New Sound

Chapter 41: Yuki Finds... a Rival?

«Featured Arrangement»
「Like a Star」
By: Kim Youngso

Shin Eazer's PoV

Yuki finally arrived, and for some reasons, I don't know of, Iro is looking at Yuki with visible confusion in his face. "You? Shin, he's the one who will teach me chords?"

Is it just me, or Iro sounds like he knows Yuki?

"Uhh, yes. Do you know each other?" I asked slightly confused.

"I've met him before, shortly before I met you." Iro answered. So it's the same day that I met him on the streets? What a coincidence.

"Still, I like to do the introductions." I stood up from my seat and introduced Yuki to Iro. "Yuki, this is Shiroi, he's the friend that I'm talking about. It's a bit complicated, but for now, he uses the name Eji Shibata—"

"It's okay. I know him." Yuki interrupted me. He's not even taking a glance to Iro. He just straight up get a guitar on the rack and started tunning. Looks like even if I continue talking, he wouldn't be listening, so instead of continuing what I was saying I turned to Iro and introduced him to Yuki. I don't know how well they know each other, but at least, they don't seem friends to me, more like just an acquaintance, so might as well just continue with the introduction. "Ah, I don't know how much you know Yuki, but that boy is Yuki Hikumi. 'Kind of a popular guitarist, and he's a son of one of our bandmate."

Yuki acts as if he doesn't care about what's going on around him, and just continued to tune the guitar. As cold as Ran, huh. Iro, on the other hand, looked at Yuki and was very curious on what Yuki was doing. "So, he's Ran's son and he's a musician as well, huh." Soon, Iro picked up a guitar as well in the rack.

Yuki is done tunning, then he grab the capo that was placed on the headstock of the guitar, and attach it on the second fret of the guitar. "Listen." Yuki then turned to Iro who's now looking very curious as to what he was about to hear. I began to wonder, during the 17 years Iro was not aware of his identity as a musician, did he even get a chance to hear a live guitar performance during that time? "Sorry, I also need this." Yuki put on a headphone that was previously hanging on his neck, exhaled and then he began.

What's this? He will be playing with headphones on? Won't it prevent him to hear what he plays, though?

Yes, that's his way to prevent  himself to hear his own playing, so the flashbacks won't be triggered. But that requires him to imagine the sound and the rhythm note per note without mistakes. At first, I have doubts that he would be hitting the notes correctly, but when he hit the first few notes correctly, that doubt immediately dissipated. I almost forgot, this kid is not an ordinary kid. He's a prodigy. 

Iro seems to be amazed by the sound that he was hearing at the moment. He is practically absorbed with Yuki's performance as if what he's seeing and hearing was some kind of magic. "That's it... that's the sound." 

As I was saying before, the piece is unfinished, so after only a minute, Yuki stopped playing. I got to be honest, the section that Ran and Iro had unfortunately left this piece is quite sudden. It makes me feel like I need to hear more.

Yuki pull down the headphones to his neck. "That's it. It was unfinished." Then he turned to me again. "Say, Mr. Shin, is this man... the true YU?"