Chapter 7 - An Open Stage and a Reputation on the Line

The next morning, the atmosphere on the second floor of the Swasemesta Conservatory's main building felt far louder and more crowded than usual. Unlike the plain internal memo that had first paired them together, this time a massive public poster hung in full glory on the main announcement board, impossible to miss from either end of the hallway.

It was the Official Poster for the Dean's Showcase Concert—complete with a performance schedule open to the entire campus public, set to take place exactly one month from now. Someone had gone to the trouble of laminating it, and the glossy sheet caught the overhead lights every time a passing student jostled the crowd in front of it.

Michi stood at the very back of the crush of students pressing in to read it, arms crossed over her chest as she scanned the list of performers printed in crisp black type. Her breath caught for a fraction of a second the moment her eyes landed on the tenth line from the top, printed in bold letters impossible to miss.

Michiko Arunika Suryokusumo & Rimba Arya Swara — Cross-Genre Collaboration Project (Classical x Modern Rock)

Damn it. The poster was going up permanently, for the entire conservatory to gawk at, with an open invitation extended to students from other faculties as well. It wasn't just the examining professors who knew anymore. The whole campus was now officially watching the classical piano department's pride and joy get put on a stage beside the most notorious troublemaker in the entire academy.

"So this is what's had everyone buzzing since this morning."

The voice wasn't Rimba's. Michi turned to find Anindya Prameswari standing beside her—a final-year opera vocal student known across the whole conservatory not just for her voice, but for a social network that reached into nearly every corner of every faculty. Anindya wore a thin smile, her eyes sweeping over the poster in a way that made the back of Michi's neck prickle with unease.

"Didn't expect you, of all people—someone who always picks solo projects—to end up collaborating with Rimba Arya Swara." Anindya tilted her head, her tone light but unmistakably probing. "The professors even had a poster this big made. Guess that means it's actually considered something special."

"Just a normal academic project, Kak Nin." Michi kept her voice carefully flat, even as her heart had already started thudding uncomfortably against her ribs.

"Hm, maybe." Anindya shrugged, though her smile wasn't entirely convincing. "It's just a little strange, that's all. A few days ago someone mentioned they saw you leaving the Tirtodipuran area pretty late at night. And as far as I knew, a good girl like you doesn't exactly hang around a neighborhood like that." She let out a small laugh, as if she'd only just cracked a harmless little joke. "Anyway, I'll leave you to it. Good luck with the concert!"

Anindya walked off, melting back into the crowd, leaving Michi standing rigid, her blood seeming to run slower than usual through her veins.

She hadn't even finished processing that last sentence when a baritone voice she knew far too well spoke up right beside her ear.

"You've gone awfully pale, Arunika. Worried your good name's going to get tarnished now that our little collaboration is on public display for the whole campus to see?"

Michi didn't even need to turn her head to know exactly whose voice that was. Rimba was already standing there, wearing his favorite black bomber jacket, one hand tucked casually into his pocket, studying the poster in front of them with a small smirk decorating his mouth.

Michi exhaled roughly through her nose, forcing herself to set aside what Anindya had just said, at least for the moment. "What I'm afraid of isn't my good name, Maestro. It's my sanity, which is going to get completely drained over the next month from having to deal, day in and day out, with an arrogant guy whose favorite hobby is picking fights with my life."

Rimba let out a low chuckle—a sound rough at the back of his throat that immediately made a couple of girls nearby turn their heads and whisper to each other, visibly, jealously interested.

"Don't worry too much about your sanity. As long as our arrangement comes together perfectly and leaves those old professors with their jaws on the floor at the concert, everything else is easy enough to manage," Rimba said, unbothered.

He then took one step closer, lowering his voice until it was almost a whisper, pitched to reach only Michi's ears in the middle of the crowd.

"Besides, wouldn't it be a lot more interesting if the public found out about our little secret from the basement the other day?" Rimba murmured. "Just imagine the look on the whole campus's face if they found out this stiff, dignified classical pianist... actually has a hidden talent for beating a drum kit as brutally as any street musician."

Thud.

Michi's heart felt like it stopped beating for a moment in her chest—not just because of what Rimba had said, but because those words had landed right on the heels of Anindya's mention of Tirtodipuran. Two threats in the same morning, from two completely different directions, and Rimba didn't even know how close his little joke had actually come to the truth.

"Don't you dare try opening your mouth about that in front of anyone, Rimba," Michi warned sharply, her voice trembling faintly from a mixture of anger and the feeling of being cornered from both sides at once. "If even a single rumor starts spreading about my playing, I will personally make sure you don't sleep soundly again until the day we graduate."

Instead of feeling threatened and backing off, Rimba only seemed to enjoy every second of the pianist's resistance even more. He pulled his face back slightly, a triumphant, crooked smile carving itself across his mouth.

"Now that's a very interesting threat," Rimba replied, calm. "Relax, Arunika. I'm not the type to go around handing out our little secrets to just anyone. But... let's see just how long you can hold onto that pristine mask of yours, all the way up until the day of our big concert."

Without waiting for a reply, or any further insult from Michi, Rimba turned on his heel and strolled off down the main corridor, unhurried, hands back in his pockets, as if he hadn't just detonated a small bomb in the middle of her morning.

Michi was left standing there alone in front of the announcement board, frozen, her hands curled into tight fists at her sides. She glanced briefly toward Anindya, who had already blended back into a cluster of other students at the far end of the hallway, laughing among themselves, occasionally throwing glances back in her direction.

This game had already gone too far to simply be shut down now. And beneath the anger boiling hot in her chest, Michi had to admit one bitter truth: Rimba wasn't the only one now holding a key that could bring her carefully built world crashing down. This city was small. This campus was smaller still. And now there were other eyes, too, beginning to watch her far more closely than she had ever expected.