"Hey, Kohai-kun. Did you practice?" Yuki greeted him before his weekend shift. She still wore all black with a hint of rainbow, messy hair covering one eye. "Let's see your hands real quick."
Why was everyone obsessed with his hands these days?
Konrad waved his fingers, the emo girl's one visible eye going wide.
"Hold on. You slacked?!" she demanded as if he owed her something. "I expected more from you. You were this close to greatness. And then you let me down like this?!"
"What? No," he scoffed, pulling back. "Why are you so dramatic?"
Not that he didn't know exactly why she was so surprised.
His left hand was in ruins a mere day ago, but Kaede had dealt with the worst of it.
At a price he'd rather not think about.
And it wasn't something he could have explained to this weirdo anyway.
"I'm not," she pouted, crossing her arms. "But those are the hands of a princess, not a rockstar."
"A princess?!" Konrad couldn't help but laugh. "I have callouses, see? I played a lot."
The healing magic got rid of those, too, but some of them were already back.
He spent the rest of his time playing until his arms wanted to fall off. At least to recover the mana used on his healing. His fingers took the abuse much better now, so in a way, it worked.
His essence was back to where it started, so that was something.
But the emo girl didn't seem impressed. Yet.
"Play me something, then," Yuki asked, her hands moving to her hips.
She seemed—invested?
Why exactly?
"I, uh. Sure," Konrad muttered, swinging his borrowed guitar case around. "Don't expect Hendrix, I worked on strengthening my fingers, rather than, um—being good."
He looked around to find the store empty as usual.
The owner, Sorakumo-san, was nowhere in sight, either.
Still, he felt stage fright as he unzipped the soft case to fish out the acoustic guitar.
It was stupid. She was the one who taught him, so why? Not like he wanted to impress her, he did everything for himself—and, well, for Kaede. All to regain his mana.
He couldn't be that bad if he had already recovered another hundred since that hospital visit.
"Whatever, play me a major scale," Yuki barked, refusing to move an inch until he did.
"Oh, that," Konrad mumbled, scratching his head.
The basics. The things he skipped for mediocre but immediate results.
"I'll have to retune the guitar then," he said, reaching for the E-string's key. The girl watched his every move, making him fumble a lot more than usual. "It was in drop D, so—"
"Cheater," she scoffed, but a smirk was tugging at her lips. "Did you get that from the tube?"
Jealousy? He did watch as many beginner guides as he could find.
"I wanted to play something worth listening to," he apologised—for some reason. "Scales weren't the most exciting. And power chords are much simpler like this."
"You're explaining it to me?! Hah," Yuki laughed, giving him some serious Demon Lord vibes.
Again, not something he saw the actual Demon Lord do, but imagined him doing so.
"I was grinding punk in drop D before you could even walk," the girl claimed, looking down on him somehow. How she did it when she was so much shorter, Konrad couldn't understand.
But it was a lot of confidence for someone so young and small.
Her smugness only wavered when he finished tuning, strumming the empty strings.
"Oh? By ear? Not bad, Kohai-kun. But you'll need more to impress me."
Impress her? Wait.
"How else are you supposed to tune it?" he asked, yet another instant regret.
Yuki didn't even say anything. She waved at the counter, with at least five different tuning machines and a dozen other aids lined up. She had already shown and explained them to him.
It was part of his job to know them, but—
Yeah. He was a terrible learner when it came to something he hadn't known already.
"Can't tell if your raw talent or stupidity is more impressive, Halstadt-san," she said. But that must have meant that tuning by ear was something to be proud of? "Okay, major scale. Now."
Konrad sighed, planting his fingers on the strings.
Pushing them down wasn't the problem now, but he didn't practice notes that much.
He took it slow, concentrating on the pressure rather than the placement. But how could he miss three notes out of eight have amazed even himself. Yuki laughed again.
"Okay, no buzzing, that's good. You did practice, but I don't know what."
For being so cute, she definitely was ruthless.
"Give me an E minor then," she barked the next order before he could flex his fingers. "Switch to an A major. I said A. I said major. Now back. Too slow. D major? Even slower. Oh, boy."
Konrad was sweating harder than when he had to spar with Welf after running a marathon.
His hand was much stronger now. The strings no longer cut deep into his fingers, but his palm started cramping after five minutes. All those shortcuts came back to haunt him.
He didn't even notice when a customer entered the shop.
Yuki greeted them with her usual cheer—shuffling forward as if roleplaying a zombie.
But Konrad kept playing. He stretched his hand, switching back and forth between chords.
"All right, that's enough." The emo girl tapped his shoulder once the customer left. "I let you graduate to an electric now. Pick one with a slender neck from that rack."
He froze.
"Are you sure?" Konrad asked, hands trembling as if she told him to fight an unknown monster.
"Yeah, your skin is hard enough for the metal strings now," she explained. "They are thinner, and the neck is, too. Easier to play. And those power chords sound much better with distortion."
She winked, dancing back to show him the options.
So he wasn't hopeless after all?
Wait, no. She said electric guitars were easier.
But then why not start with them?! Was she messing with him all this time?
No, no, of course, his fingers bled even from the nylon strings. Metal would have been much worse. She was looking out for him in that weird way she had operated.
And by the time he caught up with his thoughts—
Konrad found himself staring at a shiny black guitar.
It had a thin white binding and gold-plated hardware.
Two humbuckers, from what he could tell. He still wasn't sure about the technicalities.
It had two F-holes cut into it, giving a glimpse of a hollow body.
A box guitar. Not as deep as the acoustic, nor as thin as the others on the rack, but somehow—
It called to him.
"Hmm, an ES-335," Yuki noted, patting his back. "You've an eye for beauty, don't you? That'll do."
She had to tiptoe to unhook it from the rack, but it seemed weightless in her hands.
"I'll bring a jack cord, bring out one of the hundred watts," she barked, skipping away with the black guitar. It looked almost as large as her torso. But of course, he had to do the heavy lifting.
Somehow, he couldn't take his eyes off that instrument.
He wasn't playing right now, but his skin was already prickling.
Not with the mana, not yet. But the anticipation—
That sleek, black beauty with the golden pickups promised him more than a few nice melodies.