Part 4
Funny or not, the thing that surprised me the most that afternoon was not the fact I was in a parked flower delivery van with three older girls and a grown woman, all of them borderline strangers to me. Neither was the realization that my life was not, despite all my constant efforts over a long period of time, becoming any more normal. It was something else entirely.
“So, is that really your house?”
Rin tilted her head to be able to see me from her position next to the driver in a way I had only witnessed before in the works of a particular animation studio, and for a moment all I could do was wonder if it hurt.
“Was it not, what we are about to do would most definitely be considered a crime. Removing musical equipment from the home of another person would, in many circumstances, qualify as theft. Why do you ask, Koukishin-kun?”
I do not consider myself a particularly wealthy individual for a reason or two, but I know that I surely lead a comfortable life when compared to many less-fortunate others. With that in mind, I guarantee the school council president’s mansion made my flat look rather mediocre and unremarkable. The property was, at the very least, hard to describe without using stuff such as ‘big’, ‘large’, ‘huge’, ‘humongous’, ‘massive’, ‘monumental’, ‘gigantic’, ‘colossal’, ‘stellar’, ‘dude is that really necessary’ and so on. Not to say that it was flawless when it came to aesthetics or common sense, but it most surely peacocked just as much as Megumi did. Proportionally, I suppose.
Judging by that one, has to wonder why she bothers to attend a public school or any school at all: anyone with that kind of money could and would get better than decent tutors unless they have a reason not to or similar ulterior motives of some kind. A future career in politics sounds like a fairly good reason, though; the people need to think your roots are the same, although they expect you to be superior to them in honesty and morals. Go figure.
“No particular reason, not at all.” I looked through the window of the stationary vehicle with flower-themed paint job, mostly looking for a petty topic to divert my attention from what was not a mere elephant in the room. I could have dealt with that. In fact, I had, once. “Is that a Japanese Iris garden?”
The driver and owner of the car we were in let out a pleasant laugh that sounded a lot like a glissando slide played on a violin.
“Close, you have good eyesight.” Akane’s mom was astonishingly similar to her daughter physically, but a tad too different when it came to personality. As in complete opposite. It was quite the shock to me when I met her at the school entrance: to see a carefree, older version of Akane waving to us, chatting and smiling in a very calm way the whole ride while the younger Akane more intensely tried to fade into inexistence using both her predisposition to it along with the natural edge to it that dawns on every teenager when their friends or colleagues are meeting their parents. It was too much to take at once. “My bet is that those are flowers from the orchid family but varied genus. Am I right?”
Rin turned around to face her and nodded firmly.
“Absolutely. In that particular section there can be found several types of orchids, many of them brought from Central America.”
“That’s great! It’s good to know there is a garden so rich in diversity in our town. Flowers have power.” I did not know it then, but found out soon enough Akane’s mother was a hippie, technically. She believed in the ideals and loved the culture, but was not born in the right time to actually live any of that. In retrospect, being a single mom, driving a van, owning a flower shop, discussing the benefits of solar energy with high school students and having slightly messier hair than her daughter should have struck me as clues. “Those flamingoes fit well as decoration.”
They didn’t, both in the visual aspect and the geographic one: there are four kinds of Flamingoes in the Americas, but as far as I was concerned not one of them was from Central America, but from the South. The visual aspect was probably not as much of a lie as it was an honest mistake. The compliment on taste did come from a woman riding a flower-themed van around town after all, so it could be seen as being called ‘fashionable’ by someone who dresses very badly.
“Those are real.”
That small sentence did not seem to blend well and I don’t think I was the only one to think that way.
“Yes, I can tell those flowers are real even from here.” Hippie mom tried to look just as carefree as she did before, but I could see small sweat drops starting their despair-inducing descent from the points where her hairline was visible in the midst of too-messy-to-be-called-wavy black locks. “I see real and plastic flowers every day.”
“A misunderstanding; I was referring to the flamingoes.”
Silence reared its ugly head as a rising sun, eclipsed by the sudden beginning of a spring rain, a poke and a rather loud whisper coming from the colorful girl who sat by me in the center of the van’s backseat.
“Dude, she’s like, filthy as a wobble bassline rich!”
“…did you actually say that?”
Rin looked to the backseat once again.
“Well, this has been a good conversation …”
“No it hasn’t.”
I automatically muttered those words without considering the consequences, the alteration of my mood and lack of inhibition and self-restraint possibly occurring due to being inside a hot variation of car during a rather warm spring day.
“Is there anything you would like to add, Koukishin-kun?”
“No ma’am.” Quite the opposite, there was plenty I would have liked to subtract if we were under normal conditions. “Please proceed talking about how great the previous talk was.”
Chances are she grasped the implied insolence and sarcasm, but ignored it. I savored the sweet moment, given that it was easy to tell there would not be many of those.
“As I was saying, this has been a good conversation, but I would like to do what we came here to do and, as the common man says, ‘get done with it’. We still have two more houses to visit in order to gather musical equipment and time consumes itself easily.”
Megumi shook her head full of hair in slow motion.
“Just one more, I guess: my guitar, cables, pedals, amp, all my stuff is already in the back of the car.”
That sounded fishy to me, but apparently not to Rin.
“Excellent, in that case we will have more time to set the gear up back at school. Thus, I am going in.” Her gaze rolled and fell upon the girl who had done her best to conceal herself from being topic relevant or part of the discussion the whole time. “If you do not mind, I would much rather it to be you accompanying me, Akane-san.”
Shy girl didn’t need to uncover her eyes to show her surprise, as her open mouth did the job well enough. Megumi disagreed with Rin’s decision, as I was sure I would see happen more than once again in a not distant future.
“Just wait a second! Why don’t we all go in?”
“This is but a scout mission, so that would be completely unnecessary. Our first step is to gather intelligence on the whereabouts of my father and based on his location choose the best method of bringing the equipment outside in these current climatic conditions. Only then we will gather at the backdoor of the mansion and start transfer phase.”
I was interested in a particular detail of Rin’s lines.
“Could that be interpreted as your father not approving of these activities? As in the band being formed and moving your gear around?”
“I am afraid it suggests what you thought but in all honesty it means my father is not even aware of me having sound-related apparatus in my bedroom, let alone joining an extra-curricular activity unrelated to the School Council. That said, this maneuver is only a precaution. By this time he is usually working, so we shall have no more hindrances in executing the transport operation.”
Yet like a puppy playing with someone, Megumi wouldn’t let go.
“Fine, but why Akane and not me or Shin-tsu?”
“Seems remarkably simple and logical to me, but you and I are very distinct persons so I shall try and put it in terms you can comprehend. He is, contrary to visual-aided common sense, a male individual around my age and that would raise suspicion with the helpers, possibly enough for some of them to talk with to my father about some boy entering his daughter’s bedroom along with her. Worst case scenario, if my father is indeed inside, Koukishin-kun does not have enough data to act as if we were long-term friends or part of the School Council, thus creating an even stronger image of a hidden relationship paved with bad intentions and juvenile passion. About you, well, I do not think I can possibly explain why your appearance would gather unwarranted attention in a way that you would not perceive as directly offensive.” A breath and a blink later, I realize that I could not tell if Megumi understood the situation or was just looking mad because of Rin’s constant patronizing attitude. “It is obvious, then, why I am choosing Akane-san. Even like this, she is visually the closest to an acceptable companion for me that we have in this car. No offense meant.”
“None taken.” Akane’s mom was watching Rin with a soothing look in her eyes. “I keep telling this daughter of mine she needs to work on her looks a little bit. We’re not in the sixties anymore.” And from what I could tell by looking at her face, she never was. “Even then, boys had standards. Still, if being around Megumi-chan has not given her a wish to change her appearance, I hardly think you can do something about it. You just don’t have half as much boldness as she does, despite your manners, but I must congratulate you on managing to run the Student Council even with those social skills of yours. No offense meant.”
Megumi produced a muffled giggle, so it was probably okay making a little bit of fun of her looks if you were Hippie mom and attacking Rin with an almost static yet very natural carefree smile on your face. I sort of hoped for conflict, but it was prevented by Akane, who had somehow opened the van door at her side, moved outside, closed it and then opened the front one by Rin’s side without me noticing it.
“Let’s go,” Akane meekly said to Rin.
And without any further ado they left, presumably a tactical move of our School Council president devised as a way of avoiding meeting our eyes while flustered with anger and, in a less likely scenario, shame. Not as much of a sadist as the girl she had just teased, Akane’s mother had the decency to wait for the two girls to walk away before commenting the situation with the two students that stayed in the car.
“It’s great to see Akane-chan making new friends, but that older girl could use a small dosage of consideration for others. We all have flaws, anyway, and her vocabulary is great for her age.” She looked at me through the rear-vision mirror. “You don’t talk a lot, do you? Like my Akane-chan.”
She could have good vision for flowers, but her hearing was not the best. “…no, it’s just that…”
“It’s probably hard when you’re the only boy around and surrounded by girls, eh?”
“No, not really,” I replied with a strong and secure voice that surprised even me, although it was the utmost truth. While it could be argued I have always been mainly in the presence of females, it wasn’t until then I realized it was happening. Perhaps that is the way a fish would feel if someone told it about the water. “You could say I am used to that kind of situation, as I always had more friends who are girls than boys. What’s really making it hard for me to get into the conversation is the fact I’m new around here and didn’t even know anyone until yesterday afternoon.”
“You’re not from here, then?”
“No, just moved here last week.”
That was probably news to Megumi too.
“Really?” The second year student seemed impressed. More than anyone, I knew there were people very interested in what was somewhat foreign, especially because I can hardly remember any time when I wasn’t a foreigner. “Were did you live before, Tokyo?”
“Actually, I was living abroad most of the time during the past years.”
Rising levels of uneasiness warned me the conversation was heading to a direction that could not meet a good end as I finished speaking that sentence. Her next question confirmed it.
“Where?”
The shrugging was automatic but the vague answer was completely intentional.
“Everywhere, really.” To divert their attention by bringing in another topic was a cheap and easy way out, but I wasn’t in any condition to be picky. “Hey, can I ask you a few questions, rapid fire style?”
“This is kind of sudden but sure, hit me.”
I breathe in.
“Blood type?”
“B.”
“Interests?”
“Music!”
“Hobbies?”
“Music again!”
“Favorite color?”
“All of them.”
“Favorite accessory?”
“All of them.”
The last two were quite believable, very much. I smiled without showing teeth and wondered for a moment if it looked anything like Ryo’s characteristic cat smiles, which was unlikely. However, as long as it was reassuring, it worked.
“Fantastic. So far, you’re doing great. Isn’t she?”
Akane’s mom nodded cautiously, as did not seem to understand what I was getting at. Still, she did not intervene.
“Thanks, man.” Megumi scratched the back of her head with the visible embarrassment of those who aren’t used to being praised. “I practice for the day I’ll get magazine questionnaires.”
“Interesting. A saying?”
“Ten persons, ten colors.”
Which basically translated to ‘to each their own’, if I was correct.
“Did you see the person you like today?”
“Never liked anyone, not in that way.”
“A painting?”
“None specific, but I dig abstract art.”
“Last movie you’ve seen?”
“Some old American black and white comedy. Wasn’t very interesting.”
“Have you found anything interesting while walking recently?”
“A golden paperclip. I still walk around with it in my bag.”
And there it was: we had reached the point where the defenses of the interviewed were lowered because of being conditioned to answer, the stage right before she’d get annoyed and answer things with sarcasm and quirkiness. Experimentation showed me how to identify that and, as it was a useful skill for extracting information, I made sure not to forget how to do it.
“Did you contact your parents while in school today?”
“Nope,” she said, seeming a tad unsure about it afterwards.
“So there was no way you or your parents could know today would be the day we’d gather stuff and move it to school?”
“Not really… Why do you ask?”
“How did you get to tell someone at home to get your stuff ready for Akane’s mother to just come by and pick it up without making mistakes?” Everything was just too convenient, too neat even for a fated situation. Even though it was possible due to how random life can be, it sure was not likely and questioning her was a risk I was willing to take. “You left school at the same time I did and did not even bother to look at your equipment. How could you possibly know everything is in there?”
“Well, I…”
I saw Akane’s mother movements in slow motion and could tell she was going to try and intervene, which implied I was doing it right. A bit more of pressure was necessary to expose the truth.
“Answer the question.”
“I didn’t, but what is the poi-”
Although fully aware that my final move was a huge stretch of the truth, the whole thing still sounded a lot like a good idea at the time.
“Megumi, don’t be offended by this supposition, but you are actually living at Akane’s place, right?”
Once again it was time for one of those silent moments, except this one was caused by yours truly. After it ha
ppened, I could only wonder why I had done it; the impulse that drove me was not composed of reason, but something much more primal and similar to what I felt when facing Ayaka last week. As if I was a beast that could attack in ways other than by using physical strength.
Not that despite the raging thrill I felt it was morally correct or, more importantly, socially acceptable.
I must admit she could have lied and dismissed my hypothesis with ease, but in her case I assumed she would not. No, the correct word would be ‘knew;’ I could without a trace of doubt tell she was the type that hid but did not have the custom of lying, although for reasons that shame me. To some extent, I am both: someone who hides and someone who lies, and good enough at both to tell when I see one of my kind.
The response to that behavior was fairly better than I expected or deserved.
“You are a nice guy, Shin-tsu.” Hippie mom had a good impression of me, somehow. “I am sure you wouldn’t tease Megumi over this or spread this rumor.”
Well, I could be mistaken but to me there wasn’t a hint of threat in that line: just pure motherly concern, which made me somewhat uneasy, I admit it. Days later I would understand they assumed I wasn’t being an obnoxious, offensive socially unfit individual but just someone without a perfect grasp of daily Japanese, my rudeness a mere lack of acclimation with the language and culture.
You stay around manipulators, literal monsters and such for too long and you start assuming everyone is one.
“I wouldn’t.” Ironically, there I was trying to assure someone I was one of the good guys after playing mind games. “I just needed to know because I’m concerned, and this is something you two might want to avoid hinting in the future in the presence of other people. People who would have a harder time understanding. You are obviously trying to keep this a secret for some personal reason, so it might be a good idea to think twice before giving out information that may be suspicious or contradictory in the light of other events. Never say anything concrete if you want to be able to take it back. When keeping secrets, chances are you’ll have to.”
Megumi’s mouth was still open, the piercing in her lip lacking the shine her eyes always had (which was probably a byproduct of the two different colored contact lenses she wore all the time). And those lips I for one moment felt strangely focused on started moving a bit sooner than I expected they would.
“Yeah, he won’t. And even if he did, I know it wouldn’t be anything like what Rin would do if she knew. Maybe something like calling names between bros, but that’s all. I know we’re going to be bros because we kind of clicked when I saw you, you know?” She did not say that in a romantic way, or at least I could only associate that line coming from her with friendship for some reason. Possibly related to the constant usage of the word ‘bros’, I guess. “Almost the opposite of what happened when I first saw Rin. Pfft. Man, there’s something about her that pisses me so much.”
To manage to ignore that, one would have to be trying very hard to do so.
“Sure.” I concurred, and then tried to come up with an understatement to follow that avoided minimalism. “You even talk way more casually when she’s not around. It’s like you two are competing all the time over everything.”
“Yeah, I do. Speaking like that is weird for me, but not doing it in front of someone like her would be like, giving her more fuel to act all high and mighty. Someone needs to fight her on her own terms, bro.”
A characteristic sound went off, something universal although not exactly popular: the sound of a cheap wristwatch’s alarm. The driver of the flowery van turned her head to face us.
“Megumi-chan, there are other ways of standing up to The Man. In the sea of life, it’s not always about rowing and rowing; fighting the power is an activity that can be performed in many ways, but what really matters is to do the right thing even if it means kicking reason to the curb.” Hearing Akane’s mother speak about whatever topic she managed to grasp was really amusing, for a given value of that word. Definitely a good person, but one could tell she believes in the flower power, power of the people and all that jazz from kilometers away. “Now if you kids don’t mind, it’s my meditation time, and I’m going to need phones for this or the binaural frequencies will be buried and lost in this van’s cheap boosters.”
Megumi started moving all of a sudden and seeing her searching for something in her school bag was rather trippy, certainly enough to make me dizzy -- way too many colors and movement happening in too little time.
“Oh, earphones!” She said, her hand continuously digging down and bringing a mess up as an excavator would do to a terrain. “What a great idea!”
“Someone already patented that, I’m afraid.”
“You’re real funny, man,” she took ear buds and extended me one of the pair, and once more I was entirely baffled by her corporal language. “Now seriously, let’s listen to some music and chill.”
For a moment I could only think of the irony present in her poor choice of words and then I understood what was going to happen.
“Sure, as long as it’s not metal. It wouldn’t work.”
“Eh? Why is that?”
“We will be sharing, right? That means one earbud for you and one for me.”
“So?”
“Modern metal production standards pretty much dictate at least one guitar track should be used in each side so when it comes to harmonizing or completely different riffs being played simultaneously, they can contrast and fill the overall mix. Listening to only half of what the sound engineer intended might sound a tad awkward for one of us, perhaps both.” Then I noticed I was doing it again, the whole Ryo-speak thing. “What I’m trying to say is that we probably won’t be able to enjoy the songs as much while sharing the earbuds because the music is usually mixed to only work properly in stereo.”
Her rather unfeminine laughter was somehow only noticeable when I stopped talking, or for the sake of a fairly more precise description, lecturing.
“…for one second you really sounded like Akane.”
Chuckling ensued.
“Wait a second, did I ever stutter or something? Never mind that, are you implying she ever actually speaks and a lot on top of that?”
“Boy, you’d be amazed.”
“I already am.” Sure, I met the girl yesterday but there are a few characteristics you just expect to be permanent, or at the very least, not contradicted within minutes. “Her mother doesn’t see her that way though.”
She wasn’t laughing anymore, and it wasn’t completely unexpected.
“Do your parents know exactly who you are?”
If they didn’t, they’d still be around. Or six feet under.
“You tell me. Most of the time I don’t know myself.”
Satisfied with my half-fabricated answer, Megumi pushed her hand further and made me take one of the earphones almost inserting it in my ear herself.
“Enough talking, let’s get down to business: it’s Dubstep time.”
A button press was all it took for a distorted synthetic bass to start growling inside one of my ears along with a beat that didn’t quite naturally felt like one, but grew on you after a while. Unlike some more common forms of music it was based on ambience and feel rather than a melody one can hum, and unlike most electronic subgenres the production was overflowing with a powerful sub-bass. Hundreds of glitches and sliced vocal samples happening almost at random added much to the composition. It was rather dark, dirty and harsh, yet somewhat contained and completely nothing I would expect from someone made of blinding chromatic variations and metal who got into a silly argument with a girl she apparently met yesterday just to get in a van with her on the following afternoon.
“This isn’t bad at all.”
“Not the kind of music you can get into at once, but once you get into it it’s pretty hard to fall out of love.”
“Yeah. But there’s one thing, Megumi.”
“What?”
“This track h
as basically nothing to do with dub or 2-step garage.”
A blurry window reflected the colorful Megumi biting a toothpick she found in her bag while searching for the earbuds, the reminiscence in her eyes barely visible amongst the hundreds of raindrops running on the glass at random speeds with unpredictable pauses during its course.
“It’s been raining at least once a week around here, but it’s always like that when it’s spring, so no biggie. There was this amazing rainbow these days though, it was really something out of this world. Totally unforgettable.”
“Last week?”
“Whoa, you saw that rainbow too, man?”
“Yeah, I was hanging out with… a friend.” Giving unnecessary information out has ruined too many kingdoms. “We caught a bit of rain and then all of a sudden there it was, the most beautiful l’arc en ciel I had ever seen, stunning as heaven. What were you doing?”
“Same as you, just chilling with a buddy: Akane’s room has a huge stained glass window so it took me a moment to realize it was open and all those colors were on the sky and not coming from the stained glass itself, you know?” When she looked at me I saw her face wasn’t particularly hard to read despite the heavy makeup. “I saw those amazing trippy colors outside and even told Akane about it, but she didn’t pay much attention to it so I guessed it was all in my head or something.”
Something clicked in me.
“Hey.” I lowered my voice so Akane’s mom wouldn’t have a chance to hear us. “Were you, say, ‘clean’ that day?”
Laughing loudly, Megumi ruined my efforts in making that question private, even though it was for her own good.
“Oh dude, relax: I’m always clean. Straight edge for life!” She held the toothpick between two fingers like it was a cigarette, looked to her hand, laughed slowly and then shook her head as if to wave the irony away. “I see where you’re coming from though. Thing is, I used to be around smokers for a long time and became what you would call a ‘passive smoker’. I don’t hang out with that kind of people anymore, so whenever I catch myself thinking about the smell of nicotine, I start chewing on a toothpick until the craving goes away.”
That sounded way more like a lie she spent quite a good time working on than an honest truth, but for that moment I assumed the best course of action would be not to pressure her on the subject. After all, it was definitely not my business.
Yet.
“So, why did you assume you were able to see that but Akane wasn’t?”
“I don’t know, man, my brain plays tricks on me once in a while when it comes to colors and stuff. Good to know it wasn’t all in my head though, or that there is at least one more person around here who is just as weird as I am.” I felt like disagreeing because at least in the visual aspect no one could be half as weird as she was without actually trying, but I figured I’d understand the meaning of her words at some point in the future after some cooking scene or something so I’d be wasting saliva and ruining plot points. One of her fingers pointed outside at Akane and Rin were walking towards us. “Here they come.”
The president passed in front of the window Megumi was watching so intently but didn’t stop, moving directly towards the van driver’s. I couldn’t hear all of what she said to hippie mom, but the words ‘help’, ‘butler’, and ‘backdoor’ gave me a vague but interesting idea of the overall context. Obviously it could have turned out to be something completely different from reality, as thoughts that start at the back of flower power vans often are.
The rest of that day was blurry and fast-forward but anything short of easy.
Rin had an awful lot of equipment for an individual and not a studio, enough to make me consider going back to school by foot to give everyone more free van space. I only stayed because Akane’s mother insisted, although we had to stop at the school to unload cargo before going to my place to pick up my stuff. The good thing about my house being the follow-up to Rin’s is that, in comparison, it did not seem surprisingly big at all.
We spent the afternoon setting up and turning what initially was a small empty club room into a small recording/rehearsal facility crowded with cables and equipment, activity that took time and a good deal of unnoticed effort in the nearly empty school campus. It was a day of carrying instruments, computers and gear while sweating in our uniforms. The irony is that to get things right for the band, we had to act less like musicians and more like roadies.
When the darkness of the night was starting to gain territory in the sky, Rin spoke.
“I believe I am speaking on behalf of all of us when I say we should just lock up the room and call it a day.”
“Yes, I concur. This was tiring.”
Megumi argued and not only for the sake of doing so. “But we haven’t even played a single note yet!”
“Still, significant progress was made. We now have a functional practice and recording room that will not attract attention or disturb anyone.”
Thanks to Rin’s meticulous planning, the room’s structure was absurdly effective despite being a mess: two guitar amps, a bass one, a microphone and a netbook working as host for the information sent by the electronic drum kit, all passing through a small mixing console with outputs to the main recording computer and four high fidelity headphones, two of them brand new. Definitely not eye candy setup, but it was so beautifully functional it hurt; we could jam and record the most brutal tunes at the same time without any passerby ever hearing what we were doing inside of that room, being only subpar in the vocal aspect because of acoustics. “Except for perhaps minor tweaking, the band studio is ready to start activities right away.”
I could only agree.
“Already far more than most bands can even dream of. I’m honestly surprised. We might get spoiled because of all this convenience.” But what surprised me the most was how smooth and fast everything went: it was too neatly executed to be part of a plan devised Reikoku-sensei. This crazy, abrupt and juvenile thing could actually work. “Do you guys know any ramen stands or something around here? Today is my treat.”
We left the room as Megumi barely could contain her excitement, considering she had worked as enthusiastically as I did; the other two did help, but we were the active ones, burning energy like there was no tomorrow and stuff. If her hunger was anything like mine, my words must have sounded like an oasis. Akane looked like she was about to faint or evanesce completely too, but that was just her usual self.
“Agreed.” To my surprise, Rin seemed a little calmer, almost to the point of vague, even after our driver left and kept acting like that for the whole afternoon. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but I think she just did not know how to deal with being defeated. “We managed to get most of the work done today, so I suppose we are allowed to have a break like that.”
A chance like that only came once; it was only obvious Megumi would bite.
“Isn’t it a commoner-exclusive activity, to eat ramen in stands and stuff?”
You’d think Rin would fluster, react with a disguised bad mannered answer or give us some odd line that would eventually reveal itself as having a deep meaning, being a reflection of her past or something like that.
“Rich people eat too.”
After that disappointingly mundane reply we locked the door and left, and with that my story with that unusual band started.
Chapter 2: Akane
The Longing of Shiina Ryo vol. 2 Page 5
