The Week I Accidentally Became a Pop-Rock Prodigy

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Sunday

My fingers were sore.

No, not just sore... they were aching.

I tried to flex them, but that made it worse. There were these little white calluses that had formed at the tips.

I figured I’d hurt them in my sleep somehow. Except they didn’t feel staticky like you’d expect from sleeping on them all night, and that didn’t explain the calluses either.

They seemed to move in practiced gesticulation.

There was no obvious reason for the aching fingers. It wasn’t like I’d been typing up an essay all night, though admittedly I should have been. I had no girlfriend either.

Wait…

I quickly booted up my laptop, praying for a miracle.

I clicked on the essay document and—

Blank. No words.

Just the title sitting there at the top:

“Anatomy and Function of the Temporal Lobe”

Dammit.

I guess some miracles aren’t meant to happen.

Monday

As if the events of yesterday couldn’t get any stranger, it somehow did.

In addition to my callus-riddled fingers, I woke up with a song stuck in my head.

A full song. Verses… chorus… bridge, the whole shebang.

The strangest of all, I had no idea where it came from. No one in my family played music. It wasn’t like when you accidentally hear something at the convenience store and find yourself humming it all day. No. This song seemingly came from nowhere.

I knew it. Every note of it. Every rise and fall in the melody. It was as if I’d listened to it a thousand times before. But I couldn’t remember a name, or artist, or anything.

I made my way to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

My sister, Tohru, poked her head into the bathroom doorway like a nosy cat looking for trouble. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Singing.”

“Huh?”

“You were doing it last night, too.”

I nearly choked on my toothpaste. “I was what?”

“That weird song! I thought maybe a music spirit possessed you. Or a singing monster.”

“Tohru, there’s no such thing as—”

“But it sounded kinda cool, actually. Like something from one of those magical girl anime.” She cut me off.

“If you turn into a pop idol with sparkles and lasers, can I have your room?”

“Hell no.”

“I hate you.”

Then she walked off.

For the rest of the day, I kept catching myself humming that same tune. 

Tuesday

A bunch of words, all over the margins of my textbook. In my handwriting.

Only thing is, I didn’t write them.

I mean, sometimes I write down random thoughts, the occasional bored scribble in class. But this? This definitely wasn’t mine.

I couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be lyrics to a song or a bad attempt at poetry. Something about “fighting to be free” and “finding the rhythm in the chaos.”

It was the type of stuff that you’d expect from some idol-obsessed preteen.

I stared at it for a while, trying to figure out where these words even came from. Did I write this while sleepwalking? Maybe it was just Tohru going through my stuff for the millionth time. That didn't quite explain how it was in my handwriting though...

I was having strange dreams recently, and pairing that with the stress of my waking life, I was one step closer to full-blown psychosis.

I showed Yashiro during lunch. As one would expect, he took one look at the textbook and started laughing like there was no tomorrow.

“Pffft—no way! You’re turning into a living, walking shoujo anime.”

He was already grinning like an idiot.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re about to drop your debut album: ‘Songs of Angst and Random Metaphors!’”

I didn’t laugh.

Still, I didn’t know how to explain it either. I mean, it’s not like I could tell him, “Hey, Yashiro, I think I wrote these lyrics randomly in my sleep somehow, and now my fingers hurt for no reason.”

I muttered something about needing more sleep and told him to shut up. He didn’t seem too convinced by my excuse, but whatever. He always thinks I’m overthinking things anyway.

I tried to focus on Sakamoto’s boring lecture.

Wednesday

More lyrics in my textbook. This time, accompanied by musical notes.

As if whatever sleep-dwelling demon had possessed me the night before had leveled up from “angsty poet” to “full-blown amateur composer.”

And of course, I could understand it.

While we did have mandatory recorder lessons in primary school, I definitely had no clue how to read music. Yet when I looked at the page, I could hear the melody in my head. Staffs, treble clefs, and line notes somehow magically wound up in my vocabulary.

I wondered if I was some kind of musical prodigy, like Mozart or Liszt. Perhaps tomorrow I’d write myself a full orchestra, complete with the tragic violinist girl with an incurable illness.

During lunch, I made the mistake of opening my textbook with Sayuri next to me. “OOO, are you writing a love song?”

“Neither. I didn’t write this.”

“What’s it doing in your textbook then?”

“Apparently I’ve been possessed by the ghost of Beethoven.”

Sayuri just gave me a weird look, like I had seaweed stuck in my teeth. 

“What?” I asked. 

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “It just kinda reminded me of something...”

But she didn’t say what. Then she trailed off.

Thursday

For once, things seemed normal.

No sore fingers, no weird lyrics inside of textbooks, no music that didn’t belong in my head.

I got dressed, ate breakfast, and brushed my teeth. Adamantly expecting something to come revealing itself at any minute. But nothing did.

Then came school.

We had an assembly in the gymnasium this morning and Minase gave the closing speech.

She stood behind a podium holding a clipboard in one hand, posture perfect with brushed eyelashes. Her voice rang out as effortlessly as it had the several dozen previous times.

“Good morning, everyone. As you know, preparations for the Cultural Festival are well underway. I expect all class representatives to submit their finalized plans by the end of the day…”

After a few more minutes of Miss Student Council rambling about various upcoming events, the speech came to a close.

“…Let’s work together to make this semester one to remember!”

Then she gave a graceful bow and walked off the stage with perfect composure.

Students in the gymnasium half-heartedly applauded. I clapped along too, pretending not to know the fact that she’d stayed up all night panicking over that speech.

I pulled out my phone to check messages—and that was when I saw it.

On my phone’s music player, sitting between The Blue Hearts and the Daijiman Brothers… dozens of songs from artists I had never heard of before, in genres that were anything but my taste.

Idol pop. J-pop. Pop-rock…

I rubbed my eyes and looked again.

Still there.

The titles were even worse. Just like the lyrics in my textbook, they looked straight out of a playlist from a preteen’s music library.

“Echoes of a Broken Heart,” “Rewind the Memories,” and my personal favorite, “Bitter Sweet Victory.”

Yashiro was right. I really was turning into a teenage pop star.

I put on my earbuds and listened to a few.

They sounded like the typical girly stuff. Stuff that Tohru, or maybe Sayuri would enjoy, but nothing I’d listen to.

Then a voice spoke up from behind my shoulder. “What are you listening to?”

“Gah—!”

I fumbled with the phone, trying to swipe it away and pretend I wasn’t just staring at an album cover with a neon-haired idol in a glitter-covered dress making a kissy face.

“Um, nothing...”

“It doesn’t look like nothing. Are you really into this kind of music?”

“They’re not mine.”

“They’re on your phone.”

“My dumb sister probably downloaded them.”

I could tell she didn’t believe me.

“I don’t know how they got there. I don’t listen to this stuff.”

“You sure about that?” Minase’s voice now had a teasing lilt. “I mean, ‘Seishun Complex’? It kinda suits you.”

“N—no, really it’s not what you think…”

My face was going red.

Her grin widened a bit more. Minase clearly enjoyed my discomfort a little too much. “I’ll admit, this is the most entertaining thing that’s happened all week. Who knew you had it in you?”

“You’re starting to sound like Yashiro.”

“Nah, but if you ever need a music coach, I’m sure I could help,” she giggled to herself as she walked away.

My face was still red. I quickly deleted the songs and slipped my phone back into my bag.

And the worst part of it all, ‘Seishun Complex’  was now stuck in my head.

Friday

Nothing weird this morning.

I went to school, keeping a close watch for anything musically-supernatural.

The day went by like any other. I thought that my prayers were finally answered.

That was until I arrived home.

When I opened the front door, I heard my mom’s voice from the hallway. 

“Tsukasa, could you come here?”

I walked into the living room, where she was standing by the door leading into the storage room, her hands on her hips. “You’ve been messing around in the storage room, haven’t you?”

“No? I haven’t been down there for weeks.”

I walked over, completely confused. And there, sitting right by the door, was a guitar.

I froze. 

“What the heck?! Where did that come from?!”

“It was your Ojisan’s guitar. It’s been sitting in the storage room for years, but this morning I noticed the case was open.”

“I—I’ve never seen this before…”

She ignored me.

“You should be studying, not messing around in the storage room. College entrance exams are just around the corner.”

“No, no. I wasn’t playing it. Maybe it was Tohru.”

“Tohru? Tsukasa, don’t be silly.”

“Well, it wasn’t me. I swear.”

She shook her head as if playing along with a bad attempt at a lie. “Okay, okay. Just remember, you’ll have time to play the guitar all you want once you’re an engineer at the University of Tokyo.”

She reached over and ruffled my hair.

“Now go to your room. I don’t want to see you out here until dinner, okay?”

“Right… well, I’m going to do homework,” I mumbled, retreating to my room.

⊹ ▬ ▬ ⊹ ⊹ ▬ ▬ ▬ ⊹

I groaned, face-down in my sheets. The week I’d become a pop-rock prodigy was finally over.

I was slowly going mad, one bizarre musical incident at a time.

Perhaps I was being cursed by my Ojisan’s spirit after being such a disappointment to my ancestors. Or maybe I was some sort of musical werewolf who vibed to tween music instead of howling at the moon.

Either way, I’d given up on trying to explain it. It was only a matter of time before the next unexplainable occurrence happened.

If I wake up tomorrow with a guitar in my bed, I’m calling an exorcist… 

...Or a music instructor.

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