"Irassaima—oh, Kohai-kun," Yuki greeted him, before her eyes went wide. "And friends?"
Konrad's ears were already red from the embarrassment of entering the store on his day off. But when an angry-jealous dragoness and an overeager Demon Lord followed him—
Things became a hundred times worse, and fast.
"Do you sell harpsichords?" Midori-kun asked, looking around in the keyboard section.
The emo girl's mouth hung open.
And before she could answer, Kaede made her flinch by slamming a palm on her counter.
"Hey. Ryu Kaede desu. Can I talk to your boss real quick?"
She was snarling, and Konrad had to drag her away by force.
"You mean Oto-san?" Yuki asked, blinking.
Konrad wanted to disappear, but they even skipped the last class to come straight here.
The dragon wouldn't forgive him for leaving her out of the band, and Midori-kun was eager to test his music theory. The only issue—nobody alive has seen a working harpsichord here.
Kaede shook his hand off, switching to full Karen mode.
"I sent Kon—I mean Halstadt-kun here to apply for a job. Not that you'd exploit him for a—"
PLIMP.
They all jumped, including the Demon Lord, who caused that distorted sound.
"So loud," he moaned, hunching over one of the synths.
But rather than turning the volume down, he tried to cover his ears and play like that.
Given that he had two of those—and only two hands, too—he had no chance of success.
But he tried anyway.
Like cavemen in a spaceship.
Konrad shot the dragoness a glance, then ran off to help with the volume before they all lost their hearing. And they wanted to join his band?! They were even more hopeless than he felt.
By the time he more or less contained the chaos, he was already panting.
Yuki-san took it like it was any other regular Monday.
"So your classmates want to join our band?" she asked him while looking up at Kaede.
This new vessel of the dragoness was already tiny, but the fact that the emo girl was even shorter baffled him. Konrad could only wonder—
If a group of kindergartners entered, would his senpai still be the smallest in the store?
"Well, we can't have him claim all the glory alone," Kaede said.
She calmed down a bit, but her eyes were still flashing. That wasn't enough to scare the little bassist. The emo girl leaned over the counter, her chin resting in her palm.
"Mhm, and what instruments do you play?"
Silence.
Except for the notes Midori-kun produced.
He actually found a harpsichord sound on a keyboard, playing something in the corner. It reminded Konrad of Bach or any other old classical music from his era.
But even if he didn't know the original, it was obvious the Demon Lord kept missing the notes.
"Damn it, I got rusty over a century," he cursed over the keys. But then— "Oh, I can feel it now. The child wasn't lying. There is some magic in here."
Him? Child?
Konrad could only rub his temples, trying to dissociate from his 'friends'.
"What's that?" Yuki asked, losing interest in the still silent dragoness. "Oto-san used to shove classical stuff down my throat, but I never heard this one."
Her? Versed in that ancient music? This emo girl never ceased to amaze him.
But in a sense, the Demon Lord surprised him, too.
"Huh? It's Markand's Seventh Symphony. Transported to the harpsichord," Midori-kun said without even looking up. "I performed it in the Royal Palace way back. Ah, the memories—"
This raised even Yuki-san's eyebrows.
"Halstadt-kun," she whispered, shuffling closer. "Is your friend a chunibyo?"
Konrad sighed.
She didn't need to know the truth.
"Something like that," he gritted out a lie, listening to the play.
It was getting better. His veins buzzed with the faintest flow of mana, too.
But the piece didn't resonate with him at all.
"You think he's good?" he asked, voice low. "Or have you found other bandmates yet?"
"Oh, right, for the thing?" Yuki chirped, her grin wide. "I completely forgot. Tehee."
This girl. He couldn't have gotten away with murder in Japan.
He never even wanted to kill someone before. But this girl—
"He's not bad, I guess," Yuki shrugged, walking up to the synth. "Hey, Chunibyo-san, can you play something more modern, too? And like, let's try a nice little rock organ instead."
Konrad half expected the Demon Lord to lash out and destroy the entire store.
But luckily, he had no mana yet. And by the looks of it, he didn't understand the word, either.
"Organ?" he asked, glancing up. "Um. Modern? I heard this, in what you call Television."
He played a jingle that reminded Konrad of an ad. Now that his fingers warmed up, the Demon Lord played the simple tune with confidence.
And on an organ—transforming it completely.
The emo girl burst out laughing.
"Ahahaha, is this that mobile ad? Chunibyo-san, you're hilarious."
"Don't know the rest, but might go like this," Midori-kun mumbled, his fingers never stopping.
He spent the next few minutes improvising a whole song from a few notes he had heard before.
Konrad's mouth hung open. He had never expected the Green Mage to play an instrument.
And especially not expected him to play it this well. It was fitting the villain image, though.
"That's not bad," Yuki noted, too. "I'll send you some sheet music later. Or stuff you could try playing by ear. I can work with this. We'd only need another guitar or a bass—and drums."
"Drums?" Kaede asked, her eyes lighting up. "Like, beating the rhythm, and all that?"
The emo girl looked her over with a sceptical expression.
Konrad couldn't blame her.
"It's not that simple," he said before the fierce little rocker could lecture her. "You need good coordination. Sometimes you play a different rhythm with your hands and legs."
The dragoness shrugged.
"That's fine, you need pretty good coordination for flying, too. Consider the air currents and all. Plus, I was listening to some idol bands lately, and drummed the rhythm along."
"That's not the same," Konrad groaned, feeling a headache coming.
But Kaede already ignored him.
"Do you have, like, a drum set I could try out?"
Yuki-san looked her over again. A smirk formed on her face, her lip piercings clinking.
"In that corner. Try not to ruin it, though."
Oh boy, when chaos meets chaos.
"This is how they do it, right?" Kaede asked, grabbing a drumstick and spinning it between her fingers. "I saw it in a music video. And then they went like this—"
She looked like a barbarian warrior gathering momentum for her finishing strike.
"Easy," Konrad warned her. "They're made for humans, not monsters."
That last part slipped out, and the dragoness did not appreciate the tone. But at least, her first beat didn't destroy the entire set. It was still louder than any of them expected.
"Whoa. Okay. Where is the volume knob on this thing?" she asked, looking for clues.
That was as long as Yuki-san could keep it together.
She screamed in laughter, both arms wrapping around herself.
"Volume, she says," she wheezed, slamming Konrad in the back. "Kohai-kun, your friends are insane. But if she can actually play the drums—that's the kind of insanity you need for rock."