“Wow-Flutter cancelled their appearance.”
A week before the live, the news brought by Azuma caused the air in the studio to freeze solid.
“……Eh?”
A few seconds later, along with the dull boing of a bass string—likely from her dangling hand accidentally striking it—
“……Wh-Why?”
Sako managed to squeeze the words out. Her breathing was shallow.
“Apparently… there was some sort of disagreement between the organizers and their management. I wasn’t told the details, but… anyway, the live house manager was practically in tears, saying Wow-Flutter wasn’t at fault at all.”
“…I see.”
Sshhh… The temperature in the studio seemed to drop.
Naturally, it wasn’t Azuma’s fault, and it didn’t seem like it was Wow-Flutter’s fault either. Maybe the tearful manager was to blame, or maybe it was some misunderstanding that happened way before it reached us.
Regardless, whatever the case, we didn’t have any choice to avoid this situation, nor could we overturn it now.
“……It can’t be helped, I suppose.”
Ichikawa said the words I couldn’t bring myself to say in front of Sako.
Cruelly, there are things that ‘can’t be helped.’ They are everywhere, in overflowing numbers.
The things we can actually do something about are so few they could fit in the palm of a hand.
“Sorry. Just… sorry…!”
With her eyes cast down, Sako set her bass aside and quietly, yet quickly, hurried out of the studio. It was as if she were rushing out before something overflowed.
“Sako.”
I stood up from the drum throne and reached for the door of the soundproof room.
“Wait a second.”
Ichikawa stopped me, her eyes swaying with anxiety.
“……Konuma-kun, are you okay?”
“Me……?”
“Yeah. Because… you were really happy too, Konuma-kun. About playing a tai-ban with Wow-Flutter. You even wrote an homage song……”
“I am……”
When Ichikawa asked me that, for some reason, I felt the corners of my mouth lift slightly—not with a smile of resignation, but with something a bit lighter.
I looked at my own palm.
“……Apparently, I’m okay.”
“I see. ……That’s amazing.”
Ichikawa nodded, and then—
“Then, I’ll leave Sako-san to you, Childhood Friend-san.”
She physically pushed me in the back.
“Yeah. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do, though.”
“Konuma-kun, you can do it.”
She gave me her usual smile, her eyebrows slightly slanted.
“Even I know that much.”
……Even so.
“Where did she go……”
Exiting the soundproof room, I looked left and right. The lobby isn’t particularly large, so if she were there, I’d see her immediately. The fact that those blonde hairs aren’t in my sight means she isn’t here. (A tautology, I know.)
……Something like this happened before.
That was when we found out Sako was the one behind the tweets that were hurting Ichikawa.
‘Hasu went upstairs via the staircase.’
Back then, I think Hazama was the one who told me.
……No, no, this isn't the time to be reminiscing about that.
However, with nothing else to rely on, I followed Hazama’s past lead, Sako’s habits, and my own intuition, and ran up the stairs.
……And there.
In front of the door leading to the rooftop, she was crouching down once again.
This is a commercial building, not a high school, you know…… Is this even a place we're allowed to enter?
Anyway, I have to take her back soon.
“Sako.”
I stood in front of her.
“Takuto……”
Her red eyes looked up at me, and her moist voice vibrated in the air.
“Are you…… okay, Takuto?”
“……Yeah.”
At my answer—
“Why!?”
Sako countered with a loud voice.
“Why are you okay? The tai-ban with Wow-Flutter is gone, you know!”
Her hand grabbed my shirt tightly, as if she couldn't forgive that fact more than anything else.
“We promised, it was a dream……! You forgot everything again, and now it just doesn't matter to you anymore……!”
“I haven’t forgotten. And it’s not that it doesn’t matter.”
I flatly denied her claim.
“But, playing a tai-ban with Wow-Flutter isn’t the reason why we do music.”
“Why? What do you mean……?”
Sako looked at me searchingly.
“I…… we…… should have decided that back on Christmas, when we chose to keep amane going. Debut doesn’t matter, view counts don’t matter, as long as it reaches someone…… as long as there’s a possibility of it reaching someone, we’ll keep the band going.”
“But, then, are you saying that the fact that I was so happy…… and that I’m so sad now, is wrong?”
“It’s not wrong.”
I remembered what Azuma had asked me.
‘Was playing a tai-ban with Wow-Flutter your dream, Konuma?’
The answer was this:
“The tai-ban with Wow-Flutter wasn't a dream, and it wasn't a goal either…… it was a reward that might have been.”
“A reward……?”
“Just a reward we happened to encounter because we were earnestly making sounds. Of course, it’s disappointing when you think you’re getting one and then you don’t. ……But that isn’t a reason for us to stop our music.”
I finally understood the reason for my smile back in the studio.
It was because I was happy that I could naturally think that way, just as I’d said.
“We don’t need to entrust our dreams to someone else anymore.”
“Takuto……!”
Sako’s eyes widened for a moment in surprise.
“You’re scolding me again. Saying that I’m dependent on someone else for my dreams or my life……”
She sulkily rested her cheek on her knees while sitting in a huddle, turning her face away.
“……I know that already. Stupid Takuto.”
“Dependence or not, it’s a fact that Wow-Flutter brought us this far.”
Wow-Flutter, amane, and every other kind of music out there.
“Wow-Flutter’s music made us, who had only listened to Western music until then, want to start a Japanese band. That’s why we’re here. We were definitely influenced by them, and we stand here today having stacked sounds every day on top of the shock Wow-Flutter gave us. We are able to stand here. That fact doesn’t change.”
“I know. But…… it was a dream.”
The bassist looked up with a pout and pinched my cheek hard with her strong fingers.
“It hurts……”
……It does hurt. It hurts for me too, and it’s a shame.
That is certain.
But.
“……It’s okay, it’s not a dream.”
Not for me, and surely not for Sako either.
“Then, what is your dream right now, Takuto?”
“That’s obvious.”
And this time, finally, I could answer straight.
“To continue music for the rest of my life, and to create as many masterpieces as possible before I die.”
“…………I see.”
Sako finally smiled a little.
“Yeah, I get it.”
Then, she stood up and patted the dust off her skirt.
“But…… then, the promise from that day is on hold until the day we can finally play a tai-ban together.”
“No, that promise is off.”
“Hah?”
Sako’s face scowled instantly. A scowl that was way more than 0.something millimeters. Ah well.
Well, naturally. It was a promise after all.
But I believe that making a promise you can’t keep is more dishonest.
“In the first place, a tai-ban with Wow-Flutter isn’t something I can promise.”
“What are you saying after all this time……!? Wait, are you seriously serious……!?”
“Because Wow-Flutter might disband. That’s not something I can do anything about.”
“That might be true……! But—”
“So, let’s make a different promise.”
Cutting Sako off, I held out my pinky finger.
Compared to a tai-ban with Wow-Flutter, it might be a very small-scale promise, but even so.
“I will keep doing music with you, Sako. As long as you keep doing music, as long as you keep making music with me…… even if it’s until we die.”
That’s as far as I can promise.
So, in exchange.
“Only that—only the promise I can fulfill—I will absolutely keep.”
“Takuto……!!”
“Beyond that, maybe…… there might be a future where we play a tai-ban with Wow-Flutter again. But that’s not a promise, and it’s not a dream. It’s just a result, just a reward, just a passing point.”
“……I get it already.”
Sako sighed, as if throwing up her hands in defeat.
“You really are an idiot, Takuto……”
She laughed while saying it.
“But the fact remains that you broke the promise from that day. An execution is necessary.”
“Execution……”
What a scary way to put it, Sako Hasu……
“Uh, was it swallowing a thousand needles back then……? Or the fireworks? Which one should I drink……?”
“Stupid Takuto. You’d die if you did that. So, if you make one more promise with me, I’ll forgive you.”
“Eh?”
“I will keep doing music with you, Takuto. As long as you keep doing music, as long as you keep making music with me. ……Even after we die. ……That is the promise.”
Sako hooked her pinky with mine and raised an eyebrow.
“You know? I’m a heavy woman, okay? I won’t stop playing bass even if I die, so be prepared.”
“……I know.”
Because I’m Sako’s childhood friend and bandmate.
“Alright.”
Then, we both put strength into our pinkies at the same time.
“”……Pinky swear.””
When we returned to the soundproof room.
“Welcome back…… Well, you look quite happy.”
“Right? Maybe I shouldn't have let him go……”
Azuma laughed in exasperation, and Ichikawa made a joke. ……It was a joke, right?
“It’s not like that…… anyway, what’s this?”
Sako looked at the setlist written on the whiteboard and scowled by 0.something millimeters.
“Ah, because I thought you’d come back.”
Azuma answered with a shrug.
“What’s with that……”
I let out an exasperated laugh, feeling like they saw right through us.
One character had been added before ‘Turn.’
“……‘Return,’ huh.”
Sako whispered, and then—
“Hey, Takuto.”
Inspired by those words, she turned around. For some reason, she was smiling boldly.
“Can I mess up your new song?”
“What do you mean……?”
The day of the live.
“amane-san, you’re up.”
“””Yes!”””
And so, we stepped onto the stage again today.
It doesn’t matter who’s listening or who isn’t.
We just play the song we should do now, the song we want to do now.
“Good evening, we are amane!”
When Ichikawa, holding her electric guitar, stepped on the effect pedal, a rising feedback echoed like an ignition, dominating the space.
“We’re starting with a new song,”
The name of that song was.
“‘Return’!”
The Wow-Flutter homage in the accompaniment of ‘Turn,’ which I had written, was completely removed and rearranged by Sako.
Then, Ichikawa added a new melody on top of it, and Azuma wrote new lyrics.
That new song was, to anyone listening—
“One, two, three, four!”
—the new song of the four of us.
* * *
『Return』
In the repeating days
The record I played repeatedly
Rock and roll wedged and kneaded into the growth rings
In the days of strumming hard
Rewriting, the turn has come
Rock and roll wedged and kneaded into the growth rings
Spinning ‘round the same place
Thinking I finally stood shoulder to shoulder
A lap behind, on a different lane
Always dreaming a dream that won’t come true
Just when I thought I was rewarded, I woke up
……It’s a dream
In the days I gave up
The order I corrected with prudence
Rock and roll pushed in, obstructed by the growth rings
Spinning ‘round the same place
Thinking I’d come quite a long way
But it’s only 1 millimeter different from back then
* * *
Interlude.
The bass played a solo.
What was being spun were phrases from Wow-Flutter’s masterpieces.
“……If it were me, I would have stopped there.”
Sako’s bass solo led from there into the melody of the chorus of ‘Return.’
* * *
This phrase and melody too
Everything, in return
Give it back, flip it over
From here on, it’s our melody
Spinning ‘round the same place
One day those growth rings will be a common multiple
The moment they click, what bursts forth will surely be
The rock and roll I heard that day
Always dreaming a dream that wouldn’t come true
The moment I was rewarded, I woke up
It’s not a dream
Always dreaming a dream that won’t come true
That’s the dream I’ll keep fulfilling from now on
Always dreaming a dream that won’t come true
That’s the dream I’ll keep fulfilling from now on
* * *
“And now for the next song!”
Cutting through the unceasing feedback and applause, Ichikawa shouted the next song title.
“‘Last!’”
The live doesn’t stop, and the music doesn’t stop.
While hitting an 8-beat that felt like infinity, I thought.
If we keep this up for 30 years…… no, until we die, then maybe one day, even we could become someone’s Wow-Flutter.
“If that happens—”
Hiding it within the sentimental and positive roar of sound, I smiled so that no one could hear me.
“—it’d be like a dream.”
＜Afterword＞
Thank you for reading the first update of Bedroom Musician Loner in a while.
Rather than a short daily-life snippet like I usually write in ‘0.5’ chapters, this turned into a fairly substantial after-story.
Regarding Sako’s—and perhaps Konuma’s—dilemma or complex, I felt like I had to find an answer for them somewhere, but I couldn't find a place to put it for a long time. Recently, I finally found that answer within my own experiences and decided to write this extra special chapter.
I'm glad I was able to write it.
By the way.
Actually, I am participating in the Studio Ghibli Tribute Album "Ghibli o Utau 2" short movie project for planning and composition alongside Fujii Tetsuo-sensei. Posting URLs might violate terms, so this is just a brief announcement.
I’m making it sound like it’s just tacked on, but there’s a meaning hidden in writing it here beyond just an announcement. Maybe I’m saying too much? Oh well.
Well then, I’ll be back if something else comes up.
I’m also preparing other works. I’d be happy if we could meet there too!
2026.02.04 Ishida Touha