A week had passed since the new term had begun. It felt like it had gone by in the blink of an eye. I went to school, went to band practice or work, went home, and slept. My days were so jam-packed that time was melting. By this point, my relationships with my new classmates were cemented. I was pretty friendly with Kijima-kun and Kurahashi-san too.
Like last year, Fujiwara had taken up the role of managing the entire class. She still flung important things at me, though. Sheesh, give a guy a break!
As for the light music club, when the deluge of aspiring applicants found out that Yamano had already joined Mishle, seven people rescinded their application. Isn’t that way too many people to immediately drop?!
In the end, fifteen first-years joined our club, which was still plenty. By Serika’s estimate, we’d lose half of that in half a year. Learning an instrument is fun, but I understand the feeling of wanting to give up once it gets too hard.
At any rate, the hallway in front of the clubroom was crowded with first-years practicing the basics. Since our band was also part of the room schedule rotation, we had to take part in teaching the inexperienced first-years. Not gonna lie, I’m nowhere near good enough to be teaching anyone, but I’m a second-year, so I’ve got no choice.
“Shinohara-senpai, you need to work on this part.”
“Urgh... Maybe we should simplify it after all. It’s a little too hard.”
“But it sounds better this way. If you want to create good music, then please keep plugging away!”
Our band practices were also heating up. Recently, the rhythm duo, Yamano and Mei, had been quibbling more and more often. Both had changed after we’d decided to take the band seriously. These exchanges were a bit scary, but also necessary.
“Okay, let’s wrap up for the day,” Serika said after she glanced at the time. It was 8 p.m.
Another exhausting day, but I noticed a lot of problems. I better practice at home too. I wiped my sweat and then packed my guitar, amp, and effector.
“By the way, what’re we going to do about our band name?” Yamano asked suddenly as she cleaned her drum set. “We’re currently still down as Mishle, right?”
“Oh right. We better think of a new name,” I said. We weren’t Mishmash Leftovers, a temporary band made up of the light music club’s unwanted anymore, so we had talked about changing our name.
“Yeah, but I can’t think of any good ideas.” Serika frowned, her brow crinkled.
“Let’s pick something trendy and cool!” Yamano suggested.
“We wouldn’t be struggling this much if it were that easy,” Mei pointed out.
“I don’t have any naming sense either,” I said.
Our stumped hums filled the second music room.
“Well, there’s no rush,” Serika said.
“Huh? But won’t the music club be inconvenienced if we don’t have a band name?” I asked.
“We’re listed as ‘Mishle (temp)’ for now. The school festival video that went viral on YouTube was of Mishle, so I think they’d actually prefer it if we didn’t change our name,” she answered.
If we rebrand, then we’d suddenly turn into an unknown band. Then again, it doesn’t change the fact that we’re a newbie band that only got in because of Serika’s connections and a viral video.
“So are we appearing in the fest like that?” Yamano asked.
“If we don’t think of any good ideas, then yes. It’s homework for everybody, okay?” Serika said, and then clapped her hands to signal we were done discussing the topic.