The next morning, the question was still there, but its shape had changed. It was no longer a sharp, accusatory thing. It was a quiet, constant hum beneath the surface of my thoughts, a compass needle looking for its true north. I woke up not with the familiar weight of dread, but with a strange, hollow feeling that wasn't entirely unpleasant. It was the feeling of empty space. A blank page.
I found Chiyo in the kitchen, humming as she packed rice balls for Akira's lunch. Without a word, I picked up the container of pickled plums and began placing one in the center of each rice ball, pressing it in gently with my thumb. She glanced over at me, a soft, knowing look in her eyes, but said nothing. We worked in a comfortable silence, the rhythmic patting of rice a soft, domestic drumbeat. For those few minutes, I wasn't Hoshiko, the runaway, or Hotaru, the ghost. I was just a girl in a kitchen, helping an old woman make breakfast. It was a simple act, for no one and for everyone, and it felt... real.
The school day passed in a haze. I was present, but separate. The whispers still followed me down the hall, but I felt a new distance from them, as if I were listening to a radio playing in another room. They were talking about a character, a story. It had nothing to do with the quiet, empty space I was trying to figure out.
Ren was in his seat by the window. I found myself watching him, not with fear or anxiety, but with that same fragile curiosity. I noticed the way he tapped his fingers on his desk when he was bored, a complex rhythm that seemed to have its own internal logic. During a particularly dull history lecture, I saw him doodling in the margins of his notebook. It wasn't a drawing. It was a staff of musical notes, a frantic, scribbled melody that he erased with his thumb a moment later.
When the final bell rang, the sound was a starting gun. Emi and Yui immediately appeared at my desk. "Let's go get crêpes in town!" Emi said, her eyes bright. "My treat," Yui added softly.
The offer was a lifeline to the normal life I thought I wanted. A week ago, I would have clung to it desperately. But today, the compass needle in my chest gave a little shiver, pointing somewhere else.
"I'm sorry," I said, surprised at the steadiness of my own voice. "There's something I have to do."
Their faces fell with a synchronized, gentle disappointment that made my heart ache. But they didn't push. "Okay," Emi said. "See you tomorrow, then!"
I watched them go, a pang of loneliness hitting me. But the pull toward my own private mission was stronger. I walked out of the classroom and, instead of turning toward the school gates, I turned toward the old building.
My heart began to beat faster, a familiar drum of fear. But this time, it was laced with something else. Resolve. I wasn't going to perform. I wasn't going to confront anyone. I was just going to listen. For myself. To see what it sounded like when it wasn't for sale.
I didn't go to the front door of the music room. I circled around the back of the building, my shoes crunching on the gravel path. The windows were high and grimy, but one of them was propped open a few inches with a broken piece of a broom handle.
I could hear it from a few feet away. A single electric guitar.
It wasn't a song I recognized. It wasn't a practice riff, repeated over and over. It was a melody, slow and meandering, full of a quiet, aching sadness. It was hesitant, searching. A note would be played, then hang in the air for a moment before the next one joined it. It was the sound of someone thinking out loud. There were mistakes—a finger slipping on a string, a moment of feedback—but they weren't flaws. They were part of the story.
I crept closer, my back pressed against the cool, weathered wood of the building, and peered through the gap in the window.
It was Ren. He was sitting on a stool in the middle of the messy room, his back to the door. His eyes were closed, his head tilted slightly as he listened to the notes he was playing. He wasn't performing for the bassist or the drummer, who were nowhere to be seen. He wasn't practicing for a show. He was simply... playing. The music was a conversation he was having with himself.
This was it. This was the answer.
The music was for him. Only for him. It wasn't a product. It was a part of his soul, made audible.
A wave of understanding so profound it felt like a physical shock washed over me. I finally understood what I had lost. It wasn't the fame or the money or the applause. It was this. This quiet, personal, sacred thing. The ability to make a sound that was only for you.
I pushed myself away from the wall before he could sense I was there, my heart a wild, frantic bird in my chest. But for the first time, it wasn't a bird of panic. It was a bird of hope.
I walked away from the old building, leaving him to his solitude. I didn't have a map. I didn't know the destination. But for the first time, I felt like I knew which way was north. The rest, I thought, is still unwritten.
The weekend passed in a blur of nervous energy. The hollow space inside me was no longer a void, but a resonating chamber, humming with the memory of Ren's solitary music. For the first time, I had a direction. A north. But knowing the direction and taking the first step are two very different things. The fear was still there, a cold, familiar weight in my gut.
On Monday, the air in the classroom was thick with unspoken things. I could feel Ren's presence from across the room, even though he never once looked my way. He was just a boy staring out a window, but to me, he was a gatekeeper, standing before the only door I wanted to walk through.
When the final bell rang, I didn't wait. I packed my bag with trembling hands, ignoring the crêpe-related questions from Emi and the worried look on Yui's face. I gave them a quick, tight-lipped apology and walked out of the classroom, my feet carrying me with a will of their own toward the old building.
Every step was a battle. The ghost of Hoshiko screamed warnings in my ear—You're not good enough without the training, without the producers. You're nothing without me. My own fear whispered, They'll laugh at you. They'll call you a freak again.
I stopped in front of the heavy wooden door, the same door I had run from in a blind panic. I could hear them inside—the clumsy beat of the drums, the low thrum of a bass, and a jagged, frustrated guitar riff that kept stopping and starting. It sounded like an argument.
I took a deep breath, held it, and knocked.
The music stopped instantly. The silence that followed was heavy, accusatory. I heard a muttered curse, then footsteps. The door creaked open, and Ren Takanashi stood there, his face a mask of irritation that melted into surprise, and then into a guarded, weary annoyance.
"You again," he said. It wasn't a question.
Behind him, the lanky bassist and the drummer girl stared at me with wide, hostile eyes.
"What do you want?" Ren asked, his voice flat. He had already started to close the door.
"Wait," I said, my voice coming out stronger than I expected. "I... I want to answer your question."
That stopped him. His hand froze on the door. He looked at me, really looked at me, a flicker of genuine curiosity in his dark eyes. He stepped back, leaving the doorway clear. It wasn't an invitation, but it was an opening. I took it, stepping inside the messy, sacred space.
"The other day," I began, my voice trembling slightly. I forced myself to meet his gaze. "You asked me who that performance was for." I took another shaky breath. "It wasn't for me. It was for... a ghost. A version of me that I'm trying to leave behind."
The drummer girl scoffed. "Look, we don't have time for your therapy session. We need to practice."
"Mio, be quiet," Ren said without looking at her. His eyes were still locked on mine.
"I'm here because I heard you playing," I continued, the words spilling out in a rush. "On your own. And I realized... I've never done that. Not once. I've never made a sound that was just for me. I want to learn how. That's all I want."
The room was silent save for the low hum of an amp. I stood before them, stripped bare, my desperation a raw, open wound. It was the truest thing I had ever said to another human being.
Ren was quiet for a long time, his expression unreadable. He looked from me to the microphone stand, still lying on its side where I had dropped it. He looked at his bandmates, whose expressions were slowly shifting from hostility to confusion.
"Our vocalist quit two weeks ago," he said finally, his voice low and even. "She said we were too depressing and she wanted to play pop music." He looked back at me, his gaze intense, analytical. "We need a singer. We don't need a pop star. We don't need a performer who's going to have a breakdown when a note is out of tune. And we definitely don't need a ghost."
He walked over and picked up the microphone stand, setting it upright. He took the mic and clicked it back into its clip. The sound was a definitive, final snap.
"There's no crowd here," he said, his voice leaving no room for argument. "There are no cameras. No producers. There's just us, and the noise we make. If you can handle that, you can stay."
He pointed a finger at me, his expression hard as stone. "But if you run out that door again, don't ever come back."
It wasn't a warm welcome. It was a challenge. A cold, conditional acceptance that was a thousand times more real than any empty praise I had ever received. He wasn't offering me a stage. He was offering me a starting point.
I looked at the microphone, at the three strangers watching me, at the boy who had seen the very worst of me and hadn't completely shut me out. The fear was still there, a roaring in my ears. But for the first time, my hope was louder.
I gave a single, determined nod.
"Okay," I said.
My "Okay" hung in the air, thin and fragile against the hum of the amplifiers. I had passed the first test: I hadn't run. But now, I was inside the cage with the lions, and I had no idea what to do next.
The drummer, Mio, crossed her arms, her drumsticks held tight in one hand. She still looked furious. "Seriously, Ren? After that stunt she pulled?"
The lanky bassist, who had remained silent until now, pushed his glasses up his nose. "She does sound like Hoshiko, though," he mumbled, more to himself than to anyone else. "It's kinda crazy."
"We're not playing Hoshiko songs, Kaito," Ren said, his voice cutting through the tension. He ignored their bickering and turned to me, his expression all business. He walked over to a cluttered table and picked up a crumpled sheet of paper, handing it to me. "Here."
I unfolded it. It was a sheet of handwritten lyrics, the kanji sharp and slightly slanted. There was no title. The words were abstract, melancholic, full of images of empty train stations and drowning stars. It was a landscape of loneliness, beautifully and painfully rendered.
"Did you write this?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
"We all did," he deflected, gesturing vaguely at the other two. "It's our new one. Key of E minor." He slung his guitar over his shoulder. "Kaito, from the top. Mio, keep it simple."
My blood ran cold. This was happening. Right now. I looked down at the microphone in its stand, a black, silent judge. My hand was shaking as I reached out and took it. The metal was cold, heavy. It didn't feel like an extension of myself anymore. It felt like a weapon pointed at my own chest.
Kaito started to play. A low, mournful bassline filled the room, a slow, steady heartbeat. Mio joined in with a soft, hesitant rhythm on the hi-hat. Then Ren's guitar entered, a clean, arpeggiated chord that dripped with a sound like rain on glass. The music was beautiful. It was a dark, empty room, waiting for a voice to give it a ghost.
Ren looked at me and gave a single, sharp nod. Your turn.
I took a breath. I opened my mouth. I tried to sing.
The sound that came out was horrifying.
It was a thin, reedy, breathless whisper. It was flat. It was weak. It had none of Hoshiko's power, none of her perfect, crystalline pitch. This was my voice. Just my voice. Raw, untrained, and terrified. I stumbled through the first line, the words catching in my throat, my pitch wavering like a dying candle flame.
The music faltered, then stopped. Kaito stared at his bass as if it had betrayed him. Mio threw her sticks down onto the snare drum with a loud, frustrated clatter.
"I knew it," she seethed, glaring at me. "It was a fluke. A one-time thing. She's a fraud."
The shame was a physical force, a hot wave that washed over me from my head to my toes. My eyes burned. This was it. The moment of failure. The proof that without Ryouko's machine, without the producers and the auto-tune and the years of relentless training, I was nothing. I was a karaoke singer who couldn't even stay in key. Mio was right. I was a fraud.
My grip on the microphone loosened. My feet shifted, ready to bolt. The door was right there. I could be gone in five seconds.
"Good."
Ren's voice cut through my panic. I looked at him, confused. He was watching me with that same unnerving intensity, his face completely unreadable.
"That was you," he said, his voice quiet but firm. "That wasn't the ghost. That was you, and it was terrible."
The bluntness of it was a slap in the face, but it wasn't cruel. It was a simple statement of fact.
"You're not breathing," he continued. "You're trying to aim for the notes instead of letting them come out. You're thinking about how you sound." He took a step closer. "Stop thinking. Stop performing. Just sing the words. Now, do it again."
He turned back to the others. "From the top."
Mio looked like she was about to protest, but a single, sharp glare from Ren silenced her. Kaito, looking deeply uncomfortable, hesitantly began the same mournful bassline.
I stood there, trembling, the microphone clutched in my white-knuckled grip. It was the cruelest kindness I had ever been shown. He wasn't praising me. He wasn't comforting me. He was just telling me to face the ugly, imperfect truth of my own voice and try again.
I took a deep, shuddering breath, filling my lungs with the dusty air of the room. It wasn't a performer's breath, calculated for support and control. It was the gasp of someone who had been holding their breath for a very, very long time.
And as the guitar came in, I closed my eyes and prepared to sing again.
The notes of the intro washed over me again, the same mournful, beautiful sound as before. Ren's guitar was like a needle, stitching the silence together. This time, I didn't think about the lyrics as a script. I didn't think about the pitch. I thought about the feeling. The loneliness of the words. The echo of an empty train station. I knew that echo. I had stood inside it.
When the moment came, I sang.
The voice that emerged was a stranger. It was fragile, bruised at the edges. It cracked on the second word, a splintering of sound that made me want to flinch. But I didn't stop. I clung to the image of Ren playing alone in this room, for no one but himself, and I pushed forward.
It wasn't a performance. It was a confession.
I sang about the drowning stars, and I saw the blinding flash of a thousand cameras. I sang about waiting for a train that never comes, and I felt the rumble of the subway car I almost stepped in front of. The notes were not perfect. They were sharp with a pain I had never allowed myself to feel, and flat with a weariness that went bone-deep. It was the ugliest, most honest sound I had ever made.
Across the room, something shifted. Kaito's eyes, wide behind his glasses, lifted from his fretboard and fixed on me. His fingers, which had been playing hesitantly, found a new confidence. The bassline grew stronger, becoming a foundation for my broken voice to stand on. Mio's face was still a mask of skepticism, but her hands had stopped fighting the rhythm. Her drumming became a steady, relentless heartbeat, pushing the song forward, giving it a momentum it hadn't had before.
But it was Ren who changed the most. With his eyes closed, he leaned into his guitar, a silent conversation beginning between us. When my voice wavered, a clean, sharp chord from his guitar would rise up to meet it, holding it steady. When I poured a flicker of anger into a line, a distorted riff would answer, screaming alongside me. He wasn't just playing a song. He was listening. He was responding.
The room, the school, the entire world outside this small, dusty space dissolved. There were no cameras, no audiences, no Ryouko. There was only the sound. A raw, tangled, imperfect noise that we were all making together. For the first time, I wasn't a product on a stage. I was just a voice in a room, a single instrument in a band.
We hit the final chorus. I poured every last bit of my exhaustion, my grief, my tiny, flickering hope into it. On the highest note, my voice shattered completely, breaking not into a whisper, but into a raw, ragged cry that was more emotion than music. In my old life, it would have been a career-ending failure. Here, in this room, it felt like the only true note I had ever sung.
The song ended. The final chord from Ren's guitar hung in the air for a long moment, vibrating in the silence before finally fading into nothing.
The hum of the amps was the only sound.
I opened my eyes, my chest heaving. My cheeks were wet, and I hadn't even realized I was crying. I was utterly and completely spent. I looked at them, my vision blurred. Kaito was staring at me, his mouth slightly open, his bass held forgotten in his hands. Mio had her drumsticks resting on the snare, her expression no longer angry, but stunned into a blank, unreadable stillness.
Ren opened his eyes. He looked at me, his gaze as intense and serious as ever. The silence stretched on, thick and heavy with everything that had just happened. He offered no praise, no smile, no word of comfort.
He just took a breath.
"Again," he said. "From the top."