So I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but I've been changing the main characters according to the last published chapter. So since this is a group number, it'll display two of the guys' names. I'm not writing romance between the boys.
Since all the individual numbers are ballads, I thought a faster dance number might be a nice change of pace.
*NSync's "It's Gonna Be Me" (music and choreography): youtube…com/watch?v=UkRfRN5-ezw. Ignore "Pop Goes the Weasel" at the beginning; it's a one-time thing they did for MTV's VMAs.
"I can't believe we're doing this again," Ryoutaro groaned as he sat on the dance room floor.
"Get. Over. It," Len bit out in irritation; he was tired, sweaty, and somewhat stressed about all the things that needed to be done to prepare for his trip. "It's your fault anyway," he muttered under his breath.
"My fault?" Ryoutaro's eyes turned to dangerous slits.
The corners of Keiichi's mouth turned down slightly as he felt the storm begin to brew.
"If you hadn't tripped, we wouldn't be in this mess."
"That the best you got?" Ryoutaro scoffed. "Because I tripped? You know if it hadn't been that, it would've been something else." He smirked, raring for a fight. "Y'know what I think? I think you're just mad you didn't have the guts to stand up to her when she threatened to tell your family." His tone turned unforgivably mocking. "Too afraid of what Mommy will think of her widdle boy, Tsukimori?"
He flushed red-hot. "Oh, like you're one to talk about having guts," he countered. "You caved as soon as she said it was all-or-nothing."
"Unlike you, I had pity on him," Ryoutaro pointed sharply at Kazuki.
"Uh…are you making his my fault now?" Kazuki asked in a mixture of nervousness and a glaring sense of being the victim of a great injustice.
"If the shoe fits," Len crossed his arms. "If you hadn't agreed, we could have still gotten out of this."
"Now, guys," Azuma said in a reasonable tone of voice, "let's calm down for a minute-"
"It's not like you didn't agree in the end," Kazuki pouted, his feelings stung. "Yunoki and Shimizu-kun would've held out if you had."
"Hihara, you're not helping-"
"Oh, so now I'm to blame?"
While the others continued argue with Yunoki-senpai trying and failing to promote peace, Keiichi tugged on his hair in distress; he really wasn't good at helping to resolve conflict. As the scene unraveled before him, he thought back to how they had gotten roped into this. Again.
Like the last time, the day had been pretty nice. Well, as nice as it gets in January. The sky was so clear and blue it hurt the eyes and the air had a snap in it that nipped at the nose and ears. Perhaps it was a good thing since the chill had helped him focus more on his book about the events surrounding the composition of Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Opus 85 when he walked to school that morning.
But that afternoon as he and Tsukimori-senpai silently walked together, his thoughts were surprisingly not about music.
"Tsukimori-kun~! Shimizu-kun~!"
Both music students turned to see their senpai from the competition walking toward them.
"Hihara-senpai…and…Yunoki-senpai…" Keiichi gave a slow bow in greeting, "Good…afternoon…."
"Good afternoon, Shimizu-kun, Tsukimori-kun," Azuma smiled.
"Are you two going to the Gen Ed wing too?" Kazuki asked in curiosity.
"Yes," Len nodded once. He held up a white envelope. "I take it you two received one as well?"
"Yup!" Kazuki held up his. "I wonder what surprise Amou-chan has for us." He walked beside them with his hands tucked behind his head. "Maybe she'll give us something as a thank you for doing the concert last month." He smiled happily.
"I'm not even sure why we're going," Len muttered. "Now that it's over, it really has nothing to do with us…."
"Well, you've come this far," Azuma murmured while placing a hand gently on his shoulders to continue steering him toward the other side of the school, "so why not see it through?"
Much to everyone's surprise and pleasure, when they arrived at the infamous Room 506, it was to find Ryoutaro and Nami opening various cartons and packages of food.
"There you are!" Nami grinned. "I was wondering when you guys would show up." She laughed. "Tsuchiura-kun and I would've had a heck of a time trying to eat all this by ourselves."
Kazuki was beside himself with joy as he saw all the yummy treats lined up on the table. "Is this all for us?!"
"Yup," Ryoutaro smiled. "It's apparently a thank you for all our hard work with the concert last month." He thumped his senpai good-naturedly on the back. "So eat hearty."
"Score!"
About halfway through their eating and conversation, Nami stood at the front of the room and cleared her throat. "Actually, I have something I wanted to talk to everyone about."
The happy mood in the room immediately disappeared as if sucked into a black hole, and wary suspicion took its place.
"Relax guys. It's just a little presentation," she assured as she firmly pulled down all the blinds and flicked on a projector.
The guarded looks didn't waver.
Ignoring them, she proceeded with her presentation. "Now here's a chart showing our costs and gains from the Christmas concert. As you can see," she clicked her remote, "we ended up with huge amounts of profit." She clicked forward. "With this money, we were able to buy these things," she indicated a list on the left, "with this much left over." Click. "This is the number of people in attendance, and this is the percentage of them that bought the video recording we made." She moved along to the next slide. At this point, the boys were starting to look less defensive and more bored. The numbers were very impressive to be sure, but what was the point? "Since then, I have conducted a voluntary survey, and these are the results." She showed a bar chart with five columns, color-coded by hair color. She looked over at them, the barest hint of a sly smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Do you know what the question was?"
"The…number…of people…who are…our fans…?" Keiichi asked when no one else offered an answer.
"Not exactly," she smirked and brought the title of the chart onto the page. "How many girls were planning to give you chocolate on Valentine's Day."
Now all of them were staring at the chart with slightly frightened looks. Well, with the exception of Azuma who always received mountains of chocolates. Although, he had to admit, it looked like there were more than twice as many projected chocolates coming his way than in previous years. That was a bit annoying. He wasn't the bottomless pit when it came to sweets Hihara was.
"That's very interesting," he murmured, leaning forward a bit so his arms were resting on the desk, "but what exactly are you trying to show us Amou-san?"
"Well," she smiled sweetly, "take that number and convert it to the number of White Day gifts you'll have to distribute…."
"Ah…" he nodded.
Kazuki looked like a worldwide ban had been placed on the creation of steamed pork buns and tonkatsu sandwiches. "I'm going to be broke for life!"
Ryoutaro rubbed his head with a slight frown. "I'll be right there with you."
Len just muttered something under his breath about troublesome, silly customs. Cost wasn't really a problem to him, but having to distribute that many of anything would be ridiculously annoying.
"And don't forget, sanbai gaeshi," Nami sing-songed.
Kazuki planted his face on the desk. "Three times the price? Man, I'll be broke for the rest of eternity."
Keiichi solemnly nodded in agreement.
Azuma looked straight into her eyes. "So what is your proposition Amou-san?" At her feigned expression of innocence, he smirked ever so slightly. "This is obviously the point you wanted to bring around to us."
"Amou-senpai…wants us…to hold…another…concert…" Keiichi answered, cocking his head at the computer display.
"Hey! No peeking!" She lowered the lid.
"What?" Now Len really regretted not simply ignoring the stupid summons.
"Well," she huffed, "think about it. You could hold another concert—a little shorter this time—and give the girls a free ticket. Tickets would be at will call, so you'd never even have to see them to give them their gift."
"My, haven't you thought of everything," he retorted sourly. He had no particular desire to go prancing about on a stage again.
"Why are you suggesting this?" Ryoutaro asked with a frown.
"I'm just trying to do you all a fav-"
"Yeah right," he cut off bluntly. "There's got to be an angle for you in there."
"Well…the Journalism Club could really use a big story for the end of the year…."
He groaned. "You can't keep hauling us up to do your little show every time the paper needs something, y'know."
"This is the last time, I swear."
"What makes you think any of us believe you?" he scoffed.
"Well, for one," she pointed at the seniors, "those two are graduating, and secondly," the finger moved to Len, "Tsukimori-kun is moving to Europe." She frowned back with a hard set to her jaw. "Even if I wanted to, I physically can't have you perform together like this after Graduation, so this is the absolutely last time. Graduation is the week after White Day; you think I can throw together a brand new concert in that time?"
"That's good to know at least," he smiled with fake sincerity. The smile dropped. "I vote the Christmas Eve concert be the first and last. I'll buy some marshmallows or something to deal with the gifts. I'm out."
Kazuki nodded. "Me too."
The others echoed the refusal.
She sighed dramatically and cocked her hip on a desk. "I really didn't want to have to do this…."
The room erupted into groans.
"Again…?"
"Blackmail?! Seriously?!"
"Don't you have anything better to do with your time?"
"I should have foreseen this…."
"What do you even have to blackmail us with anyway?! You promised not to use that stuff against us anymore!"
"True," she acquiesced. "But having worked with you guys for three whole months, I had time to get plenty of new material." She clicked the remote to bring up a photograph. She smiled smugly at the shocked faces of the two grassheads. "Look like anyone you know?"
"You-you Photoshopped that," Ryotuaro accused when he finally managed to find his voice again. Kazuki was still a stunned mess.
"I use a film camera Tsuchiura-kun," she scoffed, waving the original photograph. "It would be way beyond my capabilities to do something like that, especially without a darkroom. This is 100% real. I even have the negatives to prove it."
"But…but we're not gay!" he roared in outrage. "So why is there a picture of us making out?!"
"Wait," Azuma leaned forward a bit and studied the picture with calculating eyes. "Wasn't there that one day your shoelace was loose and you accidentally fell on top of Hihara?"
Ryoutaro thought back on that practice as his mind raced a million kilometers a second. He supposed if caught at the worst possible angle, it could look like making out. He rounded on her furiously. "You know we're not gay! Releasing this would be slander!"
"Libel, Tsuchiura-kun, libel," Nami corrected, completely unfazed. "Slander is by word-of-mouth or gestures. Libel is printed."
"Well, libel then," he fumed.
"But…" she smiled innocently. "If all I do is release pictures of some of the practices to show the hard work and dedication it took to put on that concert, then it's not really anything. I'm just showing what happened."
"Just showing what happened?! You're deliberately misrepresenting us!" he thundered.
"How so?" she asked with a hard stare. "I'm showing a picture of when you accidentally fell during practice. Did that not happen?" She tossed her ponytail over her shoulder. "If I print a caption that explains what really happened, albeit on the small side, then it's not really my problem if people happen to draw the wrong conclusions…."
Just as Ryoutaro was about to deliver a scathing retort, a shaky voice cut right through the room. "I-I'll do it."
They all turned to look at Kazuki. His face was pale, but resolute.
He was already in the friend zone with Kaho-chan enough as it was, he didn't want "being gay" to place him even more firmly there. It was just a concert. He had done it once before, and it seemed like Kaho-chan had enjoyed it despite that one part. He blew out a breath. "I'll do it," he repeated a bit more calmly.
"Sorry, but it doesn't quite work that way," Nami heartlessly answered. She leveled a gaze at the four others. "This is an all-or-nothing deal. You're either all in, or this hits the presses."
Ryoutaro growled but grudgingly agreed. As well as wanting to preserve his own reputation and chances with Hino, he wasn't willing to selfishly drag Hihara-senpai into this mess if he was willing to dance to Amou's tune. It would feel too much like kicking an injured puppy.
The other two looked at Len. If anyone was going to object, it would be him.
"Are there other pictures?" he asked in a voice like winter in Siberia.
"There are…pictures…of all…of us…" Keiichi murmured as he scrolled through the rest of the slides.
Azuma perused the pictures as well. He had to admit they were all prime blackmail material ranging from embarrassing individual shots to supposedly amorous gay moments. He chuckled when they came across the photo of Kazuki "proposing" to Len when Nami chose him as the victim for their practice of "You Are My Christmas Angel." The look on Len's face was absolutely priceless. Bringing the photograph on the screen, he smiled over at Len. "I think this one really captured your expression, don't you?"
Ripping his eyes from the photograph, the violinist and journalist went into a staring contest, her gaze cool and even in response to the icy daggers he threw. When she lost, she pouted for a moment before flashing an over-bright, saccharine-sweet smile. Of course, that would be just the ticket. "Oh, and I'll send a copy of the issue to your families—complimentary, of course—just because I'm so nice."
His mouth almost fell open in horror. Well, that clinched it. There was no way on God's green Earth he was going to have a conversation with his family about his supposed unorthodox sexual orientation. Talking with them about normal things was uncomfortable enough; he couldn't imagine how awful that conversation would be. Not to mention how totally awkward everything would be for a while after he managed to convince them that he wasn't actually gay.
With a martyred sigh, he placed his hand forward in a gesture reminiscent of the beginning of their last concert. "Together."
They all went in. "Together."
The cycle had begun again.
"What is going on here?!" Nami thundered in the present, crashing through the din.
Fingers pointed in all directions. "He started it!" multiple voices accused in unison.
"What are you? Eight?" she sneered. She folded her arms with a hard look. "I don't care who started it. Just get your lazy butts back in gear. We've got a deadline people!"
When they were finally done for the day, Keiichi suddenly stopped, causing the others to halt as well so they wouldn't bump into him. Solemnly turning to them, he stared at them thoughtfully. "You…were all…wrong…you know…."
Multiple eyebrows winged up.
"It's…Amou-senpai's…fault…." And with that, he walked away.
~ (^o^) ~
Quiet as a whisper, they found the glow-in-the dark pieces of tape that marked their starting formation and arranged themselves into a v with Kazuki at the point. On his left and right stood Len and Ryoutaro with Keiichi flanking Len and Azuma behind Ryoutaro.
The lights kicked on right before the music blasted out of the speakers, sending excited screams of recognition ripping through the room, charging the air with electricity.
Feet spread wide with their left arms in front of them parallel to the floor, they slowly jerked them back to the side. Now the other arm. Standing straight on one leg they drummed the air. As they brushed themselves off, Ryoutaro intoned in a deep bass, "It's gonna be me."
Hop, hop, out, shoulder, side, muscle arms. "Ooh yeah," Kazuki sang out as they twisted their bodies. Spin, spin, he jumped out with his arms signaled to stop. "You might been hurt, babe," squeals of delight pealed through the air at how cool he looked as he did that quick lash and raced to the side. "That ain't no lie." They slid back with running steps. "You've seen them all come and go / Oh…"
As they spun and jumped, he and Ryoutaro switched places.
Boogieing, a bit Ryoutaro picked up, "I remember you told me." He swung his arms up and swept a point out to the roaring crowd. "That it made you believe in / No man, no cry," cross, down, "Maybe that's why."
They jogged backward into criss-crossing jumps. "Every little thing I do," their bodies moved in boxes. "Never seems enough for you." Moving their arms in a jerky wave, they traversed sideways, "You don't wanna lose it again / But I'm not like them." They bounced. "Baby, when you finally," side, side, down. "Get to love somebody / Guess what." They threw their arms out and popped up their heads. "It's gonna be me," they drew up with a point to themselves.
As they scrambled around, they formed a new v that showcased from left-to-right Ryoutaro, Len, Azuma, Keiichi, and Kazuki.
Sweeping his arm out to the adoring crowd, Azuma told them, "You've got no choice, babe," they leapt out, "But to move on," he flashed them a knowing smile that sent barely muffled squeals rippling across the room, "and you know / There ain't no time to waste." His eyes sharpened to a kind of imperialistic dangerous. "Cause you're just"
"Too blind," Len cut in, swapping spots with Azuma seamlessly from his right.
"Too blind," the others echoed in their poses.
Switch pose. "To see." They all threw their arms out and pulled them to their chests as Len declared with an arrogance that was outrageously attractive, "But in the end, ya know it's gonna be me." Did the room just get a whole lot hotter? "You can't deny / So just tell me why." They ran back, Len moving to form a back row with Ryoutaro and Kazuki.
"Every little thing I do." Point, swish, point, point, pop. "Never seems enough for you." Len moved forward. "You don't wanna lose it again." Down, out, and swoop. "But I'm not like them." Switch lines. "Baby, when you finally / Get to love somebody." Pop right, and then left.
"Somebody," Len called back.
"Guess what / Guess what / It's gonna be me"
Dance break. The whole room stamped and cheered as they expertly executed the sharp moves, whooping and hollering even more loudly as Azuma drawled in a deep voice, "It's gonna be me."
Punching their way across and back, Keiichi called out, "Ooh yeah," signaling for them to huddle into a half-pyramid, with him in the back center. All of them slowly leaning to the right, he crooned, "There comes a day," lean left, "When I'll be the one / You'll see." Their heads dropped.
Popping their heads up from left to right, they sang.
Ryoutaro. "It's gonna"
Azuma. "Gonna"
Keiichi. "Gonna"
Kazuki. "Gonna"
Len. "Gonna"
Keiichi towered over them finger pointed to the sky and pulled both hands in to flip his jacket lapels. "It's gonna be me"
The screams brought down the house.
They punched down and exploded out across the stage, rocking back and forth and gesturing out to their adoring fans.
All that I do
Is not enough for you
I don't wanna lose it
But I'm not like that
When finally
"Finally," Keiichi ad-libbed.
"You get to love / Guess what / Guess what." They moved back into their original formation, Kazuki leading them into the chorus. "Every little thing I do / Never seems enough for you"
"For you babe," Ryoutaro called back.
"You don't wanna lose it again"
"Don't wanna lose it," Azuma purred.
"But I'm not like them / Baby, when you finally / Get to love somebody"
"Love," Len belted.
"Guess what / Guess what," they smugly pointed to themselves, making hearts swoon, "It's gonna be me."
They spread out over the stage again, randomly jumping and crossing the stage. "Every little thing I do / Never seems enough for you / You don't wanna lose it again"
"Lose it," Kazuki echoed.
They moved so Keiichi stood front and center; all of them restricting their movements to a smaller space. "But I'm not like them / Baby, when you finally." Pop right and left. "Get to love somebody / Guess what," arms hanging out, "Guess what."
Keiichi pointed out and back at himself with an attitude Nami had spent hours drumming into him. "It's gonna be me!" And threw his arms out knocking the others flat on the floor in response.
They held their positions for a full minute as the audience cheered and shouted until finally the lights went down.
Well, I suppose it really can't be just a little holiday blackmail without any blackmail. =P I kind of wish it had been more original, but whatever does the trick, I guess.
It was so fun to do a group number again! I like the individual numbers, but one unfortunate thing about them is that the other four boys kind of fade into the background to the point that I don't even really mention their names. (-_-)
Originally I was going to just have two group numbers, one at the beginning and one at the end (and the stuff that showed up at the beginning of this chapter was going to be in "Juliet"), but I just couldn't let go of "It's Gonna Be Me." I think it came in second place for Ryoutaro's song, and when I saw that I wasn't going to get to write it, I decided I'd exercise author's prerogative and just add in an extra number. XD I really wanted to see the boys do this dance. It would've been awesome to see any of them do that last, "It's gonna be me," at the end, but the thought of Keiichi's cute, cuddly adorableness mixed in with a bad-boy attitude totally won me over to his side.
I suppose I might have also wanted to break up this all Backstreet Boys and Westlife concert a little, little bit. (9_9) *whistling*
Tentsubasa's Japanese Corner:
Tonkatsu is breaded pork cutlet that's deep fried, and a tonkatsu sandwich is made of tonkatsu with tonkatsu sauce and thinly sliced cabbage.
"Sanbai gaeshi" is the idea that a reciprocal gift should be at least three times the value of the original gift you received.
So, when you finally get to love somebody, is it going to be one of them? (^_~)*