Chapter 112
The girl holding the bass with surprising confidence sat on the demonstration stool, loosened up her fingers for a moment, and began playing the fretless bass.
The sound coming from the instrument was closer to random plunking than music. The song itself seemed to be the intro to ZUTOMAYO’s “Zanki” (残機), but the pitch was terribly off.
“It sounds weird.”
“This is really hard. The sound isn’t coming out properly, either. Is it because there are no frets?”
The girls were speaking to one another in Korean. The girl who had played the bass had confidently taken on the challenge of playing a fretless, but when the sound came out strangely, she looked embarrassed… Even so, he was quite surprised by her skill.
‘Judging by her playing form, she looks like she’s never played a fretless before, but there’s something unusual about her.’
A fretless bass is a type of bass with no frets embedded in the middle of the neck. The lack of frets allows it to produce a more classical sound, but it also makes it an instrument that demands far more precise fingering and a better sense of pitch.
For that reason, the fact that the girl was playing like that should be considered impressive rather than a sign that she had no idea what she was doing. Even though she was playing a fretless for the first time, she was still managing to create something that could be called music.
Judging by the way she played while appropriately adding slaps and vibrato, she seemed to be quite a skilled bassist. The poor sound was probably because she hadn’t adapted to the fretless bass yet.
“That’s because it’s a fretless bass. That’s how the instrument is.”
“Uh… hi? Hm? What is he saying?”
“He says it’s because it’s fretless. Apparently, that’s how the instrument is.”
“Oh… arigato, arigato.”
After saying that, the tall girl put the bass back down. The girls then scattered and began looking at the instruments. Unlike when they had first entered, he now thought there was a chance these girls might generate some significant sales.
That thought grew even stronger when the prettiest girl among them brought over a red guitar.
A Fender Stratocaster, a ’57 American Vintage Reissue in Candy Apple Red.
He wanted to explain the guitar to her. He could have told her that it was famous as one of David Gilmour’s second guitars, or that Gilmour had used EMG pickups. But she didn’t seem to understand Japanese at all, so it felt awkward to say anything. Even when he spoke to her in Japanese, she merely listened with an expressionless face.
‘What a shame. The fact that she picked up a guitar like that must be fate. If she knew its history, she might be more inclined to buy it…’
Thinking that, he helped set up the demonstration equipment according to the high school girl’s requests, conveyed through gestures. He gestured to ask whether she wanted him to set the tone for her, but she shook her head and fiddled with the amplifier herself, roughly creating her own tone.
And when she began to play, he was truly shocked.
Because what unfolded from the girl’s hands… was the solo from “Sorrow,” one of Pink Floyd’s great later masterpieces. It was an intense performance played over a bluesy tone created with a single amplifier.
It was obvious at a glance that she wasn’t an adult. To him, she looked more like the sort of girl who would be friends with boys than someone who would play a guitar like this. Or perhaps the sort who would debut as an idol and sing K-pop… She had the appearance of someone who was clearly spending her youth at an ordinary high school.
But the girl’s hands conveyed a depth of experience that was difficult to believe belonged to a girl. It was the kind of performance that seemed to approach the realm of a master, with every single note played carefully and filled with emotion rather than thrown away carelessly.
For about two minutes, or perhaps three… While the performance continued, the owner, startled by the sound, poked his head out from behind the counter. When the performance ended, he naturally approached while applauding. The small sound of applause echoed through the store.
“That was incredible… May I ask when you started playing guitar?”
The girl tilted her head at that. He spoke to the owner.
“Boss, she’s Korean. I don’t think she speaks Japanese.”
“Oh dear.”
The owner shrugged awkwardly. He had been saying for a while that his hobby band didn’t have a guitarist… From the look of things, he had wanted to recruit her as the band’s guitarist. Leaving the owner smacking his lips in disappointment, he took out his phone and opened the translator.
[This guitar is a Fender ’57 Reissue Strat. It was reissued again in ’83. It’s famous for having been used by David Gilmour. Since it’s Candy Apple, the color is the same as well.]
After reading what he had written, the girl took out her own phone and turned on the translator.
[How much is it?]
[It’s 500,000 yen. Since it’s also a famous color, it’s quite an expensive instrument.]
After reading the message he showed her, the girl folded her arms as though hesitating. He even felt like giving her the guitar for free. It reminded him of the shoe-store owner in Slam Dunk gifting Hanamichi (花道, Sakuragi’s original name) a Jordan 1 Bred, whose value was already skyrocketing at the time.
But Slam Dunk was fiction, while what he was facing was reality. If he casually gave away a 500,000-yen guitar, he would have to live on nothing but bean sprouts for several months. Besides, this girl had no connection to him, so he couldn’t do that.
“What’s wrong? Did you find an instrument you like?”
“I did, but it costs about five million won.”
“Hmm… It is expensive.”
While the girl talked with the person who might have been her aunt or guardian, he tidied up the slightly disordered displays. Quite a few people had begun peering into the store after hearing the demonstration, and the shop had become rather crowded.
In the middle of all that, the girl who had played the fretless brought down another bass and shouted,
“Suyeon! I’m going to buy this.”
“Then buy it. Why are you asking me?”
What the girl had brought down was a Rickenbacker 4001. It was an early model that was no longer in production. It was a left-handed bass whose white finish had faded slightly into a cream color with age.
“The tone will be a little different from the bass you normally use. It might feel awkward going from a Fender Precision to a Rickenbacker.”
“The tone can be handled with effects. More importantly, isn’t this gorgeous? This cream color is really pretty. It kind of looks like an iPhone’s cream color.”
The guitar girl looked sullen, while the bassist grinned energetically. He couldn’t understand what they were saying, but overall, it seemed as though the tall girl was asking the shorter girl for her opinion. They bickered back and forth for a while, then stopped talking and showed him the translator.
[Could the two of us play for a moment? We’d like to see if we can play together.]
“えーと…”
They weren’t just going to demonstrate the instruments—they wanted to see if they could play together. He hesitated for a moment, then asked the owner. The owner readily gave them permission, and he helped set up the two amplifiers, curious about what kind of performance they intended to show him.
“What song are you going to play?”
“We were going to try ‘Zanki,’ but now that I think about it, the pickguard makes slapping impossible. I guess we should just do something safe.”
The two girls mumbled something he couldn’t understand, then matched their rhythm for a moment before beginning to play.
And he was surprised for the second time.
And he wasn’t the only one who was surprised.
This time, most of the customers in the store turned to look at the two high school girls.
The song began with a sweet sound. Anyone who knew music would say, “Ah, this song!” while even people knowledgeable about subculture would be likely to say, “Wait, this song?”
The intro began with a quiet, beautiful guitar sound.
Then, as a lively melody began alongside hybrid picking that used both a pick and the fingers, an exciting bass line surged forward. For some reason, he felt as though he could see a subtitle reading [TO BE CONTINUED].
‘Good Lord.’
The girl playing guitar began to sing. The moment he heard the first line, he instinctively felt that he had to record what was happening.
The odds of two Korean high school girls he had never met or even seen before suddenly walking in and starting to play a song together under the pretense of a demonstration… a timeless masterpiece destined to remain in history, and one of the most famous subculture memes, “Roundabout.” And on top of that, the odds that the two of them would have absolutely incredible chemistry and play amazingly well.
Could such odds even exist?
If he uploaded this video to YouTube, it was obvious that it would provide an enormous amount of publicity for the store. The owner seemed to think so too. He hurriedly brought over some recording equipment and gestured to him, as if telling him to obtain permission from the adult.
“Excuse me, sorry, but…”
“OK, You can record that.”
He approached in an extremely apologetic manner, but the beautiful woman who looked like their chaperone smiled brightly and gestured for him to start recording, as though saying, ‘I know what you’re going to ask.’ He bowed his head in gratitude, quickly set up the equipment, and began recording.
For some reason, the store manager even turned on the external speakers at a low volume, sending the music outside. People drawn in by the sound laughed as though wondering what was going on, and some even filmed it because they found it entertaining.
And in the middle of that pandemonium, the two high school girls were deeply immersed in their own world, as though they couldn’t care less about their surroundings. The other two girls who appeared to be part of their group looked slightly annoyed, though.
* * *
“That was fun.”
After the bizarre impromptu performance at the instrument store, they ate dinner and gathered in their room. That was when Iseo suddenly blurted out those words. Judging by her deeply satisfied expression, Myeongjeon thought she really had enjoyed herself.
“They had all that fun playing just for themselves… And we were left behind because our instruments need to be set up…”
“Yeah. Are they not even considerate of drums and keyboards? Are we not people? Are they saying we’re lowly because we’re stationary instruments?”
“No, that’s not what I meant! Why are you suddenly ganging up on me?”
The three girls bickered. Myeongjeon lay leisurely on someone else’s bed and watched them talk nonsense. They were saying things like, “Who’s more responsible for this situation?” Then they glanced at Myeongjeon for a moment before turning away again and whispering among themselves.
“If you’ve got nothing to do, go to sleep. I’m going to sleep too. I’ll just go talk to Mom.”
“I do have something to do. I found it while I was looking around the room earlier.”
Iseo smirked as she rummaged through a drawer, then showed them something. The drawer was packed with alcohol. Yamazaki, Glenlivet, Jack Daniel’s… Myeongjeon wondered intensely why things like this were in a hotel room occupied by minors.
“Let’s just have one drink of this.”
“What?”
“I already reached an agreement with Seoha earlier. We said we’d each have just one drink.”
Hyuna let out a scream-like cry. But Seoha held up a finger, signaling her to be quiet. It was the kind of gesture one might make while committing a crime.
“You’re going to drink alcohol while underage?”
Myeongjeon spoke with an exasperated expression. But Iseo’s reply left him unable to say anything.
“You drank when you were young too. You used to down two or three bottles of soju at a time…”
It was a logically coherent rebuttal. Myeongjeon merely kept his mouth shut and watched the two girls who wanted to rebel conspire together before finally managing to speak.
“It won’t even taste that good. It’s just bitter. And since it’s whiskey, you’ll probably pass out immediately.”
“Hey. Think about it logically. Then why do adults guzzle alcohol, and why did you drink so much back then? People must drink because there’s some benefit to it, right?”
Iseo didn’t seem like she would listen no matter what he said. Myeongjeon looked at Seoha with an expression that said, ‘Try talking her out of it,’ but Seoha, while pretending otherwise, was staring at the alcohol with an excited expression.
‘This is hopeless.’
“Hey. I’m not going to tell you not to drink. But don’t drink that. If you open it, you’ll have to pay several hundred thousand won. You’re better off drinking the beer or something from the fridge.”
“Really? You said we could drink?”
The two girls excitedly took beers out of the refrigerator, as though they had received permission.
Leaving Hyuna, who had retreated a good distance away while declaring that she wouldn’t drink, they spread out some Saewookkang (Myeongjeon had no idea why a Korean snack was even there) on the table…
Iseo and Seoha’s (illegal) drinking party began…!
* * *
Before bed, Hyein wondered whether the girls were sleeping well and why Suyeon hadn’t come over, so she knocked on their door. After a moment, the door creaked and opened slightly. Through the gap, she saw Hyuna wearing an expression as though she had committed a crime.
“Hyuna, what’s wrong?”
“Uh… um…”
“Are the others asleep?”
“The thing is…”
Hyuna looked so strange that Hyein applied a little force and opened the door. Hyuna was dragged along with it, letting out a “Hieeek…”
Hyein entered the room. There didn’t seem to be any problem, but the girls themselves were in a strange state.
“What’s wrong with them?”
“Well… They took some alcohol out of the fridge and drank it.”
Hyuna’s answer was so absurd that Hyein stared at Suyeon in shock. The girls’ parents had trusted her and left them in her care, so how had the girls ended up like this? And why hadn’t Suyeon stopped them?
“Suyeon. You should have stopped them.”
“How could I stop them? I did something like that in the past too. They wouldn’t listen no matter what I said.”
Hyein fell silent for a moment at Suyeon’s words. Now that she thought about it, she was right. From the situation before her, it looked as though the two girls hadn’t even been able to finish a single 500-milliliter can of beer before becoming completely woozy and collapsing.
And her daughter had a history of drinking soju straight from the bottle, regardless of whether there was a can of beer involved. How could someone like that stop these girls? It was fortunate enough that she hadn’t joined them.
“Still, now that they’ve tried it once, they’ll get over the habit. Seeing as they couldn’t even finish one can between them… they probably won’t even touch alcohol again now…”
Watching Suyeon say that, Hyein pressed a hand to her forehead. Her daughter was a minor, yet she was pretending to know all about alcohol and speaking as though she had already lived an entire life. She shouldn’t have been so casually adopting the attitude of ‘someone who has drunk a lot’ in the first place…