began.

The first thing I did was to tell everyone in GIMA about the release date and assign them a job.

Aya had to work fast to prepare the social media posts. She even suggested buying advertisement spots along the busiest streets of several cities across the country, which I agreed with. My soul cried when I saw the spot price for a mere day, but it was worth it.

Not only did Jun have to work with Aya to make the art for the announcements, but he also still had to work on making the art for the album, in addition to editing the behind-the-scenes content. To top it off, we came up with the idea of making a music video for the song Auras, but it was too crazy to pull off in real life. We decided to ask Jun for an animation.

Miki worked with the girls to record and produce the songs while also coming up with ideas for the stage design they wanted to use for the tour.

Obviously, Satō worked with the girls to come up with the choreography for each of the songs while they tried their best to keep their heads cool.

Knowing they were going to struggle to come up with their moves, we came to an agreement with the venue managers about the show dates. The biggest one was located in Saitama, making it a great place to end the tour, but it meant that I had to choose the date for the last show before the rest of them. Although not ideal, we still could change the dates if absolutely necessary.

Finally, we were ready to make the announcement of the album's release date.