The Longing of Shiina Ryo vol. 2

  Part 1

  Inside that seemingly calm and forgotten room, the synchronized movements of four students generated results that simply could not be witnessed by anyone else. That was probably part of the beauty of the whole thing, the way we always forgot the world around us whenever we got together. Sometimes I would even forget there was more of me than just a center panned, low rumbling waveform in the midst of many other sounds produced by the three girls I shared most of my afternoons with.

  The now longer, slightly sweaty strand of hair that fell over my eyes for a second as I ran my fingers through the bass’ neck was crude, poor, but undeniable physical evidence of the passage of time. Nothing drastic, though.

  Only two months had passed since practice began, but I had already grown used to having this activity as part of my life. We couldn’t do it every single day because of Rin’s position as a student council member, and every once in a while Akane’s mother would need help because running the only flower shop with delivery service in town by yourself is not much of a glamorous lifestyle if you ask me.

  In order to avoid Rin’s suspicion, I came up with a system that works similarly to some countries’ day-based driving restriction: whenever the occasion came, the colorful guitarist would follow the plan we agreed on and depending on the previous experiences use a new alibi (such as having to study) or just tag along and help Akane. To ensure it wouldn’t look too fishy and obviously formulaic after a few occurrences, even I had to take part in the scheme, sometimes as a helper in the flower shop and others as the younger student tutoring her. All the irony in that generated little more than two or three jokes from Rin that were repelled with barely passable acting performances of Megumi’s false anger.

  It sure helped that Rin did not seem to be particularly interested in spending time with us outside the rehearsal room except for the obligatory food quests we did on a regular basis, and I can’t honestly blame someone with her upbringing for not caring for commoner experiences such as having fun simply by going to a mini-market with friends, which is exactly why I never pushed her to come with us whenever she didn’t felt like it (and I noticed it happened more often in places where she could actually be seen with us). Chances are her father remained unaware of her afterschool activities, or at least assumed they were still pertinent to the council.

  Or just did not care. There are families like that.

  An unpleasant surprise struck me as an initially-sharp, distorted noise morphed from absurdly high to low and lost definition in less than a second in my right ear. It was one of those sounds you never really get used to no matter how many times it pierces your timpani. The sound of a guitar string breaking passing through a distortion system is just, for the lack of a better (or in this case much worse) word, unique.

  “Again, Megumi?” I said as we all took off our headphones to avoid permanent hearing damage from the subsequent rising levels of static that followed. “A fair share of our budget is going straight for replacement of strings because of this, you know. Take it easy.”

  “No can do, bro. Someone keeps complaining about my finger tone or whatever, so all I can do is pick harder.”

  “Perhaps next time you could try picking better instead of harder. Technique before strength, always.” Rin gave her a bored look before turning the distortion off, but it didn’t last long as she moved her head towards someone else. “Akane-san, would you be so kind as to pass me the string box? Unfortunately one of our members cannot perform such basic maintenance on her own instrument.”

  From where I stood I could see Akane taking the box from behind her drum throne and handing it to our school council president in the most discrete manner someone possibly can, an interesting contrast to how ‘loud’ she could be when it came to playing. Even though I only heard her through the synthetic sounds triggered by the electronic drum kit she borrowed from Rin, I could already tell the reason of all that admiration I at first assumed to be uncalled: she was a very precise and tight player, even if almost mechanical.

  The way she could read through our intentions as the four of us jammed while not being able to look me in the eyes even though we’ve been sitting in front of each other for two months interested me a lot.

  “Hold on, it’s not my fault! I told you I’m still not used to messing with floating bridges and this guitar isn’t even standard!”

  And she was correct: it really wasn’t. Although not half as ‘customized’ as her acoustic one, the guitar Megumi got from a pawn shop was a seven string one, the extended range handy even if the reason why she got it in the first place was because it was flashier than her previous electric guitar. Apparently the guitar was ‘abandoned’ by her original owner, as he pawned it and did not show up to get it back for around six months. Money issues, one figures.

  It required some work in order to make it functional again, such as electronic repair and minor part replacements, which a luthier supposedly did (though I’m sure Rin did it on her own). I could see no other reason for the secondary pickup remaining useless after the supposed ‘professional repair,’ especially considering wiring transducers is something those people do every day for a living. When I realized that was the case I didn’t know if I should be more surprised at her working hard with her own hands or her being genuinely nice and not bragging about it.

  “If you intend to throw excuses at me on a regular basis I suggest you take some time to ponder them. Two months is more than enough time to learn how to string a guitar, especially considering how often you break strings.” It was even harder to believe she was capable of being kind when she spoke like that. She unplugged the guitar and cable from the mixing console. “If the two of you want to take a break, now is the time. I will try and teach Megumi how to do this.”

  The colorful girl set her animosity aside for a moment and smiled, an action that simultaneously stirred all of her piercings.

  “Whoa, really?”

  “Certainly. I have no intention of doing this for you any longer, so pay attention.”

  I tried to meet Akane’s gaze to see whether she wanted to keep on jamming, just the two of us, but gave up when I saw her already nibbling on an oversized, definitely homemade fiber cookie.

  Her mother had a penchant for natural-ish vegan recipes, something I experienced every time I went there and she greeted me with a new one. Not to say that they were bad or anything, but everything always seemed to taste rather earthy. While the shy drummer seemed not to mind it at all, her friend and secret roommate seemed eager to eat some meat whenever she was outside.

  Trespassing through a thin breach in the thick curtains, a thread of light illuminated my bag on the floor, making it cast a new set of shadows. Without a doubt, it was a sign from Heaven that I should drink the strawberry juice that waited for me inside before it got warm.

  Bass resting on my lap like a baby, I just arched my back once as a warm up and clumsily moved my body as if I was swimming sideways afterwards in order to be able to reach for the bag. I felt lazy at that point but opened the juice while doing those weird movements just so I could drink from the can while going back to my original sitting position.

  “So, what exactly are we going to play here?” I asked after a sip, knowing that was a million-dollar question. “We have done nothing but jam all the time and any omniscient sentient being in the universe knows we’ve done it enough to create themes and clichés of our own. So before someone just answers ‘music’ to sound witty or cool, in this particular moment I am referring to genres, subgenres and such. I will tolerate no jokes on conceptual darkness, brutality, innovation or similar as an answer either. Intensity comes in many forms, so it doesn’t give me the slightest bit of a clue. It could be some subgenre of metal, could be screamo or math rock, technical skate punk wouldn’t be bad and it could be free form jazz for all I know. Therefore, I beg: someone please, please give me a hint.”

  Their eyes fell upon me like I uttered the world’s most absurd words.

/>   “I assumed such a thing would be obvious by now, but it might have been a mistake of mine to do so. Forgive me for considering all of you would be able to understand the rather simple thought patterns I used on this subject.” Our school’s Student Council President was, effectively, the only person I knew who could sound like an arrogant spoiled child while saying ‘I’m sorry,’ be entirely aware of it and add a bit more of heat on purpose for both fun and strategic profit, if there is such a thing as her thinking of those two targets separately. “Apparently it is time for me to put the cards on the table.”

  “Please do so.”

  “While I cannot say I had the highest expectations for this project, I find myself forced to admit we have chemistry as a band, despite the lack of individual ability of some members. A certain portion of that is absolutely required in order to achieve the status where a combined group of musicians conceive and engineer a properly devised array of tunes.”

  “Yeah, that’s right!” Megumi looked at Rin intensely and for the first time I saw genuine, unadulterated admiration without a trace of frustration or jealousy. “What kind I don’t know, but no one can say we’re not making music here! This is going to be huge!”

  The aura that emanated from Akane made me feel like she too watched Rin, even though her messy, curly bangs covered her eyes, which would hinder a normal person’s visibility. Then again Akane still strikes me as an abnormal fellow. Considering the time it took to get to this level of acceptance, it’s safe to say her strategy wouldn’t be one I’d willingly adopt and it doesn’t seem like I’m being tsundere for her tsundere ways of leadership. I wouldn’t fall for…

  …no, it’s best if I avoid thinking about it. Nothing good comes out of pondering on subjects pertaining to things you simply cannot achieve, or rather could but should not for the greater good. Instead, it reminded me of a game I feel like playing whenever I can.

  “That would be nice.” I carelessly and slowly unbutton the top of my shirt with my left hand, aware that the flaming gaze that belonged to Rin was almost entirely on me ever since my index finger lay on the now-unfastened red tie; it was pleasant to know she would use peripheral vision in order to check if either of our two band members could see my actions. “It still doesn’t answer my question in any way. What are we going to play, and exactly when? Rehearsals are fun and all, but having goals such as recording a demo or playing gigs… that’s what I personally see as actual band activities. If anyone disagrees, I’ll be happy to listen, but I don’t think there’s a point in having ‘chemistry’ if we’re going to keep the end results to ourselves.”

  My opponent crossed legs covered in just-thick-enough stockings visibly made of silk, the gentle rotation of her limbs making me imagine propeller blades spinning in slow motion.

  “I was not finished with you, Koukishin-kun; patience is a virtue of utmost value, so I understand.”

  The way she completely ignored the fact Megumi interrupted her before I did filled me with a wicked kind of joy. She was sending me a message I was happy to ignore, or rather, contradict… but not with words.

  “Then please, proceed.” I said, aware that she had eyes only for me.

  Her deep sigh was the confirmation I needed and motivated me to go further.

  “Therefore, I took the liberty of saving most of our jam sessions’ recorded files and, after a certain amount of editing, and by that I mean editing as heavy as I could as an amateur audio engineer, I can announce we have the preproduction tracks for our EP ready.”

  That’s when I stopped trying to tease her.

  “An EP?”

  “Surely you know what the acronym stands for.”

  “Extended Play, a recording too long to qualify as a single but too short to be a full length album. While it’s hard to tell exactly at which point one category ends and the other begins, the modern usage implies four to seven songs, usually six, of equal importance, in comparison to a single which would usually be one main song, usually accompanied by a B-side track, or a maxi-single, which would be the same as a single but with two or three B-side compositions along with the main one instead. Not to say EPs don’t have remixes or B-sides in them, quite the other way around; as I stated before, it’s hard to pinpoint a measure for the format everyone would abide to, since the term’s meaning changed a lot through the decades since it was introduced back in… 1952, if I recall correctly.” Beat. “Now that it’s certain we all understand what the acronym means, what exactly do you mean by ‘our EP,’ pray tell? Enlighten me.”

  A smirk of hers.

  “Oh, I will. This conversation of ‘where are we going with this’ is bound to happen at least once in every musical project, so I decided to be prepared, in the same manner people who have been in a relationship for several years should not be surprised by a marriage proposal, and, in my personal opinion, if they are there is most likely something wrong with the relationship to begin with.”

  It seemed to me Rin had a hard time transposing values and morals from one situation to another, which was not a surprise considering her train of thought led her to challenge someone in order to join a band as their leader in classic shounen manga style. It amused me, the way she couldn’t see the reason why she pulled that off and the reason why someone without a personal flaw could be surprised in the excessively specific and thereby suspicious situation she described are the same.

  Whether the proposal is acceptable or not in theory, circumstantial issues might result in completely adverse outcomes to what is standard. It’s not what is done, but how and to whom: had she used the same strategy to anyone who wasn’t as stubborn and authority-defying as Megumi, she would be ignored at best, and after several years of wait some people assume it’s just not going to happen anymore and settle for the stability that lies in not having titles that imply, say, stability.

  “Moving on, the reason why I was sure to turn our multi-tracked rehearsals into drafts of songs is because I think we achieved the maturity required to take this to the next level. We should record and publish our music worldwide.”

  “That’s awesome! It’s going to be so, so great!” Megumi started fist-pumping the air but tried to contain herself when she realized she almost made Rin drop her guitar. “Us, becoming real artists and getting signed!”

  It was easy to see Rin would scoff at the colorful girl’s behavior.

  “Signed? Really, in this day and age? If you have the connections and money, labels are completely useless.”

  “W-what if you don’t?” Akane took a deep breath, something she usually did whenever she needed to have some composure and avoid stuttering. The pitch in her voice usually went lower and serious, which had an odd effect since her figure that was almost a comic rendition of a J-horror novel-turned-movie character, but after months of seeing her nibble and sneeze and be shy while not getting any closer to her I could say ‘odd’ was not the same as ‘terrifying,’ unlike early horror and science fiction magazines would proclaim. “I don’t know about Koukishin-kun and you, Ms. President, but my financial situation isn’t stable enough at the moment to afford professional recordings, and I know for a fact Megumi’s isn’t either. There’s no way you can tell me the ‘allowance’ the club is given by the school is going to enough because I know for a fact you won’t settle for anything less than perfect. Where does this leaves us?”

  As expected of Akane.

  While I didn’t manage to get any closer to her as friends, I had watched her from a safe distance for long enough to realize similarities between us. She always considers the worst outcome possible first, was always evasive and, whenever she’s not stuttering, presented her arguments in ways that guided you to the same answer she got to.

  At that moment, she was trying to make Rin either back down or take the responsibility for whatever ego-feeding plans she had, or make me go against the plan because, in one of the possible scenarios, I’d have to pay for something while they didn’t. It was inspiring to see how she a
dmired our self-proclaimed leader as a musician but did not stand behind her on every occasion, thus confirming the excessive curtains of hair in front of her eyes were not blinding her enough to make her view the Student Council President as a good person who was right all the bloody time. Not only that, she realized that when it came to take decisions, the effective way to stand against someone who held herself in such high regard as Rin was to be passive-aggressive, an activity in which Akane excel.

  I liked that in her, even though it implied her self-esteem had been as completely crushed at some point as mine. I could only hope she’d gotten that skill in a different way. Perhaps she got that rather uncanny skill or character trait from watching her mother and then perfected it, most likely not even conscious of doing it at first?.

  Whether it’s the whole forbidden fruit appeal thing or something else, at that point Akane was the one out of the three girls that interested me the most despite, or perhaps because, I still barely knew her.

  I knew she was going to fail, though.

  “…I understand. However, my plan was having the tracking phase happening here . It’s usually the hardest, expensive and most time-consuming part of recording so we would be cutting most of our costs by doing so and also getting a larger and more flexible time-span to work in comparison to booking a studio for the same. Mixing and mastering, now that is something I would rather have a professional do for us because my knowledge in the field only goes so far, but with the way the world has moved forward thanks to technological advancement, it is not unthinkable to have an audio engineer from Europe or America work on your tracks and then send them back to you… As far as I can tell, it is common practice and the price is fair, or so the common man says.”

  Of course she wouldn’t bring us a half-baked idea. It was easy to tell she’d probably spent days researching people and if I asked, she could give me a list of names, pricing rates and previous works then and there . Dedication was her strong point.

  “We probably will not require any more funds than we already receive from school, but if not, I will happily cover whatever extra costs we may ha-”

  “No way. That won’t fly.”

  Megumi interrupted Rin’s speech. Took her long enough.

  This was the point when I stopped caring and put myself on automatic mode, something that has happened a lot ever since I began hanging out with them . It’s not the same as blanking out because of focusing too hard on an issue, but more like being aware of what was happening and really not giving a damn. I cared about them and I cared about the band but I also knew what it was going to be like because I’ve seen that scene a thousand times before: Megumi would say that it was unacceptable, get a part-time job or something to be able to help if it came to spending more, and make Rin always show her the budget so they could be sure Rin wasn’t just spending her own money. It wasn’t a matter of how much you had but working as a team of companions on the same level. It was mediocre storytelling bonding.

  It was boring.

  The only twist in that whole thing was that Akane made it all happen without knowing it would end this way. Her lack of experience against criminal masterminds brought her to this situation; her plan backfired because you simply can’t con an honest person. Good or bad, smart or dumb, extreme or not, both Megumi and Rin knew what they wanted and it was the exact same thing as what they said they wanted, while ulterior motives are the cornerstones of every single con ever. In their case, making them think they held the advantage over others by appealing to greed or self-protection only made them even more willing to share and sacrifice for a greater purpose. Clashing personalities aside, no main character would take a shady deal like that, especially with friends or allies involved, and those two occupy that spot in their respective minds. In that particular sense they were ‘normal.’

  Now if Akane had all that in mind, knew just how deep this would go and did it intentionally so everyone would hug and feel closer, that would have been quite the impressive feat. However, no matter how much I wanted Akane to be a potential rival in mind games, a genius with strange ideals and goals, I knew that expecting her to think of subverting, inverting and playing straight fiction tropes with people was projecting and most likely far from what was really happening.

  I saw Megumi laughing, Rin trying not to and Akane looking confused.

  In only a little while, the situation had changed. Rin had real friends she didn’t need to put her mask on for, but did it anyway because it was fun for her, Megumi was less rebellious and more willing to learn even when it was way all above her head, Akane managed to talk to us whenever she had time for that little preparation, even though she’d still stutter around other people no matter how long it took her to mentally prepare herself, and I got my rest from bizarre things and all things related to my past life, to the point where I haven’t even called my parents yet. I should be happy, but this is all incomplete.

  At the end of the day, we don’t always get what we want.