Chapter 37 - A Concert at the Edge of the Line

The air inside The Vault felt heavier than usual that night. After the reprimand incident a few days earlier, Michi knew she couldn't keep stalling any longer. The countdown to her departure for Austria was now only a matter of days, and hiding the truth from Genta and Bimo—the two people who had helped her build Midnight Frequency from absolutely nothing, back when it was just three kids and a borrowed practice space—would only amount to the most cowardly kind of betrayal.

After finishing the closing song with a slightly more forceful set of hits than usual, Michi brought her playing to a stop. She pulled her headphones off, set her pair of wooden sticks down on the snare, and drew a deep breath.

"Gen, Bim... hold on a second. I need to tell you guys something," Michi's voice broke the silence of the studio, thick with the smell of damp air and cigarette smoke.

Genta, who had been coiling up his guitar cable, turned his head, while Bimo stopped in his tracks on the way to the exit door. Both of them stared at Michi with their brows furrowed, catching the unusually serious tone in the drummer's voice.

"What's wrong, Chi? You look really pale," Genta asked, walking closer to the drum kit. "Don't tell me you're quitting the band?"

Michi shook her head slowly, though her throat had suddenly gone tight. She twisted the hem of her jeans. "No... I'm not leaving. But... I need to go away for a while."

"Go where, exactly?" Bimo stepped closer too, crossing his arms over his chest with a wary expression.

With a voice that shook but stayed firm, Michi finally revealed the card she had kept hidden so tightly for so long. She told them about the conservatory scholarship she had won, about the requirement to continue her studies in Vienna, Austria, and, most importantly, about exactly how much time she had left.

"I have to leave in the next two weeks," Michi continued, looking at each of her bandmates in turn with a look full of regret. "It's just four months, guys. I promise, it's only four months to finish up my academic business there. After that, I'll come back to Jogja, come back to this studio, and hit the drums with you again a hundred percent."

For a few seconds, the room was blanketed in a deafening silence. Genta and Bimo sat visibly stunned, as if their brains needed extra time to process the shocking confession from the girl in front of them, the one they'd spent months assuming was just another restless kid looking for an escape from a boring life.

Genta let out a soft huff, then laughed a little—not a joyful laugh, but a disbelieving one. "So... this whole time, our fierce drummer who hammers the snare like she's possessed by some street demon... turns out to be a model student at an elite conservatory being sent off to Europe to become a classical musician?"

Michi winced slightly, biting her lower lip. "Yeah... pretty much."

Bimo smacked his own forehead, shaking his head. "No wonder you always kept glancing at your watch during rehearsals, or sometimes had traces of that expensive perfume typical of Kotabaru campus kids clinging to you. We thought you were just some regular rich kid, and here you are hiding a 'double life' worse than a secret agent!"

Seeing that her friends' reaction wasn't an immediate explosion of anger, Michi's tense shoulders slowly began to relax. The guilt that had been pressing down on her chest since earlier melted a little.

Genta stepped forward, giving Michi's shoulder a firm pat, a thin smile spreading across his lips. "Four months is nothing, Chi. You've helped us build this band up from below zero to actually having a name like we do now. If it's for the sake of a brighter music career out there for you, there's no way we'd be selfish enough to hold you back."

"Exactly," Bimo chimed in enthusiastically. "But we're not going to let you just leave without a proper send-off, that's for damn sure. If you're going on a four-month hiatus, we're putting together one last stage before you fly out. A Midnight Frequency farewell mini-concert—so the people of Jogja remember exactly who the wildest drummer to ever tear up an underground stage really was!"

Michi's eyes stung instantly. A powerful wave of emotion swelled in her chest, pushing tears close to spilling over. She nodded enthusiastically, welcoming the proposal with the most sincere smile she had ever shown.

"Deal," Michi said firmly. "Let's put together the craziest show anyone in this city has ever seen before I leave for Vienna."

Under the dim lights of the basement studio, a plan for a farewell concert was suddenly agreed upon. Michi felt the weight on her shoulders lift a little—she had finally been honest with her band, she was ready to face the next four months, and, most importantly, she would make sure that when she came back, she'd bring the best version of herself home with her. But she'd forgotten one thing... that outside this indie band's circle, there was still one more person who knew absolutely nothing, and soon, the biggest storm of her life was about to explode.

She rode home that night with the wind whipping cold against her helmet, replaying Genta's easy forgiveness and Bimo's joke about secret agents over and over in her head, feeling lighter than she had in weeks. It didn't occur to her, not once on that quiet ride back through Tirtodipuran, that the same honesty she had just found the courage to offer her bandmates was still sitting, unspoken, on the other side of the city, waiting for her to find the same courage twice. She told herself she'd find the right moment eventually, the way she always did, and let the thought settle quietly into the back of her mind alongside everything else she wasn't quite ready to face yet.