This is the first fanfic that I publish on this website. As I haven't written in ages my writing skills might be a little bit rusty, however, I hope you'll be able to cope with me and enjoy this. I also apologise for any OOC characters, I am still very new in the Love Live fandom.

The prologue is very short, but I promise the rest of the chapters will be longer. I can't promise regular updates either, but I'll do my best.

Well, without any further ado: I do not own the Love Live franchise (if I did, I wouldn't need to write fanfictions).

Enjoy!

When the third graders graduated, the now disbanded μ's knew that their lives, although slightly, would have changed.

However, what none of them expected, was everything going downhill.

It all started with Maki, whom one day, after stepping inside the clubroom, stared at the other five people inside and mumbled the words they never wanted to hear from her mouth, ever.

"I quit being an idol."

Everyone else in the room simply stared at her in a state of shock, eyes wide and mouths opening slowly, silence overwhelming all of them.

"Excuse me, what did you say?"

The first person to talk after a whole minute was Umi, as the rest still couldn't quite comprehend what just had happened.

Maki sighed, moving a hand up to her hair and twirling her red curls nervously with one finger, her gaze turning away in order to stare at the half empty shelves, as their former club leader, Nico, had taken most of her belongings back home.

For a couple of moments she wondered if she should just leave the room and sprint through the halls in order to escape the approaching storm that was the dark blue haired girl, but in the end, for some reason unknown to her, she settled with standing in front of the door while trying to deal with everyone's eyes burning through her skin.

"I..." Maki started, unable to talk, shifting her weight from one foot to another uncomfortably, browsing her brain for the best words she could use to explain herself. "... I said that I quit." she repeated herself, finally glancing back at Umi, slowly gathering up the courage needed to confront her.

"Maki-chan, why?!" Rin was the second person to finally get out of her trance, standing up and accidentally pushing down the chair she was sitting on, managing to startle everyone, even herself. "I thought you liked it?!"

The redhead could only stare at her, swallowing and eventually stopping to play around with her locks, moving the hand back down and letting it rest on her hips. "It's... not like I don't like it or anything!" she said, sounding once again like the Maki everyone used to know. "It's complicated. Look, I don't want to go deep into detail, but I just can't go on anymore."

Silence took over the clubroom once again, and Maki had started to wonder if she hurt their feelings. She had her own set of problems to deal with, her decision really had absolutely nothing to do with any of them. She wished she could have just explained herself, however, she was unable to; everytime she tried to bring that up, a knot would form in her throat, stopping her voice from coming out completely, so eventually she just gave up, preferring to not enlighten her fellow club members.

The redhead was about to turn around and leave, but she didn't even have the time to move one single limb, as someone had started talking again, recognising her voice as Kotori's.

"It can't be helped, Umi-chan. If Maki-chan wants to quit, we can't stop her." she said with a sad smile, looking over to the standing girl and leaning her head slightly to the side. "But... if you leave, who's going to compose our songs?" she suddenly asked, and that perked everyone's head up, worry taking over their shocked features.

Maki knew immediately what the gray haired girl was trying to do: making her feel bad and then just join the group again; but that was not going to work with her today. She had made her decision, and she would keep it, no matter what. She was going to suggest that she'd keep composing their songs in the background, however, now she was slightly interested in seeing if they could find a way out of their predicament.

After about twenty minutes of thinking and mumbling something to themselves, no one could come up with a decent idea. Honoka was about to stand up and announce their idol careers as finished, but Maki stopped her in time, twirling her hair once again.

"If that's alright with you, I can keep composing... I just don't want to sing and dance anymore." she muttered, looking at all of them, one by one, until she found the empty shelves more interesting than the others again.

She completely missed their faces lightening up and Honoka flinging herself onto the redhead, mumbling various 'Thank you's while everyone else relaxed, thinking that it was a fair deal after all. None of them wanted to force anything on the other, after all, and Maki was glad that they didn't push her any further for her reasons.

That was when she curled the corners of her lips slightly up, forming a small smile, while looking at Honoka, whom was still clinging onto her. Umi and Kotori's shoulders lowered slightly, free of their earlier stiffening, now looking at each other while discussing future plans and songs.

Only Hanayo and Rin, Maki's classmates, had noticed the slight hint of sadness in the redhead's smile, worry growing in them; though, they refrained from asking her, for the time being.

In another part of the city, a certain black haired girl, was having a hard time dealing with one of her best friends. She could only stare at the purple haired one sitting in front of her, eyebrow slightly twitching in annoyance and worry at the same time, until a few minutes after, she finally let out the question she kept inside of her mind ever since they started hanging out more than usual.

"... just what the hell is wrong, Nozomi?"