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Secret Identity
by Black Rainbow

Chapter 4

Hana, Fujima, Mitsui and Rukawa were on their way to the *crush on Friday, Hana and Mitsui bickering, of course. Kiminobu was absent. Again.

“He’ll be there,” Hana insisted, although he wasn’t really sure.

“He didn’t come when we were practicing,” Mitsui snapped. “Face it, we’re depending on an undependable guy.”

But when they arrived at *crush, Kiminobu was already there, to everyone’s relief. Hana wondered what happened between his brother and Mitsui; they avoided each other the whole time. Taoka (again) reminded them that one set doesn’t mean they could be playing at *crush permanently, and told them to get ready backstage.

“Hana, get one of the girls backstage to help you with your make-up,” Taoka told him. Hana miserably complied. The things I do for my music, he thought. When he got to the dressing room, girls were everywhere – band members, back-up singers, dancers, you name it. Of course there are girls everywhere, he remembered. This is a girl’s dressing room! A girl with long dyed brown hair sat next to him.

“Hi, I’m Sakumi,” she said, smiling at Hana.

“Hana.”

“Are you the new band’s lead guitarist?” Hana nodded. “Cool! I’m in Space Cadets; we’re regulars here,” she said. “I’m the drummer. Hey, Luna!” she shouted to someone behind her. “Come over here!” Luna was a girl with long black hair, pale skin and a giggly smile. “This is Hana, from the new band,” Sakumi introduced.

“Oh! You mean the band with the three hot guys!” Luna gushed.

“Well, they are pretty hot, aren’t they,” Sakumi said appreciatively. “The bass guitarist is cute.”

“No! I think…”

As they argued over which band member is cuter, Hana got annoyed. Does being a girl mean he had to listen to girls drool over his band mates all the time? He groaned. Sakumi and Luna gave him a concerned look.

“Is one of them your boyfriend?” Luna asked.

“What? No, of course not!” He laughed. “The only thing that I care about is my music,” he said. Inside, he was thinking. What if he was stuck at being a girl forever? Does this mean he could never ask a girl out? Or worse… does this mean he would have to date guys?

As he was thinking this thought, Sakumi and Luna gave each other a knowing look, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Whether you’re serious in dating or not, you have to appear available, you know. For the fans,” Sakumi advised.

Luna nodded. “You’re so lucky, Hana… we have to divide our guy fans between the two of us. Since you’re the only girl in your band, and you’re so pretty and all . . . the guys would come running after you.” She sighed. “Ah, to be you…”

Hana could only look at them in horror.

Kiminobu looked into the room and asked, “are you ready, Hana? You’re on after Jellybelly, and they’re playing right now.”

“I’m ready,” Hana said weakly, the image of hentai guys running after him still fresh in his mind. (Hey, he has a weird imagination, okay?) “I just need to go to the bathroom for a while. I’m feeling kind of nauseous.” Now he knew what Mitsui usually felt before a show. At least he doesn’t need to go to the toilet five times minimum . . . after all, he’s the tensai, wasn’t he? He could pretend to be a girl. How hard can it be? And who says he has to worry about male fans, anyway?

He was about to push the toilet door open, when Kiminobu pulled him back. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Going to the toilet. What do you think I’m doing?” Hana snapped. But his brother just held on.

“You know, for such a ‘tensai’, you can be really dumb,” Kiminobu said, pointing at the toilet sign that said, MEN.

“Ooops,” Hana said. A few seconds later, a new lookof horror came over his face. “You mean, I have to use the GIRLS bathroom??” Fujima, who was within earshot, started to laugh. Hana fumed. “Fujima!”

The backstage door opened. “Hana, Fujima, we’re on,” Mitsui said, not even glancing at Kiminobu. Hana thought he saw hurt in his brother’s soft brown eyes, but it happened so quick, he wasn’t sure if it was real or imaginary. He took a deep breath. “Come on,” he said to his friends, following Mitsui.

As he stepped out to the microphone, he calmed himself down. I’m a girl, I’m a girl. The way he looked that night, it was easy enough to believe. The band kicked their set off with ‘White Noise.’

The crowd were soon screaming and hooting after the band, guys and girls included. Hana and Rukawa’s voices harmonized perfectly as they sang the chorus.

White noise all round me,
White noise comin’ close;
White noise gets me up in the AM,
White noise kills the ghost

‘White noise’ was followed by ‘Hard Knocks’ and ‘Illusion Lightning’, with the crowd now yelling frantically. Hana had to admit that “she” was a hit with the guys, as Sakumi and Luna had predicted. He tried to wave it off, telling himself that music is all that matters. I’m a girl. I’m a girl. I’m a girl.

The band ended their set with ‘Fooled You’, a repetitive melody that never fails at driving the crowd crazy. By the time they finished, the crowd were shouting for an encore. They took their bows and promptly left the stage.

Backstage, everyone was congratulating them. Elated, Hana went around the girls dressing room telling everyone that would listen (which comes down to Sakumi and Luna) what a tensai he was. He blushed and turned away when he saw a couple of the girls from Jellybelly sitting and chatting without their tops on.

“We hope you don’t mind,” one of them said. “It just gets so hot in here sometimes. The air-conditioner’s busted.”

Hana just turned away red-faced, telling himself, be cool. I’m a girl. I’m a girl.

Someone knocked on the door. “Is Miyamoto Hana, the leader of Androgynous Zone, in there?” a male voice asked. Hana looked curiously at Sakumi, who just shrugged. She didn’t recognize the voice either. He walked out of the dressing room to find a total stranger waiting for him.

The guy was tall – as tall as Hana, maybe – and had the weirdest, most gravity defying hair that Hana had ever seen. He flashed Hana a smile that Hana thought that could melt even someone as cold as Rukawa.

“Hi! I’m Sendoh Akira. Can I talk to you for a while?”

-TBC-

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