Rent
Mina's Note: Okay, so this is a whole new story based off of a movie. ^_^ Who has seen Rent? You know…the musical? I highly suggest you do if you haven't. The movie and the show productions are AMAZING. It's a musical…obviously I just said that… duh... Anyway, enough of my babbles and on to the story... Oh and I had to gender bend some characters on the Rent casts part. . So forgive me if they seem out of character or not enough in character... I've been thinking about this story line so much that I just went up wrote it.. It basically wrote it's self. xD A special thanks to Niji Hitomi Kabra for helping me out with this and bouncing ideas back and forth with me. Oh! And another thing! This chapter is fast paced… The song that goes with it is fast so it would make sense that the chapter would too. Hehe…
~*I don't own Bleach or Rent! Bleach is owned but Tite Kubo-sensei and Rent is owned by the late Jonathan Larson!*~
"December 24th, 1989… 9 p.m. eastern standard time… From here on in I shoot without a script… See if anything comes of it, instead of my old shit…"
Urahara as usual was out in his bike with his old time video camera videotaping how the homeless were around. Sleeping on the streets, washing car windows, almost getting run over by the drivers of various cars… to him it was a cruel fact of how life was there. He wished to help all of the homeless in some way, shape, or form. But he had no way of doing that by himself.
He sighed while his brows furrowed with a frown, watching how a homeless man was cleaning a young man's windshield. The guy was bundled up to fight off the winter chill. But he still shivered while wiping the window. His dirt and oil stained rag was waving in the breeze while his hand shaking erratically. When the young man started to yell at the homeless man to get away from his car the man simply ignored him or he didn't hear him, Urahara didn't actually know which, but he watched as the man was about to get run over by the man in the vehicle when he suddenly slammed on the gas to turn and make the homeless person spin and turn away from how the car moved so he wouldn't get hit. How could some people do things like this to other human beings who were less fortunate and were, basically, treated like the trash they ate and slept on?
How Do You Document Real Life
When Real Life's Getting More
Like Fiction Each Day
Headlines - Bread-Lines
Blow My Mind
And Now This Deadline
"Eviction - Or Pay"
Rent
Deciding it was time to go back to his apartment and figure out his next shot and his current rent problem with Byakuya and Ikkaku. He steered his bike to pedal on the street. How the hell were they going to fight this eviction notice? But it wasn't just them… Oh, no… It was everyone on their block who couldn't pay their rent because it was either too high to pay or they simply didn't have the money at all. Turning off into an ally way with homeless standing near gabage can with fires in them to keep them from freezing to death; he shot through carefully avoiding everyone.
Ikkaku was the only one working that lived with them. His pay was usually enough but of course the rent went up and his pay stayed the same. Since he was a college professor who boarded there and came home for breaks they could never make up the difference because it got higher and they late fees stacked up on top of that.
Urahara steered to get on the sidewalk. He noticed the apartment complex doors had that damned eviction notice on it. "Dammit…" The blonde muttered. How can this not be harassment for everyone on this block? He seriously wondered if the owner of this complex was trying to piss everyone off here. Picking up his bike and ripping to sheet from the doors he shoved it in his pocket and opened the door, letting it slam behind him and he made his way up the stairs.
How do you write a song when the chords sound wrong
Though they once sounded right and rare?
When the notes are sour
Where is the power you once had to ignite the air?
Byakuya was sitting on the metal table with his guitar trying to tune it and play when the power suddenly went out. His brows furrowing but his face expressionless, he hopped off the table and set the guitar on the nearby couch. "The hell?" He muttered under his breath and walked over to the power box. Opening the door to the small metal box, his eyes squinted trying to adjust to the darkness with only the moonlight casting down it light through the window in the hall. He pressed a switch to see if that would work. But no luck, all it did was make it spark and Byakuya stepped back. "Damn…"
We're hungry and frozen,
some life that we've chosen
How we gonna pay?
How we gonna pay?
How we gonna pay?
Last year's rent?
The door slid open and Urahara walked in. He set his bike down near a table and walked over to the man near the fuse box. He stayed silent and just pulled the paper from his coat pocket and held it out for the raven head to see. His cool grey eyes looking from the paper being held out and the blonde's eyes he sighed and took the paper. He read it over and his frown deepened. Shit… He thought to himself.
The phone then rang and Urahara hopped to."Hello?" He said.
"Hey, guess whose back in town!" Ikkaku called into the receiver with obvious joy in his voice. "It's Ikkaku, man. Throw down the keys so I can get in."
Hanging up the pay phone he stood to where the window was to the shared apartment. When Urahara came out onto the balcony, he threw the keys down. "Hey!" He greeted and ran back in the freezing apartment.
Ikkaku dropped the keys briefly and adjusted his pack before bending down to pick them up. He sighed and smiled and started walking over to the door to the complex.
"Hey, ya got a light man?" A strange man asked. He had long hair and a beard. He had a cigarette in one hand and the other lay lazily at his side.
"Yeah…" The bald man replied and started reaching into his pocket when all of sudden he was surrounded by three guys.
One shoved him in the side but Ikkaku suddenly knew what was going down. He was about to be mugged if he didn't do something about it. He punched one guy in the chest and shoved the other two away and ran for it. Granted, that was something he usually would not do. He would usually fight. But he was in no shape to be fighting out in the open where others could join in. He ran into the alley behind the building and didn't stop until his tripped over a bottle and fell down. He lay on top of his pack trying to protect it. He had just spent a good amount of money on stuff for the guys. The three men hollered and cheered as they kicked and punched him. They yanked his coat off of his shoulders and arms then took his bag and ran off.
"Damn…" He muttered.
How do you start a fire when there's nothing to burn
And it feels like something's stuck in your flue?
How can you generate heat when you can't feel your feet?
And they're turning blue
Back in the apartment, Byakuya gave up on the fuse box and lit some candles they had. It was better than nothing he figured. He set about thirty or so candles around the room and went over to each one with a match. After all the candles were lit his grabbed the trash can and set it in the middle of the room. Urahara took a bunch of papers and threw them to the floor next to the can, while still holding a stack in his hand. They both looked up to the ceiling then at each other. Hopping up to yank the plastic from the ceiling, since there was a huge hole there, Byakuya pulled it out of the way so that wouldn't be set on fire.
You light up a mean blaze
With posters and screenplays
How we gonna pay?
How we gonna pay?
How we gonna pay?
Last year's rent?
Going back over to where Urahara was in front of the can, Byakuya pulled a poster off the wall as the blonde lit the screenplays he had written on fire. The raven haired man leaned the poster close to the fire and set it and then dropped it into the can. They both were thinking the same thing as they looked up from the fire briefly. "How are we going to pay the rent?"
How do you stay on your feet when on every street?
It's trick or treat and tonight it's trick
Welcome back to town I should lie down
Everything's brown and uh-oh, I feel sick
Coughing up blood from his mouth, Ikkaku tried to get up. He managed to stand up against the wall but then everything went hazy and he fell back down to the cold hard ground. He held his midsection as he felt a wave of nausea come about.
"Ugh…" He groaned.
Where is he?
Getting dizzy
How we gonna pay?
How we gonna pay?
How we gonna pay?
Last year's rent?
Running out onto the balcony, the blonde cameraman looked around and down to the street below. It had been fifteen minutes since he threw the keys down to Ikkaku. "Where is he?" He wondered. The raven head joined him soon after. "Ikkaku is sure taking a long time." He said. Urahara nodded in agreement, concern was clearly evident in his expression and voice. "I wonder where he is." It was unlike Ikkaku to not come inside by now.
Looking around more, he noticed people out on their balconies and the stairs outside of the building and lighting their eviction notices on fire then letting them go to fly in the air. They all were chanting "How are we gonna pay rent? We aren't gonna pay our rent!"
Walking back inside the apartment, the blonde and raven head each took some of the paper stacked on the floor next to the can of fire.
The music ignites the night with passionate fire
The narration crackles and pops with incendiary wit
Zoom in as they burn the past to the ground
And feel the heat of the future's glow
Byakuya scanned the pages to see what they were. Just a bunch of old songs he had written and knows them all by heart. He threw them in the fire and then picked up some more while the blonde took his screenplays and some scenes he had written and through them in there too. They through anything they could throw in the can to build the fire bigger and warming up the room quickly. Once it was hot enough they each grabbed the can by a handle. Lifting and carrying it to where the balcony door was.
How do you leave the past behind
When it keeps finding ways to get to your heart?
It reaches way down deep and tears you inside out
'Til you're torn apart, rent
Stepping outside they both grasped the bottom while still holding the handles and tipped it over the rail letting the contents fall and drift out until it was empty. The lit paper and fire floated in the air and softly landed on the cold ground still burning as a Range Rover drove up.
How can you connect in an age
Where strangers, landlords, lovers
Your own blood cells betray?
What binds the fabric together
When the raging, shifting winds of change
Keep ripping away
Stepping out of his car, Aizen looked up to the blonde and the raven looking down.
Draw a line in the sand and then make a stand
Use your camera to spar, use your guitar
When they act tough, you call they're bluff
Byakuya glared at him with iciness in his eyes. "What are you doing here Sosuke!" He called down to his former friend while grasping the rail. The man didn't answer since he was currently getting yelled and screamed at the angry owners of the residents' of the building he owned along with his father in law. He winced slightly as his ears rang from the chanting and the screaming.
We're not gonna pay,
we're not gonna pay
We're not gonna pay,
last year's rent~
This year's rent~
next year's rent~
"I came to collect the rent!" He shouted back. He then noticed a guy had parked his butt on top the hood of his car and Aizen raised a brow. "Yo, get your ass off of my car!" He called to the man who had lit a cigarette. The man smirked and stood after winking at the brown eyed man he hopped off the car and walked away.
"Hey Sosuke! That kind of attitude towards the homeless is exactly what Yoruichi is protesting!" Urahara shouted down.
Sosuke's frown deepened and he raised a brow. "What she is protesting is losing her space to perform! Not my attitude!" He said and walked over to the car door once everyone dispersed around his car. "Come down here. I want to talk to you both." He said and got in his car to move it along the curb.
Byakuya still glared down to the man and then softened his gaze as he turned and watched his housemate walk back in the apartment with the trash can. People were still chanting along down the road. He sighed and grasped the rail with his slender cold hand. Looking down to the balcony below he saw a man with long red hair sitting on the rail, smiling up at him. Byakuya's brow furrowed but he stared down at him a moment longer before going back inside and then heading down to where Aizen waited for him and Urahara. The man smirked and went inside his own apartment.
Rent, rent, rent, rent, rent
We're not gonna pay rent
'Cause everything is rent
Mina's Note: So… how'd I do? Was it alright? I hope so… Hehe… I'm going to update this as often as I can. You may get another chapter here in a little while… But we'll see. I have other stories I need to update as well. But I would really love your feedback with this. :) If you have never seen 'Rent' do not worry about because I'll try to give a lot of detail with this. I want to make sure everyone understands what is going on. But I would go look up the song 'Rent' from the Rent movie so you know how the song goes perhaps the Broadway version as well...?
As always reviews are greatly appreciated!
-Love, Mina!