RECORDING

Chapter Fifteen

Heart of Gold

Aware though Sawako was that the Light Music Club members were practically tearing out their hair with anxiety, she herself couldn't wait for their performance at Hair that night. Mio and Azusa, fretting over tuning and polishing their respective instruments, snapped at the sensei. They had called her insensitive. Sawako had blithely shrugged it off. She couldn't help it. It was a good day. In Advanced Guitar class she just had them watch a Rolling Stones concert. In Intro to Keyboard she had to give a test, which was tedious, but she was pleased with the results: not a D or an F in the lot. She hadn't seen Tokudaiji today, and she was hoping he was out with a substitute filling in. She was happy. And the icing of this great day was her anticipation of tonight's concert. It was nice to have something to look forward to.

Presently she was on her way to homeroom. She had just grabbed the doorknob when Mugi rounded the farthest corner. The ojou's face was ashen and brooding, her dim eyes focused on the floor. Upon seeing Sawako Mugi's face unpinched slightly. She smiled, though the older woman could see her bushy eyebrows were furrowed.

Sawako returned Mugi's smile. "Hey, you," she greeted warmly.

"Hi." The keyboardist's voice was low, leaden with sadness.

The sensei put her hand upon Mugi's head, pushing her flaxen bangs out of her tense face. "What's eating you?"

Mugi leaned her head into Sawako's stroking hand, closing her eyes. She looked completely drained: her stately bearing was reduced to a slouch and her pale face had a grayish tint. "I can't perform in the concert tonight," she proclaimed.

Sawako's hand hesitated, then continued pulling through Mugi's jaune tresses; it seemed to soothe her. Well, now what? What are we going to do without Mugi-chan? That question clamored through Sawako's brain, and she shook her head in annoyance. She'd have to answer that question from every Light Music Club member when they heard about this.

The teacher didn't bother asking why. She knew it was because of the Tokyo Prefecture Solo and Ensemble Contest.

"I'm sorry, Sawa-chan," Mugi said miserably, looking up at her girlfriend. Tears glittered in her eyes, gluing her lower eyelashes into yellow triangles. "I don't know what I could've done…"

"Shh, it's okay." Sawako wished they weren't in school, else she would have taken the keyboardist in her arms and held her until she calmed down. But this was Sakura High School, where both of them were expected to act professional (were any other girl crying, Sawako would have had her remanded to a guidance counselor). Keeping an innocent distance from Mugi, the sensei used her other hand to brush away her tears. "We'll figure something out, I promise."

"I hope so. I'll give it more thought, but I have to make up my mind before the end of school. After band practice I'm taking a train to Tokyo." She withdrew a bit from Sawako. From her pocket she produced a small, pink pass. "I won't be in homeroom today. I have to go to the computer lab and print out something for my Economics class."

"Alright," Sawako nodded. "I won't mark you absent."

The sensei watched her go, noting how Mugi's shoulders returned to their pensively slumped state. The ojou rounded the corner and disappeared from sight. What should I do? Sawako wondered. I promised her I'd figure it out. Never in her life had Sawako broken a promise, and she didn't intend to ever do so. After all, keeping a promise was what honor and idealism were all about — two hallmarks of the teacher's personality.

"I see you've failed to heed my warning, Sawako-san."

Then there were other teachers who didn't have such fiber.

Sawako turned to face him coldly. "What sort of a person would I be if I subjected myself to everyone's 'warnings,' Tokudaiji-san?"

"You would be a fool," the psych teacher responded smoothly, "because my warning could have saved you your job and your reputation. Now…" He sighed. He was one of those men who kept a stiff upper lip, baring only his bottom row of teeth when he spoke. "Now I guess it's too late."

Sawako faltered momentarily, terrified that Tokudaiji had handed her over to Mrs. Murakami. Once the rational half of her brain was restored, she realized the headmistress would have brought it up when they passed each other five minutes ago. Bouncing back, she retorted, "I know you, Tokudaiji-san. I know everything about you." The second sentence was a gross exaggeration, but she knew he wouldn't call her bluff. "You've got no favor with Noriko-sensei. You're just mad because you've been working here for ten more years than I have without any promotion or advancement. In fact, wasn't it last year," she mused with restrained laughter in her voice, "Noriko-sensei posted you to carry boxes of Pepsi products to stock the vending machines?" Sawako shook her head, enjoying the psych teacher's stung expression more than she should have. "Ten years my senior, and all you've gotten is grunt work. Sour grapes, Tokudaiji-san…Or would you prefer Nagi-wakkadono?"

Tokudaiji's expression turned from one of outrage to fear. That his eyes were blue made them seem wider behind his glasses. His thin arms hung loosely at his sides. Ha, Sawako thought, knowing she had won.

"You know very well," he gasped. Then, catching himself, he glared and hissed, "You do not call me by my first name, and you do not call me 'wakkadono.' Understood?"

Sawako stared at him, intensely curious about why he suddenly seemed scared. He really did do something. I wonder what? Feigning coolness, she readjusted her sleeve on her left arm. "I hardly think you're in any position to dicate terms on me, Nagi-wakkadono, especially after I found out what you did." Tokudaiji Nagi blanched and his orthogonal jaw fell. Resisting temptation to laugh, Sawako breezed past him. "Now, if you'll excuse me, wakkadono, I—"

"Matte!" Tokudaiji choked, catching her by her sleeve. Her face an impassive, stony mask, Sawako turned to face him once more.

Tokudaiji's tongue dashed out of his mouth, wetting his chapped lips. "I thought," he whispered, "that you of all people would be able to relate to what I did."

He fraternized with a student? Sawako's eyes widened. Then, once again, rationality took over. What he did was probably worse than what I did with Mugi-chan. Fraternized, indeed. More like exploited. Drudging up something she had said to an ex-boyfriend, she muttered, "No one can relate to the abhorrent thing you did, Nagi-wakkadono."

His hand dropped from her arm and his chin fell to his chest in defeat. Shaking with a newfound power, Sawako headed into homeroom. I've got your number, Tokudaiji-san.

After school the band ran through their setlist. Mio shuffled a bit, contemplating if they should run through it one more time for safe measure. Mugi stared at her keyboard, mentally running through Badinerie.

"Sawako-sensei," Azusa spoke apprehensively, "are you sure this all sounds good for tonight?"

"Just one thing…" The sponsor set down her tea cup and strode over to the band. The kouhai's face drew tight a little at the idea of making a last-minute improvement. "About 'Jaja Uma Way to Go'…It sounds good," Sawako appraised, giving Azusa a double thumbs-up, "but you're a little stiff. Loosen up."

"Loosen up how?"

Sawako huffed. "I don't know…but, you know, concerts are every bit about the visual as they are about the audial. If all the audience wanted was audial glory, they'd listen to your album rather than go see you live."

"Like we have an album," Ritsu muttered.

Yui smiled. "We don't have an album yet."

"Yet?"

Sawako pantomimed playing a guitar: standing with her feet planted a foot and a half apart, her right hand by her hips where the headstock would be. "Look like you love it, you know? Make love to it!"

A virtual shadow fell over Azusa's eyes. "I love my guitar, but I don't love it that much."

"Put your hips into it. Make the girls in the audience wish they were your guitar. Look less like I'm-standing-up-here-playing-my-guitar and more like…like…" The sensei's mind scrambled for a comparison that would fit Azusa. She recalled the Rolling Stones concert video she had shown her guitar class. Her face lit up. "Look like Keith Richards!"

The pigtailed girl nearly dropped her pick in shock. "You want me to play my guitar like Keith Richards?"

"No, I want you to snort your dad's ashes like him," Sawako said sarcastically.

Azusa was agog with both excitement and trepidation. She loved the Rolling Stones with a hardcore passion. She had seen them live once, and she knew exactly what Sawako was talking about in terms of Richards's crazy antics. From his chicken walk to his hopping about the stage, Azusa wasn't sure she could emulate his style. She didn't see herself as worthy of that style.

Sawako left Yui, Mio, Ritsu, and Azusa briefly to accompany Mugi to the train station. The ojou would have loved to stay a bit longer and help them load their instruments and gear on the bus Asumi so kindly ordered for them. But she was cutting it close. She had to get to Tokyo in time to change, do her hair, and get on that stage and play some Bach. The train hadn't yet arrived when the two of them got there, holding hands.

"I think I have something figured out," Mugi sighed. Her jaw, neck, and shoulders felt tense. No matter how she tried, she couldn't relax. "What time's the concert?"

"Afterschool Tea Time has to be on stage at 21:00," Sawako responded.

The keyboardist gnawed her lip, staring at the endless expanse of tracks. "Hmm...Well, I may be a little late...The Tokyo Prefecture Solo and Ensemble Contest manages their performances in foursomes. I'm the fourth one in a group, so I'll immediately get my medal. Then I could have one of Father's drivers take me to Hair."

"You should take the train," her girlfriend advised. "You don't know what traffic will be like on the highway."

"The train's faster, too," Mugi realized. She turned her beryl eyes to the ground and tapped her cheek. "I just might make it on time, but I don't know..." She had considered skipping the solo contest. She really had. But it would be such a terrible thing to do to her father. Not only would she be betraying Holt, but she would be leaving him worrying and wondering where she was. Imagining Holt in such a predicament nearly brought Mugi to tears. For ever since Veronique flew the coop, Tsumugi was the only precious thing Holt had left in his life.

"I doubt I'm going to do very well," the keyboardist confessed. "I'll be lucky to take silver."

"You'll do great, I know it," Sawako said enthusiastically and sincerely. "I know you've practiced long and hard for this night, and that's why I think you should definitely go."

Mugi looked up at Sawako tenderly. The sun, beginning its descent into the western horizon, cast its golden rays, dying Mugi's eyes chartreuse and making each curly aurum strand positively glow.

Sawako dropped her chin and gulped. Her honey-colored eyes flicked toward her girlfriend. Ever wary of her emotions, the sensei could never bring herself to express love so poetically. Yet she said, "Everything about you is gold, Mugi-chan. Your grades, your talents...but most of all your heart. You're a gold medal girlfriend, Mugi-chan," she said, facing the ojou confidently. "Hell, you could take platinum in that category...In my heart you do, anyway." She looked away, feeling her warm face throb. That Mugi wasn't saying anything frightened her. She had taken a chance, told her girlfriend how she really felt, and now she was going to be punished.

Mugi swore she was dreaming at first. She couldn't find words to express the jubilation exploding from her heart's constraints, like a flood breaking through a levy. Rather, with a gushing cry, she threw her arms around Sawako's neck and pressed herself against her. "Sawa-chan, you're so sweet," she cooed, nuzzling the sensei's ear. "I never knew you felt that way about me..."

Sawako gagged; Mugi's tenacious crab-like hold had closed off her windpipe. "Not that I'm not getting a warm fuzzy," she gasped, "but I can't breathe..."

"Gomenasai." Tsumugi loosened her hold a bit, and Sawako gasped for air. She ran her hands through her girlfriend's flavicomous hair, staring at the sunset, only seeing flashbacks of Mugi lutzing at the ice rink...Mugi in the forest, the silvery starlight capturing the sorrow in her opalescent eyes as she relived the agony of her parents' divorce.

"Hey." Sawako pulled back and dug through her pocket. "I want you to have something for tonight." She found what she was looking for and pressed it into Mugi's hand. "It'll give you inner strength."

Her eyebrows raised curiously, Mugi opened her hand to see what Sawako had given her. Her eyes unhooded — widened, actually — and she drew in a sharp breath. There it was, a concrete memory of the night they became a couple: the glittering blue hairtie.

"It'll make you look heart-breakingly beautiful, too," the older woman added.

"Thank you so much." Mugi doubted it would make her look as beautiful as Sawako said it would, but she was sure it would give her inner strength.

The ojou giggled. She flashed on that scene in Spirited Away, when Yubaba's sister wove the protective, magical hairtie for Chihiro.

There was a rhythmic rumble from afar. The train was coming.

"Knock 'em dead, kiddo," Sawako grinned, winking. "Sorry I couldn't be there."

"It's okay," Mugi insisted, pocketing the elastic. "You're needed in Yokohama." With a hiss, the train stopped and its doors opened. Perching slightly on tip-toe, Mugi kissed Sawako warmly, cupping her face, before disappearing on the train to Tokyo.

Her head still spinning from the kiss, the teacher hurried back to Sakura High School, hoping for the best for Mugi in several ways.

"Where ya been?" Ritsu demanded as soon as Sawako walked into Music Room 3. "We're all packed up and ready to go!" She craned her neck, peering out the doorway. "Where's Mugi-chan?"

"I'll explain on the bus." Sawako looked about Music Room 3. Everything they needed to take with them to Yokohama was neatly stacked in the center of the room. Ritsu's dissembled drumset stood in the middle of the pile. Surrounding it were the amps, Gitah, Mugi's Triton, Mio's Precision, and Azusa's Mustang, all in their gig bags.

Sawako unzipped Mugi's gig bag and shook her head. "We're supposed to bring the Yamaha to this gig, not Korgy."

"Oh, yeah," Ritsu remembered. Then she grinned and rubbed her palms together. "I nearly forgot about that awesome thing Mugi-chan has to do with it."

Mio commented, "Methinks you're chomping more at the bit for this than she is."

Sawako stooped to pick up an amp. "Right. Drums and amps on the bus first. Then we'll take the other stuff."

Ritsu grabbed the bass drum in similar fashion. "You heard the boss, y'all! Let's roll!"

Strenuous though it was to hump an amp, the Light Music Club members met the task with whole-hearted enthusiasm. Azusa and Yui started out carrying their respective amps out to the bus. By the time the kouhai returned for her guitar she noticed Yui still stumbling along the hallway, her back stiffly bent at an awkward angle, her hands clutching the handle. The senpai winced at the sting that burned betwixt her shoulder blades.

Shaking her head good-naturedly, Azusa relieved Yui of the hefty amp. Sighing, the senpai stood up straight, feeling the pain cool off. Her spine crackled, which felt both painful and wonderful at the same time. Straining from the weight of the amp, Azusa ordered, "Crouch."

Yui gave her a bemused look before complying. Suddenly she could feel some of the amp's weight pressing into her open hands.

"I'm going to let go of the amp," the kouhai grunted, "and you're going to lift it with your legs. Capisce?"

"What does 'capisce' mean — gyuhh!" Yui cried out as Azusa started to drop the amp. "Okay! I'll carry it right!"

Once the gear was loaded the five of them boarded the bus — Yui, Azusa, and Mio with their gig bags, and Sawako with Mugi's — which promptly left for Yokohama. It was a nice bus with plush seats — none of the hard, leather sort — that faced each other. Ritsu and Mio sat next to each other whilst Sawako, Yui, and Azusa occupied the seats facing them. The drummer rattled her sticks against the armrest, playing the rhythm of 'Girly Storm Shissou Stick' (which, sadly, she couldn't perform live), and watched the unremarkable road pass by. There was an obvious, though not necessarily bad, issue here that needed confronting.

"Sawa-chan-sensei. Why is your cousin putting us up in such high style?"

Sawako looked up from the window, an eyebrow raised. "Eh? Well, we have to get our equipment to Hair somehow. And none o' y'all drive, and I don't have me a car."

"That's logical, but…" Ritsu waved a stick, gesturing round the bus. "How can Asumi-san afford this? Not to be presumptuous, but she didn't strike me as very…well-off."

"That's something to chew on…" Sawako knew what Ritsu was talking about. Asumi was hardly wealthy. On the contrary, the bartender was dirt poor. She was a woman who stole rolls of toilet paper from public restrooms to save money (the paper doubled as coffee filters). I'll have to ask her about that, thought Sawako, leaning an arm on the armrest.

Azusa caught Yui giggling into her hand and inquired, "What's so funny?"

"Your cheeks are vibrating, Azu-nyan," the elder guitarist laughed.

On her own accord, the kouhai glanced at her reflection in the window. Dim it was, but she noticed how her face rippled in tandem with the bus engine's humming. She clapped her small hands to her cheeks and snapped, "Yours do, too, senpai!"

Still giggling, Yui touched her face. "Yeah, they do!"

"So do mine," affirmed Ritsu.

They looked at Mio. The flesh on the bassist's angular face neither shimmered nor rippled.

"You guys suck!" she snapped. "So my cheeks don't freakin' vibrate!"

The conversation lulled a bit as they got on the highway. Not liking the silence, Ritsu initiated a couple hand-clapping games. They started with Big Booty, which had to stop after Yui and the drummer kept passing the big booty back and forth to each other. Then they played Concentration; that fell apart after everyone questioned the legitimacy of certain words.

"Garnet doesn't count," Mio insisted. They were naming colors. "It's a gemstone."

"It's a color," said Yui, who had named garnet in the first place. She gestured at Azusa. "Like Azu-nyan's eyes. They're garnet."

"They're not garnet. They're copper."

There ensued an argument about what color Azusa's eyes were, and Concentration was forgotten. Despite Azusa pointing out that her birth certificate legally stated that her eyes were "red," the dispute carried on. Sawako, who was trying to sleep, rather loudly and forcefully closed the debate. Its outcome remains uncertain.

"So why isn't Mugi-chan here?" Ritsu asked.

"She's going to be a little late," Sawako replied soberly. "She's performing in the Tokyo Prefecture Solo and Ensemble Contest, and then she's coming to Yokohama."

Mio sat up. "Will she come on time for us to go on stage?"

The teacher shrugged. "At most, she might come on stage a few minutes late." She held out her hands plaintively. "If that happens, you must keep the audience entertained until she gets there. Whatever it takes. Banter, panty shots, strip-teases, naked pillow fights, whatever." She paused reflectively, ignorant of the band's horrified expressions. There was something else I had to tell them…? "Oh yeah. And you won't be performing with New Order."

"What?" Azusa exclaimed. The other band members demanded to know more. Fuming with anger and disappointment, the kouhai inquired, "Sawako-sensei, was this all a ruse to get us to perform for your lecherous cousin?"

"No. I assure you, it's not. New Order as we know it is done for. Their lead singer is in a coma."

"So who are we opening for?" asked Ritsu.

"A fairly local band on the rise," Sawako answered. She paused, distracted by the bridge the bus was crossing (she would never admit it, but crossing bridges made her nervous). Once the bus was back on the road, she continued explaining. "Their guitarist is from Kyoto, their drummer from Saitima, their bassist from Osaka…Their keyboardist is actually from where y'all live."

An intriguing fun-fact, but Mio sincerely doubted she would know the keyboardist. Their hometown wasn't exactly a bustling city, but it wasn't a close-knit community either.

"They call themselves Terror Firma."

"Sounds like a heavy metal band," Ritsu said uncertainly.

"It does…" Sawako's brown eyes got a faraway, dreamy stare, exuding an aura of I Love That Band Name. Once she snapped out of it, she added, "Though I'm actually not sure what kind of music they play."

The bus rumbled down the highway at full speed, as if pulled by the red thread of destiny, taking the band to their fated performance.