Busking (9)

With the setup finished and the real work of tuning and soundchecks underway, Tae-il broke into a cold sweat.

There are so many people...

Fifty? No—a hundred?

Had some rumor gotten out while they were setting up? The crowd was on another plane entirely from the day he'd come to scout the spot. It was bad enough that the audience's attention had swung wholly their way; more than a few bands simply stopped mid-song, as if they'd decided they might as well watch too.

Is this right?

Faced with a kind of interest he'd never had before, Tae-il felt his nerve shrink just a little. He swallowed, throat dry.

How long has it even been since I stood a proper live?

In this life, too, he had been on a stage a handful of times—filling in for bands with a hole punched through the lineup. A perk that came with being a diehard live junkie. Memories of those shows rose up one after another, the most beautiful things in his life, and at the same time nothing of the sort.

They were good.

That freshness only a beginner gets to feel. The summit of ignorance. Warm looks from a crowd, comfort braided with encouragement. The attention, the consolation, the cheering he had once received as if they were his by right—none of it had anything to do with him anymore.

I can't go back.

The stage where a newborn learns to walk and lets go of babbling was already an evening long past. Even if this was their first proper live, Tae-il could not return to that time. The members, on the other hand, were another story.

Before the set began, he called them in.

"Hey, guys."

At his call, every member of Tales Tale—each of them checking an instrument or a throat—went still. He met their eyes one by one, and he held the look a little longer with Iris, the vocalist, and with Rena, who was pretending to be calm while her hands trembled faintly.

"I'll say it now. Even if you mess up today, I'm not going to say a word."

"Today...?"

"Busking was only ever for the publicity, and we already hit that goal, didn't we?"

He tipped his chin at their surroundings, making a show of it for them. Near the entrance into Yoyogi Park, the crowd ringing them in was thick enough to bottleneck the path. In the press of bodies, Yuuya hunched his shoulders around a camera. Sera and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Fuyuko stood to either side of him like guards, and beside them, in a row, Hyun Toseong and a woman Tae-il didn't know. Wall to wall. On a promenade you could walk for minutes without reaching the end, only this one stretch had clotted, thick as a blocked artery.

"Look. The promo's already a success."

Joy was one thing. The sight was enough to stop a breath in the throat, and Rena's color darkened at once.

"Whoa... this is kind of dragging up some bad memories."

"A squirt like you has actually been surrounded by a crowd before?"

"Ha. A gloomy girl like you has no idea about the special sufferings of a social butterfly. You get that?"

"Pfft!"

"You wanna die?"

Ayane—a genuine socialite, the same breed as Sakuya—laughed in Rena's face without a shred of mercy. Being mocked by Ayane of all people must have stung; Rena leveled a drumstick at her like a threat. Watching the two of them scrap, Tae-il covered his mouth and snickered.

"Fighting's fine. Just do it after the live, if you can."

"Ah, we're not fighting! Shin's got the wrong idea!"

"Ayane, you too!"

"Sigh. Honestly, both of you are so transparent."

"Right?"

Sakuya shook her head at the pair wearing their hearts on their sleeves in front of Tae-il. Iris's reaction was much the same.

"As you can see. We already did what we came to do."

Every person watching Tales Tale held the same poster. After Tae-il's furious objections, the members' faces had been wiped from it; instead of a harem shot, the silhouettes stood in easy poses that let each personality show. Above them sat the band logo Rena had made, and copy advertising the Cultural Festival.

"Honestly..."

Meeting Iris's eyes, Tae-il chose his words for a moment.

"It's a little ridiculous to say this after we've come this far, but... it's all right if we fail."

"Hey."

"Haha. I mean it."

He laughed, drew an easy breath, and then smiled, bright and open.

Successes, he had few. Failures, he had in abundance. And along with them, he knew exactly how to thrash and claw his way up again after a fall. Across his past life and this one, he had watched countless bands collapse and rise from a front-row seat. There had been some, too, who met hardship like a typhoon and still went forward with a heart that would not break, until at last they found the light.

Which meant the rise and fall of a single moment never mattered more than the way you enjoyed the music.

"This is our first proper live. Let's enjoy it as much as we can. With the songs we made."

Anything, the first time, carries a meaning of its own.

"The feelings we have today, the mood we're in—those are going to steer our whole musical lives."

"Give me a break."

At encouragement that wasn't quite encouragement, Iris clicked her tongue and turned her back on the group. She clenched the microphone tight.

"Maybe the rest of you don't know, but this isn't my first time."

"Ah."

"Oh—right!"

Rena and Sakuya, who knew Iris's failure and her first stage, pressed hands to their foreheads before they could stop themselves. Ayane's expression clouded.

"Um, Iris? I get how you feel, but at a time like this you should just climb aboard the mood our leader, Shin-chan, set..."

"What are you even saying."

Leaving Ayane—who had taken Tae-il's side—behind her, Iris brushed the mic lightly with her thumb. She had no idea what face he was making. And yet she could picture that trademark vacant look of his so perfectly it was as if he stood right in front of her.

"Let me say this in advance. I am not going to fail a second time..."

She murmured it like a vow. And then—

The back she turned on them looked steady enough to lean on.

"Haha."

Tae-il smiled faintly and tugged his hat down firm. It was that fedora, the one Yahiro had given him.

"Look at you two, just playing around."

Rena, who had watched the whole exchange, stuck her lip out and butted in.

"Seriously. Should we just start playing already?"

"Not a scrap of feeling in any of this..."

Sakuya and Ayane each took up an instrument and set their stances.

"Let's go."

The mic powered on. The heat climbed. Facing the crowd, Iris opened her mouth.

"We're a new band. We're Tales Tale."

A short introduction. So ordinary it was almost uncanny—plain to the point of dullness. And yet.

"Looks that good, and even the intro sounds different."

"Agreed."

Hearing Toseong's mutter, Baekya nodded with fervor. She hugged the poster to her chest as if it were precious, eyes glittering, already carrying on like a fan. Toseong shook his head. The murmuring all around them was the same—hardcore fans cheering an idol.

The vocalist smiled shyly, eyes lifting. It was a look cute enough to make you forget the overwhelming beauty and the chest, the kind of expression that stirred a protective instinct.

"This is actually our first busking, so we won't be doing all that many songs..."

"Aaaah!"

The crowd answered the moment the shy confession landed. She hadn't sung a note, and already the air around them burned as if they were diehard fans.

"Our first song is BARD's 'Above the Blue Sea.'"

BARD. A popular pick almost no one failed to know, and the whole crowd roared.

"A textbook song. Good choice."

"You know it? I don't really listen to BARD..."

"It's a summer song. Thick with feeling, but refreshing. That's the charm."

Baekya nodded at Toseong's explanation. It was, without question, a seasonal pick. Above the Blue Sea—calm and cool at once, famous as BARD's signature summer track. Some people even found it marvelous that the lyrics were so desperate. Izumi, whose face rarely changed, sang this one bright and unburdened, and it was called a beloved song for that, too.

"But our Toseong—how do you know Japanese songs that well? I thought you weren't interested in band music."

"Th-that's, well..."

"Hehe. It's fine. This big sister understands everything, you know?"

"Tch..."

As if to wipe away the sound of Baekya's laugh, the playing began. It opened on a light guitar riff. The guitar itself was the lead. For rain, and for that particular freshness of summer, nothing served better than guitar and synth; here, it was guitar. Over the hi-hat's beat, the silver-haired girl played an intro that was easy and still unmistakable. Most of the crowd's eyes went to her—to Sakuya.

Only Toseong's gaze went to Tae-il. The sound was wrong. There was only one guitar, and yet he was hearing two. Sure enough, at the very back beside the drums, Tae-il had killed his presence and was working the keys for all he was worth.

So he's solving the rhythm with synth.

About twenty seconds of intro, and then—right on cue, riding the rhythm—the vocal came in, snaring the crowd with a gaze as bewitching as a succubus.

The tone was exceptional. It wasn't even a special part, and still the song, sung like a whisper, seized the ear at once. All the way up to the chorus, the vocal went on flaunting that beautiful color of hers.

A scratch entered the tone. As if she were spilling feeling in front of a beach under a hard wind, she tempered the emotion and drove it out. The vocal's particular power to plead came through on its own.

The song, so calm a moment ago, turned in an instant into a plea. Even so, the listener was not dragged under by the vocal's feeling, was not left in a worse mood for it.

Like the song itself, it felt less like sinking and more like shaking old feelings clean off. The melody, and the vocal's smile, refused to leave the crowd sad. The drum's rhythm quickened, beat on beat, and you could feel the song's crest coming on ahead of itself. The guitar showed off a brilliant melody as if climbing onto the vocal's high notes. The bass's weight filled the gaps between. And the synth gathered every small thing so that all of the sound could lock together.

It's a mess.

Messy enough that the vocal was almost a waste. The bass sat stiff. The guitar laid its lack of live experience bare. To an experienced eye and ear, whether he wanted to notice or not, the desperate struggle of synth and vocal showed through.

The mistakes a beginner band always makes...

He couldn't call it good, not even as empty praise. The drums, the one thing that must not go wrong, had already slipped the beat twice in the first verse alone. If Tae-il of all people hadn't rushed to cover it with the electronic-drum sound recorded on his pad, even an ordinary listener might have felt something was off. Lucky the song barely used synth. If it had leaned on synth even a little, Tae-il couldn't have answered at all. Score it, and it sat somewhere around a five out of ten.

And yet.

"Everything else aside."

Watching the song run toward its end—

"The band's chemistry, and the vocal, are on another level."

The longer they played, the less Toseong could pull his eyes off them, one member at a time. Sloppy as it was, they filled one another's mistakes and saw the song through without incident. Not a trace of anxiety showed in Tae-il's eyes, nor in the vocal's. An unfalling pillar held the whole of it up. They wavered, and then—uncannily, as if a counterweight hung from them—they returned to where they belonged.

"I'm looking forward to where this goes."

Toseong left the opinion honest.

Applause poured down. Fortunately, hardly anyone seemed to have caught the sound problems. Even if someone had, the vocal buried them. And it was a mercy beyond measure that Sakuya, playing where the guitar showed, had not made a mistake.

"Thank you."

While Iris offered thanks on the band's behalf—

"You okay?"

"I-I'm just a little nervous, that's all!"

Tae-il checked on Rena, whose face had gone red with shame. She had rushed it. It was a mercy beyond measure that Ayane had not wavered, that she had kept the rhythm of her own position perfectly. Because of that, Sakuya had been able to do her part without a flaw.

"Sorry..."

Rena ground her molars and blamed herself. Close as she was to a perfectionist, she looked as if she could not forgive the mistake. Left like this, it would bleed into the next song for certain.

"It's fine."

Tae-il ruffled her hair, rough and familiar.

"Shin...?"

"I told you, didn't I?"

She looked up, and the black fedora he'd been wearing dropped squarely onto her head.

"Today, it's okay to mess up."

"But still..."

When she tried to argue, he stopped her by pressing the crown of her head, once and then again.

"Though, yeah."

A faint laugh came down from above her hair.

"Rena, your face back there was way too serious."

"Huh? My face?"

"Yeah. Let's hide it with the hat. That okay?"

"..."

Rena thrust her lips out in a tremendous pout, caught the fedora's brim, and pulled it down hard.

"Hmph. Figures."

Ayane, who had been watching, grinned.

"Heh. That's exactly right for a little shrimp."

"Whaaat?"

"From the playing all the way to the face acting. It's the gap in talent between you and Ayane."

Ayane showed off the mask of hers that let nothing reach the surface, even when she was nervous.

"Haha. Ayane really didn't miss a single note."

"See?"

"Hmph. Years of vixen tricks to build a mask, and then you brag about it..."

"They are not vixen tricks!"

While Ayane flared, Sakuya cut in.

"Guys. I think Iris is about at her limit."

Sakuya pointed at the small of Iris's back. The hand Iris had hidden there flopped like a fish hauled onto land—an SOS, begging them to wrap it up and get into the live. Everyone smiled wryly.

"Ready?"

"Yeah."

Rena nodded. The next song was none other than Autumn Love Song. Not something thrown together and drilled in a hurry, but a piece they had poured months of real care into. Tae-il kneaded her shoulder, light.

"Don't get too nervous. After we're done today, let's just think about where we're eating."

"Asakura-sensei said we should go to an izakaya."

"That's a bar!? F-from a public-morals standpoint, that's a little...!"

"Or we just go to the gloomy girl's family sushi place."

"Ah! Should I ask my dad?"

"Haha. Whatever it ends up being, let's finish the live first...!"

"Iris's wrist is gonna fall off at this rate."

Her signaling grew more pitiful still, and Tae-il hurriedly sent the members back to their places.

"Whew. Then we'll move on to the next song!"

The moment the next number was finally ready, Iris wiped a cold sweat and let out a sigh of relief.

"The next song is an original of ours... Autumn Love Song."

"Ooh."

At the words original song, expectation climbed. They had sung only one piece, and still the crowd burned; Iris smiled, bitter and small.

I really have to sing my heart out.

She steadied her breath. The start, as always, was the sound of Rena's sticks. Eyes closed, Iris drew a picture in her head—the one-act drama she had pictured back when she and Tae-il built the lyrics together. The faceless protagonist became Tae-il. The faceless protagonist became her.

"..."

Her heart pounded. It was an exceedingly pleasant pounding. It was all right to fail. She had met his declaration—that he would haul her upward no matter what—with a blunt face, but she had been deeply grateful for it all the same.

But Iris knew. Fear. Her chest ached, and her hands shook. The thing she loved most in the world frightened her, and singing grew difficult. The dark age of her life. Empty, living only because she was alive, the life of a cog in a machine.

I don't ever want to feel that again.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

She remembered the first time she met Tae-il at school. There had been no hidden motive. She had been playing at being a good girl, gotten saddled with the work that came of it, and while she was handling it alone—when it proved too much—she had asked a boy passing by for help. That was how the meeting began. A strange, clumsy boy, foolish, giving off nothing but a suspicious air. To her, treated as a madonna by the boys, it was not a meeting with anything special about it.

But meeting him had been special. Because he was the thing that finally turned the stalled cog called the life of Arisugawa Iris. And now he was beside her.

Do I like him?

Iris did not know whether she was allowed to have a feeling like this. Bound to her house, she had never dared imagine that page of youth called love. Once, after watching a melodrama of desperate, aching love, curiosity had driven her to ask Kiriko—an adult—about it. Kiriko had answered like this.

Iris was similar. She wanted to meet a good man and grow old beside him. At the same time, she wanted the most romantic love of all, the kind that would never come again in a lifetime. Her mother had not regretted the marriage, but Iris firmly believed that was only her mother smoothing true feeling over for her daughter's sake. The longing for love had only grown. A first love. If a first love that never quite came true still led into a hundred years together... surely that, too, would be romantic.

Tick. Tick.

Rena struck the hi-hat instead of the sticks. The playing began. The intro. Unlike the previous song, crude at the seams, a perfect lock fell into place, as if all the practice until now had finally caught the light. Sakuya took the part with its light rhythmic cutting and made it bright.

Sing. What I want, without minding anything around me. Sing it smiling.

Lonely lyrics. But this song ended happily. Smile, and sing it as bright as I can. Bring the tone alive. Open my chest, raise the volume as high as it will go, use this place like a stage, and sing it like a musical.

She, too, believed—as Tae-il did—in the time every member had stacked up until now. Every nerve went into the audience watching her, and into the song.

Borrowing the hat's help to shut the eyes around her out, Rena led the rhythm with a skill that showed no tension at all. There was nothing she needed to show off. Each time she struck the drums, her head nodded on its own. She gave her body over to the flow of the rhythm. It was fun. Iris's voice, audibly elated to anyone listening, climbed onto the drums and danced. Tae-il never had to step in.

Finally...!

She wanted to see the members' faces. She wanted to confirm, with her own eyes, the look of them watching her with pride. But she held it in. She swallowed the long bitterness that comes before the sweet, imagined the moment the song would end, worked the pedal, and rocked with it.

I'm not a burden.

Having done her part, Rena smiled brightly and kept driving the song toward its highlight. The crest of the piece. Set aside the synth, which held the atmosphere, and what stood out most was drums and guitar.

Thump. Thump!

A melody that cut clean on the beat, locking to the song—Sakuya answered it without ever getting excited, killing the sound with perfect mutes. Restrained playing centered on the high frets, born of real presence, carried a cool no beginner ought to have had. Here, Sakuya had one job. When she was the protagonist, wink at whichever audience member her eyes happened to meet.

"Kyaaa!"

With nothing more than that, she reaped a result beyond anything she had imagined. The chorus was running out.

Iris's voice, which had been throwing high notes clean and wide, drew down, and the melody slowed with it.

She let the breath out like a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠whisper at the ear. It was the part Tae-il had praised to the skies. Iris ducked her head and hid the corner of her mouth, which had climbed into a grin before she noticed. A sweet melody peculiar to the keys spilled out. Tae-il and Ayane's turn. The bass, which had been dutifully shuttling root notes, shed its skin entirely, together with a soft, sorrowful string tone. From Ayane's slender fingertips a fresh melody flowed without a single stumble, as if she were painting youth itself.

Iris quietly lifted her head. She caught the mic in both hands and, inside the calmed air, went on singing.

A girl who appears wherever a boy used to loneliness tries to go, standing in his way. Iris was like that girl, and also not. Iris was like that boy, and also not. Either way, the feeling took her in. The relationship between the two of them changed. And as if to show that change of feeling, Rena's hands flew again and she drove back in.

The moment. A highlight without an end. The peak high-note passage Iris trusted so completely. She held her breath the way they had practiced. A voice even a singer finds difficult to handle without training moved, obedient, at her command.

As if savoring the peace just before a high note would ring the world, she set the feeling called affection into the words and sang them. The first sign: the gaps in Rena's rhythm shortened. The second: Sakuya's playing simplified into power chords. The third: the moment Ayane's hands and Tae-il's grew busiest of all.

She opened her chest. She governed a breath that still had room to spare and drew the vocal cords tight. The sound climbed.

Not a studio sealed on every side, but open air—and Iris's voice boomed through it, ringing. The feeling. Even in Japan, where a nasal tone stands out, Iris's song, which met the world head-on with pure volume and true voice, came through clear.

I'm gonna lose it.

Fingers busy as they were, Tae-il kept his head down and grinned for all he was worth. Yeah. For a band, live was the best there was. Why had he been shaking with fear, trying to run from this world? Trauma. And there was something in this world greater than fear. Without meaning to, Tae-il bit his lip.

Without a rest. As if they had sung BARD's song for no reason but to hide this high note, Iris's head voice climbed like something gone mad. It was not a wailing high note. It was not a high note painfully squeezed out, hard to listen to. From Iris there was ease, as if she were shouting that she could still go higher. He could see it. Iris's expression—which, by rights, he should not have been able to see at all—was far too clear to Tae-il.

Slowly.

As if sobbing, Iris brought the song to its close. Strength left her legs and she wanted to sink to the ground; she forced the want down. Rena brought the hi-hat down hard. The outro. Like something left to linger, the opening guitar riff returned, and the fresh love story of a boy and a girl came to its curtain. The finish. With a keening squeal, Sakuya lifted the guitar as it spilled its sustain, and announced the end.

"Thank you!"

Iris bowed her head. Clap. Clap, clap, clap. Someone started it, and from everywhere, as if a virus had caught, the applause went on without end. Iris ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lifted her head.

"Ah."

Not sneers, not mockery, not eyes that said something was wrong—an audience purely congratulating her, purely cheering. She had done it. The moment she understood, her vision blurred. Lower lip bitten hard, she covered her reddening eyes and bowed her head once more.

"That was Tales Tale, from Yuuma High!"

The live was a success. Those few words would not stop circling through Iris's head.