Chapter 8 - Resonance in a Soundproof Room

The intensive rehearsal in Basement Studio Number Three that night felt different—not just because of the mounting pressure of the arrangement they had to finish within a month, but because Anindya's words from that morning kept looping in Michi's head, wrecking her concentration far worse than even Rimba's usual jabs ever managed to.

The basement studio seemed to swallow the residual noise of the day whole. No sound from the outside world found its way in, leaving behind a hollow, contained space now filled only with scattered score sheets and the low, static hum of an amplifier idling somewhere in the corner. But this time, that silence didn't feel entirely safe to Michi. Every time the studio door creaked slightly from a gust of air through the ventilation, she flinched and glanced up, as if half-convinced someone had followed her all the way down here.

"That's not how it goes, Arunika," Rimba's baritone voice drawled out lazily from behind the oversized headphones hanging loose around his neck. He leaned back in his swivel chair, watching her through the monitor's reflection with one eyebrow raised. "Your fifth-bar timing is way too polite. Sloppy. You've been out of focus this whole session."

Michi stopped her fingers mid-motion, quickly rearranging her expression. "I am focused."

"Liar." Rimba narrowed his eyes, studying her longer than usual. "You've been glancing at the door the entire time you play. Someone following you here or something?"

The question landed too close to the mark, sending her heart rate spiking. "It's nothing. Just tired, that's all."

Rimba didn't push further right away, though a faint suspicion still lingered in his gaze. He got up from his chair and strolled casually over to the keyboard desk where Michi sat. Without warning, he leaned in, reaching past her shoulder for the mouse to rearrange a run of digital notation on the monitor. The distance between them collapsed in an instant, and for a moment, Michi's anxiety over Anindya's text got swallowed whole by the sheer awareness of how close Rimba's face suddenly was to the side of her neck.

"That's not off-key, Michi," Rimba murmured, his voice low and intent. "That's emotional distortion. I'm leaving it a little rough on purpose, so the audience at the concert knows that underneath this model pianist's stiff posture, there's a rebellious soul in there screaming for help."

Michi straightened her back, holding her breath. Rimba might not know her true identity as Midnight Frequency's drummer yet, but his musical instincts had a way of peeling her soul open that felt far more frightening—and far more intimate—than even Anindya's little dig that morning.

Her phone, lying face-up on the desk, suddenly buzzed, the screen lighting up with a new message notification. Michi glanced at it, and her blood ran instantly cold.

Kak Nin: btw earlier i was just joking about that Tirtodipuran thing, don't take it personally lol. but someone really did tell me something like that, kinda curious tbh 👀

She flipped the phone over quickly, hiding the screen from Rimba, though he had already pulled his body back before catching a glimpse of what it said.

"Who was that?" Rimba asked, his tone drifting back to its usual casual register, even as his eyes stayed watchful.

"Nobody important." Michi swatted Rimba's arm off the edge of the keyboard desk, carving out a safe distance between them again. "Stop talking nonsense and psychoanalyzing me with your discount psychology, Rimba. If you keep stirring up trouble like this, I promise I'll wreck the piano intro on purpose the day of the concert."

Rimba chuckled, pulling his body back slowly while raising both hands in the air as if surrendering. "Mercy, Maestro. Fine, fine, let's keep going before you actually snap and start destroying campus property."

Even though their mouths never seemed to stop trading barbs, some strange anomaly kept happening every time they picked their instruments back up in that studio. The instant the melody started playing again, their fingers always found some absolute point of alignment. The tidy precision of the classical Chopin line Michi played collided with, and somehow also embraced, the brutal modern-rock distortion Rimba layered underneath it, forcing them both to briefly forget the outside world entirely—including the message still waiting, unanswered, on Michi's phone.

By the time the digital clock crept toward half past eleven, the last chime finally dissolved into the air. They stopped—not because the arrangement had reached perfection, but because both of them had genuinely run out of energy to give it.

Michi let her aching back sink into the chair, closing her eyes for a moment. Across the room, Rimba sat cross-legged on the floor near the drum kit, wiping sweat from his temple with the sleeve of a flannel shirt already rolled up past his elbows. For a moment, there were no jabs left, no sarcastic teasing. Only silence—which, strangely, no longer felt like it was pressing down on her chest.

"You know," Rimba murmured quietly, his gaze drifting up toward the dim ceiling of the studio, his voice sounding tired but genuine in a way she'd never heard from him before. "This is the first time I haven't been in a hurry to leave after a rehearsal."

Michi turned her head sharply, startled by the unfiltered sentence that had just slipped out of that arrogant mouth. But before she could catch whatever expression was hiding underneath his tired face, Rimba had already closed his eyes, letting his words hang in the air without any further explanation.

Michi chose not to respond. She swallowed, looked away, and pretended to busy herself tidying a stack of score sheets that had, in fact, already been perfectly organized for a while now. She grabbed her canvas bag, pushing down the unfamiliar feeling that had started creeping in and warming her chest against her will.

But that night, on the whole walk home, two things kept competing for space in her head—one short sentence from Rimba that refused to leave her alone, and one message from Anindya she still hadn't found the nerve to answer, quietly reminding her that the world outside this studio was never going to stay under her control forever.