Chapter Text
Yahata Umiri doesn’t ask other people for favours. And when other people ask her for favours, she almost never says no.
When Togawa Sakiko approached her, eyes blazing with some emotion Umiri didn’t recognize, and said “I want you to be in my band,” she would have said yes immediately. The speech she got about the other famous members and the funding they’d acquired and Sakiko’s theatrical vision was wholly unnecessary.
And when Sakiko said, later, “give me the rest of your life,” Umiri knew it was absurd. They were teenagers. They barely knew each other. She felt no particular attachment to the band. She felt no particular attachment to any of its members.
But she still said yes.
Because that’s what she does.
Umiri taught herself to play bass guitar when she was twelve years old.
If she’d wanted, she could have taken lessons. Her parents would have happily paid for it. She could have asked them to send her to a guitar teacher, and they would have said “okay,” and that would have been that.
But she didn’t want to ask them for it.
She was twelve years old. She saved up her allowance and went to the store by herself and bought the only bass guitar she could afford, the cheapest one in the store, and she taught herself to play it by watching YouTube videos.
Yahata Umiri, to this day, doesn’t like asking anyone for anything. She likes it when other people ask her.
She wanted to play bass guitar because her father took her to a concert played by some old rock band he’d been a fan of when he was in college and she thought that the concert was the coolest thing she’d ever seen.
She entered the auditorium without any particularly clear dreams about what she wanted to do in the future, and she left it knowing that she was going to be a professional musician. And of everyone on stage, she’d thought the bass player was the coolest. She liked the way he stood in the back, not stealing attention, supporting the rest of the band. And she loved the way she could actually feel the deep, low sound of the bass notes colliding with her body.
It was love at first sight and she never looked back.
Playing bass came naturally to her.
Being in a band did not.
Chord theory and harmony and counting out unusual time signatures all came naturally to her.
Making friends did not.
She did have friends.
Sort of.
She’s always had friends, girls that approach her, are interested in her.
Girls that want her to play in their bands.
(After the first, disastrous band, she became much better at being someone that other girls would want to play music with, that they could rely on. This took conscious effort at first. It quickly became instinctive.)
And yet, somehow, at the end of the school day, at the end of the rehearsal, the other girls go to each other’s houses for sleepovers, the other girls meet up on weekends and go shopping together.
But Umiri doesn’t.
She doesn’t invite them to hang out. They don’t invite her to hang out either.
(At least not as a group. Sometimes one of them wants to meet her one-on-one. Usually that’s because they want to kiss her, and it's usually the drummer.)
“I like Yahata-san a lot, but…”
“Umiri is such a great bass player! But she’s not very sociable sometimes…”
“Does she really even like us? I mean, she likes playing music with us, I think, but being in a band is supposed to be about having fun with your friends, right?”
“Umiri and I? Yes, we’re friends, of course. I mean, well, we’re friends, but it’s not like I ever really…”
“I mean, we’re not really friends in the normal sense, but she’s a great musician and she’s crazy hot, right?”
The other girls go to coffee shops after rehearsals, but Umiri always has another rehearsal to get to, so they go without her.
One evening, in the early days, before Ave Mujica disbanded, Umiri found herself alone in the agency’s conference room with Sakiko.
The whole band had been discussing upcoming events, and when they were done, Sakiko asked her to stay, so of course she did.
Sakiko was staring out the window, at the nighttime skyline, a sea of lighted windows below and a perfectly black sky above.
There are no stars in Tokyo.
Umiri waited patiently.
“Umiri.”
“Yes.”
“If you woke up tomorrow and everything that you thought was important was gone, would you be able to keep going?”
“I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“If your family was gone and your friends were gone and your school was gone and Japan was gone and there was no God and no karma and no love and no right or wrong and you could do anything you wanted and nothing mattered. Would you have the strength to keep going?”
As she finished speaking, Sakiko finally turned from the blank sky and met Umiri’s eyes, and Umiri replied without hesitation.
“As long as I could still play bass, then yes.”
Sakiko held her gaze for a couple seconds, then nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
They stood in silence for a couple moments.
Umiri was about to ask if she should go when Sakiko spoke again.
“And what if when the universe comes to an end, it repeats itself exactly the same way, all over again from the beginning? If all of your actions were going to be repeated forever, everything you’ve do and say, over and over again, happening exactly the same way, infinitely. Would that change the way you make your choices? Would you do anything differently?”
“No.”
"Would it scare you?"
"No."
Sakiko turned back to the window.
Umiri waited.
“…thank you. You can go now.”
Ave Mujica was another band. Like all the rest.
Then, suddenly, it wasn’t.
The instant success was unusual. But that was understandable considering the unprecedented financial backing the band had.
The main difference between the other bands and this one was Sakiko.
Nothing about Sakiko was simple. She was undoubtably gifted—she saw her opportunity, grabbed it with both hands, and managed to create a musical, theatrical masquerade that was unlike anything Umiri (or anyone else) had ever seen.
Sakiko was a genius. But she was a princess too, full of herself, arrogant, and uninterested in criticism.
Sakiko wore a mask, pretended to be a competent, mature professional. Umiri couldn’t tell exactly what lurked underneath her mask—some strange mix of bitter cynicism and heartbreaking naivety.
The other girls, too, wore masks, even off stage.
Uika was very talented and easy to work with. She handled every new song with ease, the cameras loved her, and she somehow still had none of Sakiko’s arrogance.
But there was something a bit off about Uika. Something in the way she looked at Sakiko sometimes when she didn’t realize anyone was watching.
Like a nun would look at an angel who has descended from heaven.
Like a dog looks at their owner.
Uika sometimes made Umiri a bit uncomfortable.
Mutsumi, she’d thought at first, was the same as her. A flawless guitarist. Solemn, no jokes, all business.
(She’d been so, so wrong.)
Nyamu was…a bit annoying.
“Umikoooooo, come oooonnn, my fans would love it!”
“No thank you.”
“You have such a great face, you should put it to use! You would totally be a hit on my channel.”
“No thank you.” Umiri checked her watch. “I have to go. Good work today, everyone.”
Sakiko nodded at her.
Uika gave her a smile. “You too, Yahata-san. See you tomorrow.”
Mutsumi stared at the wall. She didn’t seem to register Umiri’s words.
Umiri picked up her guitar case and left the room. She had another practice to get to before she went home. She reached the main doors of the building and was stepping outside when she heard heels clicking behind her.
“Umiko! Are you taking the tram? Let’s go together.”
“Alright.” She kept her eyes fixed ahead.
“Umiko, what did you think of practice today?”
Finally, a question she didn’t mind answering. “It went well. The new song is becoming much more consistent. I agree with Togawa-san’s decision to extend the bridge after the second verse. It significantly adds to the build-up of intensity heading into the final chorus. Another day or two of rehearsal and I think it will be performance ready. Wakaba-san and Misumi-san seem to have pretty much mastered their parts.”
“Hmmm. And me?”
“You’re still struggling to keep up in the latter half, when you double up on the ride. If you can’t get it perfect, then you need to simplify and cut something out.”
They arrived at their stop on the Toden Arakawa tram line, and Nyamu sat down on the bench. Umiri put her guitar case on the ground and glanced beside her, wondering whether Nyamu would be insulted.
What she saw was Nyamu pursing her lips, seemingly thinking through Umiri’s comments, no hint of insult on her face. “I’m not going to cut anything out. I’ll get it perfect.”
“Good.”
“What should I practice, then? To get it perfect.”
“I don't know, I’m not a drummer.” Umiri did not smile. But she felt a small flash of surprise. Nyamu was taking this more seriously than she’d expected. “Polyrhythms, maybe.”
Nyamu let out a dramatic, exaggerated sigh. “I already practice polyrhythms. It’s all I do, polyrhythms all day long, every day, my fingers twitch out polyrhythms while I’m sleeping.”
“Good. It’s good for you.”
“I was kidding.”
“You were exaggerating, but you do practice. I can tell.”
“Hmm.”
The tram car arrived, and they got on. Umiri picked a seat, and Nyamu, of course, sat right next to her.
“Say, Umiko, what do you think of Sakiko?”
Umiri’s expression (or lack thereof) didn’t flicker. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Do you really think she knows what she’s doing?” The remark was said in Nyamu’s usual playful, flirty tone. But Umiri could feel Nyamu’s eyes fixed on her. Nyamu's gaze wasn’t playful.
Her eyes narrowed. “Togawa-san’s leadership has resulted in great success so far.”
“You don’t think that maybe…she’s got a different goal, here? Different from what she’s telling us? Like she’s got her eyes set on something we’re not seeing? You’ve noticed it, haven’t you?”
“…that’s irrelevant. This is Togawa-san’s band. Whether or not she…has some goal that she’s not telling us. She created Ave Mujica. She wants Ave Mujica to succeed, just like everyone else. I’m content to follow her lead.”
“Hmmph.” Nyamu leaned back in her seat, the intensity in her face disappearing. She reached her arms above her head and stretched them, slowly and surprisingly sensually, with a little yawn that was almost a moan. “Well, Umiko knows best. You’re the professional here, after all.”
Umiri stared straight ahead, steadfastly ignoring the girl next to her as Nyamu crossed her legs on her seat, allowing her skirt to ride up a bit and show quite a bit of leg.
Nyamu’s movements were intentionally flirtatious. Umiri was not particularly good at reading people, but she could tell that much.
The exact motive, however, was not clear to her. It could be that Nyamu had realized that Umiri liked women and was trying to provoke her. It could simply be Nyamu’s default way of acting. It could be that Nyamu actually did want to sleep with her (it would be far from the first time a bandmate wanted that, and yes, it was usually the drummer). It could be something else entirely.
They stayed silent for a moment or two, then Nyamu went back to chattering about makeup, and Umiri nodded along politely, without much interest, while she watched the buildings pass through the opposite window.
Then they arrived at Nyamu's stop, and she stood up.
“This is me. See you later, Umiko!”
“Goodbye, Yuutenji-san.”
Umiri reached her destination, played her second rehearsal of the day, then returned home and went straight to bed. The conversation lingered in her head.
One of the few things that was capable of annoying Umiri was when her bandmates saw the band as a stepping stone to personal fame, when they cared more about getting likes on their own Instagram than the music, and that was why she saw Nyamu as an annoyance.
But she was a surprisingly thoughtful annoyance. Mutsumi and Uika both would never question Sakiko. Umiri had another twenty bands to play with. But Nyamu had no other band to play with. It was just Ave Mujica.
(Underneath the mask of a bubbly, cheerful streamer, there was a cynic. Was the cynicism a facade too?)
Two weeks later, at their next live show, Nyamu stood up in front of thousands of fans and tore Sakiko’s precious masks from their faces.
Yahata Umiri doesn’t really talk to her classmates (unless it’s when they’re asking her to play with their band).
Shiina Taki is the exception.
Taki never asks her for anything. Taki just talks to her.
They both play music. They find themselves leaning against the wall next to each other at a live show one night in their first year of high school, and then Taki asks if she can sit with her at lunch, and then they’re friends.
(But not quite like the other girls. She never asks to go to Taki’s place. Taki never asks to go to hers.)
Umiri, in the back of her head, secretly hopes that one day she and Taki might end up playing in the same band.
For some reason or another, it never happens.
They remain friends who talk a bit at lunch. Umiri stares at the back of Taki’s head during class. Taki stares out the window, at something in the distance that Umiri can’t see.
Taki likes to complain. About her famous sister. About some of the girls she plays music with, who don’t take it seriously. She grumbles and glares, and Umiri gives her juice boxes as a gesture of sympathy (she doesn’t how else to express it).
Then one day Taki joins a band that she doesn’t grumble about.
When Taki talks about CRYCHIC, there’s an excitement in her voice that Umiri doesn’t understand. Taki leaves after school to go to rehearsal, with a smile on her face. She starts practicing more, tapping rhythms on her desk during class, staying up late.
Umiri stares at the back of Taki’s head during class and wonders whether, if she was the bass player for CRYCHIC, whether she might walk with Taki to rehearsal after school and feel that same excitement.
She goes to their first live show, at RiNG. The band is okay. Unpolished. Definitely nothing special.
But the look on Taki’s face when they take their bows after they finish their set is a look that Umiri has never seen Taki make before.
Taki is grinning, and she looks like she might cry, and her eyes are sparkling.
And then she’s looking at their singer, the girl with short grey hair who, in Umiri’s professional opinion, can’t really sing at all, with a slightly different expression.
Umiri meant to stay for the whole show and congratulate Taki afterwards, but she finds herself pushing through the crowd and leaving.
She was only there to see Taki. The faces of the blue-haired girl playing keyboard and the green-haired girl on guitar have already disappeared from her mind.
(She has a hard time remembering faces. People sometimes sort of all look the same to her.)
She walks home, expressionless, and goes straight to bed, ignoring the homework she needs to do.
In bed, she stares at the ceiling.
She clenches one hand and unclenches it.
She stares at the ceiling above her bed.
Then she closes her eyes and goes to sleep, and the next day in class she still stares at the back of Taki’s head, and Taki still stares out the window, but now she knows where Taki is looking.
Her warm-up before rehearsal began on her low C, the first fret on her lowest string, then winding up the neck of her bass slowly, sticking to a C major scale, beginning with half notes, then quarters, then eighths, improvising a lazy, simple melody, nothing too complex, all the way three octaves up to her high C on the 17th fret of her highest string, then looping around back and forth, all the way back down.
Then a four finger chromatic spider exercise, up a fourth and back down again.
Then a walking line along a cycle of dominant resolutions, keeping her left hand clamped on the same spot on the neck with as little shifting up or down as possible, Bb Eb Ab Db Gb B E A D G C F Bb with four quarter notes per chord then around the circle again with four eighths per chord.
Then 1-8-5-10 arpeggios to get her pick hand jumping back and forth, skipping over a string, reversing the picking pattern every second time through.
Then she played the intro bass line from Alter Ego, and her fingers felt sufficiently limber, and she was ready to play.
Umiri loved playing bass.
She loved playing in bands.
She loved practicing on her own, she loved rehearsing, she loved performing live.
She loved rock music in particular, but she was happy playing any genre.
She loved being a musician.
She typically did not let this show on her face, but inside her head she knew that when she was playing music, she felt like a proper human, felt as if she were in the right place doing the right thing at the right time, that music was what she was supposed to be doing.
The trickier part was all the time that she wasn’t actually playing.
Beginning from when she was 12 years old, she put all of her time and energy into her instrument, and learning how to communicate with the girls around her was a secondary concern.
What she learned from the disaster that was her first middle school rock band was not that she needed to listen to and communicate better with her bandmates.
How differently things would have turned out if she had learned from that experience that playing music was all about communication.
Instead, what she took away was that if she was going to play in bands (and she wanted to play in bands more than anything else, she would have given anything) then she needed to be exactly what the rest of the band needed, she could never take charge or argue, she needed to keep her own musical ideas to herself, she needed to fulfill all her bandmates’ desires, be the perfect support, nothing less, and nothing more.
Shiina Taki was the exception in many ways.
She learned things from Taki, things that had been missing.
Like how to joke around.
Taki is sitting in her seat, grumbling and complaining about the other girls in trumpet section of the school orchestra. Umiri leans on the desk next to her and sips on her juice box calmly.
She has brought a second juice box for Taki. But Taki has her arms crossed and her eyes closed as she grumbles, and she hadn’t noticed when Umiri tried to hand over her gift.
Umiri doesn’t want to interrupt the rant. She knows that Taki isn’t actually angry, that she’s just mildly annoyed and probably quite enjoying the opportunity to complain a bit, so she sits quietly and waits for an opportunity to give Taki her gift.
But then Taki sinks her head down onto her arms on her desk with an exaggerated groan.
Umiri stares at her only friend for a few seconds.
Then, on a whim, without even thinking about it or knowing why she’s doing it, she reaches over and places Taki’s juice box right on top of Taki’s head.
“Hah?”
Taki sits up immediately, of course, and the juice box falls to the desk. She fixes Umiri with a confused glare.
Umiri freezes, with the straw of her own juice box in her mouth. She doesn’t know why she did it.
They lock eyes for a few seconds. Then Taki’s eyes crease, and the corners of her mouth of her mouth curl up, and a flash of sunlight glances off her purple eyes, and she laughs.
“The hell?”
Umiri sees the smile spread across Taki’s face as she grabs the juice box, and she goes back to her own desk as the teacher arrives. But as she gets her textbook out, she feels a strange sensation in her lips and realizes she is smiling.
(Yahata Umiri does not smile much, these days.)
She decides she likes Taki’s reaction. So next time, she does it again.
When they were fifteen years old, Taki became the one girl her age who didn’t want anything from Umiri. Taki just liked talking to her.
It has been said about Umiri that she does not have a sense of humour, but this is wrong. She does.
She used to try telling jokes to her bandmates. But she mostly just got confused looks in response. So she stopped. The stoic Umiri who never spoke unless it was necessary was better received by the other girls, so she stuck with that persona and allowed it to sink in.
But Taki laughs when Umiri puts juice boxes on her head, and Taki will never know just how grateful Umiri is for that laughter.
“Hey, Umiko.”
“What.”
“You get a lot of fan mail, don’t you?”
“Yes. I suppose.”
“More than anyone else in Mujica?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s say you get the most. I think you do.” Umiri was sitting on a couch in the green room. Nyamu, the only other one there, approached her and sat down next to her, leaning her head on her arm along the back of the couch. “Is any of it from guys?”
Umiri frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t you read it?”
“Yes. I read it.”
“It’s all from girls, isn’t it?”
“…generally, yes, it is. I don’t see the point of this conversation.”
“It’s just, well, Nyamuchi is beloved by both genders, you know? I’ve got plenty of male fans, and plenty of women like me too. I figured, probably, Umiko has just as many fans. But I bet you they’re almost all women.”
“Weren’t you the one who was complimenting my face?”
“Of course! Umiko has a very good face. That’s exactly why. Women actually notice these things.”
“Conventional wisdom would suggest that it’s men that are typically more interested in women’s faces.”
“But we both know that’s wrong, right? Women are actually much finer connoisseurs of female beauty.”
“…yes. That’s probably true.”
“Sakiko presents Timoris as the most masculine member of the band. Timoris wears pants. Timoris is the only costume that a man might be willing to wear, the others are all obviously feminine.”
“I’m not sure if a man would be okay with the thigh high boots with heels.”
“Other than the boots.”
“Sure.”
“Timoris is a knight, with a sword, ready to serve the princess. I know that you intentionally make your voice lower and huskier when you’re Timoris, that Sakiko asked you to do that. She knows what your target audience is.”
“I suppose.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
“I trust Togawa-san’s artistic judgement.”
“It doesn’t bother you, being presented to the audience like a man?”
“I don’t feel that I’m presented as a man. Less feminine, yes. Which is fine with me. But not as a man.“
“Timoris is presented as someone who would be a good boyfriend.”
“Sure.”
“Does that bother you?”
“No. Why would it?”
“I was just thinking. About how Timoris always wears pants. But whenever you’re not wearing Timoris, or your school uniform, when you’re wearing your own casual stuff, you always wear skirts.”
“Well, I’m a woman.”
“Sometimes I’m not entirely sure you’re even a human.”
“I don’t think my fans mistake me for a man, if this is what you’re suggesting. I think that for my fans, the fact that Timoris is a woman is a fairly core part of her appeal.”
“A boyfriend that’s a girl.”
“Not an uncommon fantasy. I’ve been asked to fulfill that role before Timoris existed.”
“Oh yeah? Are you good at it?”
“At what?”
“Playing boyfriend.”
“Yes. I think so. Why? Are you curious?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nyamu look away, still smirking, but with a very slight flush of red on her cheeks.
“Umiko, come on. Don’t be silly.”
From the time she was 12 years old to the time she quit every other band to focus on Ave Mujica, Umiri had played in 73 distinct bands.
65 of those bands were under the broad umbrella of rock and metal. There were also 3 pop bands, 3 jazz combos, an R&B group and one very short-lived ska band.
64 of those bands were all female. Nine had at least one boy in them.
In 24 of those bands, there was one bandmate flirted with her. In four bands, two separate bandmates flirted with her.
Of the 32 bandmates that flirted with her, 30 were women, and two were men.
Of the 32 times a bandmate flirted with her, she responded positively 30 times, and rejected their advances two times.
Of the 30 times a female bandmate hit on her, she ended up kissing them 20 times.
Of the 20 times a female bandmate kissed her, she ended up sleeping with them seven times.
Of the seven times she slept with a bandmate, every single time it was with the drummer.
She didn’t exactly mind doing this, but if it had been up to her, she would have rather just focused on the music.
Yahata Umiri currently plays bass with a pick.
This is for two reasons: a) because she can use the pick to get a slightly harsher, edgier sound, which is better suited to Ave Mujica; and b) because her Timoris costume includes gloves, which interfere a bit with her right hand’s contact with the strings.
But Umiri is a professional bass player, so of course she can play fingerstyle just as well.
And like any professional bass player, she has callouses on her fingers.
There are callouses on the tips of each finger of her left hand, where her fingers press down the strings, and extending down the outside edge of her index finger, which bears the brunt of sliding up and down the strings. But the thickest callouses of all are on the tips of her right index and middle fingers, where she plucks the strings. There, right on the tip of those two fingers, the skin is like hardened leather.
She has been told several times that these callouses make for a uniquely pleasurable sensation, compared to uncalloused fingers, when she is doing the other thing that she is good at doing with her fingers.
Umiri doesn’t really understand this herself. She has tried fingering herself awkwardly with the ring and pinky fingers of her right hand, the only of her fingers that have been completely spared from the bass guitar callouses, but she hasn’t really found that there was much of a difference. But then again, she doesn’t really ever masturbate to begin with. She’s never quite understood the point of it.
The point of sex, on the other hand, is clear: other girls have desires and wants and needs and Umiri had the ability to fulfill them. So she does.
“Hey. Umiri.”
They were sitting on the floor in gym class, against the wall. Their classmates were playing volleyball, but their team wasn’t up yet.
“Yes, Taki-chan?”
“…I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“Calling you untrustworthy.”
She looked next to her, to notice a faint blush on Taki’s cheeks. Taki blushed easily, and she was always cute when she was blushing.
“It’s fine. You were right.”
“…”
“…”
“I don’t know if I was right. I just said it because, well, it’s always seemed like you cared more about being in a band than any particular band.”
“Yes. That’s why you were right. Don’t worry, I have changed my approach now.”
Taki frowned at her. “Changed your approach?”
“Ave Mujica is different.”
“Eh?”
Umiri didn’t elaborate.
They watched the game in silence for a while, listening to the squeaking of sneakers on the gymnasium floor and the shouts of their classmates.
Then Taki sighed.
“Well, good for you, I guess. It’s still annoying to me that it’s her band, though.”
“Togawa-san is a genius. You know that.”
“…yes. I do.”
“I am working on convincing her that I am trustworthy. Because I want to remain in Ave Mujica. I have been thinking a lot about how to be a proper band member, since it seems there have been some miscalculations in my previous approach.”
“Miscalculations in your previous approach.”
“Yes.”
“You know, Umiri, you’re kind of odd. Have I ever told you that?”
“Taki-chan, I thought that you were the one person who understood me?”
“Hah?!”
Know your part perfectly.
Make your bass lines melodic and interesting, but never attempt to steal the spotlight.
The rhythm section needs to be tight, needs to be able to stay in the pocket together, so get to know the drummer.
Don’t aim to draw attention from the audience, be the foundation that the other musicians stand on.
Watch the drummer during shows to make sure you’re in sync.
Take charge of the band’s schedule.
If there’s drama, stay out of it.
If the drummer kisses you, kiss her back.
Stay hydrated during rehearsals and concerts.
Never, ever complain.
If the drummer looks at you with that certain look in her eye after a show, then go back to her apartment and have sex with her.
If you have ideas, keep them to yourself. If you want to write your own songs, do it at home.
Make sure you always have a spare set of strings in your case, and ten spare picks.
Sometimes, even now, she thinks about what it would be like to play in a band with Taki. To have Taki be her drummer.
It’s impossible now, she knows that.
Sakiko said “give me the rest of your life” and Umiri agreed without realizing that it had been no exaggeration, and now she’ll never be in a band with Taki.
Which is fine.
Taki has her own band.
And Umiri has Ave Mujica, and Ave Mujica is no longer just another band. It has become something more than that.
Still, though. She thinks about it sometimes. What things would be like if Taki was her drummer.