Y/n POV:
" Morning," I hear Uenoyama say as he walks into the classroom. Past him, I can see Mafuyu peering into our classroom with an adorable smile on. I quickly waved at him and he waves back, keeping the puppy smile on. "You can come to band practice today if you want," Uenoyama tells me as he sits down and Mafuyu leaves for his class.
"Why? I mean, I know I'm a ray of sunshine to be around, but why?" I ask sarcastically, which Uenoyama ignores.
"You play, right?" he asks while pointing to the snare under my desk.
"I just started on Saturday, but I guess I play," I respond, remembering I'm such a newbie that I just started hitting my snare and using my drumsticks.
"Saturday!?" Uenoyama repeated back, making me a bit annoyed.
"Yeah, got a problem?" I ask aggressively, not pleased that I have to deal with Uenoyama looking down on me for being a newbie.
"Do you even know what you're doing?!" he exclaims, catching people's attention, as they start gathering around both of our desks. My breathing begins to pick up as my nervousness grows every passing second. Even if I had been meeting new people for the past two weeks, it was only a few people. As much I hate it, I sorta trust those three people and didn't feel like I have to think about everything I do. However, at school, it's like everyone turns on a judgement switch in their heads and if you don't do everything right, you must be weird or strange.
"P-please keep your voice down," I whisper to Uenoyama, hoping the bell would ring soon. He looks at me confused but then notices the pairs of eyes looking directly at us. One pair of eyes feel familiar as they gaze into the back of my head. I feel tempted to turn around and find out who was staring, but I feel frozen in my seat.
"Whatever, are you coming or not?" Uenoyama asks me, shaking off the intense pair of eyes as they move to him instead. I let out a breath of relief as I feel my heartbeat begin to slow down.
"Yeah, would you mind if I just practice the beat of some songs, I promise I won't be loud," I ask, slightly hoping to get some tips from Kaji and Haruki about adding and continuing to keep the beat.
"Yeah. Just don't get in the way," he said before turning to the front of the room.
'Me? Get in the way? Never!' I think as class begins.
-------
I feel a rumbling under my feet as I slightly jerk forward. Usually, I'm lucky enough to take the train when no one else is on it, but I guess taking a more popular train right after school means it gets fuller faster. My body slightly sways, but I'm careful not to hit Uenoyama, who is on my left.
"They said it's fine for you to play, too, as long as it's during breaks," Uenoyama says to Mafuyu, who is standing to his left.
"Really?" Mafuyu voices for both of us. Based on Uenoyama's reaction earlier, I doubt he will want to hear my play, even if I'm starting to get good, or as good as I can with having no tutor.
"Yeah. So make sure you both say thank you," Uenoyama responds, making me question his words.
'Will they allow me to play too or is it just Mafuyu? If their reactions are anything like Uenoyama's, I can kiss that hope goodbye.'
"Okay. Thank you," Mafuyu thanks Uenoyama, not knowing Uenoyama wasn't talking about himself.
"Not to me," Uenoyama tells Mafuyu, asking us to thank the older bandmates.
"The guy with the long hair," Mafuyu starts, not knowing the names of the older players, probably wanting to know more about them.
"Haruki-san?" Uenoyama answers for Mafuyu before he continues.
"Is he a college student?" Mafuyu asks, apparently not remembering when Hiroshi literally told both Haruki and Kaji to do their homework.
"Yeah. Wait...actually, I think he's a grad student," Uenoyama says, catching my attention. " I think he was studying something to do with video
'So does that mean Hiroshi was being dramatic telling the both of them to do homework or did Haruki take some extra classes, even after graduating? Either option is a possibility, but which one is right? Maybe Uenoyama's wrong? Ughh...too much thinking.'
"And the guy with the piercings?" Mafuyu asks, referring to Kaji, while I smugly smirk.
'You mean the guy with the bad-ass piercings? ' I think to myself, slightly looking up to Kaji, both literally and figuratively. 'He makes playing the drums look so cool!'
"That's Kaji-san. Kaji-san's a second-year at the same college Haruki-san goes to. You know, you'd better remember their faces and names by the time we get there," Uenoyama says to Mafuyu, forgetting that I'm standing right next to him, and Mafuyu nods in response.
"You're amazing, Uenoyama-kun!" Mafuyu says after a few seconds of silence, confusing Uenoyama.
"Huh? Me?" he questions Mafuyu, making me roll my eyes.
'No, the other Uenoyama on the train. Who do you think, dumbass?'
"You're in a band with a college student and a graduate student," Mafuyu tells him, as I think through his words.
"I mean, I don't see it, but compared to the other students in our class, he ain't half bad" I complement Uenoyama back-handedly, as he looks at me with a 'Are you serious?' look.
-------
After having a few of problems at the train station and walking a bit, we finally reach the studio.
'This is a lot further than I thought, it didn't take me that long to walk here from my house. Weird.'
"So with guitar..." Mafuyu starts, making Uenoyama grunt, asking him to continue his thought, as we begin to walk into the studio. "Do you practice a lot?" Mafuyu asks.
"Well, you can't get any good without practice," he says, while we all bow to the lady at the front desk, as I cry crocodile tears.
"Unfortunately," I quietly say while looking down at my hands. You don't think your hands will hurt as much as they do when you grip the drumsticks too hard.
"You're not having second thoughts now, are you?" Uenoyama asks as we stand outside of the practice room.
"No!" Mafuyu exclaims loudly, or at least as loud as I thought he could.
"Good," Uenoyama blankly says as he knocks on the door, before stepping through. "Hey guys," he says, expecting both blondes to be already there. However, only Haruki was in there, as he looked at his phone.
"Welcome. I've been waiting for you," Haruki says, as I quietly giggle at his man-bun.
'Chop, chop, man-bun.'
I feel a slight nudge on my arm and look at Mafuyu. Confused, I look into his eyes, hoping they will tell me why he nudged me. A few moments later, I figure it out and turn to face Haruki.
We both synchronously bow together while saying, "Thanks for having us," surprising the other people in the room.
"You both can sit over there somewhere," Uenoyama tells us while pointing. I notice a pair of stools and begin to make my way over one of them, taking my snare off my shoulder, catching Haruki's eyes. Mafuyu follows my lead as he also heads over to the stool.
"Mafuyu, Y/n, you wanna play a little before we start?" Haruki asks, surprising all three of us, me especially.
'You sure there, bud? For all you know I could hit the drum once and have a drumstick end up sending someone to the hospital.'
"Are you sure, Haruki-san?" Uenoyama asks while looking at me with concern in my eyes.
'Oh, shit, can he read my mind? I'm starting to regret thinking anything bad about him.'
"Yeah, totally. Akihiko's late anyway," Haruki reassures him while looking at me with curious eyes. "You want to play, don't you?" he asks both of us, likely expecting the two of us to say 'Yes'.
"Yes!" Mafuyu enthusiastically says, surprising both me and Uenoyama. They begin to get their things set up as Haruki just nods at them then looks at me, expecting the same answer.
"I'm guessing you mean those drums over there," I say while pointing at the drumset that Kaji plays at. "Unfortunately, I'm not good enough at playing that I can't promise no bodily harm to anyone in this room," I continue, making Uenoyama and Haruki sweat-drop as Mafuyu tunes his guitar. "However, this is a perfect opportunity to try it out!" I excited exclaim as I place my own snare on the stool I was going to sit on and walk over to the drums, my drumsticks in my hands.
"So we're just gonna ignore the fact that we might lose an eye" I hear Uenoyama loudly whisper to Haruki, as they both start to regret inviting me in the first place.
"Or two!" I tell them as I sit down behind the drums. The funny looks of anxiety appear on both of their faces, almost making me laugh. As I turn my attention back to the drums, I mentally list every part of the drumset.
'Ok, so we've got the floor tom, mid tom, bass drum, snare, and high tom for drums. For cymbals, we have the splash, ride, crash, and hi-hat cymbals. We also have the hit-hat and drum pedal. If I'm going to do this, I've got to make sure I don't hit them too hard,' I think remembering back to when Dad would sometimes let me play. Once I hit the drum too hard and didn't have a good grip on the sticks, so they went flying out of my hands. Thankfully no one got hurt, but I couldn't promise that again if it happened again.
"You do realize that staring at them isn't going to play them," Uenoyama impatiently says, slightly agitating me.
"My, my, Uenoyama. You want a stick in your eye that bad? If that's truly what you desire, I can cut all this drumming shit and do it right now," I say with a fake smile on my face, making both Uenoyama and Haruki shudder in fear.
I try to remember what my Dad used to play when I was younger. One specific pattern plays in my mind and I try to recreate it.
( Video at the beginning. If you don't want to watch it, I'll be describing it. Skip 15 seconds in if you do watch it and end at 47 seconds... Sorry for the interruption!)
Starting, I take my right stick and hit the hi-hat, while I use my left one to keep a steady beat on the snare. Surprisingly I can keep a good beat with both my feet, as my right one hits the drum pedal, while my left messily taps the hi-hat pedal. I do this for about 4 counts of eight before I take my right hand and switch the hitting between the high tom drum and the hi-hat.
I repeat doing this, I decide to switch it up a bit and repeatedly hitting the snare, missing it on the first beat, messing up the beat a bit. Recovering, I take my right hand, I quickly hit the tom, then the crash cymbal.
Keeping my right hand on the ride cymbal and my right and left feet steadily keeping pace, I hit the snare with my left hand, while occasionally hitting the floor tom.
Moving my left hand from the snare, I hit the high tom, then hit the mid tom with both sticks, at different times, move to the high tom, and continue alternating between the two for a few second before I hit the floor tom, and hit the splash cymbal with my right hand as my left one moves back to the snare. I try to transition my hands back to their original position, but fumble a bit.
I repeat the same thing as before, this time my left-hand hits the snare, the high tom, and the mid tom. I feel my right foot begin to lose the beat and try to get it back, but accidentally speed up my left foot instead. Again, I hit the high tom with both sticks, then the mid tom, and after that, the floor tom, finishing with a hit to the splash cymbal.
(End video here)
I stop hitting the drums and get up to move back to where my snare is, lightly stretching out my wrists.
'Damn, Dad always made that look easier than it was, especially with keeping the drum and hi-hat pedals in time with the beat.'
After placing my sticks in my case. I look back to the others in the room, surprised to when two of them stare at me like I just came off a UFO and the third sitting there with his guitar in his hands, eyes wide open.
"I know I've still got quite a while until I can do it like Kaji-san, but I think I did decent for that being the first time I touched the whole drumset," I say, hoping not to get too much criticism.
A few seconds of silence fill the studio before I see Uenoyama run up and begin to shake me by the collar of my hoodie.
"YOU SAID YOU STARTED ON SATURDAY!!!" he yells in my ear and he continues to shake me.
"Yeah, and what about it?" I blandly ask, starting to feel motion-sick from all the shaking.
"YOU STARTED ON SATURDAY?!" I heard Haruki exclaim as I feel my lunch start to crawl up from my stomach and go up to my throat.
"L-let g-go...o-of...me," I shakily say, hoping my insides won't be spilled out onto the floor in a few seconds. Uenoyama hastily lets go of me, but the momentum makes me fall onto the floor, landing on my butt. I lay my head down on the floor as I close my eyes, trying to get my eyes to stop spinning.
"Look, Uenoyama, you've killed them. I heard homicide doesn't look good on a resume," I hear Haruki joke as Uenoyama begins to freak out.
Chuckling, I say, " I don't plan to die at his hands anytime soon," making the strange noises coming from Uenoyama stop. "I'm just preventing myself from making this place smell like throw up for months."
A few seconds of silence before I hear Uenoyama walk over to Mafuyu and ask "Are you done tuning?"
"Yeah," I hear him reply.
"Then go ahead and plug this in," Uenoyama says, probably holding up a chord that Mafuyu needs to plug in.
"Plug it in?" Mafuyu questions.
"Here, let me," Uenoyama says and I hear a clicking and a slight spring come from Mafuyu's direction. " Make sure it's plug in all the way."
"What is it?" Mafuyu continues to question Uenoyama as I begin to open my eyes, getting readjusted to the bright lights in the studio.
"A guitar cable. It connects your guitar with the amp," Uenoyama explains.
"Amp?" Mafuyu asks.
'You walked yourself right into that one,' I think as I prepare to sit up, working my imaginary abs.
"This. It makes your sound louder," Uenoyama says as I begin to tune him out.
'Ok, it won't be that hard, just use those abs you worked so hard for. Wait, I stopped working out. Why did I stop? 'Cause was sad. Lol, I'm just lazy. Maybe I should join Hiroshi next time he asks me to work out with him. Even if he's judgy as hell.
"Give it a try," Uenoyama says after turning the volume all the way up of the amp and handing Mafuyu the cord.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" Haruki and I say at the same time while I quickly sit up, but lay back down once I get a headrush.
"He'll learn better if he messes up on his own," Uenoyama explains to the both of us.
"Yeah, but think about our ears, please!" Haruki tells Uenoyama as I see Mafuyu lean down to the amp.
'Goodbye hearing, it was nice while it lasted,' I think as I cover my ears, but nothing happens.
"I..id it," I hear muffled through my hands as I lightly hear applause. I carefully take my hands off my ears and go back to trying to sit up.
"Turn up the volume and play a bit," Uenoyama says as Mafuyu follows his directions. "It'll be really loud if you turn it too much at first."
As I push my torso up with my hands, giving up on using my abs alone, I see Haruki sitting on a stool on the opposite side of the studio, a proud smile plastered on his face.
" I know I told you to play a bit, but I guess you don't know any chords... Maybe C would-," Uenoyama starts, but Mafuyu interrupts him.
"I want to do the one you first played for me!" Mafuyu exclaims, making me think back to the chord Uenoyama had first played.
"Oh, that. Right here. The second one. And then this one and this one..." Uenoyama explains as pointing out where Mafuyu needs to place his fingers. "No, no. Use your middle finger and ring finger."
'I remember when reading about guitars and trying to switch chords. I tried doing it on a broom and even then I had problems,' I think as I watch the two boys' interaction.
Once Mafuyu gets his fingers in the right position and strums it, the sound coming out is softer than how Uenoyama played it, but I still get chills. He looks up at Uenoyama with a happy smile on his face and begins to strum the strings again. He repeatedly does this until Uenoyama shouts, "Okay, that's enough!" making me and Haruki laugh.
"Hey," I barely hear Kaji say as Uenoyama continues to yell at Mafuyu, while Haruki and I laugh, him laughing at the interaction and me laughing at Uenoyama's angry face.
And with that, the band practiced and during breaks, Uenoyama taught Mafuyu how to play while I occasionally listened and stared off into space, beginning to think about the future.
'While it may be unclear, I'm looking forward to it.'
Sorry, I would have come out earlier with this chapter, but first thing in the morning I got really sad and stuff, so some things were delay. Because I was bored and a lot of crackfic things popped into my head while writing this, I decided to share them with you.
Incorrect Play That Song Quotes
---
*Uenoyama ignores Y/n
Y/n: *sigh* I guess I'm not the main character of this anime. Oh, maybe I'm the main character of some sorta fan-fic? Pfft...no, no one would do that.
Author: *Puts down baseball bat* Yeah, no one.
---
Y/n: Smack my ass like a drum
Akihiko: You're a minor
Y/n: Heh...not for much longer
Author: NOOO!!!
(Definitely wouldn't happen, but I find it way too funny)
---
*Reader begins to notice the inconsistencies in this story
Author: *holds up a bat* Say bye to your ankles!
---
Haha, anyways, do you guys have any song recommendations? Of course, I have some, but I want to hear any of your suggestions.
Have a good morning/evening/night,
~Kyra
(3241 Words)