“What in the world are those…?” Kon asked.
“They’re dials that change your voice. They’re a set of three—you can use them to adjust your voice’s pitch, tone, and volume however you want!”
“…What?”
Well, that came out of left field. Kon scowled. What’s with this girl? Is she making fun of me?
Kon really was serious about getting better, too. She didn’t appreciate this stranger taking her fondest desire and treating it like a joke.
The silver-haired girl just smiled. “You can get these from a machine over in that corner of the drinks bar.”
“You can…?”
Kon turned and looked in the direction the girl was pointing.
The drinks bar was an area of the karaoke parlor with vending machines selling tea, soda, and other beverages. At the end of that row of machines stood one that was smaller than the others. From the look of it, it was a capsule machine—the kind where you put a coin in, turned the lever, and got a toy or some other product in a plastic capsule. The label on that machine read VOICE CHANGER DIALS.
They’re actually real…? No, n-no way. There’s no such thing as a dial that can change your voice. But…but if there was, then…
Now standing in front of the machine, Kon gulped. That girl’s singing had sounded so wonderful. If there was even a chance these could make Kon sing like that… Yes, she’d take that chance.
She grabbed her wallet, inserted a ¥100 coin into the machine, and turned the lever.
✦ ✦ ✦
Thunk!
✦ ✦ ✦
There was a clatter as one of the capsules fell out of the little drawer at the front of the machine. Kon reached down and picked it up. For a moment, she just stared at it…and when she turned around again, the girl in pink had disappeared.
✦ ✦ ✦
Back in her karaoke room, Kon opened the capsule, her heart pounding. Inside were three small dials. They looked the same as the ones that had been on the silver-haired girl’s neck. There was also a piece of paper folded up in there—probably the instructions.
Kon unfolded the paper to read what was on it.
✦ ✦ ✦
Voice Changer Dials—Set of Three
✦ ✦ ✦
Pitch Dial: Turn to the right to make your voice higher or to the left to make it lower.
Volume Dial: Turn to the right to make your voice louder or to the left to make it quieter.
Tone Dial: Turn to the right to raise the quality of your voice or to the left to lower it.
✦ ✦ ✦
That was the only explanation needed, apparently. It sounded easy enough.
Kon took the dials out of the capsule, turning them over as she did. On the back of each dial was a small hexagonal protrusion, a little like the end of a screw or thumbtack. It really was small, though, and its surface was flat, so pressing it into her skin probably wouldn’t hurt.
I have to put these over my throat, right? There’s no glue or tape or anything, so how am I supposed to make them stick?
She decided to give it a try anyway and picked up the Pitch dial, holding it between her thumb and index finger. Gently, she pushed it into her neck, and—
✦ ✦ ✦
Shck!
✦ ✦ ✦
—she felt the part on the back sink into her skin.
“…!”
It didn’t hurt. There was no blood. But the dial was very firmly stuck in her neck now, and it wouldn’t come out even when she pulled on it. It was like it had become a part of her body.
This sure was a strange product… The instructions matched up with what the girl had said the dials did, though, so maybe it was true after all.
O-okay…!
Kon did the same thing with the other two dials, until all three were attached to her throat, just like they had been with the silver-haired girl.
She took a deep breath and began searching on the karaoke machine for the song she’d heard that girl singing. Once it was all queued up, the title appeared on the screen, and the music began playing. She picked up the mic, waited for the intro to finish, and started to sing.
She’d sung this song at karaoke plenty of times but had always stumbled over the trickier parts and never managed to keep the proper key and tone all the way through it.
Hmm… To start…
Still singing, Kon turned the Volume dial on her throat to the right.
✦ ✦ ✦
Crk, crk, crk…
✦ ✦ ✦
Suddenly, her voice was so loud that it filled the entire room all at once. She was so surprised she dropped the mic and quickly turned the dial back to the left. Then her voice shrank until it was even quieter than the accompanying music. She sang as hard as she could, but it didn’t get any louder.
She experimented a little, turning the dial back and forth until she reached a volume she was more comfortable with.
Next, the Tone dial.
✦ ✦ ✦
Crk, crk, crk…
✦ ✦ ✦
When she turned it all the way to the right, the voice filling the room instantly changed. There was no trace of her old voice anymore; this one was velvety smooth, beautiful, clear, and with real substance, too. The way it combined a powerful presence with a more delicate, sensitive quality was like fireworks lighting up the night sky. Kon found herself enamored with this new voice of hers.
Soon, she came to the hardest part of the song. The part where she’d always failed to hit the final high note. She turned the Pitch dial to the right, and…
✦ ✦ ✦
Crk, crk, crk…
✦ ✦ ✦
♪ Like a rainbow casting shadows on a moonlit night
All that’s left…
✦ ✦ ✦
She nailed it. She kept the melody going all the way through, never faltering even once. And she sang it in a high pitch unlike anything she’d been able to achieve; it seemed to fly right out of the back of her throat.
This is amazing! I’ve never been able to hit the high note on that “all that’s left” part before. My voice always ended up cracking on the “all”…
This felt good. No, this felt great. Finally getting to sing exactly the way she wanted felt even better than she’d imagined.
I can’t believe it… This is me! I’m singing like this…!
Eventually, the song came to an end, and the last, lingering notes of her singing faded away. Kon’s heart was so full it felt like it was going to burst.
If I use these dials to give myself a voice like this, I’ll be singing professionally in no time flat!
Not only that, but a voice like this had greater implications, too. Before, her dream of becoming a singer who built a reputation on her mastery of high notes had been just that—a dream. Despite all the effort she put in, she had never gotten any closer to making it a reality. But now it was practically within reach!
Except… Kon’s hand drifted toward her throat and the dials there. The smooth sensation of the plastic brought her back to reality.
Using these dials to get the voice I want and pass an audition… Wouldn’t that be cheating?
It was more of a rhetorical question, but she answered it anyway: No matter how you looked at it, it was cheating. Of course it was.
Yeah… An audition’s meant to be a fair fight. Everyone’s supposed to compete on ability alone.
Auditions were a chance to make your dream a reality by your own hard work. They were sacred. Using the Voice Changer Dials for something like that was out of the question. She felt dumb for even considering it.
“But then again…”
Even just mumbling to herself, the voice that the dials had given her sounded so pleasant to her ears.
“It’s not like I’ve taken somebody else’s voice. This is still my voice; the dials have just tuned it up a little. So I’m still singing in a way only I can, right?”
Kon continued to speak her thoughts out loud. With her new, beautiful voice, she sounded a lot more convincing than usual…
“Basically, this voice is mine, so it’s fair game. Sure, I used the Voice Changer Dials to achieve it. But I always had the potential to sing like this. I just had some help bringing it to the surface, that’s all.”
It was like she’d hypnotized her voice and brought out the potential slumbering deep in its subconscious. Thinking about it like that, the little thorn of anxiety in her heart melted away.
“Yeah, that’s right. All the dials did was awaken the voice that was already inside me. This is my own ability, boosted up to a hundred percent. This voice is mine, and mine alone!”
The words came spilling out of her mouth and wormed their way into her heart.
Her voice, and hers alone. She liked the sound of that. And it was true—this new voice was a legitimate part of her skill set. She could have brought it out with hard work; she’d just taken a tiny little shortcut.
“Ooh, I can’t wait for my next audition…!”
Kon hummed happily to herself. It was a random, wordless melody, but it sounded better than anything she could have done without the dials.