Chapter 3 – Recording
Mizuki Higushi
The shrill sound of the now familiar phone dial awoke me from my sleep. My eyes groggily opened as my left arm fumbled around, hitting the bedside table randomly – aiming for the phone. My fingers touched the vibrating plastic and immediately curled around its curved form. I held the phone to my ear and sleepily mumbled,
"H-hello?"
"Hello room 216! This is the reception of the Radison Blue Hotel, this is your wake-up call. It is currently 07:45 in the morning."
"Th-thanks…" I replied, grumpily, before hanging up the phone.
"I really hate that wakeup call," Cara's sleepy voice said, a monotonous tone in her voice. Addy sat up and yawned cutely, stretching her arms above her head and rubbing her eyes. Biscuit, who had previously been cuddling next to her, was now following her lead and stretching.
The cute ball of fluff stretched his short legs, before jumping off of Addy's bed and onto Cara's. Cara groaned, but lay her hand on Biscuit's small face. He yipped happily, licking her arm with his pink tongue. She gently pushed him off the bed, before standing up and stretching. I slowly got out of bed, stumbling into the bathroom and turning on the shower. I stepped in once I had disrobed, and closed my eyes as the hot water soothed my clammy skin. I washed my face and body with my favourite clementine and watermelon scented body and face wash.
I soon stepped out, drying my skin with one of the fluffy purple towels provided. I stepped out of the bathroom and threw on the first clothes I found in my suitcase. I ended up choosing a white top, lined with black. It was a cold shoulder shirt made of satin. The sleeves were somewhat puffy, making the top even more comfortable. I threw on the black jeans and black trainers that I picked up, before blow drying my hair. By the time I had finished doing that, Cara and Adelaide were ready – Cara was just clipping Biscuit onto his lead.
We walked out of the hotel room and down to the reception, where we saw Charlie – reading a newspaper – sitting on one of the chairs in the lobby.
"Charlie!" I called out to him, waving my arm. "Good morning!" He looked up at us and smiled, waving back.
"Hey girls! Ready for your first day at work?"
"First day at work in Japan." Cara corrected, making Charlie smile. He straightened his tie, before walking with us out of the hotel. We drove the familiar road, to the building in which our new manager worked. We got there pretty quickly – thankfully it was fairly close to the hotel, meaning we could fit more time for work into the day. Our manager – Suzuki – was already waiting for us, just outside of the front entrance to the building. His smile was wide, and he was waving at us.
I shivered, something about him was a little bit creepy – I just couldn't place what. Maybe his smile… I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. If I was going to be working with him I had to think positively. We got out of the car, and followed the manager into the building. He led us to a cream-coloured recording room.
"The Three Virtuosos, this room is yours!" He said, enthusiastically, gesturing to the room. My eyes widened as I looked around the room. It was immaculate, all the tech in it was incredibly good quality, better than anything we had worked with before. We all shared a look and laughed as Biscuit ran from Cara's hand and jumped onto one of the plush couches that sat outside of the recording studio.
We followed Biscuit further into the room and sat on the couches, making ourselves comfortable.
"This is lovely Suzuki-san!" Adelaide complimented, "thank you." Suzuki smiled and nodded, before opening the door as two short, sharp knocks echoed from the door. A man with long, slicked back hair entered the room. It was tied back in a plain black band, preventing any of it from escaping.
"Hello, girls."
"Ah! Higuyama-San," Suzuki-san said, bowing. "Girls, this is Higuyama-"
"Just Higuyama please."
I looked at the other girls, somewhat put off by Higuyana's request.
"He is going to be helping you with recording, he's managing the logistics. He'll be acting as my, and your, deputy manager."
We all nodded, bowing slightly to Higuyana.
"Now, the first thing we should discuss is your first album, and the music preferences of the Japanese people." We all nodded, as Higuyana sat down and began discussing the details with us. During the meeting, I kept glancing at Suzuki, his sweating face was making me nervous. Cara shifted, and my eyes widened as Suzuki's eyes darted down to her legs. My heart began racing as I stared at his beady eyes. There was no mistaking it, he was staring at her legs. After seeing this I realised that he kept staring at her, throughout the whole meeting. After a few painful hours, the girls and I were all finally left alone, writing lyrics.
"What shall we call the album?" Cara asked, tapping her black pen on her bottom lip.
"What about… 'Japan'?"
I stared at Adelaide, my face blank,
"Really Addy…?" I said in a monotonous voice, somewhat distracted by the actions of Suzuki. She blushed and pulled her legs up onto the chair.
"What about 'Pink'?" Cara suggested,
"Why Pink?"
"Well, we could put you on the album cover, I think it could look nice."
"Hmm. Well if you think so. Thoughts, Addy?"
She nodded, her pink cheeks puffing out as she gave me a closed-eye smile.
"So… song lyrics?"
"What if we make the song about Kira?"
"We can't be that blatant."
"What if we just hint at it? You know what I mean…?"
We all thought for a second, 'It could work, but what if people found out. We could get in a lot of trouble – we don't want to make any statements about our own personalities,'. There was a pregnant pause.
"I have an idea…" Cara said. "What about if we simply mention a source of great power, and a change in crime. But we try and make it about love – so the power, could be the power a boy holds over us, and the changes in crime could be his change in heart."
"Hmm. Yeah, that could work – we'd need a few more references, so that everyone knows it's about Kira but, we can deny it as well!"
We all began to brainstorm the lyrics, the topic of the killer making us feel more inspired than ever. We began to weave the tail – of a boy and a girl. They meet, they kiss, they fall in love. We added the threads of power into the story, corrupting the boy and making him push the girl away. We began adding small beads to our tapestry of lyrics, eluding to the fact that the boy was Kira - the girl, the law.
"Now for the name," I said, once we had finished writing.
"Abyss?"
"Nah,"
"Killer!"
"No, Addy. Too obvious."
"'Say you love me'?"
"Hmm, it's not too bad."
"That way it makes it more of a romance again, covering up the Kira-ness."
We all nodded, writing the title at the beginning of the page, before adding it to the binder beside it – that contained the rest of our songs for this album. Cara walked over to the computer outside of the recording room and sat down in the chair. She cracked her knuckles, and got to work.
"Wow! It looks beautiful!" I said, wide-eyed. The picture Cara had made was fairly simple. It was a picture of me singing, on top of a pink, bubbly background.
"You look beautiful," Addy said, smiling at me. I blushed.
"Thank you,"
Cara beamed, proud of her work, before pushing going into the recording room with Addy. I set up the recording software, hitting 'record' before walking in with them. We began recording our songs, messing up a few times on the older ones – and the one we had only written today. Midway through our recording session, Suzuki and Higuyama walked in. Suzuki gave us a wide smile, after seeing the progress we had made. A shiver ran down my spine, as his eyes locked onto Cara's singing form, a creepy grin stretching across his face.
By the time we had finished recording the sky was black, and the orange street lights were flickering. Charlie escorted us back to the hotel, wishing us a good night before leaving us alone in our room.
"Turn on the news!" Addy said, kneeling on the edge of her bed. I did as she asked, switching it to the news channel – knowing that that was the channel she wanted. We sat together on her bed, paying close attention to the news anchor as she made another report on the five criminals killed today. I looked over to Cara, as she bit her lip, furrowing her eyebrows.
"I can't believe he is doing this,"
"Who?" Addy asked her.
"You know who. Kira,"
I hung my head, the heavy topic making me slump my shoulders. Seeing this, Cara picked up the remote and changed the channel. It changed to a strange cartoon, that was bright and cheery – and most importantly funny. It lifted our moods within minutes. I don't remember when I fell asleep, all I know is when I woke up in the middle of the night, I was in the bed with Cara and Addy. Honestly, I do remember something else… a cold breath blowing down my neck, and a wheezing laugh. Hyuk hyuk hyuk.
Virtuosos
The girls woke up as slowly as usual. Even Biscuit was slow to wake up, as they had all stayed up very late last night recording. The girls all trudged downstairs, dressed in their school uniform, and sat next to Charlie.
"Girls, why are you wearing your uniform?"
The girls looked at him, incredulously. "You aren't going to school until tomorrow, remember?"
They all looked at each other, not remembering Charlie saying that. "I forgot to tell you, huh?" Charlie said, scratching his neck, his short hair making a loud bristling noise. The girls all groaned loudly, throwing their heads back onto the comfy couch. "Oh well, no time to change now. You'll have to go as you are!" He said, launching out of his seat with enthusiasm. The girls all followed him into the car as he returned them to the building they had been in previously. In the foyer stood Suzuki, Higuyama, a woman in a black suit and a girl with blonde hair, dressed in gothic clothes.
"Virtuosos! Great, you're here." Higuyama greeted, happily. The girls all smiled and waved at him. "This is Misa Amane, otherwise known as Misa-misa."
The Virtuosos set their gaze on the girl that Higuyama was pointing to, she lifted her hand and shot a peace sign at them. They did the same in return and she giggled cutely. "We think it would be beneficial for you to work with her, she is a model – but she does a little bit of singing too."
We all nodded, smiling at the thought. The girl – Misa – seemed nice enough.
"Hi," Cara said, approaching Misa
"Hello!" Misa said brightly, doing a cute wave. The other girls flocked to Misa, introducing himself to her.
"Any ideas for a new song?"
"Well, I was thinking you guys could come onto one of my photo shoots, actually."
The Virtuosos' eyes widened.
"A photoshoot?!" They asked in unison. Misa giggled, nodding.
"Well, I am a model!" The girls all began jumping together and squealing.
"Sounds like that's settled then," Charlie interrupted. "Let's go girls!"
The quartet looked at each other, before asking Charlie where they were going. "To the limo of course!"
The girls all began squealing once more. They slid into the limousine, and began messing around with all of the buttons – illuminated in changing colours. They put on some of the band's music and began to dance together. The ride went far too quickly for their liking. They were ushered out of the limousine, and into a grey building. The Virtuosos felt as though they were going to faint. Spread out in front of them was a crowd of people, dressed in black, all carrying camera equipment. They stood in front of different backgrounds – some blue, some pink, some orange.
"What kind of feel do you girls wanna go for?" Misa asked, putting her finger on her lips.
"I want something cute!" Addy said, throwing her hand up and putting a hand on her chin.
"What about something cool?"
"Natural?"
Misa thought for a moment, before snapping her fingers and pointing to a woman with a blonde ponytail. The woman heard the snap and shook her head, walking over to the quartet good-naturedly. Misa began listing off the ideas behind the shoot. The woman nodded and showed the girls into their dressing rooms. They changed into the clothes provided and left the rooms. Cara looked down at her outfit, a cute black dress – matched with black cat ears and a tail. Mizuki was dressed as a pink fox, Adelaide as a bunny and Misa as a puppy.
The girl's hair was styled and their makeup was put on. Thin black whiskers were also painted onto their cheeks. The girls walked over to the white set, that was painted with pink sakura pettles. Adelaide was instructed to crouch down in a semi-hopping position, and pull a peace sign and puff out one cheek. Misa was told to point a finger out and take a dominant pose, while Cara leaned on her shoulder cutely, lifting a fist up to her 'whiskers'. Mizuki was told to crouch and stretch out one leg, she was handed a book as a prop.
The girls went through this process a few more times, dressing and posing as they were told. Despite the large amount of work – and difficult poses – the girls enjoyed it far more than they thought they would.
"Shall we go and get some dinner together?" Misa asked, putting a finger to her cheek. The Virtuosos looked to Charlie, who checked his watch and shook his head.
"Sorry Misa-misa, the girls have school tomorrow," He said, calling her by the name she had asked him to call her. She slouched, disappointed.
"Okay. That's fine,"
"Another time!" Cara said, cheerfully, causing Misa to nod – cheering up. The Virtuosos walked into the car that Charlie had brought around while they were modelling – the car that unfortunately wasn't as nice as the limousine. Cara cast her eyes out of the car window, her brown irises glowing orange as the streetlamps illuminated them. Her eyes slowly slid shut, as she fell asleep – the last to do so out of the Virtuosos.