Calm down me. You were once independent too!
Hachiro raised a brow. "What? Is there a problem with independent artists?"
"Huh? Ah, no. I was also one recently."
"Then why'd you ask?"
"I was curious as to why you guys weren't on the project event pages."
"The what?"
Rinko filled him in. "The Project event website. We won't be featured on the page since we're independent, no one will know anything about us since we're rookies." She was able to look at him without looking away when he met her gaze. "This event we'll be able to make a name for ourselves...we had to sign a consent form for camera footage..."
Ah, that. I've seen cameras around but they only follow around the popular bands.
"So it's like that..." They could have made a page for them showing their audition performances at least, that's rather cold.
"Yeah, it's like that," Hachiro added.
A question sign hung over my head, the pointed way he stared at me ...this guy, he's really starting to rub me the wrong way!
"Hmmm....then...for the end performance, what do you guys want to do? Since we only have a few days to prepare... we could perform one of your own songs or a song you like."
Hachiro sat up, frowning. "That's lazy! We're a new band with different instruments so we'll obviously have to make something up!"
"There's such a thing called a rendition you know. It's much easier to tweak an already existing piece than completely start from scratch."
"Maybe for you, but for me coming up with lyrics is easy."
"A new song is more than just lyrics."
"I..." A small voice caught our attention. Sosuke flinched and looked away from us as he said. "Can come up with a sound..."
Ugh. Him too?
"Then who will sing?"
"Ah...um," Rinko looked at the floor before looking back at me. "Can't it be you? You can sing right?"
"What the hell's with that? Were you pretending like we couldn't so we would give up?"
"I don't know all of your talents, if someone wanted to sing I'd just let them."
Hachiro let out a long sigh, he suddenly got up to leave. "I REALLY hate guys like you."
His words stuck. I scoffed. "You don't even know me."
"I know enough. Guys like you are all the same!" He stopped at the door to yell before storming out.
What the hell is his deal? My irritance began to fester. Once again someone is making their own assumptions about me and putting me in a box. I'm sick of it. Why does he find fault in everything I say? I'm just trying to make things work...
"Do you think just cause were independent artists we can't make an original?" Sosuke muttered.
"That has nothing to do with it."
"You say that but it doesn't seem like it." He walked off quickly before I could say anything else.
I huffed and closed my eyes. Everyone here...they're so annoying.
"Umm..." Rinko was still here, she hadn't left yet?
"Although I get what you're saying, that we wouldn't have time for a new piece. I think...it'd be nice to challenge ourselves."
I just nodded and sighed. "Whatever. Do what you want."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hachiro-kun and Sosuke-kun were hanging out in the cafeteria. I'm glad I found them, I tried talking them into going back and apologizing to Fukuda-san but I got ignored.
"A guy like that only hinders things. They show off but when it comes down to it, they don't want to do anything with their talent."
"That's not how Fukuda-san is at all! You would know if you came every day to see him in the cafeteria? Could you go back and apologize? I feel really bad."
Hachiro-kun continued to scribble.
I looked to Sosuke-kun who plucked a few strings.
"Kurata-san?"
Sosuke-kun lowered his head as if deeply interested in playing before muttering something. "I don't like him...He's looking down on us."
"Even so if you leave things like this the rest of group practice will be awkward! What if he refuses to sing?" Why don't they see that?!
Hachiro stuck out his lips as he scribbled. "Then, one of us can sing."
That's his stubbornness talking!
A group nearby overheard us.
"Hey did you hear that?"
"They pissed off their vocalist?"
"Hahahaha! Do they think singing is easy?"
"They're doomed!"
"Serves them right. If the singing is shit who will want to listen?"
Their words cut into us all making us all stop to stare.
Even while we stared the group continued to laugh at us, all except one.
Bai-san, my childhood friend was sitting in that group, when we locked gazes she smiled and waved. My ears reddened. I was so embarrassed I looked away, my eyes burned. I didn't want to show my rival such a pathetic side of me!
We didn't even get to do anything but we're already falling apart and getting laughed at! I thought things were finally looking up, I got this rare opportunity...
"Kagami! My group sucks, team up with me!"
Kagami? As in Fukuda-san?
He was on the far side of the cafeteria getting glomped by a girl. I've seen her a couple of times, she's the vocalist in his group, right? They're on a first-name basis... I squeezed my hands. Her job is to sing not hook up with guys, what's her deal?!
"No. Maybe this will be a lesson to you, you can fix that rotten personality." I'm not sure if it's because he was already in a bad mood or not but his words were harsh and the agitation I had faded into relief. So he's not into her. Wait, why do I feel better all of a sudden?
"What an asshole." Kurata-san and Yoshida-san overheard it as well. Their opinion of him continued to plummet.
Ooooh, this wasn't good!
I braced myself for the girl to get upset and yell but instead, she continued clinging to him.
"I didn't do anything bad! I was cooperative! But the guitarist there got an attitude because I was getting more attention than her. There's nothing I can do, I was born with this face after all."
Her shameless response was met with silence. Fukuda-san seemed more interested in his tablet.
"Hey! Are you listening?"
It was a rather amusing scene. She was super pretty, I'll give her that. Almost prettier than Bai-san. Almost. Seeing a table populated by males give such a pretty girl no reaction... felt like justice had been delivered to the world.
I left our table and slowly approached theirs but it felt as if it was a barrier, the people around him looked much more intimidating up close! I couldn't get any closer.
"U-uuum..." I tried but my voice vanished. Again. Why was it always like this? Turning off at the most inconvenient moments! I froze.
He was surrounded by so many people at the table!
"Fuku-fukuda-sa-a!" I hoped he would turn around but he didn't.
Someone at the table noticed me, a bespectacled baldie.
"Do you need something?"
"A-ah..."
"?"
The others turned to look at me.
"F....uda- sa....n." My voice gave out completely, how embarrassing. My ears reddened.
Forget it! I turned to leave.
"Kagami, do you know her?" A foreign-looking guy elbowed him.
A question sign hung over his head and leaned back to see me, his obsidian eyes stared into my soul.
"!" I felt more anxious than before.
I tried clearing my throat by swallowing before speaking.
"Tani-san? Did you need something?"
I bowed.
"Uhm, about earlier, we're really sorry!"
To begin with what did I even come over here for?
Fukuda-san's eye was on me for a while, his dull expression unchanging. Was he mad?
"There's no point in apologizing if the other party doesn't mean it." So he was still upset. "You don't need to bow to me, you didn't even do anything."
"Right," someone hauled me up by the shoulder. Yoshida-san?
He scowled at Kagami. "I can't stand guys like you, so I don't think it's gonna work out."
"There's no point in saying that to me. Go beg the organizers to change the lineup."
Yoshida balled his hand into a fist. "Don't tell me what to do! I was gonna do that anyway!"
Kagami leaned his cheek onto his hand as he leaned on the desk. "If you were really gonna do it, you would have done it already. You wouldn't be in here talking to me, the main office isn't in the cafeteria."
"Ngh!" Yoshida couldn't say anything back right away, why did he bluff to begin with? Now things were even more awkward!
"He was in here working on the lyrics!" I blurted.
Yoshida turned on me for exposing him. "Shut up!"
Did he really have to yell at me like that?
Frustrated, I held my ground. "Stop fighting! What if we're all disqualified instead? We're not contracted, artists who knows when an opportunity like this will show up again? I can't afford to be plucky like you Hachiro-kun! I have a dream okay?!"
"Plucky? You think I'm being plucky! I've played with guys like this all the time. They don't want to do anything even when they're given so much talent!"
"He isn't like that at all." The guys from the table suddenly spoke up in unison.
It startled both me and Yoshida. For a second we had all forgotten his bandmates, now all their eyes were staring at us now.
"OF course you'd guys say that, you're his friends!"
"We're not his friends, we're his bandmates."The forreign-looking guy tilted his head. "You just met so why are you making those kinds of assumptions? What does personality matter? That's one surefire way to create group drama."
"And fail." A guy with bleach blonde hair added.
The vocalist girl draped herself on Kagami's back. "You really are a hopeless doormat aren't you? You can't let rascals like this walk over you, you know."
"Forreal you're giving us a bad name."