The Music from the Soul

Just then I could see our stars starting to shine. That was addicting…

Chapter 4 - Days

Sasuke's diary

Wednesday, February 12th

I know what you are thinking. You want to know the rest of the story, don't you? You want to know about her, and what happened to us and to the band, right? Ok, let me access my memory. It's been so long now…

That first year was so fucking crazy! I mean, we were just kids; we had no idea where we had gotten ourselves into. The guys and I just thought we would write music, record, launch, play concerts and earn money, but there was much more to do. Contracts, boring meetings, photo shoot sessions, interviews. And there was: Sakura. She became a part of us that we never imagined was missing. And soon she became also our princess.

Well. Sort of.

I totally dislike this kind of labeling, I mean; Sakura was not that kind of annoying girl that only caused problems, even though she was annoying in her own way. She was as talkative as naruto, but we could excuse her for her at least pretty voice - and good ideas. She added her touch in the band's soul that now it was impossible to imagine how things would have been if she werent with us. I guess - no, I'm sure – we were unconsciously being attracted towards her and soon she had won us all over. Naruto and Kiba would only gravitate in her atmosphere, but it wasn't a surprise when one day we caught her taking a nap with Shikamaru before an interview in a radio station, her head laid on his shoulder. What was she? A little sister? Maybe. The fact was that during that first year we learned how to be a group, more than that in fact.

Ok. Lets be cheezy.

We had learnt how to be a family and all the boys had the feeling that Sakura was our responsability and we should look after her.

Including me.

...

Hell.

That was a fresh year once again, but this time we were already being sold, not just a bunch of rookies who couldn't get along pretty well. Our label was satisfied with our numbers and soon we started playing in some festivals and stuff.

I still remember our first time on stage together. The guys and I had already played some little concerts on our own, but that was the first time as a signed band and with Sakura. Everyone could tell how nervous she was. However, when she reached the stage, she gained all the confidence missing previously and...

Owned it.

A flawless victory.

That was when I would find out that my job as a vocalist had become a lot easier. Sakura was distraction enough then I had time to enjoy things while she sang her parts.

To sum up: we were fucking awesome.

As you can see, humbleness is not really part of my life, but if you had listened to us, you surely would agree. It was more than nice to get out of the stage and meet people wanting to take pictures with us and even asking for autographs. Man... That was crazy. We had never had attention like that before. I could even hear some girls screaming my name.

Well... No news here. Since I can remember, these damn Uchiha genes made a lot of girls almost faint whenever near me. That was... Annoying. However, the guys screaming to Sakura was a lot more annoying.

That was everybodys opinion, not only mine, anyway…

Some boys were nice. They just wanted something to remember the concert. But some would come to her with horrible pick up lines that made my stomach loop. But sakura was really a lady. She understood that once famous, you cannot treat people the way you want. Now there was an image to create and cultivate. Even though people sometimes were a pain in the ass, you had to answer then and... Smile.

Let's just say I have never been a smiling person.

And those guys calling Sakura... Naruto almost snapped in a moment, but our girl managed to control the situation. Then it hit me that she had been in this world for longer than me and the guys. She knew what to do. I didn't notice it at that time that I was already including her in every part of my life. I thought it was normal as we were seeing each other almost everyday in one whole year. In fact, I didn't notice a lot of things at that time...

One day in particular marked our very big entrance in the showbuzz. Kakashi called us very early in the morning saying that we had an urgent meeting in one hour. Even in another room I could hear naruto cursing the white-haired. I also did it inwardly. Damn meetings! I had a headache from the previous night.

Ok.

Let me explain.

The stupid blond drummer that we had convinced us all to check a nightclub near our building. I don't really like this kind of place, but it was those kinds of clubs very common in japan with an arcade inside.

Well... I went there to play.

I may have drunk one or... Five beers...

Anyway, who the hell has meetings on a Saturday morning?

Us, apparently...

I took an aspirine and went out of my room, bumping with Sakura in front of it. She apologized and smiled brightly. She would always smile and I would always... Well... 'hm'. My one and only answer for every kind of situation. Later I would find out how much that annoyed Sakura. But she never said a word about it. She would just always smile. No need to say she hadn't come to the club with us. Well, if it wasn't for my headache I'd be smiling as well.

...

No.

No, I wouldn't.

To top it all off, Kakashi was late. Even after one year working with him we still hoped he would be on time once in a blue moon. Nope. That never happenend. That pervert only showed up one hour after the agreed one. But before we could kill him, we heard his announcement.

"Congratulations guys! Your song Pride was selected to be the new opening theme for the Gundam Wing series."

At first no one reacted. I was trying to recall which series was that when suddenly Kiba snapped.

"Gundam? Th-the animation Gundam?"

"Yes." Kakashi's answer came clean and calm.

Only then I got that. Gundam was the currently most famous animation being broadcasted in Japan.

That. Was. Huge.

Well, you see, during that year we had written other songs besides "OVER", preparing for our debut album, yet to be properly recorded. Now, we already knew that our song named "Pride" would be our really first single. Not an indie release just to test the market as the first one. I only came back to earth when I heard Neji's voice. "How did they hear our song?"

Kakashi's smile was noticiable under his medical mask, and the obvious wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. "Let's say I'm a ressourceful man... Anyway, you must record the single as soon as possible. Let's choose the b-sides and have it finish until next Tuesday. Then... Prepare for the explosion."

And he wasn't kidding.

We had to hurry to finish the single. We wrote two more songs to include: "Hikaru Kakera" (shards of light) and "All Alone". Sakura was the only one of us that spoke English, so we were taking advantage of this and mixing as much English as we could in our songs. We were all excited that our first (second but now it was first) single would debut right on TV. Right then we didn't really know what to expect.

I will always remember how one evening, Sakura approached me and started a talk. She always had that casual tone when she started a conversation and I never knew what to expect from her.

"Sasuke-kun…" Yeah, she had already gotten used to call me that way.

"Hn."

"I wanted to say…" She looked down, started playing with her foot tracing irregular patterns on the floor. "Thank you."

I wasn't really looking at her. We were at the studio, just the two of us, as we normally did to write lyrics. When she started talking, I suddenly felt the notebook in my hands very attractive; I was staring at it. "What for?" I finally asked.

"For convincing me to join you. This year's been great so far and I feel so excited with our first big release I just can't wait… I…"

Next thing I knew, she had thrown herself on the sofa by my side, arms loosely at her sides and head turned up to the ceiling. Her pink hair was spread on the leather material, green eyes shining.

She was beautiful.

And that was the first time I allowed myself to state that in my mind.

Suddenly she turned her face to look at me. It got me surprised by her sudden action, but I managed it, like I always do, and I kept my face cool, also staring at her bright green eyes.

"You know…" She said. "You annoy me sometimes, when you don't let me do what I want with our songs. But in the end you are always right. I think I've learned to listen to you, even though you're not much of a speaker…"

There was no reply. We stared awkwardly at each other for a moment. Then she pressed her lips together and I already knew she used to do this when she was nervous or bracing herself for something. So I started to brace myself as well for something was on its way…

"Can I ask you a question, Mr. Quiet?"

Mr. Quiet… Geez.

"Ah."

"It's obvious that you are not friendly like the guys; I don't know if you'll want to answer, but… Why did you decide to sing?"

That should be the most important question for a vocalist. Yet, I hadn't really thought about that. Sometimes people make us start to think and Sakura was especially good at that and I really felt so uneasy around her. A lot later I would realize that the strange feeling I had towards her was fear.

Yes, fear.

I had always thought I was good enough by myself. I didn't need to share any personal thing with no one, but I felt that Sakura already knew my answer. I felt like she could read my mind, and that scared me. It scared me that somebody could actually get under my skin – that a girl could do it.

In the same second a blink came, I heard a light laugh. Sakura had stood up and was walking towards the exit door. She glanced behind, hand on the doorknob.

"I'm ready when you're ready."

With a smile she was gone.

And I was devastated.

There's always that story about girls and their power over men. Obviously, my own interpretation of myself would never let me even consider the possibility of that being true, at least not with me. I was good enough, remember? But since that night I realized she had been able to make me think, make me consider things I didn't want to, make me answer annoying questions and even give her the answers when I wouldn't say a word.

Witch.

And just as a lightning strike, the second feeling that came after fear was curiosity.

Let me explain.

I wasn't exactly curious about her. I was curious about us.

Well, I really felt the desire to give room to her and see where she would go. Did she really have the power to figure out a complex and chaotic guy like me? And what if she did? The most annoying part was: was she even aware of that "power"?

I mean, some girls really act as bitches doing with you whatever they want so they can rule you, and you can tell when they are doing this if you're smart enough, but Sakura seemed so innocent on that matter. She would laugh with the boys, play and sing with them, make jokes and take pictures, eat junk food with us… She would always be there, with her smiles, annoying comments and beautiful eyes. Innocently there, and she didn't want to be with us in the first place. But now, we were all on the same boat called band. So my conclusion was that she wasn't acting weirdly or like a bitch trying to have some fun messing around with boys.

But she was messing with me in a way. That wasn't bad. That was just… unknown.

Since that night, Sakura started to ask me a personal question here and there. Later, I would realize that was her way of approaching me, a way she found to know me as I wasn't open like the other guys.

People say you never know when you're going to fall in love or with whom, but I don't think so. And I don't, because of that night. We had been working closely together for a year and that was the first time I thought of her not as a sister.

Maybe not even as a friend.

Finally we had our first – real first this time – single launched. Have I mentioned that Kakashi advised us to brace ourselves for the explosion?

He was right.

And we were not really ready for that.

The opening song "Pride" in the Gundam anime was advertising enough. Suddenly, our names and faces were everywhere in Japan and we started to book concerts a lot more often. TV channels would want us in their programs to sing that song, radio stations requesting interviews and other events – we were breathless!

Suddenly, we were the big hit.

Some weeks after the release we were in another studio to shoot our music video, or promotional video as we call it in Japan. That part was tiring, but it was fun as well. The production staff really understood our vibe and style. They gave us amazing outfits to wear.

"Man! This is awesome!" I heard Naruto yelling in the back of our dressing room. I couldn't blame him for being excited, I myself was as well. My outfit included a white shirt, black pants and black suit; of course, I was also wearing my accessories. All the other guys were wearing pretty much the same, but each one with their own style.

"I want to see Sakura." Kiba stated out of the blue, while styling his pants. "What do you think she is gonna wear?"

The guys looked at each other, and no one could answer. Then I started to imagine what that would be. The boys were all in mostly black, maybe she was going to bring some color to the video, or… I don't know.

"Her pink hair is outstanding." Neji said while fixing his cufflinks. "It will be a good combination with us in black and white."

That was right. As always, the boys and I being the dark, black part and she was the colorful spring melting the ice.

Oh hell…

We went out of the dressing room and literally bumped into Sakura in the hallway. I had to hold my mouth in order not to let my jaw drop; she was stunningly beautiful! The guys were right, her outfit was red/orange. Her hair was tied sideways and she had a flower on it. She smiled and turned around to show everything to us and when she looked straight at me I say they had put grey lenses on her eyes.

A part of me got a little disappointed there. I lov- err… I liked her green eyes, even though I should admit that the grey lenses were pretty good, but I would rather keep the green emeralds. Now we could only imagine the use of those grey eyes in the video.

Shooting was awesome! And tiring. Have I already said it? Sorry, my bad.

Anyway, it was fun to listen to our song in the background and just pretend to be singing it. It's a lot easier to perform that way, not having to be worried with the notes. One of the scenes we shot first was with the whole band together. Sakura by my side would sing her parts and head bang/dance a little while I was singing mine. The funniest part was when we took a break and went to drink some water. I took a seat at one of the tables piled with cameras and other stuff observing Sakura sitting beside Kiba who gave her a bottle of water. A minute later a big Rottweiler dog appeared in the studio being pulled by its collar by a guy who seemed to be its trainer. The guy pulled the dog until he was right in front of Sakura who hadn't seen the dog yet. She screamed and jumped in surprise when the animal started to sniff her orange skirt. Even I myself couldn't help but laugh at her scared expression.

"Easy girl…" The guy said. "He is trained. His name is Hokuto. He will be your partner in this video."

"What?" Sakura asked still hiding herself on Kiba's lap. (Wait, what was she doing there?) "No one told me I would have a dog by my side. Even more a…"

"Rottweiler. Don't worry, he is as sweet as a baby girl sleeping."

Sakura didn't seem so confident the dog was really friendly, but she left Kiba's lap anyway. It didn't take much for her to start a friendship with the black animal, though. And the scenes with the dog were great in the end. As so the grey lenses on her eyes, they had an amazing effect when illuminated.

Our single "Pride", as well as the video, was released on the 26th of January and it was so successful we released it again in March in a remixed version with 6 different remixes. And in April our first single "OVER" was recorded again and released in a new format. The sales were doing great and we could already see the money coming in. The first thing I bought with it was a brand new Les Paul guitar; the first item in my wish list was now crossed.

Flashes, cameras, crowds, rock, money…

…Sakura.

What could go wrong?

The wind that blew between the two of us back then
Gently brushes my cheek
I want to see your unchanging smile; the thought makes me flutter inside
I follow you through the usual lights and down the hill
I'll never be as I was

Author's notes: Hello!

So the dog in the promotional video is not a Rottweiler, the thing is that I just can't find out which dog is that. If anyone watch the video and care to tell me what it is, I'd be grateful!

Anyway, I got block these past months. I couldn't bring myself to write this story, and I still haven't received much feedback. I don't really know if I'll finish this as I feel there aren't many ppl reading it.

*sighs* Hope you enjoyed the chapter!