"We're The Band"
Chapter 20: Tuning and Leveling
Tokyo-3 Metropolitan High School – Day 2 of Classes
Hikari and Rei stood in the empty, and now, clean classroom. Hikari, as the newly elected class representative, and Rei, first up in the alphabetical listing, had drawn cleanup up duty for the first week. Being only the second day of school, the room had started off fairly clean, so the daily cleanup went quickly. In fact, Hikari and Rei were taking a short moment to stare out the windows of their top floor classroom and down at the courtyard below. Of course, the first thing to stand out was Asuka's red hair from where she and Shinji were waiting.
"Have you noticed the little bubble around Shinji and Asuka?" Rei wondered out loud.
Hikari glanced over at the younger Ikari and the totality of the changes of the last couple of months. First, there was the name. Rei had firmly put her foot down that she would no longer be known by the name "that man" had given her. In fact, she lobbied Misato vigorously to have her name changed officially. Though skeptical about the reasoning, Misato had finally acquiesced to keep the family peace. Unknown to Misato, Rei had seriously considered taking 'Katsuragi' as her new name but had shelved it in preference for 'Ikari' for reasons only known to her.
Then, came the hair style changes. Rei's had allowed her hair to grow out over the break, and it, now, came down past her shoulders. It had gone through a variety of styles and colors in the past weeks, and had finally settled on a deep purple similar to Misato's and kept in a French braid. Coupled with the new high school uniforms – jackets, white shirts, oversized red bow ties for girls, and knee length skirts – it was like a totally different girl in appearance had joined their group of friends.
"What do you mean?" queried Hikari as she turned back to the window and tried to see the effect that Rei was pointing out.
"See Shinji sitting on the planter wall around the tree with Asuka standing in front of him striking poses?"
"Yeah . . . "
"See how everyone alters their path as they walk by to keep a respectful, minimum distance from both of them and how no one is really brave enough to pass between Shinji and Asuka?"
Hikari stood and watched the tiny figures of students walking along their paths only to alter their direction as they approached the couple below – just as Rei had observed. Particularly obvious was the fact that many of the girls would openly stare at Shinji but carefully avoid getting between Shinji and Asuka after the previous day's incident.
The previous day had been filled with forms, book distribution, rules, and other mundane tasks associated with starting the school year. Thanks to some "suggestions" from NERV, Hikari, Toji, Asuka, Rei, Shinji, and Kensuke were all together in the same class. However, the bulk of the students now in their class were new, but not unknown, to the close knit group of friends. Sometime in the middle of this, Asuka and Rei had to leave the room as "those designated to go get more meaningless paper from the administration" and during this time, some of the girls decided that they would go and make friends with Shinji.
It seemed that for Rei, Asuka, and Shinji, they're reputations had preceded them, and the stories about Asuka's protectiveness were all thought to be overblown or at least overcome by the idea of talking to the current teen idol. Of course, for these girls, their timing could not have been scripted any better. They had all just arrived in a cluster around Shinji's desk as Asuka walked back into the room. Seeing the startled look on Shinji's face, Asuka had roughly the same reaction a mother bear has when someone gets between her and her cub.
A bellowed German curse filled with anger and indignation filled the tiny room causing the girls to turn and freeze like rabbits facing the snake. Luckily, Hikari intervened before anyone received anything more than a bruise or two. With the furniture righted and the far flung papers recovered and distributed, the classroom returned to something resembling normal in time for the next teacher's arrival. However, Asuka spent most of the remaining time before lunch glaring at her classmates as they tried to make themselves disappear.
Shaking her head to return from her trip into the recent past, Hikari said, "Well, after word of yesterday passed around, everyone believes the stories about Asuka's temper, and with Section 2 conspicuously stationed outside the gate, no one wants to tempt Fate."
"Typhoon Asuka."
"Rei!"
"What?" returned Rei with a look of pure innocence.
"You shouldn't say things like that."
"You're right. It was wasted since she wasn't up here to hear it."
"That's not what I meant!"
"I know, but it's so much fun to get you all riled up," smiled Rei.
"You're as bad as Asuka. I think I'm going to talk to Shinji about how his girlfriend is such a bad influence on his sister."
The conversation between Rei and Hikari continued as they made their way downstairs.
Schoolyard
Shinji was standing rigid before Asuka as she scrutinized his school uniform like a sergeant major on inspection. Her critical eye scanned upward from his polished dress shoes to his freshly pressed, black slacks to his high colored black jacket with brightly polished brass buttons. She frowned slightly when she noticed that the clasp of the collar was undone. As her eyes pulled back, she noticed that while Shinji was still slim, his shoulders had started to broaden filling out his jacket.
"Well, Shinji-kun, you haven't destroyed your school clothes, and you've managed to maintain a respectable image."
Shinji relaxed and gave her a little smile. "You look nice in your new uniform as well."
"Of course I look nice," replied Asuka with mock sarcasm and a winning smile.
Shinji's smile broadened. It wasn't so long ago that Asuka's comment would have been delivered at the end of a fist to punctuate her annoyance.
Asuka stood to greet Hikari and Rei. The four of them stood chatting while waiting for Toji and Kensuke, especially Kensuke. He'd sent some cryptic email that he had thought of a wonderful idea for the band and they needed to talk about it.
Kensuke was chatting on his phone as he and Toji rounded the corner carrying some drinks from the nearby vending machines. Kensuke was obviously talking to Yuki. The rest of the group had privately thought that the relationship wouldn't last now that they were in different schools, but it seemed to be holding up thanks to modern telecommunications. As he closed his phone, Kensuke had a bit of a goofy, far away look that only left his face as Toji punched him in the shoulder bringing him back to reality. Putting on a bit of a sheepish grin, Kensuke apologized to his laughing friends.
"So, Kensuke, what was so important that it couldn't wait until we were all together?" demanded Toji.
Kensuke immediately launched into a long, detailed description of web based services, how various types of media could be served, and how all of this related to general marketing. Everyone's eyes began to glaze over with the exception of Asuka. She had the educational background to get what Kensuke was saying even if she wasn't terribly interested in the technical details. The last straw for her was when Shinji decided to rub his fingers on the back of her hand, and having decided that Kensuke had gotten enough of the techie stuff out of his system, Asuka decided to take control of the situation in, for her, a relatively diplomatic way.
"Kensuke, what's the point of all of this techno-babble?"
Startled out of his monologue, Kensuke glanced around at his friends and noticed the state they were in. Taking a deep breath, he started over.
"I think we should put up a web site for the band and allow people to download our music."
Everyone stared at Kensuke dumfounded. The first to recover was Hikari.
"Why should we give the music away for free?"
"Because, we don't own the rights to the music, so if we sold them, we'd be in violation of a bunch copyrights."
"So, how does this help us again if we're not making money off of the downloads?"
"We can track the number of hits and downloads and gauge our popularity. We may even be able to get a recording contract out of it or by selling anything we write ourselves."
The small group of friends cast speculative looks at Kensuke and each other. The sound of gears grinding could be heard from each of their heads as they all considered the possibilities. Shinji, however, donned a fairly skeptical look and halted the thoughts.
"Ok. Let's go home and think about this. There's no hurry."
Homework Time – Home
As the three teens finished packing up their completed assignments, Asuka noticed that Shinji had been abnormally quiet and a little distant. Rei and Asuka had been exchanging glances about Shinji most of the evening. With her patience at an end, Asuka was beaten to the punch by Rei.
"Shinji, what is bothering you?"
Shaken from his reverie, Shinji looked around more than a little embarrassed.
"Oh, uh, well, the principal asked to see me tomorrow morning before school."
"About what?" demanded Asuka.
"That's the thing. I don't know. I just got the email summons to show up and nothing else. We haven't been at the school long enough to have done anything wrong."
Asuka crossed her arms and let out a little "Hmmph!" as she sat and thought about the summons. Rei just rolled her eyes and went for a drink of water.
Noticing that Asuka was working herself up for something, Shinji reached out and, taking hold of her hand, gently pulled her over to him.
"It's ok. It's only the third day of classes and I can't think of anything that I did wrong."
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Author's Parting Shots: So, with all of life's craziness, I went through multiple iterations of the plot – what I would recycle, when things would happen – you know the drill. I think I've gone through enough iterations to be able to kick things off. I think it's going to be a wild ride.