Meeting (2)
♪~♩~♬~
The bell signaling the end of classes rang out.
As the teacher, who had been diligently writing on the blackboard, set down the chalk, the class president glanced around once before standing up.
"Rise."
Everyone stopped what they were doing and fell silent, and the class president bowed.
"""Thank you."""
"Alright. You all worked hard too."
The white-haired Japanese history teacher, chuckling heartily, accepted the greeting and left the classroom.
With the intruder—otherwise known as the teacher—gone, the tense classroom atmosphere dissolved in an instant. Cheerful chatter erupted here and there.
"Hey, hey. Where'd you say we were going today?"
"Anyone up for karaoke?"
"I heard a new parfait place opened up nearby!"
"Wanna go shopping for the latest cosmetics with me later?"
"Don't forget club activities today, okay?"
In this manga world, there were an unusually high number of students reveling in their youth.
All of it felt worlds away from Tae-il. Just as a one-eyed person would be the freak in a village of cyclops, Tae-il was the odd one out here too.
"Committee Chair! You free today?"
"Me? Uh, yeah... Nothing planned."
"Then come karaoke with us!"
"Yeah, yeah, let's go!"
"R-Really?"
"Yay! I convinced the committee chair!"
Even the model student class president, surrounded by friends like that, looked terribly awkward to Tae-il, who remembered his past life.
Maybe not?
Thinking back to his previous life, maybe it was natural for class presidents to be popular.
Korean class president elections were basically popularity contests, after all.
The commotion continued until the homeroom teacher entered and slammed the attendance book on the podium with a thud.
Tae-il's homeroom teacher was a blond, sun-kissed PE teacher who looked like he'd excel at NTR plots. In truth, he was a hot-blooded educator full of youthful zeal, always striving for good student reviews.
Tae-il found him a bit intimidating.
As soon as the classroom quieted, the teacher announced the start of homeroom in his booming voice.
"Attention. No announcements today, so everyone except the duty student can head out."
What was that supposed to be?
Homeroom ended before it even began.
The momentarily stunned students erupted in cheers all at once.
The teacher surveyed the rowdy classroom with a satisfied chuckle.
"But no causing trouble outside school, got it?"
"""Yes, sir!"""
They shouted in perfect unison.
The homeroom teacher left the room first, a pleased smile on his face.
To these youth revelers, time was more precious than gold.
Everyone except the duty student vanished from the classroom in a flash.
Left alone, Tae-il muttered to himself.
"So... what now?"
Tae-il, unable to revel in youth like them, let out a sigh.
He wanted to bolt from school too, but duty bound him here until Ayane finished her morals committee activities.
Her original dark personality hadn't vanished entirely; if he left her alone, she'd throw a massive fit later, complete with tears. And her grudges lasted forever.
Tae-il chalked up Ayane's many haters to her fragile mentality.
People called mentally broken Ayane "Blackened Ayane"—or Kurone for short.
The story of The Band ~Girls Do Band~ rolled forward on Iris's runaway locomotive energy and Ayane's constant mental breakdowns.
Everyone else was just swept along in the storm of those two protagonists.
"Anyway, best to avoid pissing off Ayane as much as possible..."
Tae-il left the classroom alone and wandered the halls.
Being alone didn't feel lonely.
If anything, he welcomed the quiet time to sort out his thoughts.
Lately, a nagging worry had been creeping up on him.
Would the changed Ayane still form a band club with Iris? As the one most responsible for her transformation, he felt the heaviest burden.
Maybe I've robbed her of the happiest future possible.
The original Ayane had seemed genuinely happy, despite the ups and downs.
And at the story's end, she received her reward: a joyful future.
Not some fairy-tale "happily ever after," but for the first time, she chose her own path and took responsibility for it.
Everyone was moved to tears by her growth. As a fan, Tae-il had been right there with them.
"But is Ayane happy now, like this...?"
The closer the original plot loomed, the more blocked Tae-il felt.
He truly loved the four main characters of The Band ~Girls Do Band~. More fanboy crush than rational affection, but still.
He wanted them all happy. Anyone would. So he couldn't help considering their futures, even if he hated it.
But he was human. A musician. Emotions often overrode logic, and Tae-il had always leaned that way.
This time was no different.
With so many years alongside Ayane, the scales tipped toward her inevitably.
Ayane's personal happiness, or balanced happiness for all four mains?
An arrogant, impossible choice.
Tae-il mocked his reflection in the window.
"Jeez. You've grown up, huh, Shin Tae-il?"
Pathetic, debating others' happiness when he couldn't even manage his own.
Who was he to judge?
A failure with nothing to show for it, yet here he was, brazenly playing god.
The reason he could be so shameless? One thing.
Ayane's positive changes.
The original Ayane had been such a loner she drowned her loneliness in music, friendless to the end.
No idea why she picked bass out of all instruments, but she'd play alone in her room, swallowing solitude with band tunes. Naturally, like any musician, creation called to her.
Ayane composed.
She filled a notebook with imaginary band songs no one could ever see.
That treasure-cum-black-history notebook never left home, but unluckily, she mistook it for another and submitted it as homework.
The teacher realized the mix-up and asked Iris, who was visiting the staff room, to return it.
A normal, polite person would've handed it back unopened. But Iris was curiosity incarnate with zero tact.
She flipped through it without hesitation. Read every page.
"This is the talent I've been looking for!"
Meanwhile, Ayane panicked at home upon realizing her mistake.
Iris, convinced she'd found her soulmate, was ecstatic.
The next day, Iris showed up with the notebook. And blackmailed her.
"Y-You copied my notebook!?"
"Of course! Even thinking of posting it online!"
"N-No! Anything but that!"
Hardly protagonist material.
Ayane resisted desperately but caved to Iris's threats.
"Great! Starting today, we're forming the supernova Light Music Club to shake up Yuuma High!"
"Of all people, why her..."
Iris then dashed around school recruiting minimum members, with suffering Ayane in tow.
"Ayane's never shown interest in music before, right...?"
Even if Tae-il geeked out over music or strummed guitar at home nonstop, Ayane just shrugged it off.
Her indifference to music nagged at him.
Even before the notebook incident in the original, they had a connection.
"Izumi's signed album..."
Tenma Izumi.
BARD's vocalist, Japan's top band sensation. The one Iris and Ayane adored in the story.
Also the tragic young figure whose death sparked their awakenings.
The real-life inspiration makes it unavoidable, I guess...
Tae-il wondered if Ayane even knew Izumi now.
Thanks to her non-canon childhood friend, she stayed pretty outgoing.
Thanks to Tae-il's hidden efforts, but her mental breakdowns still happened.
He'd witnessed her turning into Kurone multiple times already.
Last year, Ayane bombed exams due to bad health.
Realizing she couldn't attend Tae-il's target high school together, she went full Kurone.
Mentally shattered, she holed up like Sadako, refusing to leave.
Ignoring her parents, immune to Tae-il's pleas.
Her folks begged him for a solution. After agonizing, he downgraded his school choice to one Ayane could enter.
Yeah.
Full circle back to Yuuma.
All his efforts to avoid the original plot's pull had been for naught. Dragged right into it.
"I tried so hard to dodge it..."
Tae-il halted his aimless wandering and gazed out the window.
The sunset campus was downright romantic.
Baseball and soccer teams sweating with passion. A glance sideways showed track athletes sprinting or stretching.
Everyday sights at Yuuma High.
Yuuma High School.
The story's setting: surprisingly low deviation scores, but club activities professionally intense.
Its famous baseball team was a Koshien regular; other sports clubs consistently hit prefectural tournaments.
True to its arts-and-sports rep, music kids won concours or got scouted as prospects. A freakshow of talent.
"Three Light Music Clubs, huh..."
One girls', one mixed, one boys'.
The boys' club sadly never appeared in the all-pretty-girls zoo of a story. Barely name-dropped in a volume insert.
Males were background ghosts anyway. Unless recurring teachers, extras lacked facial features.
But now? Different.
Everyone had clear faces, names, voices.
To Tae-il, The Band ~Girls Do Band~ was no longer manga—it was real.
"Worrying won't solve it."
All keys lay with one of the four mains: Arisugawa Iris.
The story began and ended with her.
Why?
Watching these youths, faded memories from his past life resurfaced.
-Sorry. Sorry, Tae-il... Sorry for being such a worthless brother...
-Guys like me shouldn't even dream...
-Should've never stepped into this shitty world. You think so too, right?
Tae-il closed his eyes.
He'd come to in a manga world.
Reincarnation? No death memory, same family. So he just rolled with it.
Only changes: a canon heroine as childhood friend, family in Japan not Korea.
Yeah. That's all.
His cousin's despair, broken wings, betrayed efforts.
Just a slight rewind in time—everything else identical to before.
His final pre-possession memories tormented him vividly.
Even in a manga world, reality persisted.
The broken bass gathering dust in his room corner proved it.
Tae-il quietly savored the bitterness.