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This is a bad look.
The 1st year student council members of Haneoka did not hold any real positions— that'd be for the 2nd and 3rd years— just a general staff member. Glorified helpers, if one were to choose a harsher word. Still, they had to go through the full process of a school organization, and more.
Paperwork. A lot of paperwork. Anon's been told to drop by the Student Council room to get the forms and waivers needed to set things into stone. Of course, she wanted to make a good impression, so she'd grab them on her first break and chat with whoever was in there.
There's just one problem.
Her fellow first-year member, Sakiko Togawa, was nowhere to be found! Not in her classroom, not in the rooftops, not with Tomori, or the spots she'd usually watch Tomori from! She knows she's here, having seen her earlier in the corridors, but she just disappeared when the bell rang!
It's fine. She's burned through half her break and she feels sticky all over, but it's fine!
Not! She's really tired from sprinting all over the school. Can you blame her for being so excited to hang out with Sakiko and impressing her seniors? Surely not!
She's tired. So tired. It was too early in the morning for this. She was still sleepy, and the piano from the orchestra room wasn't helping.
Her head bobs up and down for a few seconds before the realization sets in.
She really shouldn't have skipped coffee that morning. And that's definitely Sakiko in the clubroom!
She tries to wake herself up by slapping her cheeks, but the effect is questionable at best. Slowly, she opens the door to the orchestra room and steps in.
It might've been the fact that she was running around the corridors, or a breeze hit the clubroom just right, but immediately Anon felt refreshed. The air seemed to take away her exhaustion, and in its place were Sakiko's tunes. She felt herself relax. The sound was warm, alive. It felt passionate and unafraid. The tempo kept you on your toes but it never felt overwhelming. She didn't recognize the piece, and better yet, she didn't recognize the girl swaying in her seat.
Sakiko was swaying in her seat.
Anon couldn't do anything but watch. She was entranced. Gold shined through the windows like god itself put a spotlight on her; as if all the world was but her stage.
And just like that, the moment was gone, the upper octaves of the piano ringing out like a dove flying free.
"...I do appreciate your patience, Anon-san."
The words shock Anon. She almost didn't feel worthy of talking to Sakiko or being in this room, yet she knew the girl was like any other. There was no reason to put her on a pedestal as they spoke.
"Hey, hey Sakiko-chan! Great playing as usual." She replied.
Sakiko smiled as their eyes met, something peaceful. "Thank you."
"When'd you notice I came in?"
"The moment you did." She turned to the piano and glided her hands over the keys. "After all... this is our little secret, isn’t it?”
Anon walked up to the girl, pondering her words. It’s impossible that she’s the only one who knew Sakiko liked to borrow their orchestra’s piano during breaks. She must’ve been humoring her.
“Aren’t you playing anymore?”
“No. It’s about time for me to leave.” Sakiko replied, guiding the piano’s fall board down.
“Please?”
Sakiko stopped. She looked at the wall clock, and then at Anon. “...Might you have a request?”
Anon pondered for a moment. “D’you know, uh, flame of hope by Mor-”
“You’re aware they don’t have a piano?”
“Oh, right. Then–”
“Worry not,” Sakiko said, adjusting her seat and looking at the ceiling. After a beat, she laid her hands back on the keys. “A moment.”
Her hands glide across the keys like they’re homing in. She tests out a few notes, and by the third run, Anon could already recognize it as the intro. Sakiko’s left hand hops around the piano’s lower register as she figures out the bassline, and then she breathes.
She looks at Anon, flashes a brief smile, and starts the song with a march.
Sakiko closes her eyes and gets lost in the music. She’s swaying as if the piano is the only thing tying her down to Earth, but Anon doesn’t have that luxury. She soars and soars and the air is thin and she’s breathless. The chorus crashes in like the north wind, fierce and unrelenting, tossing her through the air, yet she clings to the melody, still soaring, still breathless, still free.
The girl stops after one chorus, leaving the notes hanging in the air. When its last traces were gone, she looked at Anon again.
“We really do have to go now.”
Snapped out of her trance, Anon looks at the wall clock. “Ah, crap. Well, I guess we can always do it after school.”
Sakiko scrunches her eyebrows at that. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, the student council was expecting us…”
She shot up from her chair. “A-Anon-san?! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I wanted to listen to you!”
Sakiko blinks rapidly at that.
“It’s fine! It didn’t have to be immediately, y’know.” Anon rubs the back of her head.
The girl sits back down with a sigh. “Please tell me sooner if you have business with me…”
“But it’s so rare to see you like this!”
“I’m sure you can watch any old recording of Ave Mujica, can’t you? Or even… CRYCHIC.”
Anon shakes her head aggressively. “No, no, no. Not that. I meant– alive. ” She puts a hand on her chin and thinks. “I know you like what you do, classwork, these extracurriculars, Ave Mujica… but there’s something different when it’s just you and the piano.”
Anon thought about it sometimes. It was nothing like her relationship to her guitar. More than anything, the guitar was a tool for her; to become popular, to have a place in MyGO, or to serve as proof of her hard work. Sakiko’s playing felt… loaded the same way Tomori’s singing was; like she was throwing all of herself into it.
“Is that… so?” Sakiko replied after a brief pause.
“Yeah.”
“Then… you know where to find me.” The girl grabbed her things and made her way out of the clubroom.
Anon blinked. Right. That’s the… what, third time she’s forgotten about the paperwork in the span of an hour? She’s too young to be acting like this. Next time, she’ll just go straight to Sakiko’s classroom before she’s even made it out.
Anon Chihaya is a little lonely.
She’s not alone , strictly speaking. Tomori and her might as well be bound by the hip on most days, and she’s long since cozied up to the rest of the student council after, well, finding out exactly who they were. She got the rest of the members’ approval from that.
She misses Sakiko.
The girl had missed school for a week now, and all the leads she had were a vague Mutsumi-chan’s been gone for just as long from Soyo. Apparently, the girl was—is a little sickly though, and it’s not rare for her to miss a few days.
Laid out on the clubroom floor, Anon could only sigh. She wanted to hear Sakiko play again. Maybe it was Sakiko’s presence that made the orchestra room so refreshing. Without her, it just felt like any other room. Still, it was nice to have a reprieve.
She doesn’t know when it started, but her feet had started carrying her to this room. Sometimes, Tomori would accompany her, using the open space to sort out some cards or the other. Sometimes, they chatted, but there was a silent agreement to keep the peace here as much as possible.
Anon stood and dusted her uniform. She walked over to the piano in the corner and observed it. She saw a label on one of its legs, saying it’s Property of Haneoka since 2XXX. Outside of that, she didn’t notice anything strange (not that she’s well-versed in pianos). Was there something special about this piano that Sakiko kept coming back to, or was it simply the act of playing the piano?
She’s never put the lid up for— for whatever it is that’s on the piano’s back in fear of breaking it, but she wanted to flip up the key covers today, a product of her loneliness.
She’s touched keyboards before, but a proper grand piano? Never. Sinking her fingers on the keys, she felt how much more resistance there was and how tactile it felt compared to the electric instrument.
But the sound rings hollow; she almost doesn’t recognize it. Even when Sakiko was feeling her way through a song, it never rang like this.
What was it that put weight on Sakiko’s playing? It can’t be a natural, virtuoso thing like Raana, can it? She was talented, but that wasn’t all there is to it. There was a heart there, in the chords she struck, and the bass lines strung. It was crying, reaching for something… someone?
Without realizing it, the question left her lips.
“Who do you play for, Saki-chan?”
“The band.” Tomori declared. “I wrote it while thinking of the band.”
Anon was decidedly not in the orchestra room today, choosing to enlist the help of MyGO’s own lyricist. She had posited the same question to her, or an approximation of it for the writer slash singer.
“These are words I still want to reach you, huh?” She quoted. A dedication, a letter, a cry from the heart. Sakiko had seen Tomori’s work and resonated with it, enough to compose a song and organize a band all on her own. All that time she’d felt fundamentally inhuman, and if her reaction to Haruhikage told her anything, music was Sakiko’s respite.
What drove her to start a band back then? What was it exactly that she put to rest when CRYCHIC reunited, if she never saw the band through rose-tinted glasses at all?
“Oi, Anon. You missed the cue for the duet. Take this seriously.”
She looked up to Taki’s voice. The rest of the band’s staring at her, too.
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Taki’s expression intensified. “Hah? Seriously, what’s up with you?”
Soyo huffed and put up her hands. “Now, now Taki-chan.” She looked at Anon. “Don’t worry about it, Anon-chan. Our drummer here’s just a little worried about you.”
“Haah?!”
Tomori shuffled close to her, as the rhythm section bickered. “Ano-chan.” She took Anon’s hand in hers. “Do you still want to play?”
That was the billion yen question, wasn’t it? For her, music was ostensibly a tool, a means to an end, and yet she could not see herself without it.
Why?
From the corner of her vision, she watched Raana get fed snacks by an arguing Taki, all without missing a beat. Soyo herself had a small smile as she verbally sparred with the drummer, obscured by the hand on her mouth.
She laughed. How could she not? With a mess of a band like MyGO, why Anon clung to music was never that complicated.
It was fun. She could be selfish, greedy, and ugly, and she could do so many new things, and meet so many new people, and she didn’t slot people’s expectations of her where her identity ought to be.
She nodded enthusiastically. “Of course I’ll play! I’m MyGO’s one and only guitarist!”
“You’re literally side guitar.”
“Shut up, Rikki!”
Sakiko had gone back to attending school, although she was still amiss from the orchestra room. Anon knows this because she’s been there more often than not doing nothing in particular. That’s why it was such a shock when—
“Please excuse me— hyah~!”
“Kya~!”
She came in through those doors upside down. Well, Anon was on the ground. So Sakiko looked like she was on the ceiling.
Still on the floor, she straightened up and faced the girl. “Sakiko-chan!”
Sakiko all but ran to her. “Anon-san! What happened to you?! Are you alright?” She checked Anon all over.
“I’m fine, I’m fine!”
“Why are you on the floor, then?”
“A-Ah, well, you know! I’m uh–” She laid back down again. “I’m trying to be more down to Earth!”
Sakiko examined her for a good moment, and she felt her face grow hot by the second.
And then the girl laid down next to her.
“S-Sakiko-chan! What are you doing?!”
“I-Isn’t it lonely?”
She couldn’t help it. Why was Sakiko indulging her? She laughed, enough to feel it in her core. Though she wasn’t in her peripheral, she tried to look in Sakiko’s direction. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
“Well… I-I was sent by the student council…” Sakiko lied.
“What~? I didn’t hear about that from Tsugumi-senpai…”
“Tsugumi-senpai?!” This time, it was Sakiko straightening up.
“Yeah, Tsugumi-senpai! She’s really nice, she kept asking if you were around, and… oh! Something about reminding her of Hina-senpai…”
“Hina-senpai too?! So casual!”
Anon laughed. “That’s what Tsugumi-senpai said, too!”
Sakiko placed her hand on her temple, feeling a headache coming on.
When Anon’s giggling finally resided, she spoke. “Why are you really here, Sakiko-chan?”
The girl grumbled. “That’s… like I said…”
“I think you’re just like me, Sakiko-chan.”
“Anon-san?”
“We’re both terrible liars.”
Sakiko’s mind reared to a halt. Was the girl calling her a terrible person who lied? Or that she couldn’t lie to save a soul? Perhaps the duality was deliberate on Anon’s part, with how thoroughly the girl read her life even before.
“...Maybe so.” She uttered.
Anon finally stood up, dusted her clothes, and extended a hand to Sakiko.
“I want to hear you play.” She declares.
And that was the exact reason Sakiko ever went here, wasn’t it? She hesitated, but only for a moment. She meets Anon’s honesty with her own. “I’d love that.”
She promptly stands up and slides her hand over the cover like a greeting. She puts her hand under it and lifts it. She presses down on the middle C. A beat. She tries out a basic hand exercise, then octaves, chords, and just like that, she’s alive again.
“Who do you play for, Sakiko-chan?”
This time, honesty comes easier than she thought. “My late mother.”
Anon doesn’t respond— not in a way Sakiko sees, anyway. For now, there was only her and the piano in this world.
That was always the case, wasn’t it? Music allowed her to relive that innocence, but with CRYCHIC laid to rest…
Laid to rest. Was her mother, too…?
“That’s…! So that’s why!” Anon ran up to her and grabbed her hands. “You don’t want to let go, do you? But… you have to because it’s all so painful…” Anon shook her head forcefully. “That’s why you formed a band! You wanted to show everyone what she meant to you, you– because she’s alive as long as you play, right? Right?!”
When Anon thought about it, she kept playing music because it’s given her everything she has now. Sakiko, on the other hand, only ever had her music, her love for her mother left.
Sakiko blinked. My mother's been laid to rest, but as long as I play, as long as I keep searching for it… that warmth will never die. She smiled, her heart roaring. She looked at Anon who had an expectant look on her face.
Then, she looked back to the piano.
“Ah– Sakiko-chan, am I right…? Uhm, sorry was that…” Anon said, panicking.
“Did you have a song in mind?” She replied gently.
“Oh! Well, how about Pretender by… what was it?
“Pretender, then.”
She spreads her hands over the keys like a bird preparing to fly. Then, she soars.