Several weeks had passed since that night.

On the first night, the memory of being watched had unsettled Reina badly enough that she tried to calm the heat alone. The next day, even while she was close with Yuto, the shoulders and gaze of the man she had wanted to forget had entered her mind without warning. She loved Yuto; her body had reacted to a memory of another man. Reina still could not fit those things into a single explanation.

In the time since, she had gone into the studio several times, washed her stage clothes, and had meals with Yuto. She could still drink water before singing so that her throat would not go dry. She could still stand before a mirror and fix her hair as she always had.

It was not that she never remembered the shoulder beneath the black T-shirt, or the eyes that had met hers in the dressing room. But the stretches of time in which she did not have to remember were growing longer.

If she could keep from thinking about it, she thought, that would be enough.

She intended to make today’s showcase one of those days.

The venue was a small hall that held about three hundred people. Fixed seats rose in gentle tiers before a stage no higher than a cinema screen, with only a little standing room at the rear and along the aisles. Faces in the audience were easier to make out than in the live-music clubs they usually played, and the sound that came back from the room was easier to hear as well. Beside the entrance, the organizer’s name appeared alongside the logos of the companies supporting the event. VEIL’s agency was involved too. Reina had been told that it was a project meant to find new acts. It was not a competition for rankings, but people from music, streaming, and media would be watching the performers.

Before entering the dressing room, she received a thin envelope at reception. It held a small booklet with the running order, and a flyer announcing the next event by the guest band playing last.

The booklet gave a brief introduction to the five participating acts. First was a four-piece that looked as though they did not have much live experience yet. Second was a three-piece from a nearby town. Third was a band that had only recently come out of a university light-music club. VEIL was fourth. The last performance belonged to a local band that had been active for many years.

“Fourth is a good slot,” Mizuki said, looking over the page.

“The room will be warmed up by then. And the people from the business side will still be here.”

“The group closing the night is supposed to be pretty serious, right?”

Hiyori lowered her eyes to the flyer protruding from the envelope.

Reina knew that band’s name too. It appeared often on posters at local live-music clubs. They had been around for a long time, more often trusted with the end of the night than asked to open for someone.

At the bottom of the flyer was a small announcement about a new lineup.

Drums / Toru Shinohara.

The moment she read the name, it connected inside Reina with a voice calling out in the hallway at the previous shared-bill show.

Without really meaning to, she looked at the photograph beside it.

Her hand stopped at the face behind the drum kit.

It was Toru Shinohara, the drummer who had played with another band at that earlier show.

The flyer gave only a brief notice that he had joined the long-running band as its new drummer, along with the faces of the current lineup. Even so, Reina knew at once.

Her heart struck hard, a beat late.

“Reina?”

At Mizuki’s call, Reina turned the flyer facedown.

“No. It’s nothing.”

Her voice sounded normal. At least, she thought it did.

It could not possibly have been nothing.

But she did not know what had happened to his earlier band. She did not know how long he had been with this one, or why he had joined it. They were things she had no reason to know.

Reina slid the flyer back into the envelope.

Today, I am only here to sing.

If she decided that, she thought the rest would have nothing to do with her.

After rehearsal, they changed into their stage clothes. Mizuki checked the sound of her guitar. Hiyori retuned her bass again and again. Risa rolled a drumstick between her fingers. Once Reina was inside the same old sequence, her breathing began to return to her as well.

When the first act ended, only the front of the audience rose to its feet. During the second, even the people who had stayed in their fixed seats and moved their heads with the music added applause at the end of each song. By the time the third act reached its changeover, the low murmur in the hall had faded a little, leaving behind the quiet of people ready to watch the stage.

More seats were filled than Reina had expected. Beyond the standing room at the front, people sat in the middle tiers with their arms folded, looking like industry guests. If someone knew Risa’s name, Reina thought, they might recognize her even on the stage of a hall this small.

Shortly before VEIL’s set, the audience lights went down.

Through the gap at the side of the stage, Reina saw Yuto at one end of the front section. He was dressed more softly than he was after work, with his jacket folded across his knees. When he found Reina, he smiled only with his eyes.

She was happy that she had found him at once.

If Yuto was here, she thought, then today would be all right.

She only had to sing calmly toward the person she loved. Today, Reina would not bring anything else onto the stage with her.

The intro began.

Reina gripped the microphone and took the first breath.

She looked at Yuto once more. Right after that, without intending to search for anyone, her gaze slipped toward the back of the hall.

Near the sound desk, several people who seemed to belong to the guest band stood in the darkness along the wall.

Toru Shinohara was among them.

He was looking at her.

The first word of the song caught once in the back of Reina’s throat.

No, she thought.

She had meant to sing for Yuto. She had been honestly glad that he had come. That feeling had not changed.

And yet, the instant she found Toru, something inside her body abruptly rose awake.

Her breath filled deeper in her chest. The unnecessary tension left her shoulders, but the soles of her feet caught the floor hard. The voice that would usually wait until the middle of the first song came forward early.

The change frightened Reina.

She could not start over. She could only place the next words and step onto the next notes. When she tightened her fingers around the microphone, her voice did not thin. It reached all the way to the back of the room.

She tried to turn her eyes back toward where Yuto was.

She thought she had done it, but her body was already facing the whole audience.

Before the chorus, Reina stepped half a pace forward. It was not where she had planned to stand. The heat of the lights touched her cheeks, and the fabric at her chest moved with every breath she took to sing.

She knew she was being watched.

Without deciding who was watching, Reina kept singing.

The last note of the chorus held longer than it usually did.

Before the sound disappeared, she sensed breaths being drawn in different parts of the hall. In the next song, Mizuki’s guitar took up that lingering note, and Hiyori’s low line spread through the tiers of the audience. When Risa struck the snare once, hard, hands that had remained still began to applaud.

Reina stopped trying to look at the faces in the room one by one as she sang. She set each line out so that it would reach not only the front, but the back rows too. As the songs moved toward their end, she gave her body over to the sound of the four of them, hard enough that there was no room to think about whom she was conscious of.

Applause broke out the moment they finished. In the short pause before the next song, Reina found Yuto again. His eyes widened in surprise, then he kept clapping with an open, happy look on his face.

Seeing his face made something in her ache.

Yuto knew nothing.

He was happy about Reina’s singing without knowing anything.

For the second song, she decided she would not look for Toru’s place again. Still, each time she breathed in, her body remembered that there was a gaze somewhere in the room. By the time they entered the second verse, her breathing had deepened further and the center of her voice was pressing forward.

It felt as though she herself was ruining her singing.

She had not sung calmly, the way she always did.

And yet, when the last song ended, the applause that remained in the hall lasted a little longer than usual.

When Reina came down from the stage, Mizuki put a light hand on her shoulder.

“You were incredible today.”

“Was I?”

“Yeah. You were out in front from the start.”

Reina accepted a bottle of water and cooled her throat.

It had not been her own decision to come forward.

She almost said it, but said nothing.

When she stepped into the hallway for the changeover, one of the organizer’s staff was talking with VEIL’s producer, Maki Takase. Two people who seemed to have been invited by the organizers stood beside them. Their ages and clothes were completely different, but both had the faces of people who had watched VEIL’s set.

“VEIL is good,” one of them said to the four women.

“The roles of the four members are clear, but it is not merely polished. Reina’s singing was what pulled the room forward from the middle onward. Her voice went ahead, and the other three knew exactly how to follow. You cannot manufacture that kind of urgency by trying to.”

“I heard that Risa Shiraishi was in the band, so I came to see her too.”

The other person looked toward Reina.

“Risa is already well known as a model. But even with a drummer of that presence behind her, Reina does not disappear as a vocalist. She looked solid from the beginning. Serious, easy to speak to. Once she is onstage, your eyes naturally go to her, like she is the protagonist of a drama.”

Reina lowered her head again instead of answering.

People had been saying things like that about her for a long time. Dependable. Serious. Proper. Easy to talk to, pleasant to be around. Someone who did not panic in front of other people, someone who looked like the protagonist of something.

That image had always helped Reina. If she smiled, answered, and did what people asked in order, those around her relaxed. She had thought she looked that way too.

Instead of replying, Reina bowed again.

Had it really been urgency?

She had only been thrown off. She had meant to sing for Yuto, then found something else, and her body had changed of its own accord.

But the people from the industry had received it as something different.

“We are putting together a new-artist showcase that brings together music, fashion, and web media,” the second person said.

“We are looking for bands that can really show their playing. We would like to talk with VEIL, if you are interested.”

Maki listened to the end, then looked toward the four of them. A brightness showed around her eyes that she could not quite hide.

Since she started VEIL, Maki had been looking for places where the four women’s playing could reach people as music. Reina understood that much.

“Please. Could you send us the details?”

Mizuki, Hiyori, and Risa exchanged small glances. They were surprised, but none of them searched for a reason to refuse.

Only Reina was testing the coldness of the water in her hand.

VEIL was what had been praised.

If that was true, she ought to have been happy.

Before long, it was nearly time for the guest band to play.

Toru crossed the far end of the hallway with the other members. Reina moved toward the wall as if to avoid them, but Toru stopped once in front of her.

“You were good earlier.”

At the sound of his voice, Reina’s shoulders went rigid.

Toru was looking at her face, not at her throat.

“Halfway through, your singing suddenly changed.”

Reina could not answer.

“Thank you,” and “Was that so?”—neither of them came in time.

She could not ask what had changed, either.

Toru said nothing more and returned to the other members.

Reina stayed where she was.

Toru knew nothing.

Nothing about the way her body had grown hot enough to frighten her when she realized his gaze had turned toward her at the previous shared-bill show.

Nothing about the way that memory had entered her mind later, even while she was close with Yuto.

It was not because she did not love Yuto. Beside Yuto, she still felt safe. Even so, the memory of being watched by Toru had left another kind of heat deep in her body.

Now that he had said her singing had changed, that heat came back too. Reina did not want to admit even that she wanted to test it again.

Usually, Reina could give anyone a smile and a light reply. She could turn a moment like that into a small exchange, end it, or keep the conversation going.

In front of Toru, she could not do any of it.

Even after she watched him go, only the words she had failed to return remained. She pretended not to notice that she was thinking about whether she could speak normally to him if they met again at the afterparty.

When the guest band began to play, the low kick drum came up through the floor. Reina did not watch from the wing. If she did not look, she thought, perhaps she would not have to think about anything else.

Still, the sound reached her body from beyond the wall.

After the show, Yuto was waiting near the exit.

“That was good,” he said as soon as he saw Reina’s face.

“Your voice really reached me.”

“Thank you.”

Reina smiled. In front of Yuto, she wanted to be able to take those words exactly as they were.

“I have an early start tomorrow, so I’m going to head home first.”

Yuto looked once toward the venue.

“But make sure you go to the afterparty. This is important work, right?”

“Yeah. I’m going to go say hello to Maki.”

“Okay. I’ll head home, then.”

Yuto used his fingertips to straighten Reina’s hair, then kissed her forehead briefly. It was his usual gesture. Reina closed her eyes at that kindness.

For some reason, the tightness in her chest that had not settled since Toru spoke about her singing eased a little.

It felt as though Yuto had given her permission to stay. A small, delayed snag remained only in the way she had received his words.

Reina watched until Yuto disappeared into the crowd, then returned to the dressing room.

Maki had told her that the afterparty would also serve as a chance for the organizers, the people from the industry, and the performers to meet one another. VEIL could not be the only band to leave early. The guest band, too, would join after greeting the organizers.

On the way to a restaurant near the venue, Reina walked a little behind Mizuki and the others.

For now, she had not chosen whether to stay or leave.

She was only there for work, as a member of VEIL.

Thinking that, Reina went through the restaurant door.