Recording (4)
Beep. Beep. Beep.
From the entryway came the sound of a passcode being entered. No one in the house had stepped out, and yet the buttons were pressed without the slightest hesitation.
Clack.
The front door opened, and the sensor light flickered on.
Under the scarlet glow, silver hair came into view, glittering like sunlight.
"Good morning!"
Sakuya, smiling as brightly as a person could, called a cheerful greeting to Tae-il, who had been waiting for her at the foot of the stairs.
"Yaaawn. Morning..."
Tae-il welcomed her back around a yawn of his own.
Was it a lie, then, that people were creatures of adaptation? A month and a little more had passed since he started exercising, and still the act of waking at dawn left him tired to the bone.
Sakuya smiled wryly and gave his cheek a light pinch.
"Ahaha. Don't tell me you overslept again?"
"Not really...?"
Rubbing the stinging spot with his thumb, Tae-il counted off on the fingers of his other hand. His palm opened wide.
"You got about five hours?"
"More or less? Yaaawn."
Five hours of sleep. Set against the old days, when he would shut his eyes for an hour or two and then drag himself to school, that was nearly double. It wasn't so little that his day would fall apart, and since he had no intention of sprawling out and sleeping through class the way he used to, he was doing his best to manage the hours.
It's about time Tae-il started caring about his reputation, too.
Even at school, people were slowly catching on to the band. Arisugawa Iris. Sakuraba Sakuya. Honjo Rena. And Katsuragi Ayane as well. Every one of them was spoken of as outstanding at Yuuma. Rena and Sakuya in particular were the sort of talent who would raise the school's name in their own fields. From the school's point of view, nothing was more of a loss than lumping girls like that together as band members, a grab bag of leftovers. And on top of it all, the club leader was a foreign exchange student infamous, back in his first year, for a rotten attitude in class.
Honestly, it's a miracle things are still this quiet.
Picturing how hard Asakura must be fighting behind the scenes, Sakuya smiled bitterly. That face, cold as a sheet of ice, had a reputation for being frightening, but in truth no one looked out for the students more. Quietly, Sakuya was grateful.
But even Teacher Asakura's help only holds until the Cultural Festival.
Once the girls took the stage during the festival, things might truly blow up. And when they did, what would matter most was still Tae-il's reputation. No teacher—at least, not one at this Yuuma—would look kindly on a problem student wrecking the futures of capable ones.
"Why not just go to bed earlier?"
"I'd like to..."
Sakuya knew. In this band, the only members who actually understood music were Tae-il and Iris, and even Iris was only one member among the rest. The one truly running the band, the one setting the direction they would walk, was Tae-il. Their plans for the future owed just as much to him. It had to be a burden. Twenty-four hours in a day weren't enough, and he was thrashing to stretch them however he could, without ever letting it show. Sakuya thought he was something special.
What a waste of a wish...
At the same time, she quietly regretted having made that wish at all. Whatever anyone else might say, Tae-il was already trying. Even so.
"I was reading some medical book at the hospital, and it said if you sleep early, you grow taller too."
She wanted him to have a little more ease in him. And fortunately—
"Really?"
The boy named Shin Tae-il reacted far too sharply to anything involving height. The moment those sleepy, unfocused eyes lit with interest, Sakuya pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed.
"You don't even pretend to listen when I tell you to sleep, so why are you reacting here..."
Height was that serious a matter to him.
Had their talking stirred her? Ayane, half-asleep against Tae-il's shoulder, offered a belated greeting.
"A baaad morniiing..."
"Huh?"
Sakuya tilted her head at Ayane, who looked worse than usual today. The girl who was ordinarily the liveliest of them all wore a face like death.
"What's wrong with Ayane?"
"No idea."
Tae-il laid her across his thigh and stroked her hair, gentle.
"Shin-chan..."
Hazy amber eyes slid shut. Tae-il smiled faintly and lifted his head.
"You bought it."
He'd noticed late. A purple guitar case jutted up over Sakuya's head.
"Sure did."
Proud of it, Sakuya turned and presented the case on her back.
"Want to check it yourself?"
"I'm good."
He hoisted the limp Ayane onto his back, braced a hand on his knee, and pushed himself up with a groan.
"Let's all look at it together at practice. I like that better."
"Heh. Fine."
Figuring they were welcome to look forward to Aibo's grand debut, Sakuya set the case down. Tae-il paused.
"Ah, that... If we leave it here, I don't know what my dad'll say, so let's put it in the room."
"Hm? Ah—right. Okay. You've got it rough too, huh?"
"Rougher than you, living away from home?"
"If you really think about it, isn't Tae-il living away from home too?"
"Am I...?"
"This isn't away from hooome..."
Short on sleep, Ayane nodded off mid-complaint, whining in a voice that sounded ready to give out. Tae-il and Sakuya smiled, just barely.
"She's cute when she's like this. Pfft."
"She's always cute."
He said it as if it were obvious, taking Ayane's side, and Sakuya stuck her lip out.
"Tch. Playboy..."
The two of them climbed the stairs.
That morning, through no will of her own, Ayane missed exercise.
Class was dull.
Spinning his pen between his fingers, Tae-il stared hard at a notebook smeared with messy ink. Ayane was learning Hangul. Iris already knew it. The notebook where he had written down everything tied to the original story had lost its shape and vanished beyond the flames. The one he kept now was entirely new, filled with nothing but music.
Recording...
He had been setting down a schedule that, until now, had stayed vague. He lifted his head.
Outside the window, deep green leaves were slowly losing their color.
Nok-eum.
Come to think of it, those lush leaves were pronounced, in Korean, exactly the same as the thing he was bracing for. Nok-eum: recording. Nok-eum: the green of summer. The green was fading. Autumn was drawing near, the season of high skies and fat horses, and just as the season turned, exams were closing in by the moment.
The Cultural Festival.
The time had come.
♪ — ♩ — ♬
Clang!
The instant the dismissal bell rang, Tae-il and Sakuya were on their feet.
"Thank you for the lesson!"
"Thank you!"
"You two...?"
The Japanese teacher stopped at the board and turned, startled, and in that gap the two slung on their bags and bolted from the classroom.
"They gone? They left?"
"Are those two seriously dating...?"
"Whoa. Shit, I'm so damn jealous."
"How'd Sakuraba end up with a guy like that...!"
"I heard they even kissed..."
"Don't they kind of suit each other, though?"
"Right? Tae-il's got his shoulders back now, and his face isn't what it used to be..."
"He got taller, too! You have to look way up at him!"
"They say love changes a person..."
Murmur, murmur. The moment the pair who drew the most eyes in the room were gone, the quiet classroom erupted all at once.
"Heh..."
The Japanese teacher laughed, hollow.
Running down a hallway still noisy with the end of class, Sakuya asked, "Tomorrow, right?"
"Tomorrow."
The busier a person is, the faster time runs. Saturday. The two of them had spent their days without a breath to spare, and above all else Tae-il had focused on Sakuya learning the fundamentals.
Sakuya just has to drill the basics. Thoroughly...
Fundamentals alone would send her playing leaping several levels. She had it—an overwhelming talent other people couldn't simply copy. To draw that talent out, Tae-il had planted his feet and taught her in earnest. A true player, even when copying someone else, melts what they learn into a shape that fits them. Sakuya didn't have that knack yet. That was fine. Knack could be picked up quickly, once someone set your hands on it. What she lacked was experience.
It's all right if she falls.
Because Tae-il would be the one to pull her back up.
It's all right if she fails.
Because he would wrap her up with everything he had, so she wouldn't sink into despair. Through hardship after hardship, Sakuya would grow firmer as an artist. She hadn't even started, and already to be disappointed in her, already to write her potential down—that was absurd. And who knew. In the original, Sakuya never once took part in composing or writing lyrics, right to the end.
Maybe as a creator, too...
She might stand out. What she needed was a spark. Tae-il knew it very well: for the species called musicians, every chance at a turning point arrived in the real thing. On a stage.
"Rena! We're here!"
"That was fast!"
"We ran the second the bell rang! Ahaha!"
Rena was in paint-splattered arm covers and an apron, as if she had been painting until a moment ago.
"Give me a second. I'll be cleaning up."
"I'll help."
"Then just sweep the floor over here."
"Okay."
While Tae-il helped Rena, Sakuya—at Rena's asking—took the guitar from the locker set up at the back of the art room. The purple case was already faintly smudged.
"Hoo."
She called up the fundamentals Tae-il had taught her, and the spread of techniques, and the sheet music she had hammered into her head until it was utterly familiar, down to the smallest movement of a finger. All of it.
"Okay. From there, pull your hand straight across this way."
"L-like this?"
"Yeah. That's how you strum."
"It really is..."
"Haha. Totally different on your own guitar, right?"
"Yeah."
Rena could glare from behind with all the envy she liked. Sakuya had enjoyed every one of Tae-il's private lessons. All of it had been for this moment. Even after she got home she had pushed her manga aside and practiced the guitar, and practiced again. Honestly—only for the song they were recording this time—technically, she was already perfect. What remained was expression.
"Hooo."
She opened the case and drew out a guitar, white, washed through with pale violet. Into the amp Iris had given her—saying she didn't use it anymore—she plugged the jack, let it warm slowly, and closed her eyes.
"Ayane's here!"
"Me too!"
"Honestly. College-track class, and you show up in a matched set."
"We're the class next door, that's why!"
"I waited for Ayane, I'll have you know."
When she opened her eyes, the members had gathered in the art room as if they belonged there. Rena sat on the drum throne. Ayane, like Sakuya, was warming an amp and loosening her hands with chromatic runs. Iris was setting the heavy synth in place beside Tae-il, the two of them chatting as they worked.
"All right."
Face set, Sakuya slung the guitar over her shoulder and ran in among the noisy members.
One step. The art room turned over.
One step. The wide space cinched tight all at once.
One step. Light that had only been bright had gone soft.
One step. In the cramped recording room the members huddled close, looking tense, and yet their faces were grim with resolve.
Sakuya lifted her head. Through the narrow window, long across, she could see Tae-il. He was talking with Yuuya, who was handling the filming today.
The studio.
In this space that could not have been any more cramped, today, the song they had spent more than a month preparing would be born.