A long sigh drifted from the production room of Strawberry Productions, which had recently relocated its headquarters to a considerably larger building.
Miyazaki Makoto, the manager and producer for Enfants Terribles, hung his head in shame before Saito Ichigo, the head of Strawberry Productions.
"I thought everything was going too smoothly. Thanks to Enfants Terribles, AAA and B-Komachi were able to break through as top-tier groups with ease. Our revenue surpassed even the major agencies, and we were planning to go public soon... and then this..."
"...."
Saito Ichigo, with his blonde hair and rugged beard, began to grumble and vent his frustrations in front of the bowing Miyazaki Makoto.
"Uaaagh...."
The reason for Ichigo's lamentation lay in the background: three muscular men collapsed on the floor, nursing blackened eyes and swollen faces.
"Makoto... when did they say the next album would be released?"
Miyazaki Makoto, whose own face was bruised on one side from trying to break up the brawl, answered Ichigo's question.
"Tanaka Shuji said they needed to maintain their momentum and finish it by mid-September."
"Baldy... let's go for a more intense sound this time... something raw, like Metal..."
"Don't give me that bullshit... you Musclemon..."
Saito Ichigo sighed as he watched the two men, already in tatters, try to start another fight.
"Uaaagh..."
"Hide, even you... these goddamn stars..."
Even Hide, the 'relatively' reasonable member of Enfants Terribles, was sprawled out with his lips so swollen he was gasping for air like a goldfish.
It seemed like extraordinary measures would be required to produce the second album.
"Call Ai. Right now."
Ai was the only one capable of handling the three rascals of Enfants Terribles.
As for the work on the second album, the first news the public was dying to hear was simply that Enfants Terribles had gotten into a massive fistfight with one another.
"Let's make everything like '(What's The Story) Morning Glory?' this time!"
With Ai, Saito Ichigo, and their manager Miyazaki Makoto watching, the Enfants Terribles meeting resumed.
The perfectionist Bald Bassist was, as usual, advocating for an album with an operatic narrative structure.
"Think about it! '(What's The Story) Morning Glory?' had better stats than the Leader's 'Definitely Maybe'! That's what the listeners want!"
Provoked by the Bald Bassist, the handsome blonde man's voice began to rise.
"Shuji, which album actually had better critical acclaim and produced more hits?"
While that was happening, the muscular Black drummer watched silently, and Ai was deep in thought.
"Heeeh— can't you just release it as a double album like last time?"
"I'm with her, man. Isn't Ai's suggestion the most rational one so far?"
Enfants Terribles had failed to reach a consensus while making their first album as well, eventually compromising by releasing it as a double album. However, there was a reason they couldn't do the same now.
"Musclemon, back then we were churning out masterpieces like crazy, but honestly, we're not quite in that same form right now."
The reason was that Enfants Terribles' songwriting capability wasn't at the same peak as when they made the first album. Naturally, an artist's creative flow fluctuates.
Moreover, since Enfants Terribles had released every masterpiece they produced during the tour as immediate singles, they had no songs in reserve.
"Baldy, we have a masterpiece-making machine right here."
"But it looks like the Leader is running low on inspiration lately too, don't you think?"
To the members of Enfants Terribles, Hide was a machine for churning out hit songs. However, it was also true that they felt his recent output wasn't quite what it used to be.
'I don't want to keep plagiarizing anymore.'
The reason Shuji and Yokishi felt Hide's recent form had dropped was because Hide had stopped plagiarizing the classic hits he remembered from his past life.
"Leader, have you written anything recently?"
"I've only written one song lately."
"I guess it was the old Leader who was the weird one."
In truth, writing a good song is incredibly difficult. Even if one scribbles down several tunes a day, the ratio of songs high enough in quality to actually make it onto an album is often less than 1%.
Right now, the masterpiece of my life is 'Basket Case,' and I don't have the confidence to produce anything better than that as my current self. In fact, it's common for singers to go through their entire careers and retire without ever producing a single song of that caliber.
"Man, how did we pull those songs out before?"
"Who knows..."
Ai, who had been listening to the conversation, looked at them strangely as they huddled together in distress.
"I think... maybe it's because you're feeling pressured?"
"""Pressure...?"""
The Bald Bassist thought deeply about Ai's words, then suddenly shouted "Eureka!" and started causing a scene.
"Right! In the past, I just wrote songs for my own sake! As long as I was having fun, that was all that mattered!"
"We definitely got caught up in the obsession that we had to make a masterpiece. In reality, they're things that just come out while you're messing around... right?"
""Huh?!""
At Ai's words, the minds of the Enfants Terribles members—except for the blonde handsome man—lit up like lightbulbs.
"Why didn't we realize something so simple?"
"I agree, Musclemon."
And the only one unable to join that conversation was the leader of Enfants Terribles, Hide.
Hide had always done his best to recreate the songs from his past life as accurately as possible. He did so out of a sense of responsibility to the two men who had trusted him and joined him in the unfamiliar world of a rock band.
And now, it was time for him to break free from that responsibility and play his own music. That was why he intended to stop using the songs from his past life.
'But can I really keep up with those two?'
When they first met, Yokishi and Shuji were lacking in many areas. Since they had essentially never heard of the Rock genre before, Hide always had to teach them.
However, the two who had been receiving his guidance had suddenly bloomed with talent, overtaking him and charging forward. They were moving at a speed that Hide, with his 'mediocre' talent, found nearly impossible to follow.
"Yeah, let's do it again. The double album."
If before it was about taking responsibility for those two, now it was about catching up to them. He still wanted to keep making music with those talented guys for just a little longer.
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