With her eyes sparkling, Taira-chan connected a microphone to the boombox and set it up in front of Ichikawa.
Taira-chan's idea was as follows:
“Um, you see, I would like Amane-buchou to ‘speak’ the lyrics at the same timing as the song at key points in the chorus! Regarding the short delay that Airi-san did, in the end, that makes it sound like she is in a muffled place because the voice echoes almost simultaneously just once, right? And as a result, it creates an introspective atmosphere. If you say that is dark, then I think it would be interesting to layer a voice that sounds like she is talking, rather than singing, for that single echo! Also, I thought that if we put it on a cassette tape, it might feel more raw!”
“Hooh...?”
It was beyond the scope of my imagination, but watching Taira-chan explain it so passionately, at the very least, my interest was piqued.
Hirosue, who had a disappointed look on her face until a moment ago, also opened her eyes wide with a “Heh...!”
“It’s worth a try! It sounds kind of interesting!”
“I agree. Well then, should we head outside?”
And so, since we would be in the way of the recording, we retreated to the small room outside the studio.
The studio had double-pane glass windows, allowing us to see inside.
If you imagine a radio ‘recording booth’ and a ‘booth where the director and others are,’ it’s pretty much like that. This studio apparently used to be a broadcasting room, after all.
Inside the booth, Ichikawa was wearing headphones and warming up her voice with “Ah, ah.”
“Amane looks so good in headphones... insanely cute...!”
...Yeah, that’s for sure. I wonder, is it because I’m a bedroom musician that girls wearing headphones look so cute to me?
“By the way, how does that mechanism work?”
“Ah, uhm...”
I answered Sako’s question.
We have Ichikawa listen to the sound from the computer, have her sing the corresponding parts along with that track, and record it onto the cassette. Next, we record from the cassette to the computer via a wired connection and layer that data on the computer. That’s how it works.
“Anyway, it means the sound source sung onto the cassette ends up in the computer, right?”
“Yeah, as long as you understand that, it’s fine.”
“I see.”
Sako nodded deeply.
“Even so, to think there were actually empty cassettes and a cable for the boombox here. They’re relics of the Showa era.”
“True. I’m surprised they weren’t thrown away.”
“I suppose so...”
Since Hirosue and Sako spoke with such admiration, I chimed in.
Our high school is over forty years old, so things bought long ago were probably passed down because they weren't broken, so there was no reason to throw them away.
In an era when there were no smartphones or IC recorders, they might have used this to record their own performances.
Carrying guitars that would be considered vintage now but were brand new back then, everyone must have gathered around a boombox to record their original songs.
The embarrassment of letting someone hear a song you wrote for the first time, the happiness of being told “Let’s all try playing it together,” I think they recorded every such moment onto cassettes.
Somehow, imagining that scene in sepia tones while watching Ichikawa facing the mic now and Taira-chan happily operating the boombox, I felt something stir within me.
“Youth is being passed down, isn’t it...?”
Azuma seemed to be thinking the same thing, as she was smiling happily.
“Youth...”
Hirosue was staring into the booth with her mouth hanging open blankly.
“Hey, Hirosue-san.”
“What is it?”
Azuma called out to Hirosue with a sisterly smile and said,
“You actually long for youth, don’t you?”
“Haah...?”
She suddenly started saying such a thing.
“Wha—what are you saying, as if you know anything...!?”
“It’s not ‘as if I know,’ I do know. I can understand that thought process. Because I’m the same.”
What does she mean by that...?
“You read manga and novels, watched anime, and came to Japan thinking you might be able to have a youth like that, right?”
“...Hah!?”
Whether she hit the mark or not, Hirosue’s eyes were darting around.
...But, with that, things finally clicked for me.
I had been curious about her way of speaking for a long time.
‘Is it all right if I have a moment?’
‘It is not as if I am telling you to quit your current band.’
‘To think there were actually empty cassettes and a cable for the boombox here.’
...I’ve never met a girl in reality who actually uses such sentence endings.
There were people who used such words jokingly or by pretending to be formal, but someone who uses them regularly only exists in manga or novels.
I had wondered why she spoke this way.
And that was the answer.
...Does it mean Hirosue Airi acquired her Japanese through manga and novels?
The fact that she occasionally uses unusually difficult words is probably part of that too.
“But, the kind of youth you imagined didn't exist, and while you were frustrated and giving up, you found someone who was doing home recording—your specialty—with the same level of passion as yourself. That made you happy, didn’t it?”
“There is... no way... that is true...!”
Those words of denial, no matter how you looked at it, carried the meaning of affirmation.
“Hey, what happened in Japan, at our high school?”
“...Nothing happened.”
Hirosue gritted her teeth and glared at her.
“...Nothing at all happened.”