Singing
Besides, judging by how unprofessional the stalker was, Lisa figured he probably hadn't received any kind of formal training — which meant he almost certainly had nothing to do with the FBI or the Organization. So there was no need to deal with him on the spot and spoil everyone else's fun.
She decided she would wait until the singing was over today, then tell Ran and the others, subdue the man, and hand him over to the police. Let the officers ask him why he'd been tailing them — that way there would be no complications at all.
Inside the karaoke box.
"The target marches ever onward on his unwavering path..." Conan sang, torturing the melody with all the tunelessness his little body could muster.
Sonoko and Ran: "......"
They stared at him with flat, deadpan eyes, feeling as though their very sanity was being blasted loose by the force of Conan's voice.
Even Lisa, sitting beside them, wore an expression of quiet disbelief.
She had known full well that Conan was tone-deaf, and she had steeled herself somewhat for the ordeal of his singing.
But she genuinely hadn't imagined anyone could be this bad.
If her health bar had been made visible at that moment, anyone could have watched it shrink, inch by inch, as Conan sank deeper and deeper into his performance. Honestly, his singing bordered on a weapon for use against enemies.
When Conan finally, mercifully finished, Sonoko snatched the microphone right out of his hands and declared with magnificent self-righteousness, "Kids these days have no manners. You hog the mic all by yourself for ages while poor Lisa hasn't gotten to sing a single song — and she's about to leave, too! Where's your sense of sharing, hmm?"
"Mmph..." Conan had no comeback.
He gave Sonoko a half-lidded stare. Excuse me? That was my first song, and I barely got through one verse before you swiped the mic. So who exactly was hogging it here?
Sonoko turned and held out the microphone to Lisa. "Go ahead, Lisa, don't be shy with us. Whatever you want to sing, I'll punch it in for you."
Ran looked over at Lisa as well and nodded in agreement.
Lisa massaged her temples, doing her best to recover from the aural assault she'd just endured.
Then she looked at the microphone being pressed toward her, considered for a moment — and shook her head. "I'll pass, I'm afraid. I don't really know any songs from around here. Besides, listening to my adorable little sisters sing is a treat all its own."
She paused there, then couldn't quite resist adding, "Though I could do without certain... excruciating forms of music."
Conan watched Sonoko and Ran both shoot glances his way, unable to help themselves: "......"
Hey, is my singing really that bad? Bad enough to make Lisa — the woman whose composure had never once cracked in all the time he'd known her — take a sarcastic swing at him?
"No way, no how. You can't come to karaoke and not sing a single song! Lisa, just pick something you do know. A cappella is totally fine!" Sonoko wasn't about to let it go. If Lisa left without singing, the whole trip would've been wasted.
"Well, all right. I suppose I can't disappoint my dear little sisters." Lisa sighed in mock surrender and accepted the microphone from Sonoko's hand.
"And you too, Eisuke! Quit sitting in the corner applauding everyone else — get up there and sing one for a change. Don't tell me you're like Lisa and don't know any songs from around here either?"
With Lisa finally on board, Sonoko wheeled on Hondo Eisuke, eyeing him with unmistakable displeasure.
"Ah... um, well, Lisa's all ready to go, so let's really listen to her first. I'll go after," Eisuke stammered.
Catching Sonoko's dissatisfied stare, he was frantically searching for a way to refuse when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lisa already raising the microphone. He immediately pointed this out to Sonoko, deflecting her attention and buying himself a little time.
"I learned this one from a few seniors of mine." Lisa offered a brief explanation of the song's origins before she began to sing, her voice dropping into a soft murmur.
"...Open your palms and gather them up... flowers picked on the mountains high, wine brewed from dandelions..."
"...Dango with milk, and lotus pastry..."
Lisa's honeyed voice carried the tune through its playful, skipping melody — and rather than clashing, it lent the song an altogether special kind of charm.
The karaoke box fell silent at once. Everyone sat listening, spellbound, to a song none of them had ever heard before.
Only Conan listened to the lyrics with a thoughtful look. "Wine brewed from dandelions" — that had to be the Dandelion Wine of Dawn Winery, which meant the song was connected to Mondstadt.
And "lotus pastry" — Xiangling had made that treat for him and Genta and the others before, so it was tied to Xiangling's branch of the group.
As for "dango with milk," he'd never heard Xiangling or Klee mention anything like it. That one probably had nothing to do with them.
Conan's guess was that the song came from some other cell within the Teyvat Syndicate — he just had no idea which Vision frame that cell used.
Still... what kind of senior, exactly, went around singing something this cutesy?
The moment Lisa finished, Sonoko, Ran, and Hondo Eisuke all burst into applause.
"That was so pretty!" Sonoko gushed. Then, without missing a beat, she whipped her head around toward Eisuke and narrowed her eyes. "Eisuke. Your turn."
"Uh... I, um, I need to use the bathroom! I'll sing when I get back!" And with that he shot to his feet, yanked open the door of the karaoke box, and fled.
He left Sonoko behind him, arms crossed in irritation, silently vowing that Eisuke would sing a song today if it killed her.
One person fewer in the box did nothing to dampen Sonoko's and Ran's high spirits.
After a while, though, Lisa noticed that Eisuke still hadn't come back. Since she needed the restroom herself, she decided to step out and go look for him.
Just as she emerged from the restroom, Lisa spotted Hondo Eisuke leaving the men's room and heading back toward their box.
She was about to call out to him when she saw him clumsily yank open the door of the box right next to theirs — then scramble away from it on all fours, as though he'd glimpsed something utterly horrifying.
"Eisuke, honey? Are you all right?"
Lisa hurried over to his side, and in the same motion, before the door swung shut, she let her gaze flick briefly inside. All she caught was a couple — or what certainly looked like a couple — hastily springing apart at the sound of the door. Other than that, nothing out of the ordinary.
What on earth had Eisuke seen to frighten him like that?
Eisuke swallowed hard. Having someone familiar beside him calmed him somewhat, and he no longer looked quite so panic-stricken.
He hesitated a moment before answering. "I-I'm fine."
Lisa frowned, her eyes filling with worry. "Eisuke, did you see something in there? Why such a big reaction?"
"It's nothing." He shook his head. He didn't think he should tell Lisa what he'd just witnessed. Honestly, he sincerely believed she was better off not knowing.
"In there, besides a couple who were getting a bit... friendly, was there someone else?" Lisa asked, puzzled.
"Huh?! You saw it too, Lisa?!" Eisuke's eyes went wide. He couldn't wrap his head around how she could have witnessed the same scene and still be this calm.
"It was just a couple being affectionate. What's there to be scared of?" Lisa's brow creased. She honestly couldn't see what was so terrifying about it — Eisuke had looked as if he'd seen a ghost.
"B-but... in there, it was... it was two — two men getting friendly!" Eisuke stammered and hemmed at first, the words refusing to come out. But by the end, his voice had swelled louder and louder until he was practically shouting it.