I recently got a new PC with a whole lot more storage space, so I sort of am playing around with it. My apologies... And somehow, for me, no more exams equalled more time going out, watching movies etc. which equalled less time writing. I'll change! (/Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged moment)
Also, I recently got into Rookies (manga and drama). To all fans of Slam Dunk (should be all of you right? XD) I strongly recommend it! It's super good. It's a baseball manga where a teacher tries to reform a bunch of delinquent baseball players.
Somehow this chapter feels less good quality... Let this be a lesson! Hiatuses never work! Unintentional hiatuses are even worse! Oh, and if you want to keep informed of my progress (you know, be assured that I am alive and stuff) you can go to my blog on LJ which is my web site. Or you can check my blog thing in my profile. And please tell me if my language is getting tedious. Hehe..
SlamDunk160 - Thank you! Your reviews never fail to make me feel fuzzy too! Yes, Jin's birthday is October 28! Hee hee, lots of people seem to love Sendoh! Me too. XD Oh well... Sorry I haven't been keeping tabs on your Kainan horror fic, I will read and review soon!
hidamari - I would love to say that I had something huge planned out, like the gradual growth of Sakuragi into a man, and that the play and Rukawa getting the part of Romeo was him realising that he would sometimes have to suck it up in life (if he hadn't realised that already), and the seeing of the gang was a reminder to let go... etc, but um. I kind of felt that this fic should be not just humour, and have a few serious bits, and this arc randomly popped into my mind. :( But anyway, thank you! I love getting new reviewers and I am glad that my story was hooking to you :) xD Hope you like this one, too!
mou-mou - Well um, I sort of explained the situation of exams-over in the first paragraph. BUT I WILL CHANGE! Lol!! I guess if you look at it from a certain angle, that seems quite plausible... hmm...
senru111 - Let me tell you the story of Chapter 6. It was originally going to include some very epic things, but after weeks of writing and dissatisfaction I decided to lower the epic to raise the quality a little bit. Heheh, I was inspired by the beginning of Slam Dunk where Sakuragi is like, freaking out whenever someone says something that resembles 'basketball' although I'm sure you and everybody else knew that! XD Thank you for the double review XDXD My heart skipped a beat when I checked my email and saw it! And I felt really guilty for leaving it! So yeah! I started hard work!
honestcritic92 - Thank you for the review! Honestly, I am not that good, there are a billion other better writers with better grasp of stuff like symbolism and language and style and stuff, but I do try and that's why we experiment :) Hope you like it this time around, although I am a little worried about the language (tediousity? That's probably not even a word.. xD) in this chapter, although I like the contents!
Scenes 7.1-7.5 – In Which the Cast List is Finally Revealed, among Other Things
Jin's real birthday soon rolled around. It was also coincidentally the day of the second play practice session, although I'm sure that you all knew that. After having a low-key breakfast with his family and receiving several small, low-key gifts with his signature smile, Jin waved his parents goodbye and set off towards the municipal building.
He soon met up with Kiyota and they chatted as they walked. Halfway on their journey, though, Kiyota stopped suddenly.
"Hey," he said, pointing at a certain redhead walking not towards the municipal building, but towards the train station. "Look."
"That's Sakuragi, right?" Jin said. "I wonder where he's going... he's going to be late! Maybe he's just going to the convenience store, or something," he finished. Jin always thought the best of someone.
Of course, that thought was cruelly ripped to shreds as they saw Sakuragi buy a ticket and disappear into the station.
"Hey, that monkey's skipping class!" Kiyota declared, as if Jin didn't know that already. "What the hell does he think he's doing? Of course, we wouldn't be missing out on a lot without him," he paused to say thoughtfully, "but this play is only for our future basketball careers! If he's really serious, he should be there too and not skiving!" He pulled Jin along to the station just in time to see Sakuragi disappear into a train headed for Odawara. Well, Odawara was the last station on that line.
"If we dared to do this, Takatou would have our heads!" Kiyota said indignantly, but was stopped by a raised hand from Jin as he looked warily at four dangerous-looking people who had materialised out of nowhere.
"What is that you're saying?" the blonde one said threateningly, just as a light bulb turned on in Kiyota's mind and he pointed to them, saying, "You're Sakuragi's friends! Tell us what the hell he's doing, man!"
"No," the leader said. "That's his business, and not yours." 'Piss off' was also heavily implied.
Kiyota didn't, and Jin perhaps unwisely decided to stay and see how the 1st year would handle the situation.
"No," Kiyota replied stubbornly, folding his arms. "Not until you tell us what's up with that red-haired monkey. Who does he think he is, skipping practice like that?"
"Who do you think you are?" the leader shot back acidly. "You don't know Hanamichi. What makes you think you have a right to tell him what to do?"
"Me?" Kiyota asked rhetorically, in an outraged tone, and already his arms were moving to his hips and Jin recognised the beginning of the line that he was most known for. Fortunately, the gangsters had moved closer to Kiyota and thus further from Jin, giving him an escape route...
"-Kiyota Nobunaga, the Super Rookie from Kai-" Kiyota announced before he was interrupted by the deafening whooooooosh of the train leaving. Jin took this moment to pull Kiyota away and leave hastily with a, "Oh, darn! The train's left! No point in sticking around now!..."
"Man, Jin-senpai! What the hell, man? I had the whole situation covered! Why pull us away when I was so close to finding out where the hell that red-haired monkey went?" Kiyota later demanded, crossing his arms and yet still trying to keep up with a hurrying Jin at the same time. This resulted in him waddling quite comically and Jin only refrained from laughing out of kindness.
"Because," Jin promptly replied, "we are going to be late and you don't want that, do you, with the future of Kanagawa basketball in our hands?"
But in reality, he was thinking of the Odawara line, and how all the stations on that line were in boring old depressing country places, and also about the only time when he had actually gone on that line: when he had gone, with his family, to visit the grave of his grandmother...
"Hey, guys," Ishiguro said cheerfully. This time the Shibuya trends seemed to have shifted to two-tones as he was decked in only two colours. He was also wearing a pair of black thick-rimmed glasses that would have looked dorky on anybody else but endearingly cute on him – which, of course, to the boys, also translated to dorky in the end.
"Today," Ishiguro continued, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose where they belonged, "I will announce my picks for the actors of the different parts of the play. Please note that these choices are temporary and are subject to change at any moment. Director Ishiguro Satoru shall not be held responsible for any mental anguish or physical harm effected by these choices." The last sentence was said with a serene smile and that sent chills down every player's back (except Rukawa, who was sleeping as always). That was again noted with a frown, and Sakuragi's absence was not missed either, but Ishiguro decided to say nothing about it as he pushed up his glasses again.
"But first!" Ishiguro suddenly switched to a jubilant tone and you could feel the air literally lift up as he talked, "I have an announcement to make." The mood in the hall turned to expectant and confused. "Today is Jin's birthday. Happy birthday, Jin." Somehow he said it so anti-climatically that the air flumped down again. There was some scattered applause from the Kainan group but that was all. Jin raised his hand in confused thanks.
"Now that that's done with... First, the house of the Capulets," Ishiguro announced. "Juliet, Haruko-san. Lord Capulet, Uekusa. Lady Capulet, Jin-"
The whole hall erupted into laughter and Jin was not amused at all. He regretted thanking Ishiguro, especially since he hadn't actually seemed that enthusiastic about his birthday in the first place, and almost regretted saving Kiyota from the Shohoku gangsters just to get here on time, if this had been what was to await him. Kiyota and the rest of the Kainan team were trying to stifle their guffaws in an attempt to respect their captain, but the other schools were not as nice. Shoyo was snickering evilly, their bass tones reverberating across the hallway, and over in the Ryonan section Fukuda was the only player not rolling on the floor. Jin would have to thank him some day, maybe take him out for a drink or something. And even without Sakuragi Shohoku was having a real ball, with Miyagi already mimicking a woman's gestures. Mitsui had an insufferable smirk on his face and of course Rukawa was sleeping.
"You won't know until you try!" Ishiguro cheerfully pointed out and Jin felt like he wanted to be buried deep underground. In a desert. With only the vultures above. And maybe some cacti too.
Now that he had said what he'd wanted to say, the director ignored the bustle and continued in a carefree manner, "...Tybalt, Sendoh Akira. And the Nurse, Ayako-san. Then the house of the Montagues. Romeo, Rukawa. (Sendoh would have died a little inside if he hadn't known this already and was thusly already dead) Lord Montague, Sakuragi. Benvolio, Miyagi. Lady Montague... now we have a problem. We'll fix it later. And Balthasar, Yasuda." Yasuda gave a little wince at this. He didn't want to go on stage at all! But he guessed that he should be thankful that it was only a minor role.
"And as for the other characters; Prince Escalus, Fujima. ('Is that a large role?' Fujima wondered.) Count Paris, Koshino. Mercutio, Kiyota. Friar Lawrence, Mitsui."
A wave of sniggering broke out across the hall, centered in the Shohoku section, but it was nowhere near the level of appreciation Jin's role had received. Mitsui, the delinquent, ex-gangster, a friar? That was like making Kiyota a princess!
...there was suddenly a silence as the boys desperately tried to get that image out of their head.
Unperturbed, Ishiguro carried on, pushing up his glasses yet again, "Chorus, Teruo. Friar John, Hikoichi. And last, Apothecary, Fukuda." Only the slightest downturn of Fukuda's mouth showed his displeasure. He didn't exactly want to be the one who directly caused the play's tragic ending. He hoped that Ishi hadn't assigned him to this role based on appearance...
There were no silly objections like 'But Ishi, isn't a chorus made up of multiple people?', which was good because it showed that the boys had read up on their stuff. Or it could show that the boys hadn't and were trying to act like they had whilst being apathetic about the play at the same time. Ishiguro preferred to believe that it was the former.
"Well," he said, "I've given your coaches some instructions and they'll be heading the different groups that I'll make. First we'll be learning lines and hotseating, which is basically going in character and responding to questions the way your character would. There will be two groups of actors, and two groups of stage crew..." he trailed off, before finishing happily, "Well, I'll be heading one of the actor groups. So, would Yasuda, Fujima, Rukawa..."
"So," Coach Takatou said uncertainly, glancing and flipping through the clipboard of notes he held in his hand. In basketball he always knew what to do, but when it came to drama? He had no clue whatsoever. Sendoh, Koshino, Kiyota and the others didn't know how to react. Should they say something? Should they just wait for him to think of something? Should they start with what Ishi had proposed?
"Takatou-sensei," Jin came to the rescue of his coach and said, "Umm... why not start with that 'hotseating' thing that Ishiguro-san was talking about?"
"Hotseating!" Takatou said loudly enough for the other three groups to hear and they gave this group odd looks as the boys cringed. "Yes. Er, hotseating," Takatou continued, softer this time, and flipped furiously through the pages to look for instructions on that topic. "Well." He was obviously stalling and trying to give himself more time to search for the appropriate information, and his group would have laughed (except for dutiful Jin of course) if it hadn't been so awkward.
Eventually Takatou found what he was looking for, and he pointed at Sendoh. "You're first." This was probably because of some past grievance he had with the boy, the whole 'Can I be Romeo' business notwithstanding. With a sigh, Sendoh stood up and moved gracefully to the chair in the middle of the group (that had been hastily produced when Takatou had ordered for one, in the middle of reading his notes). He sat down, draping his long body artfully over the different edges of the chair and smiling his easy smile that annoyed Takatou so.
"Ask him questions," Takatou ordered his group. "Go on."
Koshino was the first to do so. "So, who are you?" he asked slowly.
"Tybalt of the Capulets," Sendoh replied smoothly and promptly. For Koshino, it was hard to reconcile this confident young man with the crushed boy that had been whining to him all throughout the days prior to practice, but Koshino had been Sendoh's best friend for years now and was used to his mercurial personality by now. Even if it still annoyed him to no end. Sendoh was probably just trying to show his good side to Ishiguro for these two hours of practice, which would of course mean two more days of whining afterwards.
"Go on..." he said, slightly sardonically, and Tybalt-Sendoh gave a huge sigh. Meanwhile, Takatou made some notes that looked quite negative, if one could tell from the expression on his face.
"What are your hobbies?" Miyagi asked lazily, and for a moment an unsure expression flitted across Sendoh's face. Then it smoothened out again and he answered, albeit slowly, "I like fencing."
"...is that it?" Miyagi asked suspiciously after a long silence. "That's kind of sad."
A vein twitched in Sendoh's temples. "It's not like your character has anything better to do," he said and Koshino's heart sank. Sendoh was most definitely not okay under that confident mask. It seemed that Rukawa's 'victory' (since anybody could clearly see that that boy didn't care at all) had hit him harder than Sendoh had made them believe.
"Hey!" Miyagi was getting fired up now. "Now that was totally uncalled for! There are so many more things I can say about Tybalt aside from his lack of a life so cut it with the attacks!"
"Well," Sendoh countered fiercely, expression taut in a challenging smile that was not unlike when he was in a particularly exciting basketball match, "at least my role is much more important to the story!"
There was a silence (the growing frequency of silences did not go by unnoticed) as Miyagi gaped, and Sendoh added petulantly, "And I have more lines!"
Miyagi replied, slightly confusedly, "Good for you?" thinking to himself that he'd rather have less lines thank you very much, just as Coach Takatou finished writing and glanced up. "That's enough," he said sharply. "Switch characters. You're up next, Koshino." It seemed that Takatou just had a beef with the entire of Ryonan High...
"Hai, hai," Ishiguro said cheerfully, clapping his hands once (which caused his glasses to fall from their position atop the bridge of his nose yet again) with a tone of finality. "That was a great showing, guys. You were no different from the drama students in my college." Whether Ishi actually meant it was anybody's guess, but it did make all the basketball players feel a bit better.
"I'm not going to assign homework because I never really believed in it, but I would like you to spend some time researching into your roles for next time," he continued cheerfully. "Use whatever methods you want. There is no set way to do things, after all. I'll leave it to your imagination." He then grew serious. "Well, you can all go, but a minute please, Rukawa-kun."
Rukawa looked up drowsily as he heard his name being called, and dazedly nodded an assent. He really had no idea what was going on so he would just have to use his extraordinary senses to find out. Hey, it had always worked before. But he hadn't counted on the sharp eyes of Ishiguro Satoru, which, coupled with his drama training, could easily read any emotions coming from anyone.
"Rukawa-kun," the director went straight to his point, "I'm not liking your lack of enthusiasm."
Rukawa raised an eyebrow. So that was what it was all about...?
"The part of Romeo is a really big one," Ishiguro continued, steamrolling over any words that Rukawa may have wished to say, whilst adjusting his glasses at the same time.
'Oh', Rukawa thought, since thinking was so much faster than talking, 'then maybe you shouldn't have given it to me.'
"I really believe that you have that something in you that makes you perfect for the role," the man in front of him, that was slowly growing more and more unfamiliar, started to gush.
'??', Rukawa thought, not caring that his disbelief was openly showing on his face. His fangirls would have had a field day at Rukawa showing more emotion on his face at that moment that he had in his entire time in high school. Basketball didn't count.
"One week," Ishiguro finished passionately, thrusting one finger obnoxiously too close to Rukawa's face. "Just one week of being serious. Please. Try out the part of Romeo. Say the lines. No, actually learn them. Watch a couple of performances. The stage would be empty without you."
Rukawa honestly didn't have anything to say to that. But that didn't matter, since he never talked anyway.
Well. That visit hadn't been as hard as he'd thought it would be. Because he had been a pretty shitty son, not even visiting his own dad's grave until two years after his death. Sakuragi had expected it to be overgrown with ivy, crusty with dirt and all that, but evidently his dad had some mates that visited regularly, and they had kept the grave clean and gravestone polished. Sakuragi would have to thank them later, maybe take them out for a drink or something.
Of course, two years of backlog had given him a lot of things to tell his dad. Sakuragi talked first about Youhei and the gang, how they were doing, and Shohoku High. Obviously it did not take long for the topic to migrate to basketball and Sakuragi described his team and exploits in lurid detail. He did not forget Haruko, leaving the best for last of course. Sakuragi spent the whole day at the graveyard and when he left it was with a much lighter heart. He was responsible for his dad's death, yes. So were the assholes from yesterday. But whether they had actually killed his dad was a grey area that needed to have been let go of a long time ago. Sakuragi wouldn't forgive and forget, hell no, how can you forgive something like that? But the next time he saw them, he wouldn't collapse into a bout of depression again. As he got off the train at his station, Sakuragi felt almost happy, and dropped by the convenience store to buy some drinks.
"Oh!" somebody somewhere under him said, and, looking down Sakuragi came face-to-face with Ishiguro of all people, presumably also picking up some supplies. Oh yeah, he lived near the station. Sakuragi tried to make his guilty expression not so obvious. He hoped that Ishiguro wouldn't ask about where he had been.
"Sakuragi!" the director exclaimed pleasantly. His lack of irritation and anger calmed the redheaded boy a little. And then the next question was suddenly rendered, in his mind, in slow motion. Ishiguro's mouth opened slowly and his words echoed strangely around Sakuragi's head. Sort of like:
"WhhhheEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeRree wwweeRRRRRRreeeee YYYYoooouuuu ttTTooooDDDDaYyyyyyy?"
"None of your business," Sakuragi answered automatically, and then after some reflection decided that that was a good response. Still, it came out sounding abrupt, like Sakuragi was angry, and Ishiguro was immediately reminded of the incident involving Sendoh earlier that day. It was no secret to any of the guys that Sakuragi liked Haruko and anybody could connect the dots and see that Sakuragi would want to be Romeo. Although admittedly Sendoh's intentions were a mystery.
"Are you angry because I gave Rukawa-kun the part of Romeo?" he asked cautiously, debating on whether to tell Sakuragi that his part was much smaller than Mitsui's or even Miyagi's.
"Hmph," Sakuragi replied, folding his arms at his chest and shiftily looking at a faraway shelf for some bread. Which was, of course, what he had been looking for in the first place.
"Well, the assignments aren't permanent, you know. I may or may not switch roles based on performance during the practices," Ishiguro said.
Sakuragi's only response was to edge a little further away under the pretense of looking for the freshest pack of bread. This made Ishiguro sigh, and eventually he said,
"You want me to give you the part of Romeo, right?"
Sakuragi started visibly at this question, and turned around to look Ishiguro in the eye, expression unreadable for a second. When the second passed, though, a silly grin broke out upon his face and Sakuragi laughed right there and then in the middle of the convenience store. He attracted many odd looks but that was okay.
"Nyahahahaha!" he exclaimed. "No thanks, man! That part is so huge, I wouldn't want it for the world! And besides, Sakuragi Hanamichi doesn't accept free offerings! I work for what I get and this genius wouldn't have it any other way!" His sudden change of demeanour freaked Ishiguro out a little (okay, maybe a lot), but he smiled back, and nodded.
Sorry... for some reason, I feel that this chapter is full of fail. Well, that teaches me to randomly insert a 'supposed to be serious' arc. Although I have some more planned. Um. Shh.
