TRACK 2
The Boys in the Band - The Libertines
"Ami-chan, Yama-chan, who is he?"
The two girls turned around to see what she pointed. Across the room, the young man returned their gaze with cold eyes.
"That's SHRINE guitarist, they made their debut about six months ago" explained Yama, and then added with a little giggle, "what happened, Hiyori-chan? Your feminine urges just woke up all of a sudden?"
Ami couldn't help laughing at the sight of the face Hiyori did when she understood what Yama was implying.
"…the hell are you talking about, Yama-chan?" her face turned into a very deep shade of red.
"To tell you the truth, Hiyori-chan, you have an amazingly good taste" teased Ami in a playful note.
"I-I don't know what you mean, I just came to buy this record…"
Ami and Yama just couldn't stop smiling.
"But we came to buy Hyde's single"
"Well, yeah, but I do like this group and I'm purchasing this one…"
"'Group'?" both friends found weird Hiyori's choice of words.
"Excuse me! Can you tell me the price of this record?"
"Hey! Hiyori-chan! Come back! We were just teasing you!"
"SHRINE made their debut with that label a few months ago, thought they say the band itself has around four years with the same members; which is surprising because the bassist is really young" Said Yama, over her iced coffee whipped cream. Hiyori was eagerly listening while carefully observing the record she just bought. Her monthly money was dangerously reduced because of her purchase, and she had to still find an excuse to falling short of it at the end of the month, but she regretted nothing. "That's why the last news we had about them were so scandalous".
"What happened?" asked Hiyori, removing the booklet off the plastic container, trying to not get lost between all the new words she had to learn, which Yama managed as an expert.
"The singer dismissed the band, there was even rumors about her retirement, but soon after that she was seen getting out of the office of a different label."
"With another man!" Ami added, when it seemed until that moment that her attention was completely taken by her ice cream cone. Yama snorted.
"That is SO just a rumor, Ami-chan."
Her friend looked at her from behind her glasses with sparkles in her eyes. This kinds of subjects were actually her specialty. "Do you SERIOUSLY think she just woke up a day and went 'I want a change of band', Yama-chan?"
"What do you guys mean?" asked Hiyori, making a true effort to follow the conversation.
"Ami-chan thinks the singer left the band because she wanted to run away with her lover."
"It's not just me, Yama-chan! There's a lot of people who also believes it! Just look at the facts!" trying to overcome the embarrasement that the word "lover" caused her, Hiyori asked again:
"I'm so sorry guys, but I'm having a really hard time knowing exactly who are you talking about…"
Yama took the booklet off of Hiyori's hands and quickly searched through the pages until she found the picture of an astonishing blonde woman with fierce eyes, and showed it back to her. The voice of that woman was exactly what the photograph portrayed: sexy, mature, and somewhat aggressive. She was extremely beautiful.
"Rumor has it that she and your boyfriend…"
"WHAT BOYFRIEND, YAMA-CHAN!?"
"…the guitarist, of course, had an affair years before the band got together"
"Hiyori-chan, the guitarist is really gorgeous, but even so, that girl fled to the arms of another guy", Ami added, with a rascal tone, "supposedly her solo album is about to go out".
Hiyori received the booklet again, flipping over the photos. Her heart skipped a beat when she looked at the portrait of the blue-eyed guy that had been on the verge of getting killed.
Later, laying at her bedroom, Hiyori was taking her time before entering the shower to get down to dinner. The album ended for the third time, and Hiyori pushed play on the worn-down button of an old discman; borrowed from Ami-chan since in Hiyori's bedroom there was no way of playing music, and in her house "that scandalous music" was prone to be completely banished.
The music was strong, powerful, the singer's voice enhanced the top layers, glueing everything together. And, interlocked with it, the guitar crunched and howled thanks to the musician's skills. Hiyori saw him again clearly, his thin eyebrows, haughty nose and his eyes, thoughtful, intense, that seemed to want to swallow her whole and stripping her most hidden memory down…
"WHAT IS GOING ON WITH ME?!" Hiyori thought, with her face on fire, and threw the pillow she was hugging. The pillow bounced at the edge of her bed, exactly where the booklet had been, making it fall to the carpet, where it opened just at the middle. Hiyori got up from the bed and got on her knees besides the open booklet. Turning it around, she picked it up to read what it said.
"SHRINE members are:"
Her eyes flew swiftly over all the names until she found the one she was interested in.
"GUITAR – 夜卜"
"Yato?" she whispered, plopping back on her bed with the booklet opened in his picture. She let her arms drop after a few minutes, exhausted. With her earphones on and melodies filling her ears, the girl looked at the ceiling, thinking. She, Iki Hiyori, a regular schoolgirl, had jumped at the street to save the life of a promising rock star.
She chuckled to herself. Somehow, she finally felt herself enjoying her youth.
A dart hit the bullseye right at the center, sharing the spot with two others. The wrist halted in the midst of throwing another one, the hand wrapped around the dart and fell softly to the forehead.
"I'm such an idiot", said the guy with jet black hair, laying down on his couch. He looked around from his spot searching some distraction for his mind. For some reason, since a week ago he could not stay still. The smell of burnt rubber could be recalled by his uneasy mind, running at miles per hour; he was certain that someday without a notice it will end up combusting inside of his skull, leaving his body inert, liquid brain dripping down his eyes disgustingly…
Jolting like he had a spring attached to his back he crossed the room, that despite the dim lightning he knew as the back of his hand. He opened the door at the very back and threw himself on his bed, taking his guitar in that same movement. Chords. Scales. Sketches of melodies that may or may not become something useful. He looked around to find a piece of paper and between scribbles and blurred patches he wrote quickly a new melody. He kept playing, changed it, strikethrough it and wrote another one. His mind had no way of stopping and the ideas struggled to come out, to be played.
Magenta.
He threw his guitar to the bottom of his bed and plopped over his pillow with a grunt. He felt again the push on his back, the pain on his knees and palms.
"I'm seriously stupid."
He skipped at the nasty sound of the doorbell (didn't he had disconnected it last week?). The hateful sound repeated, and again he was on his feet like he was being pushed with a spring, running across the room before that hellish sound was made again. When he opened the door it made a screech, and he remembered he should have greased the joints a long time ago. Outside, lit by the sunset light, a blond guy appeared, making a smug smile when he noticed the irky face of the blue eyed guy, and pushed the doorbell again, looking him dead in the eye.
"I just fuckin' opened the damn door, Yukine!"
The youngster stepped inside from under his host's arm.
"I'm also glad to see you, asshole"
Yukine turned on the light of the place, ignoring the complaints of his friend. A buzzing white light flickered before illuminating the basement they were in.
In front of the door was a small living room with two leather couches ragged due to overuse. At the center, a coffee table could very well go unnoticed if over it there wasn't piles of instant ramen empty cups, empty beer cans, used paper sheets, notes, scores, different types of paper making a messy collage, that seemed to be on balance thanks to the dirty ashtray right at the top. Beyond the living room, against the bottom wall, a little kitchenette had noticeable signs of omission. The coffee maker was the only thing that seemed on acceptable conditions due its constant use. Everything else had that foggy appearance things get when they have not been used in a long time. A little beyond there was a door leading to a minuscule bathroom, and in front of it, at the very center of the place, a clean and very well kept pool table gave contrast with the rest, and further at the left, on top of a platform, covered by a sheet, the silhouette of a drum set and a mixer waiting for being used. Right at the bottom of that basement was his bedroom, in which there was only enough room for the bed, a little side table and the guitar stand. The natural light was supposed to enter through the window vents, but at that time the sunset light could not do much passing through untidy glass panes. Yukine sighed while looking for a place to sit. The black haired guy had thrown himself again on the couch he was lying.
"When was the last time you cleaned here?"
"Dunno'."
"God damnit, Yato! You can't even move that fat ass of yours to tidy up a bit in case someone comes?"
Yato jolted, "My ass is not fat!"
Yukine smiled when his plan began to work, "it's so fat it makes you unable to move and clean, that's why you stink the whole time!"
"I DON'T STINK!" retorted Yato, standing very still and quickly began picking up beer cans and junk food leftovers from the couch. Yukine seated once it was enough room. It was so easy making him do things. "Your feeding habits are so bad I'm amazed you're not dead already".
Yato huffed, busy picking up garbage.
His basement was at a place in town that the word "nice" wasn't quite fitting. The entrance opened to a hallway that led to a noisy street full of convenience stores tended by foreign people, mixed between filthy bars and pawn shops. The wall in front of the entrance was covered by old announcements glued layer after layer with paste. The stairs leading down in a curve to the door was forcefully whitewashed with layers of cheap white paint, and of course with the course of time and weather changes it was stroked down with black lines of humidity along the railing. Years before, the place was probably a nice residential area, because the doorpost had a delicate and complicated design, and displayed a tin "203" number, painted black without the smallest sign of care. The door also shown important signs of decay; one of those was the screech it made when it was opened, and the dry thump it made due the swelling of the wood after many years of direct rain and sunlight. Yukine thought that place was dangerous and very low profile, but Yato kept saying he didn't needed more. He was a weird guy, and Yukine and the others just let him be; even the fact that he refused to share the spacious house the label had given them to keep them together ("trapped", said Yato, usually, "watched") was something that everyone had simply accepted. After all, Viina was left and they didn't had something that could be called "a band" anymore…
"Say, Yuki, d'you came by yourself or you're being the carrier pigeon of that nasty old man?"
"I'm impressed about the faith you have in your friends", snapped Yukine, faking to be seriously hurt. Yato stood speechless, and the boy continued, "since you haven't been harassing me on my phone, I came to check if you were still alive."
"Hey, it was just a simple scratch on the knee, and my guitar only lost one string, it isn't something to make a big fuss about" said Yato, showing both palms in a soothing gesture. Yukine noticed the rubber gloves he was wearing to give a good scrub to the kitchen.
"You could've died. You were saved by a whisker". Yato answered with a thoughtful "hummm" and kept scrubbing the kitchen counter. "Or should I say she saved you by a whisker?" Yato's hands stopped the circling motion they were doing, as he kept his gaze over the vivid yellow of his gloves. "Had she not been there" Yukine had said, later the day of the accident, "you could not be drinking that gallon of beer by yourself". He was right.
"Well… seems I have an amazingly good luck!"
Yukine scoffed.
"Yeah, right. And I imagine you already went to thank the source of your "good luck" for saving your sorry ass."
Yato turned around and pointed Yukine with the cleaning brush he was using, spilling foam everywhere, "now listen to me, you brat! I want you to go try and find a single specific person in this helluva town having nothing more than a name!"
"It's not as hard as it seems, genious! If she was at that street at that hour, it was not very long since she might have gotten out of school, so her school is somewhere near that place! Just check on the nearby schools around, and if you can remember her uniform, then you have half of the job already done!"
Yato looked at the boy, astonished. This kid was not just a hugely talented bassist, but he also was a lot more clever than he seemed.
"DON'T TELL ME YOU HADN'T EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT THAT, YOU DAMN IDIOT!"
REVIEWS ARE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED! Also, I want to write again, in case you find some grammar error please point it out so I can correct it! thank you so much for reading.