All but one of our issues had been solved. Yamano still hadn’t made peace with Matsui-san, and she was on her way to becoming the class loner.
“Which means it’s time for phase two of the Yamano Saya Reform Plan: implementation,” I said.
“Are you seriously still going on with that plan?” Yamano asked.
“How dare you even question it!” Okay, true, you’ve suddenly become a master at the implementation part!
That was probably because Yamano now viewed Mei as an important friend. However, although we’d resolved the issues within our band, her relationship troubles with her classmates wouldn’t magically go away. Yamano’s greatest problem was that she unconsciously looked down on those she had zero interest in. Perhaps, like me, she only saw them as tools to improve her high school life.
But even if I pointed that out to her, she wouldn’t truly understand it. Hence, I wanted her to realize that for herself. If she reached that answer on her own, she would never forget it. I was basing this off of my experiences in my first round. As Yamano’s upperclassman, I should guide her so that she can piece together the actual crux of her problem.
“How the heck do I write lyrics?” Yamano grumbled on the train ride home.
Serika’s song was already nearly complete. It was a pretty standard classic rock song. The lyrics Yamano came up with would decide the direction of our band.
“Do you have anything you want to convey right now?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Yamano replied.
“For example, when I wrote the lyrics for ‘Monochrome,’ I poured in my feelings about how my youth used to be gray, but now it gleams with a myriad of colors thanks to everyone around me.”
“O-Ohhh! I see.”
I’m sort of retconning that explanation, but it’s definitely true. “As for ‘To the Star’... I wrote about my feelings for Hikari.”
“Yeah, I picked that up right away. That was just a love letter.”
“Apparently, Hikari always listens to it on YouTube before she falls asleep every night.”
“Uh, big yikes.”
Don’t say that about someone’s girlfriend! I’ve never thought that before. Okay, maybe just a little. “Anyway, if you have something you want to convey to others, you can turn it into lyrics.”
“So I should come up with a theme. Hmm...” Yamano crossed her arms and groaned with a deep frown. Then her eyes suddenly widened. “I want to change. So I want to put that desire into words.”
So that’s her answer. It’s simple, but I think it’s a theme that’ll strike a chord in other people’s hearts. “That sounds good.”
“Yeah! Okay, I’ll mull over it!” Yamano opened her note-taking app as she hummed excitedly. However, she didn’t move a muscle for a while, continuing to stare at the white screen. “Nothing’s coming.”
I feel that. It’s not easy to write something just because you’ve decided on the theme. Still, I’ve got two songs under my belt. During times like this, you need to dig deeper into your thoughts. “Yamano, how do you want to change?”
“I want to shine like you do!”
“What exactly does ‘shine’ mean here?”
“Well... I want to experience a sparkly high school life. I want lots of good friends, a hot boyfriend, and to succeed in the band... Something like that?” Yamano covered her face with her hands. “When I say it out loud, it’s totally obvious that I’m hungry for other people’s approval. I’m getting embarrassed...”
“You’ll get used to it in no time.”
“That’s actually convincing coming from the person who wrote the lyrics for ‘To the Star.’”
“Shut up.” I put on a show of loudly clearing my throat with a few coughs before moving on with the conversation. “How do you think you need to change to make your life shine, then?”
“Become a considerate person like you said?”
“Sure, if you can do that, you’re more likely to succeed.”
“Then I just need to turn that into lyrics!”
“But what does it mean to be considerate?”
Yamano paused. “Is it being nice to others?”
“And how do you become someone who can be nice to others?”
“Think about their feelings...?”
“Yamano, do you normally live your life thinking about other people’s feelings?”
“No...”
“Then how do you get yourself to keep others’ feelings in mind?”
Yamano’s expression transformed over the course of our back-and-forth. With narrowed eyes, she stared out the window. She was surely reflecting on her past behavior.
“Pay more attention? To other people?” The answer she’d arrived at resembled my own.
“Yeah,” I murmured. It also means you need to hold some level of interest in the people around you. I told Yamano something similar before, but it didn’t stick at the time.
“Senpai, I’ll think about what you said more.”
Yamano’s questioning the way she’s been up until now. She’s wondering if she was wrong, and that’s why it’s starting to stick.
“I hope you can write some good lyrics.”
And I’m praying that you can change, and obtain the days you desire.
✦ ✦ ✦
This is about all I can do. As curious as I am, I can’t just go to the first-years’ classrooms to take a gander. What happens next is all up to Yamano. I know that much. But I can’t help worrying, though! I keep wondering if there’s anything more I can do for her.
I walked around the courtyard during lunch break, such thoughts spinning in my mind.
“What’s with you, Haibara?”
My pacing was interrupted by a voice. I turned around to see Iwano-senpai eating a bento on a sunny bench.
“I-Iwano-senpai! It’s been a while,” I hastily greeted him.
He finished chewing and said, “C’mon, sit down.”
I obeyed and took a seat next to him.
“Long time no see,” he told me. “You look like you’re doing well. That’s good.”
“You too, Iwano-senpai. How is studying for the entrance exams?” I asked.
“It’s okay. I got a B on the recent mock exam. I need to work harder.”
“You got a B this early in the year? Isn’t that super good?”
“That’s what my teacher said too, but my grades will fall if I let my guard down.”
As always, he’s serious to the point of being clumsy about it.
“But it’s essential to take breathers. So I can listen to whatever’s on your mind,” Iwano-senpai said between mouthfuls of his lunch. “Haibara, did you eat already?”
“Yes. I just came from the cafeteria.”
“I see. That’s good.” Iwano-senpai placed his bento box—which had been emptied out in the blink of an eye—next to him and murmured, “I heard from Hondo that you guys played at a music festival. Sounds like you’re all working hard.”
I put on a strained smile. “Yeah, a lot happened, though...”
“What happened? If you’re open to it, why not tell me about it?”
It was a delicate issue, but I didn’t hesitate to disclose it to Iwano-senpai. I quickly told him everything.
After I’d finished, Iwano-senpai hummed thoughtfully as he rubbed his chin. “Friction caused by a difference in skills and disparity of intentions, huh? It’s a common problem in bands.”
When he describes it like that, I can say I’ve definitely heard about stuff like this happening often.
“At any rate, I’m glad you guys worked it out. You’re lucky romance wasn’t involved.” Iwano-senpai’s eyes glazed over and took on a distant look for some reason.
He must’ve witnessed a band struggling with romance problems, huh...
“It sounds like the drummer you found to replace me with is quite the troublemaker too.”
“Yeah. She’s not a bad kid, though.”
Iwano-senpai scrutinized me closely and then suddenly broke into a smile. “If there’s one thing I can say for sure, it’s that I understand why she’s so particular about Shinohara’s skills, since he’s part of the rhythm section. The drums and bass are the supporting foundation of a tune, after all.”
That’s true. I’ve seen Iwano-senpai critique Mei multiple times. But he was always courteous when he pointed things out, so Mei never felt like he was being attacked.
“I try to be considerate with how I phrase things. People are already scared of me because of my face,” he said.
Yeah, I feel like Iwano-senpai is always polite. He doesn’t talk much, but you can tell he chooses each word carefully.
“Now that you’ve stepped outside the light music club’s boundaries, the skills expected of you are going to be much higher than when you played with me. I think that’s why Yamano was giving such harsh feedback.”
“That’s definitely true... It’s been problem after problem lately,” I said.
“But you decided to challenge those high hurdles, right?”
I nodded and directed my gaze at the school building. From the courtyard, we could see the first-year hallway through the window.
Iwano-senpai watched me kindly. “Are you worried about Yamano’s school life?”
I hesitated before answering. “Yes. I can’t stop worrying about whether it’s going well for her.”
He laughed. “You’re acting like her dad.”
If this is what it feels like to be a parent, then raising kids must be really hard.