Nagasaki Soyo lightly pinched at her fingers, absentmindedly fidgeting with them, but said nothing more.
Wakaba Mutsumi knew this was one of her little habits whenever she was thinking.
She… was hesitating.
Even though they were brother and sister, did she still harbor certain thoughts about Hanadasaki Ame?
Wakaba Mutsumi could not really judge. After all, the two of them were not blood-related, so objectively speaking, there was nothing inherently impossible about it.
Still, she felt a faint resistance in her heart…
After a brief silence, Nagasaki Soyo suddenly said in a low voice,
"Rikki didn't come in for work today…"
"Mm."
Wakaba Mutsumi gave a faint response.
Shiina Taki was the drummer of their band—serious, straightforward, and just a little strict. In her spare time, she worked part-time at Ring. They would occasionally run into her there, but only a few times had they ever managed a proper conversation.
And even if they did talk, it was meaningless. The real reason the band had fallen apart lay with Sakiko. She had been the absolute core of the group. Once she was gone, there was simply no possibility of rebuilding it.
Besides… Taki only cared about their vocalist, Takamatsu Tomori. She did not care in the slightest what happened to Sakiko.
At least Taki could still be found. Tomori, on the other hand, had vanished completely after the day Sakiko said she was quitting the band. She stopped answering calls, stopped replying on Line, and no one knew how she was doing now.
Wakaba Mutsumi had long since accepted the fact that CRYCHIC could never be reformed. When she came to Ring now, it was simply because she liked watching band performances. But Soyo was still obsessed with it, which made things extremely difficult.
If there were no band-related matters binding them together, what reason would she have left to stay by Soyo's side…?
They exchanged a few disjointed words here and there, until Hanadasaki Ame finally came back.
He had taken rather a long time, as if he had done more than simply go to the restroom, but neither Nagasaki Soyo nor Wakaba Mutsumi asked about it, and Hanadasaki Ame did not bring it up himself.
They chatted idly while waiting for the live performance to begin.
Of course, during that time they also had to buy tickets—one thousand yen each, which was not especially expensive.
The price varied depending on the popularity and skill of the performing band, ranging anywhere from five or six hundred yen to one or two thousand.
The band performing today, Afterglow, had been around for quite some time and had built up a fair amount of popularity. Their shows were well received.
As the performance time drew near, more and more customers began heading into the hall, hoping to secure good spots to watch the performance.
By the time Hanadasaki Ame and the others entered, the venue was already packed.
Standing amid the crowd, Hanadasaki Ame rose up slightly on his toes to look toward the stage.
The spotlights had not yet come on, and the performance hall lay in darkness, though many people were fiddling with their phones, scattered points of light twinkling here and there.
He could make out five girls in stage costumes gathered close together on the platform, speaking in low voices as if giving each other encouragement and making the final preparations before going on. Their voices were swallowed by the noisy murmur of the crowd and impossible to make out clearly.
Hanadasaki Ame did not particularly like crowded places. His senses were sharp, and he took in too much information all at once, which interfered with his thinking.
And if someone's inner voice happened to sound out in an environment like this, it would be very difficult for him to identify its owner.
Still, at present, most of the people who possessed Keys of the Heart seemed to be beautiful girls. Even if he could not tell exactly who was who, that at least helped him narrow down the possibilities and lock onto a few targets.
"I heard Afterglow's style is more traditional band rock. Miss Wakaba, do you like this kind of thing?"
Hanadasaki Ame asked casually.
"…Mm."
Wakaba Mutsumi nodded, her voice almost entirely drowned out by the uproar of the crowd.
One glance was enough for Hanadasaki Ame to know that her answer was perfunctory. She had always lived under a rather stifling atmosphere, so the kind of music she liked ought to be something with more stimulation. In terms of music…
Heavy metal rock?
Or, taken to a more extreme level, death metal?
Hanadasaki Ame did not appreciate that sort of thing at all. He liked music that was clean and pure, not overloaded with too much. A solo from a single instrument, a lone voice singing—that was already enough for him.
Just as he was chatting with Wakaba Mutsumi and Nagasaki Soyo, more people entered the hall, causing the unevenly distributed crowd to shift and writhe. Someone was shoved slightly and bumped into him.
Hanadasaki Ame turned to look.
It was a young girl dressed in a sharp, capable style. Her black hair fell past her shoulders, with long slanted bangs framing her face. Her proper features carried a mature steadiness uncommon in someone her age.
"Sorry."
She said it simply, then stepped back and turned her attention to the stage again.
Hanadasaki Ame said nothing. Earlier, while wandering around Ring, he had seen her coming out of one of the recording rooms carrying a bass case. She was probably a member of some band herself.
Nagasaki Soyo was also a bassist, but she clearly felt far less professional than this girl.
After all, the former was simply playing music, while the latter gave off the sense of treating it as work. In terms of focus and effort, there was bound to be a huge difference.
"Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever heard of a band having a violinist."
Hanadasaki Ame said thoughtfully.
"Yes, that's true. Violin has a very high entry barrier, after all. It doesn't really suit ordinary bands where people are just getting together to play music for fun."
Nagasaki Soyo replied with a smile.
She had originally wanted to ask whether Hanadasaki Ame had perhaps become a little interested in bands, but then she remembered his absurdly high level of performance and decided it would be better if he didn't become interested.
His playing was the sort that made people feel despair.
The bassist beside them—Hachiman Umiri, who had moved slightly aside earlier—could not help glancing over after hearing their conversation.
She smelled the aura of a band!
At present, she was working as a support musician for several different bands and earning a certain amount of money that way. But many bands only stayed active for a while before stopping activities or breaking up—either because they got bored or because internal conflicts flared up—so her income was not all that stable.
As a result, she was constantly on the lookout for new bands, trying to see whether anyone needed a bassist or wanted support.
And truthfully, bassists rarely drew much attention from audiences. They were the little nobodies of a band. Few people were willing to learn bass in the first place, and in fact more than half of all bassists had originally been guitarists who only switched because the band needed one. So there really was a market for the kind of work she did.
She did not hurry to cut in and sell herself, though. She simply listened quietly, wanting to first understand the situation.
After thinking it over a little, Hanadasaki Ame asked Nagasaki Soyo,
"I remember there was a Tsukinomori student who studied violin with me before. It seems like the atmosphere for forming bands is pretty strong at Tsukinomori. Didn't she ever try joining one?"
"She's currently… the student council president."
Nagasaki Soyo hesitated before answering, but after a moment decided not to mention the fact that Yashio Rui had been so crushed by his talent that she gave up violin altogether.
Yashio Rui probably did not need his pity anyway.
"Oh. That's good. It should suit her very well."
Hanadasaki Ame nodded. He did not have any especially distinct impression of Yashio Rui. Her playing had been excellent by the standards of an amateur hobbyist, outstanding among students of the same age, but when placed beside stronger comparison, it lacked that final something.
In the end, her talent simply was not enough. It was probably better for her to shift her energy to other areas sooner rather than later.
In the middle of that conversation, the band's performance finally began, and the spotlights came on, shining down on the five girls center stage.
The audience quickly quieted and focused on the performance.
The drummer struck out two beats with her sticks, and the other instruments joined in immediately. A gentle melody filled the hall, and the guitarist-vocalist—a girl with a streak of red-dyed hair near one temple—began to sing in a slightly husky voice, full of feeling.
"Bloom together with these bonds—that camellia flower…"
The performance might not have been flawless, but the atmosphere on site was electric, the kind of thing that easily pulled people in. That was the true charm of live shows—the immersive experience of being there in person.
…
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 175)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 126)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter134)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 87
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 79
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 64
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 73
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 45
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 49
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 45
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 45
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