Chapter 4 - One-on-One Behind the Drum Kit

The chill in Basement Studio Number Three suddenly felt like it was cutting straight into her skin, and this time it wasn't only the air conditioning set too low. Michiko Arunika Suryokusumo's heart felt like it was about to leap clean out of her chest. Her breath caught in her throat as the full weight of what Rimba had just said finally sank in.

Play the drums? In front of the one guy with the sharpest ears in the entire conservatory? He couldn't be serious.

Michi stood frozen, dredging up every last scrap of self-control to keep her mask as calm as possible. She slowly slid off her canvas bag and set it down on the long couch in the corner, moving with careful precision so her fingers wouldn't give away their trembling. Inside her head, the alarm bells were screaming without pause.

If she played it halfway, or looked stiff, Rimba would only grow more suspicious and write her off as some know-it-all pianist bluffing her way through. But if she let herself get carried away and showed her true skill, her secret identity as Midnight Frequency's drummer could be blown wide open.

"What's wrong, Arunika? Cat got your tongue all of a sudden?" Rimba's voice cut through the thickening silence.

He was still standing beside the matte-black Pearl drum kit, leaning back with easy confidence, spinning a drumstick deftly between his fingers. His gaze bore straight into her, sharp and probing, as if deliberately baiting some kind of psychological reaction out of the school's model student. "Don't tell me a pianist of your caliber can talk a big game about sonata theory, but the second you're actually handed a rhythm instrument, you fold."

Cold. The way he wrapped her surname, "Arunika," in that condescending tone was enough to light a fire in Michi's skull. The mask of elegance she wore like armor practically begged to be thrown off then and there.

Michi drew a long breath through her nose, exhaling slowly to smother the wave of irritation pressing against her chest, then stepped forward with her chin held high. She refused to look weak in front of this insufferable composer.

"That mouth of yours could use some remedial schooling, Maestro," Michi shot back, sharp. Her voice stayed low but cold, weighted on every syllable. She stopped right in front of him, the distance between them razor-thin. "I'm not folding. I'm just weighing how embarrassed you're going to be when it turns out a beginner's rhythm is a lot cleaner than that messy composition of yours."

Rimba went still for a beat. One thick eyebrow rose, before a maddeningly crooked smile broke across his mouth. Rather than take offense, he only looked more delighted by the challenge. Without hesitation, he held out the drumstick in his right hand toward her—offering the wood like a gladiator's sword raised for a duel.

"Prove it, then," Rimba murmured, low, a silent dare. "No more talk. Sit down there, and show me exactly what kind of beat those precious fingers can make."

Michi looked at the drumstick extended in front of her, then let her eyes slide past Rimba's shoulder to the drum kit behind him. Every avenue of retreat had officially closed. The last remnants of the rebellious spirit she'd spent years burying beneath sheets of Chopin's classical scores suddenly clawed to be let loose.

In one quick, decisive motion, Michi snatched the drumstick out of his hand. Their palms brushed for the briefest instant—warm and rough, sending a small jolt racing up her wrist. She yanked her hand back immediately, pulled her expression into something ice-cold, and walked over to the drum stool.

The round seat felt foreign, and yet, at the same time, oddly familiar. It was a stark contrast to the rigid, structured bench of the Steinway grand. Behind this kit, Michi didn't have to worry about keeping her spine perfectly straight. Here, she finally had room to breathe.

Rimba took a few steps back, crossing his arms and leaning against the acoustic paneling. He tracked her every movement with eyes as sharp as a hawk's, harboring an enormous curiosity about what this classical pianist was about to do.

Michi closed her eyes for a moment, drawing in as much air as she could to steady her racing heart. When her eyes finally opened again, her expression had shifted completely—no trace left of the gentleness of a model student. All that remained was the sharp, singular focus of an underground drummer.

One, two, three, four.

Michi drove the hi-hat pedal down with conviction, then swung her sticks into the snare and crash cymbal in one synchronized, powerful strike.

Crack! Ta-tak, crash!

A loud, rapid, energy-charged rhythm exploded to fill the soundproof studio. The pattern was wild, and yet carried a mathematically clean precision—as though driven by an internal metronome honed over years spent behind piano keys.

Rimba, who a second earlier had been leaning back with one brow raised, straightened up at once. His eyes went wide, locked on her hands as they moved deftly, dynamically, forcefully across the kit. The mocking smirk on his face dissolved, replaced by stunned silence.

Michi kept driving the tempo forward, pouring out half a lifetime's worth of buried emotion and exhaustion into every hammering drum roll. The small room roared, dragging the raw essence of indie-rock into the one place it had absolutely no business being.

The moment the final beat closed with a solid strike on the cymbal, the echo slowly faded, leaving a thick silence behind in the studio.

Michi took short, quick breaths, her chest rising and falling to catch up with the leftover adrenaline, but she quickly straightened her posture and pulled her expression as cold as she could manage. She twirled the stick between her fingers, then turned toward Rimba, who was still frozen in place.

"Well, Maestro?" Michi's voice came out slightly hoarse, but firm enough to cut through the silence. "Still want to say I sound like a broken washing machine?"

Rimba didn't answer right away. He took a slow step forward, watching her with an expression that had completely changed—no longer simple curiosity, but something far more intense.

He stopped exactly one step away from her. The scent of his cologne mingled with paper and mint, close enough now that it raised goosebumps along the back of her neck.

"Your playing..." Rimba murmured, so quietly it was almost as if he were talking to himself, the corner of his mouth curving into a thin, cryptic line. "...isn't anything close to a broken washing machine, Arunika. That just now sounded like a storm."

Michi let out a stifled huff, ignoring the strange flutter that suddenly slammed against her chest. She rose from the drum stool with as much composure as she could gather, trying to shake off the last traces of nerves creeping up her fingertips.

"Save your poetic flattery," Michi shot back, coolly dismissive, lifting her chin to look unshaken. "I've only proven that your assumption was dead wrong. Now that this little trial run is over, we can get back to the dean's actual assignment, can't we?"

Instead of stepping aside, or reaching for the score sheets on the table, Rimba leaned his hip against the edge of the instrument desk. His arms stayed crossed over his chest, his eyes still refusing to let go of the figure in front of him.

"Who said the trial run was over?" Rimba offered, his tone low and unhurried. "The dean's brief asks us to blend classical and modern elements. And just now? You proved those slender fingers of yours carry a wild power that's genuinely interesting."

Damn it. Michi cursed inwardly, snapping fully alert. That was close. Thank god she hadn't gotten carried away and slipped into one of Midnight Frequency's actual signature drum patterns.

"Don't read into it," Michi cut in quickly, keeping her voice deliberately flat. "I just happen to have a little rhythmic training from when I was a kid. That doesn't mean—"

"Of course it doesn't mean anything," Rimba interrupted suddenly, a thin smirk playing at his mouth as he shook his head slowly, as if laughing at his own thoughts. He straightened up, breaking the distance that had briefly closed between them.

Rimba turned, strolling over to retrieve his flannel jacket from where he'd draped it on the couch. His whole demeanor shifted, suddenly more relaxed—not because he'd stopped caring, but because his own logic flatly refused to accept the wild idea that had just crossed his mind.

There's no way, Rimba thought to himself. There was no way someone like Michiko Arunika—the dean's pristine pride and joy, a girl whose entire life was governed by conservatory rules and aristocratic family tradition—could also be moonlighting as the drummer for some loud, gritty underground band. It had to be the single most far-fetched theory that had ever crossed his mind. At most, the girl probably had some secret hobby that her family had beaten out of her long ago.

"There's no way a model student like you would have any interest in the dirty world of the underground," Rimba went on, his mocking tone deliberately exaggerated to mask a curiosity that hadn't actually died down at all. He glanced back at her over his shoulder. "You're far too stiff, and hold yourself in far too high regard, to go sweat it out in some grimy studio with a bunch of street-band kids."

At those words, the breath Michi had been holding in her throat finally released, safely. She quickly buried the relief flooding through her under a sharp, skeptical frown.

Good, Michi thought, breathing easier. Keep believing that lie, Maestro.

"Good thing you realize that," Michi replied, decisive, snatching her bag off the couch in one brisk motion. She walked past him toward the studio door without a backward glance. "Now save your ridiculous theories for next week's meeting. I'm going home."

The studio door shut firmly behind her, leaving Rimba alone in the dim room. The young composer stood frozen, staring at the closed door, his fingers tapping an absent rhythm against the surface of the desk.

Even though his rational mind insisted his suspicion was a joke, an impossibility, the vibration of energy and rhythmic precision from Michi's drumming still rang clear in his head. Something inside him whispered that the girl was hiding something far bigger than what she let show.

And Rimba, a perfectionist obsessed with musical detail, had no intention of letting that secret stay buried.

He'd already heard two pieces of circumstantial evidence now—once through a demo recording, once through Michi's own hands on a drum stool. But two pieces of evidence were still too thin to call certain, and Rimba wasn't the type to settle for a half-baked theory. If his wild suspicion turned out to be true, the only way to prove it would be to see Midnight Frequency perform live on The Vault's stage himself—something that, for whatever reason, he had never once gotten around to doing.