AN: Happy Birthday Honoka! You're important and muse loves you.

This fic is complete friendship and Honoka love and that's pretty much all I have to say about it! Thank you for all views, follows, favs and reviews c:!

Honoka's hands shook a bit as she read the magazine article. The girls of muse had been interviewed not too long ago for an article for a popular idol magazine, know all around Japan as the go to source for details about idol groups, idol interviews, idol clothes, and anything else idol related. Muse had been asked to have an interview with the leading journalist in the magazine, and the girls agreed to it without even hesitating.

It had been a whole month since the interview, and the issue with the interview was finally published and out for Japan to see. Yukiho had picked up a copy on the way home from school, and when Honoka had caught her reading it with a frown, she immediately cut in, beginning to read the article herself. Yukiho had put up a fight, trying to pull it away from her excited older sister but had quickly lost the battle, resulting in it being yanked from her hands.

While she didn't remember too much of the interview, she certainly hadn't remembered anything that had been written inside the tabloid. The article separated the interviewed girls into pairs, a paragraph focusing on each one and the questions they had gotten, and at the end of the article there was a small blurb with Honoka that only had one question, which was simply about her favourite thing to do as a school idol. Each other paragraph had more in depth questions, asking the girls about their pre show routine, or their training. Honoka had remembered everyone was present and had different responses to each question, so it baffled her that it was written differently than how it had actually went.

The article made Honoka reflect on a moment that happened recently with Kotori and Umi that she probably wasn't meant to hear. The ginger haired girl had been late for student council duties, and she had hurriedly made her way to the student council room. Before she had even made her way inside, she heard Kotori's worried voice.

"I'm just worried." She had said. "When Nico-chan said a lot of our fans liked to pair us up, I got curious and looked it up and when I searched things for Honoka-chan I.. I found so many negative things..."

"How could people say things that, Umi-chan?!" Kotori continued, her voice raising. "I-If it weren't for Honoka, none of us would have made it to where we are! Why can't everyone else see that?!"

Honoka had decided that was enough, and slammed open the door, quickly apologizing for being late and pretending to be oblivious to what she had heard. The girl hadn't thought anything more of it after that, because Honoka knew that she was important. Whatever fans thought was whatever fans thought, but her friends loved her with all their hearts, and she loved them too. As long as she got to sing and dance with them, she was happy.

But as she read this article, Honoka began to understand what Kotori had been worried about. It did sting quite a bit that she had been completely brushed off and left as a funny closing question, but that wasn't what bothered her. What bothered her was that people seemed to think muse was four different pairs, and then there was her. They didn't think of them as a group of friends, like she did. They didn't think of them as a happy little family, like she did. For fans, it was all of them separated into their own groups of people, which wasn't what muse was. Muse was the nine of them, all together and all having fun and showing the world their music.

Honoka closed up the magazine, thanking Yukiho for letting her read it, and then deciding she would head to the bath first. She wanted some alone time after reading that article. She shut the door behind her, quickly throwing her dirty clothes into the hamper and lowering herself into the hot bath that had been prepared.

Honoka couldn't understand why, but in that moment she had felt very lonely. Should she continue singing and dancing with her friends? Would the fans like it better if Honoka wasn't apart of the group at all? She had almost quit once before, maybe since Kotori wasn't leaving it wouldn't be a huge deal if she did again. The girls would surely win the finals of love live, and Honoka would cheer them on with as much spirit as she could muster. This thought itself, the thought of not performing with her friends, had brought her to tears. Honoka pulled her legs up to her chest, burying her face into her knees as she began to quietly sob. She didn't want to leave. She wanted to stay! She wanted to continue having fun with her friends right until the very end. But if they wanted to win the live, it was possible she was in the way. She didn't want to be in the way of her friends, or be the awkward wheel among them all.

After cleaning herself, Honoka decided she knew what needed to be done. Tomorrow, she would arrange it so that muse would continue as the eight other girls, and Honoka would support them. After all, she loved her friends more than anything, and they all wanted to win perform in love live more than anything. She didn't want to be an obstacle to their dream, and it was with a heavy heart that she made this choice.

A loud knock at the door startles her, causing her to slip on the tiled floor as she was climbing out of the tub. Honoka groans, rubbing her now sore bottom and glaring at the direction of the door.

"Sis! Are you okay?!" It was Yukiho, and Honoka frowned even more.

"If you want the bath, I'm not done yet! Wait five more minutes!" Honoka shouted at the door.

"I don't want the bath yet!" Came the muffled reply. "Your friends are here! They said you weren't picking up your phone so they stopped by instead!"

At the mention of her friends, Honoka hurriedly pushed herself up off of the floor.

"Eh?! Who's here!?" She yells.

"Ah... All of them!" Yukiho replies.

Honoka's surprised "AHHH!" could be heard throughout the whole house, and at the entrance of the Japanese sweet shop, eight girls smiled lightly. Honoka's mother smiles apologetically towards them.

"That's our Honoka-chan." Kotori says, and the girls all giggle amongst themselves.

Hurried footsteps thump down the stairs and Honoka arrives, her hair still damp and a towel around her shoulders, her 'Ho' sweater thrown on carelessly and a pair of pyjama bottoms completing her look.

"W-What are you guys doing here?!" She asks surprised, looking wide eyed to all of them.

"Just here to visit." Eli responds. "We all tried calling and texting you for the last half hour, but we had no response." Honoka laughs embarrassed.

"I-I was in the bath for a while." She admits sheepishly, before gesturing to them all. "Come on up! Mom, can we have some of the leftover sweets?"

Honoka's mom gives her a small nod and a smile, and the ginger haired girl grins back towards her.

"I'll send Yukiho up with them in a minute."

All the other girls thank the older woman, before following Honoka upstairs to her bedroom. She waited for everyone to enter before shutting the door behind them all and moving to sit down around her table. Her room was a bit crowded for the nine of them, but everyone seemed to find an appropriate place to sit just fine. Rin and Hanayo had taken over the bed, Kotori and Umi sat on the side closest to her manga book shelf, Nozomi and Nico sat across from them, and Maki and Eli took the spot opposite Honoka.

"So what's up?" She asked, her voice chipper and glancing around at the girls.

"It would appear that the article we published had been released." Umi says. It takes everything in Honoka not to show the discomfort she felt when she heard that.

"Ah, did it?" She says, pretending that she hadn't known about it. Kotori wasn't having any of that, and her eyes widen.

"Did you already see it, Honoka-chan?!" She asks concerned. Honoka lets out a tiny embarrassed laugh.

"Yukiho bought the magazine today when she was coming home from school. She really didn't want me to read it, and was hoarding the magazine all to herself!" Honoka tried her best to convince the group that she was fine but part of her knew that the others new better.

"Honoka, there were a lot of issues with that article." Eli says. "The main thing being how it made it sound like the reporter interviewed us separately. I left a voicemail for the editor in question about this." The blonde has a large frown on her face.

"Eh?! Why?" Honoka said surprised. "I didn't think the article was all that bad, I mean, all the questions they asked were there!"

"Of course they were!" Nico replies. "But it's not the questions that matter. It's the way they published the answers."

"Honoka-chan," Hanayo begins, and the ginger haired girl looks over to her. "Do you remember saying what the article said about the last question?"

"Yeah, Rin doesn't!" Rin adds. "Rin remembers it being more emotional!"

Honoka thought back to that day, and the question that was published with her answer. What had been published was 'wearing cute clothes with my friends!' but Hanayo and Rin were right. Honoka didn't remember saying just that, there had been a lot more to it. She begins to think hard, trying to remember exactly how she answered it.

"I remember saying that." Honoka begins "But I said a lot more too." She looks at everyone in the room, smiling a bit.

"I said I loved wearing cute clothes with you all, and dancing, and working hard alongside you all! I said that my absolute favourite thing was all the time I got to spend with you and all the memories we got to share."

It suddenly hits Honoka right then that that was all that mattered. Sure, the fans were important and maybe they wouldn't win love live if she stayed in the group, but they'd all have fun. They'd all continue singing and dancing together, writing songs, playing, they'd have countless more opportunities to make more memories alongside one another. They'd do it right until the very end, together, the nine of them. Honoka can feel her eyes tearing up, and she laughs a bit.

"Geeze, I can't believe I forgot that." She confesses, wiping her now watery eyes to prevent her tears from falling. "I can't believe I thought about leaving cause of the article!"

Honoka quickly freezes, feeling eight surprised gazes at her. Before she can move to protect herself, Nico launches over the table, pinching her cheeks and pulling them roughly.

"Oh no! You're not doing that again!" She shouts, ignoring Honoka's cries of protest. Rin also propels herself from the bed to Honoka, grabbing her from behind and rubbing the top of her head in an intense noogie.

"Don't even think about that! Not ever!" She exclaims, and Honoka tries her best to squeeze away from her two attackers.

"LEMME GO! LEMME GOOO!" She cries, looking at the others for some sort of help.

She finally breaks away from the two of them, ungracefully falling between Kotori and Umi. She quickly hugs Kotori around the waist, looking cautiously over at Rin and Nico, who hadn't moved to follow her. Kotori laughs a bit, patting the top of Honoka's head lightly.

"Honoka, did you seriously think about leaving muse?" Maki asks, her voice annoyed and her stare boring into Honoka's. Honoka grins a bit sheepishly, before sitting herself up properly between her two childhood friends.

"I did." She says, her voice happy yet serious. "The article reminded me of something I overheard Kotori-chan and Umi-chan talking about one day in the student council."

Kotori looks at Umi accusingly.

"I told you she heard everything! Oh my gosh, Honoka-chan, I'm so sorry!" Kotori hugs her friend tightly, and Honoka lets out a surprised laugh.

"Ah! Kotori-chan!" Honoka says, hugging her friend back. Umi clears her throat, beginning to explain to the other girls the conversation Kotori and her had that day.

"Because of Nico's remark about how the fans enjoy muse in pairs, Kotori had gotten curious and found some rather... awful things. She had come to talk to me about it in the student council room one morning, and it seems Honoka had overheard the conversation." She looks over to Honoka, who was still being held by Kotori. Feeling everyones eyes back on her, she pulls away from the hug and begins to explain.

"It honestly didn't bug me. I know that not everybody can like every idol in an idol group, you know? At the time I thought 'That's okay! Fans all have their own opinions.' It didn't change anything. But after reading that article, I guess I became a bit self conscious about it all and I began to wonder if I was bringing down the group. I thought that maybe because of me, you guys wouldn't win love live like we all wanted. So I decided that maybe if I quit and just support you from the background, it'd be better that way." She gives an apologetic smile to everyone.
"But I realize now that that wouldn't be true. We always have the most fun when we're all together, right?" Many of the girls smiled, and Nozomi speaks up.

"Remember what I said when Elichi and I joined, Honoka-chan? It has to be the nine of us. After all, we're the nine singing goddesses of muse, aren't we?"

Honoka smiles more as she looks at all her friends in the room.

"Yeah! We are!" she says, with newfound excitement.

Yukiho opens the door at that moment, a large plate of Japanese sweets in one hand and an even bigger pot of tea in the other.

"Sis!" She says, looking at her with a frown. "You could've at least helped! Mom wants you to come down and get some mugs for the tea since we did everything else."

"Ehh?! But I'm having a moment with my friends!" to emphasize her point, Honoka puts her other arm around Umi, bringing her and Kotori in for a hug between the three of them. Umi protests and Kotori laughs as she hugs the both of them back.

"So?! You can't be a bad host to them!" At that comment, Honoka grumbles, reluctantly letting go of the girls and standing up.

"I'll be right back!" She shouts, quickly moving past Yukiho and into the hallway. Yukiho sighs a bit, before turning to the girls and smiling.

"Thanks for always taking care of my sister." She says as she places the plate of sweets down, follow by the tea. "She really loves you guys a lot."

The eight other girls share small smiles and light laughs. After a small pause, Kotori is the first to speak.

"We really love Honoka-chan too. Muse wouldn't be anything without her."

"That's right!" Rin adds. "Honoka-chan is the whole reason Kayochin and I got to become close to Maki-chan and everyone else!"

"A-and if it wasn't for Honoka-chan, I wouldn't have even thought it possible that being a school idol could happen for me." Hanayo says afterwards. "Her kind words and welcoming smile are something I'll never forget."

"Even if Honoka hadn't been persistent about it, I think I probably still would have composed that first song for her." Maki twists a bit of her hair, smiling at the memories of Honoka hunting her down and determinedly asking her for her help nonstop.

"It was Honoka's idea that helped us recruit Nico-chan into letting us become apart of the school idol research club as well." Umi adds with fondness, looking over to the raven haired girl. Nico nods.

"I may have been a bit envious that Honoka was able to get girls to join her group, but I'll never forget how happy I felt to know she wanted me to be apart of it too.

"I felt the same way when she invited me to become a member of muse." Eli smiles fondly. "Even after everything I had done and said, after learning the truth she accepted me and held her hand out asking me to join too. I'm forever grateful for that day."

"It was Honoka who brought us all together," Nozomi said, looking around to them all with a small smile on her face. "It was thanks to Honoka that I got to have my miracle too."

Yukiho smiled widely, and the door slammed open, Honoka holding a tray with nine cups and her eyes tearier than they had been before.

"Y-you guys!" She sniffled, her smile becoming one giant, happy grin.

"AH! WE MADE HONOKA-CHAN CRY!" Rin shouts, before standing up. She quickly tackled Honoka into a hug, causing her to nearly topple over and drop the cups. Honoka laughed, and Yukiho took the tray before the clumsy girl dropped them all. Rin's nuzzling Honoka fondly, and Kotori stands up excitedly.

"Kotori too!" She declares, running over and joining the hug.

In no time at all the nine girls are together in one giant embrace, and as Yukiho exits the room, the sound of Honoka's happy laughter echoed through their house. The article was a flop, and Honoka was forever grateful that she had an amazing group of friends who loved her as much as she loved them.