Recording (5)
The studio.
For a band that had put in its time, it was a place where boredom and exhaustion lived side by side. They knew it, too—that a so-called recording booth was nothing more than another name for a prison. Get tangled up with a member or a producer obsessed with perfection, and you could burn hours on warm-up alone.
Of course, the members of Tales Tale had no idea. They had no experience. They were pure as spring water, tense at the mere thought that recording in a studio meant their own song would be born.
"Haa."
Ayane steadied the breath that nerves had knocked out of rhythm.
"What do I do?"
"Do about what? You were already a fidgeting mess earlier. You sick or something?"
"Ayane, my heart's been pounding this whole time."
"Moron. Over something like this?"
"Even that little shrimp's legs are shaking!"
"Urk!"
At Ayane's jab, Rena swallowed a groan and clamped both hands down on her thighs. The legs that had been trembling without pause finally stopped by force, and she bounced her heels, awkward and stiff.
The studio. At first it had only been the practice room they dropped by all the time, and everyone had been trading dumb jokes. But the moment they stepped into the recording booth set apart inside, a nameless tension began to circle among the members.
"Ahaha. Everyone's way too tense."
Sakuya, who at least had more experience than the rest, laughed and did what she could to loosen them up.
"You're not nervous?"
"I am."
Out of nowhere, Sakuya thrust her hand at Rena. Rena tilted her head.
"What about your hand?"
"Touch it."
Bewildered, Rena ran her fingers over that large hand. A cool chill. It was cold as a sheet of ice, and she jerked back in surprise, snatching her own hand away in an instant.
"Holy shit!"
Those sharp blue eyes went round. Watching Rena frantically shake her hand in the air, Sakuya's shoulders trembled as a smile slipped out.
"See? Freezing, right?"
"Wh-why are your hands like that? It's pretty hot in here."
"When I get nervous, they go cold."
Figuring her playing would suffer if this kept up, Sakuya hurriedly rubbed her palms together and blew on them.
"So even Sakuya gets nervous..."
"I'm human too."
No matter how used she was to big stages, in unfamiliar territory she got just as wound up as anyone else.
"But if you go by Sakuya's image... hmm."
"Hey."
"Ehehe."
When Sakuya clenched a fist, Ayane laughed without a shred of restraint. They still fought every time they opened their mouths, yet the way they joked like this made it plain the two had grown close.
Iris, though...
Picking up scraps of their conversation while quietly tapping the snare, Rena turned her gaze. Iris. The girl who always loved mixing in and making noise had been on her own a lot lately, and every time, she was staring a hole through the lyric sheet, as if the weight of being the vocalist were pressing down on her shoulders.
That face is dead serious.
Reciting the lyrics with a cold expression and not a trace of a smile, she looked like something out of a horror movie. In films, the kids about to get possessed always glared at something just like that.
Love song, my ass...
Anyone watching would think she was howling out some dark, frozen past. Rena recalled the lyrics Tae-il had finished. A love song. Thinking about the words, it was a love song, sure. But no matter how she looked at it, the boy's point of view loomed so much larger than the girl's that she couldn't really relate.
Still...
With her half-baked otaku brain, Rena tried to turn the lyrics into a picture: a boy with no self-esteem who called himself a loner and second-guessed everything, and a girl who reached out to him without a moment's hesitation. She swapped the boy for Tae-il. And the girl...
...
Rena cut the daydream short and shook her head.
"Think Iris will be okay?"
Ayane's whisper slipped in beside her ear.
"Ahaha. She'll probably be fine."
"Really?"
"Even on the athletic teams, plenty of players focus like that and get their heads right before a match."
Whether talking had eased the tension or not, Sakuya looked a good deal more at ease as she stroked Rena's head.
"S-Sakuya?"
"So just trust her, Rena. She's your friend."
"...Tch."
"Or go cheer her on."
"Cheer..."
She didn't know how. Even when people cheered for her, Rena had almost never cheered for anyone else. When she had gone to support Sakuya, it had been with the mindset of she's going to win anyway—she'd just leaned on Tae-il and watched with indifference. Cheer or don't, the person was going to win regardless. And Sakuya really had bulldozed her way to win after win for the school.
But this was a little different. The young contemporary artist they called a genius—Honjo Rena—was not in this room.
Music isn't a field we're confident in.
Apart from Tae-il's unshakable faith, the girls no longer had any certainty that could be called without fail.
What do I do...
Rena wet her bone-dry lips with her tongue. She couldn't get a grip on a single thing she ought to say in front of Iris. While the pathetic worrying chased its own tail, she missed her moment.
"Hup! I'm gonna hit the bathroom real quick!"
"Ah..."
Iris shot to her feet, announced she was going to the restroom, and slipped out of the booth. Rena half-raised a hand, then dropped it with a sigh.
"Ahaha. Next time, Rena."
"Forget it."
Seeing Sakuya's wry smile, Rena shut her mouth.
Fine. I've already got more than enough on my own plate...
She leaned against the wall. The one convenient thing about being a band's drummer was that you could sit out in the open without apology. Quietly, turning the drum beat circling in her head over and over, Rena slowly settled the unease that kept rising.
Their first time filming in a studio. Yuya, who had not a scrap of relevant experience, found herself privately missing the emails that had proposed collabs.
Should've done it once or twice, just for the experience...
Honestly, she had turned them down because most of those emails reeked of impure intentions. The moment it came out that the person running the channel was a high school girl, collab requests had poured in from people who had nothing to do with pets at all.
Even so.
Up until a few days ago, there had been plenty of chances to collab. If her advisor, Asakura, had been with her—no, even if it had just been Tae-il—those offers wouldn't have scared her much. But the train had already left. Yuya decided this was better anyway.
I can't go causing Taichi trouble.
She didn't know how the people involved saw it, but to Yuya's eyes it was plain: the flaws Tales Tale carried as a band. At least their leader, Tae-il, seemed to know.
He's trying to carry all of it...
Yuya was proud of her pitiful junior. She was also steadily preparing to become the glorious first oshi of a junior who would probably have no one but antis. Making do in a hurry, she had roamed iTube and all sorts of info channels, soaking up filming tips. The information was so scattered that she doubted she could actually apply any of it when it counted.
Will this work?
She fidgeted with the camera hugged to her chest. From the monitoring room, sealed off from the booth, she watched Tae-il's back as he fiddled with gear that looked like it belonged in a broadcast studio, and glanced through the glass. Heavy. It would have been one thing if only she were nervous, but even through the thick wall she could feel that heavy, stifling air pressing down on their shoulders.
"Everyone feels tense."
"You think so?"
Tae-il, pressing through boards and keys that looked impossibly complicated to Yuya and checking them one by one, heard the murmur and lifted his head.
"What, they've been like that this whole time?"
"Yeah."
Clearly. Rena and Ayane went without saying. Even Sakuya, who always looked at ease, had gone a little stiff. And Iris was nowhere to be seen.
"Hmm... All right, give me a moment."
"Okay."
Tae-il pulled his eyes from the monitor, abandoned the check, and stepped into the booth.
"Shin-chan?"
In an instant, every eye was on him. Violet. Amber. And blue. At first those gazes had been frightening, and awkward besides.
I've gotten used to them before I knew it...
Only on the day of the recording did Tae-il feel the change in his own heart so clearly. The petty feelings—jealousy, fondness—he had once held for mere 2D characters had all been shaken off. Right after that, the first emotions he had harbored toward these girls were what you would call admiration, aspiration, and longing. Like a fan looking at an idol, he had liked them while feeling a great joy precisely because he could never reach them. Ayane had been the same at first. That was why it had been a little hard to treat her as simply a friend.
Now he saw them as people. As comrades who would walk this harsh industry together. And above all, as precious friends. Tae-il felt a deep bond.
It's a common thing to say in bands. That they're like family. That a band is a second family.
"Hoo."
The strength that had gathered in his hands without his noticing drained away. His relationships with the members were growing more comfortable, and beyond that, starting to feel familiar and dear. Tae-il smiled softly and slipped in among them, into that stiff air.
"You guys okay? You look really nervous."
"Ahaha."
With nothing else to say, Sakuya scratched her cheek for no reason and glanced around.
"Kind of, yeah? Me, and them. Maybe because it's the first time..."
"There's nothing to be nervous about."
One by one, Tae-il looked over each of their faces.
"I told you, didn't I? The sound you play is the same as the voice we make ourselves."
Compare a sound you hear with your ears to one a machine has recorded, and the two are so completely different it startles you.
"It's not just what's in your hands that's an instrument."
Ayane's bass. Sakuya's guitar. And Rena's drums—he took them in, in turn.
"You are instruments, too."
Because a person is a fine instrument.
"That's what you've been practicing for all this time, right?"
There was homework Tae-il had kept demanding of the members, all for this moment. Recording. Recording the songs they played themselves, listening back, and improving.
"You've all gotten used to it, right? The difference between raw sound and recorded sound."
"Well..."
"Ayane's fine, because Shin-chan watches her every single day!"
"For me the homework was just sending videos..."
They all nodded, and Tae-il smiled, satisfied.
"And."
It was about time for a few words of comfort.
"Even if we don't play the way we practiced today, even if the sound comes out weird, it's fine."
But instead of comfort, Tae-il smiled bright and breezy, and said this:
"We're doing it until it works anyway. All night."
"Eh?"
All night. Rena's drumstick clattered out of her hand.
"Sh-Shin-chan...?"
Ayane was so startled she nearly dropped her bass out of her arms.
"Don't even think about sleeping tonight, okay? I'm not letting anyone sleep until we get a sample I'm satisfied with."
Lately the shadows under his eyes had faded and his face had grown noticeably cleaner, and Tae-il smiled so wide it was almost irritating to look at.
"Th-that's weird...? I just got a little chill..."
Flushing, Sakuya drew a rough breath and rubbed at her own arm. Ayane stared at her like she was garbage.
"Even Ayane wouldn't get worked up over something like that..."
Rena pressed a hand to her throbbing forehead.
"I'm gonna lose it..."
Just then the door opened with a creak.
"Hm? What are you all doing?"
It was Iris, who had stepped out saying she was stopping by the bathroom. Tae-il asked, lightly probing.
"Iris, you ready to record?"
At the goading question, the grave expression she had been wearing vanished, and she curled her mouth into her usual playful grin. She proudly stuck up a thumb and winked.
"Of course!"
Truly an answer worthy of the vocalist Tae-il had set his sights on.
Meanwhile—
"Sorry, Dad. I can't come home today."
"Yuya!?"
"Eat dinner by yourself."
"Wai—!"
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Yuya powered off her phone and cutely raised both fists.
"All right. Let's do this."
It had clearly been nothing but a threat. What Tae-il had overlooked was that the world held a terrifying breed of people who welcomed that threat—and the prospect of being locked in a prison—with open arms.