ID Chapter 5

# Chapter Five - "Mix and Match"

### Junko

    It was time to begin preparations for the recording of Interlunium's first single. After hearing the rest of the lyrics that Rinko presented to the girls, Lina had immediately picked up the phone and started to organize the various departments and people necessary to make things happen. She was quite surprised by the drastic change in writing styles and remarked on it numerous times over the coming days. Nobody else seemed to give the matter any attention. Thankfully, there were more important things to worry about.

    "Appearance is key when it comes to a debut single. If you don't look the part, no one will even glance your way. Thankfully, I have connections with some of the best makeup artists in Tokyo." Lina pulled out her phone and, after scrolling her finger along the screen a few times, gave us a look that said "watch this". The call rang three times before the line connected. "Momiji, that you? Perfect. I have seven girls here that need makeup and styling for a debut project." She paused for a moment, a slight frown beginning to form. "What do you mean you're booked for the next three months? There can't be that many people that need your services right now." She then closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Look, I didn't want to have to do this, but you owe me, remember?" Another pause and then Lina gave a sly smirk, looking unsettlingly like Megumi for just a second. "Perfect! I'm glad we could come to an understanding. I'll call you again to confirm a date and time. Have a good day!" After hanging up the phone, she looked up towards the group only to revel in the identical look of shock on seven very different faces.

    "The… *THE* Momiji?" Even Eimi, who hadn't yet seemed particularly impressed by anything, looked to have been shocked by the incomprehensible miracle she had just witnessed.

    "Lina!" Rinko blurted, the surprise still evident on her face. "I think this is the first time I've ever seen you, like, do your job!"

    As I covered my face with my hand from that remark, the other girls all turned to look at Rinko, unable to believe that she would just say something like that to our producer.

    Lina responded predictably.

    "Get out. Now."

    That was all it took for the members of Interlunium to exit Lina's office. Lina took a deep breath and sunk into her chair, muttering to no one in particular as I held the door open for my teammates, followed by closing it extra softly.

    "I was going to retire, you know…"

    After being kicked out of the office, we set out on the task of getting our song - and ourselves - ready for recording. The first order of business was breaking down the song's parts into seven lines, trying to keep them as equal as possible while still making our unique sounds compliment one another on the harmonies. The next was running down the list of tips and rules to obey over the next few days to preserve our voices for the recording sessions, both to benefit our girls who hadn't done it before and those of us who may need a refresher course. Rinko started us off.

    "Rule number one! Don't stress your voice!" She said it confidently and loudly, stressing her voice in the process.

    "Actually, that's rule number two." Eimi saw fit to share some of her experience, whether she had been asked for it or not. "Rule one is to always, always, always, know your lines. Read them as often as you have to so you don't screw up, er, so you don't waste valuable time."

    "I don't know which number it may be, but we absolutely must keep proper diets for our voices to be in top form. Right, Ms. Inagawa?"

    "That's correct, Megumi. As little sugar as possible and no dairy whatsoever. Not even in your tea." A couple voices groaned at this restriction, though Chiyo and Rinko had the loudest reaction by far. While it had already been established that all of us have an appreciation for sweets, those two seem to have a particularly strong fondness for them if the wrappers left behind at rehearsals were any indication. Plus I know for a fact that my roommate nearly always has some sort of snack tucked into her bag or pockets.

    "And don't forget to do your breathing exercises. As often as you can." I added to the list, backed up by the lovely Ms. Han.

    "That way you'll build stamina! That'll help when we're on stage too!"

    "Alright! Now let's go practice our parts!"

    After almost a week of preparation, Interlunium was finally ready to begin recording. The studio that I MY ME uses for their artists isn't actually a part of the main building, but a separate location altogether located a few miles away. The studio isn't all that big or even impressive when compared to the more grandiose structure of the main offices. In fact, most people wouldn't be able to tell that this gray, apartment-like complex housed the recording and production equipment for one of the biggest labels in Japan. The first time I'd come here, I thought for sure that it was a joke or a mistake and that there was no way this plain building was where hundreds of idols had cut their most memorable songs. By the blank looks on their faces, that must have been pretty close to how Chiyo and Kanon felt right now. There were no bright lights, no glitzy neon signs, and no life-sized photographs of famous idols. Instead a single white sign that read "Studio" in plain block letters was mounted above the large double metal doors that guard the entrance of the building. There weren't a lot of windows either, with only a few on the first floor in management offices, but they were all tinted nearly black to prevent any passersby from seeing what's going on inside. With some of the more popular idols, it was also to protect them from the constant flow of press photographers and super fans that may come to see if their favorites were in the studio.

    "Alright girls, I shouldn't have to say this…" Our producer glanced in turn at a few girls in particular, making sure they were paying attention "...but be on your best behavior here." Lina warned all of us as she began walking towards the doors. "There are some really important people inside and we would like to have them keep working with us, got it?"

    We all weakly replied in agreement, causing Lina to spin around and give us her signature glare.

    "Got it?" She asked again, sending chills down everyone's spines. Even Eimi's.

    "Yes ma'am!"

    With this response meeting her expectations, she swiped her employee badge and input a code into a numerical pad next to the doors. After the 5th loud beep the large doors unlocked, granting us access to the inner workings of I MY ME Records. Well, access to the lobby of the inner workings. Chiyo had been shaking in anticipation the entire day, worrying aloud about her lines and listing a neverending checklist of "what ifs" about ways to mess up, but it only got worse when she saw the lobby of the studio. In contrast with the dull exterior, there was a very modern feel to the lobby, most noticeably the finely cut stone edges coming out from the walls that gave off the feeling of something dangerous, yet powerful. Immediately to the left of the entryway an alcove housed a strange art piece that looked like it was melting into the floor, something that could have come straight out of a Dali painting. Thin, metallic skewers erupted from the ground, piercing what seemed to be jagged reflective surfaces in mid-air. Each of us glanced at it as we walked by, but nobody uttered a word of theory about what the piece may have been about.

    *Maybe it's just art for the sake of being art?*

    On the right side of the lobby, a beautiful grand piano was positioned under a bright light. Although the lid was kept closed, not a trace of dust could be found anywhere, showing the care they put into maintaining the grandiose atmosphere of the room. Something about it was almost alluring. It looked like the kind of instrument worth more than most small houses, and my fingers itched slightly seeing it, despite not actually playing the piano. But at that moment it seemed like a wonderful story to tell someday: The time I played **Sakura** badly with just two fingers on the most beautiful piano I'd ever seen. Moving past it, that itch unfulfilled, was a very simple, circular white desk in the center of the room. Two monitors at each side bookended a rather tough and burly man wearing a white button up a size too small for his muscles. All of us appeared to be very intimidated by him and his menacing aura, except for two of our party. Lina just walked up to him casually, speaking playfully as she patted him on the arm.

    "Hey, we've got studio three for the day. Can we go in, big guy?" She plainly asked the man, who took a glance up from his phone and stood up immediately, knocking his chair over rather loudly.

    "Ah! Miss Fujimura!" He loudly announced his surprise, which echoed slightly off the hard walls of the lobby. "We've been expecting you! Of course you can enter!" He leaned to the side to see past Lina - which frankly wasn't necessary at all, given his impressive stature - and surveyed the clump we were walking in. "Is this everyone?"

    "Yup, seven plus me. Today's going to be focused on group vocals and the chorus." Lina explained to the man. She then turned around and shouted at us, as though it was our idea to stop and dawdle. "Come on now, we can't waste anymore time!"

    The large man typed briefly into his keyboard and the deep thwoof of a door unlocking came from the far end of the lobby.

    "Thank you, Toshio. Have a good day!" Eimi chimed in, thanking the man sweetly, no doubt only to remind the rest of us how familiar she was with this entire process. She dropped her cellphone into a plastic bin on the counter, which we all repeated, knowing that recording devices were strictly disallowed beyond the lobby.

   The second set of doors led into a large elevator. Lina pressed the "three" button and up we went. Nerves started to build, and you could hear breathing starting to speed up, most notably from our little green ball of anxiety. Before I could reach over and comfort her - a reflex developed from her tendency to look for me for guidance, for some reason - Kanon beat me to it, grabbing her hand and whispering something in the diminutive girl's ear. Chiyo took several deep breaths along with her, calming down and coming back to Earth. I'll admit, I smiled a bit seeing our two most junior members helping each other out like that.

    Lina sensed the general tension in the air and produced a deep sigh. Eimi seemed completely relaxed, but everyone else had only been here a few times. Even Dam-Bi had gained a reputation for her visuals and energetic shows, and had been here less than you would have thought. But Lina had seen it happen time and time again. Even though it may not seem like a big deal, for some of us this was their first real start into the industry, and for even more of us this was a precious second chance.

    "Don't let the pressure get to you. I don't want to see any of you burn yourselves out, ok?" Lina gave us a quick pep talk - was that enough to be considered a "pep talk"? - and the elevator doors opened right on cue. Lina led us down the hallway in relative silence - the only thing breaking it being a single quick laugh from our blonde bombshell at our expense - until we reached a red door with a small, circular window near the top. She took a peak in and slowly opened it, announcing our presence to whomever was inside. An older gentleman walked out and smiled familiarly at Lina before greeting the seven idols in front of him. He didn't stand out as an executive, as his attire consisted of a somewhat worn out gray suit and dress pants instead of the expensive silk and linen most higher ups wear. His silver hair was slicked back and he wore a thinly framed pair of spectacles that didn't seem to actually help with his vision, judging by the way he leaned in close as he spoke.

    "Hello, girls. My name is Masamune Ono, and I'm going to be working with Ms. Fujimura here to produce your first single." He explained to the group, giving each of us a friendly look. He continued on. "Seeing you all here achieving your dreams really makes me happy. I have a daughter around the same age as you girls, and I hope that she'll also turn out as spritely as all of you and pursue something as passionately."

    Rinko's eyes lit up after hearing Mr. Ono's introduction.

    "Woah, you have a daughter our age? Aren't you a little old, though? What's her name? Maybe one of us goes to the same school as her! What kind of hobbies does she have? Is her name Katsumi? I know a girl who looks a little like…" She interrogated the older man, getting panicked glares from her fellow members. Thankfully, Mr. Ono chuckled, not offended by Rinko's flurry of queries.

    "No, no, this isn't about me or my family. We can talk about that later. Right now, we need to get you all in the booth!" He gestured into the room he had just vacated, and we filed in one by one following Lina. The door led into the "studio", whose main attraction was a huge panel with a plethora of buttons and sliders. In the back, where we would each be spending a lot of our time, was a pair of rather spacious red plush couches for people to sit and listen to the people on the other side of the large glass panel that divided the room in two. The recording booth on the other side of the glass was very plain in comparison, with only large pieces of black foam insulation covering the walls and a single microphone locked into place to provide the optimal sound for the artist.

    "Okay ladies," Masamune explained the process to us. "We are going to run through the whole song individually. I know there hasn't been a lot of time for you all to practice and it may seem scary to sing alone, but that's why we have the whole day." His face hardened and his lips curled into a slight frown. "As much as I hate to say this, today will be the worst day for you all. We will probably stop you multiple times to re-record parts if we don't like it. This will go on for the next three days, but since you are all here now, we want you to remember: everything we do is because we want to make sure you all sound as good as possible. Understood?"

    "Yes, sir! Understood!" We replied in unison, which I took to be a good sign. The first one to go into the booth was Rinko, who was very eager to get going. This was the second time I'd been in this exact situation, watching my best friend skip happily into the booth, and the second time I'd seen her get a chance to make her dream come true. Practically bouncing into the booth, she put on her headphones and gave Mr. Ono a thumbs up to signal that her headphone volume was okay. Lina then gave her - and us, by extension - some instructions.

    "Okay, we're gonna take it from the top. Just be yourself and sing the way you think it should go. We'll correct you if we don't think it works, but please remember that we aren't here to scold you. It's always hard to record like this, and we both understand that. Just do what feels natural and you'll do fine. And please, please, for once actually just listen to me." We all seemed somewhat surprised by our producer's words of wisdom and understanding, but we were also grateful that even though she was gruff and strict, she actually cared. At least somewhat. Even Eimi - who was increasingly becoming the barometer for anything about this that exceeded expectations - didn't have anything bad to say.

    "Geeze, Goro never said nice stuff like that…"

    The familiar instrumentals began to build. I doubt very much that any of us had listened to our song less than a hundred times so far, and could guarantee that Rinko had listened to them much more than that in our room alone. Then the drums and bass came in, and finally the horns. Everything was flowing together into an upbeat symphony of synths and sounds, building up to the part where Rinko had to sing, except…

    No sound came out. It seemed that she forgot or was too nervous to actually sing. The music abruptly stopped and the recording light turned off. An awkward silence filled the room. No one dared to make a sound besides Eimi, who was practically cackling at Rinko's mistake. The others quickly tried to shush her, but the damage was done. Rinko stood there, her body shaking due to the embarrassment.

    She was on the verge of tears until she noticed the talkback turn on again, hearing Mr. Ono's calming voice fill her ears.

    "Huh. That's a first. Let's try that again but with a bit more energy!" He brightly chuckled, making the girls feel more comfortable as well. "We’ll go again. Just don't forget to sing this time, okay?"

    The second time around was a lot better, as Rinko remembered to actually sing and got about a quarter of the way in before Masamune gave some more instruction. From then on, the rest of the recording went smoothly, with only a few interruptions to direct her to change her tone, her timing, or her pronunciation. Megumi's session went about the same, as did Kanon's - a welcome relief since it was her first time - then my own. Mr. Ono did want to work more with Chiyo and Dami-Bi since he felt like their voices were too soft and lacking in emotion - though mostly too soft. Overall though, everything was starting to come together really well. Even Lina was impressed with how fast her girls were able to figure out their voices, as it took other idol groups days to figure out how to develop their trademark sound.

    "There may be hope for them yet." She whispered under her breath, assuming none of us would hear. Or not. This was Lina. I can't imagine she was worried about stuff like that.

    There were no clocks in the recording booth, and without our phones there was no way to tell time - as, like most teenage girls, none of us had thought to wear a wristwatch - so we had no idea how much time really passed during our sessions.

Sure, they felt like they took a while, but none of us wanted to start complaining in front of Lina and Mr. Ono and shine a negative light on Interlunium. During breaks - and only breaks, because "it'll help if you get comfortable with the room" - we were allowed to leave the now stuffy studio to get some water and sprawl out in the hallways, but with the lack of windows on the upper floors, there was still no way to determine the length of our stay here.

    "Whew, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be!" Chiyo noted, fanning herself with her hands as she sat down on the floor, her back against the white walls of the hallway. The booth began to feel stuffy after the third or fourth recording of the song, and most of us were becoming restless.

    "Psh, this is nothing!" Eimi laughed dismissively.. "I've spent countless nights in the studio recording my FOUR albums, so this is actually quite a relief for me. In fact, let me tell you about the time I-"

    "Hold on, Ms. Inagawa," Megumi interjected, surprisingly brave in the face of such a witch. "If you were in the studio for that long, does this mean that your producer didn't like all the times you sang your song?" A loud gasp came from Chiyo as the rest of us stared at our blonde veteran or our sandy brunette, unable to believe she had said such a thing.

    "W–what? Of course not! Goro and I had some creative differences and so we had to spend a lot of time figuring out what was best!" Eimi stuttered, a rush of red spreading on her cheeks. She was probably going to give more excuses but Lina came out from the studio and announced that they were almost done, and that this should be the last session for the day.

    "All right girls, you all did a wonderful job today! Thank you very much!" Mr. Ono concluded, turning his chair towards all the girls sitting on the couch. We all visibly relaxed, most of us breathing a sigh of relief. We thanked the staff and Mr. Ono and went back to the company van, picking up our phones from the lobby as we checked out for the day. Surprisingly enough, the entire session had amounted to only around six hours in the studio. The ride back - barely twenty minutes - went by in no time, as we all hyped each other up about the great job we had done in our first session. Once we got back to the dorms, Lina stopped us all to give one final announcement before we retired for the night.

    "Okay, today went pretty well, better than I could've expected, really…" She led with  a compliment. "However…" she paused, pointing at Megumi, Dam-Bi, and Eimi, "...tomorrow you three will be going back to record individual lines. This shouldn't take too long compared to today, but just prepare yourselves and rest your voices." She then turned to look at the rest of us. "The rest of you can get some rest and prepare for the final session.. Once everyone is done recording and the mix is near finished, we'll meet with some of my acquaintances to go over designs. We should be done in a week if we work fast. Do you understand?"

    A resounding agreement from the girls showed that we had grown a lot as a group over the past day. We all went back to the commons area of the dorm to find some dinner where Rinko started off the conversation. Like always.

    "This is sooo incredible! I can't believe we're all so close to actually debuting!" The other girls joined in her excitement, except for Kanon and myself who just stared at her blankly, then exchanged a telling look. Obviously I would remember that I had already debuted, but it was slightly impressive that Kanon seemed to realize. I felt a little bit awful, almost dizzy, wondering if Rinko even remembered that the two of us had already debuted before as a duo. Was our entire history going to be swept away to make room for Interlunium? Before I could correct her, the usually quiet Kanon spoke up, slightly louder than her usual volume.

    "I'm… really glad to be a part of this group... I was nervous coming into all of this so quickly, but you all welcomed me so warmly. I know it's not the first time some of you have had a big premier, but…" She curled up even more tightly than normal to hide the light blush forming on her face. It complimented her pinkish eyes perfectly, though I'm not sure anyone else had been paying enough attention to notice that. "...you're making this really special for me. And for Chiyo, too. It's like we suddenly have five big sisters… so… thanks…"

    No one said a word for a while, shocked by the display of gratitude from the small girl. She looked at me again, smiling a bit pinkly, and I nodded my head in appreciation of her courage. All of a sudden, before I could see any more, Dam-Bi and Rinko both practically jumped onto Kanon and hugged her affectionately, praising her even more than usual, complimenting her for being so adorable out of seemingly nowhere. I chose not to say anything, just smiling and giggling at the display in front of me, lest I ruin the moment.

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