A/N: The Beatles can make any situation better. Trust me.
T O U R
III.
You know when I said the bus in England was two stories high? Well, this one is too. However, that is not why I'm sitting, flabbergasted, on one of the leather couches, gaping at my surroundings. This bus right here, it expands.
Expands, people.
Only when it's stopped, of course, but I mean, really, the sides just open up. Like a spaceship! And it gives us twice the space we originally have (which, really, is a blessing, because a tour bus, no matter how much bigger than a regular bus it is, it's still tiny and cramped on the inside). How is that even possible? I mean, is it possible? Agreed, we do need all the space we can get, with the four boys, their manager, the roadies, the stage technicians, the camera crew (I'm getting back to that point later) and the stylist. Oh, and me.
I've been introduced to everyone rather quickly, so I don't really remember anyone's name. I shook a lot of hands, basically. I do remember the chief camera operator, because he said he'd be following me everywhere. His name is Kakashi, I do believe. His hair struck me. It's all gray and gravity-defying. And he wears an eye patch. Yeah. An eye patch. Like a bloomin' pirate. I like him. One of the roadies shocked me at first, too, with his red cheek tattoos, but then I remembered Naruto's whisker tattoos and realised it wasn't that weird. Well, by rock band standards, anyway.
Maybe Sasuke has a tattoo.
Okay, stupid, no thinking about Sasuke. You know it makes you uneasy.
That's another good thing about the bus. He-who-must-not-be-named is no longer in my line of vision, and given the fact that I'm no longer in his, I'm assuming he's not glaring at me anymore. Which is a relief. Honestly, he was almost making me grow worry-pimples.
If Sasuke's behaviour towards me is hostile, the other boys' reaction to my being here is anything but unwelcoming. They all seem very excited to have me on the bus. Even Neji, whom I know to be rather silent (for all I know of him), has been participating to the general conversations concerning me, making no comment that could make me think he didn't want me on the tour. Naruto's enthusiasm is simply blinding and Lee's excitement mirrors it. The whole crew, without being overly gleeful, took me in as a part of the group without hesitation. Which sort of makes me doubt they weren't aware I was coming.
And, true to his word, Kakashi thrust a camera in my face (operated by a silent boy with sunglasses) and started asking me questions, not saying what he'd use the recordings for. The boys (minus the Glare Wonder, undoubtedly gone sulking in a corner somewhere) gladly jumped in to help me with the answers. The questions were quite simple, really; who I am, where I'm from, how I got here and am I excited about the tour.
That's when it started sinking in. Not the "being away from home" part, but the "singing in front of millions of people" part. I knew I'd have to do that, of course, but the fact that it was happening very soon (I was previously informed the first show was tomorrow night) made it hard to process and sort of scary. It still gives me goose bumps just to think about it.
Now, finally, I have a minute of peace. I'm sitting on a couch, on the second floor. Of course, it's a bus, so there's no real privacy, but most of the others are downstairs, talking (I can hear the buzz of their voices). Two other people are up with me. The roadies and technicians got into a van when we stopped at a gas station, so there's more space for less people.
The two people with me are Ray-Ban (his name's Shino, but Ray-Ban is better), who's re-watching previous recordings on his camera, and the stylist, whose name I can't recall, and who's currently just writing stuff down on a pad. Or is she drawing? I lean over, just to see.
Oh.
Oh my God.
It's me.
No, I mean, it really looks like me. It's a drawing, but one heck of a drawing. The pose is straight and rigid, with my arms and legs extended away from my body, but it's my face, and the proportions are very similar. Plus, my name is scribbled at the top of the page, so that's another clue for my underdeveloped brain. My hair's missing, though. And, uh... I'm sort of lacking clothes.
Is she drawing me naked?
That's just wrong.
"So, Sakura." I jump. I didn't realise she was looking at me.
"Y-yes?" Great. I'm stammering.
"Could you describe to me your personal style?" She asks, her tone poised and pleasant, but her brown eyes piercing.
"Er... My what?" Pull it together, dipshit.
"Your personal style. What you like to wear, your favourite pieces of clothing, the trend you're following, anything."
"Oh... Well, I... I like to wear pants? A-and, er... shirts?"
"What cut?"
"What?"
"The cut, for your pants. Boot leg, flare, skinny, boyfriend, straight... Which one do you like better?"
"Er..." This is not my day for intelligent elocution.
"Okay, stand up." I oblige. She said it with the authority of a sergeant, I'm a little scared.
She starts fumbling with the legs of my pyjama pants, then turns her head up towards me.
"This is a straight cut. It's... straight." She sounds a little like she's mocking me, but drops it and fumbles again. "This is a skinny cut. It's supposed to fit very close to the body." She changes the position of my pant legs again. "This is a flare cut. It basically flares out away from your calves and ankles." Finally, she lets the pants loose. "And this..."
"Is loose?"
"Exactly." Whoo, one point for me! "The basics are not very difficult to remember. Straight is straight, loose is loose, flare flares and skinny is for skinny people."
"Oh." So there's a system? I thought pants were... well, pants.
"You're lucky, you can wear pretty much anything. That's probably why you didn't know what cuts and fits were." She sat back down of the couch. "I'll ask you simpler questions, instead. What are your favourite colours to wear?"
Awesome. I feel like the dumbest idiot on the planet. I wish Ino were here.
Oh, Ino. Why did you abandon me? It feels like I haven't seen her in ages. The one evening I had with her, I spent most of it crying and sleeping. I miss her. I miss her (so smooth, so silky, so blond) hair, her bright blue eyes that just know what's up with me, her mocking laugh, her uncensored comments about people she doesn't like, her amazing (repeat, AMAZING) fashion sense and her way of always making me feel better. Just thinking about her makes me want to cry.
That's one thing I've noticed over the past few hours. I've been crying a lot. For no reason. Well, I had reasons, but they don't usually make me tear up. It's annoying, really. All the insecurity, the useless stress and the jumpiness. And my eyes are permanently puffy. Which is really uncomfortable.
"Alright, now..." the lady looks at her pad. "Ah, right. What's your hair colour?"
"Pink."
"No, I mean, you natural colour."
"It's pink." I try not to sound like a smart-ass, because I get that question a lot and people tend to think it rude when I say "Well, duh. Are you blind?"
She stares at me for a minute.
"Really?"
"Er... Yeah."
"Hm..."
Hm! What's "hm" mean?
"We'll have to change that, then."
"What?" Surely she's joking.
"I'm thinking chocolate brown, to bring out your eyes." Whoa, whoa, wait! Brown!
"I'm not changing my hair colour!" My failed attempt at being outraged and scary doesn't impress her.
"It's only temporary, don't worry. Only until you've been seen long enough, so that no one thinks you're copying another artist. In a matter of months, you'll be back to pink. Or another colour, if you want."
"But... Brown?"
"You'd prefer being blond? We can do that too."
Ino, help me.
Right, I think I need to explain something.
I don't... know stuff.
I mean, I don't listen to the radio, I barely watch any TV and the majority of what I read are old classics my dad has in his dusty library in our basement back home. My favourite music consists of McFly and old bands my parents listened to when they were my age. So, really, the only link I have with the "main stream" is school. And Ino. But she usually doesn't bother with me, because I keep spacing out when she rants about who's dating whom. Not that it doesn't interest me. It's just that I have no idea who she's talking about, so I can't really understand what she's going on about.
Thus, when the boys started talking about bands I'd never heard of, I felt extremely out of it. They could've been talking about politics in Azerbaijan for all I knew.
So, right now, I am promising myself this: I will completely submerge myself in pop-culture until I feel confident enough to participate in the conversations normal people have all the time. And I'm gonna start with this magazine I found in Lee's bunk.
Also, I'll stop crying like a baby all the time. It's annoying even to me.
Ugh, stomach hurts.
A/N: Well, this was long overdue, wasn't it? Not as much as other stories (ahem) but still. And it's not even a good chapter. Ugh. I'm sorry, guys. College is a bitch. Please don't hate me.
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