The first time they went, it was awful.
Oishi surveyed the faces of the other first years as they witnessed the spectacle. Whether they felt quite as embarrassed as he did wasn't clear, but by the way they were shifting in their seats and smiling hesitantly at one another, Oishi could tell they weren't exactly enjoying themselves.
They were at a karaoke parlour, and his new friend Kikumaru Eiji was completely and utterly tone deaf.
He flushed red with embarrassment on his friend's behalf. Eiji sang loudly, rarely in time and without a single note that hit the mark. What made it worse was that Eiji didn't seem to be aware of this, and embraced the spotlight unabashedly, signing on for seven more songs with uncurbed enthusiasm.
Oishi didn't think he had the manners to sit through seven more songs.
Especially when they were the love ballads that Eiji seemed so fond of belting out, dramatic arms flung here and there without abandon.
The fourth time they went Eiji's friend Fuji came along.
By this stage their other first year friends seemed to have forgiven Eiji's abysmal singing, and laughed and clapped whenever Eiji performed imitations of Gackto or Hyde, or tacked a dramatic dying scene onto the end of one of his love ballads.
Oishi still couldn't help but feel embarrassed.
Fuji was an interesting one. His visage never displayed anything but a measured calm, so Oishi wouldn't be able to tell if he also felt like squirming in his seat.
But when Fuji completed a duet with Eiji, and congratulated him on his 'nice singing', Oishi was gobsmacked.
Was he the only one who still noticed?
More importantly, why was he the only one who seemed to care?
The ninth time Oishi really enjoyed himself.
Eiji was still tone deaf, but bit by bit Oishi had come to notice things he'd never heard or seen. For instance, there was a slight delicacy in the tenor of his voice whenever Eiji sang of unrequited love, and Oishi noticed how occasionally he'd close his eyes when immersed in one of the more beautiful bridge sections.
Oishi also noticed that Eiji's performances were definite ice breakers, and many a time some of their more hesitant classmates had been encouraged by an awful rendition of Celine Dion to have a go with the microphone.
The eighteenth time they went, it was second year, and life was in full and steady swing. Eiji had made friends with some of the new first year students, in particular a boisterous young boy named Momoshiro. This time they had managed to cram a good twenty tennis club members into one of the larger karaoke studios, and Oishi had convinced Tezuka to come along. Somehow.
Eiji's singing had definitely improved. His light tenor seemed to sail over notes he had previously struggled with (or missed entirely), and his sense of timing wasn't erroneous, but creative. He had started to pick songs better suited to his voice, and Oishi had started to admire his interpretation of them.
He had stopped being painfully aware of the attitudes of his other classmates, and what type of experience they were having.
Oishi was startled when Tezuka tapped him on the shoulder, passed him the folder of songs, and asked him if he was feeling quite well as he had been staring off into space for a good ten minutes.
The thirty-third time they went, another year had come and gone. Eiji had a new freshman to look after (though Momoshiro quickly took over that task) and Oishi was vice-captain of the tennis club. Karaoke was a genuinely relaxing activity that he had come to relish, and Eiji was now a singer.
Oishi looked forward to Eiji's ballads with a sort of secret delight- he'd never noticed until this year the emotion that his friend put into his singing. Soft passages, intense passages, rounded phrases and a sense of timbre that Oishi couldn't believe he hadn't appreciated before. Energetic dance moves, and sometimes a secret smile directed only at him that would set off another round of tingles in his chest.
Oishi felt quite proud at how far his friend had come.
As they walked out of the karaoke parlour into a dusky summer evening, Oishi found himself in conversation with Momoshiro and Echizen. They walked slightly behind the other regular players, Oishi's attention on his friend's happy as he engaged in animated conversation with Fuji. Momo and Echizen were discussing the prospects of the regular players as future singers.
"Kawamura-sempai would be a heavy-metal singer."
"You think so, Echizen? I think our mamushii would, you can never really hear what he's trying to say anyway…"
"And Tezuka-buchou would sing in a hotel, you know, in a suit with a piano..."
"What about Eiji?" Oishi interjected, "He's pretty good you know- I think he could front a rock band, or maybe even go into popular music…"
Oishi trailed off as Momo and Echizen stopped walking, looked at him in shock and then burst into wild and excessive laughter, grabbing onto each other for support.
"What? What is it?"
Echizen managed to control his mirth just enough to come out with-
"But…but Oishi-sempai… weren't you listening properly? That could never happen! Eiji-sempai is completely and utterly tone-deaf!"