Even though he wasn't paid for it this time, Konrad spent most of the afternoon in the music store. As he suspected, the traffic wasn't much better during the weekdays, either.
How the shop even stayed afloat, he had no idea.
But he had other things to worry about.
"No, Ryu-chan, use the other drums, too," Yuki pleaded, confiscating a drumstick from Kaede.
She hit each of them from left to right, then all the hats on her way back.
Something like a scale. And she did it in rhythm, one-handed, and faster than any of them expected. Could she actually play every single instrument?!
Konrad couldn't decide if that was the more surprising, or the fact that she remained patient.
Like—for the entire afternoon, and with all three of them.
That alone was quite an achievement, because he would have lost his mind more than once.
But she seemed more enthusiastic than he had ever seen her.
"And don't forget about the pedals, either," the emo girl nudged the dragoness to the side. "It's the bass on the drum, I guess. And gives a very strong rhythm for the whole band to follow."
"Hold on. Aren't, like, drums crazy hard?!" Kaede complained, looking overwhelmed.
"I tried to warn you," Konrad sighed, finding his favorite guitar on the racks.
The ES-335 seemed so expensive that he had no idea how people in this world could afford it.
Halaima's entire monthly budget might not have been enough to pay for it.
But for now, he got to use it for free. And that alone—well, paired with the magical essence he could generate with it—was worth coming to the store.
Even on his day off.
"I've got to admit, I never played with a full orchestra," Midori-kun mumbled, hunching over the keys. "What are we going to play anyway? I don't know many songs that are trendy today."
That was a nice way of saying that he had no idea about music at all.
But at least it made him sound less like a chunibyo that way.
Not that he could ever get rid of that label now.
"Don't worry, Chunibyo-kun," Yuki said, skipping over with a thousand-watt smile. "It's not like we have to play the latest songs. And punk's easy. It's crazy that you can play anything by ear."
"Wait, punk?" Konrad asked, his hand hovering over an amp.
He was about to plug the guitar in, but the emo girl had him pause.
"Um, yeah? It's an emo-slash-punk garage thingy," she said as if it were obvious.
Well, seeing her and her friends earlier, it should have been.
"What? So we won't play our own songs?" Kaede complained, holding the drumsticks wrong.
Yuki laughed, and—yeah, that question was outrageous enough to make Konrad laugh with her.
"You can't even play. Period," he noted. "And what songs? We don't have anything."
"Like, that'd be fun," Senpai-san added with a smirk. "But we have two weeks. Even if you only learn the basics and a few easy songs by then, that'd be a miracle. Writing your own is—"
"What is a punk, Lady Sorakumo?" Midori-kun interjected.
And if the emo girl was laughing before, hearing the word lady made her straight-up wheeze.
"Oh my God, Chunibyo-sama, you can't—"
She fell to her knees, squeezing her sides until the laugh turned into a hysterical cough.
"Ahaha, you want to kill me? I can't even—"
At least she had fun. Konrad only had concerns.
"How many songs do we need? And, um, I know very little about punk, too."
He died almost two decades ago. What was even trendy in this world right now?
Not that he paid much attention, even back when he was still living and working here.
All he knew was that radios started to fall out of favor. And it was unsurprising. He tried to listen to pop music once, but that had to be the blandest experience ever.
"Hmm, guess five or six would do," Yuki-san pondered, having calmed down a little.
Six?! He knew one so far. And that wasn't even punk.
"But, like, it's the easiest genre to get into," she said, pulling her phone out, fingers flying across the screen. "You already know the barre chords, the drumbeats are simple—"
A distorted guitar started playing.
Short, punchy riffs. It was fast, but didn't sound difficult.
Konrad strummed along before the singer started to shout, "You wanna be an American Idiot?"
"Wait, Green Day?" he asked.
Not a new band by any means, if even he remembered them.
"Classic punk rock. And then there's stuff like Black Parade," she explained, switching songs.
It was more orchestral, emotional, but still rather simple.
"Are all the bands on Earth named after colors?" Midori-kun asked, already copying the melodies on the keyboard. Konrad had to give it to him—he was good.
"No, no, Black Parade is the song, the band is—"
"Hold on, do we also need a name?!" Kaede interrupted, still not quite figuring out how to hold those sticks. "If it's all about colors and sounding cool, we could be, like, Crimson Dragon."
Because of course.
What else but naming a band after herself? Not that she'd contribute anything so far.
"Are dragons even a thing in this world?" Midori countered. "If there's a band called Green Day, we could be the Green Demon. That sounds way better."
Yeah, no surprise there, either.
But at least he could play.
"Those are, like, the edgiest names ever," Yuki-san laughed again. "Shouldn't you find something that actually fits you?"
And thanks to anything holy, she had no idea how fitting those names were.
But she got Konrad thinking.
Something that would fit all three of them?
They weren't even from this world. Not in this life, at least.
And as a matter of fact, their faces didn't even look like they were Japanese.
They were invaders—no, refugees.
"Immigrants," he blurted out.
Because, well, Rogue Rejects was already taken.
"No color in that one," Midori-kun argued, but Yuki's eyes lit up.
"Like the Immigrant Song? But we'd be the Immigrant Band?" she asked, fingers flying across the screen again. Right. He hadn't even thought of that; a Led Zeppelin classic.
Not exactly punk, but it was one hell of a punchy song for sure.
And even before the girl could find it on her playlist, he was trying to play the opening riffs from memory. When Yuki started screaming along, he almost dropped the guitar.
The familiar buzz of mana flowing back into his veins confirmed it.
He found the right choice.
Somehow, even Kaede could play along on the drums.
A song that those two shouldn't even know, but it still resonated with them all.
"Come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow—"
The magic didn't only course through him, it guided his hands. The same must have happened to the dragoness and the Demon Lord—and Yuki's singing was perfect.
A bassist who could play any instrument, sing any song, and propel them with a chaotic energy.
What were the odds of running into someone like her?
It was almost like a match made in heaven.
Although ever since Konrad got involved with them, that didn't sound like a good thing.