Sayonara Piano Sonata
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Chapter 51 : We were still arguing about our stage costumes the day before our performance."See
We were still arguing about our stage costumes the day before our performance.
"See, that's the last one. I win."
Kagurazaka-senpai prodded Chiaki's nose as she drew the last fry from the box.
"Why do you sound like you think it's a given that you'd win?"
Said Chiaki in a weeping tone, as she slumped into her chair.
December 23rd. We couldn't use the practice room during winter break, so we were at a studio located on the third floor of the music store Kagurazaka-senpai worked at. The rehearsal was already over, and we had just reached the studio not too long ago. But instead of discussing our performance at the rehearsal, Senpai and Chiaki were rattling on about the costumes and the MC. As for me, I wasn't too pleased about our performance earlier, so I lowered the volume of my ba.s.s and played it silently.
"But I've even made the reindeer antlers already!"
Chiaki puffed her cheeks out and put the beautifully-crafted antlers on on both sides of her head. Senpai's proposal of having everyone wear white, clashed violently with Chiaki's proposal of "Santa Claus and reindeers." So they decided to settle it with McDonald's fries. The rule was really simple—the person that picked the last fry won. They said it required some rather complicated strategy (really?), but I was focusing my attention on my ba.s.s during their duel. I hardly took any notice of them until Chiaki started yelling when they were down to the last few fries.
"Oh right! You should duel with Senpai too, Nao! It's better if we wear costumes related to Christmas, right?"
"Not interested. Let's start practicing already." Also, no food in the studio.
"You weren't pleased with the rehearsal? Even the producer, who was complaining nonstop prior to it, piped down after listening to our performance."
The organizers weren't pleased when we submitted our application for changing group members after Mafuyu had left the band, though that was something to be expected—because the judges were most impressed by Mafuyu's solo performance during the first stanza of . The three of us rearranged the song in an attempt to convince the organizers we were still worthy of our spot, and in the end, the producer that was h.e.l.lbent on booting us out of the concert gave in after listening to our rehearsal.
But I still couldn't forgive myself for my immaturity. There was one person amongst the people listening to our rehearsal that was visibly displeased with it—and that was Furukawa, who was performing with us on stage. He probably wasn't used to the shallowness of our timbre with Mafuyu gone.
And so, I let the girls decide on our costumes while I immersed myself back in my Aria Pro II.
"Anyway, it's decided. All white. Comrade Aihara, you can wear hot pants if you want."
"Uhh—Reindeers......"
Despite her reluctance, Chiaki gave in. And I heaved a silent sigh of relief—because the person that was going to be dressed up in the reindeer costume was, without a doubt, going to be me. And if that had turned out to be the case, I probably wouldn't have been able to play due to my embarra.s.sment.
"You've got guts challenging me despite knowing you were going to lose. Are you that insistent on being a Santa Claus?"
"Because I wrote to Mafu-Mafu saying we'd be dressing up as Santa Claus, so she'll have to come down to watch us. I even sent her a ticket."
My fingers stopped strumming in surprise. I turned my head around.
"....... Chiaki mailed her a ticket too?"
Chiaki's eyes widened.
"You too?"
"Yeah, but......"
I was about to say it should be my responsibility, but I swallowed my words. That's really selfish of me.
"If you were gonna give her a ticket, you should've done so by heading to her house without hesitation! Or at the very least, you should've given her a call! You wimp!"
Harsh, but very true. I clamped my ba.s.s in-between my knees in dismay.
Ever since that day—
Mafuyu never came back to school, and the second semester had ended just like that. The day before the ending ceremony, Miss Maki had come to me and told me that Mafuyu had already cleared the necessary procedures to quit school.
"That's amazing. So every one of us mailed her a ticket huh."
Murmured Senpai, as she stared blankly into s.p.a.ce. So you mailed her one as well?
"Just to let you know, I wrote my name on my ticket. I wonder whose ticket she will bring with her tomorrow. This battle will be quite an interesting one, don't you think?"
Chiaki and I didn't respond.
Mafuyu probably won't be coming. That was my hunch.
And it all ended without any words after that. As the red lights above the door of the studio flashed, signaling the end of our session, we were chased out of the room.
It was pitch black outside, and it was almost nine o'clock. As I looked past the crowded buildings and into the sky, my vision was obscured by the dark clouds that shrouded it. The air was incredibly cold, to the point that my hands felt like they would snap off my wrists if I didn't place them in my pockets. After bidding the store manager goodbye, I walked out of the store and wrapped my scarf around my neck a few times, then tucked it into the collar of my coat.
"Young man, you're going to give up just like this?"
Asked Senpai, as she sat on the road barrier. The light from the store was s.h.i.+ning on Chiaki's face as she stood right next to Senpai; and she too, was staring straight at me.
Senpai had held true to her words about not showing me her smile anymore, but she still interacted with Chiaki the same way she always did, which made things even more painful. Then again, Senpai might be the one hurting even more.
"She's heading to America early next year, right? Why don't you go see her?"
I couldn't give her an answer, so I just stared at my fingers. My skin was all dried up and was peeling off; and since I had used my fingers to strum my ba.s.s, the skin on my right hand looked much worse.
"Are you planning to escape into your ba.s.s?"
From Kagurazaka-senpai's tone, it didn't sound like she was teasing me or lecturing me. She just wanted to confirm things. I nodded my head honestly.
There wasn't any concrete or sound reason for me to not visit Mafuyu; I just had no idea what expression to put on my face when seeing her. But when I realized I might not get to see Mafuyu again, I became really scared.
Eb.i.+.c.hiri said they would need to stay in America for at least two months, which meant she could still return back to school. But Mafuyu changed that plan. One whole year. She was cutting herself off from us for a shockingly long period of time, and I couldn't understand why.
It's because she doesn't want to see me anymore—I refused to think about reasons like that.
So for the past two weeks, I had stayed up late into the night to work on the arrangements as well as the programming of the synthesizer. I had actually become so engrossed in that that I ended up failing three of my subjects. And the strings of my ba.s.s had snapped twice as well.
"I won't have to think about Mafuyu as long as I am busy with the band. Isn't that much easier?"—I had thought to myself. But that wasn't the case. Because everything I was doing was to compensate for the broken right wing of feketerigó—the place that had belonged to Mafuyu.
Whether I was sampling the sounds of my ba.s.s using the synthesizer, or discussing how to rearrange the song to make it a single phrase with Senpai, I was always torn apart by the fact that Mafuyu wasn't around anymore.
I couldn’t forget about Mafuyu. Not even for a brief moment.
Music was no longer my place for shelter. Instead, I was just forced to cling hard to it while waiting.
"....... The only thing on my mind right now is the live performance. Though I have no idea what I'm going to do after that."
I finally replied, with a hoa.r.s.e voice.
It's the Christmas concert Mafuyu said we have to perform in.
At the very least, I want to fulfill her wish.
"Nao hasn't grown a single bit."
Said Chiaki, as she s.h.i.+elded her white breaths with her gloved hands. Her legs were swinging about to and fro. I knew she wasn't trying to insult me, but her words stung nevertheless.
"Nope, not necessarily."
Senpai would turn towards Chiaki whenever she was smiling.
"He might have circled back to the place he had come from, but despite being battered, he can stand up on his own two feet now. If that's not called growing up, then I have no idea what is."
"Senpai's still gentle towards Nao, as usual."
"I'm still far off from you, Comrade Aihara."
The two girls were smiling at each other amid their warm radiance, leaving me by myself in the cold night.
Chiaki jumped off the barrier and dusted the dirt off the back of her pants while Senpai went to go retrieve her bicycle from the back of the building.
"Looks like it's precipitating. Will it be snow?"
Murmured Senpai, as she gazed at the starless sky.
"I really want to perform , but I guess it can't be helped."
We had originally planned to use that song for our encore, but we ended up deciding not to perform it at all for the actual concert. Because the original arrangement that we had come up with had Mafuyu's guitar perform a solo in the first phrase, and we couldn't come up with any alternatives.
The smile on Senpai's face disappeared when she looked at Chiaki and me.
"No matter how hard we try, even if we surpa.s.s our limits, we can only hit 75% of what feketerigó originally was. It's depressing, but that's the fact of the matter. But even so......"
She stretched out her right hand.
"Let's make it the best Christmas ever."
Chiaki and I nodded as we stacked our hands on top of Senpai's. But the weight and the warmth was lacking. Perhaps Senpai noticed that too, and that was why she stacked her left hand on top of ours.
Back home, Tetsurou and I took turns bathing after I was done fixing him his dinner. I prepared my clothes for the performance as the was.h.i.+ng machine was tumbling about. I would be wearing a long-sleeved, open-collared s.h.i.+rt that I had borrowed, and a white suit on top.
I had quite a bit of equipment to bring as well—there was the ba.s.s, the effects unit and the synthesizer. I checked the items once more.
Then, I booted up the computer. It was working fine during the rehearsal, but I plugged in my earphones, the effects unit and my ba.s.s to make sure it was still working fine.
c.r.a.p, I'm not the least bit sleepy. The concert starts at noon tomorrow, so it'd be pretty d.a.m.n bad if I stayed up all night, snoozed off in the morning, and ended up oversleeping. But my cheeks were still burning because of the lingering excitement that had remained in my body after the rehearsal and the practice. So I pressed the ba.s.s's body against my face. The cold surface was really comfortable.
It felt like I was doing something really stupid, so I opened my window. The heat of my body dropped a little as the cold air blew against my cheeks. The tree—the one Chiaki climbed all the time, and that Mafuyu had used once as well—stood amid the rays of the streetlights. Its leaves were already gone. I could see something white fluttering down between the thin shadows.
Snow. It was snowing.
The only thing moving in the strangely silent night was the illuminated snow floating past the streetlights. The asphalt was still pitch black, but the snow would begin to acc.u.mulate as the night continued. I wonder if it'll be okay for the trains to operate tomorrow. Hopefully service won't be halted.
Just as I was about to shut the window because of the bitter cold, I saw a golden silhouette s.h.i.+mmering beneath the streetlights.
I couldn't quite see past the branches of the treetop, so I stretched my head out unconsciously.
I saw right. There's someone there. Someone's outside my courtyard. The skinny person was standing next to the short metal fence, glancing around at his surroundings. Is he looking in my direction? His golden hair s.h.i.+mmered occasionally under the light.
Golden hair?
I pressed my stomach against the window frame and stretched my body out as far as I could without plunging down below.
It was Yuri. And he was carrying something black behind him—a guitar case. Yuri, with a guitar case on his back, was standing between the lamppost and the fence, peeking in my direction. What the h.e.l.l's he doing here in the middle of a snowy night?
I ran down the stairs, put my shoes on, and dashed out of the house without even putting on a coat. When I was within Yuri's proximity, I saw that he had given up and was about to leave.
"Yuri!"
My voice was surprisingly clear even though it was snowing. The silhouette with the guitar case on his back stopped in its tracks.
"...... Naomi."
Yuri turned around. His face was ghastly white, and his lips were purple. It seemed like he had rushed out of his house in a hurry, as he wasn't wearing a coat.
"W-What the h.e.l.l are you doing? You'll catch a cold like this!"
"U-Urm, sorry. I am sorry."
I sprinted towards him. Yuri then collapsed into my chest just like that.
"...... I ran here."
What does he mean by that? "It's snowing, so put a coat on at the very least"...... Just as I was about to say that to him, I came into contact with his s.h.i.+vering and icy skin, and realized it wasn't the time to be lecturing him; so I brought him into the house. Tetsurou, fresh out of his bath, was walking out of the changing room just then. "I'll bring you a change of clothes, so get in," I said, as I pushed Yuri into the bathroom. Yuri's clothes were wet because of the snow, so I grabbed my pajamas from the second floor and ran to the kitchen to heat up some water. When I returned to the living room and heaved a sigh of relief, Tetsurou, who was drying his hair with a towel, asked briefly,
"So? What's going on?"
"That's what I'd like to know."
Come to think of it, how does he know where I live?
"That's Julien Flaubert, right?"
"Yeah."
"So Nao’s abilities as an industry ruffian have already exceeded mine, huh......" What are you talking about?
"Oh yeah, I wonder how much photos of him in the bath will sell for."
"I'm really gonna disown you, yeah?"
"Oh geez, it's just a joke, Nao! d.a.m.n, you sure are a possessive little kid."
"Shut up and get back to work!"
While I was chasing Tetsurou around the house with a cus.h.i.+on in my hand, Yuri walked into the living room with a towel wrapped around his head. The pajamas hung loosely on his body.
And poor Mafuyu, Yuri did it before her.
And poor Mafuyu, Yuri did it before her.