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Secret Identity
by Black Rainbow

Disclaimer: SD characters belong to Takehiko Inoue. Story idea, band name & songs belong to Jahnna N. Malcolm. Other characters and some story changes are mine.

Chapter 9

“Do you mind if I want to watch the photo shoot?”

At Sendoh’s question, Hana looked at his friends. Fujima and Mitsui just shrugged. Rukawa didn’t show any reaction. “I suppose,” he answered slowly. He had never did anything like this before so he wasn’t sure if he’d be nervous.

Sendoh smiled at him, seeming to know what he was thinking. “It’s nothing, really… you’ll get used to it.”

Hana shrugged. “I didn’t say anything. Now, the kitsune may be nervous, but not me…” he grinned. Mitsui rolled his eyes.

“Do’ahou.”

Hana didn’t seem to hear Rukawa as he stared at the posters plastered all over the studio walls. All of the posters featured famous bands and musicians. “They look so professional,” he murmured.

“That’s because they are, idiot,” Mitsui answered. Hana shot him a glare and continued staring at the posters.

“Why did she agree to shoot us?” Fujima wondered. “We’re nobody.” Ayako was one of the most popular photographers in the area. She had photographed bands for music magazines like MOSH! – she once even did a cover for Spin magazine.

“Oh, she owed me a favor,” Sendoh said cheerfully. “And I really think the band is going to be big in the future, so it’s worth it.” Hana’s attention turned from the posters to him, and smiled with gratitude.

As they entered the gigantic room, a guy came to greet them. He was short – compared to the rest of them, who really tall anyway – and had an earring dangling from his left ear. “Hey, Akira!” he called out, smiling. Sendoh smiled back, as he turned to the rest of them. “Hi, I’m Ryota, Ayako’s assistant. Are you Hana?” he asked Hana, grinning widely and shaking his hand. “I heard you were pretty, but I never thought you’d be /this/ pretty - ” His flow of words were interrupted by a paper fan that descended upon his head. “Itai!” He turned to the girl who hit him. “Aya-chan!”

“You were supposed to be working, not flirting with the clients, idiot!” She smiled at them and told them to go the dressing room while she set the equipment.

Hana followed Mitsui, Fujima and Rukawa into a dressing room when Miyagi called her. “Hana – the girls’ dressing room is the other one.”

“Oh, of course!” He laughed. “I knew that, I just wanted to check out to see the guys dressing room is as nice as the girls’, ha ha ha!”

He went to the girls dressing room and had some help with the make-up. Miyagi came in after a while and told him, “your clothes are all laid out over here, okay?”

“Hmm.” Hana nodded, glancing over, and got the shock of his life. The clothes laid out were of the ‘extremely sexy’ type. Even the most non- revealing one made him swallow at the thought of wearing it in front of the rest of his band. “Man, they’re really going to laugh at me,” he moaned and buried his face in his arms. The girl doing his make-up squealed and told him not to ruin the make-up she did for him.

When he came out of his dressing room and went into the guys’, they all turned and stared at him for what seemed like hours. Hana wished he could turn invisible right then. He glared at them. “Laugh at me and I’ll –“

“I swear, Hanamichi, if I didn’t know it was you, I’d make a pass at you.”

“Wh-what?”

Fujima nodded. “I agree with Hisashi. You look – good.”

“Really?” Hana preened.

“You look like a girl.”

“Kitsune!” He advanced toward the raven-haired boy, who was rubbing at the glitter on his face. Fujima stepped in between them.

“Hanami- er, Hana,” he said. “Look, the sooner we get over this, the better, ne? You can beat him up after the photo shoot, okay?”

Hana tensed, but turned away to leave the dressing room. Fujima sighed with relief, wondering what the band would be like without him. Mitsui enjoyed watching Hanamichi and Rukawa fight too much to bother to stop them. “It’s always me, me, me whose life have to be in danger,” he muttered under his breath, not really meaning it.

The photo shoot went on okay. Hana didn’t cause /too/ much trouble, until Ayako decided to do a couple shot of Hana and Rukawa together. “I think a picture of you two together would turn out great,” she said. “You look like total opposites of each other, and I’d like a picture of you in each others arms – I could touch it up a bit to bring out the whole ‘fire and ice’ thing-” Anyone looking at her at the moment would be able to tell how excited she was over the picture, but from Hana’s slowly burning face you would know that he thought very differently.

“No,” he said clearly.

“What?” Ayako asked. “Why not?”

“I’m not going to pose for that picture.”

“Trust me, Hana. This picture would be incredible.”

“No.”

Sendoh looked at Hana in surprise. “Hana.. you know that Ayako knows best, right? She is one of the best photographers ever, and she wouldn’t take a picture that’s anything less than fantastic.”

“I don’t care!” Hana burst out. “I’m not taking that picture.” He went to the dressing room and locked himself up in there. He was sick of everything, especially of pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He thought that he would go insane if it continues.

A knock came on the dressing room door.

“Leave me alone,” he said.

“Hana?” came a soft voice. “It’s me, Fujima.”

“I know it’s you. You don’t have to tell me.” Hana went up and unlocked the door. Fujima came in and sat in front of Hana.

“Look, Hana…” Fujima began, hesitating. “I know all of this must be really hard on you.”

Hana snorted. “That’s an understatement.”

“But,” Fujima continued, “you know that this is going to make us big, right? And isn’t that what we’ve always wanted? Isn’t this-” he waved his hands, indicating the surroundings, “isn’t all of this the reason we played together for all these years? A great gig, fans, publicity… I know it’s not coming the way we imagined it to be, but in the end the result’s the same, right?”

Hana was quiet, listening to Fujima. “I don’t know what to do,” he muttered quietly.

Fujima smiled at him. “I’ll talk to Ayako,” he said. “She will understand. You just fix your make-up, okay?”

Hana nodded as Fujima left him. He stared at himself in the mirror, thinking about everything that had happened lately. As Fujima haven’t closed the door behind him, Hana could hear the older boy talking to Ayako.

“You see, Hana has this thing about the band’s image, and she wanted it to be consistent, you know? She doesn’t want anyone to think that she and Rukawa are going out together or anything like that. Plus, if the picture does not agree with our overall vision of the band, it would seem a bit dishonest, right?”

Hana snorted as he fixed his make-up. He was amazed at how easily Fujima took control of the situation. /I may be the band leader/, he thought, /but Fujima’s the one who really fixes all of the mess I made./ He looked back at his reflection. /Yup, I’m a mess, allright,/ he thought, grimacing at the face in front of him.

He could hear Sendoh and Ayako agreeing with Fujima. “Okay,” Ayako said, obviously disappointed. “Let’s get on with the shoot, then, okay?”

Hana took one last look at his reflection before getting up to continue the photo shoot, taking a deep breath and telling himself, /time for make belief. Again./

-TBC-

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