The studio smelled like stale coffee and ambition.
It was tucked into the second floor of a run-down building above a ramen joint, the kind of place where dreams were recorded in soundproofed rooms and edited into something cleaner, brighter, more palatable. Despite the peeling paint and narrow stairwell, the space itself was impressive. Thick, gray walls. A cramped booth with tangled cables. A couch worn thin by sleepless artists. To Shino, it was everything she thought she wanted.
This was it. The real thing. And she hated how fake it felt.
Aki was already deep in conversation with the sound engineer, a lanky guy named Koji who wore headphones even when he wasn't working. She was speaking a mile a minute, describing tone, dynamics, energy. It was as if she had studied for this moment. Shino watched her from the corner, feeling more like an extra than a bandmate.
"Can we try layering the chorus vocals?" Aki was saying.
"Like a low harmony under my main line, and then some distortion on the last refrain."
Koji nodded, clicking away at his computer. "Yeah, I can mess with that. Might make it punchier."
Shino sat on the threadbare couch, her guitar on her lap, silently going over the chords again. She had played them a hundred times, but somehow they still felt uncertain, like they hadn't settled into her fingers yet. Or maybe it was her that hadn't settled into them. Mika leaned back beside her, plucking at her bass, relaxed as always.
"You look like you're about to get a root canal."
Shino let out a breath.
"I don't know. Everything's moving too fast."
Mika tilted her head.
"Fast isn't always bad. But yeah… I get it. Recording's weird. You think it's just going to be like practice, but it's not. It's all stripped down. No crowd to distract you. Just you and every tiny mistake in hi-def."
Kanna entered a moment later, wiping her hands with a paper towel.
"Aki's already trying to remix the whole album, isn't she?"
"She wants to lead," Mika said with a shrug.
"That's how she works. Let her drive the first few miles."
"But it's not just about her," Shino murmured, more to herself than anyone else.
That was the crux of it, wasn't it? Somewhere between their viral video and this padded room, the band had tilted. What began as collaboration was becoming direction. Aki's direction. Shino didn't hate her for it—not exactly. Aki was ambitious, yes. Visionary, even. But she was also stubborn. And as their exposure grew, so did her belief that she knew what was best for Lucid Dreams.
"Alright!"
Aki clapped her hands.
"Let's warm up with 'Glass Heart.' Kanna, give me something tighter on the snare this time. Mika, we'll slow the bridge just a little. Shino—keep your phrasing like last rehearsal, but maybe add a little more flair on the second verse? More… emotion."
More emotion. Shino bristled at the suggestion, even if Aki didn't mean it harshly. They ran the song twice. The second take was better, but Aki wasn't satisfied.
Koji leaned into the mic from the control room.
"Sounds good on our end. You want to move on?"
Aki hesitated.
"Let's go one more. Shino, on the bridge, try stretching that final note. Just hang on to it. Make people feel it."
Shino didn't answer, just nodded. Her hands felt heavier than before.
The third take was solid, technically clean. But Shino felt like she was reading someone else's diary. These were her own chords, her own lyrics—but Aki's performance. Her fingerprints were all over it.
When they stepped out of the booth, the band gathered around Koji's screen to listen to the playback. The room filled with their song, but to Shino, it sounded distant, hollow—like a photograph of something vibrant. Almost right. But not alive.
"Nice," Mika said, nodding along.
"It's got bite," Koji agreed.
"You'll turn heads with this."
Shino swallowed the tightness in her throat.
"Can we… try one version with the original tempo? Just to hear the difference?"
Aki gave her a strange look.
"But the slowdown adds contrast. It builds tension into the final chorus."
"Yeah, but the original had this urgency. I just—can we try it?"
A beat of silence passed. Kanna glanced between them. Aki smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"Sure. Let's run it your way. We'll compare."
They recorded both versions. Shino felt the difference immediately. Her fingers moved like they remembered what the song used to mean. Not what it was supposed to mean now, not the strategy or the image—but the raw feeling they'd written it with in the first place. And for a moment, she remembered why she loved this. Why she started writing songs in her bedroom, alone.
But as they listened back, Aki stayed quiet. Then she stood up and said, flatly,
"We'll use the second version. The other one's too rough."
Shino stared at her.
"But that one felt more honest."
"Honest doesn't always sound good," Aki replied.
"We're not kids recording on our phones anymore. This is real now. People expect quality."
"People also want truth," Shino said quietly.
"Truth can be edited," Aki shot back, too fast.
The room went quiet.
Koji awkwardly cleared his throat.
"You guys wanna break for lunch?"
They did. But the silence followed them to the tiny ramen shop downstairs, settling in like a cold draft between bowls of miso and noodles. Shino barely touched her food. Mika tried to make small talk. Kanna stared into her tea.
Back in the studio, they pushed through two more tracks. Aki led every take. Kanna adapted, ever professional. Mika went along with the flow. Shino kept playing, kept singing. But her heart began to drift.
She felt like she was losing something. Not control—she had never really wanted control. But clarity. Purpose. That sense that they were building something together, that each note had a piece of all of them in it. Now, it was like Aki was writing the story and they were just acting it out. And yet, when the demos were done and the lights clicked off, Aki was glowing.
"This is it," she said, looking at the flash drive in Koji's hand.
"This is the start of something real."
Shino nodded slowly.But inside, a quiet question echoed: Whose dream are we chasing now?