Chapter Text
Everyone played an instrument, and being poor didn't make Sodachi any different. While at first, music wasn't something she cared about, that changed quickly. In elementary school, surrounded by other girls who loved music, there was only one answer as to how she could fit in. Sodachi found herself drawn in.
At first, it was more like peer pressure than anything. Every girl in her class loved music, and music class was always the most anticipated class of the day. Sodachi couldn't be swayed from math, but she could at least try to enjoy what her other classmates enjoyed. But once Sodachi started applying herself, it stopped feeling like an obligation as she began to fall in love with her instrument.
Sodachi chose the violin. Every other girl seemed interested in rock music, so they chose guitars, drums, or keyboards. But for Sodachi, who felt little more than apathy towards the rock bands that her classmates idolized, classical music felt far more fitting.
As poor as her family was, Sodachi was able to talk her parents into paying for lessons. Ostensibly, that was only as a reward for her good grades, and would only continue as long as her good grades did… but Sodachi and her parents alike knew that she would continue getting passing grades, even with another distraction. As she got older, and became more cynical to the intentions of her parents, Sodachi realized that their real goal was to get her out of the house… but as long as they paid for her lessons, the reason why didn't matter.
Of course, owning her own violin was still a step too far. She would use one of the ones owned by her teacher. If she wanted to bring it home, she would have to rent it. All those other girls in her class could get their parents to buy them instruments, but lessons and a second-rate violin on loan were the best Sodachi could manage.
It was frustrating. Money, or a lack thereof, meant Sodachi had less opportunities than her classmates who were more wealthy. Even at a young age, that was beaten into her: rich girls had easier lives. Sodachi would never be rich, and her life would never be easy.
But if she didn't have the privilege of wealth, then she would have to make up for it with sheer skill. She already had the best math scores in the school, and had made herself stand out that way.
Importantly, there were transferable skills. After all, music was more or less the same as math. Basic things like pitch and scale came as natural to her as addition, subtraction, or breathing. Sodachi was a virtuoso with the violin, and quickly stood out among her teacher's pupils. At a single digit age, she was lauded with acclaim.
Of course, no amount of acclaim could fix her wretched home life. Her life was pitiful and violent no matter how well she could play the violin. She had hoped that this might be something to impress her parents, that they would be proud of her, but they barely cared.
Maybe, she thought, it was better that she rented her instrument. If she had one of her own, then perhaps her parents would threaten to break it in a fit of rage or as punishment. They would only care if it could come back to hurt them.
But going into middle school, things started getting better. Of course, it didn’t feel like it at the time, but once Sodachi’s parents were split, things improved. She and her mom moved into a small apartment on their own, and while they were now living off of welfare, and had less money overall, there was less arguing, which Sodachi liked. In fact, Sodachi didn’t have to deal much with her mother either, with how much she was off hiding in her bedroom. She would only come out of her room and hit Sodachi sometimes.
An even bigger improvement was that Sodachi had to transfer schools. Their new apartment was one supplied by the government, and it was too far away from her old school to continue attending. She was able to transfer her violin lessons to a different teacher, a friend of her old violin teacher. But more importantly, her new school had a much more robust music program. They would even provide instruments to students, if it was needed. For once, it was like someone in the world realized that not everyone ould afford such a thing.That greater focus on music also gave Sodachi more chances to show off, not just to her classmates, but to the teachers as well.
And that led one of her teachers to suggest that she try competitions. Sodachi had never thought of herself as the competitive type before that. She was prideful, yes, but she did her best for her own self-satisfaction, not that of anyone else. Her skill at math came from her skill at math, and her desire to be good at it.
But it would be self-satisfying to know that she was better than other people.
She came in second place.
That bruised her ego, somewhat, knowing that there was someone better than her. But that just meant that she would have to try harder, study more. She could apply herself to this more fully than she had. Importantly, the competition came with prize money, and that was enough to buy, with help from her old violin teacher and the teacher at school who had suggested the competition to her, her own violin, and that meant she could practice at home. She could continue getting even better.
She still cared little for how others perceived her. Yes, she was applauded for being skillful, and that felt nice, but Sodachi rarely considered much what it actually meant for people to praise her performances. Her teachers, yes, those opinions mattered, because that was a point of experience and learning. But her classmates, not so much. She could show off with math, because that was objective. When her test scores were the best, she knew that it was because she was the best at solving and understanding math problems. It was a quantifiable measure of success. With music, the only way she could feel satisfied was to be happy with her own performances… and that was much harder to achieve compared to understanding math. Sodachi understood that it would be a years-long endeavor to really be that good.
Middle school was a time where Sodachi could be happy, if she ignored everything in her life that had happened before it, and everything that was still happening. Her mother was slowly becoming more and more reclusive, and Sodachi was happy to be free of her, but she also missed her mother’s life… It was a delusion, she insisted, nothing more than that. Her mother had never really loved her. The way she ran away without a trace only proved that.
But being alone further improved Sodachi’s life, and before long, anyway, she was in high school. She didn’t move this time, and so people from one school knew her in the next. Her skill in both math and music extended beyond herself. Yet, it still came as a surprise when, one day, a group of girls came up to Sodachi as she was leaving school.
“Ah, um…”
“Um… Ah…”
“Oikura!”
Only one of the three was able to get a proper word out of her mouth, how nervous the three of them seemed.
“Can you play with us!”
Sodachi’s gut instinct was to say no, and so she did exactly that.
“No.”
Girl bands were all the rage among girls her age, but Sodachi had never held any interest in them. It was still just rock music, and amateurish at that.
The girls didn’t seem happy about that, and they awkwardly stood in place for a few moments, before one elbowed the other in the chest.
“Ah! Um… We don’t mean for you to join our band. But we’ve been trying to record some songs lately,and we were talking, and we thought that you… Um, we were thinking that we wanted some violin for one of the songs, and were hoping you could play for us! Just as a one-time thing.”
Sodachi rolled her eyes, and was ready to brush past them, when another one of the girls suddenly reached into her bag and pulled out an envelope.
“We’ll pay you, of course!”
That perked Sodachi’s interest. The girl handed her the envelope, and Sodachi plucked it out of her hand. She opened it to see how much money was inside… And while it wasn’t life changing money, it was still several thousand yen. Not as much as she might get from winning a violin competition, but those were infrequent, and even this much could be stretched far…
“Alright.”
They agreed on a time and place, and Sodachi, without even thinking much about it, took her first booking as a session musician.
The performance was more frustrating than she had expected, because as it turned out, the girls only wanted the concept of a violin in their song, and hadn’t thought about how they were going to incorporate it. Sodachi had to plan out for them how to integrate herself into their three-piece setup, and that stretched the session out a lot longer than Sodachi had been planning for. But when they were done, they went out to dinner, and Sodachi’s meal was covered by one of the other girls, so she couldn’t complain that much.
A few weeks later, one of the girls came up to Sodachi, again after school, and this time gave her a CD.
“I got my dad to mix the track you helped us with! We’re still a while off from releasing the album, but I wanted to give you a copy of the song!.”
Sodachi thanked her, and moved on with her life. She didn’t even listen to the CD, although she also didn’t throw it out. She never followed up with the girls to learn if they succeeded in releasing their album, or if it died in the way that many teen passion projects do. It didn’t matter to her.
But those girls must have talked about it, because Sodachi started hearing rumours about her performance. They were talking quite highly about her, it seemed. That was good for the ego. She didn’t expect that another group of her classmates would come up and ask her to perform in their band, and another the week after that, and another. It seemed like everyone wanted a violinist in their amateur rock bands anymore.
Sodachi quickly worked out her fees. It made for a steady source of income to supplement welfare. She didn’t even need the prize money from competitions at that rate. With the money coming in, she suddenly had a lot more room to spend in her life, more than she had ever had. It was almost tempting to splurge with that, but Sodachi was instead careful to save up. Years of financial hardship had instilled in her a strong morale around money.
Still, she was eating better, and could afford to treat herself every now and then.
She didn’t even realize the breakthrough when it happened. Suddenly, a lot more of her classmates wanted her to perform, no longer one group every week or two, but now at least one a week, and sometimes more. And someone must have shared her phone number around, because she was getting calls and texts from girls who didn’t even go to her school. How had that happened?
It was only a month after that surge that Sodachi learned that it was because of a popular band.
“Ehhh? You haven’t heard of Morfonica? And you’re a violinist? How is that possible?”
“I don’t listen to rock or pop music.”
They were in the studio when that came up. Sodachi was playing with a band from another school, and one that knew what they were doing enough to actually have things written down, so that Sodachi could prepare without having to hear them play. She was idly figuring out her role in the song, and didn’t even seem to pay mind to the fact that she had said something controversial.
“I’ve been playing violin since I was in elementary school. Not because there’s a popular band that uses it.”
Of course, once she knew, Sodachi found it hard to not appreciate the further income that she was getting from this. At this rate, by the time she was done with high school, she would be a professional musician… Of course, that had never been her goal. She still wanted to go onto college and get a proper job. But if playing music could get her through that, then she wasn’t going to complain.
And being a hot commodity meant that she could raise her rates. Often, with more professional bands, or at least ones who aspired to release something for a reason other than fun, it would take more than a day, so Sodachi started charging not just a flat rate, but by the day. She also raised her prices.
It was hard to follow what people were saying about her, since she didn’t use social media, but clearly, she was well-respected. Whether that was just because she happened to be playing with bands that had more attention on them, or because her playing itself was getting acclaim, she didn’t know. She also didn’t care. Her ego was more than satisfied. She was able to support herself with her performances. That was enough, right?
All of this without ever having to set foot on a stage, or stand in front of crowds. Just step into a studio several times a week, and live a humble life outside of that. A few times, bands would try to recruit her as a full time member, but Sodachi had no interest in that. Being a member of a band would come with more obligations, more work needed. Even with all her session work, Sodachi was focused on school more than anything. She would never take so many bookings in a week that she would be spending more time on music than studying or practice. That was the balance that made this kind of life tenable for her.
She was satisfied. For the first time in her life, it felt like she had achieved a semblance of stability. Just a few years before, such a thing would have been impossible. Sodachi was proud of herself for what she had done.
It would be easy enough to keep things stable in that way.