Reborn in Tokyo: From Heiress to Global Tycoon

Chapter 330-Light

When Satsuki walked into the recording studio, Sachiko was frantically gathering up the sheet music scattered on the mixing console.

"No need to accept it," Satsuki said.

Sachiko stopped moving. She was still holding two pieces of paper in her hand, covered with overlapping, dense pencil marks.

"I'm so sorry, Ms. Saionji. I didn't expect you to come; it's a mess here..."

Satsuki casually waved her hand and pulled up a chair to sit down next to the piano.

"It's okay, I didn't come here to watch you do housework. In fact, this messy environment is more in line with the 'musician' vibe."

She glanced at the sheet music but didn't reach out to flip through it.

"It's been three years," Satsuki said casually.

"Yes." Sachiko placed the paper back on the piano console and sat down again on the piano bench. "Three years, two months, and eleven days."

Satsuki glanced at her.

Sachiko smiled slightly.

"I didn't count them on purpose. The date of signing the contract happened to be my younger brother's birthday, so I've always remembered it."

"younger brother?"

"Yes, back in my hometown." Sachiko's fingers rested unconsciously on the piano keys, without pressing any. "He got into high school this year, using the money I sent back."

Satsuki didn't pick up on the topic. Her gaze fell on the half-empty can of coffee on the edge of the mixing console—a fine layer of water droplets condensed on the aluminum can, indicating that it had been sitting there for a while.

"You've been drinking this all along?"

Sachiko followed her gaze. "Yes. From the vending machine downstairs in the recording studio. 120 yen."

"How many bottles a day?"

"Two cans. Sometimes three." Sachiko thought for a moment, "I drink a little more when recording long pieces."

Satsuki reached for the can of coffee, glanced at the brand—it was the most common black can, and the sugar content was high. She put it back.

"I love drinking black tea," Satsuki said. "I've almost never changed it since I was little. The servants all know that I can tell in one sip if the amount of tea leaves is even slightly different."

Sachiko looked at her.

"Habit is a powerful thing." Satsuki's voice softened. "It can turn a temporary haven into a house you think you've always lived in. When you look back—the door is still open, but you've forgotten what the outside looks like."

Sachiko's fingers hovered above the piano keys for a moment.

She didn't reply. But Satsuki noticed that her breathing rhythm had changed.

Half a beat too late.

It turned out to be the case.

Satsuki mentally pieced together Itakura's momentary hesitation in the corridor, the faint mist in Sachiko's eyes, and the overly comfortable quiet that permeated the recording studio.

Ms. Sachiko, please be strong.

She didn't point it out.

"Ms. Sachiko, in these past three years... is there anything that has left a deep impression on you?"

Sachiko thought for a while.

“Last month, the recording engineer mentioned something to me.” Sachiko’s gaze fell on the piano keys. “He said he went to karaoke over the weekend, and in the next booth, a girl was singing a vocal track I had recorded. There was a breathy note in the chorus—she couldn’t sing it, but she tried four times over.”

"Four times," Sachiko repeated the number. Her voice was flat, but there was a slight smile at the corners of her mouth.

"I went back to my apartment that night and lay in bed thinking for a long time." Sachiko's voice became softer. "I was thinking—if only she knew it was me singing."

Satsuki listened quietly until the end.

There was a few seconds of silence.

"That girl," Satsuki spoke, her voice soft. "She's been practicing your breath control and vocal inflections repeatedly. You know about it, you've remembered it—you've remembered it for a long time."

Sachiko nodded slightly.

"But what if one day," Satsuki's pace remained unchanged, each word falling distinctly, "her company goes bankrupt, her savings run out, and she no longer has money to go to karaoke?"

The air conditioner in the recording studio was humming.

"And you, still in this recording studio, are recording the next perfect vocal track."

Satsuki looked into Sachiko's eyes.

"Will the thread between you and her break because of her disappearance? Or was it that from the beginning, the thread only existed on your end?"

Sachiko withdrew her hand from the piano keys.

She did not answer.

But her fingertips clenched slightly on her knee—a very small movement, which Satsuki noticed.

She leaned back in her chair, shifting her gaze from Sachiko to a sound-absorbing wall in the recording studio.

"In the last six months, I've traveled to many places." Her tone suddenly relaxed, as if she were chatting casually. "The United States, China, and several bankrupt factories in the Kanto region of Japan."

She paused for a moment.

"When the factory closed, the workers lined up at the gate to receive their last month's wages. There was an old master craftsman in his fifties whose hands were covered in calluses and whose fingernails were embedded with metal powder that he could never wash off. After receiving his money, he stood at the gate and smoked a cigarette."

Satsuki's voice was completely flat.

"As I walked past him, a song was playing on his radio. The volume was very low, and I couldn't hear it very clearly. But he stood there without moving until the song finished before he stubbed out his cigarette."

She turned back and looked at Sachiko.

"In this era, it's not easy for ordinary people to live a good life."

"They need something. Venting, forgetting, or just... a reason to feel like they can get through tomorrow."

Sachiko's Adam's apple bobbed slightly.

"Your voice is already doing this," Satsuki said. "Four hundred and twenty-seven masterclass tapes, thirteen thousand machines. Every day, people in the boxes sing, cry, laugh, or just space out along with your voice."

"But the source of that comfort—the living, breathing person with their own face—is absent."

Satsuki tapped her fingers lightly on the armrest of the chair.

People don't know who offers comfort. They have no way to thank a shadow.

Sachiko lowered her head.

It was quiet for a long time.

Satsuki waited so long that she thought Satsuki wasn't going to respond anymore.

"...I'm scared."

Sachiko's voice was very low. So low that it almost blended into the sound of the air conditioner's airflow.

"I'm afraid that once I'm up there, this feeling will change." Her fingers twisted together. "In this recording studio, I only need to face the microphone. The microphone won't judge me. If I record badly, I can do it again. But if I stand outside—"

She looked up at Satsuki.

"If one day I find that what I care about has become the amount of applause, the ranking, and how many records have been sold... then I have betrayed music."

Her eyes were a little red, but there were no tears.

"That's much worse than singing badly."

Satsuki did not answer immediately.

She looked into Sachiko's eyes for about three seconds.

Then she spoke.

"Pure is not a vacuum."

"True purity is knowing why you're singing, anywhere, and then just keeping singing. The recording studio protects your purity—but it also locks it in a box. You don't know if it can withstand the impact."

She leaned forward slightly.

"Stepping outside means putting this in a noisier place to see if it breaks. If it breaks—that means it was inherently fragile. If it doesn't break—"

She didn't finish speaking.

But Sachiko understood.

Satsuki leaned back in her chair. After a two-second silence, her voice suddenly softened.

My mother's name is Yuriko.

Sachiko looked up.

"She died very young." Satsuki's gaze fell on the lacquer of the piano, which reflected a blurry, dark blue hue. "I have very few memories of her—almost only a few images remain."

She paused for a moment.

"When she was alive, she would occasionally play the piano. She played very casually, just some little tunes." Satsuki's fingers unconsciously traced a line on the armrest of the chair. "When I was very young, something happened at home. My father was in his study with the door closed, and the servants were walking with heavy steps. The atmosphere in the whole house was terrifying."

She stopped.

"My mother sat at the piano in the living room and played a very simple piece. The melody was short, with just a few notes repeated over and over. But after she finished playing, the atmosphere in the whole room changed."

She withdrew her hand.

"The power of voice is sometimes more effective than any words."

She didn't say anything more.

"sorry……"

Sachiko kept her head bowed deeply.

Satsuki pulled a thin document from her briefcase.

The cover had four words written in pencil: "Theme Performance".

She placed the document on the music stand in front of Sachiko.

"This is a preliminary proposal." Her tone returned to its usual calm. "What the company needs isn't idols created from flashing lights and screams."

"Those kinds of idols, as long as you have money, you can make as many as you want."

She looked at Sachiko.

"But Sachiko, you're different."

"You are someone who can help people process their emotions through your singing. Your debut is not to make you a star, but to give that ever-present comfort a clear source and a ritual that can continue."

Sachiko looked down and opened the cover.

The content inside was less than she had expected. A few pages, loosely formatted, with plenty of blank space—clearly intentional, left for her to fill in.

The core idea is simple: initially, avoid large-scale commercial performances and variety shows. Start with small theaters and community centers amidst economic downturns. A series of concerts themed "Small Hopes." Sachiko will decide the song selections herself.

The last line is handwritten—the handwriting is Satsuki's, delicate and neat:

"Sing the songs you want to sing, for the people you want to see. The size of the stage doesn't matter. What matters is—that you want the girl in the karaoke bar to see you."

Sachiko stared at that line of text for a long time.

Her fingers unconsciously slid onto the piano keys.

No one spoke. The only sound in the recording studio was the hum of the air conditioner.

Then--

"bite."

A single note.

The sound lingered for a second between the sound-absorbing walls of the recording studio before dissipating.

But the moment Sachiko heard that sound, her whole body stiffened.

is it.

The chorus was revised three times, but the missing starting point was this note.

It has always been here.

On the forty-ninth key of this piano. She had played it a thousand times, but never pressed it at the "right" moment.

Until now.

Satsuki had already stood up and gently pushed the chair back into its original position.

She paused at the doorway.

"The company—" she paused here, as if considering her words.

Then she changed her mind.

"No, it's me."

She didn't turn around.

"I will be your strongest support."

After saying that, she pushed open the door and went out.

……

Itakura was waiting in the corridor. His back was against the wall, and when he saw Satsuki come out, he immediately straightened up.

"Starting next month, the amount of vocal recordings Sachiko will produce will be halved." Satsuki's voice was low. "The freed-up time will be used for her to create her own compositions and rehearse. Three months."

Itakura's mouth moved slightly.

"Young Miss, is it—"

"She will tell you the things you want to ask herself."

Satsuki walked towards the elevator. Itakura watched her retreating figure, his hand crumpling the report book in his hand.

……

Sachiko sat alone in the recording studio.

She looked in the direction the door had closed. A certain scent lingered in the air after Satsuki left, being dispersed by the air conditioning.

She looked down and glanced again at the project plan on the music stand.

Then her gaze drifted to the scattered sheet of musical notation beside her. The pencil marks were of varying depths, and the paper was fuzzy where the eraser had been used.

She picked up the pencil.

This time, her hand did not hesitate. The pen tip landed on the third line of the staff, and then moved quickly—notes poured out one after another, like a long-blocked water pipe suddenly having its valve turned on.

Chorus. Fourth version.

This time, I felt it was right.

……

At the same time. Third floor of SA Group headquarters.

Endo's fax machine rang again.

He put down the report on the progress of the Jena office registration and went to get the paper.

It was an internal notice circulated among Satsuki.

Brief content:

"To Executive Director Endo: SAPEcisionOptics GmbH's Jena recruitment program has officially launched. The first batch of target candidates is being confirmed. Please expedite the process of contacting mid-level staff at the trusteeship office."

Endo tucked the fax paper into a folder. He walked back to his desk, picked up the phone, and dialed a Frankfurt number.

Outside the window, Tokyo in October was sinking into twilight.

The neon lights in the Ginza direction are dimmer than last year.

……

8 PM. A small conference room at SA Entertainment headquarters.

Itakura sat at the head of the long table. In front of him lay a copy of the "theme concert" plan left by Satsuki. Four people were gathered around the table—two heads of the planning department, a publicity manager, and a logistics coordinator in charge of the venue.

"This is the direction Miss decided on this afternoon." Itakura's voice was half a tone lower than usual. "Sachiko Kamachi's debut project. Initially, it will mainly focus on small theaters and community centers, in the form of themed concerts. The song selection will be decided by her."

The head of the planning department flipped through two pages and looked up.

"Mr. Itakura. Producing this kind of non-commercial themed performance during an economic downturn involves costs: venue rental, equipment, promotion, personnel—it's all about revenue. There's almost no prospect of recouping the costs in the short term. The risks and rewards…"

He didn't finish speaking.

Itakura glanced at him.

"This was a strategy personally devised by the young lady."

The meeting room was silent for three seconds.

Then came the sound of turning pages, the sound of unscrewing pens, and someone clearing their throat and starting to discuss alternative venue options.

Itakura leaned back in his chair, his fingers clenched tightly under the table.

He recalled what Satsuki had said when she walked out of the rehearsal room that afternoon—"Not too much, not too little."

Then he sat up straight and joined the discussion.

Fairness itself is the greatest privilege.

……

late at night.

Most of the lights in SA Entertainment's headquarters were off. The emergency lights in the corridor emitted a dim orange glow, illuminating the directional markings on the floor like a long, narrow river.

The recording studio door was closed.

But the lights were on inside.

Sachiko turned off the tape player she used for work. She turned on her personal four-track recorder—a machine Itakura had assigned to her in her second year at the company; the tape compartment was a bit loose, and there was occasional slight background noise during recording. But she had been using it all along.

She sat down at the piano.

Take a deep breath.

Press the chord with your left hand.

It is the extension of that single syllable—from a seed, roots and branches have grown.

The melody plays in the right hand. Chorus. Fourth version.

She opened her mouth into the microphone.

The first line of lyrics slipped from his throat. The voice wasn't loud, the breath was steady, the midrange was full, and there was a very subtle tremor at the end—from a floodgate deep in his chest that had just been opened.

The lyrics are very simple.

About a beam of light that leaked in through a crack in the window.

Regarding a sound, passing through tape, through speakers, through the booth partition—

It fell into the ears of a stranger.

The tape recorder was spinning quietly.

The red recording indicator light was on, reflecting on Sachiko's face.

She continued singing.