[RiNG Music Cafe — Saturday, 3:47 PM]
"Ha... is that so..."
The words left Shiina Taki's lips like steam escaping a kettle—reluctant, pressurized, not entirely convinced. She lowered her arms from that defensive cross over her chest, though her fingers still twitched at her sides, nails pressing half-moons into her palms. The afternoon light filtering through Café Coda's lace curtains caught the silver studs in her ears, making them glint like tiny warning signals.
I don't buy it. Not completely.
Even after Akari's repeated, earnest explanations, Taki couldn't fully extinguish the ember of suspicion smoldering in her chest. Her violet eyes—sharp as broken glass—remained fixed on the young man standing entirely too close to her precious friend.
"Haru-kun."
The name Akari had called him. Haru-kun. First-name basis. The familiar suffix. Taki's jaw tightened until she could feel the pressure in her molars.
It hasn't even been a week since Akari transferred.
She knew better than anyone how reclusive Takamatsu Tomori could be. The girl who'd struggled to order her own coffee for months. The girl who communicated through song lyrics scribbled on napkins rather than speak during their CRYCHIC days. The girl who'd flinch at unexpected touches and spend entire rehearsals with her gaze fixed firmly on the floor.
That same girl was now calling some random pretty-boy by his first name like they were childhood friends?
What kind of shady technique did you use, huh?
Shiina Taki crossed her arms again—this time not in defense, but in judgment. She looked Kazama Haru up and down with the scrutinizing intensity of a detective examining a crime scene. Her gaze traveled from his artfully tousled dark hair, down the clean lines of his jaw, across shoulders that filled out his casual blazer just so, to shoes that were clearly expensive but not ostentatiously branded.
Tch.
She hated to admit it, but objectively—purely objectively—the specimen before her possessed the kind of face that probably made ordinary girls' hearts do embarrassing acrobatics. Sharp features softened by an easy smile. Eyes that crinkled at the corners with practiced warmth. The kind of effortless good looks that belonged on magazine covers or idol group posters rather than standing in a café making her blood pressure spike.
So what?
Attending Hanasakigawa Girls' School meant her daily interactions with the male species hovered somewhere around absolute zero. She'd built up an immunity to pretty faces through sheer lack of exposure. While her classmates swooned over boy band members and traded photos of handsome actors, Taki remained staunchly, proudly unaffected.
No amount of aesthetic bone structure could make her heart skip.
Especially not when she remembered how intimately Akari had addressed him. That friendly, supposedly-charming smile he'd flashed earlier—the one designed to make women drop their defenses faster than a drummer drops a beat—looked absolutely punchable in her eyes.
If Akari hadn't vouched for you...
Her fist clenched at her side. If there weren't customers watching...
"Welcome, what can I get started for—oh!"
A customer approached the counter, jolting Taki back to professional reality. Miss Rinko glanced over from the espresso machine, her expression a gentle reminder that employees probably shouldn't be glaring daggers at patrons.
Fine.
Taki exhaled through her nose—a sharp huff that ruffled her bangs. She stepped aside with visible reluctance, her teeth grinding together as she watched Kazama Haru drift back toward Akari's table. Her fingers drummed an agitated rhythm against her forearm, an unconscious tic from years behind the kit.
I'm watching you, pretty-boy.
---
"I-I'm sorry, Haru-kun."
Takamatsu Tomori's voice emerged small and apologetic, her pale fingers worrying the edge of her napkin into a crumpled mess. Her lavender eyes—usually so distant, so carefully guarded—now swam with visible guilt as she looked up at him.
"Taki-chan, she seems to have misunderstood you... I should have been more decisive when I explained just now..."
The afternoon light caught the delicate silver chain at her throat, drawing attention to the nervous flutter of her pulse beneath translucent skin. A strand of her ash-blonde hair had escaped its clip, brushing against cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment.
"Ah, it's fine, it's fine." Kazama Haru waved his hand with practiced nonchalance, settling into the chair across from her. The worn leather creaked beneath his weight, releasing a faint scent of coffee grounds and aged wood. "That waitress-san was definitely... intense. Her interrogation technique could probably make hardened criminals confess. Any normal person would've been intimidated."
He leaned back, draping one arm over the chair's curved back—deliberately casual, deliberately unthreatening. "By the way, do you know her? Judging by that 'touch-Akari-and-die' aura she was projecting, she seems to care about you quite a lot."
The question landed gently, an invitation rather than a demand.
"Taki-chan... she was the drummer of a band I was in before..."
The words came slowly, each syllable weighted with something heavy and unspoken. Tomori's gaze dropped to the table's scarred wooden surface, tracing the rings left by countless coffee cups. The brightness that had been building in her expression over the past week dimmed, shadows pooling in the hollows beneath her eyes.
"Eh, she plays in a band too? And a drummer at that..."
Haru murmured thoughtfully, his fingers tapping a contemplative rhythm against the tabletop. The café's ambient noise—the hiss of the espresso machine, the gentle clink of ceramic, soft jazz bleeding from hidden speakers—filled the pause between them.
Then his eyes sharpened with sudden purpose.
"Speaking of which, aren't we here precisely to find band members?"
Tomori's head lifted slightly.
"Akari, you seem to trust her completely, and your relationship hasn't been affected by whatever happened with your previous band." He leaned forward, closing the distance between them, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. "How about... trying to invite her to join our band?"
"Eh?"
Tomori's eyes went wide—twin moons of startled lavender. Her lips parted soundlessly, napkin forgotten in suddenly nerveless fingers.
Taki-chan... join a new band? With me?
The thought spiraled through her mind like sheet music caught in wind—chaotic, overwhelming, impossible to catch. She'd imagined it, of course. Late at night, curled beneath covers that smelled of fabric softener and loneliness, she'd allowed herself to dream of standing on stage again. Of harmonies interweaving like braided silk. Of Taki's drums thundering beneath her feet, steady as a heartbeat, reliable as gravity.
But dreams were safe. Dreams couldn't reject you.
That rainy day...
The memory surfaced unbidden—gray sheets of water turning the world to watercolor smears. Sakiko's retreating back. Soyo's trembling shoulders. Taki's devastated expression, drumsticks clutched in white-knuckled fists. And her own voice, cracking and wrong and broken, the sound that had shattered everything.
It fell apart because I couldn't sing properly.
Her chest constricted, a familiar ache spreading beneath her ribs.
If Taki-chan still blames me... if she still remembers how I ruined everything...
"But even so—" The thought crystallized before she could stop it, fragile and trembling and desperately, recklessly hopeful. "—I still want to try."
Tomori's eyelashes fluttered—dark crescents against pale cheeks. When she spoke, her voice wavered like a candle flame in drafty air.
"Taki-chan... she's a very excellent drummer. Really, truly excellent. And she takes great care of me, she always has, even when I made things difficult." A swallow. A breath. "If possible, I'd really like to form a band with her again. It's just that... I don't know if she'd still be willing to play with me..."
The final words emerged barely louder than a whisper, nearly lost beneath the café's ambient symphony.
"Well, since she's right here, why don't you just ask her directly?" Haru's smile held no mockery—only encouragement, warm as the afternoon light pooling across their table. "You won't know until you try, right?"
"Mm..."
Tomori nodded slowly, her gaze drifting toward the counter where Taki stood. The drummer had finished with her customer and now leaned against the register with studied casualness, chin propped on one palm, violet eyes fixed on their table with the intensity of a hawk tracking prey.
She's watching.
Of course she was. Even pretending to be bored, Taki's attention had never left them—not for a second.
I should just... say it. Open my mouth and say the words.
But her hand, half-raised in a summoning gesture, fell back to the table. The invitation lodged in her throat like a fishbone—too sharp to swallow, too painful to cough up. The words she'd rehearsed scattered like startled birds.
I can't.
Haru's sigh was quiet but audible. He'd seen this before—Tomori's courage building to a crescendo only to collapse at the final measure. For someone suspected of being on the spectrum, the gap between wanting to speak and actually speaking could stretch wider than any ocean.
Fine. I'll take the hit.
The memory of Taki's murderous glare still lingered like frost on his spine, but watching Tomori shrink back into herself hurt worse than any death stare.
Haru raised his arm high, voice carrying across the café: "Waitress-san, we'd like to order!"
"Hmph."
The sound—sharp, dismissive, absolutely dripping with disdain—preceded Taki's approach. Her shoes struck the hardwood floor with deliberate force: da-da-da-da. A drummer's footsteps, precise and rhythmic and currently weaponized.
She stopped at their table, weight shifted onto one hip, the order pad brandished like a shield. "What do you want to drink?"
The question emerged clipped and cold, directed at some point approximately three inches to the left of Haru's face—as if making direct eye contact might contaminate her.
Then she turned to Tomori, and the transformation was instantaneous. Ice melted into honey. "Akari, you're having a mocha coffee, right? With extra whipped cream, the way you like it?"
Seriously?
Haru accepted the menu she thrust toward him—the laminated edge coming dangerously close to his nose—and scanned the options with practiced speed. The scent of fresh-ground beans and vanilla syrup wafted from the pages.
"Black tea, please."
Thanks to Sakiko's influence, he'd developed a genuine appreciation for the stuff. Something about the ritual of it—the steeping, the precise temperatures, the way flavor bloomed across the tongue—had converted him completely.
While ordering, he caught Tomori's eye and winked, jerking his chin subtly toward Taki. Now. Say it now. I set up the assist—you take the shot.
Understanding flickered across Tomori's features. She looked at Haru's encouraging expression, then at Taki, who was squinting between them with mounting suspicion, clearly trying to decode their silent exchange.
"Um... Taki-chan."
"Hmm? What's wrong, Akari? Is there something else?"
Taki's face remained carefully neutral, but beneath the café's soft lighting, Haru noticed the slight flush creeping up her neck. Her fingers had tightened around her order pad until the pages crinkled.
She's nervous too.
"Th-that..."
The shadow of CRYCHIC's dissolution pressed down on Tomori's shoulders—visible in the curve of her spine, the tremor in her clasped hands. She didn't want to disappoint Haru. She didn't want to disappoint herself. But the words felt like stones in her mouth, heavy and awkward and refusing to arrange themselves properly.
Just say it. Just—
"Taki-chan, Haru-kun and I... we're preparing to form a new band."
The sentence emerged stilted, fragmentary, but it emerged.
"We came here today to find companions who are willing to play with us." A breath. A prayer. "Taki-chan... I want you to be our drummer. Is that... is that okay?"
Silence.
Then:
"HUH?!"
The shriek that erupted from Shiina Taki's throat could have shattered crystal. Nearby customers jumped, coffee sloshing in cups, conversations halting mid-syllable. The gentle jazz soundtrack suddenly seemed very, very loud.
"S-sorry! I'm so sorry!"
Taki bowed frantically—once to the startled patrons, twice to Miss Rinko, whose expression had shifted from serene to mildly exasperated. Her face had gone scarlet, embarrassment warring with shock for dominance.
When she turned back to their table, her composure lay in ruins.
Her violet eyes stretched impossibly wide—cartoonishly so, like a character in one of those manga her classmates were always reading. Her mouth hung open, jaw slack with disbelief. The coffee cup on her tray trembled violently, ceramic chattering against ceramic in a staccato rhythm.
Akari wants to form a band?
Akari, who cried for three days straight after CRYCHIC fell apart?
Akari, who couldn't even look at her guitar for months afterward?
THAT Akari?
"What... how... when did..."
The questions tumbled over each other, none of them finishing. Taki's mind raced through every possible explanation, every potential catalyst that could have prompted such a dramatic reversal.
And every thread of logic led to the same conclusion.
Her gaze snapped to Kazama Haru, who had suddenly become very interested in his phone screen, scrolling with exaggerated casualness as if he could somehow disappear into the device.
You.
The realization struck like a cymbal crash.
Akari's change... it's because of you, isn't it?
Taki's eyes narrowed, reassessing the pretty-boy before her with entirely new parameters. The coffee cup stopped trembling in her grip, her drummer's hands steadying through sheer force of will.
What exactly did you do to her?