In My Life- Now featuring Gray angsty angst and a silly opening exposition.
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"I can't sleep very well... it's Mary's story. The Pianist. She doesn't think it's very good, but I think it's amazing. It's a short story, a romance somehow tying music into the mix. The narrator, remaining unnamed, is Mary. The love interest is also unnamed, clever, but I know he's not me. That bums me out."
-From Gray's Journal
The foliage was turning much more intensely, and burning, vivid shades of auburn and orange went hand-in-hand with the crisp air and subdued nature during the most sublime of seasons. There was still much arduous labor to be done; Makoto would be busting himself at Strawberry Fields to save up enough money to expand his flock, Duke and Manna had their upcoming grape harvest, and these all these hungry hard workers would no doubt stop at the Inn for some country cooking, as well as the rest of the villagers.
Autumn had always been taken as a joyous and relaxing time with the summer haze fizzled out, and the Music Festival was one of the embodiments of this autumn attitude.
The sun had gone down for its early slumber as the villagers waited around for the start of the festival. Everything was set up and ready to go; the kids had managed over the last few years to chip in for a bass, an electric guitar, a few mikes, and the amps they needed.
Even a piano was wheeled out, now taking its permanent position on the opposite side of the old organ that Ann and Mary were watching Karen fiddle around on. No one was quite bothered by it; they all knew Karen had enough talent to make up for an instrumental ineptitude.
And as for the rest, they chatted casually as they waited for Carter to finally start the festival, which of course would be at his own leisure. A few of them were outside, like Makoto and Gray, while Cliff, Ann and Elli tuned their instruments inside. Gray hovered in circles around Makoto, who stuck in a zoned out stupor up against the front wall of the church.
Gray finally planted his feet, occupying a spot at a few arms distance from Makoto. For a moment, he fumbled words on his tongue, but finally managed to grunt out a greeting.
Makoto did the same. More word fumbling from Gray, and he finally managed to string his inquiry together.
"Umm…" He managed to get Makoto to turn his attention. "What do you think of Mary?"
Makoto quickly arched up an eyebrow. From somewhere inside, people hushed down with Rick starting up his act. Both boys shuddered briefly.
"Well," Makoto said, mind back on the conversation. "I can't say. Don't really know her much." Gray took it and nodded, only for Makoto to add onto it. "Why?"
Rick could actually hit those octaves without a hitch.
"Touching yoou-uuu-uuu! Touching mee-eee-eee! Touching you, 'CAUSE YOU'RE SUCH A FOOL!"
But Gray didn't reply.
"Let me guess," Makoto said. "You like her?"
Gray turned away underneath the brim of his cap, managing a slow nod.
"And I wanna tell her that…" With that, Makoto let out a hushed groan.
"So tell her."
That was when Gray was suddenly hit with the sack of bricks, and he turned to Makoto with a gaping mouth.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
First he set his focus on Makoto, and he did the same.
"Because…" he muttered, biting his tongue. "She likes YOU."
Makoto grumbled something in a quick reply, but finally turning to Gray and saying:
"Impossible."
And he found himself stumbling through the church doors, leaving a once desperate Gray dumbfounded at the stoop.
Most everyone else was dumbfounded at Rick's charade. He was engrossed in miming out a guitar solo, but perhaps it was the white polyester, bellbottomed jumpsuit with a low V-neck collar that sleazily exposed most of his skinny chest and stomach. His long hair was all over the place, mostly dramatically thrown forward for the over-the-top solo.
The music from the CD player continued on. He threw his "guitar" aside and yanked the mike off the stand in front of him.
"Touching you-uuu-uuu! Touching mee-eee-eee! GOD, YOU'RE TOUCHING MINE!!!"
Most people were pleading the act to end at any second, and Carter simply shrugged from the corner. Since his act was next, Makoto waited against the back wall, doing his best to prevent the image of the chicken boy going on overdrive from burning into his dreams. The last thing he needed was more nightmares.
Rick seemed to be done on the last "Ooh!", wildly failing his limbs as the song took another long thirty seconds or so to finally fade out. Once it was done, he reached into the lapel of his jumper and pulled out his glasses, returning to a civilized state soon enough to click off the mini boom box and take it with him. He bowed on his way out, with resigned applause in return.
That when Carter turned to Makoto with a smile, and Makoto turned his dreadful eyes to the lone mike up front. From somewhere behind, Gray made his way inside with a sigh has he darted past Makoto's turned back.
After a few minutes, everyone participating in the next song was on stage. Cliff was playing a few chords on his acoustic guitar while Elli and Ann tuned their flutes. As a last minute dive to give Popuri to give something to do, she was handed a set of bells and shakers by Carter and jumped onto the stage, keeping a close eye on the Pastor. Finally, they were ready, and the audience hushed down as a cue for Cliff to start the song.
With his heart beating with twice the normal magnitude, Makoto silently counted off before starting into the vocals, hands in his pockets: "One, two, three, four!"
"Here I stand head in hand
Turn my face to the wall
If she's gone I can't go on
Feeling two foot small
Everywhere people stare
Each and every day
I can see them laugh at me
And I hear them sa-aaa-aay..."
And there was a moment there when Makoto fought every urge to turn around.
"Hey! You've got to hide your love away...
Hey! You've got to hide your love away...
How can I even try?
I can never win
Hearing them, seeing them
In the state I'm in
How could she say to me
'Love will find a way?'
Gather round all you clowns
Let me hear you sa-aaa-aay..."
This time, Makoto swept into the chorus, grabbing the mike with nervous hands and leaning in.
"Hey! You've got to hide your love away...
Hey! You've got to hide your love away..."
He backed up from the mike a bit, turning his eyes downward as he heard the flutes rise up to play. It was all over just in time, and before he knew it they had all filed off the stage, except Cliff, who was now tuning the electric guitar on stage.
Whoever wasn't on stage gathered up in the back room. Karen was pensively waiting by the door, barred off from warming up her voice once Gray started his song. Once Makoto entered the room, he saw the approving smiles sinking onto all the faces.
He grumbled something under his breath as he proceeded to sit on a wooden chair underneath a large Beatles poster, the group posed in front of a large British flag.
Taking a moment to look up again, Makoto realized he could barely notice the walls underneath all the Beatles paraphernalia that occupied the small space. Carter must've raided Paul McCartney's and Ringo Starr's homes at one point.
Gray's number didn't sound quite impressive, but the core was tight, and Gray had a sweet, drawling sort of singsong voice. And for every note and beat, Makoto was lost in yet another la-la land from his chair.
All until Karen yanked the nearest chair and plunked down on it in front of him. She leaned her chin on her hands on the back of the chair, looking up at Makoto with ready eyes.
"So… farmer boy," she jumped right in with a sly, yet hushed voice. "Something you want to talk about?"
Makoto looked over Karen's shoulder, and there was Elli, looking positively bored with Popuri excitedly chattering. He snapped back to Karen.
"Talk about what??" he hissed, leaning back in his chair.
There was only a blatant groan from Karen, holding reservations about not slapping Makoto silly.
"Your act's next," Makoto muttered. "Shouldn't we go over that instead?"
Karen let out another groan, but sighed.
"At least you're not a hopeless case."
Makoto leaned back further in his chair.
"Actually, I'm the epitome of hopeless. So…" He shot Karen a glare and leaned back forward, pushing his face in hers. "Bye bye." And with that, he got up and relocated to the far wall of the room.
"Each drunken drugstore purchase, each chemical advance. Seven days a weekend, every day the same old dizzy dance…"
Now stripped down to the organs, the last notes resonated in the air. Karen took this as her cue to get up, almost immediately shadowed by Makoto. They ducked back at the door to let Gray through, the brim of his cap tucked low over his face. He was followed by Mary, who shot a weak smile at Makoto.
Karen brushed up to the mike, back to Makoto as he ducked his way to the piano. Without any eye contact, Makoto played a couple notes as Karen adjusted the mike down from where Gray had it.
And with that, Makoto peered over his shoulder. He shuddered once he noticed there were people scattered out in the pews, quickly shoving his face back into the keyboard. Karen stared pensively, waiting for Makoto to get on with it.
With a long sigh, he heard the whole church hushed and noticed the other participants watching at the door. He flexed his long fingers, and plunged right into a gentle intro, setting a relaxed pace. Karen took it and eased her voice through the piano.
"Fly me to the moon, and let me play along the stars... let me see what life is like on Jupiter and Mars…"
People sat slack in their pews with long smiles wiped all over their faces. For a while, Jupiter and Mars weren't so far away.
Soon after the applause showed signs of giving way, Karen ducked off the stage, her face flushing. Once again, Cliff stepped on, picking up the electric guitar off the amp. He took a moment to adjust the mike; by this time, everyone in the church was now seated in a pew.
Cliff then grabbed the mike and strode over with it closer to Makoto, asking him to help him out with some harmonies. Makoto shrugged in agreement, and Cliff grinned as he instinctively picked out the opening riff.
It was lifting, melting into endearment as Cliff began. And through every "I want to tell you" Cliff gave Makoto a sideways glint from his eye every time the farmer would spin his head around to back him up.
"But if I seem to act unkind," Cliff sang solo. "It's only me, it's not my mind. That is confusing things…"
They plowed on, Cliff pulsing with the song. Makoto was sort of enjoying himself too, until Cliff said:
"Take it, Mackie!"
He almost swallowed his tongue, but definitely plotted to later jam Cliff's head into the sound hole of his acoustic.
"Sometimes I wish I knew you well," Makoto sang. "So I could speak my mind and tell you. Maybe you'd understand…"
Any near, laughably small hole would've worked for Makoto. But he kept playing, and Cliff finished off his song.
"I've got time… I've got time…"
Makoto wanted nothing more than to slink out of the church, but Gray, Cliff, and Karen all took up sentry at different points. Makoto decided it was better to avoid Cliff for a while, only to catch him and Karen exchange a quick handshake out of the corner of his eye.
He turned back to Gray.
"So you say it's about me?" he echoed. Gray let out a heaving sigh.
"It couldn't be any more obvious…"
Finally, the sentries gave some slack, and Makoto barely managed to turn and slip of sight with a quick parting nod at Gray.
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"Rice farming?" Mary asked, eyebrows hiking up over her thick glasses.
It was the next afternoon, and what little light from the sunny day managed to accent every last speck of fluttering dust, launching Makoto into a wild barrage of sneezes as a response. Mary shied away, slowly backing off and announcing that she would look around.
Once she was long gone up the stairs to check the second flight, Makoto casually strode around her large desk, and without a doubt, a stapled, worn print-out sat conveniently in the top drawer. It was accented by about thirty more shoved in the box by Makoto's foot, but he ignored it and took to the story.
There was no name on the cover; the only thing written was the title, "The Pianist". With a shrug, Makoto opened up to the first page, reading about sanctity of one sort of another. He skimmed through until the pianist actually showed up.
"He wasn't too melodic, yet the pulse of the rhythm lured me towards him. Something in his flushed, tired cheeks gave him a growing of a charm."
Yet the pianist was tall, at least taller than the narrator, with "wild, unkempt hair."
A floorboard creaked, and Makoto snapped his attention to the staircase.
No one. He sighed, and continued skimming. Skimming on, page after page, skimming… skimming…
"Makoto?" came a meek voice. Makoto let out a yelp. It did no good to fumble and shove the story back, so Makoto shut his mouth and coolly turned around. From under her glasses, Mary stared up, her mouth molded in discontent.
So she handed him his book, respectfully with both hands. Makoto looked down at the cover for a long minute before half nodding, handing the manuscript back to Mary over a guilty shoulder.
Right outside, he met a pensive Gray. Shoving an accusing finger into his nauseated face, he said:
"It's about YOU."
Gray was taken far aback, reeling back to Makoto with a nothing but boggled eyes. Makoto went on.
"He's not melodic, but rhythmic… like working over the forge with a hammer? Speaking of, he had flushed skin from it. It's YOU." He made his point, focused on Gray's cheeks, which were flushed more often than not.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Gray shied away under his cap while Makoto sighed.
"Besides, she let you read it."
Finally, Gray nodded.
"I'll talk to her," he replied, looking over at the library. Then he turned back and sighed. "Tomorrow."
It was the end of the day anyway, and the two strolled towards the Inn. They met up with Cliff on the way, who sported a black eye. Gray slumped along the walk, filling his head with things to say.
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Okay, so kinda short. The next chapter though will be Gray's. Yup. Gray. I booked it. It's his.
Anime26Angel- Yay, more Horizons… I didn't mean to scare you… well… I coulda sent something less... nefarious? Nah…
Roaming Shadow- I'm glad you liked it, and plowed valiantly through 22-23 chapters. Thanks for all that reading!
Zomaelgustar the Wanker- Makoto… the idol! At least no one makes him dance…
And to the mysterious "…"- You also are thanked humbly for plowing through all of that. Glad you and Shadow enjoyed it.
Well, see you in the next chapter!