When he entered Fujioka High School, Hoshino Hidehiko joined the football [soccer] club right away. He’d been pretty good at football since elementary school, and he couldn’t help enjoying the practices that other club members found arduous. There was even a small corner of his brain that kept thinking “I just want to keep playing football forever. Maybe I should even try to go pro.”
But even though he’d been an undefeated goalkeeper in elementary school and junior high, he had more trouble keeping up in high school.
“Is this my limit?” he wondered. Once he thought that, his ambitions regarding football quickly ebbed away. He quit the football club and joined the “going home club” - slang for the kids who weren't involved in any extracurricular activities. Going straight home after school was too boring, but Hoshino didn’t have the money to go out anywhere, either. He spent the afternoons of his first year of high school wandering around aimlessly, wishing that his classmates would come hang out at his house so that they could have fun every day.
Hoshino had been in the top class since he entered high school, and in second year, he was put into the same class as Higuchi. Hoshino’s first impression of Higuchi was, “He’s always stood out because he hangs around with upperclassmen, but he looks like a fun guy.”
Higuchi, for his part, only knew Hoshino as “that really tall guy,” but gregarious as ever, introduced himself and the two hit it off. Thanks to his brother, who was five years older than he was, Hoshino was constantly exposed to popular music like The Beatles and Kiss. But he’d been so obsessed with football he’d never really let the music draw him in. Even when he quit the football club, he spent his days meaninglessly without finding anything to devote himself to.
Then, as always, Higuchi invited Hoshino in on a plan.
“Hide, why don’t we start a band?”
“A band!?” Hoshino didn’t know what to say to such a sudden proposal. And he’d never even picked up a musical instrument in his life.
“Over at this upperclassman Imai’s house, there are some guys who are really into the idea of starting a band,” Higuchi said, and summarized what had happened so far.
“I’m going to play the bass.” Higuchi told Hoshino about how he had chosen which instrument he wanted to play.
“Um, well then…I’ll play guitar.” Now that Hoshino was thinking about bands, he vaguely liked the idea of playing guitar. If he thought back on it now, he couldn’t think of any clear reason why he’d picked guitar. It was just that when he pictured a band in his mind, he didn’t fit with the image of the vocalist…maybe he thought he could be cooler if he were doing his own thing over on the side, rather than standing right in the front.
But Higuchi didn’t want to introduce Hoshino to everyone as a potential guitarist.
“He’s tall, he stands out, and he’s good-looking, so he should be the vocalist,” Higuchi thought. Higuchi got his heart set on the idea, and asked Hoshino again if he’d like to do the band, even though Higuchi had never heard Hoshino sing anything.