RECORDING
Chapter Seventeen
On the Bus to Yokohama
"Where ya been?" Ritsu demanded as soon as Sawako walked into Music Room 3. "We're all packed up and ready to go!" She craned her neck, peering out the doorway. "Where's Mugi-chan?"
"I'll explain on the bus." Sawako looked about Music Room 3. Everything they needed to take with them to Yokohama was neatly stacked in the center of the room. Ritsu's dissembled drumset stood in the middle of the pile. Surrounding it were the amps, Gitah, Mugi's Triton, Mio's Precision, and Azusa's Mustang, all in their gig bags.
Sawako unzipped Mugi's gig bag and shook her head. "We're supposed to bring the Yamaha to this gig, not Korgy."
"Oh, yeah," Ritsu remembered. Then she grinned and rubbed her palms together. "I nearly forgot about that awesome thing Mugi-chan has to do with it."
Mio commented, "Methinks you're chomping more at the bit for this than she is."
Sawako stooped to pick up an amp. "Right. Drums and amps on the bus first. Then we'll take the other stuff."
Ritsu grabbed the bass drum in similar fashion. "You heard the boss, y'all! Let's roll!"
Strenuous though it was to hump an amp, the Light Music Club members met the task with whole-hearted enthusiasm. Azusa and Yui started out carrying their respective amps out to the bus. By the time the kouhai returned for her guitar she noticed Yui still stumbling along the hallway, her back stiffly bent at an awkward angle, her hands clutching the handle. The senpai winced at the sting that burned betwixt her shoulder blades.
Shaking her head good-naturedly, Azusa relieved Yui of the hefty amp. Sighing, the senpai stood up straight, feeling the pain cool off. Her spine crackled, which felt both painful and wonderful at the same time. Straining from the weight of the amp, Azusa ordered, "Crouch."
Yui gave her a bemused look before complying. Suddenly she could feel some of the amp's weight pressing into her open hands.
"I'm going to let go of the amp," the kouhai grunted, "and you're going to lift it with your legs. Capisce?"
"What does 'capisce' mean — gyuhh!" Yui cried out as Azusa started to drop the amp. "Okay! I'll carry it right!"
Once the gear was loaded the five of them boarded the bus — Yui, Azusa, and Mio with their gig bags, and Sawako with Mugi's — which promptly left for Yokohama. It was a nice bus with plush seats — none of the hard, leather sort — that faced each other. Ritsu and Mio sat next to each other whilst Sawako, Yui, and Azusa occupied the seats facing them. The drummer rattled her sticks against the armrest, playing the rhythm of 'Girly Storm Shissou Stick' (which, sadly, she couldn't perform live), and watched the unremarkable road pass by. There was an obvious, though not necessarily bad, issue here that needed confronting.
"Sawa-chan-sensei. Why is your cousin putting us up in such high style?"
Sawako looked up from the window, an eyebrow raised. "Eh? Well, we have to get our equipment to Hair somehow. And none o' y'all drive, and I don't have me a car."
"That's logical, but…" Ritsu waved a stick, gesturing round the bus. "How can Asumi-san afford this? Not to be presumptuous, but she didn't strike me as very…well-off."
"That's something to chew on…" Sawako knew what Ritsu was talking about. Asumi was hardly wealthy. On the contrary, the bartender was dirt poor. She was a woman who stole rolls of toilet paper from public restrooms to save money (the paper doubled as coffee filters). I'll have to ask her about that, thought Sawako, leaning an arm on the armrest.
Azusa caught Yui giggling into her hand and inquired, "What's so funny?"
"Your cheeks are vibrating, Azu-nyan," the elder guitarist laughed.
On her own accord, the kouhai glanced at her reflection in the window. Dim it was, but she noticed how her face rippled in tandem with the bus engine's humming. She clapped her small hands to her cheeks and snapped, "Yours do, too, senpai!"
Still giggling, Yui touched her face. "Yeah, they do!"
"So do mine," affirmed Ritsu.
They looked at Mio. The flesh on the bassist's angular face neither shimmered nor rippled.
"You guys suck!" she snapped. "So my cheeks don't freakin' vibrate!"
The conversation lulled a bit as they got on the highway. Not liking the silence, Ritsu initiated a couple hand-clapping games. They started with Big Booty, which had to stop after Yui and the drummer kept passing the big booty back and forth to each other. Then they played Concentration; that fell apart after everyone questioned the legitimacy of certain words.
"Garnet doesn't count," Mio insisted. They were naming colors. "It's a gemstone."
"It's a color," said Yui, who had named garnet in the first place. She gestured at Azusa. "Like Azu-nyan's eyes. They're garnet."
"They're not garnet. They're copper."
There ensued an argument about what color Azusa's eyes were, and Concentration was forgotten. Despite Azusa pointing out that her birth certificate legally stated that her eyes were "red," the dispute carried on. Sawako, who was trying to sleep, rather loudly and forcefully closed the debate. Its outcome remains uncertain.
"So why isn't Mugi-chan here?" Ritsu asked.
"She's going to be a little late," Sawako replied soberly. "She's performing in the Tokyo Prefecture Solo and Ensemble Contest, and then she's coming to Yokohama."
Mio sat up. "Will she come on time for us to go on stage?"
The teacher shrugged. "At most, she might come on stage a few minutes late." She held out her hands plaintively. "If that happens, you must keep the audience entertained until she gets there. Whatever it takes. Banter, panty shots, strip-teases, naked pillow fights, whatever." She paused reflectively, ignorant of the band's horrified expressions. There was something else I had to tell them…? "Oh yeah. And you won't be performing with New Order."
"What?" Azusa exclaimed. The other band members demanded to know more. Fuming with anger and disappointment, the kouhai inquired, "Sawako-sensei, was this all a ruse to get us to perform for your lecherous cousin?"
"No. I assure you, it's not. New Order as we know it is done for. Their lead singer is in a coma."
"So who are we opening for?" asked Ritsu.
"A fairly local band on the rise," Sawako answered. She paused, distracted by the bridge the bus was crossing (she would never admit it, but crossing bridges made her nervous). Once the bus was back on the road, she continued explaining. "Their guitarist is from Kyoto, their drummer from Saitima, their bassist from Osaka…Their keyboardist is actually from where y'all live."
An intriguing fun-fact, but Mio sincerely doubted she would know the keyboardist. Their hometown wasn't exactly a bustling city, but it wasn't a close-knit community either.
"They call themselves Terror Firma."
"Sounds like a heavy metal band," Ritsu said uncertainly.
"It does…" Sawako's brown eyes got a faraway, dreamy stare, exuding an aura of I Love That Band Name. Once she snapped out of it, she added, "Though I'm actually not sure what kind of music they play."
The bus rumbled down the highway at full speed, as if pulled by the red thread of destiny, taking the band to their fated performance.