It wasn’t often that Komi expressed her desire to try something new, and whenever the opportunity arose, Tadano would always encourage her. But this time, Tadano wasn’t sure what to make of Komi’s request.
She presented to him a poster printed on a sheet of paper, but even after reading it, he couldn’t figure out what Komi was asking him to do. And while he was usually pretty good at interpreting her nonverbal method of communication, he found the lack of context to be a little confusing.
Tadano leaned forward to get a better look at the poster. “What’s a ‘live house’…?”
“Come on, Tadano-kun! Don’t you know anything?” said Najimi, seemingly materializing out of nowhere.
Najimi’s sudden appearance made both Tadano and Komi jump in their seats, and Najimi was rewarded with bug-eyed stares from both of them. Najimi mentally patted themself on the back for having caused such a reaction, then continued explaining. “A live house is a place for indie bands to play.”
“Oh, I see.” Tadano turned to Komi. “So you want to go see a concert?”
Komi ardently nodded, then her face tipped to the side slightly, indicating that she was thinking. She then picked up her notebook to write out a response.
I’ve always wanted to go to a concert, but concerts on TV look crowded and scary, the page read. She flipped to the next page and wrote some more. This place looks nice and small, but I don’t know any of the bands playing there.
Tadano picked up the poster to read it again. “Can’t say I’ve heard of these bands either. ‘Love Crisis’, ‘Black Frill’, ‘Ho-kago Tea Time’… what kind of a name is that?”
Komi let out a single, barely audible giggle at his reaction, causing Tadano’s head to whip around and face her.
I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard her laugh, he realized with no small amount of awe.
