The rest of the school day pass by as usual, expect for the alarming fact that Hanako doesn’t show up for any of the lessons.
She does however show up for band practice, without Lilly. I’m a little impressed, but mostly surprised.
It’s a good kind of surprised though, I was scared that I completely blew it with my blunder.
Ritsu is showing Hanako how we are playing the song, as it is quite different from the original, when there is suddenly a knock on the door.
The light music club’s door has gotten strangely popular the last couple days.
Whoever it is that is knocking on the door doesn’t wait for an answer, as the door is already open the second the knocking stops.
The shape standing in the opening is a boy, I’d guess slightly taller than me, with dark hair hanging down in front of his forehead, slightly dipping into his almost black eyes.
He’s wearing the Yamaku school uniform jacket, his right hand is resting in his pocket, while his left hand is carrying a brown guitar case.
Come to think of it, a lot of the other guys are wearing their jackets, I own one too but it’s way too warm to wear one these days, so it’s just hanging unused in my wardrobe.
When he briefly lifts his right hand to fix his hair away from his eyes, I manage to register that there is something horribly off about it, he sticks it back into his pocket before I see what is wrong, and I probably shouldn’t think about it, considering my previous blunders.
 
K: So you’re having a band?
His voice is pretty deep, and it has a slightly rusty tone to it.
Ritsu is fast to make her way over to the door to greet the newcomer.
R: You wanna join? You’re in!
K: Isn’t that a little sudden, you don’t even know if I suck.
R: Oh that’s okay, Hisao sucks too.
H: Hey!
There isn’t paid much attention to my protest.
R: Plus, you could be like Sid Vicious and help us float on sex appeal despite not being able to play.
R: You even have the right hair if you just spike it a little.
K: And die at 27 and take my girlfriend with me? Sounds fantastic.
R: He died at 27?
K: They all die at 27.
K: But yeah, I’d like to join. I’m Ken
R: I’m Ritsu! This is Hisao and Hanako.
Ritsu reaches her hand out to greet him, but he makes no motion to return the gesture.
I wonder if it’s because of his hand or his attitude.
It can’t be anything too wrong with his hand, as he can apparently play guitar.
And I should really stop thinking about disabilities.
 
K: Just play something so I know what you sound like.
R: Ah, sure, but we don’t really sound like anything.
Ritsu takes her place behind the drums as I plug in the bass. Hanako picks up the microphone stand and carries it so it’s standing behind me, something I really don’t think a vocalist should do, but I don’t comment on it either.
In the corner of my eye, I also register Ritsu discretely slipping a pill tray back down into her pocket.
Her excessive painkiller usage worries me a little.
Now isn’t the time for worrying about that though.
A more urgent problem is the fact that we haven’t even played through the song with Hanako singing once, so we’re gonna fuck up something.
I just know it.
R: “One, two, three, four”
If everything else goes wrong, we did at least have a cute intro.
The start goes smooth as the hours invested yesterday playing the song over and over proves effective.
I hit my notes relatively close to where they are supposed to, and Ritsu keeps a steady beat.
 Then it’s time for Hanako to come in.
 
The only problem is that she doesn’t.
I turn around and look worried at Hanako, who seems to be very aware of her misstep.
H: I’ll hold the note, just enter when you’re ready
I doubt she’s able to hear me through the noise from the drums, but she seems to catch up on what I’m doing as I’m only slapping the same note over and over.
After a while, she closes her eyes and starts singing, she takes a little time to adjust her pitch to our playing, but once she gets into it, she sings just like she should, and the rest of the song goes pretty well.
If anything, I’m the weakest part, as I pretty much hit every note too late. I’m not bad enough for it to not work though, and we finish up pretty neatly.
 
While we were playing, Ken has dropped his guitar to set his left hand free, so instead of clapping as one would normally expect, he slowly raises his left hand in a thumbs up while keeping a neutral expression and the right hand still resting in his pocket.
K: It’s good enough, I’m in.
 
Ritsu bounces up from her chair and raises her fist in victory, almost tipping over her drum kit in the process; she barely manages to stop it before it collapses.
She gets out from behind the drumkit and makes her way off the stage, as she passes me she whispers:
R: Nice save
Before continuing across the stage and down to Ken.
R: Welcome aboard!
K: Yeah, yeah, how often do you have practice and such?
R: hehehe, every day!
K: I’m not spending every day here; I can come two days a week max.
By now Hanako and I have also made our way down from the stage.
R: What? That’s…
Ha: I-I’d like so-some days off t-too
R: You too!?
R: At least you’re not abandoning me Hisao, I know you don’t have any friends.
I know that should probably sting, but it doesn’t , I’m strangely content with my current pattern of spending pretty much all of my free-time with Ritsu in the music room.
But it’s too easy to come with a comeback for me to let it pass.
H: As far as I know you don’t either.
It’s strange that someone as outgoing and cheery as Ritsu quite literally has one friend.
I wonder how her life was before I came here. Maybe she has tried to recruit everyone to the light music club earlier and that I just was the first to accept.
R: Kinda, so therefore I’m offering to practice every day, and you’re gonna do it with me.
I’m surprised she lets it slide so easily, maybe it isn’t a big deal to her.
H: So we’re just going to carry on as we do?
R: Pretty much.
H: Sure.
It’s a little silly, making a deal to just keep doing what I do; at least it’s not a written contract.
 
K: So what were the chords for that song you were playing? It sounded piss easy.