Chapter 3 - Conscripted Into the Basement Studio

The black-bordered announcement pinned to the dean's bulletin board in the main building sent the entire graduating year into an uproar that morning. The heavy paper flyer had been mounted with the conservatory's official gold-crested stamp, listing the names of every final-year student required to take part in this semester's mandatory cross-department collaboration project.

Michiko Arunika Suryokusumo stood right at the front of the crowd of jostling students, staring hard at the rows of names posted there. Her slender fingers—so used to tending piano keys with the utmost care—suddenly balled into fists inside the pockets of her cream cardigan. Her breath caught in her chest.

Among all the neatly typed pairs of names, one line made her throat go dry in an instant:

Michiko Arunika S. & Rimba Arya S.

"Damn it," Michi muttered under her breath, letting out a short huff and closing her eyes for a moment as she realized fate had apparently decided to toy with what little sanity she had left today.

Before she could even turn to escape the crowd, a light but unmistakably arrogant pat landed square on her shoulder. The sharp scent of bitter coffee and faint mint hit her senses without warning.

"Turns out fate really does have a sense of humor, Arunika," a baritone voice she knew far too well murmured close to her ear. Rimba stood beside her, smirking, arms crossed in that infuriatingly smug way of his. "A cross-department collaboration on composing and arranging a modern sonata. Sounds like the dean's office knows exactly the most effective way to torture the both of us."

Michi rolled her eyes, unimpressed, then turned with the coldest, most professional smile she kept stored in her arsenal of pretense. "If you knew it'd be this complicated and this much of a hassle, you should've asked the dean from the start to swap you for a partner whose genius is actually on par with your exalted standards, Maestro."

Rimba let out a low chuckle, not the least bit offended by the sharp jab. If anything, his eyes narrowed slightly, studying her irises as if weighing something in his head. "Swap partners? Where's the fun in that? I'm actually curious to see what happens when a stiff pianist like you gets forced to make music outside her comfort zone."

That statement made Michi's heart leap straight into her throat. The campus basement studio? her mind screamed in panic. She'd always been so careful to keep her secret identity as Midnight Frequency's drummer confined to The Vault, far outside campus grounds. If she had to work inside the conservatory's basement studio—a place that regularly doubled as a hangout for the whole campus music scene—the risk of her secret unraveling would double, at minimum.

Without waiting for her agreement, or even a single word of refusal, Rimba had already reached out and closed his hand around her wrist—firm enough to keep her from bolting, but not so hard as to hurt her—and pulled her down the long corridor toward the east wing of the building.

"Come with me now. Per the dean's official mandate, we're starting our first session this very second, in Basement Studio Number Three," Rimba said, completely ignoring the strangled protest that nearly burst out of Michi's mouth.

Their footsteps echoed back and forth down the emergency stairwell that carried them deeper and deeper below ground. The air grew colder by the step, the morning warmth giving way to the damp smell of wet cement and the particular staleness of a sealed-off room. The moment Rimba shoved open the massive soundproof door, a dim room lined with thick black acoustic paneling opened up to greet them.

At the center of the spacious room stood a full set of instruments—a keyboard, a professional mixing console, and an entire acoustic drum kit—all arranged beneath the glow of a low-hanging pendant light.

Michi stared straight at the drum kit set up in the corner, feelings churning inside her. The armored fortress around her world was now officially teetering on the edge, rubbing shoulders directly with the one man on the entire campus who watched her every move the closest.

"Well then," Rimba's low voice broke the studio's silence as he shrugged off his flannel jacket and tossed it carelessly onto the couch in the corner. He turned around slowly, fixing Michi with a gaze she couldn't quite read. "Before we waste any more time arranging classical piano scores, I want to see just how flexible those stiff fingers of yours really are when they're asked to hold a rhythm outside of textbook theory."

Rimba walked over to the acoustic drum kit and touched the surface of the snare with the tip of his index finger. "Our supervising professor wants a strong element of modern rhythm in our arrangement. So show me, Arunika. Do the fingers that spend all their time dancing gently across ivory keys actually have the rhythmic sense to lay down a solid backbeat?"

Michi swallowed hard, feeling her throat go suddenly dry. She stared at Rimba's back, then shifted her gaze to lock onto the drum kit in front of her. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest—not purely out of fear, but because some wild instinct buried deep inside her was starting to claw its way out, straining to be tested in front of the one person she most wanted to avoid.