VII: The Note
"This place is huuuge!" Rina exclaimed when they entered the festival area. A large spot of green grass stretched out in front of a pretty elaborate stage, and around it were stands with drinks, food and other things. And a lot of people. According to the bartender, Yuri, the festival only kept one stage and was pretty local, but they did well and was going on for three days. The only problem this time was one group of stubborn band members who could not agree with each other and had not showed up yet, and rumours about the band not performing after all spread quickly, much to the staff's disappointment.
Yuri had easily fixed free entrance for them with some help from a few friends, even mentioning that a couple of them were a popular Southmore band for extra credit. And now they were walking towards a good spot on the grass with beer in their hands and sun in their face.
"The first band makes a good start," Yuri said. "They're quite new, but they've done really well with their first album. They haven't performed much, though, so I wonder if they're any good live."
It took another hour until the stage was prepared for the first concert, but they did not mind. They sat on the grass talking, taking turns to go buy more drinks, and Yuri proved to be a very kind and interesting man.
"One thing that's good about this place," Rina said clearly. "No scary old ladies."
Kushina giggled in her beer cup. "If she shows up at a place like this I think I'm the one who's going to stare."
"You'd be surprised to see who shows up at these festivals," Yuri said after he had chugged the rest of his beer. "Mostly young people, yeah, but there are a few old people, too. You know, the type who never really grew up."
"That doesn't count our scary old lady," Rina said. "She's definitely not mentally young." As the second round was on her, she got up and headed for the closest bar stand.
"You know, if we'd been from a bigger city and advertised ourselves a bit more, we could be at a stage like that right now," Chad pointed out and nodded towards the huge, black layout in front of them.
"And we'd be world wide famous," Minato grinned. "And live in large houses in L.A., and have four dogs each. And we'd all be neighbours, of course."
"Of course," Chad repeated. "And a better car than the van we've got. I'm not really sure we'll make it all the way home with that thing."
"Now that you're mentioning it, when are you planning on leaving?" Yuri asked.
Keigo shrugged. "Whenever we feel like, or when we run out of money." Or get caught, but no one said that out loud. "Do you always fiddle with stuff?"
Kushina looked up at Keigo. She had been pulling grass up from the earth without really thinking much about it. She chuckled.
"It's a bad habit."
"This festival's gonna last for quite a few hours, there won't be any grass left when it's over," Minato teased and a received a hand pushing his face away from her sight. Rina interrupted by coming back with more beer.
The first band showed up on the stage, followed by several more bands they enjoyed. After the second band Yuri's friends and boyfriend arrived, and they sat there until the sun disappeared behind a burger stand and a shadow that was slowly, so slow they did not notice, growing darker. At that point a man came over, who Yuri greeted as another friend.
"Did I hear something about you being the Southmore band?" the man asked.
"Uh, yeah," Chad replied.
"I recognize you now," the man smiled. "I was in Southmore myself last year, and I saw you perform at the bar."
"Really?" Keigo said bewildered. "I mean, you actually remember us?"
"Well, yeah! I thought you did well, and you were good at performing. You see, we have a problem. The band that was supposed to come on stage in thirty minutes never showed up, and we just got a message that they're calling it off. We have some gear backstage, so I wondered ... Would you be up for taking their place on the schedule?"
It took a while for the man to get any answer. They all sat there on the ground looking at him, blinking, going through the conversation again in their heads to make sure they had not misheard anything.
"You – You want us to – What?" Keigo stammered.
"Only if you want to," the man reassured them quickly, but he could not hide the hope in his voice. "It would help us out a lot, otherwise it'll be two more hours until the last band gets on stage. We're afraid people might leave if they -"
"Are you serious?" Minato grinned widely. "That. Is. Awesome!"
"You – You'll do it?" the man asked with a hopeful face.
"Come on, guys," Minato grinned and looked at Chad and Keigo, but they were already getting up.
"Not gonna let a chance like this go to waste," Chad said and pulled the blonde up from the ground. They headed off, Minato so excited he almost ran, after the man who had now looked like he just got his Christmas presents early.
"Come on, let's go get closer to the stage," Rina suggested, and the three remaining friends ran off to the fence while Yuri and his friends decided to stay behind. The instruments were being tested and adjusted by stage workers. The crowd was getting thicker; the last band was the headline for today, and since they came up after Minato, Chad and Keigo, people were trying to secure themselves a good spot. When twenty minutes had passed and it was getting ridiculously hot from all the people, Kushina turned and tried to see how big the audience was. But she could not see more than a couple of rows behind her; the people had packed themselves well together. She asked James to lift her up so she could see, and when she had placed herself on his shoulders, he stood up and a big smile reached her face.
"Shit! They're getting one hell of an audience, I doubt they ever had anything like this in Southmore."
"Let's just hope they're good," Rina said when Kushina came back to the ground again.
"You'll see," James grinned.
Ten minutes later, the stage was set and after a short speech from the man who had showed up earlier about how the band that was supposed to be there never showed up and they had found a promising trio to take over, all the stage workers left and were replaced by Minato, Keigo and Chad. It was surprising to see how confident they looked; the audience gave them an encouraging applause, and Minato only grinned at the large amount of people. He grabbed the electric guitar, placed the strap around his shoulder, and gave the guitar a quick stroke with a pick to test it before he grabbed the microphone.
"Thank you," he responded to the applause. "We're a band from Southmore, and you've probably never heard of us, but we're to help these guys out and have a good time. So just follow us in doing so."
The audience cheered once again of the motivational opening speech, and Minato gave Chad a nod to lead the first song. He hit the drum sticks against each other three times, and with the following performance, they delivered what they had promised: a good time.
It was obvious that they enjoyed being on stage. Minato connected well with the audience, there were laughter from both sides of the fence in front of the stage, and even though they had only had half an hour to plan a whole hour performance, it was clear that they were good at improvising. Keigo even led the audience to sing I Fought the Law in a sped-up, more punk version while they covered the instrumental tones and backed up the singing. It was an overall great mood. And one thing Kushina could add to the list of positive factors: she found Minato incredibly, incredibly handsome on stage. The confidence, the behaviour, and the fact that right now, among the men on the stage who gathered fans and admirers like doves pick up bread crumbs, one of them were hers.
When the hour passed and they had played their last song, Minato ended the concert by saying: "We love you guys. Good night!" before he added: "And get those two girls and that man over here, they're with us." He winked at Kushina as they left the stage and a guard came to help the three over the fence.
Backstage, a wild mood dominated. There were a lot of adrenaline mixed with joy, the girls jumped on them in bear hugs and champagne was popped to celebrate that their first big concert had been nothing but successful.
"You were awesome!" Rina exclaimed when she released Keigo, who had almost lost his balance at her attack. "Seriously, I can't believe you didn't want to let us hear you before!"
"This was a much better way, though, wasn't it?" Chad grinned innocently as he poured champagne in crystal glasses.
"A toast!" James said and raised his glass. "For you great, lame Southmore guys who just performed in front of hundreds of people before you managed to think out a name for your band."
They laughed and toasted, drank up the champagne and headed out of the room.
Outside, journalists were waiting with cameras and notebooks to interview the fresh but five year old band, and Kushina quickly excused herself and sneaked away quickly to not get caught in any of the photographies. Rina followed her, and they escaped towards the crowd.
"Minato, is it?" a news reporter with a cameraman trotting behind him said. He was tall with straw blonde hair in a tie that easily outperformed James'. "Yamanaka Inoichi, news reporter from The Aussie. How are you feeling right now?" The man shook hands with the four guys and started interrogating them about their first big concert and how it felt like to actually show up with a half hour's notice in front of an audience that big. After James made it clear that he had nothing to do with it even though he was the manager, Minato, Chad and Keigo answered the best they could and tried to not be distracted by all the cameras taking pictures of them from every possible angle and the flashing lights that came from them. The attention was almost overwhelming, unlike anything they had experienced before.
When the gang of four young men were released from the hungry crowd of journalist vultures, they went looking for the two girls. The last band was coming right up, and they wanted to find them so they could see the concert. But it was hard to spot them in the mass of people.
"Did they say where they went?" Chad asked the others.
"No, they just ran off," James replied.
They checked their standard beer stand (and bought beer, since they stopped by anyway) and asked the man who had given them their spot on the schedule, but without results. When they had searched for ten minutes, Keigo was beginning to get worried.
"I hope nothing's happened," he said.
"Oh, come on," Chad said. "We're in the middle of a large mass of people doing nothing but sitting around. What could possibly happen?"
"That's not what I meant," he said seriously and spilled beer on the ground. "I meant, what if they've been spotted?"
"Maybe the journalists saw her?" James said. "They've probably read about her.
"Doubt it, they weren't looking for her," Minato said. "More difficult to spot someone if you're not looking for them, and besides, she doesn't even have red hair anymore. That was probably the thing that was easiest to notice about her."
"And, you know, we left before they could see us."
They turned around at the voice and saw Rina standing behind them.
Keigo looked immensely relieved.
"Where's Kushina?" Chad asked.
"She met some old friends," Rina said. "Don't worry, they're not gonna give us in." They looked at where Rina was pointing, and saw Kushina sitting and talking with three other people.
"We just walked past there ten seconds ago," Minato said bewildered. "How did we not notice you?"
"That, my friend," Rina said and patted him on the shoulder. "Is because you are mildly drunk."
Minato waved dismissively with his hand and threw his empty glass in a nearby bin. Kushina got up and approached them when she spotted them.
"Next concert's gonna start in a few minutes," Chad said eagerly. "Come on, let's find a good spot."
"I'm just gonna go buy some more beer," Kushina said and headed off for the beer stand. The others left for the concert, but Minato decided to follow Kushina and buy one for himself.
"Who were those guys?" Minato asked curiously after they had ordered their pints.
"Just some friends from school," Kushina said. "I've known them my whole life. And that guy -" she pointed towards the guy who leaned against the tree, "was my childhood boyfriend for like a week when we were five."
"Oh, really," Minato said and whistled.
"Don't tell me you're the jealous type," Kushina teased when she received her glass of beer.
Minato grinned, grabbed her around the waist with his free hand and pushed her behind the beer stand.
"I'm the only one who's allowed to do this right now," he said and proved his statement by kissing her. "Why would I be jealous?"
Kushina giggled and kissed him back. When her hands had found their way to his neck, he led her further back towards a small, empty forest. They could hear the last band come on stage and the audience cheering, but figured they were too occupied at the moment to be watching a concert; instead, Minato did what he had not dared the last time they were alone like this: he sneaked his arms around her and slid his hands underneath her t-shirt. She did not react badly towards it, but instead pulled him closer and lightly yanked his hair. Minato did not care about the intake of alcohol this time; based on how Kushina had acted last time, it should be no problem doing it again, and he could instead control himself even more.
Except he lost control. Everything went fine to begin with; it was intense enough for Minato to enjoy, but maybe a bit too intense to keep it at this level. It all happened very fast; he started kissing her down the neck; the sound she made came not only of surprise and made all the blood in his head rush down; she responded by biting his neck, he pushed her up against a tree; she allowed his hand to roam further up her back, and when he stopped she decided to grab his arm, lead it -
Their alcohol intake was way too big for this.
A bird chirped. A stream of sunlight showed itself and landed on Minato's face. He groaned of being woken up so early, rolled over on the back and with his eyes still closed he fumbled with the zip on his well heated sleeping bag. His head was spinning (he was more likely still drunk) and sickness fell over him. He dozily rolled back and tried to fall asleep – but when he suddenly realized he had less space in the sleeping bag than usual, his eyes burst open and almost made him throw up.
Oh dear.
First of all, this was not his sleeping bag. His sleeping bag was green, this one was blue. Second of all, he was not inside the tent. He was inside the van. Thirdly, he had less space in the sleeping bag not because it was a smaller model, but because half of it was occupied by a girl. And fourth and last, he wore no clothes. Neither did she.
Things had gone way out of control last night. Not that they had gone all the way, but he could not even remember how the hell they got back to the tent last night. He realized, too late, how the alcohol had been in full control, and his mind started racing; would she regret it? Would she feel hurt, or even hate him? Would she actually hate him for it?
And there she was, lying right beside him, wearing nothing at all.
Minato groaned as lowly as his subconcious self allowed him to groan and pulled his hair angrily. He remembered how he had taken the first step of undressing them both, and how she had done the honors of taking them to third base. Not that it had not been good, and he was happy to hell that they did not take it even further, because the consequences he feared right now were bad enough.
He turned to look at the brown-haired girl sleeping deeply next to him. She breathed evenly, her face was so peaceful ... And when she would wake up, she would be infuriated, not to mention humiliated, going so easily for a man she had known for two weeks and waking up completely naked right next to him.
Minato's throat went incredibly dry. He sat quietly up, reached out for his boxers and got them on using impressively little space. He found half a bottle of water, emptied it in his mouth and put it down again; and managed to elbow Kushina on her head. She made a small noise, slowly opened her eyes and blinked a few times to relieve her eyes from the sudden light.
Minato froze. Shit.
The girl yawned, blinked a few more times and looked up at Minato. It did not take long for a deep red blush to develop in her cheeks, and she quickly pulled the sleeping bag close up to her neck when she also noticed that she was as naked as the day she was born.
"Here," Minato said quickly and handed her his t-shirt, which was the first that caught his eyes. She did not take it, instead she did something Minato had not expected at all: she smiled. With her eyes set directly on his. She crawled closer to him, kissed him on the neck and giggled.
Minato blinked.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing," he said dumbly.
"Good night, then," she said, closed her eyes and sneaked an arm around him. Minato lay obediently down and tried to go through it all in his head again. She had been elbowed in her face, been awakened naked, smiled, kissed him and then said good night.
He promised himself one ting. He had to start calming down.
Later that morning when everyone had slowly dragged themselves out in the air and gathered around the bag of sandwiches Rina (did that girl never get hungover?) had walked ten minutes to get, James came with sad news.
"We don't have much money left," he said. "We have enough for a few more days, but we need money on the way home, too."
"Guess we're going back soon, then," Keigo said drowsily, still half-asleep and slowly chewing on his chicken sandwich. Kushina, on the other hand, was more worried. She was quiet for a long time after that, thinking about the thing she had delayed working out for so long: how to approach her parents. Maybe she should just not go back ... She could. But the police were not done searching for her, she knew her parents would pay large amounts of dollars to keep them going. She would be forever on the run, but was that worse than facing her angry, no, infuriated parents?
She sighed. She never had many options.
"Kushina?"
She looked up. Rina looked at her with a worried expression.
Kushina replied by taking another bite of sandwich. It was not much of a reply, but it showed that she did not know what to say. Rina of all people would understand why.
But before Rina got the chance to ask and Kushina got the chance to take another bite of the sandwich, a horrifying noise came slowly, more and more audible towards them. It was talking. And Kushina knew very well what the source of the talking was.
She turned slowly. By seeing the people who came towards them, their faces set on her, she felt like she stopped breathing. Two of them were angry, the rest of them serious, and her own was pale. She considered getting up, throw her sandwich away and run, but her body was frozen, and no matter how much her brain ordered her to get the fuck away, her legs would not move, and her hands were only holding firmly on to the baguette.
It was over.
The four men were silently driving on a lone, long highway. It was late in the evening, and as soon as they had been released from the interrogation room with too little air, they had packed their bags, taken down the tent, fueled the car and left The Core. James were driving, Keigo was constantly trying to find a song he wanted to listen to on the cassette player they had installed but had not yet listened to the same song for more than twenty seconds, and the other two sat in the back seats, looking out the windows with expressionless faces. In Minato's hand was a note, a small note which was now curled up to a tiny ball, containing Rina's quick handwriting. It was a message from Kushina.
The hours passed, in which Keigo and James had switched places and Chad had fallen asleep. Minato was tired, but had no luck in sleeping. He had too much racing in his mind, yet it felt like his head was empty. No words, no images, just a black wall. And still, his head hurt from everything that was bothering him.
Around midnight, the wall in his mind was going to get even blacker.
They entered a city they recognized, and slowly drove through it. Minato recognized the bar. From the windows he could see the bar coutner. Two young men were sitting at the end, while four girls sat on the table next to it, regularly giving the men gazes.
"Wait, stop," Minato said. Keigo jumped a little in his seat; nobody had said a word for hours. James pulled over and was about to ask Minato what the deal was, but Minato had jumped out of the van almost before the van had stopped and was now standing in a phone booth. He was looking through a thick book with yellow pages. After a moment, he returned.
"Can we go to Fort Street?"
They looked at him.
"I take it that's where she lives?" Chad said. There was so need to specify who she was. Minato nodded.
"Sure," James said. "I'm not sure if it's a good idea, though."
Minato did not reply, but he knew James was right. But he could not go home without replying to the note.
After about fifteen minutes, they entered Fort Street. The properties were huge with large, white-painted houses, big front yards and expensive cars. It made Minato realize just how different lives he and Kushina were living.
At the end of the road was a similar house with blue frames.
They came closer.
James suddenly hit the breaks.
Minato's face fell. "No ..." he whispered, got out of the van and started to slowly run towards the large, white trucks that were starting up and casting bright lights at him. One drove off, the other came after; Minato saw her face, for only a few seconds. The third and last truck followed, and they disappeared.
The note fell out of his hand. It hit the dirty ground with a noise that did not reach his ears. He looked at the distance, even after the trucks, no ..
... even after she was gone.
