Part 8: The Rushed Band Practice Of Yamato!
It was a nice afternoon at the Fuji TV station. The now, still handsome, Odaiba High 16-year-old Yamato along with his band members Akira, Yutaka, and Takashi, were rehearsing since they had a big gig that upcoming Saturday and figured that rehearsing there would be the best place to do it. They were getting their own television special, thanks to Mr. Ishida. He works for the station as a TV Director and since Yamato's band had been doing pretty decent within the past year or two, he decided to have them perform for the upcoming special. The show was to promote young, newer groups.
"Okay guys, let's wrap it up," Yamato said, putting his guitar aside. "We got a lot of practice in today."
"What do you mean, 'A lot of practice!'" argued the loud and boisterous Yutaka. "We just got started 10 minutes ago!"
"We have that upcoming gig this Saturday night," the girl crazed Akira added. "We should really be getting in some more practice."
"I didn't realize it was so late," Yamato apologized.
Akira shook his head, not really believing Yamato.
"Let me guess," the boy smirked, "you have to go meet that girl of yours again."
"Um, yeah," the boy said with a nervous blush.
"You know, on days where you have late afternoon dates, we really shouldn't have practice," Akira said.
"ESPECIALLY HERE!!" Yutaka argued. "It takes a good while to get here from school!"
"Okay, okay. I'm sorry," Yamato apologized again. "I forgot that I had a date for this afternoon and practice at the same time."
"How in the world could you forget about practice," Yutaka squabbled. "We are performing for that special your dad got for us! This could be instant stardom! They'll have talent scouts there!"
"I said I was sorry, but I really have to meet up with her today," he told them. "We have to discuss some things."
Takashi, the quiet one out of the four who had been packing up his equipment the entire time, finally spoke up.
"Are you going to stop dating in secret?"
"Yeah, we know we shouldn't, but there's one friend of ours we are afraid we'll end up upsetting," Yamato said while packing up some more of his equipment. "His friendship is important to the both of us."
The other two boys started to pack up their equipment.
"We know, we know," Akira said. "You told us."
"Other than my younger brother, I feel as if I can tell you guys anything."
"That's what friends are for," Takashi said.
"You know, I wonder how that Motomiya girl is doing," Yutaka wondered out aloud.
"She got tired of me, that's what," Yamato sighed out in relief.
"Without her, our merchandise hasn't been selling as much," Yutaka noted. "Sure it's okay, I know she still comes to our concerts, but we made more of a profit with her around buying our T-shirts, and posters, and stuff like that."
"You shouldn't have let her go, man," Akira said while shaking his head.
"What do you mean I let her go!" Yamato exclaimed. "I never had her to let her go!"
"You ignored her too much," Akira said.
"I didn't ignore her," Yamato insisted. "She just grew tired of me, that's all."
"She got tired of waiting around for you to give in," Yutaka corrected.
"But I never liked her in that way," Yamato shouted at the two. "What turned me off from Jun was the fact that she liked me because I was 'the great Yamato-kun of The Teenage Wolves'! She only liked me because of my looks and because I was in a band."
"How do you know that?" Akira asked. "How do you know that's the only reason she liked you?"
He sweat dropped after his statement and remembered all of the times that Jun hanged around.
"Never mind," the boy said, going back to packing up his equipment.
"I'm sure she would've been cool if she would've tried, I don't know, talking to me instead of trying to cling onto my arm every chance she got," Yamato said. "Besides, I like her much more now and she really is a pretty good friend. We can actually have a conversation now without her acting lovesick over me."
"Since we are ending early today, why don't we just have a longer practice tomorrow," Takashi suggested.
"Good idea," Yutaka agreed. "We need to practice more than we ever have before!"
"Yeah, we really ought to," Yamato said. "I'll just cancel any other date I had for the rest of this week."
"So in other words," Akira laughed, "Friday since it's already Thursday and that we're going to be practicing all day Saturday, with special permission, of course, to miss the day from school."
"Oh yeah, that's right," Yamato laughed.
"We will probably have to practice here too since it has a sound stage and all of that other sound equipment," Yutaka pointed out.
Yamato nodded.
"You know what would be really cool?" Takashi asked suddenly.
The other boys looked over at him and asked, "What?"
"If your friend, Tachikawa-san, was here. She has such a nice voice."
"She's cute too," Akira whistled.
"You got that right," Yutaka said while giving Akira a high five.
"You two sounded pretty nice when you sang that duet of yours together when she was here about a year ago," Takashi said to Yamato.
"It was fun too. Too bad she isn't here now."
"But you know," Akira started, "if she was to sing with us Saturday night and we get discovered, they would take her over us. A cute girl who can sing perfectly is what the public loves."
The others laughed.
"I'm late," Yamato said, noticing the time. "I have to get to the park by 5:30!"
"Yes, yes," Akira teased. "Go join the love of your life."
"We aren't that serious," Yamato informed them. "We haven't even dated an entire month yet."
"Do you want me to clean up here or are one of you going to do it?" Takashi asked.
"You guys go on ahead," Yamato offered. "I'll clean up and tomorrow, rehearsal will run late."
"Naturally, and I don't mind," said Yutaka, finally calming down from Yamato's forgetting about his date.
"We're coming here to the station, right," Akira asked.
"Yep," Yamato nodded.
The three boys said goodbye to Yamato and headed towards the nearest bus to get home. Yamato spent about another 10 minutes in the studio clearing and putting everything away. He then put his guitar aside.
"Should I take it with me or should I take my chances and leave it here," the boy muttered.
He looked at the time and sighed.
"I'm already late and I don't have the time to take it home," he said while looking at his watch. "I guess I'll take my chances and lock it up in here. I'll just let dad know that I left it."
Yamato raced out of the studio to get to the park as fast as he could, but time he stepped outside, he noticed a storm cloud. To him, it looked to be as if it were just in one place. He then noticed lightning bolts coming from it.
"Weird," the boy said, squinting his eyes. "That cloud looks to be over near our school."
One of the lightening bolts struck the Fuji TV station, the rod that's at the top. After it struck the station, one of the bolts from the rod struck Yamato. He screamed out in pain as the bolt hit him. Some people walking by noticed and were panicking as they saw the young Yamato being struck. "Call an ambulance" some people shouted. "Help that boy," others shouted. "Yamato-kun!" a girl shouted who knew the boy pretty well.
After the painful shock, Yamato felt himself being pulled upwards towards a strange looking vortex. He didn't know what was happening, other than he was in a great deal of pain from the electricity. As he was being pulled upwards, he thought he saw Sora and screamed out to her and held his hand out, trying to reach her, but it was of no use. She didn't hear him. He also thought he saw Taichi and called to him as well, but he also didn't hear him. Yamato was then taken into the strange looking vortex...