“Oh, I have to go now. I have a radio recording today. Anyway, I don’t know your contact info, so I’ll ask Tsubame. Don’t be surprised if someone from Vector contacts you out of the blue. Later.”
Airi Hirosue, the person who dropped the massive bomb, left the broadcasting room after saying only that.
The soundproof room fell silent, like the aftermath of a storm.
After a while,
“That’s amazing,” Ichikawa smiled.
That smile didn’t look like hidden anger, nor did it look like sarcasm from sulking.
—It just felt like she was seeing off a friend’s new beginning.
“Umm...” Yuri spoke up with a forced smile.
“It’s amazing, or rather, it’s a surprise... but we don’t plan on accepting such a talk, right? Right, Konuma?”
“Ah, yeah...”
I replied reflexively when suddenly asked.
“...Why would you refuse?”
Ichikawa lowered her head slightly, her eyes hidden from view.
Her mouth still looked like it was smiling, but it also looked like she was biting her lip.
“I mean, why... We decided that amane’s debut couldn’t happen without these four people. We said that’s the only way for amane to debut.”
“That’s right. We’ve passed up various chances to make that dream come true,” Yuri added.
“I thought we were ‘passing them up’ too, until now,” Ichikawa wouldn’t budge.
“But maybe that’s not it.”
“Ichikawa-san, what’s wrong?”
Sako frowned slightly, sensing that something was definitely off.
“Nothing is wrong.”
Ichikawa looked up, staring at us with slightly teary eyes.
“—Our dreams only fail to come true when we try to be the four of us.”
“...!”
Those words took my breath away.
“Because it’s true, right? We’re distorted. When it’s a song Ichikawa Amane wrote, everyone says they don’t need the rest of you. When it’s just Konuma-kun and Sako-san, people say they want you in their band. And for the songs Konuma-kun and Yuri write, they say they don’t need my voice. Is there any need to stick to this distorted combination?”
“Amane, but—”
“You should understand from this time, right? I was so frustrated it felt like I’d die. Everyone else was desperately holding it in, but you must have been dying of frustration too, right? I can at least tell that much. I can tell how my precious band members feel even if they hide it.”
Her tight lips seemed to break.
“As long as we were passing up chances on our own will, we could talk about policies or real dreams. But,”
Ichikawa poured out the words that were overflowing.
“When the chances stopped coming, I felt a chill run through my whole body. I realized the chances I thought we were ‘passing up’ were only for each of us individually, and they weren't coming for the four-person amane.”
She poured out the emotions she had been holding back with both hands.
“I finally realized. It’s disrespectful to music and our dreams to prioritize our stubbornness just because we think chances will keep coming forever. It’s looking down on them.”
Sako tried to mediate. “It’s like this, right? First, Takuto and Yurisuke become famous, and then they pull amane up too. That’s one way—”
“That’s not it,” Ichikawa shook her head, cutting off the support.
“If I stay with everyone any longer, I won’t be able to sing again. I’ll stop feeling any value in my own songs. I’ll start thinking that my songs shouldn’t even exist.”
“Hey, Ichikawa.”
Ichikawa, who had been talking incessantly, looked up and our eyes met firmly.
I tried to speak, being careful not to let my reddish-purple emotions—anger, frustration, comfort, or resignation—turn into a blade.
“Was the dream of the band amane’s debut something you could give up so easily?”
“Easy...? I’ll give that right back to you.”
She stared at me without flinching.
“—Konuma-kun, was your dream something you could afford to let slip away here?”
“...!”
Her words gouged my solar plexus like a harpoon.
“You told me you wanted to write songs that change people’s lives, like ‘Watashi no Uta.’ I was so happy. I truly felt that the songs I—someone like me—just sang in the corner of the classroom actually changed the life of a fated person in a distant town and became a part of their life. I felt like I finally had an insignia, a pride...”
‘amane is my idol.’
‘I have so many friends now. I’m spending the best youth with the best friends that others would envy.’
‘This song is my favorite song in the whole world.’
“Hey, I don’t want to say this. It’s not easy. But... but, you know?”
Ichikawa’s voice trembled.
“I’m sure we could look away and continue making music together happily. In fact, that might be what high school bands are like.”
She smiled as if troubled.
“We graduate, and somehow it gets harder to meet, so it becomes once a week, then once a month, then once a year... and eventually we become adults swept away by the crowd. We’d gather once every few years, play only the songs we made back then, laugh saying ‘I forgot the chords’... and then maybe go for drinks, talk about the past, and say ‘Those days were fun’...”
She spoke of that future, then bit her lip.
“...That’s absolutely not okay.”
“amane is a band that must never become just a ‘kind memory’ like that.”
“Ichikawa...”
I empathized with her words so much it hurt.
That wasn’t the kind of band we aimed to be.
“Hey, I found the only thing that only I can do.”
Ichikawa clenched her right hand in front of her chest.
“—It’s to let go of this hand.”
She slowly relaxed her grip.
“It wasn’t my voice. The thing that will make Konuma-kun’s, Yuri’s, Sako-san’s... our amane’s dream come true wasn't my voice.”
“No—”
I tried to deny it, but her smartphone screen held up silenced me.
“But, no... that’s why, at least, so we can think it was good to form amane, so we can one day think ‘we are who we are today because amane existed’...”
“Hey, Ichikawa...!”
“Amane, no way...!”
“Ichikawa-san...”
Ignoring our attempts to stop her, Ichikawa Amane smiled with her eyebrows lowered, then said clearly with a serious face:
“...So we can feel glad that amane met,”
“Let's end amane... properly.”