RECORDING
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chiharu
"So, uh, Asumi," Sawako sighed, pushing her glasses up her nose. "Me and Ritsu-san were talking—"
"Ritsu…?" Asumi looked up from the cash register. Her amber eyes squinted behind her plastic-frame glasses. Then her forehead smoothed in recognition. "Oh, yeah. The runty drummer with the busty girlfriend…Lucky bitch," she snarled, her smooth hand balling into a fist.
Sawako sweat-dropped, and beside her, a blanche drop of sweat slid down Mugi's head as well. The sensei stammered, "Yeah…Heh…Lucky…" Not as lucky as me, though. She brought her hand to the small of Mugi's back. The ojou giggled, both hoping and dreading that her girlfriend's hand should come slightly lower…
"Uh, anyways!" Sawako piped up. "Ritsu-san and me were talking about that bus you sent for us."
Her cousin grinned. "Pretty sweet, huh? I love that old bus," she sighed, turning her eyes reflectively toward the ceiling. "I take it to Hokkaido sometimes."
"HOKKAIDO?" Sawako burst, standing upright. Beside her, Mugi winced and checked her ears for blood.
Asumi looked at Sawako with wide eyes, startled by her exclamation. There was a few moments' silence as the two cousins stared at each other, both of them red-cheeked for their own reasons. Mugi's blue eyes, wide with tension, drifted from one to the other. She dared not breathe. Then something clicked between them as Sawako gleaned something from her cousin, and Asumi realized what Sawako could be gleaning.
"How is this happening, Asumi?" The tension seeped from the sensei's body, and she now leaned haggardly on the bar. "A private bus, trips to Hokkaido…I was just here two months ago, and you could barely afford to stay in Yokohama! You were drunk as a skunk and crying about having to crawl back to your parents — my aunt and uncle — in Nara!"
Asumi frowned at her cash register. Her eyes were downturned and dark with some unpleasant emotion.
Sawako rubbed her chin. "Come to think of it, it really is a miracle that Hair is still in business, what with how badly-off you were…Asumi, this isn't a money-laundering scheme for the yakuza, is it?"
The bartender's eyes flashed ferociously as she glanced up at Sawako. "I can't believe you would say such a thing! You know I've always hated the mob, and I've been trying to shake that ghetto reputation since I started going to school in Osaka!"
Mugi caught a flash on Asumi's left hand, and suddenly she understood the bus and the trips to Hokkaido.
"Well, then, how is this happening?" Sawako demanded.
Asumi's eyes were full as she opened her mouth to respond. Then she closed it. A deep red flush bloomed in her face — a flush redder than Sawako had ever seen. She hid her left hand behind her back and muttered, "It is none of your business, Sawako-neesan."
The sensei knew that if she was tacking an honorific at the end of a relative's name she was being as far from chummy as was possible for Asumi. Sawako spluttered, "None of my — Jesus H. Christ. We've been more than just cousins for as long as either of us could remember! When we were kids we asked our parents if we could hang out together! How many families are that close?"
Not mine, Mugi thought. This display of family affection touched the most vulnerable part of the keyboardist's heart. She could feel the sisterly love for Asumi vicariously through Sawako. This was nothing Mugi had ever seen or felt before. She grew up in a sterile mansion where butlers served her meals and her parents were practically trying to kill each other. This loving passion between Sawako and Asumi was enough to bring a tear to Mugi's eye.
"Asumi," said the sensei. "Who was there when you broke up with Hiroko?"
The bartender muttered, "You were."
"Who was there when you broke up with Mizue?"
"…You were."
"And Shigeko?"
"You."
"And Natsuko?"
"You."
"And Eiko? And Akane, Tsubasa, Izumi, Kotone, Chiasa, Yuna, Chihiro, Minako, and Shiori?"
Wow, what a track record, Mugi thought.
Asumi sighed, "You were." She stared apologetically at her favorite cousin whom she had idolized ever since she could talk. "Well, I guess I'll tell you then. You were going to find out anyways."
Mugi knew this was true.
The bartender started to bring her left hand back out from behind her. "I'm," she began, but stopped when she saw someone come in through the door. "Kaede!" she blushingly greeted with a warmth in her soprano voice that can only come from a woman in love.
Sawako sighed. So there's yet another one I have to help her break up with. She turned on her stool, expecting to find a cute, perky twenty-something girl standing in Hair's entrance.
What she found instead was a handsome thirty-something man with black hair, a mustache, and a great smile.
Sawako looked back at her simpering cousin. Then at the beaming man. Then at her cousin. Blushing woman, vibrantly smiling man — elementary, my dear Watson. Asumi was in love with a guy.
The sensei masked her surprise with: "Woah. I'm guessing this is a rare sight in Hair."
"Yeah — 'cause I wear pants," the man called Kaede chuckled, strolling up to the bar.
"Kaede-sensei!" Mugi gasped.
Kaede's dark eyes flicked toward the ojou. His face was half-blank as he half-recognized the voice: it was deeper, though no less gentle and sweet. Then his face broke out in a pleasantly surprised smile. "Kotobuki Tsumugi! As I live and breathe!"
Sawako and Asumi asked simultaneously, "You two know each other?"
"Kaede-sensei was my piano teacher," Mugi explained brightly.
He must be one helluva pianist, Sawako thought.
"Back when Mugi-chan was knee-high to a grasshopper," he added. "She was the cutest thing ever." There followed an anecdote dating back to when Mugi was five years old. Kaede had given her this bit of piano trivia: Beethoven was deaf, and had composed his pieces by feeling the vibrations of a piano. This had staggered wee Mugi, who dedicated herself to learning the pieces and tuning the instrument by vibration. She would lean over the piano, her face touching it whilst she played. This had been the source of many a neckache for the little girl. But it was different.
Sawako understood. When she first learned guitar she bought a lefty acoustic and learned it right-handed and backwards.
"So how are you, Kaede-sensei?" Mugi inquired cheerily.
"Delirious," he responded. "I'm about to get married."
"Really? Ohhh, Kaede-sensei! That's wonderfulllll!" Even though her parents were divorced, Mugi was still a devout cheerleader for love. Right now she looked about ready to do a herky.
"Big, big, big wedding in Kobe. Sorta adds some southern charm, eh?"
Sawako stared at Asumi, her eyebrows lowering over wide, disbelieving eyes. She gasped in English, her usually disguised Kansai accent coming out thick, "Oh…my…gaw…" Her cousin, who didn't understand English, stared blankly at her. "You're getting married?" the sensei ranted in Japanese. "To him?"
Asumi raised an eyebrow, holding her silence. She seemed insulted by Sawako's skepticism.
"You little trick!" Sawako raged. "You brat!"
"Sawa-chan!" Mugi gasped, standing up. "That's not very—"
"I'm not married yet!"
"Ah. Now I get it." Sighing, the ojou sat back down.
"Oh, would you take a chill pill," Asumi huffed, waving her hand. "You're all I've got for a maid of honor."
"I'm no 'maid'…" Sawako puffed out her cheeks childishly.
Asumi then departed to clean up the kitchen and Kaede left to return to his piano shop. Almost as soon as she and Sawako were left alone, Mugi leaned in and whispered, "I thought she was…gay."
"Y'think?" her girlfriend hissed. "She used to be the lesbian ladykiller. I helped her dispose of thirteen girls. The rest of 'em she broke up with in ladies' bathrooms at various restaurants." She threw a glance at the exit through which Kaede left. "This explains the bus. She must be marrying him for the money!"
"Or they could really be in love."
Sawako sighed as she looked at Mugi, whose gentle face was now vibrant with passionate stubbornness. Sometimes I forget that she's only eighteen. But that doesn't mean I have to sugar-coat everything. "They are not in love — she isn't, anyways. Asumi said ten years ago that she would sooner drive upholstery tacks into her gums than date a guy."
"Love doesn't exist in a vacuum," Mugi argued. "You can't just exclusively associate your affections with one gender. When you get right down to it, it's personality that matters." Mugi was a cheerleader for love, but like the Tokyo Giants, her team was having a rough season.
The teacher huffed, refusing to believe that this was true. Asumi would not marry a guy unless it could prevent her crawling back to her parents' house. Also, the bartender had a tendency to never follow up on things she said she'd do. When she was nineteen she announced that she would be quitting school to volunteer her time helping orphans in third-world countries. The orphans are still waiting. This wedding would never happen.
"Well," Mugi sighed, checking the clock on the wall, "it's about time for me to take off."
"Are you sure you can't stay the night here?"
The ojou gulped. Her basic instincts were screaming at her to stay the night in their own ways. Her pulse pounding in her head, the dry feeling in her mouth, the heat in her chest spiraling downward. This would be their first night together, alone, no Holt or butlers around, just the two of them free to do whatever they wanted, go as far as they wanted. Granted, they only started dating a week ago, but the six-month rule had no sway over a grown woman and her needs.
Mugi shook her head. "No, I can't." Her womanly needs could not foresee the trouble she would get in with Holt if she spent the night.
Sawako had the blonde girl by her wrist, by which she now pulled her in. Her other hand came to her waist. Mugi settled her free arm around the sensei's neck.
The first kiss was only pure compared to the others that night. Sawako opened her mouth, wetting Mugi's parched mouth with her tongue. The keyboardist gasped between kisses, her hot-blooded heart urging her lungs onward faster and faster, like a drill instructor. Her sweaty hands shook as she closed her lips around her girlfriend's tongue, sucking on it until Sawako groaned. Mugi was seriously reconsidering her decision to not stay the night. She could tell her father that she had stayed the night at a friend's place. She could. He would never know the truth.
The prospect of staying the night seemed even more promising when Sawako's hand trailed towards the front, pulling the dress up to give her access to—
"Y'know, ordinarily I'd be getting turned on." Sawako and Mugi jumped apart in alarm. Behind the bar stood Asumi, locking the cash register, eyes averted. "But one of you's my blood relative, so take that somewhere else."
"I was just about to go anyways." Mugi's parting line came out louder than she had intended. A mottled blush colored her cheeks and her chest. She looked at Sawako, silently bidding her good night, then skeeted out of Hair.
Once outside the enormity of that concupiscible exchange crashed down on Mugi, this time with more sensibility. Sawako really did intend to bring her hand where only Mugi's hand had been before. The keyboardist knew deep within her gut that perhaps next time there would be no Holt or Asumi holding either of them back.
Whereas Mio had doubts and second thoughts about approaching Chiharu (they hardly spoke to each other, over ten years ago), Ritsu seemed confident in going to speak with an old classmate. She threw open the door to the backstage room and strolled right in. She came tearing back out — pale, saucer-eyed, and bloody-nosed — after she came upon Chiharu helping Hitomi out of her bustier.
"You never do knock, so serves you right," Mio admonished, only glad that she had not followed her girlfriend inside. Somehow she knew just barging in would lead to this. There goes our good first impression.
Ritsu gagged. After seeing Terror Firma's guitarist like that, she did not want to hear the word 'knock.'
It didn't take long for Terror Firma guitarist and keyboardist to give Afterschool Tea Time bassist and drummer the all-clear. Hitomi appeared in the doorway, dressed in jeans and a three-quarter sleeve plaid shirt. Her blue eyes hooded in annoyance as she regarded Ritsu, telling the "drummer-han" she could come in for whatever she wanted. Hitomi seemed miffed when Ritsu did not say she was sorry. Mio brought the side of her hand to her nose in apology.
The bassist could have laughed at the wave of nostalgia that overcame her when she beheld her old classmate, her fellow sister mantel of five minutes. Chiharu had grown up to be one of the short girls who exude an insecurity of their unintimidating heights. Her ash brown hair which used to be styled in perfectly straight shelf bangs was now cut into a fluffy pixie style. But everything else was the same about Chiharu: the oval face, the hooded green eyes, the dark eyebrows. She and Madoka stood leering at Ayana whilst the scrappy drummer scurried about the room.
Madoka groaned, "How come everytime we take you somewhere you lose something?"
"You wanna go on tour without a drummer, Ginger-chan?" Ayana retorted in a voice that was not at all menacing. "I'd be happy to stay in the dorms."
The redhead flushed. "I told you to stop calling me that!"
"Call you what? Ginger?"
Chiharu squeezed her eyes shut, probably wishing she could go back home. When she opened them they fell upon Mio and Ritsu lingering uncertainly in the corner. She blinked, averted her eyes, her thick brows lowering uncomfortably. When she looked back she found them still staring. Did they want to speak with her?
"Hi," she murmured, keeping her face on Ayana.
"Well, hi yourself, Chiharu-chan!" Ritsu sang, startling the keyboardist. Chiharu's verdant eyes darted about, and Mio actually laughed. For Chiharu had done the exact same thing when Mrs. Abe had confronted her.
Hitomi crossed her arms and glowered at Ritsu. "How do you know Chiharu, drummer-han?" she queried suspiciously.
Chiharu held up a hand to assure her Kansaian girlfriend that everything was fine as freckles. "I do know you, don't I," she grunted. Her eagle eyes flicked to Mio. "Both of you. You're very familiar." She now regarded Mio: "You would have to be with all the gawking you did all night."
A cloud of steam burst from the raven-haired girl's head amid the crimson heat that rose to her face. Chiharu wasn't as aggressive as Ritsu, but nevertheless she was terribly blunt.
Chiharu smiled. Still she spoke to Mio, but her eyes zipped back toward Ritsu. "I hope that was why you were gawking. I'm happily taken, and I would hate to be the rift between you two. Sinistromanuel and stormy petrel. That is what we call a miracle pairing."
Now Mio's head burst for two reasons which she couldn't form coherent sentences for. Instead she ended up babbling gibberish. "I'm not in love with — wait! You remember — Taken?...Oh, that guitarist— miracle?"
"You remember." Ritsu flashed a toothy grin at Chiharu. They were roughly the same height. "Good to see you again, you old caricaturist."
Ayana's arm darted under the couch in search of her cell phone. "You guys got some weird-ass nicknames."
"We had a weird-ass sensei," Chiharu responded. She had earned the name 'caricaturist' for the cartoons she drew in the middle of class. Most of them had been gags modeled off of Tom and Jerry. Then she began to draw outrageous pictures of Mrs. Abe. The most popular one involved a classmate punching the teacher in the gut, crying, "SURPRISE CHILD ABORTION!" Mrs. Abe was puking a fetus. Chiharu was glad none of those got to the teacher…or Aiko, the class tattle-tale.
"Awesome performance you put on," Ritsu acclaimed, nodding. "How did you get to replace New Order?"
"Asumi-san heard our album," Chiharu replied.
Mio blinked. "Album…?" Just how well-established was Terror Firma, she wondered. She had thought it was nothing more than four unlikely girls thrown together — like Afterschool Tea Time. But Mio supposed every band got their start that way.
She jumped forward. "You recorded an album, Chiharu-chan? An actual, bonified, real album? Really?"
Chiharu flinched in surprise. Backing away from Mio, she fidgeted and turned her eyes to the floor. "It's…no great shakes…" She chuckled a bit. "Only seventeen minutes long. Months of hard work."
Ayana shrugged as she checked under the couch for the umpteenth time. "We make concise statements."
"I listened to it approximately thirty-two times on the bus to here from Kyoto," Hitomi sighed.
"But, but," Mio babbled. Some part of her feared Chiharu thought she was mentally ill. Sentences could no longer come together. "How?"
The keyboardist had the look on her face of a girl who had either accidently set her house on fire or disclosed the wrong bean of information to a crazy-bus. This was not how she remembered Mio. Akiyama-san the reticent sinistromanuel spoke at whisper-volume, and she only spoke one word for every ten you spoke. Chiharu glanced at Ritsu, suspecting she had something to do with this.
Ritsu added, "Which studio did you record at? Columbia? Honey Records? Jeepster? Matador?"
Chiharu shrunk further away, fearing this reunion would escalate to violence. Crossing her arms and lowering her chin, her sharp eyes searching for an escape, she stuttered, "Not at a studio. We used my grandpa's recording equipment to make it. Hitomi—" she pointed at her taciturn guitarist girlfriend "—her mother is a publicist, and an amazing one at that. She did the bulk of the work promoting our album. Aya-chan—" she now pointed at Ayana, who scowled around the room for her cell phone "—her father played the album over the radio. He also announced our show at Hair."
Mio looked at Ritsu, who pursed her lips and nodded in a well-how-about-that gesture. It seemed to them that their old classmate had been blessed with favorable connections.
The drummer tapped her chin. "I didn't know you could record albums at home."
"We're taking a class in it," Mio sighed, "or have you forgotten?"
Chiharu relaxed her posture and smiled. "Ah, a recording class? We don't have that at St. Mary."
At Chiharu's request, Mio explained the process they learned. The keyboardist nodded her head knowingly, smiling wistfully at the lack of such a class at her own school. When Mio told her that the class used Noteworthy 7 to edit tracks, Chiharu's eyes widened in distaste. Faltering, Mio practically whispered, "Noteworthy's…no good?"
Her eyes still wide, Chiharu shook her head. "No." For the first time, she sounded truly passionate about something. "Hell, no. Cakewalk's the only way to go if you're serious about recording. All Noteworthy does is compression and panning. Cakewalk can do a hundred times more than that. It also provides sample beats and sound effects."
"Well, Noteworthy's all we got," Ritsu sighed, shoving her hands in her blazer pockets. "It's all Sakuragaoka can afford. Not everyone's rich, Chiharu."
The keyboardist's chin jerked up as she gulped. In her wide virude eyes Ritsu detected an immensely satisfying fear of recognition.
Mio's thin lips tightened as she set her jaw. Gosh, it would be nice if we could get an album out. Writing new songs and performing them for crowds assembled at the school festival was fun, but the bassist knew they were quickly moving beyond that. They had performed at their last (Azusa's penultimate) festival; it was time to take it to the next level. But I don't have enough money to buy Cakewalk software…Mio hummed thoughtfully. Maybe if we pool our savings together, then…Oh, but we need other equipment like mics…
Ritsu asked, "Mio, d'you think we should record an album?"
Carl Jung's theory on 'meaningful coincidence' had nothing on Mio's frantic reaction. "Uh — uh, well, I wasn't thinking that, but —" She parted her bangs out of her slate eyes, unconsciously thinking about how much she needed a haircut. "Um, but we can't afford it."
"Sure we can! Cakewalk can't cost more than five thousand yen!"
"Ten thousand," Chiharu corrected. She could feel guilt straining her chest like a seatbelt as Mio and Ritsu's shoulders slumped in pitiful defeat. She had never known li'l Akiyama-san and Tainaka-san were so sharply inclined to the strong, loving world of music. But they were serious, the keyboardist realized. Only serious musicians could craft such tunes as had been performed tonight with that level of care. In that, Chiharu related Afterschool Tea Time to Belle and Sebastian, her favorite band.
"Uh, look," she coughed. "Why don't you drop by my grandpa's place next weekend? I'll help you produce your album."
Mio's jaw wagged open. Ritsu had stars in her eyes. "You would?" the drummer chirped in a falsetto voice. "I…I…Oh, my God!"
"Chiharu-chan…!" Mio gasped.
Chiharu glared aside and blushed. "None of that," she grunted, suppressing the emotion in her voice. "I expected better of you two. I'm only willing to do this if you're serious. If you're not…don't bother showing up."
"When it comes to recording, Chiharu has a tendency to crack the whip," Hitomi warned.
Mio was absolutely certain that she was seriousenough to record a great album. She knew Azusa would flip for this. Mugi would be an active and willing participant. Even Ritsu would press her nose to the grinder. But…
"Maybe we should leave Yui at home," Ritsu murmured. "Let Azu-nyan do her parts." The idea of Yui working for the stern and unyielding Chiharu frightened the drummer. Chiharu would have so little patience for Yui's shenanigans that she might literally crack a whip at her…or just send the lot of them home.
"We can't," Mio burst, her voice thick. "Yui's a part of us — we can't just leave her out!"
"Eh, you're right. But she better not slack off!"
Madoka groaned in annoyance as Ayana checked under the couch once more. The redheaded bassist pulled out her cell phone, flipped it open, and brought up her list of contacts. "I'm calling your phone, Aya-chan. If that doesn't help you find it, we have to go home regardless."
"Madoka-chan," Ayana huffed, "if you grub on me one more time I'm getting St. Mary in on our own Kick a Ginger Day."
Seeing as Madoka was the only ginger on the boarding school's campus, that would mean everyone would come for her. She ignored her friend's complaints and scrolled through her contacts. Ayana's name was first on the list, so the task of calling her was completed in nanoseconds. Madoka's silver eyes flicked upward, as if she was in an elevator, as she listened to the drone of the dial tone.
Ayana visibly jumped in shock as her back pocket vibrated. Pachelbel's Canon in D pealed from her rear end.
Despite the white-hot rage that boiled and bubbled within her, Madoka smiled dangerously as she closed her phone. Pachelbel ended abruptly, a ghastly precursor to what would happen to the drummer now that her copper-haired friend's anger was aroused. Ayana backed away from the slowly advancing Madoka.
"In the immortal words of Brutus," the redhead snarled once she had Ayana cornered. She snatched the coal-haired girl by her shirt collar: "Speak hands for me." Shakespearean for "I'm going to kill you."
What ensued was a crazy chase round the backstage room. Madoka and Ayana circled and feinted about the shabby couch. The pursuit ended when Madoka, giving an uncharacteristic and almost animal-like roar, dove over the back of the sofa and brought the drummer down on the coffee table in a flying tackle.
"Okay, ya know what," Hitomi yawned. "We found Aya-chan's cell phone. Let's go. I'm bushed."
"Good idea," Chiharu assented, also yawning. Yawning has a pandemic way of spreading; soon Mio and Ritsu found themselves yawning. The keyboardist smiled at them. "Good seeing you guys again. I look forward to seeing you next Saturday."
Mio both hoped and feared this bet of hers and Ritsu's would remain unsolved when Madoka cautioned Chiharu: "Watch your step, ojou-sama."