The recording studio was very quiet.
Sachiko Kamachi sat in front of the piano, her left hand resting on the edge of the lid, and her right hand holding a short, sharpened pencil.
She wrote a note on the staff paper, paused for two seconds, then erased it with the eraser.
It was 3:17 PM.
Today's guide vocal tasks were all finished—three songs, two takes each, with every second take completed in one pass. When the recording engineer said "Good work" over the intercom, his tone even carried a hint of boredom. For him, it was just routine.
She looked up and glanced at the control room on the other side of the glass. The recording engineer had already left.
The faders on the mixing console were neatly returned to position, and the needles of the VU meters hung at the bottom.
She was probably the only person left in the entire building.
She liked times like these.
The company's recording studio was hers to use until 5:00 PM. Itakura had specifically added this clause when he confirmed her contract. "You can treat it as your own room," Itakura had said at the time. "There's no one scheduled before five anyway."
It had been three years.
Sachiko's fingers rested lightly on the keys and pressed down a C major chord. The sound dissipated quickly between the sound-absorbing walls, like a pebble dropped into deep water.
Three years.
She had counted. From the day she signed the contract until today, she had recorded a total of 427 guide vocal tracks.
Pop, rock, enka, R&B—427 different melodies, lyrics, emotions, and breath control techniques.
The owner of each song was not her. Her voice was merely a mold, casting a shape, then sent to 13,000 karaoke machines nationwide, waiting for some stranger in a private room to pick up the microphone and sing along with her voice.
No one knew it was her.
Her name would not appear on any album cover, nor would it appear in the subtitles at the bottom of a TV screen. On the food chain of this industry, the position of a "guide vocalist" was somewhere between an "instrument" and a "person."
But she sang every single one earnestly.
Her fingers released the chord and played a melody. This was something she had written herself—not part of her work scope, purely because she wanted to write it.
The chorus had already been revised three times, and each version was still missing something. She could not quite explain what was missing, only that when she played to that spot, the feeling in her chest was not fully pushed out.
She stopped and looked down at the staff paper. Pencil marks of varying depths were layered on top of each other, and in some places the paper had even started to fuzz from being erased.
Ever since she signed the contract in that small tavern three years ago, she had never stood on any stage again.
She was placed in this recording studio, and her daily job was to sing. Itakura would regularly bring the track list and the guide vocal backing tracks. She would record them, hand in the tapes, and return to her apartment. Occasionally, she exchanged a few technical details with the recording engineer, but most of the time, she was alone.
The first six months were the hardest.
When she first walked into the recording studio on her first day, she did not understand anything. She did not even know how to wear the monitor headphones properly. She wore them too tightly, and after thirty minutes, her earlobes started to turn red and ache.
The recording engineer made a gesture through the glass window, which she did not understand. Later, the recording engineer came in, helped her loosen the headphone headband by two notches, and folded the side sponge pads outside her ears instead of pressing them down.
"Keep it light," the recording engineer said.
That day, they recorded the whole afternoon—eight songs. Each song was recorded four to five times. After returning to her apartment, she played her own recording tape, and hit pause after the first take.
It was too tight.
Her throat was straining, her breath was forced, and the high notes felt like using her fingers to reach for the top shelf that she could barely touch. She reached it, but the posture was ugly.
The next day, she arrived at the studio at six, three hours earlier than the work time. She put on the monitor headphones and practiced alone in front of the microphone.
Then came one year, two years, two and a half years.
The change began to become obvious in the autumn of the second year.
One day, she was recording a mid-tempo love song, and the highest note of the chorus was an A-flat 5.
Previously, when she encountered that note, she needed to adjust her breathing, tighten her abdomen, and "push" the sound forward a measure in advance. That day, she did the preparatory movements as usual—and then discovered that the note just came out on its own.
Gently, steadily, like a leaf floating on the surface of the water.
The recording engineer was quiet for two seconds over the intercom, then said, "Yeah, that's the feeling."
Looking back now, was that what they called an "epiphany"?
After that, the recording engineer gave her fewer and fewer technical suggestions.
By the third year, there were almost none.
Every song was a one-take pass.
Another thing happened regarding her songwriting.
In the eighth month of her employment, Itakura came to the studio to deliver the new batch of guide vocal backing tracks. During the gap while waiting for the tapes to transfer, he heard a melody drifting out from the piano room and asked her what song it was.
"I'm writing it myself," she said.
Itakura was stunned for a moment, then smiled.
"Ms. Sachiko, you can compose?"
She nodded. She did both lyrics and composition. She had been writing since high school. She just had never shown it to anyone.
Itakura asked her to play a segment. After listening, his expression changed.
"This… the melodic progression of the chorus is quite extraordinary."
After that, Itakura would set aside half a day each month to listen to her new demos. He brought some creative suggestions—mostly related to the market, such as "If the first note of the chorus melody enters an octave lower, karaoke customers will find it easier to sing along." She listened selectively, adopting some parts while keeping her own judgment on others.
There was one more thing. The recording engineer told her.
Once, after they finished work, the recording engineer said casually while packing up equipment, "Oh right, last weekend I went to karaoke, and in the room next to mine, a girl was singing that song you recorded, 'Trajectory of the Wind.'"
The teacup in Sachiko's hand stopped at her lips.
"She sang it quite well," the recording engineer said as he packed up the cables. "It's just that turn in the chorus—you used a little bit of breathy vocal technique when you recorded it, right? She didn't quite get that part, but she kept trying it over and over. I heard her sing it four times back and forth."
That night, Sachiko lay on her apartment bed, staring at the ceiling for a long time.
That girl was repeatedly practicing the breathy turn she had sung.
She didn't know Sachiko's name, didn't know her appearance. But she was imitating her, learning from her.
"If only she knew it was me singing."
When this thought surfaced, Sachiko was startled by it.
When she first entered the industry, she had also wondered if she would immediately be packaged and sent to the stage in a glamorous way.
But Ms. Saionji's reply was, "The time is not yet right."
Sachiko didn't know what kind of time that was, but if Ms. Saionji said so, there must be her own considerations in it. The only thing she needed to do was cooperate with the company's strategy. Anyway, she quite liked this way of working behind the scenes.
She knew that she had a natural fear of the camera. If she really had to go on stage, she might not necessarily perform well.
However, once that thought was recalled, it never disappeared again.
Her fingers rested on the keys again.
In recent months, some subtle changes had broken the rhythm she had long been accustomed to.
In the guide vocal tracks Itakura sent over, the proportion of slow lyrical songs had increased significantly.
Previously, there were mostly fast pop songs—high-energy tracks suitable for karaoke scenarios. In the last three months, almost half were pure love songs with piano accompaniment—the kind of songs that needed to unfold in quietness and tested the singer's emotional control.
She didn't find them difficult when recording. On the contrary, she felt comfortable. But she vaguely realized that the recording method for these songs was closer to an "album" than a "guide vocal."
And that photo session. Last month, Itakura brought a photographer to the studio, saying it was to "keep some archival photos for the company."
But the way the photographer set up the lighting—using reflectors, adjusting color temperature, and even having her slightly turn her head to adjust the angle—clearly exceeded the standards for "archiving." After the shoot, when the photographer was packing up equipment, he said to his assistant, "This one can be used." She heard it and didn't press for questions.
What concerned her most was a question Itakura asked her two weeks ago.
After recording the last song of the day, Itakura didn't just say "Good work" and leave as usual. He sat down, chatted for a few minutes, and then said in an unusually relaxed tone:
"Ms. Sachiko, when do you think… you can debut?"
She remembered her reaction at the time—her fingers lifted from the mixing console, pausing in mid-air for about a second. Then she smiled and asked back, "What does Mr. Itakura think?"
Itakura looked at her, seemingly waiting for a different answer. But she really didn't have a better answer for him. He eventually smiled, patted his knees, said "No rush, no rush," and left.
That night, she thought about that question again.
"When do you think you can debut?"
She found she couldn't give a clear answer.
Technically, she knew she was already prepared. The honing Ms. Saionji spoke of, she considered she had done well.
Her pitch was much more stable than three years ago, her breath control was more refined, and the texture of her high notes had changed from "struggling to reach" to "landing easily." The recording engineer had stopped giving her suggestions half a year ago—because there was nothing left to mention.
What she couldn't say was another matter.
She didn't know why she wanted to debut.
Her fingers played slowly on the keys, the melody intermittent.
Did she love music? Of course.
For three years, she had been singing every day, writing every day, and never felt tired of it. This job gave her a stable income, plenty of alone time, and a recording studio she could use freely.
She also wanted to be heard. She still remembered the story of the karaoke girl the recording engineer told her, even to this day. "If only she knew it was me singing"—this thought had appeared repeatedly over the three years, and the frequency was increasing.
But between "wanting to be heard" and "standing on a stage," there was a chasm she hadn't figured out yet.
She had completely mastered the rules in the recording studio. Here, she only needed to face the microphone. The microphone wouldn't judge her. If she recorded badly, she could do it again.
Between her and the audience were countless layers of medium—the microphone, the tape, the speakers of the karaoke machine—that "glass wall" made her safe, made her free, and allowed her to focus all her attention on the sound itself.
But debuting meant that glass would be shattered.
She would need to stand under the lights. Face the camera, accept interviews, be asked questions about "creative inspiration" and "private life."
She would need people to know her name, recognize her face. She would need to open her mouth and sing the first note in front of hundreds or thousands of people—and once that note was sung, there was no "do it again."
Could she sing well? Technically, probably yes.
But the problem here wasn't about "can or cannot."
Itakura said, "When can you debut?" The company said, "We are waiting for the right time." These words contained a premise—debuting was the logical next step. Three years of training and accumulation were all for finally stepping to the front of the stage.
But Sachiko searched and searched within her heart, unable to find the reason that would drive her to stand up there.
She loved music—but she could love it quietly in this recording studio for a lifetime. She wanted to be heard—but the guide vocal tracks had already reached thousands of households.
Although no one knew it was her singing, that voice did exist.
"Isn't that enough?" she asked herself in her heart.
She was silent for a long time.
The answer should be "not enough," she knew.
Because if it were "enough," the thought "If only she knew it was me singing" wouldn't have surfaced time and time again.
But she also couldn't confidently say "not enough." Because behind that "not enough" was connected to a question she dared not touch even more—
"Who exactly is the 'me' that I want to be seen?"
The Sachiko Kamachi in the recording studio was a version of herself she knew. Quiet, focused, self-consistent and complete when staying with music.
What would Sachiko Kamachi become standing on stage? She didn't know. She couldn't even specifically imagine it.
That outline was blurry, blank—like a negative that hadn't been developed yet.
She wasn't afraid of turning bad, nor was she afraid of failure.
She was afraid that after standing up there, she would discover she was empty under the lights.
The melody stopped on the piano.
Her fingers rested on the keys, not pressing down. The recording studio was very quiet, with only the faint sound of airflow from the air conditioning vent.
She looked down at the staff paper. Pencil marks of varying depths were layered on top of each other. This song had been revised three versions, and the progression of the chorus was always wrong.
She vaguely felt that the reason she couldn't finish this song and the reason she couldn't answer Itakura's question might be the same.
Something was missing.
A fulcrum, a sentence, an image.
Some kind of power strong enough to let her push that warm, quiet, introverted "like" in her chest out of her throat, onto her lips, and project it into the distance.
She hadn't found it yet.
Sachiko took a deep breath.
She put her fingers back on the keys, preparing to try the chorus progression again. Her left hand pressed an Am chord, and her right hand had just played two notes—
The recording studio door made a sound.
Her fingers lifted from the keys, and she turned her head.
A person stood at the doorway.
Not tall. Wearing a thin raven-blue cardigan, her hair combed very neatly. Her face wore an indescribable expression—as if smiling, and also as if appraising something.
Sachiko was stunned for about a second.
Then she recognized who had come.
In S.A. Entertainment, everyone knew this name, but almost no one had seen her in person. In rumors, she was either an iron-fisted zaibatsu eldest miss, or some kind of existence that even Itakura dared not look at directly.
But Sachiko had seen her.
She had been recruited by this eldest miss herself.
Although Sachiko herself didn't know what was special about her that was worth the Saionji Family's eldest miss personally stepping in. People with stronger talent than her were everywhere, and in terms of hard work, she didn't dare call herself the first.
But this eldest miss had given her a decent job and a generous salary, even allowing her to pursue her dreams as she wished, to do what she loved.
So in Sachiko's heart, she had always ranked first.
Three years had passed.
That girl had grown taller, and her features were more defined. But there was something about her that hadn't changed—that quiet sense of weight that made people subconsciously hold their breath.
Sachiko stood up from the piano bench, the pencil in her hand almost falling to the floor.
She subconsciously glanced at the staff paper scattered on the mixing console and her half-drunk canned coffee. The recording studio was a bit messy. She hadn't expected anyone to come in suddenly at all.
"Ms. Saionji—why are you here?"
Her voice was steadier than she had expected. It carried genuine surprise and a hint of embarrassment.
Satsuki stood at the doorway, her gaze moving away from Sachiko's face, slowly sweeping across the entire recording studio.
Staff paper, album inserts on the walls, English books on the small bookshelf filled with translation sticky notes, and a file box in the corner stacked with seventy-three cassette tapes.
She looked for a few seconds.
Then, her gaze returned to Sachiko.
"Long time no see, Ms. Sachiko."