“This new song sounds kinda jazzy.”
Akane immediately saw right through it.
“Hmm, now that you mention it…”
Rinko said as she reached across the synth panel and adjusted the pitch to a lower tone. She played the intro to the new song again, this time breaking it down and improvising a complex chromatic scale. She really was quite skilled.
“Wow! Now that’s jazz! I dunno if I’ll be able to keep up with that!” Akane said with a laugh, but she still unhesitatingly added her guitar to the tune in a way that sounded appropriate. She was pretty impressive herself, too.
It was the start of another week, and we were once again practicing at the studio. I played the demo track I’d worked on, and the girls were giving their feedback. Between the strong impression the session with Rokurou-san had left on me and all the jazz I’d listened to over the weekend, it was no surprise that the new song would have such a strong bias.
“Uh, yeah, that was just a demo, so you don’t need to worry about it. I’ll be thinking about how to arrange it properly from here.”
Unsure of how to go on, I timidly added a disclaimer of my own.
Rinko immediately responded in her own cold way.
“I knew that. The piano is so obviously useless right now. It’s just superficially imitating jazz; it’s nothing like the real thing.”
But for some reason, lately, criticism like that wasn’t nearly scathing enough to affect me.
We started playing – with Shizuki’s drums as well, of course – but after one pass through the chorus, Akane suddenly spoke up.
“Shizu-chan’s drumming seems… extra jazzy? And you seem more in-sync with Makoto-chan than usual! Kinda suspicious if you ask me! Did something happen over the weekend with you two?”
I deliberately stared at the ground. Her intuition was scarily sharp.
“N-nothing happened at all.”
Unfortunately, Shizuki raised her voice and flipped it all over.
“It’s true! All that happened was we were together in the basement until late at night! But I still haven’t gone as far as Rinko-san has!”
She blushed as she said it, stomping vigorously on the bass drum pedal all the while. But wouldn’t it have been better not to try and make excuses for it like that? And I mean, it wasn’t like there was anything to hide, so did she really have to leave out the part where her grandfather was there? It was too late now though; Rinko and Akane were shooting me strange looks.
“So on Friday, just as I was leaving school, Shizuki’s grandfather suddenly appeared, and…”
Left with no other options, I began to explain everything from the beginning.
When I got to the part about the mansion and the live space in the basement, Akane’s eyes glittered with excitement.
“I wanna live in that house!”
She sure was loyal to her desires. I couldn’t blame her though; I thought the exact same.
“Okay, Shizu-chan, let’s get married! Then we can live in that house together!”
“No. My heart is already set on someone.”
“It’s no big deal! Marriage between girls doesn’t count, so you can just get properly married to a guy later!”
At that, Shizuki folded her arms together and tilted her head in thought.
“When you put it that way… that could work…”
Okay, hold on, what do you mean “when you put it that way’?”
That was when Rinko decided to join in.
“Getting married with each other is fine, but what about meals? Can either of you even cook?”
Shizuki and Akane exchanged glances.
“Nope! Not at all!” Akane answered honestly, “But Shizu-chan seems like the type who could!”
“Actually, the only tools I have ever held are scissors and drumsticks…”
“Huh? Aren’t you supposed to be like those girls that come from a traditional household? Like the kind that goes through bridal training or something?”
“Bridal training..?!”
Shizuki’s eyes widened, and, for some reason, she briefly turned to give me a look.
“– Uh, I mean, of course! I do practice things like that! For example, I have to practice not adding pineapples to sweet and sour pork!”
What kind of practice was that? And was it really something to practice for? It seemed like she was a little too fixated on having pineapple in sweet and sour pork, if you asked me…
Meanwhile, Rinko let out a deliberate sigh as she shook her head.
“Your marriage is bound for only trouble if you can’t even figure out what you can and can’t do, you know.”
“You don’t have to say it like that… but what about you then? Are you any good at cooking, Rinko?” I asked.
“Obviously I don’t know how to cook at all.”
“Where’d you even dig up your confidence from then?”
“If you must know, Murase-kun, then let me explain. You see, I used to dream about becoming a professional pianist. It started when I was five, when I started winning competitions left and right; my parents were very serious about helping me achieve that dream, so much that my mother always came to school to tell them, ‘Please excuse my child from PE, home economics, and arts classes. If she were to injure even a finger from those classes, I will sue for damages.’ And of course, I have never gone anywhere near the kitchen at home either. So tell me, did you really think I could cook?”
“When did this become a lecture? More importantly, your parents are scary! But I already knew that!”
“What about you, Makoto-chan? Can you cook?”
Akane suddenly redirected the question to me. Shizuki reacted strongly as well, and she trained her eyes on me as though she would swallow me whole depending on my answer.
“…A little, I guess? My parents are out of the house pretty often, and since my older sister gets lazy about it, I had to learn for when the days where I have to cook for myself come around.”
“Really? Then that solves everything.”
“What are you talking about? What’s getting solved? I’m not the one that’s getting married, you know.”
“That doesn’t solve anything at all!” Shizuki suddenly cried out as she turned pale, “Can’t you see? At this rate, we’re going to have Makoto-san take care of everything! Like childcare, cleaning, laundry, cooking, songwriting, composing, video editing — if he has to do everything, he’ll die from overwork!”
“Well, no, but you could at least help with the cleaning and laundry, and — wait, no, agh! I can’t tell where we’re supposed to be going with this!”
“You make a good point. If I have Murase-kun handle everything, I don’t think I’ll be able to have lemon with karaage ever again,” Rinko said, “So we should start learning how to cook from here on.”
“What we should be doing from here on is practicing the new song!”
I knew it was going to come to this — with me having to put us back on track.
“We’re in the studio, right? We’ve already paid up, so let’s not waste any more time chatting away!”
The fact that we were then able to put together a perfectly explosive song right from the start was gratifying… and infuriating.
“It seems like Murase-kun – the one who got angry – also, as usual, ended up playing the worst on the bass.”
After finishing a full chorus, Rinko cut into me with more cold words. I had no reply.
“Makoto-chan, I know you’re not very good at the bass, but could you stop doing that “bon-bon-bon-bon” thing you do every four bars? It’s hard to keep the rhythm when you do that.”
Akane’s attack was specific and precisely aimed at a weakpoint. I felt my chest ache as I dropped to my knees.
“Um, Makoto-san…”
Surely Shizuki would support me! I looked up at her with hope.
“Next time we have a session at the Meguro house, let’s have Grandfather play the bass instead.”
But she delivered the most painful blow of all.
＊
The opportunity to have another session with Rokurou-san came sooner than I expected.
As it turned out, Shizuki began living in the Meguro mansion ever since that day.
“It seems the discussion my parents are having isn’t going very well, so I decided to evacuate to Meguro. It is a little inconvenient because of how far it is from school, but other than that, everything else is just fine.”
Shizuki happily reported to me.
“Oh, and like I said before, you don’t need to worry about me, okay? In fact, I’m starting to think it would be better if I just lived like this, with Grandfather, for the rest of my life.”
“But what about your other relatives? Won’t they try and have you come home?”
“None of them like trying to get any closer, so I’ll be fine. Grandfather isn’t close with anyone in the Yurisaka family either. I heard he caused a lot of trouble in the past: he left everything behind – the family and the business – to go to America, where he started his own business and made a fortune.”
Shizuki explained with a giggle, as though she were recounting a movie.
“Father always says he doesn’t consider Grandfather his parent anymore, and I don’t blame him since Grandfather really did just abandon them. But to me, Grandfather will always be the most wonderful grandfather in the world.”
What a crazy guy that old man is…
The image I had of him… didn’t really change. I could see him doing that kind of thing, actually. Maybe it was a thing with jazz players, how they didn’t really have an attachment to anything. That could just be a rude bias of mine though.
“So anyway, Grandfather asked me to bring you over, Makoto-san.”
We were leaving school grounds at the time; Akane and Rinko were also with us, listening along.
“And what about us?”
Akane peered at Shizuki.
“Huh? Well, um… you haven’t actually met my Grandfather, right Akane-san?”
“Not yet, but it’s still unfair. I just wanna come over and hang out, y’know! C’mon Rin-chan, you gotta say something too!”
“I’m not going to be that childish about it.”
“Whaa…”
“But what I will do is send a sticker from the ‘Old Lady in the Neighborhood Passionately Shouting Churchill Quotes’ set to Murase-kun’s LINE every five minutes.”
“I’m more curious about why you bought that set than why you’re using it.”
“Ooh, what kinda set is it? I might want it too!”
Akane took out her phone, and for some time afterward, my phone would play its notification sound without stop.
“Could you guys not hold the Yalta Conference in the group chat? And what’s with this old lady’s face?! It’s creepy!”
Akane was laughing so hard she nearly tripped off the sidewalk. That was close.
We continued our pointless conversation all the way up to the station. Shizuki and I split up from Akane and Rinko in the underground tunnels and made our way to the platform that would bring us to Meguro — a route I didn’t usually take.
“Would you like to have dinner together with us, Makoto-san?”
Once the other two were out of sight, Shizuki giddily asked.
“Grandfather wanted to apologize for suddenly bringing you over and also to thank you for going along with it.”
“Huh? Well, I had fun too, so there’s nothing he needs to apologize for.”
Shizuki looked heartbroken when I said that, so I continued.
“But, um, y-yeah, I’d be happy to. Since he’s offering.”
And so I sent a LINE message to my parents: I’ll be having dinner at a friend’s house, and I’ll be back a little late.
When we arrived at the house in Meguro, Rokurou-san greeted us as we walked in, wearing a dull expression and droopy eyes. He nodded repeatedly when he saw us.
“Ah, you’re here. Thanks for coming. I’ve been sleeping all day, so I apologize if I seem a bit of a mess.”
Though he said that, Rokurou-san was dressed neatly. He must have tidied himself up when he heard us coming in. He sure had a good sense of social etiquette; I would have stayed in my pajamas if it were me in that situation.
“Don’t worry, I’ll perk right up after a drink.”
“Grandfather! You know the doctor said you are supposed to cut back on the drinking!”
Shizuki worriedly admonished him, but Rokurou-san smiled and waved her away as he removed a bottle of alcohol and a glass cup from a cabinet.
“And how am I supposed to drum if I’m dry? Anyway, Murase-kun, you’re joining us for dinner, right?”
“Ah, yes, I will. Thank you for having me.”
“I’ll be the one making it.”
Shizuki gallantly declared, putting on an apron. I felt my eyes widen in surprise.
“…You will? Err, I mean, but the other day, didn’t you say you didn’t know how to cook?”
“Haha. Let’s not sweat the details and play in the basement while we wait,” Rokurou-san said, tapping me on the shoulder..
I gave an anxious backward glance as Shizuki giddily skipped along into the kitchen as Rokurou-san led me to the basement live space.
The room boasted an excellent sound system as well, and Rokurou-san put on different jazz records for us to listen to. Most of them had been songs on the piano – probably out of consideration for me. After covering various jazz pianists across the era, we ended up with Bud Powell.
“So what’d you think? Do you understand Bud’s greatness now? Tell me how you really feel.”
Rokurou-san grinned as he sipped at his scotch.
“Yeah, so… To be honest, I still can’t say I really get it, but I think I know better how ‘traditional jazz’ is supposed to feel. If we’re talking greatness though, I think Thelonious Monk is pretty amazing.”
I gestured to the record jackets on the table — one that depicted a thin-faced black man wearing sunglasses and a dour expression on the cover. Rokurou-san nodded.
“It’s easy to understand Monk’s greatness, I agree. Nobody could really keep up with him, and you can tell from how most of his songs end in piano solos.”
The ice in his glass of scotch clinked gently together.
“Compared to that, you can’t exactly discern Bud’s greatness from listening alone. In fact, amateurs usually write his piano off being ‘just as jazzy as the next jazz pianist.’ What do you think about that? You feel the same?”
“Uh, well… Yeah, I think I do… Sorry, I’m still pretty new to this.”
“No, that’s good enough. Your ears are fine, too.”
Rokurou-san placed his glass back on the table, then glanced over at the grand piano sitting quietly at the back of the stage.
“It’s just, they’ve got it backwards.”
“Backwards?”
“It’s not that Bud is playing like every other jazz pianist; its more like every over jazz pianist plays like Bud.”
I sat unmoving for a time, trying to understand the absurdity of Rokurou-san’s words. Meanwhile, Rokurou-san turned back to look at me before continuing.
“The ‘jazzy piano’ you’re imagining right now — that was something Bud created. Everyone was amazed by it, which is why everyone now imitates him. Ah, if only I had been born in that time…”
I was at a loss for a response, so I turned my attention back to the piano. Our reflections on the murky darkness of its sides were thin like cigarette smoke, and my eyes followed the shadow of the ceiling fan as it spun lazily from above.
I heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
“Thank you for waiting!”
It was Shizuki. She was bringing over a tray loaded with a number of steaming dishes.
Everything she placed on the table looked delicious, and I couldn’t help but also admire how beautifully the food itself was arranged.
“You made all this, Shizuki? And you said you couldn’t cook –“
“I trained very hard.”
“Fujimura-san made all of this ahead of time. She just heated it up.”
Rokurou-san immediately said. Apparenly Fujimura-san was the name of their hired help, a long-time employee from their estate in Ibaraki that had come all the way here just to help with this.
“Grandfather! Why did you tell him?!”
Shizuki asked with tears in her eyes.
“If you wanna fool someone, you gotta do better than that. Look, you already mistook the dressing and the beef sauce.”
“Ah…”
Shizuki’s face turned bright red, and she fell silent. I panickedly tried to help her out.
“It’s not that big of a deal. They’re pretty similar anyway, and it still tastes good!”
“…They are not very similar at all; the only ingredients they share are the soy sauce and grated onions. The dressing is an apple cider vinegar infused with shiso and basil, so it will not pair well with a meat dish. The sauce, on the other hand, is made with honey and heavily seasoned with oregano, which wouldn’t go with the salad at all.”
“Why do you know all that when you don’t know how to cook?”
My palate wasn’t all that refined, but I still enjoyed the delicious dinner. In the end, because Rokurou-san mostly drank alcohol and Shizuki didn’t eat a whole lot in the first place, most of the burden was on my stomach. Then, during a break in the meal, Rokurou-san asked Shizuki a question.
“Aren’t Toshio and Mikiko-san worried about you? You haven’t been home in a week now.”
Those were probably the names of Shizuki’s parents.
“I did get messages telling me to come home, but I don’t think they were sent out of concern; Father thinks having me on his side would give him leverage in the divorce settlement while Mother is just upset I have been skipping lessons because all she cares about is flower arrangement.”
Shizuki shrugged it off without worry, and it might have just been me feeling uneasy; was it really fine for an outsider like me to be hearing about this?
“Mm, I see. Toshio got his womanizer ways from me, and Mikiko-san must have had a hard time handling that, in her own way. Well, it’s not like I have the right to get angry at your father for putting his own child through this, not when I put him through even worse.”
It didn’t seem like a laughing matter to me, but for some reason, Rokurou-san and Shizuki were both chuckling over it.
“Still, I can’t just let you live here like this forever.”
“Ah… Th-that’s… true…”
Shizuki turned her head down and stared at her coffee cup.
“I can’t just let myself be spoiled by you all the time, can I?”
“Well, I don’t have a problem with it, but it does cause problems when you have Fujimura-san travel all the way over here for you.”
“That’s true… I was only thinking of myself. I’m sorry.”
“If it were up to me, I’d happily live with you forever, but you know that won’t be possible when all sorts of things could happen in the future.”
“O-of course. I’m sure you have plans of your own, Grandfather…”
Shizuki made a troubled expression. Seeing it, Rokurou-san took a heavy breath and changed his tone.
“Sorry. And I’m not blaming you for it either. Besides, I’m not telling you to go home today. You’ve even brought over Murase-kun, so how about we have a session and play until we’re satisfied?”
“…Okay.”
Shizuki stood and began collecting the empty dishes as though to shake free of the suddenly gloomy atmosphere.
Meanwhile, Rokurou-san went over to the storage and retrieved a case about as tall as he was. He laid it down on the stage before opening it up.
Inside was a double bass.
“You can also play bass?”
Shizuki did say “let’s have Grandfather play the bass instead!” but I didn’t think she was being serious about it.
“I’ve done a little bit of everything, mostly so I could take the stage wherever I wanted. I did that back when I was still wandering across America, and I played at a different club every night.”
This guy’s an expert on life, I thought to myself.
As Rokurou-san began tuning his bass, Shizuki returned, having finished washing the dishes. She immediately went over to the drum set, excitement plain on her face as she began warming up her wrists. Rokurou-san then called out to me.
“Right, so since we’re a trio today, we can go a bit harder. Start us off, Murase-kun, whatever you like, and don’t stop.”
“Huh? Like I said the other day, I don’t know any jazz at all.”
“And it’s different today ’cause we’ve got a bass. Classical, country — whatever you play, we can turn it into jazz. There must be something you like, something you can play without thinking too hard about it.”
So I reluctantly went through my repertoire, but my pieces – my Bach, my Beethoven, my Mozart – got only a lukewarm reception (due to my poor skills) with Rokurou-san making a sour expression and Shizuki laughing from behind the drums.
But when I began playing video game music, Rokurou-san’s expression changed.
“This one’s pretty good.”
“This? …It’s BGM from a game though.”
“You don’t say. I feel like I’ve heard it before. It’s catchy, and the rhythm’s pretty good. Seems worth playing. If it’s from a game, that means it loops, right? That’d be good for a session. Let me hear you play a bit more of it, and I can figure out the chords.”
It was true that video game BGM played endlessly on a loop, and that made it good for a jam session. But…
After listening to a full loop to memorize the chords, Rokurou-san gave instructions to Shizuki.
“Your tempo should be about two-thirds, and it’d sound more interesting if you leaned into it as you played. Do the usual legato, keep a 2/4 on the hi-hat, and throw in a rimshot.”
He sat himself down on a high stool, holding the double bass.
I focused myself as I faced the piano; I took a quick glance back at Shizuki before recklessly hitting the ninth chord that started us off.
The instant, tremendous acceleration threatened to blow me away.
Rokurou-san’s beat was coming to life from under Shizuki’s excellent cymbal control, and I could feel my heart pound with excitement as I raced onward from one phrase to the next without pause. It felt like everything was flowing past my eyes at a fierce pace, so much that it felt like day turned to night in one blink.
It was hard to believe, but the song Rokurou-san chose was the Ground Theme from Super Mario Bros. That light-hearted melody should be evoking an image of coarse pixels in bright colors, but here, with powerful reverberations coming from two rhythm section instruments, the song turned bitter and gloomy, like acrid, purple smoke. The force of their instruments became a headwind that blew away the awkwardness in my fingers, leaving only a feverish impatience to swing with.
It was a reckless drive; our Mario never stopped running, not for a moment, but he would never reach the goal where Bowser was waiting. My fingers spun new scenery, and the expressions changed to suit it; new scenery would appear to replace it with more expressions to follow, and then again, and again. I didn’t know there could be so many melodic fragments sleeping in my fingers, ready to burst.
And like that, Mario passed through forests, swam across oceans, crossed over deserts, ran over clouds…
The first to tire out was Rokurou-san.
As he fell behind the rhythm Shizuki carved out, Rokurou-san began making more and more mistakes, until finally he stopped playing altogether, laughing aloud as he waved his hands in surrender.
“…That wasn’t too bad.”
Rokurou-san looked over at me as he leaned on the double bass, breathing heavily.
“Sorry, but I don’t have enough to keep going. Might’ve had a bit too much to drink.”
“It wasn’t just ‘a bit’! You’re not even steady on your feet, Grandfather!”
Shizuki stood from her seat and came over with her cheeks puffed out in protest.
With the help of his granddaughter, Rokurou-san moved to a seat by the table, but it seemed he hadn’t learned anything; he reached over the table to grab the bottle of alcohol.
“Think I overheated, but I just need a drink to cool off.”
“That’s enough already, Grandfather!”
I did need to cool off as well. Rokurou-san passed over a bottle of cold water, and I drank it all down at once. I could feel how my body was drenched in sweat.
“I’ll take a break from playing and just listen. You two can keep going; play as much as you like.”
And we did; at some point afterward, we traded instruments and laughed at how badly the other played. I also did try playing the double bass, but that ended up the way I knew it would — with me giving up after a few attempts. All in all, it just became a chaotic mess.
It would be dangerous going home on my own this late at night, so Rokurou-san called a cab for me.
“You can always stay over, you know. Shizuki would be happy, and I wouldn’t mind getting to see some great-grandkids sooner.”
“Grandfather?! Wh-what are you talking about?”
Shizuki’s voice cracked in surprise. I really wanted him to stop making jokes like that; it was basically sexual harassment.
“I’ll practice more so I can keep up better on our next session,” I answered, “And maybe even study up more about jazz. Maybe I’ll start with… learning to play a Thelonious Monk song.”
“Interesting. Aiming so high already,” Rokurou-san said, “And by the next session? It’d be nice if you did.”
His reply was weaker than usual, leaving me with worry as I boarded the taxi…
…That worry would soon show itself.
And our promise of a ‘next session’ would fall through.
＊
On the following Thursday, as the atmosphere across the school grew more and more tense as the day of the culture festival closed in, Shizuki suddenly took the day off.
We needed to start practicing for the Midnight Festival, and so we had reserved the studio for that evening. However, Shizuki, who was supposed to practice with us, hadn’t even come to school.
She wasn’t reading our messages on LINE either, so I went to the staff room during lunch break to check with the homeroom teacher of Class 3, All I got in was, “Yurisaka-san hasn’t contacted the school either.”
Rinko exploded in anger when I told the girls about it.
“How could Shizuki slack off and skip studio practice when we’re this close to the culture festival already?”
“Should you really be saying that about someone else…”
Had she already forgotten what she did last month?
“But it’s weird for Shizu-chan to just not show up to practice like this. I’m kinda worried.”
Akane spoke up as she checked her phone. I nodded in agreement; knowing what Shizuki was usually like, she would have contacted us even if it was something urgent. Had there been something so bad that she couldn’t even do that?
I was starting to get a bad feeling about this.
My phone suddenly began to vibrate; there was an incoming call from Shizuki.
“Hello? Where –“
“I’m sorry, Makoto-san.”
Hearing Shizuki sound so faint and weak stopped me from saying more.
“Would it be okay if I… didn’t come to practice today?”
“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
The sound of something rubbing together came from the other side of the call.
Actually, was she… crying?
“Grandfather… suddenly collapsed yesterday. He’s been in surgery until now, and he hasn’t woken up yet… I need to stay with him.”
As soon as I got the name of the hospital from her, I ended the call and rushed toward the school entrance; a chime rang from behind me as I came out — there were five minutes of lunch break left.
“Murase-kun?” “What’s going on, Makoto-chan?”
Two voices and two sets of footsteps followed behind me.
They were at a large hospital along Uchibori Street.
After checking in at the reception, we made our way to the sixth floor of the special ward.
Shizuki was sitting alone on a bench against the corridor wall. Her head was bowed, and she slowly raised her face as we approached.
“Ah… Makoto-san…”
From her slow reaction, her disheveled hair, and the dark circles under her eyes, it was clear Shizuki was extremely tired.
“Oh, everyone came…”
Shizuki tried to smile, but it just looked like her cheeks were twitching.
“Aren’t afternoon lessons.. Is everyone skipping class?”
I wondered for a moment why that was the first thing she asked as I looked back at Rinko and Akane. Was it a subconscious reflex, like a way of coping by focusing on a distraction to relieve the stress of going through a hard time?
“Is your grandpa..?”
Akane motioned with her eyes toward one of the doors leading into the room as she asked.
Shizuki’s head fell again.
“…He’s still unconscious.”
She left it at that. All we could do now was stand around as chilling silence filled the hall.
It wasn’t long before the sound of footsteps broke the stillness.
“I have brought a change of clothes for you, miss.”
We turned to see who had spoken; a kind-looking, middle-aged woman was coming toward us, a paper bag in her hands. She noticed us, and gave a small bow.
“You must be her friends from school,” the woman said as she looked us over, “It is a pleasure. I am Rokurou-sama’s caretaker.”
We bowed our heads in return. This must be the helper they mentioned the other day, Fujiwara-san.
“Now then,” she continued, turning to Shizuki, “Would it not be better to go home and rest for now?”
“I’m fine. I’m staying.”
Shizuki firmly declined.
“I can use the showers they have here, and there is a place to eat, too.”
“But…”
“I’ll be fine, Fujimura-san. You have been here since yesterday, so you must be more tired than I am. You can leave the rest to me now.”
Fujimura-san looked at Shizuki like there was more she wanted to say but then looked to me as though she was expecting me to say something. Eventually, she seemed to accept Shizuki’s stubbornness and bowed to her before turning and walking back down the corridor.
“You’ve been here since yesterday? Have you even slept yet?”
Akane drew closer to Shizuki as she asked.
“No, I mean, yes, well, I had a few naps, so…”
Shizuki wasn’t giving a clear answer, and her eyes seemed almost glazed over when she looked over to answer Akane.
“I just… I want to be by Grandfather’s side when he wakes up.”
“How is he doing?”
Rinko asked calmly.
Shizuki had no answer and cast her sights down instead.
A freezing silence like icy rain at night fell over us. All we could do was stare at the tips of our toes.
More sounds soon echoed down the hallway — multiple sets of footsteps. Shizuki looked over at where the noise was coming from. “His doctors…” she whispered as she got to her feet.
Two men and a woman were coming toward us. The man at the front had the dignified air of a medical professional with his solemn top of graying hair and thick, black-rimmed glasses.
“Thank you so much for everything you have done, doctor. Especially with how sudden and unreasonable it must have been…”
Shizuki gave a deep bow. I shivered from how much more mature she sounded than usual.
“It was no problem problem at all. I will gladly take up the scalpel and perform any operation needed to help the chairman, especially considering my debt to him,” the doctor answered.
By ‘chairman’, the doctor was most likely referring to Rokurou-san.
“Though it is too early for you to be thanking me just yet. We only just finished the surgery, but we will do our best and work around the clock –“
The doctor suddenly stopped and noticed the three of us. He turned to Shizuki.
“Are they… your school friends?”
“Yes,” Shizuki weakly replied.
“What about your parents… or anyone else from your family?”
Shizuki shook her head.
“I tried calling them, but nobody has answered.”
The doctor let out a tired sigh.
“This may be a problem. It would be best if they were present.”
Something deep in my stomach ached.
If the doctor needed the patient’s family to gather, that might mean…
“I had heard the chairman was estranged with his own children, but to think it would be like this…” the doctor sadly muttered.
He was right. The ones who had to be here shouldn’t have been me, Akane, or Rinko.
“I would like to explain the results of the operation to the rest of your family, but… it seems there is no other choice, Shizuki-san…”
At that moment, Rinko spoke up from the side.
“Shizuki, we’ll be going now. We still have practice at the studio.”
Shocked, I spun around to look at Rinko; she had a firm grasp on Akane’s arm.
“The culture festival is less than a month away, and we still need to finish the new songs.”
Shizuki silently stared back at Rinko with hollow, lifeless eyes.
“We each need to do the things only we can do, so you need do the things only you can do.”
Her words were cold and harsh but also gentle. After a brief pause, Shizuki noded.
I stared as they began walking, passing the doctors and moving toward the elevator. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the right thing to do, but I still hesitantly followed behind them.
What else could I do? I wasn’t a family member, and there wasn’t anything I could do even if i stayed.
Rinko seemed to have sensed my approach because she suddenly stopped, rounded on me, and pushed against my shoulder.
“What are you doing with us? You should be staying with Shizuki.”
“Huh?”
“Didn’t you hear me? We each need to do the things only we can do.”
While I stood there in a daze, Rinko turned back around. She and Akane resumed walking down the corridor, with their figures becoming smaller as they walked on.
“We’ll get the new songs done so fast, there’ll be nothing left for you guys to do!”
I heard Akane’s voice echo over from far away.
That’s when I noticed Shizuki was standing beside me, and she was holding tightly to the sleeve of my blazer.
She was here, all alone; no one in her family had come.
I needed to… do the things only I could do.
“…Doctor, may I hear the report now?”
Shizuki’s voice sounded so faint it seemed she might just fade away without warning.
“And, would it be fine if he stays and listens as well? He’s not a relative… but he is one of Grandfather’s close friends.”
Rokurou-san’s close friend, was it…
We had only met twice now, and he was something like five times my age.
But our sounds had come together, had mixed with one another. We had shared in the same beat; we looked up the same ceiling, under the same syncopation; we sweat together and trembled together as we rested from playing together.
The doctor stared at her for a moment before nodding and leading us to a room door.
It was a spacious but private room; if not for the oversized medical equipment at the bedside, I could have mistaken this for a hotel room instead.
A young doctor was sitting by the equipment. When he noticed us entering, he immediately stood and bowed to us.
Rokurou-san seemed to be in deep sleep in bed. There was an elastic netting around his head that was holding the wrapping in place. The deep wrinkles against his hollow cheeks looked like cracks in dried mud, and he seemed so much thinner than I remembered that it seemed like he had shrunk to half his size. It was hard for me to swallow the bitter saliva that was pooling in my mouth.
The person in bed… was that really Rokurou-san..?
This was the same man who smashed the cymbals with such overflowing vitality? How could he have gotten here, eyes closed and withering away in this room of that seemed to be suffocating with impending death?
No, I knew…
The signs had all been there, in many ways.
There were those casual discussions we had, the way he moved around, and the occasional shadow that darkened his expressions… He had mentioned leaving things behind for Shizuki to inherit and even what he said about seeing great-grandchildren, but… I thought he was just joking about it when the truth was Rokurou-san himself probably knew something would happen soon. In fact, he had to be sure; there was that lonely expression he made, back when he had said something about how ‘all sorts of things could happen in the future.’
I took a seat beside the bed, next to Shizuki.
The things the doctors were saying weren’t registering in my ears.
It was something about the blood vessels in his brain, what could happen in the next 48 hours, what would happen if he didn’t wake up — all kinds of things that simply washed off my awareness. All I could do was watch Shizuki’s stiff face.
“Would it be okay… if I stayed with him the entire time..?”
That was the first thing out of Shizuki’s mouth after hearing the doctor’s explanation. He nodded solemnly.
“Of course. It would be perfectly fine. In fact, I believe the chairman would prefer it this way as well.”
I felt a cold, damp chill crawl up my sides and down my arms.
If the doctors were allowing relatives to stay with a patient in critical condition at all times…
…did that mean there was little hope of recovery left?
“If anything happens, please let us know right away.” With that, the doctors exited the room, leaving behind me, an old man on the verge of death, and the old man’s granddaughter.
It was so eerily quiet.
This hospital was at the heart of the city, but I couldn’t hear any cars. I couldn’t hear any footsteps either; the only sound here was the hum of machinery.
I quietly stared at Rokurou-san’s unmoving arm, resting gently atop the duvet.
His arm was so thin the bones and veins beneath the skin were all too visible. It was painful to see how they had become like the drumsticks he once wielded.
“Last year… he collapsed… just like this…”
Shizuki whispered softly. She fixed her gaze on a vase of flowers that sat on small table at the other side of the bed. The red and yellow gerberas stood out against a backdrop of afternoon sunlight filtering weakly through the curtains.
“I was still living with him. Grandfather didn’t need surgery back then, and the doctors said it wouldn’t be strange if he were to randomly collapse again. Then, after he got out, Grandfather handed over ownership of the business to his subordinates, and he retired. And then he said… after he was done, he said… he had realized there was nothing left…”
By then, all he had was a vast fortune he didn’t care to use, an aging body nearing its limits, and a heart that yearned for something…
“Long ago, he did something terrible to his family, and he ran from them. He did succeed in his career, but what did it matter when his entire family despised him? And yet, all Grandfather ever did was laugh, saying ‘It’s what I deserve’ with a resigned smile.”
Shizuki put both hands on the bedsheet.
There was a faint tremble in her fingertips.
“And he said, ‘I ran off and did what I wanted on my own, so now I get to die on my own’… But why? Why does it have to be so tragic? Why does he have to be all alone? I-If Grandfather were to pass away, then… I…”
The words caught on Shizuki’s throat, and she bit her lip in anguish. She tightened her fingers on the bedsheet and lay her head down.
A thought suddenly came to me as I stared at the white hairs on Rokurou-san’s stubble.
It was about something he himself said — how a drummer couldn’t play alone, and how they couldn’t start without an ensemble. If that was what he believed, how could he say he had nothing left? After all, Shizuki was still here, with him.
And there was still one other thing that remained.
Every word I exchanged, every conversation I had with Rokurou-san rose to the surface of my consciousness and popped, like bubbles floating up from the bottom of a pool.
I once asked him a certain question — the one about bringing drums to a deserted island.
With a faraway look in his eyes, he had answered, “I wouldn’t bring anything.”
I wouldn’t bring anything. Not drums, not records, nothing. Because if I did, I’d have to listen to the sounds they made, right? But see, if I didn’t bring anything, I could instead just close my eyes and listen to the music my heart makes—
At some point, I had closed my eyes.
I could feel a pulse. I could hear breathing. Did that come from me? Did that come from beside me, from Shizuki?
Within this gentle, ephemeral darkness, I felt myself raising my hands.
I, a total stranger, had spent a whole two nights with this man. I couldn’t say we did anything meaningful in those two nights; I played for him my terrible piano, I asked of him all sorts of naive questions about jazz, and I laughed with him over silly stories about different musicians. Even so, there was meaning in my being here, in this hospital room.
There was something I needed to do, that only I could do, here in this very place.
I gently lowered my fingers.
My fingertips felt a rough, clay-like texture. Beneath that was a weak pulse, and even further down was something hard, thin, and tight. There was a hesitant ascending sound pattern, a pattern that seemed to trace the boundary between the living and the once lived.
If a keyboard was made of bone, that meant the bones themselves could work as a keyboard. Right now, with my fingers as they were, I knew this to be true.
After all, I could hear its sounds.
I could hear the sounds of Thelonious Monk’s restrained piano — a sound like that of glass stakes being quietly driven into the ground.
If I were to open my eyes now, I would see a bleak reality — one where I was simply using my fingers to weakly tap on the arm of a sickly, elderly man. But it was in the quiet of this reality that I could do this; if there had been even a single stray note of music, my entire awareness would focus solely on that, leaving no room to search for the resonance within.
The music I wanted was covered in this stillness that was like quicksand, pulling it in deeper and deeper.
I had made a promise.
It was a promise to play a Monk song at our next session.
So really, this was for my own satisfaction.
Even so, I continued to play.
I carefully expanded my range; When I reached the higher octaves, my right pinky nearly slipped off Rokurou-san’s shoulder. Meanwhile, my left hand dove deeper, becoming lost in Rokurou-san’s palm.
This was a ballad only I could hear.
It was just like how people died all alone, I thought to myself.
Because no matter how beautiful a melody I made echoed within me, if it didn’t reach reality – if it didn’t break free from the confines of my mind – it would die all alone. For a moment, it felt like the distance between me and him had begun to close… It may have, but what did it matter when we were a passing comet and an unmoving satellite? Even if we had drawn closer, there was still a vast, hopeless gulf between us.
That continued even now.
The idea that people could understand each other – that they can connect with each other, resonate with each other – was just an fantasy. The reality was that every other person was a distant, flickering light — a light that that may have traveled from thousands, tens of thousands of years away and originated from a flame that had long burned out by that time.
And if that was my reality, the very least that I wanted was to immerse myself in the music; I wanted to close my eyes, and lose myself in it, so I could forget about it all, even for just a moment.
My fingers splintered the melody, holding a different fragment on each tip.
The fragments crashed together into a dissonant jumble, becoming tiny bits that tried clawing their way into the vessel I called me, only to fail the climb and all fall out. Was it because I was so hollow, so alone that the music could reverberate within me in such a beautiful and intricate way?
If so, it made for a sad technique for a sad creature.
But despite knowing that, I didn’t stop my fingers. I couldn’t think of anything else I could do. I overlapped my chromatic scales like I was handling grains of sand, growing and shrinking it like I was tossing the grains between my hands. I noted every fragment my hypersensitive nerves caught and played out the key it represented; it was like my hand was scratching at a wound, and it wouldn’t stop. Amidst that haze of pain, new melodies sprung to life, shooting through my fingers like an electric current and bringing more waves of pain.
I felt myself becoming worn down, withering from the inside out.
Would I be just another that broke apart, that amounted to nothing but bubbles? Would my ultimate fate be to drift through the sky in solitutde, clinging to nothing, as Thelonious Monk once did?
Was there nothing I could do?
Suddenly, there came the ringing of sound — a sound that wasn’t my own.
A legato of cymbals filled the gaps in my broken melody, like a galaxy opening up in the dawning sky. Then there was a calculated kick and then a thoughtful snare, as though to reaffirm my existence.
Could that be Shizuki?
She had been beside me this whole time, but had she also closed her eyes and surrendered herself to the illusion? To carve a melody through beating the bed’s iron pipes and kicking the linoleum floor?
Or was this warmth and rhythm that flowed to me, across the distance, just another delusion I felt?
…It didn’t matter either way.
All I had to do was accept the groove, and let it take me.
I drew in a breath and cast myself into that forest of bones. I scraped the lingering echoes of life that stubbornly still clung to those keys, molding them into faintly warm harmonies before letting them free into the air.
To live… meant also to die. That much I understood.
With each phrase that I cast away, that I scattered to my ears, I felt a weak pulse thrum back against my fingers.
And then, that final trill was the sound of the crumbling bones collapsing into sand.
I lowered both hands back down to the bedsheet.
The echoes of those sounds lingered faintly still.
A wave of emptiness washed over me; my sweat was cold and clammy against my skin, sapping what little warmth still remained. The lingering echoes became a creeping chill, seeping in as a bitter taste flooding my mouth. I felt my fingers tremble as they dug into the sheets like claws.
What was I even doing?
In this quiet hospital room, I had pretended to play the piano right over someone on the very brink — someone to whom I wasn’t even related…
“…Ruby, My Dear.”
I heard a voice.
I opened my closed eyes. The stifled afternoon sunlight still glared strongly over my vision as it did came through the curtains.
His head was still sinking into the table – covered in bandage, gauze, and netting – but there was something different now: his eyes were barely opened but enough that I could see the fire within.
Our eyes met, and Rokurou-san muttered in a dried-out voice.
“…You’re always picking the sentimental stuff.”
“Grandfather!”
Shizuki leapt to her feet. Her chair fell over with metallic clatters, but she ignored it to climb into the bed and cling to Rokurou-san’s chest. His eyes moved from me to the ceiling; he looked so weak that if I hadn’t known any better, I wouldn’t have been able to tell his nearly-shut eyelids from the wrinkles on his face.
“This… is the hospital? What happened..? It wasn’t a traffic accident, was it?”
“You collapsed when we were eating… Oh Grandfather, I’m so glad you’re all right..!”
Before long, the sheets were completely soaked in Shizuki’s tears. I vacantly watched the scene before me for a time before realizing I should press the button to call for the nurse.
Rokurou-san was slowly stroking Shizuki’s hair, and he turned his eyes toward me.
“You… stayed here with Shizuki? You have my thanks…” he muttered.
I shook my head; I tried to smile, but my lips felt too stiff to move.
“It.. wasn’t anything. I just sat around in a daze really. I didn’t do anything at all.”
That was all I was able to force out.
“Your playing wasn’t bad. Bit more straightforward than Monk’s.”
The sound of Rokurou-san speaking was almost indistinguishable from his breathing.
“I’m surprised you knew. The song, I mean.”
“Call it a difference in experience,” Rokurou-san said with a dry chuckle.
“Grandfather, you mustn’t talk so much! Please rest quietly until the doctors return!”
Shizuki got off the bed and pulled up the blanket until it covered Rokurou-san’s chin, beard, and mustache.
It was around then that a number of doctors began filing in and out of the room, so I took the opportunity to sneak out.
I peeked out a window in the corridor, looking down to see the square, open courtyard at the center of the hospital. There was a small, bright patch where the shadows of the building had pushed the sunlight into, and it was there I spied a child wearing pajamas and sitting in a wheelchair, slowly chasing after a pigeon. A little further away, nurses in light-blue cardigans over white coats were weaving in and out of the rows of poplar trees.
I brought my hands up, looking them over before coming to a stop at the tips, which still felt numb.
I could still hear the echo of the piano in my ear.
It was the sound of Ruby, My Dear by Thelonious Monk. No matter how many albums he had recorded, that had been his favorite, original number. And I, too, had fallen in love with it after hearing it the first time.
Rokurou-san mentioned I was always picking sentimental songs — he was probably right.
The truth was, I couldn’t play like Monk and make sounds with thick and heavy presence. Instead, I played things simply, and that in turn showed a more childish side.
That in itself was fine. As long as it came through, as long as it connected, that was fine.
And it really did connect; despite a separation of millions, billions of kilometers, there was a moment in our solitary journeys where we connected.
I pressed my forehead against the glass, thinking about the streaking trail that was Rokurou-san — a trajectory quickly fading away.
Playing Ruby, My Dear like that… That was when we had drawn closest together.
But that moment passed, and we parted ways… And for some reason, I felt that our paths would never come that close ever again.
＊
The following week, Shizuki announced Rokurou-san’s discharge from the hospital.
“He can already go home? That’s great.”
“Yes, but, at the same time…”
Shizuki’s expression clouded over as she hesitated over her next words.
“He’s… having trouble moving his right arm and right leg. They’re putting him through rehab, but because of his age… he’s recovering very slowly.”
The incident had left Rokurou-san with hemiplegia — paralysis on one side of the body.
I recalled Rokurou-san’s drumming and how it so carefully balanced between delicate and powerful play.
And now it was gone, never to be heard again.
“He asked me to give you his apology, Makoto-san. Because he wouldn’t be able to keep his promise about the session.”
“Session..? Oh, right… Of course.”
I did want to show him how much I’d practiced as well as to play with him again, but at the same time, I didn’t feel any regret. What I felt was something else — something that was a little different from disappointment or sorrow.
It was something more like… loneliness.
It was like seeing the leaves of trees turn colors as autumn drew to a close, when they fell and piled atop the asphalt, only to be crushed under the tires of cars. This might be the ‘blues’ jazz musicians always talked about — the melancholy that chipped away at their body and soul, even as they fueled their performance with alcohol and drugs.
I could almost hear Rokurou-san telling me off, saying something like ‘It’s a hundred years too early for you to understand’
“Oh, and there was one other thing Grandfather wanted you to know.”
Shizuki suddenly sounded brighter than before, surprising me.
“He said you passed his test!”
Test? What test? And what was she jumping up and down all happy for?
“Don’t you remember?” Shizuki asked, raising an eyebrow, “It was the important test that would determine whether you could inherit the house in Meguro.”
“Oh… yeah, that. We did talk about that. It was just a joke, wasn’t it?”
“We wouldn’t joke about inheriting property.”
I mean, she’s the one inheriting it, right? She made it sound so ominous; did she have to be so loud about it too? We’re still at school, y’know?
“Hey, wait, what’d you say just now? Something about inheriting?”
Akane came over, curious. We were in the cramped music prep room, so it was no surprise the she would overhear us. In fact, Rinko, who was standing by the window and wearing a calm expression, probably heard us too.
“It’s about my grandfather’s house in Meguro, the one I mentioned before with the live space in the basement…”
Shizuki began to explain in earnest, and when she finished, Akane turned to snap at me.
“Makoto-chan! You can’t be getting married just for money!”
“Yeah, sure. I knew you were going to say something like that, and I’m not going to…”
Akane blinked rapidly in response; there was a hint of disappointment in her eyes.
“You’re not..? Then I guess I’ll take it.”
Didn’t we already have this conversation? She didn’t learn from then?
“You cannot. You have to pass the test first,” Shizuki replied in a serious tone.
“Okay, I’ll just pass it then! I gotta play the piano right? I’m like five times better at it than Makoto-chan, so this’ll be easy!”
As she spoke, Akane opened the lid of the small electric piano in the room.
“I’ll take the test, too. I want a mansion in Meguro.” Rinko suddenly joined in. “I don’t know any jazz at all, but I’m able to play at least ten times better than Murase-kun.”
Weren’t they underestimating me a little too much now? I’ve been listening to and practicing songs by Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk for the past two weeks! I wanted to say that in protest, but there was nothing I could do when they casually began a jazz improv; it was depressing to hear how their skills were fifity times better than mine.
“That’s not good enough at all! And don’t underestimate jazz like that! Do you think playing like that is good enough to steal what’s mine?!”
And why was Shizuki joining in too?
But they looked like they were having fun, so I left them alone and went over to the music room next door.
I practiced a whole lot just to be able to play, you know! Here, try listening! And despite protesting so, I still checked to make sure no one was around before sitting on the bench and opening the lid of the grand piano.
But as soon as I hit the keyboard, the fantasy of how Ruby, My Dear filled the microcosmos of the hospital room that day shattered into pieces. It was so shocking that my fingers became tangled and stopped moving just eight bars in.
Was I… always this bad?
Wait, actually, thinking about it, I understood why: back then, I hadn’t actually played anything at all. It was just me imagining the best possible performance. It was obvious that if I compared that to my actual playing, it would come out sounding like this.
I understood why, but…
…that wouldn’t do anything to soothe the frustration in my heart.
I wanted to escape to that desert island myself now, and like Rokurou-san had answered, I would bring nothing related to music. I just wanted the sea to wash me away before leaving me ashore on the sandy beach, where I would sit and stare up at the stars as I hugged my knees close.
There, all I could hear would be the sound of the waves washing over the tips of my toes.
And until the girls came out of the prep room, I let myself soak in a delusion of piano melody on a beach. The incredible feeling of it all brought me to tears.
Headcanon TL 
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