Declaration
Exhilarating.
A high note rang at his ear, carrying a fizz deeper than any soda — carbonation so sharp it stung the throat. She crossed the pitch as if it were nothing, slipping in and out of a range other people called the realm of dreams the way someone wanders through their own house.
To Tae-il, Iris was no power vocalist. She sat closer to a singer of thick appeal and extraordinary feeling than to the forceful, muscular style built on high notes and flawless technique. What made it possible was that cheating tone of hers. Had she become an idol, she would have been spoken of as a legendary main vocal. And sure enough, as if the very idea of sorting vocalists into types were a joke, she tapped a third-octave A in her true voice, light as anything, and climbed straight past it. The sight bordered on the miraculous.
She was born to it. A natural gift so complete that for her not to sing would have been a loss to the world. Her first note still wavered now and then, but he figured that, too, would work itself out once the experience piled up.
Tae-il closed his eyes and drank in her song. Lyrics brimming with happiness. And, sadly, riding a crackling noise, as if the microphone itself were tearing apart.
He would have to accept it. He shook his head the way a doctor does when the patient in front of him is past saving.
"Unfortunately, I can't use this for the track..."
"N-no...!"
The moment the recording they had worked so hard to capture was ruled unusable, Iris's shoulders slumped.
"Haha."
Finding her sunk to her knees beside him, Tae-il faltered, then quietly stroked her head. Iris accepted the touch without a fuss.
"Don't be too disappointed. It was genuinely incredible to listen to. The best live I've ever heard."
"Really...?"
"Yeah. I guarantee it. Have some confidence. There isn't another vocalist like you in the world."
"I-is that so..."
Under the praise pouring over her, Iris tried to hide her shyness, tucking the twitching corners of her mouth between the hands she'd braced on the edge of the desk.
Tae-il was sincerely sorry about the take. Why did people lose their minds over concerts in the first place? The reason was right here. A living pulse from the room itself that no amount of EQ, no amount of riding the loudness, could ever reproduce. An indirect experience was, in the end, only an indirect experience. There were feelings you could have only because you were standing in a place you could experience directly — that dreamlike sight of becoming one with the artists on the stage, of witnessing and sharing the story they had walked and the work it had become.
Why couldn't artists give up the stage? They were addicted, too. Drunk on the pleasure and the happiness that vast world poured over them, unwilling to climb back out.
Tae-il wanted that as well. And at the same time, he wanted to set in their hands, with his own, a joy so complete it could not be traded for anything.
If only Iris had recorded it alone...
When the highlight arrived, her voice tore. Not her vocal cords — the gear, and the room. It was almost a shame they'd recorded as a group. Sung by herself, the song would have come out cleaner. The drums' grand bloom, impossible to hide even behind a shield. The natural noise that rose whenever a crowd of amps and electronic instruments sounded at once. And on top of all that, the space was cramped. From the way they'd used the studio all the way down to the members' playing, once he went back over it piece by piece, there wasn't a single corner free of regret.
Even so, Tae-il decided to leave the regret behind him and move forward. Tales Tale's first challenge had been a failure and a success at once.
"Next time, let's do better. Oh — Iris, you can stay exactly as you are. The one who needs to get better is probably me."
"...Okay."
"Have some confidence. If this had been a live show, every last person there, young or old, would've walked out your fan."
"Ehehe."
At his praise, Iris laughed without a shred of restraint.
He was looking forward to it. Even if they couldn't put that most perfect last take on the album, whatever came out the other side of mastering would still be her first official song.
"Are you going to let Izumi hear it, too?"
"Do you want me to?"
"Mmm. Maybe... a little?"
She wanted to show off to the woman she admired. She wanted to be praised by her. Watching those two feelings cross on Iris's face, Tae-il snorted and dragged a hand through her hair until it was a wreck.
"Agh! Hey! You're ruining my hair...!"
"You could stand to be a little ruined."
People who were too perfect had no charm — so he said, thoroughly tousling her.
"Ugh. So you're admitting I'm that perfect, then?"
"Ah. Shouldn't have said anything."
"Hey!"
The moment he called her out for preening, she flared.
"Hahaha!"
Tae-il laughed.
All of it was falling into Yuuya's camera.
Iris shot to her feet.
"Anyway, you're finishing the song, right? All of it?"
"Yeah."
"Then I'll be out back tidying the studio and talking with the others. I'm counting on you, leader."
"Yeah, yeah."
Iris whispered a tiny bye-bye and waved at the lens. A soft smile and a fluttering hand caught in the frame, and then she slipped out of the monitor room.
"Honestly..."
Tae-il wore a wry smile as he watched her go, the look on his face unmistakably fond.
The eyes following in the vocalist's wake were hazy with longing. A vast, open sea — like someone who had lost north, south, east, and west, and then found a constellation overhead. Honey thick with affection dripped off him. Not as a figure of speech. Actually.
I'm jealous...
The corners of Yuuya's mouth sank, against her will.
"You worked hard too, senpai."
"H-huh?"
Iris was gone from the monitor room. Tae-il got up and came over to Yuuya.
"Thank you. Really, for today."
He said it while drawing her gently into his arms.
"T-Tae-il...!?"
Yuuya forgot even to hit stop, and was caught against him. He patted her back, light.
"I know how hard a shoot like this is. The editing afterward, too. I feel awful about it even now."
She had been filming the members taking turns through the same passage, dozens of times over. A professional would be expected to bear that and get it done. Yuuya was not a professional. She wasn't even being paid. It was work an ordinary frame of mind couldn't sustain, and afterward she still had to edit the whole thing and put it up on the channel. Truly crushing labor. Tae-il was deeply grateful that she felt any sense of belonging with them at all, when she wasn't even a member of the band.
"So if it ever gets to be too much, tell me. I'll help."
"...Really?"
Yuuya lifted her eyes, quiet. The fingers around her iPhone curled in, shy.
"Um, then..."
What should she ask for? The worry deepened. She wanted to ask for something — anything — so she could hold his gaze the way the others did. But the moment she started thinking, her mind went white. She bit down on her lip. The hand on the phone tightened, little by little.
"Take your time, senpai."
Tae-il brushed her shoulder, gentle.
"You don't have to push yourself right now. I'm always on your side. If you call, I'll come running. Anytime."
"...Promise."
Yuuya quietly held out her pinky.
"A promise?"
"Yeah. Break it, and you close your eyes and take one stamp."
"Promises have been getting scary lately."
Remembering the ones he'd already made with Iris, and with Ayane, Tae-il smiled wryly and hooked his pinky with hers.
"I promise."
"Mm."
"But that stamp isn't, like, a guarantor's seal or anything, right...?"
"Mm."
"Thank god..."
"It might be something worse..."
"What?"
Tae-il froze solid. At the look on his face, Yuuya laughed under her breath and nodded, again and again.
"Yeah. Something worse."
"Senpai...?"
"It's fine now. I'd actually prefer it if you broke the promise."
"When you put it like that, my anxiety starts climbing pretty fast, you know?"
Yuuya smiled, small and shy, and hid her twitching mouth behind the phone. The tip of her index finger fidgeted along its edge.
"Um..."
Green eyes touched with a little mischief lifted, and then they met his.
"If I call... you really, absolutely have to come help me, right? Absolutely?"
Faced with how pitiful she looked, Tae-il grinned, as if to say there was nothing to worry about. He declared it.
"Finally..."
At the prize waiting at the end of a forty-nine-hour death march, Arthur let out a scream steeped in agony.
"Gyaaah! I swear this is gonna kill me, ugh..."
Power-On King. That damned format every broadcaster tries at least once — boot the game the second it drops, and don't stop until it's cleared. A new release was coming, he'd been talking with some Korean streamers about wanting to play it, and then he'd gone and accepted a Power-On King bet on the spot. That had been the mistake.
The terms were simple. A clear-time wager on the new game against the crew on the other side. The winner earned the right to parade the loser around for public shame. The loser earned the obligation to be paraded.
At first he'd taken it lightly.
Come on. I'm good at games, aren't I?
Not once in his life had Arthur thought of himself as bad at them. Korea was a gaming powerhouse? If you thought about it, Korean blood ran in him too. So he'd accepted. And then he'd been utterly wrecked, and finished dead last. The rare sight of him falling apart had set donations and subscriptions off like fireworks, so the money had come in heaps. His mood, however, was foul.
"Maybe I'll feel better if I look at my account..."
Nothing healed like money. Sprawled across the bed, Arthur fumbled for his phone and opened the banking app, and the corners of his mouth climbed.
"Hehh...!"
He clutched his forehead, drunk on it. Money he never would have touched in a lifetime if he'd pigheadedly spent the whole of it grinding away on the live circuit.
"See, this is the right call. Rin ought to just dump those girls and do this instead..."
Picturing his lover's face, pinched for cash every day in the name of running a business, he let out a snort of a laugh.
"Maybe I should drop by for the first time in a while and buy her a meal."
She might even be moved. He was pushing himself up off the bed in high spirits when the phone buzzed.
"Oh?"
He checked it, and there was a name he'd missed.
"What's this? Things have been quiet, and he actually went and started a band?"
Knowing Tae-il, Arthur had assumed even forming one would take forever. He never would have guessed the lineup was already finished over the break. He thought again about the boy he'd had his eye on — Shin Tae-il.
First, despite the innocent way he came at people, he was the sort who, once you got close, made enemies more easily than allies. Maybe that was why the guy himself was so entertaining to be around. Everyone else found him ordinary and wondered what could possibly set him apart, but Arthur had seen it. Shin Tae-il had the look of someone who would absolutely cause an incident someday. And he was doing exactly that. Less so lately, but the incubus brat who had drifted through live houses charming band people of every gender had built himself a considerable notoriety.
Miss Pumpkin had already fallen head over heels, hadn't she...?
Watching a woman who wouldn't have budged if it killed her get dragged around, utterly flustered, by some brat had been pretty funny.
"Come to think of it, it's autumn. There'll be another comeback before long. Maybe I should go watch a show."
Arthur smacked his lips and fiddled with the phone. Just airing the stories Tae-il had handed him already brought in fairly sweet money on iTube. He was dying to hear what new ones the kid had stacked up over the break — and which of them he'd be told.
Ginza, right by his apartment. Weekday lunch ran past twenty thousand yen, and if you went for dinner it cleared thirty thousand.
Arthur made a face like he'd bitten into something rotten. The kid's own bar for touching people was so low he'd hug and shake hands with anyone at the drop of a hat, and yet Arthur couldn't understand why he was so strict with everyone else. According to Tae-il, Rin was the one to pity....
If she were actually that pitiful, she would've dumped me ages ago.
It was also ridiculous for an outsider to pass judgment on a relationship that belonged to the two of them alone. Frankly, if it hadn't been Tae-il, a fist might already have flown over meddling like that. Grumbling all the while, Arthur sent an okay anyway. It was tour season, and Rin had been out of Tokyo for more than two months — he wanted to see her, too.
"Hey!"
Arthur, rarely, exploded. Don't even try? In the whole world, every person skilled enough that he couldn't run his mouth at them was already either running a rookie-scouting project under a major label, or had long since debuted and then some. And still Tae-il stated it flat. Don't even try.
"Fine. I'll meet her, and I'll hear this oh-so-great vocal for myself."
At the provocation, Arthur ground his molars, seething.