* * *
The story goes back to my middle school days.
Sako and I went to the same elementary and middle schools.
We even went to the same piano lessons until partway through elementary school, and in middle school, we joined the same Brass Band Club.
Back then, Sako had black hair, and we were what you'd call childhood friends.
Sako usually had an expressionless and quiet impression, but in front of me, she was a girl who talked quite a bit.
Though when I say she talked a lot, it was only "for Sako."
Because Sako was quite pretty, people in class and the club would sometimes tease us about it, but I didn't really care.
Thinking back, I think both Sako and I were so uninterested in our surroundings that we didn't have the room to worry about what they thought.
The two of us talked a lot about music.
Starting with brass band pieces, we greedily absorbed various genres like classical, jazz, and blues.
Once we finished listening to the CDs at our own houses, we started exchanging them. When we finished those, the two of us would go to second-hand CD shops together and buy CDs with our meager allowance.
The more a disc was called a "masterpiece," the more copies were pressed, and since everyone had it, it was cheap to buy used. I even got The Beatles' "1" for 100 yen.
Sharing almost exactly the same CDs like that, our musical tastes and preferences were almost perfectly aligned.
In the Brass Band Club, I played percussion, and Sako played the contrabass.
When we played pop songs in the club, I would play the drums and Sako would play the electric bass. (This is probably why Sako knew about Pre-basses.)
The two of us were perfectly in sync when we performed, and people used to say we were a close-knit childhood friend duo.
The first time I felt uneasy about our relationship was in the summer of our second year of middle school.
I was excited by the best music I had just discovered and said,
“I’ve never encountered such a masterpiece! From the lyrics to the song, it’s just too perfect!”
I enthusiastically pushed it onto Sako.
That was an amane CD.
However, the next day.
When she returned the CD, she said,
“Sorry, I didn't really like it.”
This had never happened before, not even once.
Still, we continued to lend and borrow CDs after that.
Her reactions to other CDs were the same as usual, so I convinced myself that these things happen, while trying to hide my shock.
The definitive rift occurred later, just before graduation in our third year.
I had finished studying for my entrance exams, and I made my first home recording using music software that was on the computer I received as a graduation gift.
Looking back, it was a rough recording in every way, but to me, it felt like I had accomplished something incredible.
I felt like I could go anywhere with just that track—a major debut, the Grammys, anywhere.
I desperately wanted Sako to hear the music I was making, so I took my computer with me to meet her and played it for her directly in the club room.
After she finished listening, Sako took off the earphones and murmured softly.
“Hey, Takuto, why did you decide to make a song?”
Puzzled that she asked about the trigger before giving her thoughts on the song, I replied,
“I listened to amane’s songs and thought about how someone the same age was making such amazing music, so I wanted to try making one too...”
“Hmm...”
After she fidgeted for a bit, I looked up and saw it.
There stood Sako, with eyes colder than I had ever seen before.
Sako bit her lower lip slightly and then declared, word for word:
“To be honest, amane? I thought it was trash, like a rip-off of that person. Also, it’s creepy.”
* * *