Chapter 45: "Saturday Night Fever"

Tsuchiura Ryotaro had an uncanny knack for crashing into Tsukimori Len at the most inopportune of moments. At least, the most embarrassing of them, anyway.

Just as Tsuchiura was coming out of the elevator, carting a few extra blankets/sleeping bags that he had been elected to beg, borrow and/or steal at the front desk, the flustered blue violinist's speedy retreat from the girl's rooms, causes the taller, brawnier man to upset the piled high load he could barely see over

"Whoa! WATCH IT!" Tsuchiura bellows, first in surprise and then in anger, upon seeing who messed him up.

"I'm...sorry." Tsukimori half-heartedly apologizes as the elevator doors call to him for escape from this night's perils.

"You should be! ARGH! Look at this mess! Why do I always have to play 'fetch' for everyone around here?" Tsuchiura grumbles, throwing his hands to the sky in frustration.

"I truly am sorry, Tsuchiura." Tsukimori was already on his knees, gathering the dropped goods helpfully. "I suppose I wasn't adequately watching where I was going. Forgive me." He politely apologizes again, meeting Tsuchiura's eyes.

"I guess I have to." He feels a compulsive smirk come to his lips. There was something in his rival's nervous demeanor that made his own sadistic spirit glow with triumph.

"IF you help me bring these things to Kanayan's room." Tsuchiura smugly plunks folded blanket after blanket into Tsukimori's reluctant arms, though the contrite lead violinist was at a loss to protest.

"Kanazawa-sensei's room?" Tsukimori repeats, as he follows Tsuchiura down to the far end of the hall, to the only previously unoccupied room left on the sixth floor of the Grand Hotel.

"Yeah, didn't you know?" Tsuchiura hmphs as he hefts the weighty piles of sleeping bags, not so well folded or compact as before. "Kanayan and his missus decided to stay over in that last room
Yunoki-senpai booked, and he's got this silly idea for all us guys to have a sort of hang out, sleepover/ club night to relax. Don't ask me, but Fudou-senpai, Kaji, Hihara-senpai, and even Yunoki-senpai and Shimizu latched right onto our old Teach's crazy scheme. I suppose the old guy misses being our Sensei. But since we won't be here in Vienna much longer, I said 'what the heck...for old times' sake', I guess." Tsuchiura shrugs his shoulders as he finds his own sense of familiarity return when he chats with the silent man he once despised, not expecting any response, as per usual.

But between the bond of performing with their instruments on stage again as an ensemble, and seeing how much the stuck-up jerk meant to Hino Kahoko displayed before all the world's stage tonight, how long could the gruff pianist hold a grudge?

"They were playing stupid video games and doing some cooking and starting up a chess match when I left. Kanayan wants us to just let our hair down and have fun after this tough week the Director's dragged us through." Tsuchiura explains, stopping at the door to turn to his so far silent companion.

"So do you want in? After all, 'misery loves company.'" The blunt green haired man holds out an uncharacteristic olive branch.

"I don't think—" Tsukimori starts to decline the invitation when his roommate, Ousaki Shinobu's pleasant voice comes from behind the conversing pair.

"I wondered where you'd gotten off to, Tsukimori-kun! Good you caught him, Tsuchiura-kun. We couldn't let you miss this wrap up celebration party that Kanazawa-sensei especially requested all Seiso students to attend for the world! There's even going to be pancakes, Etou-kun!" Ousaki turns his sunshiny smile upon his own recalcitrant violinist escapee, as if the promise of treats was too tempting to resist. But the sixteen-year-old had a resigned look on his usually cocky face as he trails down the hall after the man who had unwittingly accosted him, just moments earlier from the peace and quiet of his hotel room.

"If you say so...But I wasn't even a student yet when Hiroto-san was teaching."Murmuring the grumble beneath his breath, Etou Kiriya was not exactly the 'party animal' type, he giving them a dubious back glance. Then Etou's eyes meet his fellow victimized violinist who wore the same sentiment just as plainly.

"It seems we have no choice." Tsukimori Len gives the younger man a side nod of sympathy.

"Good! It's settled, then! I see you have some sleeping bags, blankets and extra pillows for those of us who will be on the floor. I can smell Hihara's special pancakes cooking in there already! I hope there's lots of maple syrup to go 'round! This is going to be so much fun, isn't it, guys?!" Tsuchiura gives a mild ingratiating simper as Ousaki-senpai does all but drool in simple raptures.

But Ousaki's sickeningly bubbly optimism was hard to deny anything as he exchanges nods and happy smiles with the innately charming new teacher who opens the designated room's door with a greeting smile and welcoming wine glass.

"Are the pancakes with maple syrup ready yet, Fudou?" Ousaki asks his best friend excitedly right off, like a schoolboy at the sugary thought, as he peers around in the direction of the hotel room's kitchenette.

"Ahh, you still have that sweet tooth, mon ami. I prefer this wine, myself, though maple syrup becomes you." The young French educator amiably shares a smiling tease and chuckle with his close friend as he ushers the remainder of the guests into Kanayan's–ahem –Kira's hotel suite.

Showing their affable collegiate bond, Yosuke hands Ousaki his own half-full wine glass, to swiftly appease his friend's hunger. The obviously well-versed in fine French wines gentleman then replenishes whoever's half-empty glass was sitting on the endtable after a satisfied sniff of its vintage as he raises it for a quick toast.

"To Kanazawa-sensei's good health." With a graciously bowed head, Yosuke gestures his glass to the man across the room, clinking with that of his best friend, as both respectfully nod to their elder. Fudou Yosuke and Ousaki Shinobu were truly two of the genuinely classy kind of a lost breed.

"Here, here, Fudou! Shall we all 'loosen up' now, as Kanazawa-sensei recommended?" And after gulping down a large swig of his red wine, Ousaki not only loosens his tie, but giddy, removes it entirely, as he and his former senpai share sly chuckles.

Tsukimori and Etou exchange a weirded out look with Tsuchiura, as Ousaki Shinobu continues to burst with enthusiasm. The college graduate was acting more like a teen or child than any of the rest of the gang, as the noisy cacophony of guitar rock music blares from the kitchen with the scent of maple syrup pancakes luring the string quartet into the chaotic party room Kanayan was holding court over.

"Ousaki! Fudou! I see you've brought the bubbly! And managed to gather our thoroughbreds into the fold, too! I've got a groovy number with their names on it!" Kanazawa 'DJ' Hiroto was flipping through his iPod's vast musical banks (consisting of mainly the 70s music he loved and grew up on) as he catches sight of the newcomers to the 'Kanayan Night Bash' scene. The hit tune "Knights in White Satin" was currently blasting over the speaker system he had masterfully hooked up. "Listen to that! Now THAT was music! Now all we need are some disco footlights! That'd be awesome, man!" Kanayan busts some moves on his own dance floor of his dreams, Yosuke and Ousaki none too shabbily swaying their own hips in rhythm with him.

"I am so not here." Etou says sourly, disbelieving his eyes at the
inane, lax behavior of a former Seiso teacher, not to mention the OBs and senpai throughout the connecting suite, all acting like fools.

Shoma, Hihara and Yunoki were almost reduced to a food fight in the kitchen if Ousaki didn't lend his pancake pilfering aid, from the sounds and smells of burning sugar and laughter.

Blissfully undisturbed by the surrounding ruckus, Kaji and Shimizu were plopped on the floor of the sitting room as they were
comfortably playing games on their ever-present PSPs.

"If you can't beat 'em..." Calm Tsuchiura unfolds out some of the sleeping bags he was carting around in front of the fireplace for the pair of blondes and himself, to give in and join in the boyish pastime, arguing on the floor which Haruka 3 character each preferred. (I like Benkei-dono. He tells everyone to take it easy and rest. And he's the doctor, so he knows best...) Big yawn!


Tsukimori-kun! Etou-kun! Come on! Get down! Cut loose for once! Find your groove!" Sunglasses in place over his eyes, Super Disco Man Kanazawa Hiroto was not holding anything back as he beckons to the hesitant pair, dancing and singing his way towards them with all his hip swaying might.

"I am REALLY so not here." Etou repeats in monotone, horrified at the madness of the once-seeming-to-be-sane former teachers and graduates.

"Ditto." Tsukimori mutters under his breath, equally aghast, as he waves off with a mortified hand, Hihara with his hair tied back, and his happy offer of slightly burnt pancakes, as even pancake munching Ousaki-senpai and a bit tipsy enjoying his fruit of the grape
Fudou-sensei, get into the moment, breaking out more champagne bottles and popping the corks of celebratory bubbly.

"Let's get out of here while we still can, Len-san. No one's looking." Etou whispers in conspiracy to Tsukimori, but Kanayan had eyes in the back of his head when it came to hooky-playing youngsters, developed from his years of being a teacher.

"Unh, unh, unh, you two! Not so fast! Hold it right there, gentlemen!" With a wagging finger in their detected un-hip direction, Kanayan doesn't even miss a beat of his rhythmic disco swaying, as he spins on his white heel to dance towards the astonished guilty pair about to make their halted exit.

"Here're some party favors for you two, so you fit in more!" Kanayan comes up from behind the retreating young stallions, throws his captive arms over both their shoulders and produces a pair of dark sunglasses for each .He pushes them over each set of bewildered eyes.

"Now you two cool brats can be too cool cats! Owww, that's a groovy rhyme! 'Far out!' Ha ha ha!" Thumbs up in the air at them, he goes back to swinging and swaying around the room, like the hip drunk disco dancer they all knew he no longer was.

"Come on! It's 'Saturday Night Fever,' baby!" He cries out, pausing his burgandy open-shirted gait to place an unlit cigarette between his teeth (for effect only, my pet) and lean back against Tsukimori's distressed shoulder with a demanding glare.

"You should be dancin'!" Energetically, Kanayan takes off again on his deft heel like a youthful disco pro cutting a rug, as the Bee Gees' famous repertoire of music that epitomized the disco reign over the speakers like wildfire.

Gorgeous studs Etou Kiriya and Tsukimori Len did indeed look 'too cool' through their dark shades as they look to each other and then to the chaotic 'disco' world before them with a sigh. The two leading heartthrobs who would send many a feminine heart palpitating with their classically trained music, seemed doomed to be trapped here for tonight amidst sounds of pounding nightclub-like pandemonium ensuing in the atmosphere all around them...