Longer Chapter Ahead
Y/n POV:
As Uenoyama reaches the front of the school, I continue following him as silently as possible. It's not like he would hear me anyway, the street is crowded with students going home.
While I continue stalking Uenoyama, I begin to feel like someone is beside me. I turn my head to see who it is. Unsurprisingly, it's Mafuyu.
'Ah, my partner in crime is finally here,' I think, continuing to walk.
Once we reach an empty street, our footsteps can be heard much clearer. As if on cue, Uenoyama stops walking, but continues to face forward.
"Hey," he says, acknowledging our presence. "Stop following me," he quickly says before resuming to walk. I look at Mafuyu and he turns to look at me. We stand in place for a second, only looking at each other's eyes, as if silently having a conversation. Without any words, we continue following him.
We keep a bit further from him before, hoping he won't catch us again. He stops again, but this time looks back at us, making Mafuyu slightly jump behind a tree and receiving a gasp from both of us.
"I told you, ask someone else if you wanna learn guitar," he says to Mafuyu, sounding annoyed. "And stop encouraging him," he says, moving his eyes to me. He resumes to walk again and just like last time, we proceed to follow him.
After walking for a few seconds, he suddenly turns around again, making Mafuyu duck behind a pole and making me stand behind a tree. It was quite obvious to anyone that we were not hiding well. Uenoyama starts to head towards Mafuyu's hiding spot, as I do the same.
"Hey," he says, gaining Mafuyu's attention, making him look at Uenoyama.
He slightly smiles and says," Uenyonama-kun," making Uenoyama twist his face out of slight anger and annoyance, and making me giggle.
-------
"So, uh..." I see a buff-looking blonde start, sitting at the drumset, looking quite confused and sweat-dropping. "Who are they?"
"I feel like I've picked up two stray puppies," Uenoyama says, sounding agitated and like he was done with everything. Mafuyu slightly leans out of Uenoyama's shadow, trying to get a good look at the stranger in front of us.
"Sorry, what?" the blond asks, still looking confused. I look at his face closer than before. I see he has multiple face piercings, including lip and a labret, and in his ears, I can see two helix piercings on his left ear and gauges on both. Looking at his eyes, I can see they are a vibrant green that could put a forest to shame. He looks a bit buffer than Hiroshi, but not by much. He stands a bit taller than him too. Overall, he's a very attractive person, who's probably got plenty of women, and maybe some men, falling at his feet
'He looks bad-ass. I think I'll tell him that. Maybe I should get some piercings like that too,' I think, continuing to carefully look at him.
"I tried to lose them, but I just couldn't!" Uenoyama exclaims, keeping his hands stiffly to his sides like he's being scolded by a teacher.
"Yeah... I have absolutely no clue what you mean," he responds stoically.
"Hey!" Uenoyama says, turning to face both of us. "Show Kaji-san some respect, damn it! Just so you know Kaji-san looks real scary, but he's a nice guy! He just looks scary!" Uenoyama continues, emphasizing the word 'looks', while the blonde dude sweat drops a little.
"Y'know he can hear you right?" I suddenly speak up, bringing everyone's, including the blonde's, attention to me. "And I don't think he looks scary, I think he looks pretty cool and bad-ass" I finish saying with a small smile on my face. Unknown to me, the blonde slightly smiles at the compliment.
"Hey, I said to show some respect!" Uenoyama said, slightly raising his voice, shocked at my words.
'Are you sure you're not the one scared of him?' I question in my mind, before coming up with an amazing idea, or at least an amazing idea in my mind.
"Don't worry Uenoyama, you're still cool in my books!" I say, slightly joking, wanting to see his reaction. He slightly froze and if you looked close enough, you could see a pink hue coat his cheeks. I slightly tilt my head in confusion.
'Dude, calm down, I barely complimented you.'
"Heya. Sorry I'm late Er..." I hear coming from the doorway. Turning my body, I look to see the owner of the voice. The guy who spoke had honey-blonde hair, long enough for him to tye it back into a man-bun. He had a bit of a goatee, with his facial hair a few shades darker than his hair colour. His eyes were a nice amber-gold which looked a lot like honey. He looked a bit skinnier than the other blonde but still stood a few inches taller than me. Overall, he was attractive, was probably pretty laid back, and could probably give amazing hugs.
"Whoa... who the heck?!" he exclaimed, shaking me out of my thoughts.
"Hey," Uenoyama casually said, taking a more relaxed approach to this blonde, confirming my earlier suspicion. "This is our bassist, Haruki-san," Uenoyama explained to us.
"Bassist?" Mafuyu asked, still not knowing a lot about bands and music, in general.
"The instrument he uses produces a lower sound than what yours does," I explain to Mafuyu the best I can. "Because of this, he is in the part of the band that helps to keep the rhythm," I finish, concluding my basic explanation, leaving Uenoyama a bit shocked. In the distance, I can hear the older band members questioning why we were here.
"Rhythm?" Mafuyu questioned.
'Oohhh, this will be a long process.'
Uenoyama slightly mumbles something to Mafuyu and nudges him forward, saying, "Go on."
All eyes are now on him and I'm a bit confused about what is happening. My questions are immediately answered when he introduces himself.
"It's nice to meet you. I'm Mafuyu Sato," he says, slightly bowing. Uenoyama suddenly nudges me too, telling me to introduce myself as well. I slightly roll my eyes and do as he says.
"It's nice to meet you guys as well. I'm Y/n Ito," I say, finally introducing myself to Uenoyama, as well as his bandmates. "We both came here to watch you play," I continue, looking at Mafuyu, making sure I'm saying the right things. Seeing a nod come from him, I know I used the right words, and I turn back to face the older dudes in the room, hoping they will let us watch.
"Watch us..." Haruki started.
"...Play?" Kaji finishes.
They then turn to each other, and with their index finger, they touch each other's finger-tips and make a slight humming sound.
They suddenly get into smug poses, with smug looks on their faces. I try to keep my laughs in, but can't once I hear them speak.
"Well, in that case..." Kaji starts.
"Guess we'll have to show you what we can do," Haruki finishes.
I can't hold my laughter in anymore and start laughing as hard as I can. I end up falling and rolling on the floor, but I don't care, I'm enjoying myself too much.
'Sorry Uenoyama, you have been moved to fourth place in humour, right behind these guys.'
"Huh? Are you sure about this?" Uenoyama questions, ignoring me absolutely losing my shit on the floor.
"Huh,? Uh, why not?" Kaji questions, not seeing anything with us watching them play.
"He's a total newbie and doesn't understand shit!" Uenoyama explains, attempting to whisper, but I can still hear him over my obnoxiously loud laughs. "He's probably expecting some kind of godly performance," he finishes, as Kaji looks over at Mafuyu, who seems to have some sparkles in his eyes, while others come out of his body. "And I don't know about them, but..." he loses his train of thought while looking over at me on the floor, my laughter slowly becoming quieter.
However, I'm not paying attention to them, I'm only looking at the glitter coming off Mafuyu. I can't handle the cuteness overload.
"Hehehe...Mafuyu...stop...heh...being...hehehe...so...cute," I say in between the quieter laugh, regaining both my breath and sanity. I get off the floor and slightly dust myself off.
Both Haruki and Kaji look at the two of us with seriousness in their eyes, then turn their heads to face each other. They both nod, coming to some sort of non-verbal agreement. Suddenly, their faces go pale, losing the confidence they were oozing mere seconds ago. Their actions make me start laughing again, but not as hard as before.
'My lungs hurt, but it is so worth it. You might need to look out, Hiroshi, they're coming for your spot.'
"This is bad! We'll only set the bar higher if we don't say something!" Kaji said, looking a bit sweatier than the other.
"Wait, don't say stuff like that that makes it sound like he's right!:" Haruki continued, looking less sweaty than Kaji, but a bit more queasy.
My laughter dies down again and I hear Uenoyama speak.
"Just how bad do you two want to impress people?" Uenoyama asks rhetorically.
"Now, now Uenoyama, don't be mean," I start, trying to take the imaginary pressure off of them. "It's not bad to want to impress people. I'm sure you guys will sound great!" I say with a closed-eyed smile, not knowing I was putting even more pressure on them. Uenoyama notices this and suddenly speaks, breaking the tension in the room.
"Whatever. Let's just play like we usually do," he says, not wanting to wait any longer. They all begin to get their equipment out, mostly Haruki and Uenoyama.
"Nope," Haruki says, pulling out his bass guitar.
"Not happening," I hear Kaji say. I watch both of them pull out some kind of cords and plug it into the amplifier.
"Huh?" I hear Uenoyama question, surprised. I look over to Mafuyu, partially ignoring the other teen in the room. He looks a bit confused as to what they are doing and what each item is.
"First and foremost, we want to look cool," Haruki says, as Uenoyama puts the strap connected to his guitar around his shoulders.
"I want to summon a storm. Just like Yujiro Ishihara," I hear Kaji say while testing out his hi-hat cymbals. I start to get a bit tired of standing and not doing anything, so I walk over to the wall and sit down, getting ready for the music to be played.
"Oh, nice. It might be cool to go retro. Might even sound new now," Haruki says to Kaji, as I hear Uenoyama tuning his guitar in the background. Mafuyu soon joins me on the floor, sitting down to the left of me. "Then we in the rhythm section will go with a Showa-era kind of flow. And then..."
"You'll top it off with some fancy, modern guitar play!" both Kaji and Haruki say, synchronized, and pointing to Uenoyama with both hands.
"What the hell does that mean?!" Uenoyama responds, sounding annoyed, causing me to giggle once more at his reaction. He then turns to face Mafuyu and asks "Uh, what was your name again?" making me sweatdrop.
'He told you like 2 minutes ago, don't tell me you forgot?' I think, before really considering it. 'Well, he may have been focusing on us, making sure we weren't embarrassing him. Wait, that's still no excuse.'
"Mafuyu Sato," he replies.
"What kind of guitar did you want to hear?" Uenoyama asks while strumming his guitar once more to make sure the sound came out right.
"What kind?" a confused Mafuyu questions. Not going to lie, Uenoyama's question confused me a bit too.
' "What kind of guitar do you want to hear?" I guess yours? I don't know.'
"What kind of song do you want to hear?" Uenoyama asks straight-forward, changing the wording of his question.
Mafuyu pauses for a moment, but then excitedly responses with a blush on his cheeks, "S-something cool!"
I slightly chuckle at his reaction and ruffle his hair, hoping he doesn't mind the contact. To my relief, he doesn't.
'It's softer and fluffier than I imagined,' I think, removing my hand from his head. I've never thought about patting his head...Definitely not...
"Talk about abstract," Uenoyama said with a toothy grin.
(The scenes at the beginning if you want to hear it. This author can not describe music scenes without it. LoL. Sorry for the interruption)
And with that, he started strumming the guitar.
For some reason, the sound that came from the guitar was different than I expected. Maybe I was thinking more of an acoustic guitar, but either way, the noise coming from the vibrating strings surprised me. I could tell he was a good player
I turn my head towards the older bandmates, hoping to see them join in soon. They unexpectedly look surprised. Did Uenoyama not usually play this way or something?
I begin to hear a low strumming sound coming from Haruki. He plays a tune a bit different than Uenoyama, but that doesn't matter, it adds to what Uenoyama is playing.
Looking to Kaji, I notice he is the only one who hasn't joined yet. I see his lips slightly move, trying to count himself in. I hear a thud come from the drum and it seems like the world pauses for a moment, as if teasing me, knowing I want to hear all of them play together.
And then...
...it all came together.
They all play together and my mouth drops. I stare at them wide-eyed, not knowing what to do, but listen and watch.
The way they play so effortlessly together shocks me. I don't know if they had planned this number out before we came or made it up on the spot, but I don't care.
If you listened closely you could hear each individual instrument, doing its individual job and having its own separate sound. But if you hear how each one compliments the other and how it blends in, it's breath-taking.
Uenoyama slightly changes the tune on his guitar so effortlessly and smoothly, while the others follow him. I look at his face and I can tell he is getting really into it, due to the constant swaying and smiling. My breath slightly hitches in my throat at the sight.
'He's never smiled like that before. It looks a bit mischievous, but I can he is genuinely enjoying himself. I wonder in moments like this if anyone else notices the blue really coming out in his eyes,' I think, mesmerized by his actions.
Kaji then stops playing for a second, allowing both guitar-playing members to highlight their skills. He joins them a few seconds later, a bit quieter than before, keeping a steady rhythm. Hitting the cymbals, he begins to pick up his speed again.
Haruki's playing is a bit hard to hear over Uenoyama and Kaji's playing, but he still is doing a good job. He easily helps to keep the beat, along with Kaji and adds a deep sound to the music as the bassist, which would be missing if he wasn't there.
They all smoothly transition back to their starting sound, putting me through some sort of deja vu feeling. Not that I mind it at all, it's nice that it came back to the sound I fell in love with.
As they continue playing, I can almost see the small sparkles coming out of my eyes, entranced by the music.
Sorry for the long chapter and for not posting yesterday, I had a test today and like the good student I am, I had to study; I'm pretty sure I failed...oops, oh well, that's how life goes. I think I have been dealing with my first ever case of writer's block, but thankfully it didn't last long and I'm back to normal. I should have mentioned this earlier, but I'm unfamiliar with Japanese honorifics, even if I've been watching anime, so I decided to stick to what it said in the anime. For Y/n, I chose to use -chan because I thought it showed the relationship between Mafuyu and them well and I think -chan can be used for either gender (IWA-CHAN!!!), so I thought it would work ok.
Also,
WHAT THE HECK GUYS!!!! 200 READS??!!! It's been like 3 days since 100! I'm so glad you enjoy my story!!! I took the screenshot yesterday, so it's a bit old, but I'm still so happy!
I guess here's a bit more info on me:
Eye colour: Blue
Hair colour: Dirty Blonde with dyed red ends
Lol, I do be pretty boring in the looks department ngl, but I've got my personality to make up for it right?! Not really
Personality: Very spontaneous and random at home, but very reserved in public...cough...school...cough... excuse me. I don't really have any real close friends, but I have a lot of acquaintances who sometimes talk to me. That's mostly due to my trust issues, but I survive somehow! I consider myself book smart, but I'm pretty much dumb in everything else, especially with reading people and situations.
Maybe I'll talk about my goals and likes in another chapter?
...Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter cause it's my favourite scene in the first episode, so I hope you enjoyed reading! Maybe I'll finish the next chapter and watch the Given movie. I've got a feeling that I'm going to cry, but please no spoilers!
Have a good day/evening!
-Kyra
(2888 Words)