a/n: i'd like to thank kurokeesu on tumblr for this idea, i had a lot of fun writing it

featuring: more snarky natsuki and everyone being angry about lexa's death

Reina Kousaka was not, by anyone's standards, having a good day. Seemingly endless, draining days of explaining computers to grandmothers and painstakingly attempting to help irresponsible college students delete viruses from their phones would leave anyone exhausted, but for Reina it was doubly so - a day job, when coupled with an ambitious drive to become a recognized musician, left her returning to her house ready to fall asleep every night, only for her to remember that she had a gig at some small bar in an hour. Not only had at least twelve tired-sounding mothers in a row begged her to tell them how to set child-friendly filters for their laptops, her boss had started to demand more of the employees, leaving Reina as a mess of a tech-support woman with a half-filled cup of coffee in one hand and a list of demands in the other. Five-o-clock felt like it was years away.

Kumiko Oumae was not, by most people's standards, having a good day. Squeezed into Midori's junky car along with the driver herself and her other two roommates on an impromptu "adventure," as Hazuki liked to call them, a pop song blared on the radio while Natsuki complained about the state of the car.

"Hey, isn't this thing ninety percent duct tape at this point?" she grunted, peeling an unidentified object from one of the windows.

"Tuba-kun's still got a lot of life left!" Midori insisted, fondly patting the dashboard.

"I still can't believe that ya named your car," Natsuki muttered.

"Hey, Natsuki, don't try and hurt Midori's feelings! This car is her heart and soul!" Hazuki argued, craning her neck back to face Natsuki.

"Isn't anyone else wondering where we're going?" Kumiko asked. Hazuki let out a laugh.

"If I told you that, Kumiko, then it wouldn't be an adventure anymore!"

"Midori, do you know where we're going?"

"Nope!" the smaller girl cheerfully replied.

"Take the next left," Hazuki advised her. Natsuki, still squashed in the backseat along with Kumiko, looked like she was about to interject before the song's chorus hit and the car exploded into badly synchronized singing.

"There's a reason why we were in a brass band and not an idol group," Natsuki muttered. Midori looked back to face her.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," she whispered. "Or the ear of the beholder, in this case." Unbeknownst to Midori, her beloved Tuba-kun was heading directly towards a rather large fallen tree in the middle of the road.

"Eyes on the road!" Kumiko nearly screeched as she hung onto Natsuki for dear life. The warning came just a few seconds too late, and Tuba-kun screeched to a halt just as it came into contact with the tree.

It was all Reina could do not to look out the window when she heard the sickening crash outside.

"Hey, did you hear that?" Reina's coworker, Shuichi, peered over his cubicle. Reina took a deep breath and held onto her cold disposition, refusing to engage in small talk no matter how concerned she was for the victims of whatever had just transpired. Taking a moment to pat the small stuffed raccoon that currently resided on her desk on the head, Reina returned to telling a teenager on the other end of the line that no, you could not illegally download a girlfriend and anyone who said otherwise was playing a foolish prank.

"It's a miracle we all made it out of there okay," Kumiko breathed, her chest still heaving as her heart thudded.

"So much for our adventure," Hazuki sighed.

"You were gonna take us to the aquarium, weren't ya?" Natsuki muttered.

"Maybe."

"Now, now, little girls, there's no need to be upset!" The four college students all turned to face the mechanic, whose name tag was currently obscured by a smudge of oil. "You, small one, you're the owner of this car, aren't you?" Midori nodded. "I can tell that you care deeply for this vehicle, and for that I will be sure to work extra-hard on fixing it for you, provided that you pay for the damage, of course."

"That's gonna cost us the equivalent of half a year's tuition fee," Natsuki groaned. "God, Midori, are ya trying to make us end up broke?"

"Tuba-kun is worth the world," Midori solemnly whispered.

One hour and a rather awkward bus ride later, the group of four arrived back at their dorm with an air of tiredness enveloping all of them.

"Hey, Kumiko," Natsuki grunted as she took her usual spot on the couch. "Could ya look up that thing about how student tuition rates keep going up every year? I kinda need to prove a point to these two." The older girl jabbed a finger in Hazuki and Midori's direction. Kumiko dutifully nodded, still slightly shaken by the experience the four had shared just an hour ago. Spending some time online calms people's nerves, right? Pulling her clunky tablet from its usual drawer, the girl tapped through apps begging to be updated and tried not to cut her fingers on the cracked screen.

"Yeah, it looks like they-" Just then, the screen went blank, and Kumiko groaned in frustration.

"Maybe it's time for you to get a new one," Midori suggested. "That barely seems to be running as it is." Kumiko protectively held the tablet to her chest, shielding its screen from Midori as if she was a threat.

"The new layout hurts my eyes," she muttered. Natsuki shrugged.

"Hey, lay off of her for now," she said. Kumiko silently thanked the older girl. "We've all had a long day, mainly due to your ancient car."

"Insult Tuba-kun one more time, I dare you!"

"It makes weird noises whenever you turn on the radio."

"You mean music?"

"No. Like, rumblings. I'm always afraid of the thing suddenly exploding."

"Midori's car isn't the only thing making weird noises," Hazuki pointed out.

"What?" Natsuki and Midori said in unison.

"Kumiko's tablet. It's been making this weird clacking sound lately. I thought that it was just the building, but I just heard it again. It can't be anything else!"

"You're right!" Midori seemed to forget about her argument with Natsuki for the time being, poking Kumiko's tablet and tapping random parts of the screen.

"Listen, Kumiko," Natsuki sighed. "I know that ya love that tablet more than anyone really should, but I think you should probably still call tech support or something. It's the only computer we've got between the four of us."

"Fine," Kumiko muttered. "I'll call them in twenty minutes after dinner, would that be okay with you three?" Midori and Hazuki nodded. Natsuki shrugged.

Twenty minutes passed after a small, microwaved dinner for four, and Kumiko stayed true to her word and dialed the local tech support's number. A recorded, poor imitation of an orchestra droned on over the speaker.

"Hang up!" Midori squeaked. "Music isn't meant to be used this way."

"Give it a few minutes," Natsuki muttered. "These things usually take forever."

"That's not the point! This is a weak group of amateurs pretending to know something about music. Nothing good can come from this, Kumiko." Kumiko was just about to hang up the phone (mostly to get Midori to stop talking) when a smooth, feminine voice spoke up from the tinny speaker.

"Hello? This is tech support, Reina Kousaka speaking. Please describe your situation."

"She's got a nice voice," Midori squeaked.

"Is this a prank call?" the speaker - Reina, apparently - inquired, a sharp edge to her voice that seemed to imply that she had been through a rather long day and was mostly running on caffeine at this point. Kumiko shoved the phone to her own ear and shushed Midori.

"N-no, it's not a prank call at all! Definitely not a prank call, no prank calls here, nope!"

"Good, because I doubt that I would have been able to handle one more nuisance today. Now, what seems to be the trouble?"

"Uh, my t-tablet's making some weird noises and it's running sorta slowly."

"Can you describe the noises?"

"It's like . . . clacking. You know how old-timey typewriters sound sometimes? That's what this is."

"Hmm . . ." Reina trailed off, and Kumiko could hear the sounds of papers being shuffled aside and the faint 'tap-tap' of a keyboard. "That's rarely a good sign. How long has it been since you purchased this tablet?" Kumiko shrugged before remembering that Reina couldn't see her.

"Er, a few years ago, I think? I don't r-really remember."

"Have you been keeping it consistently updated?"

"Nope. The new layout hurts my eyes."

"Which layout?"

"The one from . . . uh . . . the update with a seven in it, maybe?"

"That happened over two years ago. In all honesty, I'm somewhat surprised that this tablet is even still working at all."

"I'm not updating it." Kumiko heard a faint told ya from Natsuki across the room, which she promptly ignored. "This thing's p-pretty much my lifeboat when it comes to most of my daily stuff. I w-wouldn't be able to handle not being able to look at it for more than a few seconds."

"We're not supposed to engage in small talk," Reina said. "However, I'm too tired to really resist, so perhaps you could enlighten me on why this tablet in particular holds such importance to you."

"W-well, I go on a lot of websites and stuff, online communities and forums for people who want to talk about their common interests. Most of my roommates tend to literally leave the room every time I even try to bring up the injustice of this one character's death, and-"

"I see I'm not the only one who was upset by that. I don't know your name, but I believe that we may see eye-to-eye on more things than originally thought. Perhaps you could bring your tablet here in a few days, and I could take a look at it while we discussed the cheap exploitation of people for television ratings?" Kumiko blinked.

"Uh, s-sounds good," she mumbled. "Would this Saturday work?"

"Yes, I believe that would work. I'll see you then." The phone hung up with a click, and Kumiko set it back down on the table.

"Hazuki, ya owe me ten bucks," Natsuki grunted.

"You three were betting on me? For what?"

"Hazuki thought that you were going to give up and finally update it," Midori explained. "Natsuki said you were too stubborn! I guess she was right."

"I wasn't expecting you to get a date out of it, though," Natsuki muttered. "People don't usually ask each other out over a broken tablet." Kumiko could feel the tips of her ears turning red.

"It's n-not a date. I'm just g-going to see her for my tablet, that's all." Natsuki snorted. Kumiko glared at her before collapsing on the couch, ready to fall asleep.

Saturday came all too quickly, and before she knew it, Kumiko was taking the bus (she could no longer trust Tuba-kun to bring her anywhere alive) to the tech support center, a gray, dull-looking building with nothing to identify it except for its address and a small plaque at the entrance. A tired-looking woman at the desk asked her who she was there to see.

"Uh, R-Reina," she stuttered. The woman - Aoi Satou, her nameplate read - pointed across the room, where someone was sitting on a metal bench. The girl on the bench looked up, her violet eyes making contact with Kumiko's.

"You must be the one with the broken tablet, then?" she inquired. Kumiko nodded.

"It's, uh, it's not really broken, it's just old and-" The girl stuck out her hand.

"Reina Kousaka."

"Eh?"

"My name is Reina Kousaka, although you probably know that already."

"I'm K-Kumiko Oumae," Kumiko mumbled as she shook Reina's hand. It's soft, she thought.

"It's nice to meet you, Kumiko Oumae. I suppose I should remain professional and take a look at your tablet." Kumiko dug through her bag for the device, carefully handing it over to Reina once she had found it. The other girl turned it around in her hands, treating it like a fine and precious thing instead of an old computer. "This really is quite old. I can understand why you would refuse to update it, though."

"Is there anything you can do without updating it?" Kumiko pressed. "I mean, I'm f-fine with it as it is, but everyone else in my apartment's freaking out about the clacking noises and stuff, so-"

"I believe that it's functioning fine," Reina interrupted. "You have nothing to worry about, at least not for several years or unless you accidentally drop it into a swimming pool."

"S-so, uh, I guess that means I should leave, then?" Reina checked her watch.

"Actually, I'm almost on break, so perhaps we could go to the nearby diner and discuss the use of the youth for the sake of popularity and cultural relevance?"

"What?"

"The thing we were talking about earlier. The character's death."

"Oh. Right. That."

Reina had an air of weariness about her, dressed in gray clothes and walking a few feet ahead of Kumiko with some kind of instrument case in her hands.

"That's a trumpet, right?" Kumiko asked, pointing to the case. Reina nodded. "I used to play the euph in high school, but I got too busy once I got to college."

"That's a shame," Reina murmured. "Euphoniums are rather underappreciated, don't you think? I don't doubt that you would have been able to make something of an impact, had you continued in pursuit of the craft." I've just met her, and she's already judging my life choices?

"W-what about you, then? You look like you're the same age as me, but you work full-time at a tech support company and somehow manage to squeeze in trumpet practice on top of that."

"I have to," Reina replied matter-of-factly, as if that was the only obvious answer and Kumiko would be a fool for thinking anything otherwise.

"Uh, a-anyway, are we almost at the diner? I don't really come to this part of town often."

"We're here, actually." Reina turned to face the building and immediately headed for the double doors, hardly giving Kumiko time to even follow her. Kumiko looked around once she was inside. It was clear that this was a space for the daily business crowd - people hunched over their computers, scribbling into books, staring at piles of paperwork with tired expressions. It was admittedly somewhat depressing, but Kumiko didn't comment on it.

"It's, uh, nice."

"You don't need to lie, Kumiko. I understand that it can be somewhat . . . dreary, and it does take getting used to, but many of the people here are actually quite friendly." Reina slid into a booth, and Kumiko followed her lead. "Now, the character. I would assume that you are aware of the controversy?" Kumiko nodded.

"It's really bad. I still can't believe that they did that."

"On the bright side, it has raised awareness. What are your roommates' stances on it?"

"Well . . ."

The date - if it could even be called that - ended far too quickly, and Kumiko fumbled for a goodbye as Reina stood up from the table and began to leave.

"W-wait!"

"Hmm?"

"Uh . . . could I, er, have your p-phone number? I mean, your personal one, n-not the tech support one." Reina blinked.

"I suppose it can't hurt," she replied, pulling a scrap from her purse and scribbling the number on it. Kumiko mumbled a quick thank you before clutching the paper to her chest and running from the diner with a grin on her face.

Best broken tablet ever.