Kazami Haru was the first to step forward, striding past Bocchi and confidently taking his place at the keyboard station to Nijika's front-right. With his left hand, he began testing the keys, lightly tapping out notes.
His sudden appearance with strikingly handsome features and a punk-style earring in his right ear, immediately drew attention. That cool, metal-rock aura was magnetic, and even people who hadn't been that interested instinctively looked up.
He noticed some of the fans who had bought tickets during their last street performance. Despite the heavy rain, they had come all the way here to see them again. Even Haru felt a sudden sense of reward, like all the effort had finally paid off.
"Ah—"
"Anon-chan really did come." Kita, standing in the center at the vocalist's spot, murmured softly.
Haru slowly lifted his gaze, scanning the crowd from his elevated position.
Among the audience stood a vivid flash of cherry-pink hair, impossible to miss. At the very back, Chihaya Anon grinned brightly, baring her little fang as she waved enthusiastically alongside the rest of MyGO!!!!!.
"Hm?"
Only then did Haru notice that even Taki had shown up.
Shiina Taki stood beside Anon with arms crossed, wearing a cold expression. But her sharp lavender eyes were locked tightly onto him, like she'd interrogate him on the spot if a single note went wrong.
As for Soyo, she waved at him with her usual gentle smile, not showing a trace of what had happened yesterday. Seeing her like that, Haru felt more at ease.
"Then please listen to our original song—Guitar, Loneliness and Blue Planet!"
As Kita tried to hype the crowd, Nijika, seated in the back, gave her drumsticks a nervous squeeze.
Bang bang—
The stage lights suddenly dimmed. In the next moment, the combined sound of instruments filled the space.
Without the familiar "No. 5 paper bag" on her head, Hitori Gotoh lowered her head slightly. With a pick in her right hand, she swept the strings rapidly in the intro, laying down a calm, solid rhythm.
Haru's keyboard flowed in seamlessly with Bocchi's guitar, and the timing of the bass and drums was spot-on. From the very first bar, the performance showed no clear flaws.
Even Kita, despite her nerves, only had a slight tremble in her voice.
"Wow…"
Takamatsu Tomori stared at the stage, stunned.
It was Kita Ikuyo's first time on stage—an absolute beginner—and yet she sang her lines without flinching. Even Anon was shocked, her mouth slightly agape.
She knew Kita had always quietly competed with her during practice, but to think she was secretly putting in this much work? Singing and playing that steadily?
"…"
Kazami Haru remained vigilant.
His long fingers danced across the keys, his calm gaze scanning the others.
Kita's voice still wavered slightly, but her guitar was holding steady.
Finger technique doesn't come overnight, but she had been training hard with Anon, and probably putting in secret extra practice too.
Even though it was her debut performance as both the lead singer and rhythm guitarist, she hadn't made a single mistake so far.
The audience started to notice how good the song was. Even those who had been chatting slowly fell silent, focusing in on the performance.
"Tarinai, tarinai… dare ni mo kidzukarenai—"
But right as the song hit its emotional peak, the tension finally cracked. Probably from nerves, Kita's timing slipped by a beat.
Realizing her breath was off, she tried to return to the original tempo.
At the same time, Nijika, who was especially sensitive to rhythm, followed Kita's shift and sped up her drumming slightly, probably hoping to support her.
But one was speeding up, the other trying to slow down—
Naturally, the rhythm started to break apart.
Yamada Ryo, who tended to lose herself in her own playing, frowned. With the drums thrown off, her bass couldn't stay synced either. She had no choice but to stick to her own beat.
With three parts now destabilized, the flaws in the performance became glaringly obvious.
"Is it… falling apart a bit?" Anon murmured, confused.
Soyo's smile now held a hint of worry. Even Ranna, halfway through her matcha parfait, looked up from the counter.
Something had gone wrong.
Even someone like Anon, who knew the least about music, could sense the problem. Shiina Taki, being extremely rhythm-sensitive, had already diagnosed the issue, though her face stayed stoic.
The drum kit is the heartbeat of the band. If it fails, everything falls.
"Bass, drums, and guitar—all showing some degree of disruption."
A familiar voice came from beside Taki, who turned in surprise.
"Umiri?"
Yahata Umiri, bass case in hand, was now standing beside them, calm as ever.
From the look of her, Taki guessed she was here as a hired gun, probably filling in for one of the bands tonight.
But no one had time to greet her now. The stage rhythm was clearly teetering on collapse.
"…Haru…"
Tomori gripped her skirt anxiously, eyes fixed on Kazami Haru.
This is bad…
Haru's keyboard hadn't changed, still holding the original tempo.
But the cascading errors from the rest of the band had turned the song into a chaotic mess. Even though Bocchi desperately strummed her guitar to recalibrate, the impact was minimal.
A single guitar couldn't carry that weight.
Haru could feel the stillness settle in, like even the air had frozen. The heavy bass and screeching guitar tones piled up like static, suffocating the space.
As keyboardist, his role was to embellish the band's sound.
The keyboard's wide range and texture make a song complete. And even though the guitar is usually the main instrument, Haru never believed his responsibility ended there.
He'd always believed he had to carry more.
[Activating "Master Pianist Kazami Reina" 10-Minute Experience Card]
His fingers kept moving, but Haru suddenly took a deep breath.
The noise around him faded to silence, almost like his body had blocked it out.
The world went still and heavy. But the moment his fingers touched the keys, the smooth black and white surface became an extension of himself. With his eyes closed, he could play anything at will.
The notes surged from his fingertips, dancing across the keys—
Whrrrnnng!
As the interlude approached, a sudden burst of brilliant high notes from the piano jolted the others from their daze. The confused bandmates flinched, every pair of eyes now on him, startled.
Kazami Haru's calm, half-open gaze remained steady as his long fingers took over the melody.
Smooth, arpeggiated runs combined with high-level octave crossings. His fingers spun across the keyboard like a painter's brush, blending colors into a radiant melody.
Gotoh Hitori was the first to respond.
A flicker of determination lit her eyes. Her sweaty right palm gripped the pick tighter.
A chance!
Without lifting her head, Bocchi matched Haru's pace, her strumming hand becoming a blur as her fretting fingers raced across the chords.
Her compressed guitar tone now fused perfectly with the keyboard's electronic harmony. Fast and intense, her playing gave the instrumental break a raw and electrifying energy.
"…?"
Seeing Haru's sudden transformation, Kita Ikuyo froze for a beat.
Luckily, it was the instrumental section, no vocals required, giving her just enough time to catch up.
The chaotic momentum was immediately broken by the arpeggios—Nijika, Ryo, and Kita exchanged glances and silently synced up again. Nijika quickly and precisely stabilized her drumming, and Ryo immediately got back on beat.
Yamada Ryo's golden eyes were full of surprise, but her hands didn't hesitate in the slightest.
What they were playing now wasn't the simplified version they had rehearsed, it was the original, high-difficulty version of the sheet music that she and Haru had composed together from the start!
She hadn't expected the others to be capable of handling it yet. And yet—
Bocchi and Kazami Haru had suddenly displayed overwhelming technique.
"Why all of a sudden…?"
Nagasaki Soyo looked stunned. The sudden transformation of the performance was hard to believe.
She watched Haru, completely immersed in his music under the stage lights, and her sapphire-blue eyes shimmered.
"Amazing! Haru is insanely good!"
Chihaya Anon, who didn't bother overthinking things, wore her excitement openly.
All she knew was that Haru's flashy solo had completely stabilized the rhythm of the song and the rich tone layered in the second half was like an overwhelming auditory feast, flooding straight into her brain.
The rest of the crowd noticed, too.
Even the people who had been messing around on their phones stared in astonishment. The precise, high-level keyboard fingerwork combined with perfect tonal control felt as natural as breathing.
It was a visual and auditory knockout.
"That guy… you've got to be kidding me…"
Only Shiina Taki, in the audience, was truly shocked.
During practice, she had sensed that Haru's musical theory and emotional expression didn't quite match his keyboard technique. She'd assumed he was a theory genius but only average at playing.
But here he was, in his very first live show, performing a sequence of arpeggios that even seasoned professionals would struggle with, so fluid and emotional it flowed like water.
She had thought his technical skills were lagging behind.
But no. Not at all.
Not only was he a theory genius, he was a real performance prodigy too.
Up there, expressionless yet commanding the stage, Kazami Haru appeared dazzling in Taki's eyes and she couldn't help but feel a surge of quiet frustration.
…
The performance reached its final stretch.
Even after they stepped off the stage, everyone still looked a little dazed. For Nijika, the feeling was especially vivid.
Her arms were still tingling from the aftershock of holding the drumsticks.
"Phew… I really thought we were done for…"
Ijichi Nijika felt like she'd been swept up by that divine energy guiding the band, so much so that, by the end, she was fully lost in the music.
Her arms never felt tired; she just kept playing one intense beat after another.
"Everyone worked really hard! That was a great show!"
Though her hands were trembling from exhaustion, Nijika quickly rallied the group with cheerful encouragement.
"S-Sorry! I jumped the beat back there…" Kita's voice was a little hoarse, probably from singing her heart out.
"But your breath control later on was flawless. I started wondering if this really was your first time on stage."
Haru passed her a cup of water with a small, casual compliment. Kita's nervous expression bloomed into a smile, her eyes sparkling with relief.
They were all exhausted, but happy.
"The audience looked really excited in the end. I saw a bunch of people clapping!"
"Yeah, yeah! Even though it was just a debut as an opener, it was a big success!"
"There's an afterparty, right?! Yay~!"
Kita, now hydrated and no longer shaking, beamed with renewed energy.
The panic and anxiety she had hidden before now gave way to pure joy and exhilaration. She chattered away with Nijika, giddy and glowing with excitement.
No one said it aloud, but they all knew.
The one who pulled the performance back from chaos, was Haru at the keyboard.
"Ow… It's your fault for playing that hard," Ryo muttered with a slight pout, rubbing her fingertips, now marked red from the pressure.
Still, for her, this was barely worth complaining about.
She even had the energy to crack a joke.
"Ahaha~ Next time, go even harder."
With a teasing smirk, Kazami Haru tossed her innuendo right back at her.
Seeing everyone smile so naturally, even Hitori Gotoh couldn't stop the curve rising at her lips.
Her heart still beat fast, just like it had on stage, that rush hadn't faded. The excitement and focus still buzzed inside her.
She had truly worried halfway through the performance. Even she rarely played with such intensity and though she had tried hard to fix it, the song had already started spiraling beyond recovery.
Until Haru stepped in during the interlude—his soaring, high-difficulty solo grabbed everyone's attention and gave Bocchi the courage to follow.
It was that unspoken "nudge" from him that helped Kita and Nijika find their rhythm again.
"Whew…"
Kazami Haru finally sat down to rest, hands trembling slightly.
After using his daughter's "experience card," he could feel how much his state had shifted.
Techniques that had always eluded him suddenly locked into place like perfectly interlocking gears. Everything from his breathing, emotional flow, his hands just worked.
It felt incredibly freeing.
And without that card, he never would've been able to rescue the song with those relentless, flowing arpeggios.
His daughter's skill was ridiculously useful.
"But it's still kind of unbelievable…"
He frowned slightly, glancing at his virtual console.
["Keyboard LV2" has advanced to "Keyboard LV3"]
["Music Theory LV3" has advanced to "Music Theory LV4"]
Unreal. A single experience card had given him that much growth.
He had known these cards sometimes unlocked deeper insight, letting you level up—but he didn't expect both his keyboard and theory to advance at once.
Now Music Theory was his third LV4 skill.
Was this thanks to his passive trait Music Prodigy LV1? Could it be accelerating his comprehension and learning?
"Haru."
Just then, a finger poked him gently on the shoulder.
Ryo had sidled up at some point. Her voice cool, her breath brushing his ear as she leaned in.
"When did you learn to play like that? Better come clean."
"Or you're not going home tonight."
- - -
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