As I was eating the emo-emo fruit to become an emo human who could say nothing but emo, emo, Komachi was smoothly ignoring that to move the conversation along. “Well, often enough, I suppooose.”
“Me too, when I’m going out with friends and stuff,” Yuigahama agreed.
“Yeah, dude! For sure!”
“If you mean jazz concerts…,” said Yukinoshita. “A long time ago, when my family went on a yacht cruise, there was a concert on the water…”
“Ohhh, the people who can’t escape at the end, even when it sinks,” said Yuigahama.
“Isn’t that the Titanic…?” Komachi cut in.
“But I feel like that’s not quite the same type of concert,” said Isshiki.
“Yes,” Yukinoshita agreed. “So I’m not sure how I should enjoy this kind.”
“Oh, well, my brother knows a lot about that. Right, Bro?”
“Yeah.” With the discussion suddenly turned to me, I instantly suspended my vicarious emo experience and nodded sharply.
“You were listening?!” Yuigahama cried.
“Well, yeah. No matter when it is or what I’m doing, Komachi’s voice is the one thing I’ll always hear. I’d even say I wasn’t listening to anything but Komachi’s voice,” I said.
Komachi beamed a bright, happy smile. “Wow, that’s creepy! ” she said cruelly.
And Yukinoshita did not smile; the disgust on her face seemed fairly serious. “That really is creepy…”
Hmm, such direct disparagement strikes me right in the heart, you know… It comes off as such a natural response—not good.
Brought back to reality all at once, I returned to the subject of the conversation while I was at it. Clearing my throat with a gefum, gefum to express its importance, I decided to initiate them on how to enjoy concerts. “…So a concert. You don’t have to get too complicated about it. At first, you just have to do the M. Bison stance. Like you’re the boyfriend.”
However, the moment I said that, Yukinoshita’s expression twisted in confusion. “M.…Bison? What? What did you say?” she asked back.
So I repeated it one more time. “Uh, like I said, M. Bison standing boyfriend face.”
“That doesn’t explain anything!” Yuigahama wailed, smooshing her bun.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the expression is a bit difficult for an amateur…
I searched anew for words it seemed would get through to them. “…Ah, maybe it’d be easier to get if I said it like that—the old-fashioned-man look.”
“I don’t get what you mean! Well, I get what the words mean…but I don’t get it. Huhhh? Why would you act like you’re the boyfriend at a concert…?” Yuigahama was already starting to abandon understanding, hmm-hmming to herself.
But beside her, Isshiki was nodding. “Oh-ho. Now I’m curious what sort of intense look you put on your face while you gloat.”
“Wow, she sure doesn’t put things gently… Well, but Komachi is curious, too.”
“Indeed. Then give it a try, to show us just what it’s like,” said Yukinoshita.
“Well, it’s nothing really difficult… Um, kinda like this…,” I said, folding my arms and standing at an angle to gaze into the distance. My eyes were not now or here, but on a metaphysical idol.
Gazing beyond the shining lights to the stage that only I could see, I smiled peacefully and slowly nodded. In my mind, I said, I understand—I’m the only one who really does. Who understands you. The real you… It’s just me…
Instantly, everything sounded far away.
A painfully awkward silence fell over five people, but despite it all, I was still nodding along.
And then, in my heart, I said to the formless idol in my imagination, …I see. So you’ve found…the place you want to be… You’re shining so bright… So, so much brighter than before.
I ruminated on the nonexistent days that idol and I had shared, aware that they were lost in the distant past, sighed in mild self-deprecation, and lightly shook my head.
Gazing into the middle distance with a miserable smile of regret, I answered under my breath, “Yeah. I have a good view of you from the seat at the very back…”
I think Isshiki’d had about enough of this dude, as she shook her head violently. “No way, no way, no way.”
Komachi and Yuigahama did the same as if to say, Not happening.
“Yikes, yikes, yikes.”
“Creepy, creepy, creepy.”
“Emo, emo, emo.” Only I could see the truth. I chanted emo, emo; I would not lose to the great chorus of no way yikes creepy.
But it’s only me, Bump of Chicken, and people on drugs who try to see things that cannot be seen. Yuigahama, the most relatively wholesome and well-adjusted of us, seemed disturbed. “What’s so emotional about that?!”
“You make yourself emotional watching that way, so it’s fine.”
Yes—at a fest or concert or whatever, the only important thing is whether you get feels or not.
Yukinoshita’s discomfort turned into confusion—even concern—after my earnest appeal. “…What’s so enjoyable about that?”
She spoke with great consideration, as if touching a sensitive spot, very much like when it’s dead silent at the dinner table and your mom screws up her courage to ask, …Are you having fun at school?
She looked so uneasy asking me that, I was forced to answer her seriously. “Uh… Of course. It feels good to be the only one not screaming. Putting on the old-fashioned-man look makes you feel like the protagonist of a Makoto Shinkai film. You get theme music in your head and everything.”
“Listen to the music in the concert, not the music in your head…” Yukinoshita touched her temple as if she had a headache and breathed an exasperated sigh.
Hmm… So you don’t get it, huh…? It feels so good to look down on the screaming masses. You get so many feels.
The moment I feel most connected to my bias is when I can act like I have transcended mere fan-hood to understand her like no one else can. A man such as I can reach an even higher level of enjoyment by drawing such lines of discrimination between myself and other fans in the deepest areas.
But they probably wouldn’t get that. Yuigahama’s mouth was hanging open. “I don’t get it at all… Creepy.”
“That’s…ew,” Isshiki agreed.
Stop taking it so seriously, okay? Like just now, I kinda got the sense you really, truly meant that?
But Yuigahama wasn’t the only one with a serious tone. Yukinoshita also seemed concerned. “Do you always do things like that? Are you all right? Are you making sure to take your medicine three times a day?”
“No need. My brain’s always in a happy stupor when I’m watching a concert.”
“It’s not always good to be too happy, I see…” Yukinoshita’s gaze was so incredibly gentle. Like the tragic warmth of a caregiver nursing an invalid.
The mood was starting to feel like someone died. Isshiki sighed in utter exasperation. “Isn’t there a more straightforward way to enjoy a concert?” she said, sounding incredibly fed up. Her expression said that it would feel too viscerally awkward for her to intrude any further.
But even if she asked for such a thing, I personally saw this as the most straightforward and emotional way to enjoy a fest. Well, she had to be asking me to, like, focus on more mainstream sensibilities. “When you get used to it, you start memorizing the calls and stuff, so you can enjoy it just fine.”
“Calls?” This use of the English word must have been unfamiliar to Yukinoshita, as she tilted her head.
Then Tobe nodded like, Uh-huhhh and butted in. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, calls are like that thing, right? Like Vaaanilla Vanilla Vaaanilla whoo whoo sorta thing?”
“No.” Well, he got the rhythm basically right, so yeah, I guess it’s close, but it’s totally different. You don’t see the Vanilla truck around these days, so nobody’ll get it… There is one girl here who’s nodding along, but I will pretend I didn’t see that.
“A call is like a sort of interjection in a song,” I said, but I still had trouble explaining it.
I could elaborate by saying Basically, it’s that thing where you go “Umapyoi! Umapyoi!” in a winning live, but I really couldn’t expect them to get that. When watching that ending scene, you generally just cry, and it’s no time for doing the calls anyway… I never thought the day would come when I would cry from umapyoi… Well, leaving that aside.
“Well, to pick a popular one…” I considered it, then picked the most straightforward example that came to mind. “One, two! Yeeeah, yeeeah, yeah yeah yeah! …Something like that.”
Yuigahama and Isshiki nodded. “Ahhh, I kinda feel like I’ve heard that before…,” Yuigahama said.
“That is basically how idol concerts go,” Isshiki agreed.
“Ohhh, do you like idols, Iroha?” Komachi asked her.
“Not enough to go to concerts, obviously… But, well, I like pretty girls.”
“You really don’t put things gently.”
As Komachi and Isshiki were discoursing on idols, Yukinoshita was falling into thought. “Hmm… It seems a little strange for the audience to be calling out, when they’ve come to hear the music.”
“Well, it’s really about cheering them on. Though you do have to look for cues and check to see if you can do it or not right then…”
Views on fan chants differ depending on the person. Some people see them as an annoyance, while others value them as part of what makes the experience exciting. Of course, some believe that it depends on the song, so this is a matter to be treated with the utmost delicacy. If I may add further, sometimes the management establishes clear rules for it, so it’s recommended you look over all the rules when participating.
I could have gone on at length, but there was just one thing that was more important than all of that. “Of course, for a concert, as long as you’re not causing trouble for others, you can enjoy yourself in any way you want.”
Ultimately, what should be the greatest priority is that the performers and the audience all have a pleasant time. I would even call this the absolute ironclad rule.
My delivery might have been a bit too intense, but that made me sound all the more convincing. Yukinoshita blinked a few times, but then quickly broke into a smile. “I see. I understand now. Somehow.” With a sigh of satisfaction, she nodded.
Meanwhile, Isshiki was sighing for other reasons. “But being free to do what you want can be the hardest thing… Agh, seriously, what do we do for this event?” she muttered to herself. I was surprised to hear the concern in her voice, so I considered her question.