The next day after school.
The club observation period for new students had begun, making the halls livelier than usual. Man, I was walking around looking at clubs with Tatsuya and company around this time last year too. How nostalgic.
Mei and I headed to the light music club to find that it was bustling with freshmen hoping to observe our activities.
“Oh, they’re really going at it,” I said.
“Is Armadillo Tank playing today?” Mei asked.
The clubroom had good soundproofing, but the door was left open today, and we could hear music streaming out from inside. During the beginning of the year, the light music club played welcome concerts for new students. Armadillo Tank, a band of third-years led by the club president, was performing. When we peeked inside the room, the existing club members were acting as hype men in the front row while the freshmen observed from the back. Incidentally, Armadillo Tank was the band that had performed before us at last year’s school festival.
The sound of Unison Square Garden’s “Sakura no Ato (All Quartets Lead to The?)” filled the air. It was a fast-paced song with a complex chord progression loaded with syncopation, but they were playing it flawlessly. Shikano-senpai, the club president, had an especially incredible sense of rhythm.
“Is it just me, or have they improved a lot?!” I exclaimed. This song is super hard.
“According to the club president, they were inspired by our performance and started practicing more,” Mei explained.
We were chatting and watching our upperclassmen play when a voice suddenly called out to us.
“E-Excuse me! You’re Haibara-senpai, right?”
I turned around to see four girls who looked like new students. One of them stepped forward, fixing me with a nervous stare.
I nodded. “Y-Yeah, I am, uh...?”
Her face lit up. “I knew it! I saw you play at the school festival last year! You were really cool!”
I’m glad to receive a compliment, but you’re, um, way too close. I took a step back, and she took one step forward. Wait, chill out a sec!
“Karin, work it!”
“Go get him, girl. Woo-hoo!”
The other three girls cheered her on with high-pitched voices. Please stop! I can’t match the energy of new students... The most a fake extrovert like me can do is smile politely.
“I didn’t get to watch you live, but I saw you on YouTube!”
Ah. She’s talking about that video that went viral without my knowledge. Just seeing the view count on it didn’t feel real, but now that I’ve met people who’ve actually watched it, it’s suddenly sinking in that we popped off.
“I want to give a concert like that too!”
In their excitement, the four of them surrounded and closed in on me.
Just then, the song ended. “Hey, girls in the back! Don’t get so excited that you forget about the show!” Armadillo Tank’s vocalist, Umahashi-senpai, smiled wryly.
Realizing how rude they were being, the first-years who had surrounded me hastily lowered their heads in apology. When Armadillo Tank started playing their next song, the girls peeled away from me and paid attention to the concert.
They’re really good girls. I hope they join the light music club.
“Dang, senpai, you’re popular.” Yamano had popped up next to me without me noticing. While Armadillo Tank played, we chatted in close proximity.
“I didn’t expect the first-years to know about us,” I said.
“Same here, but apparently you guys are pretty famous now. It’s probably because everyone’s curious about the school they’re going to attend. They must’ve looked up what being a student here would be like and stumbled upon the school festival YouTube video.”
Ohhh. That makes sense. No wonder I felt like I was getting a lot of stares from the first-years! I thought I was just being overly self-conscious, but it seems I was mistaken.
“I bet the majority of this year’s light music club applicants are here because of your guys’ performance,” Yamano said.
“I did notice that we have a lot of observers. You really think that’s it?” I asked.
At a glance, I estimated over twenty first-years had come to see the concert. Though we had a bigger room than other clubs, if any more showed up, we would be like sardines in a can. Our club currently had seven third-years and twelve second-years. It was a good thing we had so many aspiring members, but if we gained too many new faces, we’d get less time to practice in the clubroom and the second music room.
“Haibara-kun, hello. It sure is packed this year,” Haruyama-kun, vocalist of the second-year band the Clock Ups, said to me.
Though we were in the same club, we rarely interacted. We were, after all, in different classes.
“Hey. Are the Clock Ups playing tomorrow?” I asked.
“Yep. You guys should’ve put on a welcome concert for the new students too,” he said.
“One of those new students is going to join our band, so that would’ve been iffy,” I replied.
“I would’ve been fine doing it,” Yamano muttered next to me, but Haruyama-kun didn’t seem to have heard her.
“Oh yeah, that’s right. Your band’s going to join the club’s practice rotation, right?” he asked.
“We plan to,” I replied. “Please squeeze us in.”
After Iwano-senpai had left and we had recruited Yamano, we’d been practicing at a studio a little ways away from school since she wasn’t yet affiliated with Ryomei. It had put our band in an awkward position.
“At any rate, it’s going to get cramped with so many members,” I said.
“Yeah, the clubroom can only fit so many people. Do you think we’re going to hold tryouts or something?” he said.
“We don’t have to,” Serika interjected, cutting into our conversation without hesitation. “The bandwagoners will drop out immediately.”
Armadillo Tank’s concert ended right then, and the first-years flocked Serika.
“It’s Hondo-senpai!”
“What?! The one that runs Serika Channel?!”
“It’s her in the flesh! Um, would you shake my hand?”
She’s far more popular than me. Then again, her channel’s got forty thousand subscribers. Anyone eyeing the light music club will have checked her out.
“A handshake? Eh, sure, why not.” Despite the puzzlement evident on Serika’s face, she still managed to look cool.
“Um, Natsuki.” Someone tapped my shoulder.
I turned to see Mei there. To put it more accurately, he had been next to me the entire time.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“No one’s talking to me...” A sad reality stood right before me. “Even though I’m also a member of Mishle...”
The new school year had just begun, but he was already shrouded in a dark aura.
“Right, let’s get practicing,” I said.
“Don’t ignore me!” he cried.
Come on, what am I supposed to say?! “You’re usually so confident about your weak presence, though.”
“I am, but it still makes me miserable every now and then,” Mei wept.
I dragged him along, and together with Serika and Yamano, we headed to the second music room.
“We’re practicing as part of the club starting today!” Yamano merrily skipped down the hall.
“You should greet all the upperclassmen later,” I said.
“Awww, but that’s such a pain in the butt,” she groaned.
“Don’t be like that. You’re getting special treatment, so be polite.”
The biggest change that had come with the new year was that Yamano could be an official member of the light music club now that she was a student. That meant our band could practice in the clubroom and second music room. We could rent the studio less frequently, which would alleviate the financial burden on us. Nonetheless, simply being in a band required funds, so I still needed to keep my part-time job at Café Mares.
“Two weeks left until the music fest,” Serika said after we’d finished setting up our equipment.
“I think we’re more or less ready,” Mei remarked, uncertain.
“We’ve still got a long way to go,” she said sternly. “People aren’t going to judge us at a high school level.”
He sighed. “Yes, you’re right...”
“We can get even better,” she said.
Seeing her fired up, I nodded. “We decided to take this seriously after all. I don’t want to make any compromises.”
The air in the second music room grew tense. After the school music festival, I had resolved to take the band seriously. That meant participating in the music fest we’d been invited to and aiming for higher heights as a band. The others had agreed with my plan, and so we upped our number of practice sessions.
“Okay, let’s start with ‘Black Witch,’” Serika said.
Taking practice seriously was, of course, hard work. However, I wanted to experience the sight I’d seen at the school festival again. I believed that giving my all to extracurriculars was part of the rainbow-colored youth I sought.
Our current goal was the music fest in two weeks. We were ultimately just the opening act, but there would no doubt be a massive crowd. It would be a big step for our band.