How I ended retching my insides up into a marble sink alongside my newfound friends, on my birthday, no less, I'll never understand it - that and how on that same day, I'd unknowingly formed a bond that'd last me a lifetime.

What a clusterfuck.

Let me tell you why I say newfound.

Every legend (no, I'm not flattering myself) has its start, so we'll begin from there, shall we?

My family are from a small Eastern European country called Bulgaria, and we immigrated over to the UK when I was just one year old.

This story began - do I sound like some snob saying that? - when I was 11. I was in Year 7, new to my secondary and going in without a friend to call my own. Any of the goons I hung around with before that, in primary, didn't pass the exam needed to get into the school which I did. Luckily enough, I rooted out a couple guys with the same video game and music interests as me, and soon enough, we cobbled together a band with me as a bassist. It was something I'd picked up only a year earlier, with my parents seeing me as a prodigy for being able to pluck out even the simplest melodies. My 7 year journey through secondary looked bright enough after that.

And that's when my dad was made redundant.

He worked in some chemical related firm, and the site which he was working on was closed down due to an 'insufficient input to output ratio', or some shit like that - about a month or two after I started school. Though it turned out, the company weren't total scum, and everyone working there was promptly offered a job at a different facility around the country. However, my dad, being in some sort of senior position there, was offered a different course of action.

He was offered a new job at an entirely different facility, which would pay him almost twice his current salary -

halfway across the world, in Nagoya, Japan.

My mum took a lot of convincing to do it - not that my father didn't, but the money was too good to pass up. He convinced her with promises of lush Japanese countryside, a house overlooking the many mountains there. Although, of course, that was just a bargaining chip. He and my mother located a quiet town called Toyosato not far from Nagoya to live in, and apparently, 2 hours worth of driving daily just to commute was worth the peace and quiet.

The only problems that remained then was me - and the language barrier, of course. I was completely reluctant to go, having found seemingly the perfect group of friends in record time - of course, every rollercoaster has its drop. My sister, Gabi, was about 7 at the time, so she was indifferent, even excited to go. I argued for weeks, going as far as going on my own little hunger strike - which didn't survive the day, of course. Part of my reluctance to go was founded from the fact that I'd have to learn Japanese. Our year and a half deadline before we migrated was all we had to learn Japanese, and to do that, studying for several hours every day was necessary, for all my family.

In about a month, I'd been worn down, and I'd started studying Japanese. I found it more interesting than I originally thought it to be, and I made quick progress - surpassing my parents quickly, to everyone's surprise. I had told my friends that I'd be moving to Japan about a year later, in the start of year 8. It only took a flash of my incredibly broken Japanese to convince them... I think. We'd be leaving in March the next year to adjust to Japan's school years - Japanese secondary schools were split into two separate school stages, with 3 years in each. I'd be starting in the first of the first, sort of like the Japanese equivalent of Year 7, even though I was in Year 8 at the time - Britons started school at a younger age.

Anyway, the time of moving dawned upon us quicker than we all expected, so we packed up our stuff, sold whatever we couldn't bring, hastily 'perfected' our shitty Japanese and I bade farewell to my short-lived group of mates. I remember being closer to tears than I let on. We flew over, got sorted with our house, and me and my sister were surprised to find that our parents, who were always so opposed to pets had adopted us a small tortoise.

I named him 'Apollo' because... because rockets are cool, I guess.

The house was big, but I chose the smallest room. I liked cosy things like that. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was surprised to see how similar Japanese suburbs were to the UK. That and of course, the fact that they drove on the left as well. It was as if we'd never left.

Soon enough, once our housing & sleep schedules were up to scratch, it was time to start school. Let me tell you, I've never been as nervous as I was on that day. My Japanese was certainly good enough to get by on, but any grammar mistakes, and I'd have been a laughing stock. Although, I overlooked the fact that everyone in my year was new to that school, and were probably as anxious as I was. My biggest shock, however, wasn't the strangely polite and disciplined environment I found myself in, but what I discovered at lunchtime. The food served by the school looked oddly... fresh? It was in no way reminiscent of the soggy, nutritionless shit they served in Britain.

The students' own lunches were a sight to behold also, each lunchbox packed with stuff I'd never even seen before. I felt as if I was an odd one out, and started looking out for somewhere quiet to eat, somewhere where my standard sandwich & apple combo would go unnoticed.

I noticed a small outside area, which held less students. I went out there to eat, and strangely, the serene environment was pleasing, despite the students around me. I read whilst I ate.

About a month later, I felt settled, no more nor less than I did in England - or so I thought. I didn't have any friends, exactly, but I had people in my class who I was friendly with, and that was good enough for me. One Friday, I entered the canteen as usual one day, and that's when I saw a trio of guys sitting in the corner of it. One was particularly short, with combed-over black hair, who was looking over at the other two sitting across from him exasperatedly, as they argued. The happy couple in question consisted of one fairly tall guy with dark brown hair - the same colour as mine, except mine was longer, nearly reaching my neck, making me look 'feminine', as I'd been told by my old friends non-stop - the other was slimmer, and had hair as dark as the first guy, though falling off past his forehead into curtains as the first guy's didn't.

I needed to pass those guys to reach a door leading to the yard outside. Those guys sort of reminded me of my mates in the UK, and I felt a sudden wave of nostalgia come over me. As I approached their table, I started making out more or less what they were arguing about. They both played guitar, and were arguing over who should play 'beesu' in a group they had. Guess I got lucky with how many cognates Japanese has, right?

I realised that this was an opportunity presenting itself straight from heaven.

I walked over, looked the small guy dead in the eyes, and calmly asked: 'Need a bassist?'

...

Or at least that's what I wish happened.

I took a deep breath, started walking over, accidentally kicked the seat to my right, and fell flat on my face.

'Fuck'.

That's all I could get out, in plain English. The table beside the guys' was full of girls, and it was one of their seats I'd accidentally booted. Some looked at me and giggled, some looked at me as if I'd crawled out of the floor,

surrounded in guts and gore and shit like some demon. I ignored them, and turned my attention to the guys, who I was now looking up diagonally at. Curtains looked at me and grinned.

'Spectacular execution, a 10/10 from the jury if you will, and -'

Until the taller guy next to him dug him in the side and extended a hand. I took it meekly.

'You alright?'

'More or less, thanks.'

I got up, and in an act of confidence which I even surprised myself by (I had no dignity left to lose), I sat next to him.

Even Curtains looked surprised.

I looked around, fidgeting, noticing that the previous girls had gone back to their mundane state (some fucking robots they were) and turned to face the guy who'd helped me up.

'I, uhh, heard you needed a bassist?'

The guy's face lit up.

'Why? You interested?'

'I play bass, yeah.'

The short guy looked me dead in the eyes.

'Prove it.'

Before I could respond, he and Curtains shared a devious glance at each other, stood up swiftly and walked out of the canteen. I looked at the one guy left, who looked happily back.

'Follow me', he said, through a warm smile.

So I did.

'I'm Sakamoto Ryoichi. Don't call me that though, call me Ryo.' he said on our way out.

I looked blankly back at him.

'So should I call you Ryo-san, or Ryo-kun?' I asked sheepishly.

He chuckled.

'So you are foreign.'

I stared at him.

'Took you long enough.'. I hoped that had lightened the mood.

'Don't get me wrong, I had my suspicions. You're a shade darker than anyone here, you swore in English when you fell and you were weirdly formal when I helped you up. And now you're asking what to call me? It doesn't take a detective to figure it out.' He seemed confronted whilst saying that, did he not understand sarcasm? 'Just call me Ryo. Nothing else. How about you, then?'

'I'm Jesse Iliev.'

I paused. 'Or Iliev Jesse, here? Call me Jess though... nothing else.', mimicking him.

'Alright Jess. We're taking you to our clubroom. You're gonna show us if you really can play bass for us.'

'Why so high and mighty, when you seemed so desperate for a bassist a minute ago? What if I backed away right now?'. I stopped walking.

He looked taken aback, until I grinned at him and started walking again. 'Just kidding'.

'Are you British?' he asked. 'Only British people joke like that.'

'Yeah, I grew up there.' I replied. 'But my family is originally from Bulgaria. That's why I'm a 'shade darker than anyone here', as you said.'

'Like the yoghurt?' he asked. I'd heard that too much since we arrived.

'Exactly like the yoghurt.'

We'd nearly caught up to the other two, who were muttering about something. We stayed silent until they led me out of the building.

'Where the hell even is this clubroom of yours, anyway?' I asked.

Curtains looked back at me and grinned. 'Just wait and see. I'm Jiro, by the way. Jiro-sama to you, that is.'

He laughed at my confused expression, until their short friend spoke up.

'Don't listen to him, he's a retard. We heard your little conversation before. Just call him Jiro, and me Touji. I know how informal you all are in Britain. Don't do that with anyone else, though.'

'Right...' I responded.

We eventually reached their 'clubhouse', after I'd told them my little story about my circumstances and how I'd come to be here. It was essentially a glorified garden shed, situated next to a staff car park, beside a small

student-run vegetable patch.

'I thought clubs only met after school?' I asked.

Ryo replied. 'They do, but we have special permission. See, we used to practice in school until about a week ago. We got kicked out for being too loud - or after someone kept messing with distortion settings on the amps.'. He glared

at Jiro. 'Anyway, seeing as Jiro's family is kinda loaded, and they send quite a bit of money the school's way, we got relocated to here, as it was barely being used. Some insulation got put in a few years ago, so it's a win - win.

We get to practice here whenever, but the teachers prefer for us to do it at lunch, because when school's over and the clubs are all practicing, teachers can still apparently hear us amidst the quiet. But they're reluctant to disband

us, because of the... 'support' that Jiro's family puts in. So we can practice whenever.'

The short g- sorry, Touji produced a key from his pocket. He unlocked the door and we all stepped inside. I was hit immediately by that smell of wood, you know, when you step inside a castle or a barn or something and you can expect

a cobweb to somehow find itself halfway down your gullet just by the smell of the place. The shed looked bigger on the inside, though there were no cobwebs to be seen. In front of us, two sofas, which I assumed were provided by Jiro faced each other, with a small wooden table in-between them. Behind the sofa to the left were some cupboards and a sink, which looked oddly out of place. This was a garden shed though, I suppose. Behind the sofa to the right were gardening utensils: some shovels, a few trowels, a cupboard which I assumed stored more of the same, and a few bags of compost.

Ryo saw me staring at them. 'This shed is still used by the gardeners, but they only pop in occasionally to collect something. We only got all this space because they didn't need it.'

I resumed my survey of the place. Past the sofas, we faced our makeshift 'stage' (it was in no way higher than the sofas, but there was black tape sectioning it off from the living area) where 2 amps lay, with a drum set behind them.

A microphone and its stand stood in front. A white telecaster hung off the wall, and next to it hung another guitar, though I couldn't figure out the make. It, however, was fully black, even the neck. It contrasted the white guitar next to it nicely. Jiro unhooked the black guitar and passed it to me.

'Be careful. It's mine. You won't be seen again if you so much as let it touch the floor.'

I stared at him. 'I don't play guitar.'

'So what'? he responded. 'It's the same old technique isn't it?'

'Not really.' Touji answered for me, whilst I stood there grasping the neck like an idiot. I'd never got the knack of playing guitar. I'd started off my musical 'career' trying to learn acoustic, but I couldn't get the hang of chords, even after years of trying. So I switched to bass, and at the time, it felt like a match made in heaven.

'So how are you going to prove yourself worthy to us?' Jiro questioned me.

'I have a bass at home. I can bring it in tomorrow, and maybe show you something then. Until then, why don't you all prove yourselves worthy of me?' I raised an eyebrow at Jiro.

'Alright then, smartass.'. Jiro walked over to the makeshift kitchen area and pulled a thick blue folder out of one of the bottom cupboards. He flipped it open to one of the first pages, and showed it to the other two. They nodded,

I handed Jiro his guitar back, and they got into their positions on the stage. It seemed that Ryo was going to sing AND play guitar?! To me, that was alien. I'd tried to play even the simplest bassline and sing at the same time before, and it was as if I was playing two different instruments at the same time. That was another level of talent. Touji, who evidently was their drummer, counted them in and they started playing some generic rock song. What struck me first was that the song was in 3/4, but not once did anyone lose beat. The instrumental and vocal lines weren't particularly demanding, but they meshed together as a band so well, it sounded as if they'd been playing together for several years already. Maybe they had been. Their levels and tuning were perfect, and the two guitarists complemented each other beautifully, Jiro playing a more complicated tune than Ryo, seeing as he was singing as well - he multitasked very well.

It wasn't the most complex piece, but I clapped nevertheless at the end. Only Jiro bowed, and then grabbed the mic out of its stand.

'Was that worthy enough for you?!' he demanded.

'Was that spectacular clapping not?' I quipped, and we all laughed.

We all sat down on the sofas after that. Touji provided me with a score to learn over the weekend for that same song, and I was secretly relieved to see TABS as well as classical notation - I didn't want to seem like an amateur to these guys. It looked simple enough - a simple quaver rhythm with some triplets thrown in to prevent it from getting stale. If this was all I needed to impress those guys, then I was set. We talked after that. About their backgrounds, music, games, movies, and whatever else 12 year olds talk about unsupervised. It turned out we were all into the same stuff, and regarding music, we were all into metal, and that's the direction that we wanted to take our band in. Neat.

Lunchtime ended quicker than I wanted it to, and we went back to lessons. I never realised that Ryo was actually in the same class as I was, only he sat on the opposite side of the class. Although I was grateful for being sat next to a wall, it gave me something to lean on.

So I went home that day, more light hearted than I had been since we'd arrived here in Japan. I remember walking home that day feeling refreshed. I appreciated the clean air, I drank in distant views of mountains and the many farms preceding them.

I practiced almost as soon as I got home. I had a maroon Stingray bass, and I doubt it wasn't my most prized possession at the time. I soon perfected the song, even composed my own 8 bar improvisation in the section where it was needed. I'd find out later that the folder and its contents were the work of an earlier ensemble in our school.

I felt good.

Monday rolled around soon enough, and I brought my bass into school. Luckily I spotted Touji at the gates, and he directed me to the school's music storage room. Apparently, Jiro had also brought me a surprise, a 'welcome gift', in Touji's own words. Maybe that guy wasn't as wild as he seemed.

Sure enough, at lunch, they were sat back in their corner. I saw them and sat next to Touji - now it was 2 facing 2. Almost immediately -after I grabbed my guitar- we headed to our club room, which Jiro had affectionately called our 'shack'.

'You learnt the score I gave you, yeah?' Touji asked.

'Of course.' I replied.

Jiro interjected, before we could talk further. 'Take this.'

He handed me a small package wrapped in brown paper. I looked at him in surprise, before thanking him and opening it. Inside was a wall mounted guitar holder, like the others already had. Except mine was... bright pink? Was this his idea of a practical joke? I'd happily take that, any day of the week. I thanked him eagerly, and his indifferent tone of voice when thanking me told me that I'd managed to foil his 'devious' plan. He'd obviously expected some backlash.

The other two snickered, glad to see their big-headed friend be bested by none other than a newcomer. We mounted it next to the others, borrowing some nails from the gardeners. It was an eyesore, but I looked up at it proudly nevertheless. I was glad to have finally made my mark on this place.

Ryo broke my trance. 'Shall we practice now?'

I agreed hastily - I didn't want to be seen as a slacker.

So we tuned.

And then we played.

And then we played again.

And again.

It felt surreal, for me at least.

I felt every note, felt that little bit of emphasis on every beat by Touji, and as simple as everything was, I felt as if I'd found my calling.

If, of course, you can call a high school band your 'calling'.

And our friendship was secured from that day.

We met up every lunch, without fail. Sometimes after school we would as well, if all of us were free. Although, our after-school practicing sessions were limited to a quick glance at our instruments and fucking about in the 'clubroom' after that. We pushed through homework, holidays and end of year exams together. They taught me how to laugh, to get around in Japan, a lot of kanji, and of course, how to swear in Japanese. Although we were a band, we never got around to performing in front of an audience. Mostly, if we felt like playing, we played renditions of songs from our favourite bands. I introduced them to my favourites, and they did theirs. I even sung once or twice, if it was a western band that we were imitating. Though in those occasions one of the guitarists had to take up bass temporarily, and the complaining was... enough to make me reconsider any time I wanted to cover one of my songs. Although, sometimes Jiro's whining was worth it.

The only thing left to do was name our band, without having one of us decline an offer and have an argument ensue immediately after...

Skip about two years ahead.

No, our band still wasn't named yet. We'd pushed through summer exams and I was looking forward to my birthday - August 1st. I'd been over to the guys' houses a few times, and them to mine, but I was still surprised when Jiro offered to host a sleepover at his to celebrate. How could I decline, when his house was practically carved out of granite? So that's what we did. His parents were on holiday at the time, some sort of getaway, so we had the house to ourselves - my family returned to Bulgaria annually too, during the summer. That event would be coming soon.

Anyway, skip ahead to the 1st of the 8th. I'd been out for dinner with my family, before getting dropped off at Jiro's. He was an only child so we really could have done... whatever we wanted. So we did.

We sat in his room once all of us had arrived.

I sat in front of them all, on the floor - they'd situated themselves on Jiro's bed.

Like some magician, I pulled out a bottle from my bag. No special bottle, a standard 500ml bottle full of what looked like water.

'You said you'd bring alcohol, not water - that's not enough to get one of us even tipsy.' Jiro complained.

I allowed them all to sniff that bottle.

'The fuck's the alcohol content in that?!' Ryo asked, grimacing.

Truth be told, I didn't know. My father, being a chemist and a proud Slav, brewed something called rakija at home - a type of fruit brandy. Every time he'd make some, I'd skim some off the top as for him not to notice, and it had taken me a little over a year just fill that bottle up. I knew it was strong - but not how strong. We tried to drink it by itself, all taking a shot in my name - before clutching at our throats for mercy. It made our heads shake involuntarily, my tongue felt as if it had been dipped in frying oil. It was strangely pleasant going down though - there was that. It felt like a wave of warmth spreading out from my chest to the other parts of my body. It was nice.

We took our common sense to the kitchen, where we mixed it with coke - no-one wished to go through that ordeal again.

It's worth mentioning that all of us had had little to no experience with alcohol by that point.

So we sat around sipping our cocktails until Touji requested we watch a horror movie. None of us let on how scared shitless we were, although, every once in a while, someone would say some random shit blurredly, and we'd sit around laughing, even in the tensest of moments during the movie. It was nice.

After that, we sat on our phones, half-asleep. I was scrolling through news articles, not even reading much, only looking at pictures to entertain myself with. I saw one about a tsunami somewhere in some unfortunate part of the world. My drunken mind could only think, 'that's grim' and I scrolled past.

And then it hit me (pardon the pun).

'FreakWave!' I exclaimed. 'How's that for a name?'

No one answered. I eventually heard a quiet 'what?' from somewhere else. I honestly didn't know who responded.

'Not only does it sound sick, it has a double meaning. In English, at least. One, a freak wave can be used as another word for a tsunami. Two, it sounds like some futuristic genre of music. Three, you could understand 'wave' as some sort of era, and the 'freaks' would be... us and our music, I suppose. Jiro especially.'

'Say that again, see what happens.' Jiro responded, in a voice more fitting of a sleepy toddler.

'That's... not bad, Jess.' Touji assured me.

'How about it, then?' asked Ryo.

I looked at Jiro.

'Sure. I'm not being your poster boy of the 'freaks' though.'

'Never said you had to be. Alright then. We are FreakWave. It's about time we named ourselves.' I said, happily.

We finished the whole bottle and I fell asleep, smiling.

I'd found out later that my dad's home brewed alcohol was at a 75%ish alcohol content, and that it was meant to be heavily watered down before being drunk.

I woke up in the morning with the worst familiar feeling in the world.

My mouth was filling up with saliva and I knew what that meant.

I rushed to the nearest toilet just to find Ryo already gagging into it. I had no choice but to use the finely crafted marble sink, although at that time, there was no time to appreciate Jiro's family's wealth. I won't go into detail into the events of that morning, but just to clarify, all of us ended up vomiting, and after that, we cleaned for several hours straight, until the stench and mess was 'eradicated', in Jiro's own stern words. To be fair to him though, I wouldn't be happy either.

That was one of the best days of my life.

When we all sat down after cleaning, we all made a solemn vow to each other to never drink again. That didn't last long though.

To quote myself, 'what a clusterfuck'.

/

Author's Note:

To anyone reading this, yes, this is a K-ON fanfic, but these first couple chapters will be mainly about my OC's - I don't plan on focusing just on the girls, and to do that, I need to make my characters realistic. I know that the whole 'insert a male OC into the K-ON storyline' trope is a bit overdone, but I and others still enjoy it - so I'm doing this more for myself than anyone else.

Any critical comments would be greatly appreciated, especially about cultural mistakes - I don't want to seem ignorant.

Thanks for reading!