I have done something like this last year, and I had a lot of fun with it then so I thought I should be bringing it back for this year. A countdown leading up to Saten Ruiko Day (revolving around Saten Ruiko from the Toaru Kagaku no Railgun franchise)! But with a twist… I'm also dedicating all of them to the release of the English version of the rhythm game, BanG Dream! Girls Band Party and the one-year anniversary of the Japanese version of the same game. As a result, every oneshot in this countdown will revolve around characters from this franchise!

Special thanks to Reiriniverse from Tumblr for making and providing the cover image of this oneshot!

Disclaimer! I do not own BanG Dream! Girls Band Party

It was a beautiful late-summer day when Tsurumaki Kokoro found herself waiting in front of her school's gate while humming cheerfully to herself. Her school had yet to resume activities so the vocalist of Hello, Happy World! had decided to spend the day in a slightly different way than she usually did.

Kokoro had asked her fellow bandmates to see if any of them wanted to join her, but unfortunately for her none of them could. Kaoru and Hagumi had already promised to help their respective families, Misaki was called in suddenly to work and Kanon would probably be at Chisato's already at this point in time.

She didn't want to show it to her friends, afraid that they would feel sorry for her and cancel their plans for her, but the truth was that Kokoro was quite disappointed to hear that she would be alone today.

At least, Kokoro would be if she hadn't run into a familiar face several days ago. A familiar face who didn't have anything planned for today, either, so it didn't even take Kokoro very long to convince her to spend the day with her.

"Kokoro-chan! Sorry, I'm late!"

Kokoro turned around upon hearing her name, trying to look for the person who had called out to her. Fortunately for Kokoro, she didn't have to look very long or hard as a familiar figure skidded to a stop not far from where she was.

A brown-haired girl who didn't seem like she was much taller or much older than Kokoro was doubled over as she tried to even out her breathing from running all the way here. Kokoro tried to offer the brunette a bottle of water, but she politely turned down the offer.

"It's all right, I wasn't waiting for very long anyway," Kokoro smiled, trying to ease her friend's worries after several seconds had passed since she arrived. "Tsugumi, you know you didn't have to run all the way here, right?"

"I did… but our practice… was running late and I… didn't want to keep Kokoro…-chan waiting too long," the brunette, Hazawa Tsugumi, panted out as she tried to stand back up again. With a lot of difficulties, she finally gathered the strength to do so and forced a smile on her face, "All right… all right…"

"Are you all right, Tsugumi?" Kokoro asked carefully as she watched Tsugumi take the last couple of last deep breaths. When she saw the brunette nod in confirmation, Kokoro smiled, "That's great! Now we can get going."

"Go where, Kokoro-chan?" Tsugumi asked before Kokoro could leave her too far behind. It was only at this point that Tsugumi realized that she didn't know where Kokoro was planning on taking her, and judging from the look on Kokoro's face that would make two of them.

Kokoro blinked twice, trying to hide the fact that she was caught off guard as much as she was before she finally found the right words to respond to Tsugumi's question.

"Do you remember that time when we all went looking at the stars together with Kasumi, Hina, and Ran?" Kokoro asked Tsugumi, referring to that time when Kasumi had dragged Ran and Tsugumi on an astrology tour where they ran into Kokoro and Hina. Tsugumi nodded after a momentary pause, taking her time to remember.

"My parents told me of this awesome place that I am sure you'll like, Tsugumi!" Kokoro beamed proudly, waving her arms around ecstatically in emphasis of the point that she was making. Kokoro's excitement was contagious as Tsugumi soon found herself fired up herself.

Tsugumi had no idea what Kokoro had in mind, but she knew her well enough by now. If Kokoro said that it is something that she thinks Tsugumi will like, then Tsugumi was pretty sure that she would like it. If nothing else, she would for the sole fact that Kokoro went through all the effort just to show her.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" Kokoro exclaimed cheerfully, grabbing Tsugumi's wrist and pulling her along before the brunette knew what was happening.

The two of them didn't run very far, however. In contrast to what Tsugumi thought Kokoro was leading her to, the two high school girls ended up in a small alley where a car was waiting for them.

And not just any car; the biggest, fanciest limousine that Tsugumi had ever seen. Without wondering how this car managed to fit in the alley in the first place, Tsugumi was about to ask whether it was a coincidence that they ran into a car like this in a place like this, but her unvoiced question was soon answered.

The driver's seat opened and a man appearing to be in his fifties stepped out, held the backseat's door open and bowed.

"Sorry, Tsugumi, but I hope that you don't mind if we're using this one," Kokoro said with an apologetic smile, ushering the brunette along and giving a quick 'thank you' to the driver. Once the two of them were inside and Tsugumi was starting to calm down from her shock, Kokoro added, "The good cars are all being washed or repaired or something, I don't remember what Papa said exactly. So we had to take the spare car."

Tsugumi blinked a couple of times after hearing this, blissfully unaware of what Kokoro had just said. Unfortunately for her, it wasn't long until her brain finally did process it.

"WHAT?!"

The ride to the girls' destination didn't see anything extraordinary happening, but this may be in part due to Tsugumi still not having accepted that such a fancy car was Kokoro's spare car. As a result, whatever conversation was happening between them was mostly one-sided from Kokoro's side.

Before Kokoro knew it, they had already arrived, and she faced her next problem: getting Tsugumi out of the car in one piece. Fortunately for her, once the brunette was outside again she almost instantly returned back to her former self.

"Where are we…?" Tsugumi trailed off as she looked around her, not recognizing the neighborhood and not having paid much attention to her surroundings while they were still in the car when she was brought here.

Several tall but very dull and seemingly uninteresting buildings stood in front of the two girls, and at first sight, they seemed perfectly normal. Tsugumi didn't fall for this, however, as she tried to guess which building was the one that Kokoro had brought her all the way out here for.

It wasn't a very difficult guess for Tsugumi, who couldn't hide a smile as she realized how surprisingly unsurprising Kokoro could be at times.

"Come on, let's go!" Kokoro cheered, pulling Tsugumi along to exactly the same building she thought she would be dragged off to: the tallest and most intimidating-looking of them all.

Tsugumi didn't have any time to say or do anything before she was whisked away; all that she could do was hope for the best and that Kokoro knew what she was doing.

"Wow…" Tsugumi breathed out as she looked around once the two of them were finally inside. As Kokoro watched on with a proud smile on her face, Tsugumi ran to different places of the room to get a better look at it.

The two friends found themselves in a darkened room on the twelfth floor of the building, and it was this room that confirmed to Tsugumi that Kokoro knew exactly what she was doing when she dragged her all the way here.

It wasn't just any sort of dark, cool room that they found themselves in; it was designed to mimic the starry night sky at any time of day with a very minimal margin of error. It didn't take the brunette long to realize how accurate the room actually was, soon spotting some of her favorite constellations in the ceiling and noticing that their positions matched with their real-life counterparts as far as she could remember them being.

"This room is amazing!" Tsugumi exclaimed as she traced lines in the sky with her finger and gasping in amazement when she saw some of her favorite constellations. Turning back to look at Kokoro half an hour later, Tsugumi added, "What is this place, anyway, Kokoro-chan?"

"Oh, a friend of Papa told us that he wanted to make these kinds of rooms to teach astronomy to students, especially to those who don't have the opportunity to do so on their own," Kokoro explained as she tried to recall what her father had told her a couple of days ago. Shaking her head vigorously, she decided to just make things up as she went and hurried over to where Tsugumi was, "Since the weather has been bad lately, I thought it would be nice for Tsugumi to go here so she can look at the stars again."

"Thank you, Kokoro-chan," Tsugumi said, genuinely happy that her blonde friend went through all this effort just for her. Satisfied and content, Tsugumi plopped down on the cool floor and started to scan the skies for familiar constellations.

It grew quiet soon after, but Tsugumi didn't pay much attention to this thinking that Kokoro had gone off to look at a different part of the room. What she did not know because of this, however, was that Kokoro wasn't in the room anymore.

Tsugumi only fully realized this when she heard Kokoro plop down right beside her with two cans of juices in her hands while offering the brunette one of the two, "Here you go, I thought you might want to have something to drink."

"Ah, thank you, Kokoro-chan," Tsugumi smiled gratefully, not having realized just how thirsty she has gotten, as she accepted one of the cans, opening and taking a sip from it. Once Tsugumi's thirst was successfully quenched, she couldn't help but thank the blonde once again for bringing her here.

"Please don't mention it, I'm glad I could help make you smile," Kokoro smiled while waving off Tsugumi's quick words of gratitude. It wasn't as if Kokoro didn't like hearing them, but that she didn't do this just to hear those words, "Besides, I should thank you, too, for being able to spend the day with me today."

Tsugumi couldn't help but smile, although she still felt sort of bad for Kokoro not being able to come here with any of her bandmates. Tsugumi ended up thinking what it would be like if Afterglow were to break up under any circumstance and the brunette shuddered, unable to imagine how that would end up.

"Say, Tsugumi…" Kokoro's voice brought Tsugumi back to reality, prompting the brunette to look up curiously to see what Kokoro was doing. When Tsugumi saw that Kokoro was simply looking at the sky above her, Tsugumi followed her lead only to hear Kokoro add soon after, "If you saw a shooting star right now, what would you wish for?"

It was quiet after that. Not because Kokoro had asked something weird but because Tsugumi needed to take a couple minutes off to try and fully process what Kokoro had asked. What would she wish for?

'I'm already very lucky…' Tsugumi thought to herself, going over everything that she was already blessed with and coming to the realization that she really didn't have anything to wish for.

She had a healthy and loving family, she had amazing friends who would do anything for her, she was blessed with enough intellect to do well in school… so what was missing?

Tsugumi smiled when she finally came to a conclusion, a smile that did not go unnoticed by Kokoro. Before Kokoro could bring it up, however, Tsugumi was already sharing what was on her mind.

"If I were to wish upon a shooting star…" Tsugumi trailed off as she looked around her, trying to find a shooting star so she could make her wish immediately. Tsugumi was unable to find a shooting star in the ceiling, something that disappointed her slightly, so she had to settle for simply continuing talking, "I would wish for my friends to be happy."

The next thing that Tsugumi heard from Kokoro was a soft giggle before she rolled over to look at her friend. Kokoro managed to beat her to saying something, though.

"It's funny, Tsugumi, because I was about to say the same thing," Kokoro laughed alone at first, although it didn't take Tsugumi very long to join the laughter at the coincidence. After several moments had passed like this, Kokoro held out her hand in an offering for Tsugumi to take, "Then let's promise together, Tsugumi! That we'll do whatever we can to keep our friends happy while we can!"

Tsugumi blinked a couple times as her eyes moved between Kokoro's raised hand and her face, but she knew what she had to say. Without a shred of hesitation at all, Tsugumi accepted Kokoro's hand while enthusiastically exclaiming, "Right!"

The two girls smiled at each before they went back to watching the artificial starry night skies above. It would be a long time until they even thought of going back home again.

I hope you enjoyed this quick little oneshot, please leave a review telling me what you thought, and until tomorrow for the next oneshot in this countdown spree! Take care!

Current countdown on: nine