Translator's Notice

The city, when viewed from above, shone so dazzlingly that it made the stars above seem hazy in comparison.

It had been Chisei's idea to ascend all the way up the mountain pass on this late-autumn night. Because Haruomi's motorcycle was currently out of commission for repairs, they had ridden tandem on Chisei's. Trying to fit two people onto the seat was so cramped that they could hardly feel the cool night breeze.

The mountain wasn't a particularly tall one. There was a parking area for truck drivers at the top; from that vantage point, you could see the whole town all at once. As the smoke from his cigarette seeped into the scenery of the night, Chisei murmured happily:
"Hah, the town's all twinkly from up here, huh?"

"Not exactly the turn of phrase I'd expect from a rapper."

As Haruomi regarded Chiesi with a look of exasperation, Chisei laughed, the smoke continuing to snake its way out of his mouth as he did. Its familiar scent lingered on the wind. Using the guard-railing that was installed as a handrail, Chisei leaned forward and gazed down at the city lights. Haruomi, standing beside him and looking out at the same scenery, began to speak again.

"I thought," he said, "that if you were going to make us go to the trouble of getting all the way up this mountain pass in autumn, that you'd wanted to look at the stars."

"I'm not in any rush to see a bunch of lights from ages ago up in the sky. Nah-- instead, I wanted to see all those lights down in the city-- the ones that the two of us lit up."

Though Chisei's words could easily have sounded egotistical, Haruomi did not hear them as being arrogant.

This was the dawn of the era of Phantom Lives. The world was beginning to become aware of Buraikan, and the next page in music history was being turned. Phantom Lives were a brand-new source of light, a bolt of lightning to bring an oversaturated music scene back to life.

The news broadcasts that were on every television. The smartphones that everyone carried around with them. Advertisements out on the street. The countless shining lights that marked every inch of culture and civilization were all dyed a singular color. In this shining and gilded modern civilization, there was nobody that went a day without hearing the names Yasha and Shura. Buraikan was truly the most important name of the era.

"I'd been focused on the ascent the entire time... but before I realized it, we really had come up quite high," said Haruomi, and Chisei smiled back.

"Well," Chisei said, "ever since I encountered Shura's sound, I expected it would only be natural that I'd get this far."

"It was hardly smooth sailing back when you first tried to win me over, though."

"Well, of course even legends are gonna have their ups and downs, too, y'know? And all that stuff just makes for good memories."

"That's easy for you to say..." Haruomi said. "We've had more than our fair share of pointless trouble as well. You were pretty careless about a lot of things."

"Huh? Was I?" Chisei said, feigning ignorance.

Haruomi raised one eyebrow. "Yes."

The smoke overlapped with the city lights below them. The landscape of the night became a little bit hazy. The scene from that day seemed to unfold like a mirage superimposed upon the blurred landscape. A day back before they had ever heard of Phantometal, when they were just starting out as underground rappers-- an untold story of two people who would eventually become legends.

At the time, they hadn't even decided on a name like "Buraikan".

"... don't fuck with me! You swapped out the track data that you gave to the PA at the last minute!"

"I already said I'm sorry, alright?"

"It's too late for that if you only say it after we go on stage!"

"Because I knew you wouldn't go along with it if I said something before you had the mic in your hand!"

It wasn't uncommon to hear loud voices echoing from within the shuttered-up restaurant, Raimentei. After they returned from a club, it was common practice to use Haruomi's room as the site for a debrief and reflection.

Today, yet again, Haruomi was raising his voice, and yet again, Chisei was expressing absolutely zero remorse. Haruomi defiantly stayed standing, while Chisei -- sitting cross-legged on a bed that didn't belong to him -- looked up at him.

"I mean, didn't I tell you that I preferred the original version, Haruomi?"

"And when I explained my intention behind the arrangement, didn't you say, 'oh, I see'?"

"No, I'm pretty sure I said 'that's nice' or something like that?"

"Are you a fucking child!?"

Haruomi hurled a cushion at him, and Chisei effortlessly caught it one-handedly. Ah. Right. He was a basketball player, Haruomi thought resentfully.

Their rather lively exchange could be heard outside, but the residents of the neighborhood considered it something that gave the area some local character. Some even regarded it with a certain affection; they knew that Chisei had dragged Haruomi back into the outside world after Haruomi had fallen into a deep depression following his father's death, and so they said things like, ah, it seems like Raimentei's owner's son is feeling better!. It was much better that he was putting up such a spirited fight, rather than sitting around hugging his knees to his chest with no life in his eyes.

But regardless of what anyone else's feelings on the matter were, today, Haruomi's frustrations were not subsiding so easily.

"Chisei... I know you have a good sense for these things. But just rely on vibes alone, to the exclusion of all else. So you don't seem to understand why I brought down the kick and bass."

"It's about the way that makes the flow towards the chorus easier to handle, right? I get that just fine. But I still prefer the original version," said Chisei.

"That doesn't make it okay to swap the track out!"

"I just want to choose the best sound. You agree with that, right?"

"I'm a trackmaker," said Haruomi sternly. "If I think that my judgment about the sound is right, then I'm not going to be willing to change it."

"And I'm a rapper," Chisei retaliated, "so I'm only going to go along with a sound that I can groove with."

"... tch... I've had enough of this. I'm going to go outside to cool my head off." Haruomi turned to leave.

"What? Hey, no way, that's not cool, dude!" Chisei called out to Haruomi's back. "Hey, Haruomi! Can you not just unilaterally decide to end the conversation when we're in the middle of an argument? Isn't it my job to keep pressing the issue until we reach an agreement, if we're gonna be partners?"

"Hah?"

"You went out of your way to take my hand, Shura. So I don't want to leave anything just bottled up and unsaid. If you've got any complaints, you should just let me have it. Rappers shouldn't hold anything back when it comes to their words."

Haruomi's temple began to grow tense. He was about to attempt some basic anger management techniques, but having been given permission to start, he couldn't stop his mouth once he opened it.

"Well, if we're on the subject of things that piss me off, I'll just say it. First of all, don't just climb into another person's bed barefoot."

"What? No way," Chisei argued. "It's gross to step on the sheets with your socks on. And it makes me feel like I can't relax at all, y'know?"

"I don't care, dumbass! Do it at your own house! And don't leave all your socks lying around inside-out after you take them off!"

"Oh, yeah, I saw it on TV-- apparently, it's better for your socks if you wash them inside-out," Chisei said.

"And why should I have to put your socks in the washing machine with mine? I'm going to kick your ass."

"But you wash my pajamas and stuff!" Chisei said. "Why're you getting so upset about my socks all of a sudden?"

"And while I'm at it," Haruomi continued, now on a roll, "it pisses me off when you say things like 'that guy's the culprit' and 'that guy's gonna die' whenever you're watching a drama."

"Well, I mean, you can just usually tell just by looking at the cast, can't you?" said Chisei.

"Even if you can tell, you should shut your mouth. And: stop accepting fish from the old man next door if you're not even going to eat them. Someone who can't prepare a fish by himself doesn't deserve to be gifted a whole fish."

"No, but I will eat it, though? If you prepare it, Haruomi, I'll eat it just fine."

"You refuse to touch it if I don't pick out all of the bones for you!"

"How is it my fault that I don't want to be stuck doing some kind of educational puzzle when I'm trying to eat!?"

"Then go eat kamaboko^[1] for all I care! I'm not your parent and I'm not your servant!"

"You're right, you're not! So stop trying to make arrangements that pander to me!"

And when Chisei said that, the rapid-fire back-and-forth conversation came to a screeching, sudden halt. With Haruomi failing to reply, Chisei continued.

"I don't need anyone to take care of music for me. Whether or not I can groove with it is a me problem. So stop trying to put training wheels on when I haven't asked you to. I'm definitely going to prove that Shura's sound is the best just the way it is."

"..."

"What."

"Why didn't you just say that from the beginning?" said Haruomi.

"What we were just talking about helped me finally put words to what was bothering me."

"... the fishbone thing?"

"Yeah, the fishbone thing," said Chisei. "... it's part of being a rapper, I suppose, finding the right words in little things like that."

Haruomi, scratching his head awkwardly, eventually turned his back. "You really are the one who believes in my music the most, aren't you. ... this pointless, dumbass argument has just made me hungry."

"Same here. You wanna eat something?"

"All I can make is fried rice. You okay with that?"

"Your fried rice is the best."

And two pairs of footsteps descended down the stairs.

Their heated argument, which had gone from zero to one hundred in an instant, had ended just as abruptly as it had started.

They used to see that exact same scene play out dozens, if not hundreds, of times, and then...

"And now, Haruomi, you wash my socks without me even having to ask you to do it."

"And the fact that you stopped even asking pisses me off. Wash them yourself."

Now, the two of them who were in the midst of creating a legend, looked back on the days that came before from their current vantage point.

Yasha and Shura. Those two entities who once swam desperately below the surface of the water in the underground scene had transformed now into the enormous great dragon known as Buraikan.

"But y'know, Haruomi," said Chisei, "the legend we're weaving is still a long ways from finished, isn't it?" He reached a hand out towards the dazzling night view in front of them, narrowing his eyes.
"Phantom lives take the way that the rapper sees the world, and turns their music into a shining light-- something that you can see. It's as if you can feel the twinkling of the stars that don't make a single sound... even if we can't understand each other's words, even if we can't hear each other's voices, we can still convey our vibes. Isn't that amazing?"

"Music that shines... music that you can enjoy even if it doesn't reach your ears, huh?" Haruomi shared that vision as well. Using sound and light that were imbued with the world inside the artist's heart, music that could be both seen and heard-- phantom lives, using both of these elements, could represent the next step in the evolution of music.

Haruomi was looking intently at Chisei; Chisei nodded his head.

"Yeah. What we're making is music that transcends boundaries, that can reach anywhere and anyone in the world. If phantom lives keep evolving, maybe even we can get aliens to enjoy hiphop someday in the future."

"... hah. That one's pretty far-fetched."

"Well, sound can't travel through space because there's no air, but light can get through it just fine, right?" Chisei argued. "We'll turn our sound into light and shoot it across the sky at 300,000 kilometers per second." He lifted his hand, which had been outstretched towards the city lights, and reached instead for the starry sky. He spread it out across the canopy of stars, in which were written the legends of the gods, as though he could cover it completely.

"And then one day," Chisei said, "the light of the phantom lives that we started will shine on all of those stars instead. Somewhere on a planet somewhere in the universe, someone will look up and long for it. It's something whose light will continue to shine even after it dies. That's what a legend is."

"... as always, you only ever run your mouth about the most unrealistic things," Haruomi said with an exasperated smile.

Chisei laughed and continued. "If you're not dreaming big, there's no point in dreaming at all, is there? And meeting you made me remember how to dream. On a grand enough scale to pierce through the sky, shining for hundreds of millions of years..." And then he extended his raised hand out towards Haruomi. "I'll make you the happiest person on Earth."

"I've never doubted those words."

Haruomi clasped Chisei's hand as though clapping, then pressed the backs of his hand against the back of Chisei's, and then finally bumped his knuckles against Chisei's.

After completing their perfectly-coordinated handshake, Chisei snubbed out his cigarette in his pocket ashtray. Taking that as his cue, Haruomi put his helmet back on, and the two of them settled back onto the single seat of the motorcycle.

On the mountain pass where the autumn breeze sang its song, the tail-lights formed their own constellation.

[1] Fish cakes, heavily processed and completely uniform in texture. [Back]