Recording (8)

Tae-il had learned exactly one thing.

If you have done something wrong, throw your arms around the other person with everything you have, and only then start thinking.

Feel wronged? Sure it's all a misunderstanding? Innocent until proven guilty? Between a man and a woman, that sort of rational arrangement is worthless in the face of feeling. Hold them. Then show them, with your whole body, that you're sorry. It was a truth he learned all over again whenever he committed some vague, nameless offense across the nearly ten years he had spent with Ayane.

"Ehehe..."

Ayane, the very source of his distress, laughed without a shred of restraint and rubbed her cheek against his chest.

"Shin-chan, has your chest gotten a little broader lately...?"

"What wonderful news..."

Tears spilled from Tae-il's eyes.

Why?

A broader chest was, for a man, unquestionably good news, and yet he could not find a single scrap of joy in it. There was the warm, airy weight filling his chest, and the cozy little atmosphere staged for just the two of them. Inside, he felt nothing of the sort.

Tae-il knew. This was the eye of the typhoon—the still point that exists only because the storm is already here. Step even a little outside it, and the cutting wind would tear him to shreds.

"Haa."

He let out a quiet sigh.

Too afraid to drop his gaze, he kept his eyes tipped up, and all that filled them was the ceiling, washed in a needless, gentle crimson light. His neck was stiff; he wanted to lower his head. The stares prickling his skin were far too hot for that.

I'm going to hate the owner for this...

In his heart, he blamed the owner who had landed him in this situation.

"Ahem."

Sakuya, who had been quietly reading the room, cleared her throat and spoke.

"Hup! I should take some notes too!"

"Notes?"

Rena—the one giving off the deadliest aura in the room—tilted her head. Sakuya, jotting this and that into the memo app on her phone, nodded.

"Mm-hm. Let's see. 'Threaten him with a fire extinguisher, and Tae-il hugs you...'"

"Oh? That sounds fun. Should I go get an extinguisher too?"

"Lady Rena, mercy, I beg you..."

"Don't wanna."

Rena refused him with a killer smile.

"Oops. Maybe the extinguisher isn't the point? Then how about this: 'Threaten him with a weapon...'"

"No—the weird part is that your first thought is threatening him at all!"

The finger taking notes stopped. Sakuya quietly rolled her eyes, testing the air.

"...Hm. Is it weird?"

"Of course it's weird! By any normal—"

"Shin-chan. Stay still."

"Y-yes..."

Tae-il, who had been about to flare up, went meek the instant Ayane fiddled with the extinguisher still cradled in her arms. A beast, thoroughly tamed inside its pen.

He grumbled.

"Where did she even get a fire extinguisher..."

"I bought it."

"You bought it!?"

"Yep. It's a portable one. A little heavy, though. Spray it in someone's face and it works for self-defense. Fits in a bag, too."

Swallowing his horror, Tae-il forced himself to examine the extinguisher in Ayane's hand, piece by piece. Looked at closely, it was smaller than the one in Gunma that had left him with a trauma. The metallic sheen, though, and the solid weight of it, were exactly the same.

"Isn't this heavy...?"

"It's fine! A bassist needs strength too, right? Ayane's gonna give it her all!"

"It's scary when you say that while you're smiling..."

He laughed, awkward and cornered. Objectively, Ayane's fighting pose was cute. To Tae-il it was terror itself.

More than anything—

She will not let go of that extinguisher...

The arm around her shoulder was starting to go numb. He was too scared to take it away.

"This is seriously pathetic..."

Everyone knew Ayane's personality and let it slide whenever she got like this, but today, for some reason, Rena alone looked especially displeased. The reason was obvious. Her designated seat had been stolen.

Rena glanced around. Sakuya kept clowning, trying to loosen the mood, so what Rena wanted was a member who might actually be on her side.

That was when Iris caught her eye.

"Hey, Iris. What do you think?"

"..."

"Iris?"

"Huh!? Wh-what? What did you say?"

Iris spun toward her, startled.

"You okay?"

Her face was strangely red. Her expression had gone a little blank, and she looked faintly like she was in pain.

"You're not sick or something, are you, Iris?"

"I-I'm fine!"

Under Rena's worried look, Iris laughed it off.

"As you can see, I'm completely okay! Ah, ahaha!"

"Suspicious..."

"S-suspicious!? What exactly is suspicious about me!"

"For real? You're not pushing yourself for no reason, are you?"

"What would I even be pushing myself over..."

"Hmm."

Rena didn't take her eyes off that performance, suspicion intact, but for the moment she let it go. What mattered right now wasn't Iris. It was Tae-il.

She rounded on him again.

"Anyway! Shin, youuu always try to bumble your way out of it like this...!"

"Huh? Wasn't the lecture just over!?"

All the way through the last rehearsal.

"Taichi, mind if I try sitting for a bit later too...?"

"Senpai!?"

"Oh, then I want a turn too. That's fine, right, Tae-il?"

"If you sit down, my arm's gonna snap!"

"Ahaha! Wanna die?"

Tae-il still had mountains left to cross.

A room packed with girls. For a man, a place like that could be heaven—or just as easily hell. And the one thing that mattered most there was, of course...

a heart that would not bend.

"My arm hurts..."

Tae-il was rubbing his stiff forearm and shoulder when Sakuya, from behind, set her chin on the opposite one.

"Ahaha. Complaining again?"

"I am not."

"So you're saying I'm heavy?"

"..."

A trap.

He sighed, pressed a finger to Sakuya's pouted lips, and pushed her back.

"Mmmph—!"

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Tae-il stood in front of the synths. When they practiced at school he used only one; here there were two. In presence and in heft, they didn't lose even to the drums.

He pressed a key on the lower manual with his index finger.

Ting.

Nothing special. A perfectly ordinary keyboard tone. Then his hand pressed down on the upper manual.

Zheeeeeee—

"Whoa."

A crackling guitar tone, leaving a deep tail of reverb as if delay had been hung on it. Sakuya, who had learned guitar, let out a breath of admiration. Anyone listening would have heard an overdriven electric guitar, not a keyboard.

At school he was always too aware of being watched, the setup was a hassle, and none of the models on hand had felt right, so until he could buy one himself he had given the trick up. Drawing a guitar out of the synthesizer—the thing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠they call the god of electronic instruments.

Pleased with himself, Tae-il looked at Sakuya.

"No matter how many times I hear a guitar come out of a keyboard, it's still unreal..."

"Right?"

He huffed a laugh and ran his hands freely over the keys. A familiar backing figure came out.

"And if I ride the volume here, like this..."

"Ooh?"

The sound opened up. Between the guitar notes coming from the keys, there was, strangely, a rich sense of space.

Iris, who had been wetting her throat with lukewarm water right in front of him, turned her head.

"Sounds good. But can you actually pull it off?"

"I have to."

What she was asking was whether he could execute it when it counted. Tae-il clenched both fists, then opened them.

"That's my job."

His greed had driven the members into a hard place. Ayane, especially, was suffering more than anyone to make his wish come true. He had to take responsibility.

First... ease Iris's burden, so the vocal could be the best it could be.

He pressed the keys and checked the sound. His face was more serious than usual. There was a glimpse of his own grim resolve in it: he would carry the synth and the rhythm guitar at the same time.

I won't let all that studying go to waste.

After he had been born anew, Tae-il had studied other things harder than he had studied bass. Guitar, drums, keys, and every kind of percussion besides. It wasn't that he had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a clear purpose. An unconscious hunger to go back there, a yearning, had led him by instinct down the road of learning instruments.

And there, he had felt it. It wasn't that bass was the only thing he lacked talent for.

It was simply that the ceiling a human being named Shin Tae-il could reach—body and mind both—had been drawn far too sharply.

A high-difficulty piece? He could play those just fine. Only, the higher the level of the piece he set out to learn, the longer the grinding took. The problem was precisely that time.

If he were content to keep bass as a casual hobby, it wouldn't matter. Stepping onto the field was another story. Say what you like about a shortage; collide with the industry yourself and you find bassists strewn everywhere. Out there were plenty who were technically excellent, whose performance was outstanding, whose mindset was sound. There was not a single reason for Tae-il to shine.

Survival of the fittest. The weak are naturally weeded out.

But just as people say that to survive is itself a kind of strength, Tae-il studied, and studied again, in order to survive. If the hands came up short, cover it with theory as far as theory would go. If the talent was the kind that had to abandon performance for the sake of something cool and an easy chord progression, then he would reproduce that performance some other way, no matter what.

So what he had dug into most deeply was, of course, guitar and keys—the things that helped composition directly.

"Whew. I'm ready. Let's get it in one take. That okay?"

"Of course, leader."

Sakuya patted his back, slung on her guitar, and returned to her place.

The rear spot, with the whole band in front of him. Tae-il looked around at them, tense. Most were staring straight ahead, so all he could see were the backs of their heads. He was quietly swallowing his nerves when his eyes met Rena's—the only one who wasn't showing him the back of her head.

She smiled, faint.

"What. Don't tell me you're nervous, Shin?"

"Haha..."

"It's just a recording. You were fine this morning. What's with you?"

"I know, right."

Inside the drum shield, Rena spun a stick neatly over the back of her hand.

"Relax. We all know how hard you've worked."

"Yeah."

It feels good when someone notices the effort. But in this business, effort is the baseline, and you are only ever recognized when you produce a result. By other people. And by your own team.

"...I just have to pull it off."

He nodded, resolute. Maybe this was the last chance he would be given. Thinking of it that way, he was the same as Iris: there was nothing waiting behind him.

"No matter what."

A chance, and a miracle, handed down by God—something that would not come twice in a life he couldn't even call a past life or a return. Miss it, and he was a moron. He would have no right to talk about being the protagonist of his own life.

He spread his fingers wide. What came out today would be, for him, the real first step toward a major debut.

As the air in the booth drew tight, the owner asked. Iris looked back. She met each member's eyes in turn, then nodded.

"Yes. We're ready."

With Yuuya's cheer, the sticks knocked together to mark the start. Right after that, the intro began.

Something's off.

Singing, Iris felt her heart pound. She had already sung all day. It was strange to feel something new this late.

Is something different?

Well, the thing that wasn't the same as this morning's recording was Tae-il, right behind her. The one who had been commanding the session from inside, his own part covered by a backing track, was now in this narrow booth with them.

All at once, the accident from a little while ago came back. Her face grew hot.

Get down to it, and it was nothing.

He had held her so she wouldn't fall, out of consideration, and she had held him because she was scared of falling. That was all. Even so, her heart went pit-a-pat. And the corners of her mouth lifted.

She was happy. Every time she sang, heat climbed a little higher toward the crown of her head.

The way the boy in the song looked at the girl felt, somehow, reversed.

Waddle, waddle. On shortened legs, Iris followed after Tae-il.

Which meant, she supposed, that Tae-il trusted her that much. Honestly, she had also kind of wanted him to show that he minded.

In the song, the girl seeped naturally into the boy's life. Iris was the same. There had been every kind of twist along the way, but the two of them were already becoming something that could not be pulled apart. No—more precisely, she didn't want to be pulled apart.

She needed Tae-il. In the gears of the girl called Arisugawa Iris, a part named Tae-il had become essential.

Why? The more she came to depend on him, the more tangled her thoughts became.

The interlude came in. Iris steadied her breath and stole a glance behind her. Everyone was lost in their own playing.

Shin Tae-il too...

The same. If anything, the break made him look busier. The guitar that ought to have been in Iris's hands—he was covering it on the synth, fingers flying. Up and down. Then side to side, riding the volume as well. Even power chords, the thing people usually call easy, turned into chaos when you played a melody on the synth at the same time.

It's only going to get harder.

Tae-il was extremely proactive about virtual instruments and electronic ones. And among the things he had shown them, there were melodies that made even Iris's eyes swim.

She turned her head forward again. The melody from the beginning—plain, the one that carried the mood—repeated, intact.

The Cultural Festival from the first verse was over.

The girl who had been happy just being with him, the girl he had worked beside, had gone back into her friends' arms.

The boy was alone again.

A boy with a lunch tray hesitated. Eating alone was fine. Sitting beside a girl who was laughing and chattering with her friends was agony. But the girl who spotted a boy like that smiled without hesitation and patted the seat beside her. The boy didn't move an inch.

She let the breath out like a whisper at his ear. Iris bowed her head, and the melody filling the studio slowed all at once. Rena and Sakuya choked their breath down. A sweet melody only a keyboard can make spilled out. From the upper synth, its settings changed mid-song, came a soft, mournful string tone. And the bass, abandoning its dry line and crossing fully into melody, slipped in among them.

Ayane's left hand grew busy. Tapping—a way of playing bass that Tae-il had drilled into her with even more care than slap. Inside the cool, quiet air, a monologue went on.

Strange. Even when the boy refused her, the girl kept coming closer. Once. Twice. And on.

Rena's hand, which had been riding the cymbal at an easy pace, grew busy. Here it came—the song's endless highlight, the run of high notes that let Iris's vocal live.

Hup.

Sakuya held her breath to sharpen her focus. From here on, it was highlight after highlight.

The melody stretched. As if to say focus on the vocal, it opened space and threw Iris's high note into relief.

The gaps in the rhythm shortened. Tae-il bit his lip and hammered the keys.

Iris opened her chest. She managed a breath that had felt tight at the slightest movement. The note climbed. What had begun in chest voice rose into the middle voice, then, naturally, all the way into head voice. A voice that would have hit a pitch break and cracked long ago, had it belonged to most amateurs—or even most singers—drove straight on through the cramped studio.

She fired high notes without a pause and sang the highlight. But as if that were not the end, Iris instinctively loosened a throat that was cinching tight all over again, and repeated the chorus.

When the song ended, her lower lip trembled. The reverb of the intro rang on.

Ah.

The images that had been playing in her head like a film collapsed, like paint running down a wall. Hot. She forced the heat in her chest—the heat telling her to shake his presence off even harder—back down her throat.

A shadow fell across her vision. Iris, crouched on the floor, looked up. It was Tae-il. With a wry smile he clicked his tongue and held out a hand.

"You worked hard. You sang even higher than usual. Your throat okay?"

"Uh..."

A deflated little sound leaked out of her throat.

"Pfft—!"

Finding herself ridiculous, Iris ducked her head and laughed under her breath.

"Iris?"

Before he could really ask, she caught his faintly trembling hand and pulled herself up. And then—

"H-huh? Wha—"

she threw her arms around his neck and hung there. All her strength spent, voice gone slack, she murmured.

"Let me rest a little. Just like this."

"H-hey...!? If you're gonna rest, go lie down on the sofa in the monitoring room!"

Tae-il panicked. Ayane cut in at once.

"Shin-chan! Don't just praise Iris—praise Ayane too!"

"W-wait a second!?"

"Then I'll just sneak in too..."

The moment Ayane boldly hung off his arm, Sakuya set her guitar down and quietly draped herself over his shoulder. Under the extraordinary weight, he lurched toward Sakuya in an instant.

"Nngh—!"

While Sakuya let out a groan of pure regret, Rena, who still hadn't made it out of the drum shield, wailed in despair.

"Hey, are you guys seriously gonna be that cheap right now!? Get me out of here, you cheap bastards!"

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It was a full minute later that Rena, champion of the campaign against drummer discrimination, wriggled her way out of the shield.

"Um, Rena...?"

"Punishment."

Left out on her own, Rena clung onto his back, late but thorough, piggyback-style. Under the weight of four people, his legs shook. Thinking he would go down if this kept up, Tae-il looked toward Yuuya and the owner in the monitoring room.

"S-somebody save me. Please, just save meee..."

"..."

He had never imagined the owner would fold before he did.

Crash.

In the end, Tae-il, unable to hold out any longer, went down with them.