Heyyy everyone reading chapter 4 right now! I love you a lot! I love you so much that I'm going to just shut up and let you read. :)

Chapter 4: Acceptance

Although Mana carried his luggage as inconspicuously as possible, he could still feel the curious passing gazes of the strangers around him during his morning commute. He found the attention embarrassing, perhaps even frightening, but somewhere in the back of his thoughts, Mana was thrilled to carry his instrument to school again. He disembarked at the appropriate station, carefully maneuvering through the train's crowd of passengers, and proceeded along his chosen route towards school. It was not long before similarly dressed students began to dapple the path, increasing in frequency as the boy neared his destination.

"Hey!"

Mana tensed at the sudden hand on his shoulder and stared back apprehensively at the dark-haired offender. He recognized that the boy's uniform was in the same design as his own, however, and relaxed his guard.

"Fancy running into you here," the stranger said. "Actually, I don't think we've met. Which is weird in itself, what with the number of guys that go here… We're not exactly the most low-profile students around here, yeah? Name's Kazuki Mitori, class 1-2. How about you?"

"Mana Satou." It was refreshing to be able to have such a casual and normal conversation after all of the stress involving the light music club from the past couple of days. "I'm in class 2-3."

"Oh-ho, so you're a transfer student?" Kazuki observed, to which Mana nodded in assertion. "I guess this means I had ought to be calling you Satou-senpai, then."

"Ah, no, that's all right," Mana hastily objected. "I'm not used to it, so… I mean, I probably wouldn't remember to answer to it…" Kazuki laughed brightly.

"You're kinda weird," he decided, "but you're definitely a cool guy. So, yeah, I've gotten with almost all of the guys attending Sakuragaoka this year, and we've got this plan. We're gonna start up the men's club," he stopped and clarified his intentions in response to Mana's perplexed expression, "I mean we're gonna call it the men's club so we can get it approved, but in reality it'll pretty much be a guy alliance. You know, like a bro-force, essentially." Kazuki's explanation was interrupted the sound of Mana's laughter muffled behind his hand. "W-What? I'm being serious here!"

"I know. I'm sorry. It's just… bro-force." Hearing the term again, even from his own mouth, inspired another fit of subdued laughter in the older boy. Kazuki's face fell.

"Men's club," he corrected. "Anyway, the name isn't the important part. It'll pretty much be a guy's sanctuary, a place we can go to get away from all the girls. It's gonna be awesome; that's for sure. So, are you in?" Mana waved his hand apologetically.

"Sorry. I already turned in an application for a club…"

Kazuki took a step back and crossed his arms, thinking aloud, "Ah, that's rough… Well, whatever, you can be an honorary member!"

"Is that allowed…?"

"Sure is! 'Cause I'm the president!" Kazuki grinned and ran ahead a short ways. "Anyway, I've gotta meet some people. See you around, Satou!"

"Right! Uh, I'll… see you later, Mitori-san." Mana waved meekly until Kazuki turned around, disappearing into the school gate looming just ahead. It was amazing, he thought, that he could speak so naturally with a perfect stranger. The encounter left his spirits high, and he proceeded to his classroom with a faint smile painted onto his lips.

The confidence that resulted from befriending Kazuki did not last, however. As the days' classes approached their end, Mana became increasingly nervous about his imminent first meeting with the light music club. He had not, after all, ever received any word that his application had been accepted, and he worried that perhaps that wide-eyed girl had deceived him, that maybe she destroyed his application and that he would be ridiculed and driven away if he dared to attend the meeting anyway.

He stood outside of his classroom, fiercely debating his options and their consequences. Before he could reach a decision, however, the black case containing his instrument was snatched from his hands. Full-fledged panic set upon him, but his dread was quelled when he recognized the thief as the president of the light music club.

"Oh, it's actually pretty light," she remarked with a laugh. "You were standing there all spaced out, and I figured you must be thinking of how to carry your heavy instrument up the stairs. I guess that's not it after all, huh?" She seized Mana by the wrist and pulled him in the direction of the staircase and the light music club's room before he had the chance to protest.

"Hey everyone!" the girl cried as she shoved the door open. "Look what I brought!"

Mana, who had once more taken possession of his instrument at some point during his brief trip through the school, looked out from behind the president cautiously, fearing the reaction he might receive. Hostility, however, was not the slightest bit present in the girls' smiles, and he resigned his baseless worries.

"My name is Mana Satou," he said in a quiet voice, advancing a few steps into the room. "I'm a second year student in class 2-3, and—"

"What instrument do you play?" the president interrupted, pawing at the case in his hands.

"It's—"

"How long have you been playing?"

"How old are you?"

"When's your birthday?"

"What about your blood type?"

"Do you prefer milk or lemon tea?"

The two dark-haired girls intervened and put an end to the suffocating interrogation, to Mana's great relief.

"Before you go asking a hundred different questions, how about you tell him your names?" the older of the two reprimanded. "I'm Mio Akiyama, by the way, and I play bass."

"Azusa Nakano. I'm on rhythm guitar. I hope that we can get along, Satou-senpai."

"My name is Tsumugi Kotobuki, and I'm a keyboardist."

"Name's Ritsu Tainaka. Drums for me!"

"I'm Yui Hirasawa, and for me it's lead guitar. Let's have fun playing together!"

Mana nodded at each respectively, carefully associating a face with the name given, then approached the table and placed his black case on top of it. "My instrument," he said, the five girls hovering nearby as he undid the latches, "is this." The cover lifted up, revealing a slender neck and a row of keys on a long, dark blue body finished with a glittery lacquer that yielded the impression of a night sky. "The Roland AX-Synth."

The girls stared in a momentary silence broken by Yui's tearfully distressed exclamation, "Mugi-chan! Gitah cheated on me with your keyboard!" She flung her arms around her friend's waist and sobbed.

"Oh, this is one of those things," Mio realized, unaffected by the guitarist's outburst. "A 'keytar,' right? I'd heard of them, but I thought they were novelty instruments."

"They are regarded that way a bit," Mana admitted, "but they've become pretty popular lately. The AX-Synth is actually the first new model in a while, released because of all the people asking for it."

"It's really cool-looking, too," Ritsu said with a whistle of admiration.

"My mother bought it for me as a birthday present and had it customized. Usually you'll only see them with a plain white finish." Although it was the instrument receiving praise, Mana found himself blushing at the compliment.

Tsumugi, who had been released by a sulking Yui, scrutinized the keytar's appearance thoroughly, wondering aloud, "Does it play similarly to a normal keyboard? It looks like it would be so strange to try and hold…"

"It's not really that hard." Mana carefully extracted the instrument from its container, slipping the strap over his head and positioning the body similarly to how one would hold a guitar. "You can play with one hand like this, or," he shifted the keytar so all of its weight was focused on the strap, "you can let it rest from your shoulders like this and use both hands, like with a standard keyboard."

"Mana-kun, you look great like that!" Yui interjected after a swift recovery from the heartbreak of her guitar's affair. "Play something! Play something!"

Mana's face reddened slightly at the encouragement, but he agreed to the request. He flipped a switch on the back of his instrument and several of the small lights flickered to life. After a moment of fiddling with various knobs and buttons, he began to play. It was a short phrase—a solo intended just for the keytar that was a part of a song he played with his friends at his previous school—but it accentuated the machine's capabilities to the point of definition.

"That's pretty impressive," Azusa declared when the performance came to an end. "Could I ask how long you've been playing?"

"Hmm," Mana hummed, counting off on his fingers silently. "Well, I've only had the AX-Synth since December, but I've been playing the keytar in general for about two years now. I used a regular keyboard for a few years before that, and some of my earliest memories are of my mom teaching me piano."

"Wow… So, ever since you were little, huh?" Yui mused. "Well!" She pointed at Mana suddenly, surprising him. "No matter how good you are now, you'll be sure to get a lot better by playing with us! 'Cause we have tons of fun when we play! It's pos… posi…"

"Positive reinforcement?" Ritsu aided with an apologetic shrug in their new member's direction.

"Yeah! That's it! So, let's make sure to have fun together, Mana-kun!"

Mana conducted a short survey the faces of the light music club's members. Their vivid expressions gave their wordless support to Yui's suggestion, and he found himself smiling as well. Perhaps there really was a place for him here.

"Yeah. I'll be looking forward to it!"

And now we know how to engage Mana in conversation: ask him about his instrument. Again, for those of you who like a visual aid, I've put a picture of Mana's keytar at the end of my profile, under his portrait.

About that keytar... Yeah, it's kind of a silly instrument. When I was brainstorming Mana's character, I considered a bunch of different instruments. The first choice was guitar, but the light music club really doesn't need a third guitar. Next I thought maybe a violin but decided it was a bit too classy; it didn't fit well with the rest of the club. Flute was next but was rejected almost immediately. Then I hit on keyboard, 'cause I figured it wasn't strange for bands to have multiple synthesizers going, and then I started doing research on keytars out of curiosity and, well... what can I say? I fell in love. Have a look at some videos sometime. It's amazing what can be done with those things.

This chapter should have been done last night, but I kept getting distracted, first by editing a good depiction of the keytar and then by Mameshiba of all things... Admittedly I wasn't feeling so inspired to hurry and push it out since my traffic has been rather pitiable lately and I haven't gotten any reviews even from the few visitors I've received... On that note I'd like to beg for reviews now, lol. Seriously, nothing motivates me more than feedback. Even if English isn't your first language! I can run it through an online translator! Heck, if it's Spanish I can even reply! I'd get down on my knees but you wouldn't be able to see it anyway, so...

Well, thanks for reading to the very end; that makes me super happy too. I hope you enjoyed this longer-than-usual chapter! I hope you enjoyed it enough to review! *shot*