Jia Li broke into a smile as she saw him near the stage and started to croon lines from his favourite song by Aerosmith.
Tang hummed the lines in his head as a swarm of emotions flitted through him and he was transported back to the first time he had heard the song on his iPod. He had been naturally gifted with a sexy baritone suited to sing the rock songs and most of the girls in town were crazy about his voice. He had spent the whole night learning the song and its nuances. During lunch break, the next day, he had taken Jia Li aside and sung it for her.
"Oh, I absolutely love it", she had gushed, hugging him hard.
"I think you should perform this as your first song now onwards for any of our band's performances".
"Did you really like it so much", a delighted Tang had asked?
She had shaken her head and told him, "if you don't believe me, wait for the girls' reactions when they first hear it".
But he had never ever sung it for anyone else after that.
"She remembers that the song was special to me. It was the first declaration of my feelings for her", he thought as Jia Li brought the song to its culmination.
Amidst loud cheering and applause, she came down and took Tang by hand to take him up to the stage.
"Did you think we were going to let you get away", shouted Chung from the drummer's post.
"But I haven't sung even in the shower for the past ten years", protested Tang.
"Yeah? And do you think I have been giving live performances all this while? Stop making excuses. Now tell me what song are you going to perform so that we can cue it", she muttered in his ears.
"Ok, I will do it but on one condition – you have to sing with me", he told her.
Her eyes widened for a second while she tried to make an excuse to extract herself without giving away the reason behind it.
He held her arm and said intensely, "just this once", forestalling any half formed thoughts in her head.
She broke the gaze and nodded mutely.
She took the microphone, "thank you for your appreciation. We are being joined by the star of our now defunct band – Xie Tang."
In the meanwhile, Tang had a quiet word with Chung and Li Jie. After that, he joined Jia Li on the centre stage.
"Good evening everyone. You are lucky enough to witness our first performance after a decade", said Tang as people laughed and clapped.