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miss28ff · 7 years

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SHRINE ch 13

It’s getting warm in Japan! We’re preparing for summertime and with all my tests and the fact that this is an ongoing fanfic I really came to a writer’s block on the last chapter. Luckily I was able to overcome that and now I’m translating episode 13 after a long time. Remember, if you notice anything weird going on with the grammar don’t hesitate to tell me! It will be much appreciated.

(AU) (MUSIC/ROMANCE/DRAMA) (Yatori) (Kazubisha) (Daifuku) (18+ due to language, mature subjects and a little smut)

Summary: With her earphones on and melodies filling her ears, the girl looked at the ceiling, thinking. She, Iki Hiyori, a regular schoolgirl, had jumped at the street to save the life of a promising rock star.

TRACK 13

Pictures of you – The cure.

The chromed plate on the entrance of the establishment said “Lion’s nest”. Hiyori went through the automatic doors feeling anxious and wondered if this was really the best studio in Tokyo, as everyone had told her. It kind of reminded her more to her father’s consulting room.

After a hallway with grey carpet and several plants to the sides, a waiting room opened up, making way more inconsistent the fact this was a recording studio. In fact, Hiyori would have walked down the hallway again just to be sure she was at the right place if she hadn’t seen four familiar faces already waiting for her, in different spots of that waiting room. Kofuku was swinging her short feet since they couldn’t reach the ground, restless. Yukine was looking at the photographs completely filling up one of the walls. Daikoku was reading an old newspaper from the magazine rack, and Yato was sitting with a straight back, listening intently, prepared to run away any time. Hiyori gave a faint hello, oppressed by the ominous sensation that invaded her after seeing her companions turning the previous enthusiasm of recording a new demo of their new material into this evident nervousness. Suddenly a door next to the pictures Yukine was looking opened and an attractive dark haired woman asked them to come inside.

“Kuraha will see you now.”

Yato stood up quickly and looked behind the woman’s shoulder, confusing her and Hiyori and making the rest of the band let out a sound sigh. Yukine pushed him inside. Hiyori was half expecting to see an office, but the man named Kuraha was standing with the back against the wall of a hallway that only had doors and glass panels.

“Thank you, Kinuha”. Said the man with gray hair to the beautiful receptionist, who left right away. Then he came close and greeted them with a handshake, in a very western style. Hiyori asked herself how had he lost an eye, looking discreetly to the patch covering his left eye socket. Kuraha addressed Yato: “I don’t know if you’re brave for coming or you’re a straight up idiot.”

“D’ya think she scares me?” he scoffed. “Please.”

Kuraha gave him a stern look.

“So you say, but I don’t remember your hand shaking this much before.”

Yato flinched, surprised, and Kuraha let out a good laugh. “Just kidding. This way, please”, he kept talking while guiding them through the long hallway full of doors and glass panels that turned out to be windows opening to small practice rooms. “It’s true Viina-sama prefers the way we work here, but that doesn’t mean you’re forbidden to work here as well, Yato-kun.”

“Which means while she doesn’t know I’m here then all’s fine, right?” the guy shot, giving a cold glare to the rooms that until that point were empty. Hiyori saw Kuraha losing his shoulders and gave a little defeated sigh.

“I wish dealing with you both by separate were as easy as dealing with you together.”

Nobody said nothing and the silence began to get awkward. However, the fact that suddenly one of the further cubicles had music in it distracted them enough. Hiyori stopped dead upon the gaze of a practicing band, and the few sounds that could filter to the hallway were really good.

The girl looked at the band members. The guitarist had an outstanding voice range, and Hiyori admired how good he looked with his long hair pulled back in a half ponytail. Apparently, he and the bassist also shared a similar bond like Yato and Yukine -with a few differences. The platinum blond of the bassist hair swayed because of the natural movement of that man’s hands, but all the rest looked serious and professional. Catching the drums rhythm, Hiyori rocked her body side to side. The singer looked at her with a red pair of piercing eyes and made a grimace when his eyes turned to her right.

“What the hell are you doing, Hiyori?”

“What?” she asked, confused to see Yato so upset. “Nothing! I just stopped to see them!”

“No way, move!”

“But I like this band!” Yato looked at her as if she had said something extremely rude about his mother. He took her shoulders and shook her up a bit.

“You can’t like this band, Hiyori! That is totally off the question!”

“Bu…” Hiyori stopped when she saw Yato and the black haired boy exchanging really obscene hand signs and a really childish faces. Then he turned her around from the shoulders, and led her through the hallway, pushing.

“We don’t like Raijin! We don’t talk about Raijin! We don’t exchange words with them or little flirty stares with Take or Kiun or any of the others!”

“What? Why?”

“The guitarist is a dickhead” whispered Yato, pushing her a little bit more.

“Wow!” she exclaimed, astonished.

They made it quickly to the bottom of the hallway and turned right. Kuraka opened a door that let out a slight hiss, due the pressure change, and let them inside. Closing the door before them, Kuraha stepped up to turn the lights on.

Hiyori let herself get blind and confused for the strange feeling she got from this chamber. It was a completely isolated room, separated from the world outside, and the girl doubted being in such a silent place before. Libraries are quiet, same as the subway and the train, but you have environmental noise there. This place felt like you could drop a pencil to the floor and you wouldn’t hear a thing. In front of them there was a huge control panel filled with buttons, knobs and switches, each one with a little light on top, connected to three screens that once turned on, showed the entrance’s logo. To the right of all that, the wall had a glass pane that looked extremely thick. Inside of that room there was a huge drum set surrounded by plexiglass panes; a big number of chrome stands rose above it holding a big number of microphones. Hiyori had found SHRINE’s practice room impressive, but it just couldn’t compare to the place she was right now. She had never seen a place so neatly arranged, so quiet and professional. She almost thought of it as a shrine, and couldn’t avoid her heartbeat rose with anxiety. A freckled tall guy came through the door they had entered from moments earlier.

“This is Saiki”, said Kuraha. “He’s a good kid, please be nice to him. Yato-kun, did you bring the maquette?”

Yato searched on the pockets of his jeans and took out an USB drive he immediately gave to Saiki.

“I’m going to let Saiki on charge of you, guys. I should head back”, the gray-haired man apologized. “I’ll try to be back in a while.”

“Say Viina-chan hello for me, Kura-pon”, said Kofuku with a merry playful tone. Kuraha blushed and fixed his tie.

“I’ll brought it up later to her, Kofuku-dono. At this moment, I don’t think that would be very wise. Thank you for coming.”

The man let Kofuku pouting, and Yato looked straight to Saiki, which took back one step and a half, nervous.

“So what are we waiting for? That psycho bitch is close by and I want to finish before she makes this entire place to blow!”

“Y-yes Yato-san!” Said Saiki, and rushed to turn on and connecting to the console everything he needed. “I-I’m going to need Daikoku-san to be ready. I will turn the click on his headphones and the maquette as a guide for him to do the foundation for the drums.”

“Oi!” claimed Daikoku, and rolled his sleeves up, entering the room with confidence, while Kofuku looked at him, entranced.

“Yukine-san is the next one, if you could prepare yourself”, indicated Saiki, respectfully.

“Whatever you say, bro”. Said Yukine, and began to tune his bass strings.

Hiyori felt the bite of air conditioned that Saiki had turned on for the heat not to be unbearable and tampered with the sound quality of the instruments. She twisted her hands, anxious, trying to loosen up her fingers on the inside of the sleeves of her school blazer. Yato had finished tuning his guitar and he put it in one of the stands. Hiyori knew you had to let instruments to temper up to the room before checking the tuning again, but when he finished she was freezing. Yato gave her a puzzled stare, and then he came close to Saiki, who felt that he wanted to say something removed one of the headphones from an ear. After a few rushed whispers, Saiki pointed to a door further away from them and went back to working. Yato made a gesture with the head to Hiyori for her to follow, and opened the door the freckled boy had pointed.

Gray.

Silence.

She had never been in such a weird looking room. It was very reduced, it only had one chair and a microphone output with a pair of headphones, and it was covered entirely with some sort of foam cut in a pyramid pattern that was very confusing to the eye. The silence on there was even more noticeable than in the room outside. Yato closed the door behind him.

“Yato… what…?” He put a finger over his lips to make her stop talking.

“Y’see, Hiyori.” He began, and she notice a bit of pinky shade forming at the tip of his ears. “Kuraha’s place is really awesome, and even though I trust you, we need to finish this up soon for a number of reasons.”

“What reasons?” she said, looking at him with a dead stare.

“Well first of all, everyone here is a slave of that Psycho-chick”. Something inside Hiyori snapped, breaking the last of self-control she had, but Yato interrupted before she could begin talking. “We’re gonna practice your parts.”

“Now?!”

“That’s what this bubble is for! What better time to practice than now we have a bit of time?”

Hiyori started babbling, stubborn and insecure, but Yato stepped right in front of her and took her firmly from the shoulders, making her arms stick to her body.

“You need to be firm, but relax, with posture, but not stiff,” he began. “We’re gonna take a deep breath through the nose…”

“What on earth are you doing?” snapped Hiyori, confused.

“I’m teaching you what you need to do, we’re gonna finish your parts in one go.”

“WHAT?!”

“D’you thougth we were having the studio forever? Is the best one in Tokyo but that also means is one of the most expensive!”

A nerve on one of Hiyori’s eyelids twitched.

She felt the practice had lasted for hours. She realized, however, that no matter how many times she screwed with a high-pitch note or something important in the song, Yato asked her to repeat it time and time again, until she had it well mastered. He had gone through the minimum detail in her interpretation that needed to be corrected and were crucial for the new songs of the demo. Constantly Yato, listening to her standing barely foot and a half away, corrected pitches in the songs, indicating she had to lower or raise them with his hand. Hiyori tried to memorize how to land each note, and after a while on her own, while Yato recorded the base guitars, she finally had to step inside the room.

It had been changed quickly to fit a voice recording, with anything to interfere with the voice quality, and Saiki gave her a pair of big headphones, same as the ones everyone else had used. Kofuku sat right across the glass, expecting and smiling, while Hiyori adjusted the huge device over her ears. There was a crushing silence again and she jumped when she heard Saiki’s voice as clear as if he was standing right in front of her.

“We’re going to begin, Iki-san. The mix is not ready yet, so we’re going to guide ourselves with the metronome click plus the guitar.”

“U-understood…” said Hiyori, by mere habit. Saiki laughed a bit from the other side of the glass pane.

“I haven’t opened your microphone yet, so we can’t hear anything you say, but nod twice if you’re ready…”

“And raise both your middle fingers if you’re not.” She heard Yato’s voice just as Saiki’s one, clearly, directly on her ears, and her heart skipped a bit. Yato had twisted the long and flexible microphone Saiki had in the top part of the console and spoke through it. Trying to steady her heart down, she nodded twice and yelled internally how annoying he was.

“Ah, Yato-san!” said Saiki, startled. “We’re about to begin, please do not touch anything.” He spoke at her, correcting his microphone again. “Okay, I’m opening your mic, please don’t make any noise right now.”

Hiyori inhaled quietly and exhaled slowly, allowing the air to hit the circular membrane of the filter standing between her and the microphone. The click began clearly in her headphones. One, two, three, four; the guitar began to play the intro. Things are heard different in a recording studio, and even Yato’s guitar took a different color. Even so, Hiyori was always impressed about the way he played. Stupid, annoying Yato.

The metronome was marking her entrance, and she sang.

Outside, the only one listening at her was actually Saiki, but Hiyori didn’t know that. Minutes went by and Yato paced back and forth across the short space of the control room. Yukine was lost inside of his portable videogame, and Kofuku and Daikoku exchanged whispers. The young guy watched Saiki rubbing his forehead with one hand. He wasn’t touching anything in the console, and he seemed to have lost a bit of color behind his freckles.

“What’s wrong?” asked Yato, not being sure if he would listen. Saiki gave him his headphones without taking his eyes off Hiyori.

Things are heard very different in a recording studio.

Yato almost fell on his back. He observed with wide open eyes to the person singing. He could not believe she was the same shy girl he had knew. But it was her. He gave Saiki the headphones back with triumph written all over his face.

The girl inside that crystal box was a raw diamond Yato could see as if it was already cut. No matter how bad his eyes hurt by looking at her, he never adverted his gaze.

“H-here you go…” muttered a blushing and embarrassed Yukine, raising a juice at her from the vending machine in the waiting room. Hiyori received it, flustered and really touched.

“T-thank you, Yukine-kun!” she quickly opened it and gave a big chug. Yukine flinched.

“Hey, wait! Don’t drink that fast! It’s cold and you just sang for a good while! Drink it slowly!”

Hiyori tried to drink slowly a mouthful already too big for her, Yukine found her face hilarious and both broke down laughing, the girl trying to contain the liquid with her forearm sleeve. She spoke once they both calmed down a bit.

“Thank you for worrying about me, Yukine-kun. To be honest I didn’t think you’d ever trust me.”

Yukine turned around to look the pictures on the wall, same as when she arrived.

“I’m overprotective with people around me. You can’t blame me, you got closer on a shady manner and I thought it was really weird you jumped to save Yato without actually knowing who he was.”

This was the first time she actually was confronted directly about that subject. She froze down. Getting closer to the white kid, she stood right beside him and started looking at the pictures as well.

“I suppose I followed some sort of instinct”. Actually, why had she ran to push Yato? She kept questioning herself up until this point. “He simply caught my attention, and I guess I would never have some peace of mind if I hadn’t done anything about it.”

“Even on something as an accident?”

“It was a totally preventable one.”

“Whatever you say.” Sighed the boy.

A glimpse of something in the photographs jumped at her sight and she got closer to be able to distinguish the faces better. The wall was covered entirely with black and white photos of bands and artists posing with awards or performing on a stage.

In this context, the photography she was staring at was pretty common, except in this one you could see Yato. Next to Viina. The blonde diva, wearing heavy makeup and with shine on her face due to the sweat, had her arm around Yato’s neck, both showing their face to the audience. Viina was raising up the microphone between them, and Yato was singing in it as well. It was an intimate gesture… so close… so…

“This studio has always followed the careers of everyone they had been related with, client wise”. Yukine did a little shrug. “Kuraha-san is that kind of person.”

“They seem really close”. Hiyori didn’t knew why she had to avoid her voice to come out broken.

“Hm? Oh!… Well…” Yukine hesitated. “I actually never had any clear idea of what kind of relationship was going on between her and Yato, but apparently this happened before I get… to know them better.”

It was clear this was a subject he didn’t knew too much about, and that it went over subjects he preferred to avoid. Hiyori let him excuse himself to the toilet, and she stood alone in front of all those memories of a time that, apparently, everyone cherished and longed to return to. She analyzed Viina’s profile. To anybody’s eyes, she was a strikingly beautiful woman. It was pretty obvious that whenever she started her soloist career, her face would embellish magazine covers and she would be the image of many beauty brands. She was simply that kind of girl. Yato was smiling. The unmistakable spark of light his eyes took sometimes was evident on that photography, even behind all the sweat.

She slammed the door behind her and without looking at the mirror she opened the tap and ruthlessly began to splash water over her face. After a deep sigh, she looked up and stare at her reflection. She had never paid attention to those things. However, in this moment, looking at herself, she realized she was, somehow, less than she was expecting. Everything about her face screamed normality. Standard eyes, if you disregarded the uncommon shade. Common hair. Regular mouth. Small nose. She actually didn’t considered herself ugly, but after seeing someone who could wear smeared makeup and still look heavenly, questions began popping to her mind. Not only about her looks, but also about her talent; having heard and seen Viina, she got the feeling the world was a tremendously unfair place. There were people that were born with everything, and who was her in comparison?

Hiyori wasn’t thinking about telling Yato any of those things, but sometimes it amazed her how perceptive he could be, compared with how clumsy he sometimes seemed to be. This was another common, routine journey back home, but she felt as if people looked at her with pity. “You’re nothing next to Viina”, she could read at their faces, “not for SHRINE, not for…”

“I was hoping you were a lil’bit more upbeat, we just finished recording the demo” snapped Yato, making a frown. Hiyori looked at him, and she lowered her gaze when their eyes clashed together.

“Do you really think I should be more optimistic?” she asked, almost whispered.

“Well of course! I dunno whaddaya’ think, but not many people have that chance in life”. Yato furrowed his brows more and more, what had gotten into her?

“Maybe that’s because not everyone has what it’s needed”, shooted Hiyori, without taking her eyes off the floor. Yato was completely lost.

“Wh…at?”

“I’ve heard Viina, Yato.”

His reaction was not exactly what she had expected. Yato grunted and buried his face between his hands, with the elbows on his knees, and rubbed his face.

“I’m sick of that”, he almost shouted behind his fingers. “I simply can’t believe you as well, of all people, have that strange damn habit of pulling Viina out when clearly she has nothing to do with this.”

He was using a really harsh tone, and she felt how her heart shrunk. He had never spoken to her like that, not even when she was starting trying to sing. She wondered if he had used that tone with Viina before. “Surely not”, she answered herself.

“How is this unrelated? It has everything to do with her, she was the singer!” Hiyori realized she might have gone up the hill with the tone of her voice when Yato straightened up and stared at her with wide open eyes and furrowed brows.

“That’s something I have pretty fucking clear, Hiyori!”

“So how can you still be giving me false expectations?!”

“I really don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”

“Are you aware that I can’t sing like her, nor I will be able to in a million years?!”

“Well I’m certainly not asking you to do so, and obviously, you have not heard yourself sing!”

“I’ve heard myself enough to know what I can and cannot do!”. People on the car looked at them with disapproval, but nobody said a word.

“It’s not my fault you don’t believe in yourself enough!”

The train stopped, and Hiyori got off running. Yato followed her up to the stairs.

“I’m going to give the world the best band of Japan, even if I’m the only one who believes in it!” He yelled, letting her continue. Hiyori didn’t stopped running until she entered her room.

She didn’t knew why her interest hadn’t been piqued to search old SHRINE’s live recordings, but she regretted it immediately. Every time she looked at the dynamics between Yato and Viina, she couldn’t help but compare the moments they had been sharing at the practice. The blonde and Yato were always having some sort of interaction, support, or exchange, by singing together, or talking to each other to their ears to be able to understand what the other was saying, exchanging looks, things like that. Yato and Hiyori simply reduced themselves to do their own thing listening to each other, but he always kept his distance. Most of the times, the guy didn’t stared at anything in particular, or stared at his guitar, or stared at the floor. She received instructions from him yelled across the room between silences, short, essential, straight to the point. She wasn’t bothered by it, even when the others said it was something admirable from her to stand so much instructions. Hiyori always said it was something natural, he was instructing her in something she was a rookie at, and anyways, she had always been receiving instructions from someone to do something. It wasn’t new. It wasn’t particularly obnoxious. What she could not stop from spinning inside her was the fact that it was so different.

She had spent most her Sunday morning with the face buried in her pillow after late-night binge-watching SHRINE’s live videos all night. Yato hadn’t wrote since two days ago, no calls, nothing. She had finished a good chunk of her homework, which she had fallen behind at, but that didn’t made her feel more easy. The heavy feeling kept her pinned down to her face, and after Viina’s images with Yato still twirling around her mind, making her stomach and chest to scorch. She was exhausted about not knowing what the hell was going on with her lately.

Her cellphone buzzed, and Hiyori almost jumps off the bed for the surprise. Unplugging it from the charger, she stared at the name on the display and her heart skipped several beats.

It was from Yato.

She opened the audio file attached to the message and listened. It was her voice. SHRINE played alongside, without overbearing her and without staying in second place. The mix was absolutely perfect. It wasn’t quite the same quality of the record she had, but it was fairly good, beyond a demo. Her voice, her own voice, the one she had been used to for many years, shone at the right places, didn’t missed a single pitch and was clear as crystal. She was lacking the toughness and character of Viina’s and it was not the least similar to it, but it wasn’t bad at all. In fact she liked it more than she could have guessed. Right away she felt her cellphone buzzed again, and she opened a second message.

“D’you still feel like a run-of-the-mill girl?”. She was sure Yato was trying for that to appear as serious as possible, but the angry kaomoji at the end made it run down on impact. Hiyori sighed and texted back.

“That’s pretty good, is the final mixture?”. After a pair of minutes, that Hiyori used to change off her pajamas, a new answer made her cellphone chime.

“Sounds good ain’t it? I told Tenjin to come to Kofuku’s tomorrow. Make sure to be there early.”

So this was it. Finally Yato was willing to hand down the material Tenjin was requesting to continue their contract at the label. It was an important moment. Hiyori smiled and opened her curtains. Looking outside, the sun seemed to light more than usual. Another message fell to her cellphone.

“You’re way more that you can imagine, Hiyori.”

Yato closed his basement door and strode quickly to his car, trying to avoid getting too cold in the snowy blizzard that had arrived earlier. She took his car from Kofuku’s house to pick up the master record to the studio and come back home to get the scores. He considered he would do less time that way and he could do everything in a single trip, without risking the master or the scores to spoil on the way.

He still hadn’t turned on the engine, when he received a call. The display showed “Sera Kaii”.

“Sera-kun! What a weird moment to call!” he said, picking up.

“Ah, is this a bad time?” the guy at the other side apologized.

“Not at all, shoot.” Yato put the key inside the switch.

“I’m interested in this new material you’re telling me about, do you think I can listen to it right now?” said Kai, enthusiastic.

“Ah… you see…” Yato started, “in this particular moment I don’t think that’s possible, Sera-kun. I’m sorry.”

“Oh?” asked his friend, a bit puzzled. “I’m not intending to dig in things that are none of my business, but could I ask you why?”

“Do you have to be so polite?” Laughed Yato.

“If you want me to be less polite, any day you want I can punch you in the face.” Laughed Sera.

“What kind of sucky joke is that?” this time Yato laughed hard. “I actually have to give the master record to my boss in less than an hour.”

“Ah, that ol’ Tenjin? Please send him my most sincere greetings.”

“I don’t think he appreciates your greetings, Sera, to him you’re just a lazy bum that…” Yato interrupted himself after seeing something unusual outside, a sharp figure on the alley in front of his door. “Can I call you later?”

“Oh, sure…” the guy answered, confused about the sudden change of tone in the conversation. Without saying goodbye, Yato hung up and threw his cellphone on the co-pilot seat, on top of the manila colored envelope with the scores, and the clear plastic case with the CD, reading “SHRINE:MASTER” handwritten in black marker. He let the key inside the switch.

He got down the car, shaking.

The white kimono of the girl standing in front of him shone with a ghostly light in the gray sunset. Yato hated to admit how scared he was of seeing her using that white kimono, surrounded by the falling snow.

“Nora.”

The girl smiled.

The first thing Hiyori noticed arriving at Kofuku’s was the empty parking space where Yato’s car usually were. The pink haired girl greeted her with the usual demeanor and invited her to step inside and warm up on the kotatsu. Sitting there, she couldn’t help but notice the passing of time and the absence of Yato. Between small talk, she noticed Yukine taking his phone and press it against his ear regularly.

The accorded hour arrived, and there was no sign of Yato. Hiyori tried to call him on her own, leaving to the hallway to have a little bit more privacy.

“Yato here. I’m busy now but if you really have to, leave your message and I’ll call you later”. The beep from the answering machine went off, and Hiyori hung up. Where was he?

A car’s headlights went through one of the windows, and Hiyori ran to scold that dumbass for arriving late.

When she saw the gray-haired gentleman getting down the black mercedez, Hiyori looked at the time on her phone.

A shiver went down her spine.

Thank you all so much for reading up to this part! The next following episodes are going to be LOADED with angst and I actually have a few trigger warnings so be sure I’m going to let you know properly.

Lots of love!

#noragami #noragami fandom #noragami fanfic #yatori #yatori fanfic #yatori fanfiction #noragami fanfiction #yato #hiyori #yukine #kofuku #nora #daikoku #bishamon #kuraha #music au #noragami au

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