Chapter 2 heading your way! I'm no expert on bands like this, so some things might be wrong. Enjoy.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine
WARNING: AU
PAIRINGS: Hm, still don't know
Song 2- Meeting"Naruto's late," the drummer said glancing at the clock. "Did he oversleep again?" The bassist shrugged with a nonchalant look. On cue, Naruto rushed in his guitar on his shoulder.
"Sorry I'm late," Naruto said while catching his breath. "Good news! I've got us a vocalist!" The other two band members still remained nonchalant, but both seem interested. After several months of searching, Naruto suddenly found one? "Come in, Haku."
The said person stepped in with his own guitar on his shoulder. He glanced nervously at the other two members. Both didn't seem to express any dislike in him, but they didn't seem happy either. He didn't know if he should take that as a good thing or as a bad thing. Then the girl at the drums stood up and nodded smiling warmly.
"I'm Tenten," she said. The other boy only nodded.
"Hyuuga Neji," was all he said.
"I'm Momochi Haku," he said. Tenten quirked an eyebrow in confusion before turning to Naruto.
"I thought you said you were going to get a girl," Tenten said.
"Hey! He was even better than the other girls auditioning," Naruto replied defensively. "Besides, it was either Haku or Yamanaka Ino."
At this, Tenten couldn't shoot another remark. Yamanaka Ino was an annoying girl who has been agitating the band to be their vocalist even though she was flat in her singing and would screech instead of singing high notes. The band had their suspicions that she was only doing this to get close to handsome Uchiha Sasuke, like the rest of the girls auditioning.
"Well, let's see what you can do," Neji said for the first time since he introduced himself.
Haku took out his guitar and sat on the floor. After tuning up the guitar, he played one of his favorite songs from Asahi, Silver Wind. The soft strums and Haku's soft voice made the song even better than the recorded version with Sakura as the vocalist. Naruto closed his eyes and smiled, Tenten whistled along, even Neji was tapping his foot to the beat. This was one of Asahi's best songs as Asahi, and someone with such superior skill was playing it.
Haku strummed the last note in the song and opened his eyes. There was a silence in the room, before Naruto cheered, Tenten clapped politely, even Neji cracked a grin.
"You're in!" Tenten and said happily. Next to her, Neji grinned, something he rarely did. Haku smiled as he got off the floor.
"That was nice…" The feminine boy turned to see Sasuke standing by the door. He had the cold look from yesterday on his face again. "… but you will not be as good as her." With that, he turned and left the practice room.
A silence filled the room. The three former members of Asahi were staring at their new vocalist, who was only staring at the spot where Sasuke was. It was Naruto who broke the silence.
"Don't listen to that jerk, Haku. He's just a bastard who can't admit you're good!" Although the said boy knew the guitarist was saying that only to cheer him up, it lightened his mood enough for him to smile.
"Anyway, now that we have Haku, we can tell the public that we can schedule our first single as Mangetsu!" Naruto said. The three stared at the drummer in confusion.
"Isn't it a bit early to be thinking about that?" Neji asked.
"Hai, as Asahi, we waited for half a year before we released any singles!" Tenten agreed. "Why the sudden decision, Naruto?"
"Well, why not? It's obvious Haku knows our music well enough to play it better than we ever could-"
"We're Mangetsu now, so we're not singing any of our old songs. If we want a song scheduled in a couple of months, we have to see Uchiha now," Neji interrupted.
"Well, we'll see what he thinks of this." The four headed out of the studio, Haku being the nervous one in seeing Sasuke. Ever since his arrival, all he got from him was a cold stare that seem to say, "You'll never replace her". Could it be that the music producer had a special relationship with the vocalist?
-X-
"You want to do what?" Sasuke asked while staring at the members of Mangetsu. "I can't write and compose a song and get you four up to standards all in two months! Besides…" The dark-haired music producer stole a cold glare to Haku, "How do you know that your vocalist is up to the task?"
"Trust me, he is," Tenten said.
"Yeah, he sang even better than Sakura-chan did!" Naruto piped up cheerfully. At this, Sasuke shot out of his chair angrily and grabbed the blonde by the collar.
"DON'T YOU DARE SAY THAT AGAIN!" Sasuke yelled angrily. Haku stepped back afraid of what the music producer would do to Naruto. Neji calmly stepped forward and with one tug, released Sasuke's grip on Naruto.
"He does sing well, though," he said. "Give him a chance." The producer sat down in his chair thinking this over. Releasing a single so quickly was impulsive and the single may not be made in time, which would cause uproar in the media. His eye caught a CD concealed by the half-closed drawer. Maybe…
"Don't make me regret it," was all Sasuke said before motioning them out.
-X-
"Wow, I can't believe he actually agreed!" Tenten said in awe as the four left the producer's office. "I was sure he was going to think of it as a stupid idea."
"I must admit, that caught me off guard," Neji added. "Especially since…" the bassist stopped when Tenten shot him a look that told him to stop while jerking her head to the new vocalist. Haku, meanwhile, didn't seem to notice as he was deep in thought.
"After being so cold to me, he's actually going to write a song for me?" he thought in awe. "Maybe he's not so bad after all…" Little did he know, there was more to the story than he was aware of.
-X-
"Eh? I can't believe this! After all we've been together, Mangetsu is actually going to release their first single?" a distressed figure thought as they read the newspaper. Mangetsu was going to release a single within a couple of months!
No one, no band, could ever do something like this that quickly. Not even she could.
TBC… How was it? I hope you enjoyed it. Review kudasai! Please put if you want any pairings in this fic because I can't make up my mind. Preview: Mangetsu get the scores for their first single, but why is Sasuke saying that everything is wrong?