“It’s all over… Mana Akihabara has lost the option of easy street… Hee-hee-hee…”
“Is it…because I suck…at dancing?”
“Don’t blame yourself, Shiika. It must have been because my song didn’t grab her… Gah, I should have tried flirting with her harder…and won Azusa’s favor that way…”
“You’re focusing on the wrong thing here… And what about me? Even with all my talent, I couldn’t sway her… This sucks…” Shibuya mumbled.
After school, we’d gathered for the dance lesson, as was the daily routine these days.
In the studio, my friends were all in shock over being rejected by Harajuku.
And as for me? Well…
“I wanna die! Kill me! Someone kill me now!”
I was more despondent than any of them, sprawled starfish-style on the floor in the middle of the studio. A complete and total loser.
After all, asking Azusa Harajuku for a collab was my idea. This was the result of me actually being proactive as a manager for once. I made everyone run around like headless chickens for nothing. In the end, the failure had only de-motivated the entire group.
Useless. Incompetent. A plague, that’s what I was.
Oh, I wanted to die. For real. But killing myself would be a hassle, not to mention scary, so if possible, I’d really prefer it if someone else would take me out.
“Guhhhh!!! Nuhhhhh!”
Writhing around on the floor, I let out a series of unintelligible groans and moans.
“…”
As soon as we had arrived at the studio, Tatsuki Ootsuka, who’d seen the failure in our eyes, instantly knew the result of our little challenge against Sengoku. She stood there dazed for some time.
But then she seemed to pull herself together, and she looked up, approaching where I lay on the floor.
“…I’m sorry! Gakkun, everyone, I’m really sorry!”
Then she got down on her knees and bowed low.
…Huh?
For a moment, I froze, unable to comprehend what had happened.
The other members seemed to feel the same. They stared at Ootsuka in puzzlement as she remained with her forehead on the floor.
“No, no, no, no, Ootsuka, you have nothing to apologize for, right?”
I jumped up in a hurry and tried to get her to raise her head.
But she didn’t lift it even an inch, as if it had been glued to the floor.
“Hey, look up. You did nothing wrong, Ootsuka. Your choreography was great, and the lessons you gave us were a huge help.”
“Y-you’re wrong! I think it was probably my fault, y’know? So…,” Ootsuka said.
“Just calm down. Can you explain what you mean, Ootsuka?”
“Y-yeah. Okay. Inhale… And exhale. Inhale…”
I gently touched the distraught Ootsuka’s shoulder to soothe her, and she placed a hand on her chest and took several deep breaths.
Then, with her eyes cast awkwardly downward, she began to speak.
“Actually, I should have said something sooner…but I didn’t want to throw cold water on you guys. You were dancing so happily, I just couldn’t.”
“…Say what?”
“Nokki’s dance music… I felt it was a little off. But I didn’t point it out. I just kinda…looked past it.”
Specifically, Ootsuka confessed that it was the way the drums were implemented.
“Nokki, your composition was… Well, it was good. You muted the drums, put a break before the chorus and a lot of cool little tricks into it.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” I asked.
“I think it’s fine for a normal composition. But in dance music, it’s a lot of repeating patterns of the same rhythm over and over. I prefer drums with a monotonous rhythm. You know, like, have you ever seen people in a club, all dancing to the same rhythm as you?”
“Uh… I think I can picture what you mean.”
Of course, I’ve never experienced going to a club in my life, so there’s no way I’d have seen what she was describing.
But I could vividly imagine the same kind of scene you see in movies and comics from all over the world, in all kinds of eras… I could see dancers and DJs, and a crowd all dancing excitedly as one.
“The thing that gets the crowd fired up… It’s a simple, sustained drumbeat.”
“In other words, Komae’s music didn’t demonstrate the right understanding of dance culture. Harajuku saw through that and decided to provide clothes for Sengoku instead of us…right?”
“Maybe… I don’t know how much Azu-pie knows about the culture of hip-hop dance, but the moment I heard the track, I thought…‘Oh, this isn’t right.’”
I’d never heard anyone say Azu-pie before, but I was guessing it was a nickname for Harajuku (one that Ootsuka had just taken upon herself to start using, of course).
Ootsuka’s shoulders slumped.
So she DID have an idea of what was wrong. Well, if she saw something, she could have SAID something. A part of me wanted to be like, What the hell?
But a part of me understood. She’s a genius, like Shiika, only in a different field. She wouldn’t have been so careless. There must have been some reason why she didn’t explicitly point out the mistake.
“I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m blaming you. But can you explain? Why did you stay silent, all the while feeling uncomfortable with Komae’s track?”
“…”
She looked down and bit her lip.
Then, with sadness in her eyes, Ootsuka spoke again.
“You may not believe me when I say this, but I thought Nokki’s track was fresh, interesting, and just really good. Even if it didn’t really seem quite right as a piece of dance music, it made me think it would be super cool to add choreography to it and create something amazing!”
“So you were trying to challenge yourself and do something avant-garde?”
“Yes, although it sounds a bit pretentious… I was… But we failed. That’s so lame,” Ootsuka said with a wry smile.
“Oh, I just remembered something!”
Suddenly Akiba, who’d been silent until then, piped up loudly.
“Ryuzetsuran! You’re famous in the community for trying to destroy hip-hop!”
“What are you yelling about, Akiba? This isn’t an anime, you know,” I said.
“This isn’t the time for jokes! Ryuzetsuran… Tatsuki Ootsuka! She’s always trying to push the boundaries of hip-hop culture and explore new methods of expression! Of course, she’d want to utilize new styles incongruent with standardized dance music!”
Akiba spoke with confidence, backed up by her reputation as an info-gatherer.
I’d heard vaguely that Tatsuki Ootsuka was the top student in the Dance Department, but I had no idea she was some kind of pioneer of the discipline.
But at the same time, I had to face the realization that the cause of this failure lay not with anyone else but solely with me.
I’d sought out Ootsuka’s help just because she was a big name in the school. I had no idea of her policy toward dance. I didn’t even know anything about the culture of the dance world. What kind of factions existed. Even what kind of evaluation criteria there was.