La Vie Daioh
Disclaimer!: I don't own Azumanga Daiog or Rent. The idea was a draw between me and OtakuOtter I think her name was… I decided I needed to write this my way. Please don't think they stole my idea, she didn't. Also Cats might change up, characters are slightly ooc… more than slightly.
'December 24th, 1989, 9pm…From now on Ah'm on mah own – no script, no actors, and a mixed plot t' boot. Ah wanted to see if Ah could make somethin' instead mah old shit…' Ayumu Kasuga, watched life through the lenses of her camera. The poor, the drug dealings, the pimping, the thievery, the violence… she watched her former friend, her teacher in a sense scream her lungs out at an 'offending' bum trying to clean her windows.
"Get off the car, you fucking flea bag!!!" she sped off in her wild rampage, her poor fling Minamo Kurosawa or 'Nyamo' as everyone called her, screamed, afraid of her beloved's driving becoming the death of them.
Ayumu stared hard before attaching her camera to the front of her bike, getting on and speeding off for home. She began singing in frustration…
"How do ya' document real life when real life's getting' more like fiction each day?
Headlines, breadlines blow mah mind and this deadline
Eviction or pay
…RENT!"
Sakaki sat in the dark on the couch of hers and Ayumu's loft, playing her guitar, nothing seeming to come out the way to wants much to her disdain – Another night of the same crap. She thought that by moving away from her control-freak mother she'd be able to finally have life go her way… then she met 'her' and everything became the beautiful prelude to a miserable, lonely existence.
In Ayumu's beat she sang, "How do you write a song
When the chords sound wrong
Though they once sounded right and rare?
When the notes are sour
Where is the power
You once had to ignite the air!"
Ayumu rode up to the building, adding, "We're hungry and frozen!"
"Some life that we've chosen!" Sakaki said briskly, rushing past her sleeping cat, going down the stairs to meet with each other. Dread filled her as they joined together singing, Ayumu holding out a piece of paper to her.
"How we gonna pay…
How we gonna pay…
How we gonna pay…
Last year's RENT?"
Sakaki read it over with an unsurprised but displeased glance. Both ran back up stairs, stopping as they heard the phone ring. Ayumu answered it. "'Ello? From down below in a payphone, none other than their long-time friend who left 7 years ago, Kagura, was on the other line, grinning. "Yo, guys! Guess whose back in Tokyo? It's Kagura, Osaka, throw me down the keys, wouldja." Kagura stared up at the balcony as her thoughtful best friend tossed down the keys, waving her to come out before going back inside.
Kagura hung up but just as she went to walk this group of thug-looking males walked up to her. "Hey, baby, gotta light?"
Kagura, although none too pleased with being called 'baby', mumbles, reaching into the pockets of her dirty long coat. "Yah, somewhere in here, wa—HEY!!!" The men jumped her, trying to tear off her coat along with anything else of value that may have been on her. She punched and kicked her way through, racing for the door of her friend's safety. The boys followed her, laughing eagerly, maniacally down the alley, catching up quickly. Usually she was a five-star runner but her new addiction over the years tended to make her a little… sloppy.
The gang caught her, tackling her too the ground and beating her into a bloody pulp as she tried to fight back or at least scream loud enough for Sakaki to hear. Ayumu too but… Ayumu couldn't fight her way out of a wet tissue. They robbed her and had as much fun messing with her as they could.
Meanwhile, back in the safety of their loft, Ayumu and Sakaki were lighting candles, getting ready to set fire to all the starting parts of their hobbies – posters, screen plays, old song sheets, scripts, and of course those god damned eviction notices. Sakaki sang with a furious passion.
"How do you start a fire
When there's nothing to burn
And it feels like something's stuck in your flue?"
They started throwing their old belongings into a metal bin. Posters of when Sakaki was performing at clubs in the city for money and old screen plays from when Ayumu used a script to document. The shorter woman sang fiercely, "How can you generate heat, and ya' can't feel yer feet—"
"And they're turning blue?"
Ayumu grinned, pulling out her lighter, setting a shit on fire. "Ya' light up a mean blaze!"
"With posters!"
"And screen plays!"
Tossing the burning papers into the bin, they both carried it out to the balcony as quickly as they could, singing with other tenants from buildings all around starting to join in both their song and their burning.
"How we gonna pay…
How we gonna pay…
How we gonna pay…
Last year's RENT?"
They watched as slivers of their pasts float gracefully down to the ground looking as though they were alive.
Back in the alley, Kagura moaned, sitting up feeling nauseous, light-headed and dirty She wipes from her face the blood, dirt, and semen the thieving assholes had brought upon her. Moaning and trying to clear her mind and vision she sang,
"How do ya stay on yer feet
When on every street
It's trick or treat and tonight it's trick?"
Starting to fall over again she whined out in anguish, "'Welcome back to town!'
Oh, I should lie down
Everything's brown
And ugh… I feel sick!"
Ayumu ran back out to the balcony, Sakaki behind her, "Where is she?"
Kagura collapses, slurring out, "Getting' dizzy…"
"How we gonna pay…
How we gonna pay…
How we gonna pay…
Last year's RENT?"
As Sakaki and Ayumu stoked the fire, Yukari, with Minamo now on her cell phone instead of her car, glared up furiously at the embers falling from the windows. She muttered angrily into the phone, "Nyamo-baby, stop sounding so freaking… those spoiled rotten little, after everything I've done—I PUT MY ASS ON THE LINE FOR THEM!!! Ever since you and I got… They'll see." The wavy-haired woman hung up, singing simultaneously. "Forces are gathering, forces are gathering, can't turn away, forces are gathering…"
Ayumu and Sakaki once again filled their bin with flames and useless memoirs, singing with the passion of the very flames it contained. Ayumu read from a script as she threw it in, "The music ignites with passionate fire!"
Sakaki threw it, "The narration crackles and pops with incendiary wit!"
"Zoom in as they burn the past to the ground!"
They both sang, "And they feel the heat of the future's glow!
How do you leave the past behind
When it keeps finding ways to get to your heart
It reaches way down deep and tears you inside out
Till you're torn apart
RENT!"
Everyone except Yukari began to cry out:
"How can you connect in an age
Where strangers, landlords, lovers
Your own blood cells betray
What binds the fabric together
When the raging, shifting winds of change
Keep ripping away…"
Getting out of her car which was surrounded by angry tenants Yukari yelled out, "Draw a line in the SAND, AND THEN MAKE A STAAND!"
Sakaki teased Ayumu a little, "Use your camera to spar!"
Ayumu retorted, "Use your guitar!"
Once again, everyone joined against Yukari for the big finally of this first chapter of Daioh disaster.
"We're not gonna pay
We're not gonna pay
We're not gonna pay
LAST year's RENT!
THIS year's RENT!
NEXT year's RENT!
We're not gonna pay RENT!
'Cause everything is RENT!!!!!!!"
A/N: Chapter two coming soon. I know it's wasn't that different form the play/movie only without the telephone interruptions but… hai. I'll fix that later if it bothers you guys. I'm going by the movie; I can't afford to go to Broadway or nothing. And hai, Kagura's way more like Collins than Chihiro so Chihiro is most likely the new Mimi.