I do not own Skip Beat.

Enjoy!

Kuon and his mother were given an address for the studio that the newly formed band could use once a week.

Kuon was told to dress in regular clothes, so he dressed in blue jeans, white shirt, sleeveless jacket and sneakers.

They were told to come in at a time that was after the school day was over.

The building was brown and Kuon and his mother walked in, it was big or fancy it was lowbrow and there was one work room out of the whole building.

They entered and there were three teenage guys in there already.

Kuon didn't know why but the moment their eyes stared at him, he felt like he was being hated on sight.

To the other guys, he looked like the annoying guy who never worked hard a day in his life and was insanely popular and rich for his looks.

"Hello" said, his mother, putting a hand on his should. "This my son Momo"

Momo?

All three of them tried not to burst out laughing but Kuon could clearly see them shaking from laugher.

"Please treat him, well" She said, "And if you need somebody to book venues for your guys than I am more than happy to do that for you"

Big time manager son? They all thought.

She left and he said, immediately. "She's not a manager. She a lawyer. If you ever want to sue somebody give her a call"

They all sweat dropped, before getting into a circle and introducing themselves.

"My name is Charly Wintercor" said, a guy who looked younger than Kuon, his black eyes and his hair was in a partial bun as if he was a Rockstar already. "I play the drums and I am 16."

"My name is Astar Bank" said, guy who died red hair and blue eyes, he had three earrings in an ear. "And I play bass. Age 16"

"And you know I am the singer," said, a loud guy with blond hair and blue eyes. "My name is Shawn Wish. Age 16"

The word 'cringe' came to Kuon mind.

"I am Momo and I play Guitar," said, Kuon. "Age 16"

They were all surprised because of his height, that's when he added.

"I started becoming tall ever since I was hit with puberty," He said, "I get it from my father"

And that was the end of the discussion about his father, they could all tell.

"Anyway, since we all have introduced ourselves" said, Shawn, he got up and said. "We can all start trying to play song's that I've written"

"What do you mean what you've wrote!?" said, Astar. "I got music sheets too!"

"U-Um, what about my sheets?" said, Charly.

"NOBODY ASKED YOU!" Both guys said, and Charly cowered.

Jesus, its like watching 6 year old's...Kuon thought all of them wanted to be the face of the band.

So Kuon offered a solution and said. "Why don't we all try out each other songs out so that our band has a good library of song's to play? If something happens to one of us, we can play another song"

There was silence after he said that.

"Fine" said, Astar.

"I guess" said, Shawn.

They really are like children...Kuon thought, both looked stubborn as they agreed.

"We got an hour, so let's try to rotate" said, Kuon. "Shawn, let's hear your song first and practice for 20 minutes, then Astar for 20 minutes and then Charly for 20 minutes"

"Are you a teacher?" said, Charly staring.

"I took a teacher's work experience for 2 weeks when I was 13." He said.

"W-Wait, since when do middle schools offer work experience?" said, Astar.

"I wasn't in middle school, I was in college when I was 13 in Japan" Said, Kuon stunning them all with how amazing he was compared to them. "Now I work full time as a professor Engineer"

His amazingness radiated off him and it was too bright for their eyes.

They had met a prodigy!

So under his instruction, they tried Shawn first and he sang it, once they heard the rhythm, everybody tried to build on that, using their own instruments.

Halfway, his mother came back as if she had come back from Hollywood, she wore shades and held StarDollar coffee.

She noticed they were hard at work, and began to video record them.

She was certain that her son band would become a huge hit in the future and wanted a video to show were it all began.

"Times up" She suddenly said, as they all blinked. "You're all welcomed to practice at my house, outside the time in the studio"

"We don't need it." said, Shawn. "We sound great"

"Are you sure?" She said, "You can sound very different than when you're out in the open and in front of a crowd"

"Book a gig for us" said, Shawn. "All, we need is an hour per day"

"I think we should take my Ma's offer" Said, Kuon. "There is no such thing as being too specilised in an instrument"

But his enquire fell on death ears, all three of them were so eager to be big and shine like stars that they thought once they got onto a stage, they will make it on the spot.

And Kuon who was used to striving to overachieve, his mentality did not fit in with the bash dreams of instant fame they had.

Kuon went home sighing, he really thought he was babysitting little kids.

The next following days, they practised for an hour together and did their own thing on the weekends, only Kuon was getting hand cramps from practicing especially when he didn't have to work.

Kuon, who had mastered the basics soon turned his attention to trying to make cool riffs with his guitar while his mother tried booking a place that wanted some music.

Two weeks later, she announced she had secured one which got them excited but when they saw what it was, there was a huge disappointment in the air.

It was on the street in townsquare.

They all couldn't help but expect venues like the ones on MTP or something even Kuon, but they were an unknown band, who would pay to have them perform when they don't even have a single fan?

Kuon felt out of place amongst his glamorously dressed bandmates who were expecting much more.

But his looks and guitar did grab some females attention.

At least some people came to watch based on looks.

They plugged their instruments in and Shawn said into the microphone. "Are you ready to rock?"

And Kuon was cringing and his mother face matched his own as she held a camcorder to record.

"Okay, we are our Vgiour and our first song is going to be 'Faster than Lightening'" Said, Shawn and then he counted them in.

They started to play.

There were problems immediately.

Nervousness showed off the bat when they were their playing, sometimes they would miss a section or Shawn would sing when the beat wasn't there.

The only thing strong was Kuon guitar playing, his hours of nothing but guitar was bearing fruit but everybody else was nowhere nearly as good as he was or smooth, and it was showing in their sound.

The girls who were interested because of looks began to leave and go about their own shopping day, nobody was listening to them.

It was very embarrassing.

Shawn who was filled with confidence when they started, began to stutter under the atmosphere and you could feel that he wanted to leave.

For the final song, Kuon tried to save them by preforming his solo showing his skills and getting attention.

But that was it.

They were done, when they got into the car, nobody said a word.

"T-That..." Charly finally said. "Was god awful"

The level of sheer embarrassment was something nobody was ready for, and what made it worse was that they were bragging about being good and doing gigs in front of their classmates.

Those classmates could have seen them when they were out shopping.

Nobody said anything after that, his mother dropped them off at their house one after another like she promised their parents.

The moment Kuon walked through the door, he went straight for the bathroom and threw up.

He threw up because he couldn't swallow the taste of extreme failure, sure there was a bit of bumps trying to learn something but he never failed when the only choice was to succeed.

But despite the extremely rough start, they stilled wanted gigs, they tried to pull themselves back together, after all, even the biggest Rockstar's out there had one or two bad gigs under their belt even today.

They tried street preforming again desperate to be liked but there was not much difference then there first performance.

On the third performance, Shawn actually walked off the stage after a single line.

On the studio side of things' the practice together got fewer and fewer, until it was clear that nobody but Kuon was coming.

Nobody came for days while the other's made excuses.

Kuon mother had tried to call the other families only to hear the other's refuse to go practice or even do anything related to music.

That performance had scarred the team, Shawn wasn't singing, Astar was leaving his bass to collect dust and Charly did not even want to hear about his drums.

The string of bad performances had broken the guys that once had high hopes but reality was cruel, they weren't good.

Kuon himself, had gone into some kind of depression being hit with so many huge failures.

Suddenly they all got a text from the company that they all should come back to the studio to discuss performance.

Nobody wanted to go knowing it was going to be a painful talk but they had no choice, however, when they came in, they found there was a television waiting for them.

A television Kuon recognised, because it had in his basement yesterday.

His mother locked the door.

"What's going on?" said, Astar, where was the representative.

"My mother gone crazy" said, Kuon.

"LISTEN UP!" she said, stunning all of them. "DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I PAID FOR THESE GIGS!?"

Silence.

"Like hell, I will let you all quit!" she said, continued to stunned them all. "Each of your parents paid to sign a contact with the company you're working under. Have you thought about them?"

There was more silence, because it was true, Astar, Shawn or Charly hadn't thought about the money their parents provided to sign.

Each of their family had to pay 200 bucks and they made promises to their families to keep at it because this was the path they wanted to go down.

Where did that promise go?

Suddenly Kuon Mother used her phone to turn the tv on and they all cringed when they saw it was them on their first ever gig.

The gig that scarred them.

"To combat trauma, you need to face it," She said before she pressed play and Shawn felt like hiding when he realised just how uncomfortable his first lines were in his over the top outfit.

Both Shawn and Charly realised just how terrible they looked, in all that heavy clothes and shades they put on that day, the only one who looked down to earth was Kuon and they remembered on that day that they mocked him for how plain he looked when he was supposed to be a rockstar.

It was now their faces turning red as they realised how ridiculous they looked.

What made it worse, was that they kept that look in other gigs as well.

And then they started playing.

They didn't sound god awful much to their shock since they only remembered it being terrible from beginning to end.

And then it started falling apart when Charly caved into the pressure of having so many eyes on them and missed his be

at.

It was in that moment there was break in their music and the music became rushed as everybody tried to cover for him and messed their own parts up in the process.

Through all of this, what came out was Kuon guitar, he clearly had the ability to recover and his calmness shone through the mess.

When the other three saw the difference between him and them who only practiced an hour a day, there was nothing but shame as they saw the difference in skill.

However, Kuon wasn't flawless either, Kuon independence was hurting them on that stage, he didn't bother to slow down to give the band time to recover, his independence would be a good thing if he was a solo act but he was part of a group.

He wasn't listening to anybody else's sound and it was crippling them.

When Kuon solo came up, it was completely out of place as it became clear he was trying too hard to save them, the crowd knew he was trying to save them so it was all style and no substance.

When it finished, nobody could say a word, not even Kuon, who had believed deep down that it was completely his group members fault for such a disaster.

"You can all go now," Said, his mother taking her son back home.

When Kuon got home, he seemed to be thinking deeply about something.

The next day, when he went to studio, it wasn't empty.

Astar, Shawn and Charly were there and looked surprised to see each other.

They didn't say anything but they didn't have to.

There were all willing to listen to each other to get out of this rut.

As a band.

And scene!

Next chapter, the other boys take Kuon mother's offer after realising the gap in skill between them and Kuon. The boy's do more street gigs with a new mindset and those who listen can't help but notice that they were getting a lot better and something happens. Review/fav and follow!