In a high school auditorium, a teacher with blonde hair and wearing a white cowboy hat walked onto the stage and bowed. Then, a light went on and shown on several students. The man looked at the students and raised his hand, and the students started to sing.
My soul is a witness for my Lord
My soul is a witness for my Lord
My soul is a witness for my Lord
My soul is a witness for my Lord
You read in the Bible and you understand
Metuselah was the oldest man
He lived nine hundred and ninety nine
He died and went to Heav'n, Lord, in a-due time
Metuselah was a witness for my Lord
Metuselah was a witness for my Lord
Metuselah was a witness for my Lord
Metuselah was a witness for my Lord
You read in the Bible and you understand
Samson was the strongest man
Samson went out at-a one time
And he killed about a thousand of the Philistine
Delilah fooled Samson, this-a we know
For the Holy Bible tells us so
She saved off his head just as clean as your hand
And his strength became the same as any natural man
O, Samson was a witness for my Lord
Samson was a witness for my Lord
Samson was a witness for my Lord
Samson was a witness for my Lord
Daniel was a Hebrew child
He went to pray his God a-while
The king at once for Daniel did send
And he put him right down in the lion's den
God sent His angels the lion-a for to keep
And Daniel laid down and went to sleep
Now, Daniel was a witness for my Lord
Samson was a witness for my Lord
Samson was a witness for my Lord
Samson was a witness for my Lord
O, who'll be a witness for my Lord
Who'll be a witness for my Lord
My soul is a witness for my Lord
My soul is a witness for my Lord
After the students sang, they received thunderous applause from the audience. The conductor smiled at the crowd and bowed. The students bowed too. A few moments later, the students got on a bus and started to head home.
"Mr. Yorki! Do you think we did good?" a voice asked the teacher.
"The audience applauded, didn't they? So I think they did!" the choir teacher exclaimed.
"We are going to win this competition! I know we will!" a boy with a black afro exclaimed.
"Calm down, Brook!" someone shouted.
Then, the bus made a sudden turn. "Whoa!" Everyone shouted.
"What are you doing?" Yorki asked the bus driver.
"Sorry Yorki, something is up with the roads," the driver said. "It must be from the rain earlier."
Then, there was a loud honk of a truck horn and the people on the bus saw a truck coming straight for them!
"You idiot! We're on the wrong side of the road!" Yorki shouted. "Get to the other side and fast!"
"I can't! There's something in the middle of it," the driver said.
The driver made a turn and tried to go past the truck, but the other vehicle was going well over the speed limit and forced the bus off the road and it rolled down a hill! The students screamed as it rolled down the slope and it crashed into a rock. A few moments later, some people that had witnessed the accident called 911 and within seconds, ambulances drove to the scene and made an attempt to save the victims. A news crew came to the scene as well to film everything.
That night, the newswoman said this, "The bus rode by the Rumbar High School choir had lost control and crashed down a slope, killing everyone but the choir teacher, Yorki, and one student by the name of Brook Bones. The other students died once the bus hit the rock and their families are devastated. What will become of the Rumbar's best choir is still unknown. We'll have details the next morning."
The next morning, the broadcast was this; "The principal of the Rumbar High School has decided that due to the accident, all choirs will no longer be in action. Mrs. Bones, Brook Bones' mother, had her son transferred to a school with no choir, since she believes that the fact that it was a choir that the accident occurred. And as for Mr. Yorki; he has quit choir and has left the school to embark on other jobs. He states he will never return to music ever again after this incident."
2 Years Later: Mr. Yorki shot up from the nightmare and held his head in his hands. He's been having nightmares like that for a long time, ever since the crash. He got out of bed and got ready to go to work. He walked down the street to his new job that he's had for the last 2 years. He heard a small group of teens in a garage, playing rock music really loudly.
"Will you kids quit that racket!" he shouted at them.
"Step off, man!"
"If you don't like it, then leave!"
"That's not the Yorki we remember!"
The teens used to be band students at the school Yorki used to teach choir at and right now, Yorki didn't want to listen to their music. As a matter a fact, he didn't want to listen to music ever since the crash. After what happened, Yorki didn't like to sing songs, play instruments, or listen to music, and he never wanted to again.
He walked down the road to a local bar where he worked as a bartender. Whenever Yorki worked at the bar, nobody touched the piano inside, mainly because they knew how Yorki was. Yorki worked in the bar until the sun went down, and that's when a lot of people were in the bar. Yorki was pretty busy that night and as quick as the customers were, they were gone almost immediately. This night was different.
Yorki noticed three people were left in the bar. One had short black hair, a red shirt, blue shorts, sandals and a straw hat. Another had a long nose, long curly black hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing yellow pants, a white shirt, red suspenders, and light brown boots. The last one was a tall dark-skinned boy with a black afro, and a scar on his forehead that looked like the omega symbol. He looked familiar but Yorki couldn't place it.
"Hey Brook, there's a piano right there! Play Piano Man!" the long-nosed man exclaimed, pointing at the piano.
"Brook…" Yorki muttered.
The tall one said, "Sure thing! But let's get permission to do that first." The boy called Brook ran over to the counter where Yorki was and asked, "Hey sir, can me and my friends try out the pian-Whoa! Mr. Yorki! Is that you!? Why are you working in a bar?"
"Brook? Is that you? Wait a second, the last time I saw you, you were a freshman in high school, so…wait! You shouldn't be here!" Yorki shouted.
"With my height, people think I'm an adult, and I'm only here because there's a piano here," Brook explained.
"You really shouldn't lie about you age," Yorki sighed.
"Just be glad I'm just here to play piano and not to get drunk, yohohoho!" Brook said.
Yorki shook his head.
"Now, about that piano?" Brook asked.
"Sorry, it's off-limits," Yorki said.
"Off-limits? If it's off0limits, then why have a piano here?" the long-nosed one said.
"It's off-limits as long as I'm here," Yorki said.
"What! Why?" Brook asked.
"I gave up on music and now I don't want to hear any more of it," Yorki stated.
"Come on! That's not the Yorki I knew back when I was at Rumbar High School!" Brook exclaimed. "Besides, you used to love this song,"
Brook stated. The teen ran over to the piano and started to play.
It's nine o'clock on a Saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
There's an old man sitting next to me
Making love to his tonic and gin
He says, "Son can you play me a memory
I'm not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet
And I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes"
Sing us a song you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feeling alright
Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free
And he's quick with a joke or to light up your smoke
But there's someplace that he'd rather be
He says, "Bill, I believe this is killing me"
As a smile ran away from his face
"Well, I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place"
"Come on, Mr. Yorki! You know this song!" Brook exclaimed. Brook's two friends then joined in on the singing.
Now Paul is a real estate novelist
Who never had time for a wife
And he's talking with Davy, who's still in the Navy
And probably will be for life
And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessmen slowly get stoned
Yes they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it's better than drinking alone
Sing us a song you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feeling alright
It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday
And the manager gives me a smile
'Cause he knows that it's me they've been coming to see
To forget about life for a while
And the piano sounds like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say "Man what are you doing here?"
Sing us a song you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feeling alright
"If you want to sing that song so badly, then ask your new choir to play it for your new class to sing," Yorki said.
"That's the problem! There is no choir in my new school!" Brook stated.
"There's…there's no choir in your school?" Yorki said, shocked.
"Yeah! Don't you remember! My mother had me transferred to a school with no choir! But there are a lot of kids there that want to join a choir!"
"And if we can't get a class, we can at least get a choir club," the long-nosed boy said.
"Yeah! Brook told us about his days in the choir and I want to join one," the straw hat boy stated.
"In fact, you could start that club in our school. I'm sure a lot of people would join. Remember back at the Rumbar High School. The choir room was so full, some of us had to stand! Don't you want another shot to teach choir again?" Brook asked.
Yorki looked back at the days when he and his choir students sung songs of all sorts in their classroom. For concerts or just for the heck of it! Yorki smiled at the memory, but the memory of the crash flashed into his head and he cringed.
"Sorry, not interested," he said.
Brook seemed to get a sad expression and he and his friends walked out of the bar.
"Just so you know, we were originally going to win that competition, but the other choir won be default," Brook stated before he was gone.
Yorki watched the teenagers walk glumly down the street and thought about his decision.
"I could never teach a choir again. Not after what happened 2 years ago. Why didn't Brook seem upset about that? I thought he would've burst into tears upon seeing me and remembering that all his friends were dead, but instead, he seemed to remember all of the good times in class," Yorki thought over Brook's offer for as he walked home from work. He went to bed that night and fell asleep, thinking about the offer still. A few moments later, Yorki woke up at a desk.
"How did I get-?" he started to ask himself.
"Mr. Yorki!" Yorki heard a familiar voice shout.
"You fell asleep again! The bell rang 10 minutes ago! We need to rehearse for our competition!" Yorki saw the Brook in his freshman year and without his scar. Yorki saw all his other students were in the room as well.
"Wait a second! You guys are alive?" Yorki asked.
"Of course, Mr. Yorki!" Madaisuki Mizuta shouted. "Now come on, we got to rehearse Witnss!"
"That's a relief! I thought you were all dead, looks like it was just a dre-," Yorki said as the students went around the classroom, getting ready to sing, when they all vanished into dust.
Yorki found himself standing in the middle of his bedroom, not sure how he got there.
"What the hell?" he muttered.
Yorki got back into bed and thought over what he just witnessed in his dream. Was it just a dream? Or a message from above? Yorki didn't believe in messages from above very often, but something was up with that dream he had. He fell asleep, and every time he slept, it was a dream about his old chorus class, not involving the crash, but involving the music. He decided to do something about it the next morning.
Well, this is the first chapter for my One Piece story. All the characters are in high school, except for a few people, like Yorki, who are teachers. The high scholars are in between the ages of 15 to 18, and there are no Devil Fruits in this.
Oda-san owns One Piece
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