Title: step up!!
Rating: G
Fandom: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE
Relationship: Akagi Touma & Yumizuru Eleonora
Wordcount: 620
Short summary: Touma and Ellie may have performed poorly on the quiz show, but it doesn’t stop them from arguing or challenging each other.
When the final buzzer rang, Touma braced for the scores and the rankings display, because he already knew it wouldn’t look good. And a few moments later, the confirmation came through.
“Wow, last place.” Touma didn’t even need to do any arithmetic to calculate that result. He looked over at Ellie, his partner for this quiz show, to gauge her mood. She looked incredibly pissed.
“It’s your fault!” she hissed upon seeing Touma’s attention on her. “Did you learn anything in school?”
“Did you?” he shot back. For he was pretty sure they both performed equally poorly on the quiz show questions.
Not that it really mattered how well they did on this show for their respective careers and positions at Fortuna Entertainment. Touma was known more for his stunt work than his glib delivery, while Ellie was known more for her action roles than her schoolgirl roles. Neither type of role required them to look particularly smart, but when their respective coworkers at Fortuna were Yashiro, Kiria, Tsubasa, and Mamori… It was an issue of pride, of doing well in competitions. Even if Touma and Ellie had never teamed up outside that period when they fought performas and were only put on this quiz show at the last minute as replacements… Oh well, this was just one of those things a person did as an entertainer in Japan’s entertainment industry. Better to screw up when you were still young and had time to recover.
“I wasn’t the one who was asked about Japan.”
Yeah, but it wasn’t like the questions asked would be common knowledge to a guy who had never traveled outside of Tokyo. Even if Touma had heard of those various locations in Japan, why would he know each region’s specialty food, special mascot animal, or specific variation on udon noodles? It’s not like he had money or time to experience these things; he’s not even old enough to drink!
Touma sighed. “Well, I know I’m not smart, but there’s no reason they should have gone after me for every single Japan geography question. You’re just as native as me.”
Ellie had been making sour expressions every time Touma had answered one of those questions, as if she thought those questions were easy or stupid. Touma wasn’t exactly sure, but Ellie had traveled around more for work. Being a prodigy at her age helped. Not that Touma was annoyed by… okay, he was envious of her position. But he also knew how hard she worked to get to where she was now.
“…You’re right. That was unfair.” Ellie sighed softly. “And to go after me for every question about English…”
Touma raised an eyebrow. He was surprised that she conceded something, but she ruined the sentiment by complaining about her lot. Which Touma was not going to let slip by uncontested.
“Well, you are aiming for Hollywood. I think that you might need to use English over there.”
Ellie’s soft expression immediately evaporated. “Hmph! And that’s why I’m better than you.”
“What?” Touma took a moment to trace Ellie’s train of thought. How would both failing at their respective questions still mean… Ah. Dream big, right?
“Maybe I’ll join you over there, once I become a top action star over here.” He shrugged, acting casual even if he felt the flames of ambition spark inside of his heart. “Could be fun.”
Of course Ellie caught on anyway. “Bring it on!”
And it was this last moment, when Touma and Ellie faced each other with fierce expressions and clenched fists, that was captured on camera and published in the next morning’s online article about said quiz show. Well, all things considered… It could have been a lot worse.