Ren was wiping his eyes. Not crying for a variety show gag. Actually moved.

“I’ll play it my way,” Kenji said. “One take. If you don’t like it, find another taiko player.”

For thirty-five years, those hands had been his livelihood. They had snapped rhythm sticks against taiko drums so hard that the calluses on his palms were like leather. They had gripped bachi mallets during summer festivals in Osaka, when the heat shimmered off the asphalt and the drumheads grew soft and gummy from humidity. They had held the silence before a strike—that sacred, suspended moment when ten thousand people in an arena held their breath together.