Work Text:
If nothing else, Rain was good at this.
Mixing came naturally to her. Maybe it was just another expression of the same sort of juggling she’d done her whole life–the loads of chores around her house, the shuffling of experiment materials between the tables back at her dad’s lab. Rain Mikamura could say this confidently—she was used to handling a lot at once.
She had signed on to help produce Domon’s stage act at her father’s insistence. He’d been oddly desperate for someone to help out, and she’d grown up alongside Domon, after all, so it wasn’t too much of a hardship. She had been studying to become an audio engineer to begin with, and it’d be good experience, she’d told herself. If nothing else, it’d be an adventure.
It’ll be good experience , she repeated to herself, when rowdy bargoers at a roadside dive tossed beer cans and hollered at Domon to get offstage.
You’re learning in the field, she told herself, as she hauled another speaker into the van.
At the very least— another rejected gig request— if nothing else— another glance at the charts, where they were being outpaced— at the end of the day— another blown-out crappy sound system awaiting them at a shitty venue— you’re getting some practice.
Realistically, it wasn’t all sound engineering she was doing. She was somewhere between a stage designer and a producer and a roadie; above all else, she was the person the venue called when something went wrong, the person who handled the money, the person who locked up backstage when they were leaving the green room behind after the show.
And yes, there were times when it all chafed at her. It wasn’t something she’d ever actually complain to Domon about, though. It wasn’t his fault. He was the one out there onstage taking the jeers, the one who had to memorize all the songs, the one who actually played guitar.
(That wasn’t true. Rain had been playing guitar for years, but she was never satisfied with her skills enough to really, truly call herself a guitarist. Sometimes, when Domon was warming up with Shining, she’d take her old beaten-up spare and run through the riffs. The two of them would sit in the back of the van and bounce ideas for songs off each other; sometimes, when Domon sang, she’d add a harmony line underneath his voice, and he’d look at her wide-eyed with excitement when he realized how good it sounded.
In the final track, though, it was always Domon’s voice, and Domon’s strumming, as she’d layered it, doubled-up atop itself. The mixing and production was all her, and she had a production credit on every song, and a writing credit on many, too. But it was Domon’s song, as it was listed in most people’s heads. He was the competitor, after all. Rain wasn’t sure who she blamed more—him, for not passing her the microphone, or herself for not asking him if he could.)
No, it was fine. Really. The thing was, she actually did enjoy solving problems. It was why she had gotten into production to begin with. Something in how her brain worked, she thought—a sort of mechanical matching of conundrum to solution, a sense of satisfaction when something that had been broken was finally repaired. She loved tinkering with Shining when something wasn’t right with it, lived for the moment of triumph when Domon would take the repaired guitar up onstage and let its power loose into an empty room before the show. She enjoyed sitting in the back in the booth and watching the performance go off without a hitch, felt a gleam of warmth in her chest when she witnessed the fruits of her labor onstage, when she hit play-back on a finished, polished song and heard it all come together.
Yes, her work was a challenge. But she wasn’t the type of girl to balk at one, and certainly not the type of girl to fail. She told herself this: Rain Mikamura was good at mixing. Rain Mikamura didn’t need to ask anyone for help. Rain Mikamura could keep everything in the air herself.
But it was call time. And Domon hadn’t shown up.
And that was something she didn’t know how to fix.
This series of shows in Shinjuku had been so strange. They’d been called here by someone asking them to perform, for once—they hadn’t even had to send any solicitations to a venue like they usually had. The location was an area of town that was rarely frequented by those from outside it, especially not by musicians. But it seemed the isolated lots had made it a great place to set up makeshift stages for a festival, albeit not any festival that Rain had heard advertised before. Something was clearly going to happen here, judging by the platforms in half-states of construction, and the folks increasingly trickling in over the past week as word spread of an upcoming party. And if that was the case, that something was about to go down, she and Domon might as well be there.
When they’d arrived, they’d run into him—Domon’s famous mentor, the rock star champion who went by “Master Asia.” Rain had never met him before, but of course she’d heard his songs—as the champion of the past contest, and as a musician with an accomplished career beyond that, his discography was nigh-inescapable on the radio.
(Master Asia was the type of musician Rain had heard the name of a lot, adjacently, but didn’t necessarily know all the words to his songs, just the vibes. People could maybe do a half-decent impression of him when they were drunk, but it wouldn’t always be recognizable. To see him in front of her, undeniably present as opposed to in vague silhouette or blurry dance-motion on TV, had been a bizarre feeling. Even more bizarre to contend with the fact that Domon had grown up traveling with him on tour, that a good chunk of his musical training had come from this man, this larger-than-life rock star with the long braid and flashy guitar technique.)
Domon and his teacher had spent hours and hours practicing riffs and jamming, preparing for their co-appeareance onstage in a few days. Rain assumed this was what it had been like for them in the old times—easy collaboration, making music outdoors in the (harsh, uncanny) sunlight, blocking out the world.
It was almost distracting enough for them both—or maybe just for him, he was pretty swept up in it—to forget why they’d come here in the first place. They’d come, invitation aside, because they’d heard rumors that Domon’s brother would be showing up—the brother he’d been chasing this whole time, whose songs were at the top of the charts but whose face was barely seen. Who the NJ Entertainment guys claimed had stolen his father’s secret instrument-tech prototype—so secret that the NDA Domon’s dad had signed prevented him from speaking to them on it at all—who, when his name was mentioned, made Domon’s face contort into a scowl. Who Domon had sworn to defeat—Rain was never sure, really, whether he meant in a music battle, as was the tradition of the competition, or with his own two fists.
Kyoji wasn’t performing here, though. Or if he was, Rain and Domon hadn’t found him yet. Domon had said he’d heard… something earlier in the day, some rumor of an underground show, and had set off into one of the badly-lit, labyrinthine districts to follow up on it. He hadn’t taken his equipment with him, had left Shining in the case backstage, and had told Rain not to follow him.
And now it was five minutes till they were to go onstage. And he wasn’t back yet.
Rain was starting to worry something had happened to him. The music battles he got himself into with other contenders could get heated, sure, but not usually dangerous, really. They were mostly flashy, stage-fighting for an audience, even when there was real heat and conflict between performers. That’s how things were supposed to be, anyway. Ostensibly, the competition kept music battling from becoming truly violent. But then again, with that thing his brother had supposedly stolen, the game could’ve changed. Rain worried about the fact that he’d essentially gone in there unarmed.
She could hear the crowd starting to ramp up outside, cheering for Master Asia’s opening set’s big finish. He was out there, improvising a bit, thanking the audience, telling them they should be so hyped up for the next act, “let me tell you, it’s really going to be a treat, you’re gonna love it.” The lights onstage dimmed, and Master Asia walked back behind the curtain, away from the applause. He slung his guitar off over his shoulder, and looked her in the eye with an unusually strong gaze.
“You tell Domon,” he said, not breaking eye contact, “that he’s a fool.”
Before she could react, he walked away, instrument hanging to the side of his silhouette, shadow growing long in the corner of leaking stage light.
Rain’s thoughts raced.
What the hell is he talking about?
Does he know Domon hasn’t showed up yet?
Did he set him up somehow?
Why in the world would he set him up? Aren’t they super close?
It’s three minutes till Domon is supposed to go on stage. What am I going to do?
The crowd was still there, outside, murmuring away. Rain’s palms began to sweat. They’d cut it close before, but not like this.
There was a rule at the core of musicianship, not one that was ever written down, but something everyone knew by heart. The show must go on. Maybe, if she was being honest, it was more of a curse.
The pieces were beginning to fall together in her mind, and she didn’t like the shape they made.
The thing was, she knew the set. Knew every inch and second of it, all the cues and high points, knew even how Domon stood onstage, the awkward dance moves and lean-backs he would do with the microphone. She knew the way it was all put together, because it was her own, her own machine and construction, a work of art they’d built together, their own stage masterpiece.
She also knew every possible way it could go wrong. Images flashed in her mind—horrible falls, wardrobe malfunctions, angry fans, whatever Master Asia must be plotting. Her hands felt clammy, and her head dizzy.
She was holding Shining, now, the colorful metal heavy in her hands. She knew this guitar like her own limb, had built it with Domon and repaired it countless times. She idly plucked a string, and heard the tone ring out, low and vibrational. The guitar, she felt, knew her too. There had been too many songs shared between them for that not to be the case.
She turned, unbalanced, on the heel of her ankle boots, took a bigger step forward than she was expecting, guitar in hand. In her head it was going to have been so dramatic. But it was clumsy, less a pivot and more a stumbling.
There were going to be more steps than just that between her and the stage. And more after.
Slowly, with deep breaths, trying to calm the seething fear in her chest, Rain Mikamura walked forward, heel-toe. And she didn’t stop until she was out there.