Heart-Pounding Cultural Festival (7)
A rehearsal, in the end, is the run-through that makes a stage feel real — even to people who still can't quite believe a stage is a real place at all.
They feel it. Audience seats that always seemed cramped feel impossibly wide once you are standing in front of them. You realize how small you are.
There is the pressure of people's eyes and attention, frightening and heavy, bearing down on your whole body. And there is the adrenaline that wraps you when you overcome it — when you break through the silence and draw out cheers, or applause.
None of it can be understood until you have stepped onto the stage. Like children led by Peter Pan into Wonderland, you are drawn out of a dull everyday and ushered into a stimulating new world.
But that world is not something you build alone. It is a work made by joining your strength to the strength of many others.
Which was precisely why every team entering the Eve Festival had to use this rehearsal to settle, in advance, exactly what kind of stage they meant to show — in consultation with the Broadcasting Club, who would be directing it.
Tales Tale was no exception.
They followed the long line across the schoolyard, each of them carrying a case with an instrument inside, toward the gym that housed the Great Auditorium.
"Ah."
At the rear, Iris — laughing and talking with the rest of Tales Tale as she walked — stopped, as if she had spotted something. Her gaze fixed on the middle of the schoolyard.
"What are you looking at?"
"That."
Iris pointed at the center of the yard.
"Is that the wood they're going to use for the campfire later?"
"Ahh. Probably."
"So that's where they do the folk dance..."
Logs meant for firewood were stacked as neatly as a pyramid. Right beside them, a huge square structure stood proud in the schoolyard, big enough to see clearly even from the classrooms. Like an Olympic flame, the enormous thing had been built to send up a great blaze.
"It really is flashy.... How much money do they pour into our Cultural Festival?"
"Right?"
Tae-il wasn't in any athletic club, so beyond the sheer size of the school, it was hard for him to feel how wildly the place spent its money. The first time that extravagance had really hit him was the lodging Sakuya had used during the Inter-High, and that was all. But now that they were somewhere around the middle of the second semester, he could feel it plainly: when Yuuma decided to spend, it spent without holding back.
"Hey! What are you two doing, not hurrying up?"
While the two of them stood there taking in the schoolyard, Sakuya waved from a distance and shouted. She had already brought Rena and Yuuya with her, all the way up to the entrance of the gym.
"Yikes...! Let's hurry, Iris."
Tae-il held out his hand. Iris faltered, looking at it.
"You're not taking it?"
"Mm."
The moment she did, the two of them — left far behind — broke into a run. Strength went into the grip.
If I asked him to dance with me, would he say yes...?
Even as she was towed along by a hand clasped tight, as if he had no intention of letting go, Iris turned the question over.
The instant they came through the entrance, Rena planted both hands on her hips and snapped.
"You're late!"
"Sorry. Iris got distracted by the campfire for a second."
"The campfire?"
Sakuya tilted her head.
"Ahh. Because of the folk dance at the Finale?"
"Hehe...?"
Embarrassed, Iris stuck her tongue out and winked.
"That kind of thing is a dream of youth in its own way, you know."
"Mm-hm. I get it."
"Me too..."
Everyone took Iris's side. Only Rena, puffed up, stared at Iris, who was watching her mood.
"What, you like it that much?"
"Well, I mean..."
Cornered by the sharp question, Iris dodged her eyes and fidgeted with her fingers. Rena's mouth jutted out. Her face said she had something to say, but in the end she never let it out.
"Whatever. We're last. Let's get inside."
"O-okay!"
The moment they passed the entrance and stepped into the Great Auditorium, Sakuya snapped her fingers as if the thought had only just come to her.
"Right. Isn't there an application window for that?"
"An application window...?"
"Yeah. I think the Executive Committee takes reservations separately."
She added that the club president had once complained that on the last day of the Cultural Festival, the ground around the campfire was always nothing but couples.
"It was like that?"
Tae-il, who sat on the Executive Committee himself and was hearing this for the first time, blinked stupidly.
"Ah — you've been running around outside the whole time, so you missed it? Yama... Vice President Lily said so, so it's definite. It's reservation-only. And really popular."
The end of the world. Tae-il's face all but said it.
"Couples hogging an entire campfire, of all things..."
His expression clouded.
"I had no idea this school had enough couples to ring that whole campfire..."
He remembered a scene from the original. Boys and girls spinning round and round a flame of unmatched grandeur, dancing. There had been so many of them. The protagonists, too, had watched the dancing from the art room, sunk in the afterglow of the live show, paired off, and danced themselves. He had never once dreamed that every one of them was a couple.
"Still."
The words slipped out of him before he knew he was speaking.
"Dancing with the person you love, in front of the campfire... that would be nice."
A jolt. At that murmur, every girl present — Ayane not among them — startled, shoulders jumping.
"T-Tae-il...!"
And then Sakuya, who came right after Ayane in how boldly she went after him — or perhaps even ahead of her — quietly pressed her own wish into the opening. She put on all the ease she could, as if it were nothing, and nudged the idea toward him.
"Want to put our names in? I'll have time then, too..."
They had already kissed. Sakuya didn't think he would bolt over a mere dance. The reaction, though, was worse than she had expected.
"Haha. Thanks for the offer. But if I did that, wouldn't the girls stab me to death?"
"Ehh. Coward..."
"No, this is less about cowardice and more about my life being on the line..."
Students kept charging after him through the classroom with whatever they could grab, and thanks to them his wariness had climbed sharply of late.
"Are you coming or not, you idiots...!"
While he was still busy making excuses, Rena's shout carried from across the way. She was bracing the heavy door with arms that trembled, and the look she had fixed on them was plenty fierce. Delay any longer, and someone was getting hit.
"Let's go. Rena's waiting."
"Haah. Our Rena's about as tactful as those cliché fireworks..."
Her plan in ruins, Sakuya dropped her chin onto Tae-il's shoulder and let herself be hauled toward the Great Auditorium.
The rehearsal began.
A student who looked to be from the Broadcasting Club gripped a megaphone with impressive authority and called out.
"Everyone, line up in the order on this chart!"
Tae-il, as their representative, went and took the chart of the rehearsal order himself. His eyes ran down it. On a list of about fifteen teams for the first half, Tales Tale sat at the very bottom.
"We're dead last?"
"Looks like it."
"And I wanted to finish fast and get back fast.... Tch!"
Rena clicked her tongue under her breath, as if the whole thing were a wash.
"Even so..."
Tae-il lifted his head. Students carrying every kind of instrument had clumped together with people they knew and were chattering away. Everyone gathered here was a rival to Tales Tale, and at the same time a talented soul who would make them shine.
There was just one problem.
Way too many eyes on us....
It was radiant. The lights of the Great Auditorium were clearly trained on the stage, and yet Tae-il felt the air around him shining to an almost uncanny degree. The halo people speak of around stars showed, vivid, on every one of the members' faces. Iris, the most eye-catching of them all, didn't even notice the light she herself was scattering. She was too busy glittering at the splendor around her, unable to collect herself.
"There are so many people...!"
"And this isn't even everyone."
"Really?"
"The graduates aren't here."
"True. They said a lot of alumni were taking part, but everyone actually here is in uniform. And the teachers said they were doing some kind of congratulatory performance, too...!"
The real thing, after all, is always better than something half-finished. Remembering the hopelessly slapdash Cultural Festival preparations of her middle school days, Iris was quietly thrilled by the full-scale stage work unfolding at Yuuma. Excited, she whispered at Tae-il's ear.
"This feels kind of like an audition...!"
"Haha. A real audition is even more... mm. Never mind."
Tae-il, the only one here who had been through an unofficial audition, fumbled the answer over a memory he would rather not revisit.
From a corner, where she leaned on the wall spinning a drumstick, Rena asked,
"We're not actually playing today, right?"
"Probably not. Actual playing — dress run or otherwise — should be at the dry rehearsal on the day."
"So today is just lights and a sound check?"
"Yeah. For the playing, going through the motions is enough."
"Nice."
Rena relaxed.
"Still, I heard the Dance Club checks things in more detail. Stage paths matter for them."
Sakuya added that it ought to be worth watching.
Rehearsal mattered. When you played live, coordinating with the engineers — amps, the sound check, all of it — was not optional. It was essential. And at the Yuuma Cultural Festival, the Broadcasting Club stood in for the engineers.
"Must be busy.... The Broadcasting Club."
Watching people who had been rushing about in a frenzy since a little while ago, Yuuya murmured it quietly. She was here in Ayane's place. Ayane was swamped with Public Morals Committee work, and, mindful of the gossip, had settled on not showing her face until the day of the performance.
"Being busy is probably the greatest happiness there is for people like that. The Broadcasting Club's always been full of oddballs, you know."
Some students hoped to work a camera or become announcers, but there were also lunatics who joined for the pure desire to fiddle with sound boards. That was why Yuuma High was not merely an all-around school for music, art, and athletics.
"By the way, doesn't your shoulder hurt, senpai? A bass is heavier than you'd think..."
"I'm fine."
Yuuya lightly hitched up the beat-up bass slung over her shoulder — rented from the school — and fiddled with it.
"This one's lighter than an animal."
Tae-il said nothing. A memory he had set aside for a while came back: his first meeting with Yuuya. Falling from the wall, he had come face to face with an indigo girl who went about her days with an animal wound all around her body.
"Senpai, do you put animals up on your shoulders a lot, even normally...?"
"Yeah. If I hold still, they climb up on their own."
"Good grief."
"Not my head, though. I told them my neck hurts, so lately they don't come up much."
"Ash Ketchum in the flesh..."
He found himself marveling all over again at that druid gift of hers.
"Wind Orchestra! Please come up on stage!"
While they talked, the Broadcasting Club must have finished setting up, because the rehearsal began. First was the orchestra — a large group, and one placed fairly early in the actual performance order as well.
Black and white. Even for a mere rehearsal, they had come in crisp formal dress, shoes and all, as if determined to overawe everyone from the outset, and they climbed the stage one after another. The click of heels, crisp as a column of soldiers on the march, rang through the Great Auditorium.
When the Wind Orchestra filled the stage, Rena gaped.
"Damn. That is a ridiculous number of people. How many is that?"
"Fifty, at least?"
"Feels different from when they came to cheer us on."
Sakuya, who had received the Wind Orchestra's support in person at the Inter-High, stared at the stage as if it were something new. The grave, settled expressions and the disciplined posture were professional, no matter who looked. Under the plain lighting, an older male teacher serving as conductor talked this way and that, shifting the students into place, and each time they moved with a soldier's precision.
"Man. If they play classical looking like that, it's going to be seriously magnificent. Right, Tae-il?"
"Yeah."
At the conductor's command, a few light notes sounded and the balance was adjusted. A brassy call, the voice peculiar to winds. A keen, lyrical line, the voice peculiar to strings.
A few minutes later, the conductor — who had been talking hard, working the sound out with a Broadcasting Club student — bowed his head politely toward the floor below the stage. The Wind Orchestra bowed in unison at the exact same moment. They had not even played, and still a scatter of applause rose from the people who were impressed.
Rena, no stranger to orchestras, let out a short laugh.
"See? Head count wins at everything. And those guys have the skill on top of it, so the pressure's even worse. They're an elite unit."
If the only guests were students and their families, there was little need to worry no matter what kind of stage that group put on. Before you even reached a comparison, an orchestra sat closer to a niche, as far as the general public was concerned. But everyone knew that people from the music industry would be flocking here as well. Reporters and industry figures with a deep interest in the arts would make the trip all the way to this Great Auditorium just to see them.
"They'll take a slot at the Finale no matter what, too."
Rena ran her eyes over the faces of the Wind Orchestra as they came down.
After that, several small and mid-sized groups went up and down the stage in a rush. Everyone hid their ability to a polite degree and, true to the word, only balanced the sound before leaving, so the flashiest thing in the whole rehearsal was the Dance Club.
A beat hit. Like a DJ at work, an exciting rhythm that chopped the pulse and played with the tempo boomed through the speakers.
"The Dance Club does b-boying, huh..."
The world was in the heyday of idols. Bands were putting up a fight, but even in Japan, what still did best was idols. He had assumed the Dance Club would hop on the trend and trot out the same tired routines you saw on television. Yuuma, true to form, was nothing of the kind.
Against a backdrop of flashy electronic music you could feel the groove in, the Dance Club offered light, deft footwork. Boys and girls alike, every movement was nimble and tightly linked. It wasn't outrageously showy, but you could roughly see how the dance and the paths would connect. Unlike every other team so far, the lights spun at their dizziest here, whirling in real time like a mirror ball.
Tae-il glanced up.
Our school's stage direction is definitely not ordinary.
Befitting the world's second-largest music market, Japan had stronger bands than most countries — but with the economic slump and the changing times, band popularity was breaking, and live houses were gradually thinning out as well. Considering that every live house used to keep at least one engineer on staff, the places where an engineer could stand were shrinking too. And yet here, even though all of them were still students, the skill was excellent. Anticipation climbed. For the moment Tales Tale stepped onto that stage.
The check was winding down. B-boying is street dance by nature, built to be watched from eye level or from above, and partway through a few dancers came down off the stage as if it were the most natural thing and mimed carrying the dance on. Tae-il, who had been watching with his arms folded, leaned in and whispered to the others.
"On the real stage, those guys are a hundred percent coming down off a backflip."
"Ugh, I hate spoilers. I just pictured it."
"Pfft—!"
When Sakuya recoiled, Tae-il's shoulders shook.
"Thank you for your work!"
Finished with rehearsal, the Dance Club pulled back in a quick rush, each of them offering a street dancer's own style of goodbye. Some even danced on the way out, doing fan service as they left. Unlike the rigid Wind Orchestra, every single member was unmistakably free.
"Next!"
After the Dance Club, things were ordinary. Once it became the bands' turn in earnest and groups started climbing the stage, Tales Tale drew in close as well, nerves pulled tight, and watched the rehearsals unfold.
First up — whether as a courtesy from the Broadcasting Club or not — was a band built around third-years with plenty of live experience. Tae-il checked the chart.
"A third-year band, 'Hawaiian Pizza Heaven.' Seniors who seem to know a thing or two—"
"Ugh. That's awful."
Pineapple on a pizza, in this world. When Sakuya made her disgust plain, Tae-il's head drooped on its own. Rena hurriedly tapped her shoulder.
"Hey, hey! Sakuya. Read the room. Shin likes that stuff..."
"I-I like pineapple pizza, though? Should we order pizza for dinner tonight?"
"So love changes even the way you eat..."
While Iris marveled at the excuse, a light playing rehearsal passed them by. Hawaiian Pizza Heaven, every one of them male, savored their leisure once the rehearsal was done and came down off the stage.
"They're smooth."
Tae-il nodded. The way they moved, knowing exactly how they would look from the stage, was worth taking notes from. And then, all at once, his eyes met those of the people coming down.
Heh.
At the sneer laced through that look, Tae-il blinked.
Why are they like that...?
Dull to rumors, he didn't know. He didn't know what kind of phenomenon Tales Tale was stirring up on this stage called the Eve Festival. Nor that Iris had gone to every band in the school, one by one, screened them all, and chosen Tales Tale.
"Next! Sixth Light Music Club, please come up!"
"Y-yes!"
The next band went up right after. Watching the tense faces climb the stage, Iris made a show of recognizing someone.
"Oh, that kid's in my class."
"Who?"
"The girl guitarist in the back, the one in the hoodie."
"Ahh."
The girl from Iris's class had been cupping both hands and blowing on them ever since she got up there, as if her fingers were cold. Sakuya wedged herself between the two of them.
"Sixth Light Music Club — they formed around the same time as us, right?"
"Probably."
You would have to ask to know their real experience. In this world, years of playing did not automatically become live experience. Japan, like Korea, had a great many shy players, and most people enjoyed an instrument purely as a hobby rather than aiming for a stage.
"Sixth Light Music Club, are you ready?"
"W-wait a second! I forgot my guitar cable...!"
"All right. Tell us when you're ready."
The guitarist who had forgotten the cable came flustered back down the stage at a run. The onlookers who saw it snickered, and at the laughter of the very people she was meant to share a stage with, her face went red all at once.
"You can tell she's a beginner from a mile away."
"Ah. Somehow this doesn't feel like someone else's problem. You don't think we'll look that dopey once we're up there, do you?"
"I'll cover as much as I can, so don't worry."
"Oh! That's our Tae-il! I'm counting on you!"
"How about you keep track of your own stuff, you dumb jock."
"Ahaha!"
"Taichi, what should I bring...?"
"Senpai, if you just bring the bass and get yourself up there..."
Amid the noise, Iris, who had been smiling quietly, slipped away from the group.
"Found it...!"
Right beside the stairs leading up to the stage, the girl who had found the cable in her guitar case shot to her feet — and locked eyes with Iris, startled.
"Oh my god!"
"S-sorry! Did I scare you?"
"Arisugawa...?"
"Yeah. You're Hashimoto, from my class, right?"
"Y-yeah..."
Hashimoto dropped her eyes. Her spirit sank. Just as Ayane had felt, no matter how friendly Iris acted, she carried an extraordinary aura that made it hard for even a classmate to approach her lightly.
Ah. I won't be able to keep this conversation going...
She had the looks, the grades, and the temperament, and because of all of it there were people who found her harder to face, not easier. Hashimoto was that sort. Remembering how certain cliques in class treated her like someone to be set on a pedestal, Iris clasped her hands behind her back in regret and took one step back. She smiled as brightly as she could, so the other girl would not feel burdened.
"I'll be looking forward to your stage, Hashimoto."
"Th-thank you..."
Hashimoto ducked her head as if to escape her and bounded up the stairs onto the stage. Iris watched in silence.
Even up there, the tension in Hashimoto did not let up. She could not even seat the cable properly in the guitar and the amp, and her hands fumbled.
"Haa."
"What's with the sudden sigh?"
"Y-you scared me!"
"Did I surprise you?"
"Y-yeah. More than that, why'd you come over here? Were you looking for me?"
"Yeah."
Mid-chatter, Tae-il had realized Iris was gone from her spot and come looking. She felt a small gladness at that, and at the same time, thinking the attention might be too much, she needlessly scuffed the floor with the toe of her shoe.
"Did something happen? Something to do with the girl who went up?"
"No, just..."
Watching the stage, Iris shyly twisted a lock of her hair around and around.
"It's nothing big. I was just thinking the road to us becoming big stars is really long, and really rough..."
Hearing that worry, Tae-il let a laugh slip before he could stop it.
"Hey, don't laugh. I'm being serious right now."
"No, I..."
Covering a mouth still curved with laughter, he glanced at Iris, whose brows had gone into an inverted V. It was funny no matter how many times he looked. That someone born with a prettier face than anyone would carry a worry so ordinary and human.
"I don't know how our main vocalist ended up worrying about something like that, but there's nothing to worry about."
"Why? Because you're going to put me in a pumpkin carriage like some fairy and fit me with glass slippers?"
"Want me to?"
"If I asked, would you?"
"Yeah."
He answered without hesitation. In the quiet smile he turned on her, there was a certainty that had not been there before.
"For the record..."
Iris was staring at him, blank, and he playfully poked her cheek with one finger.
"Shin T—"
Iris opened her mouth to say something. Right then, as if to cut her off, a huge clang rang from the stage.
"Gah—! Wh-what was that just now...?"
Startled, Tae-il clapped his hands over his ears and turned toward the stage.
"I-I'm sorry...!"
Hashimoto, who had cranked a knob too far out of sheer nerves and accidentally blasted a roar of noise, bent at the waist and apologized in every direction. The moment had passed. At that tactless slip — the very lack of timing Sakuya had been griping about — Iris let out a short laugh.
"Hey, Shin Tae-il."
"What."
"You really are an idiot."
"You— mpph?"
The instant he tried to protest, Iris clapped a hand over his mouth.
"Seventh Light Music Club, please come up on stage!"
"Let's go!"
"No, hey, Iris...!"
She stuck her tongue out and climbed the stage first, as if shaking him off. Then Rena and Sakuya tapped his shoulder as they passed.
"It's a rehearsal. If you're going to fight, fight later, Shin."
"We'll head up first, okay?"
From behind, Yuuya poked his shoulder.
"Let's go, Taichi."
"...Haa. Yes. We should go up."
Swallowing his irritation, Tae-il followed after her.