Chapter Text
I had been sitting here for hours, probably. I got here sometime around 5:00 pm - that’s when we were told to meet if we were playing for this year’s ‘Adolescent and Teenagers’ Music Festival’ - whatever that meant. I didn’t really care what it entailed today, as long as I got to perform live for once. Quite an honour.
However, a solo bass act didn’t sound very promising to the planners of this event. I suggested that I could sing, but they were already judging the idea of such lackluster accompaniment with their eyes. Too bad - I had to scour the campus of Miyamasuzaka Girls for someone who could play a damn instrument. I didn’t have the courage to ask Honami or Ichika; those feelings were NOT something I would touch if I didn’t need to, and this was just a dumb music festival, so there’s no reason to mess around with old friend-drama.
It turned out after a while of asking music teachers about their star pupils and miscellaneous, vaguely stalkerish research, that a girl in my year by the name of Kohane Azusawa could sing, play a little bit of guitar and was apparently pretty skilled at drums, though she didn’t look the type. Drums and bass wasn’t ideal (it was still a little bare bones) but if I managed to convince Kohane to perform with me, the event managers wouldn’t really have a reason to reject me again unless they had a personal passionate hatred for me.
Not quite convinced that that would be the case, Kohane listened to me after some reckless encouragement, and we were finally accepted into the event.
She’d never really done anything of this scale before. Tiny school performances in her past, but something that would break the borders of pathetic little Miya Girls was intimidating to Kohane. Luckily she was up to the challenge, because if I needed to give her any more encouragement I might have felt too guilty to get her to perform with me.
That was all in the past now. It’s 6:16. The show started at 6, and Kohane and I are supposed to be on at 6:35. It doesn’t seem like Kohane’s ready yet; out of the corner of my eye, she’s nowhere near the instrument she’ll be using, and when I turned my head the scene unfolded immediately.
~
Sitting up against a wall, a green-haired girl previously unknown to me is cowering in some kind of shock, breathing heavily and shivering despite the drowning warmth and humidity in the green room. Kohane is sitting patiently by her side, and from the echoes that’s taunting my ears, I can tell she’s trying to comfort the poor girl.
“..Nene, was it? You have a nice name.” Kohane’s soft and unmistakably genuine voice seems to be serving as a distraction from whatever mental turmoil ‘Nene’ is going through, at least.
“Y-yea-yeah. Thanks.” The anxious shivering that surrounds the girl is audible through her strained voice, and Kohane is picking up on it too, holding on gently to her hand and gripping tighter when she notices her nerves intensifying.
It just occurred to me what I’m doing. Why am I eavesdropping on this? That’s rude, honestly. I should help, but now that I think about it, I am horrible at this.
I’ve tried to support people before. I’ve been a little bit surrounded by people with strong emotions for my whole high school life, and what I’ve found through those years is that I always make things worse. I’m always overly blunt, and since I’ll almost definitely say the wrong thing to this panicking girl, Kohane can keep going and not know I was ever here. Yeah, good idea.
“So, the thing is..”
Nene’s voice is soft, a little monotone, and the shaky gentleness might be due to this emotional outburst. I focus on what’s being said again, and convince myself that it’d be better off staying away from everything.
“I want to perform. I want to do this.. I think. This happens some- sometimes, I don’t really know what comes over me.” Nene continues, Kohane watching her intently with a grasp and a glance that, to Nene, would be as soft and comforting as if the embodiment of a cloud itself had taken her in its arms.
“It’s alright, Nene. Do you think you’ll be ready.. do you maybe want me to come with you and ask if your act can go last?” Kohane suggests, the warmth and comfort surrounding her only seeming to grow. Nene solemnly nods in response, and something in my heart tells me to walk over.
I can’t resist it for much longer, so, not trying to hide my blatant eavesdropping, I slowly approach the two. Seeing them directly in front of me, I notice that Nene hasn’t been hyperventilating nearly as much as when Kohane first sat with her - the drummer’s presence probably had a hand in calming Nene’s nerves. I crouch down a little to where they’re sitting. I look towards Kohane first, as Nene is clearly a little confused.
“..Hey, what’s going on?” I lower my voice, making a conscious effort to soften it the same way Kohane has been. Nene shudders subtly, and Kohane starts to stand up and take Nene’s hand up with her, implying to the green-haired girl that it would be safe to do so and murmuring something to do with me performing with her.
“She, uh..” Kohane looks at Nene, the two of them exchanging glances and nodding.
“I was having a panic attack, so, mmm-“ Nene stops mid-sentence, looking over Kohane and seeming to be trying to remember if she said her name.
“Kohane,” the blonde confirmed to Nene, much to her relief.
“Yeah, so Kohane was trying to calm me down. Don’t worry, I’m sure you two’ll be up on stage soon, I won’t bothe-“
“You shouldn’t worry. We can ask to delay our performance.” I interrupt, with confidence that I summoned out of absolutely nowhere, worrying that I might’ve just come off as intimidating. Kohane nods along with me, and I’m relieved she shares my sentiment.
~
Before I know it, Kohane is clutching both of our hands as we hastily walk down the corridor. She’s surprisingly agile, and Nene and I are stumbling around to match her walking pace, her more so. A corridor and a few doors later, we find one of the event managers who had recently walked off stage, and Kohane gestures for me to do the talking.
“Uh.. hello.” I say a little meekly, the manager giving me a glare but sighing before he responds.
“Hinomori, hmm? Azusawa?” It occurs to Kohane and I that he’s willfully ignoring Nene, and we share awkward looks - Nene’s hand is being clutched tighter now, and the hallway lights flicker in a way that makes me regret my decision to come here.
“Yeah.”
“Kusanagi, too.” Kohane chimes in, dragging Nene a little further up in case she happened to just be out of the manager’s line of sight.
“Well, Azusawa and I are on in five minutes.”
“Correct.” The manager breathes out, judging us silently.
I gulp. “Do you think you could move us back a bit? Kusanagi here has been, erm.. having some trouble, and we’ve been helping her, so we haven’t had the time to set up our instruments and all yet.”
“Trouble? She could handle it on her own.” he monotonously retorts. Nene trembles, but this time Kohane lets go of her hand. “Let’s get you ready then - hurry up, there’s one act before yours.”
“N-no, that’s not the point-“ I try to retaliate, but Kohane and I are already being escorted back to the green room, and out of the corner of my eye Nene is trying to keep up. “If you could push us back a bit, we can help Ne- Kusanagi too with her performance, and you won’t lose an act.”
Though the manager responds with a grumble, Nene catches up to us. “Nene, what was your act again?” Kohane calls out, trying to let the manager know that Nene was there now, as he appeared a little blind towards her.
“Piano. Singing and piano.”
During the brief practice sessions between Kohane and I, that was always something we felt we were missing. Something to keep the melody, something to play chords.. it felt empty to play, not enough harmony and not enough of what we wanted out of our performance. Perhaps, the final, missing piece wasn’t to be found within the halls of Miya Girls..
Maybe what we needed was a shy pianist-songwriter from Kamiyama High.
~
Kohane threw a knowing look my way, and suddenly we darted around in a loop, leaving the puzzled stage manager behind, not that he cared very much. Nene stood in the middle of the hallway, looking just as perplexed, but Kohane nodded at her with a look that knew everything, and thus sparked the need in the green-haired girl to follow suit and run. Eventually, we approached the door we started through, and Kohane and I were being called for by a desperate stage crew member, met with only a panicked scream of “FIND SOMEONE ELSE TO PLAY FOR THEM!”
None of us knew where the voice was coming from and none of us cared, as I grabbed my bass, Kohane rushed to ask a stagehand to pack up her drum kit and Nene’s keyboard so we could retrieve them later. We weren’t performing today, no way, but as the drummer scrawled Nene’s phone number on a spare sheet of paper, we parted ways and left the temporary stage behind.