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Secret Identity
by Black Rainbow

Chapter 2

"What are you doing?" Kiminobu asked, staring at Hanamichi. He shook his head. "I mean, what did you to your hair???"

Hanamichi scowled. "Where were you today?" He kept his eyes on his brother as Kiminobu's face faltered. /At least he had the grace to look guilty/, Hanamichi thought.

"I had something to do," Kiminobu answered, looking away. "Was there something wrong with the levels?"

"Hai. The bass just doesn't sound right."

"I'll take a look at it this afternoon," Kiminobu said. He frowned. "What did you do to your hair? You look like a girl."

Hanamichi grinned. "That's the whole point."

"Eh?"

"The /*crush/ manager wanted a new look."

"So you made yourself look like a girl? Hanamichi, you can be so stupid sometimes." Kiminobu rolled his eyes.

"No, no... Taoka wanted a girl up front."

"What?" Kiminobu goggled. "You mean you're going to -" He cut himself short as his brother nodded. He felt faint.

Hanamichi grinned and said, "from this day on, my name is Miyamoto Hana." He decided on the name Miyamoto because he liked Miyamoto Musashi's (the reknowned samurai) book, /Go Rin No Sho/, that he only read because Kiminobu gave it to him when he had to stay at home with a fever in high school.

"What makes you think this would work, anyway?" Kiminobu asked.

"Of course it would work," Hanamichi said as he walked out the bathroom. "I am the tensai, remember?"

"K'so," Hanamichi muttered as he looked at himself in the mirror. Changing his hair so that he would look more like a girl is one thing. Wearing a dress is something else. "Why do they wear uncomfortable clothes, anyway?" he complained to himself. He had been practicing his "new" voice, and walk, for a couple of days. Now it's time to try it out on his band members.

Hanamichi, now Miyamoto Hana, felt sort of jittery as he walked towards Rukawa's house, where the band always practices. For some reason, the quiet raven-haired boy lived alone. The rest of them never asked why; they were just glad they had somewhere to practice without being yelled at to quiet down.

When he reached his destination, he could hear the rest of the band practicing 'White Noise' by themselves. He grinned. "Doesn't sound quite right without me on vocals, does it?" he asked.

The way the room suddenly turned quiet was miraculous. It was like within a second, everyone stopped playing and started staring at Hanamichi. "What?" Hanamichi asked.

"Hanamichi?" Fujima choked out. Mitsui fell back, laughing. Rukawa was still staring.

"I didn't know you're into crossdressing," Mitsui gasped, still laughing. Hanamichi turned red.

"Baka! I did this so that we can get another audition!"

Mitsui turned silent as comprehension dawned. Then he started laughing again."Of all the stupid ideas that you can get!" he said. Hanamichi didn't hesitate to go over and give him a headbutt. Fujima sweatdropped. Mitsui clutched his head and muttered, "if you're going to pretend to be a girl you shouldn't be giving people headbutts."

"Er.. Hanamichi, do you mind explaining your idea?"

"Everyone," Hanamichi said dramatically. "Meet your new lead guitarist, Miyamoto Hana." At Fujima's baffled look, he realized that he needed to explain a bit more than that.

"Well, Taoka said he wanted a band with a girl up front, didn't he?" Hanamichi asked. "So I decided that we need to change our look." When he saw the looks his friends were giving him, he said, "come on! They won't know it's me... I've been going out with my hair in my cap, remember? I doubt Taoka even knows I have long red hair. And we can say that Souled Out broke up because I decided to stay at home to look after 'Tou-chan. Taoka barely looked at us; I bet he won't recognize us." He looked at the rest of them hopefully.

Fujima shook his head. "You really make rash decisions, don't you?"

"How do know you're even going to get another audition with Taoka?" Mitsui asked.

"Oh, 'Nii-chan said that he'd pull some strings. All we need now is a new band name, since Souled Out is supposed to be broken up."

"You mean, we're going to re-audition for Taoka at *crush?"

Hanamichi nodded. "They'll recognize us," Rukawa said skeptically.

"Well, not Hanamichi - I mean, Hana," Mitsui said. He squinted at Hanamichi. "You really look different. But Kaede's right, he'll recognize the three of us."

"That's why all of us have to change our look! I don't think Taoka really remembers us that much, so all we have to do is change our look a bit. I'm thinking of going for a grunge sort of look."

Fujima listened. "You know what, that could actually work."

And that was how, a whole week later, they found themselves back at *crush, nervously waiting for Taoka to show up. When the man did show up, he didn't bat an eye as they picked up their instruments and announced their new band name (Androgynous Zone).

"So what have you got for me?"

'Miyamoto Hana' smiled as he counted in, "one, two, three, FOUR!" He stepped towards the microphone and started to sing 'Hard Knocks.' He saw Taoka smile and quickly glanced at Mitsui. They're going to get this gig for sure.

-TBC-

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