Chapter 2

When they arrived at the Kojimachi studio of East Metropolitan TV, Oka and Nishimura were already waiting in the green room. The oldest member, Oka, was slight with a small frame. His dyed brown hair was parted down the middle. Nishimura was the tallest and the most sturdily-built. His short hair was spiked with mousse. They were both wearing jeans with matching T-shirts in different colours with T-Rexes printed across the front.
“Been waiting for you,” Oka grinned and waved.
“Do you have souvenirs for us?” Tomoya said as he walked inside, then froze. Kento walked in after him and tensed up as he realized that the MCs, Matsukawa and Tawara, were also present.
Tawara was a comical man, his reptilian appearance somewhat resembling a kappa. He was wearing a black sweater and jeans with a red pen tucked behind his ear. He had his nose buried in the script and occasionally scribbled something in it with the pen. When he finished, he tucked the pen behind his ear again, making him look like a seedy guy at a horse wager.
As for Matsukawa, he wore a pair of sunglasses perched on his bald forehead. His black jacket had an embroidered dragon and tiger sprawled across the back. He had every appearance of a yakuza gangster. Kento balked at the can of beer in his hand.
Tawara suddenly gave him a wide, clown-like grin, the corners of his mouth turning up exaggeratedly.
“Kento Yamashiro, we’ll be focusing the conversation on you today, as the belated member of Chronos. Got it?”
“Um ? alright.”
A hesitant Kento was ushered by Tomoya into a metal folding chair beside the two.
“I heard from the leader that you couldn’t join the group at first because of a leg injury?”
“Um, yes.”
Matsukawa took a swig of beer before fixing Kento with a glare.
“Don’t you have any special tricks, something like that? Makes a visual impression on the audience that way, you know what I mean?”
As Kento sat frozen by intimidation, Oka the leader swooped in to rescue him.
“He’s the best dancer, actually,” he said. “He can do ten backflips in a row. Oh, and the moonwalk.”
“But you already do that at concerts, right? We want something new for the show, you know. Something no one’s ever seen before.”
Tomoya nudged Kento. “What about that?”
“What?”
“The guitar. You can play, right, Kento?”
Oka’s eyes widened in surprise. “That’s news to me, too.”
“Yes, that’s what I’m talking about,” Matsukawa joined in. “Something even the members don’t know about. Your dirty little secret.” He roared with laughter before ordering the staff to bring a guitar.
“So? What can you play? If you say ‘Forbidden Games’ I’ll have to punch you in the face.”
Kento was handed a guitar. He began to tune the strings.
“The Beatles,” he replied.
“The Beatles? I’m quite picky about them, you know. If you do a horrible job of playing them, you won’t come out of this alive.”
The set for Music Map was designed to look like a recording studio. A keyboard and drum set were placed in the background, and a glass-panelled mixing booth was set off to the side.
Matsukawa and Tawara sat at each end of the narrow, kidney-bean-shaped table, and the four members sat between them. Three cameras and sound-gathering microphones were placed on standby in their standard positions.
“You’re almost on.” The assistant director snatched the can of beer from Matsukawa’s hands.
Tawara laughed. “You’ll only have to part with it for a while,” he said as he waved a hand in Matsukawa’s scowling face.
The “on air” light came on.
“And?action!”
“Good evening everyone, our Most Valuable Guests for tonight are the rising stars of pop music: Chronos!”
The cameras glided over the studio floor.
“?I see, Kento, so your debut was a little late because of a condition in your leg?” Tawara directed the topic to Kento, just as they had rehearsed. Oka seamlessly picked up the cue and pointed at Kento.
“He was practicing the guitar for the whole time.”
Kento reached out to grab the guitar placed beside him.
“You were planning to show off all along, then,” Tawara quipped.
“Let’s see you play a number,” Matsukawa said. “But if it’s ‘Forbidden Games’, I’ll have to punch you in the face.”
Kento held his guitar in position and looked steadily at Matsukawa’s face.
“This is a song that I want to dedicate to the person I love most. ‘All My Loving.’”
It was different from what they’d rehearsed, but Matsukawa looked unperturbed as he nodded. Kento took it as a green light and began to sing along to his guitar.
Doctor, you’re my dearest. You said that with time I would forget about you. But no number of years is going to change how I feel. Ever.
Yuri Orihara.
That was the name of Kento’s beloved. Kento had met him a year and a half ago. He only had to turn over the hourglass in his heart for the sands of time to take him to the past.
To the days they had spent together.