They Might Be K-ON! Chapter 6
Track Six
JACK NEVER CRASHES
[Author's Note - Thank you, kind people of Livejournal, for the support and nice comments! I really couldn't do this without you! In a few chapter, those of you who are fans of anime internet culture and/or the K-ON! English Dub will be in for a treat! I've gotten permission from a rather prominent member of the K-ON! staff to use her as a character! I'll let you guess who this is.
This chapter also contains some strong language and a little sexual suggestiveness. Don't worry! It's not too bad!]
All Yui listened to for the next few days was NO! Wether this was because she enjoyed it so much, or because she was so excited about the tour that she forgot to take her CD player off permanent repeat, was left up to the imagination of her sister. Ui had been growing quieter by the day. Even to Yui, it was no mystery that she was going to be dearly missed.
"Onee-chan?" said Ui, the night before Yui was going to leave for America. "Will I be able to see any of your shows? I know it probably sounds silly."
"That's my baby sister! You're so cute, Ui!" squealed Yui, overcome with emotion. Then, composing herself, "I don't think we're going to do any shows in Japan. It's all going to be America. If you wanted to see any of the shows, you'd need to take a plane."
"I guess that wouldn't be very practical..." sighed Ui. She and Yui sat down on the bed and thought in silence for a few moments.
"It's getting late, isn't it," said Ui. "You'll need to get up early, so you should get lots of rest."
"Oh, Ui!" said Yui suddenly getting up and hugging her sister. "I'm going to miss you!"
"Take lots of pictures and email me whenever you have internet!" said Ui, tears filling her eyes. "I just want you to have fun!"
~~~
Yui got into her sleepwear and got into bed. Though she wasn't feeling tired, she was about to turn out the light when Ui knocked on the door.
"Onee-chan? I have some tea. Maybe it'll help you sleep?"
"Thanks Ui," Yui sighed. Her sister was so considerate.
"Goodnight." Ui whispered. She was about to leave when Yui stopped her.
"Ui?" she said. "Could you put on the last track of NO!? It's about sleeping."
Ui laughed a little. "Sure." she said, putting the CD in the player and skipping to the last track.
See them over there
See them moving down the road
Their arms held out ahead
And their eyes, their eyes are closed
So don't make any noise
Cry out loud or stamp your feet
You'll wake the girls and boys
Who are walking in their sleep
Ui listened to the song for a bit. It was kind of disturbing. Finally, she said, "Onee-chan?"
Yui was fast asleep.
Ui went to her room. Just what kind of band were These Sublime Giants Guys anyway? The album she heard from Yui seemed to be made out of various misguided children's tunes. Is that just what they did? Ui needed to know. She turned on her computer, an ancient Windows desktop, and typed in These Sublime Giants Guys. She got suggestion for "Did you mean They Might Be Giants?" Realising her mistake, Ui corrected her search. By chance, the first track she decided to listen to was Best Of Spin The Dial. It was a long song. Eight minutes and thirty four seconds. She skipped to a couple minutes in and was greeted by...
I'm blind, I'm so blind
I'm a lonely man
And I'm singin' like a blind guy
I'm singing' like I'm blind
And I'm old
I'm so fucking old
I'm blind with long scraggly hair
And I live in a cave
I live in a cave with all my monkey friends
This is an honest reflection of my personal expression
I've got long blonde flowing hair
And I live in a cave with my monkey friends
And I sing like an ape
What the fuck is wrong with me?
"Oh. My. God."
~~~
Yui needed to catch the bus to the airport early in the morning. And while Ui had vowed to get up an hour earlier than her to warn her of the lonely old blind man with long scraggly flowing blonde hair who lives in cave with his monkey friends, Yui had been gone for an hour by the time she did wake up. What she didn't know, is that Yui snuck into her room, gave her a kiss on the forehead and said, "I love you, Onee-chan. I'll see you at the end of the tour."
~~~
"When is our flight boarding?" asked Azusa. She, Mugi, Ritsu, Mio and Sawako had been at the airport for an hour. Azusa had suggested that they wait for her, but a certain airport security guard seemed to be interested in what the five young women were doing. It seemed to him that the the older of the group was probably a teacher of some kind. Naturally, this would make the four younger women part of a terrorist circuit, using their childlike appearances as decoys. He knew all too well that hair clips and screams could be used as deadly weapons in the right hands. In the earliest days of his security career, his dying mother (saved from the disease at the last moment because she said she saw Jesus in the bottle used to collect her urine) had warned him their dangers. He was already well aware of it of course, as he had been imprisoned because of his use of a hair clip to settle a disagreement between him and another man. The events that took place during his jail time are better left unsaid.
"At least an hour from now," replied Sawako. "That should give Yui plenty of time. She's probably already in the airport!"
"Let's hope. Waiting for Yui is like waiting a week before Christmas," said Ritsu "It's actually not too long, but it feels like forever."
"Maybe she forgot something and needed to backtrack." Azusa suggested.
"HI GUYS!" shrieked Yui from twenty feet away. "I MADE IT-OOF!" She tripped over her feet and landed on her face, upsetting the security guard who realised he would now need to deal with five teenage terrorists and rescue the woman among them. He made a B-line for the one who had just fallen over, no doubt some sort of code for "start shooting the hell out of all infidels and people who don't generally agree with our worldview." He was about to politely ask the terrorist to take her and her terrorist friends to some other airport to do terrorist things and leave him and his airport in peace. He was actually a very sensitive man.
"Yui, are you alright?" said a voice from behind him. It was a his trigger. The thought of anyone behind him brought back painful memories. That's why he stood with his back to the wall.
"Mugi-chan! I'm so confused! One minute I'm going through this weird door thing, then they tell me I need to take off my shoes," any talk of disrobing made the security guard squirm. That's why he wore his uniform to bed. "I did, but then they told me I couldn't wear anything metal. I needed to take off my belt and my hair clip! But then they told me I needed to come with them into some room in back!"
"What did you do, Yui?" said the terrorist. A quick glance revealed that she had blonde hair. For some reason.
"I kicked the one closest to me in the leg! And then another one grabbed me from behind!" The security guard was as close as he could get to soiling his pants. Then, someone tapped him on the shoulder. He let it all go.
"Excuse me, sir?" said the woman hostage. "Is their a problem?"
"Oh thank god!" he said. "I thought you were Big Crunchy for a moment." He sidestepped away from her into the nearest bathroom, remembering that Big Crunchy had never actually done anything to him. Damn those terrorists!
"You attacked a security guard?" said Azusa, looking skeptical.
"Yep," said Yui, nodding seriously. "Like this." she kicked into the air to demonstrate. "Then this other guy grabs me from behind and pins me down. Then they frisked me!"
"They seriously frisked you?"
"Uh huh! And the other guy threatened to strip search me. Then this other guy came out and told them to let me go, then he apologised and said that he'd pay for my ticket."
"Cool story, Yui." said Ritsu, not looking very amused.
"You have everything you need, right?" said Azusa. "They didn't take your guitar?"
"Once they were sure it wasn't a machine gun or a bomb." Yui pouted. "POOR GIITA!" Yui had given her guitar the name Giita the first time she brought it in for repairs. This had been over a year since she had purchased it, when she hadn't even known that the strings needed to be changed after a while.
"Airport security is so tight these days." said Sawako. "I suppose it's a good thing, but it sure can be a pain."
"Did any of you have trouble getting your instruments through?" asked Yui.
"Nope." said Ritsu. "But they did take Mio in for a couple minutes. They said she was acting suspicious."
"Really?" said Yui, looking around to see if she could find Mio among the hundreds of people. Mio was standing completely still, staring into space.
"Mio-chan!" squealed Yui, running to her and bumping into several people.
"Ohai, Yui." Mio said, not even looking in her friend's direction.
"Mio, are you as excited as I am? I could barely sleep!" said Yui, jumping up and down to show how excited she was. Mio turned toward her slowly, a vacant look in her eyes. Finally turning her head 45 degrees, she stopped to look at Yui. Then, she let out a low giggle before turning her head back. She then repeated the action, this time saying in monotone, "We're going on tour with a professional rock band." She turned her head back, then creaked it towards Yui again. "heh, heh, heh..."
"Umm, what's wrong with Mio?" asked Yui. "She's acting kind of..."
"Yeah," said Ritsu. "She's been doing that since we got here."
"Is she nervous?"
"Yep."
Something wasn't adding up.
"But didn't you talk to her and make her feel better?" Yui said, looking at the now uncontrollably giggling Mio.
"She got over it." said Ritsu, an exasperated look on her face.
"Maybe she'll feel better once we're in the air!" said Mugi, looking hopefully at a plane coming in for a landing. "She can listen to music and forget about needing to... Oh, wait. That would probably make it worse. Oh well! Maybe she has something to read?"
~~~
"Are we ready for departure?" asked the pilot. His name was Jack Allen Willard Harley and he always got the plane to its destination, no matter how drunk he was.
"Yes, sir," replied the co-pilot. His name was Dick Jones. His job was to try and fail to make sure Jack Allen Willard Harley was sober before each flight. That's really all co-pilots do nowadays. "But there's something you should know."
"What?" replied Jack Allen Willard Harley, his moustache and moderately long grey hair blowing in the wind from the cockpit's fan and his own hot air.
"It's about five of the passengers." replied Dick Jones.
"What about them?!" demanded Jack Allen Willard Harley, getting up from his seat and grabbing Dick Jones by the collar. "Are they anarchists?! Atheists?! Al Quaeda?! The Obama Administration?! THE AA?! I've dealt with all of them at the same time before! I sure as hell can do it again!"
"No sir!" gasped Dick Jones. "You know how we're in Japan?"
"DO YOU EXPECT ME TO-!"
"PLEASE SIR!"
"KEEP TRACK OF-!"
"THEY'RE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS, SIR!"
"High School students?" said Jack Allen Willard Harley, blinking his bloodshot eyes. He sat back down and asked, "How many?"
"Five, sir. All female."
Jack Allen Willard Harley covered his face with his hands, taking in their beerish aroma. He contemplated what Dick Jones had just said. He thought about what his forefathers would do in a situation like this. Finally he turned to Dick Jones and said, "Shit."
~~~
The plane had been in the air for about two hours. The girls had kept themselves busy with iPods, books and the number one way any girl keeps busy with other girls, talking.
"And I said, 'Nodoka?' And she said 'What?' And I said, 'Nodoka?' And she said 'What?' And I said-" "Alright, girls! Who's ready for some music videos?!"
The girls groaned.
"Sensei," said Azusa, who was sitting next to her. "We kind of want to relax and not think about the tour. Maybe this could wait?"
"Nonsense!" sang Sawako. "You need to see the guys you're going to meet, don't you?"
"Yes, but are music videos the best way to do that?" said Mugi. She was sharing a row with Yui and a bewildered looking college prep
Sawako looked at them with a face that could make a German Shepard cry.
"Fine," said Mio. "But how are we going to watch them?"
"Just take this flash drive and plug it into your laptops, then copy the folder labelled tmbgvids to you hard drive." said Sawako, throwing the flash drive across the isle.
Mio caught it and plugged it in. She copied the folder to her desktop and double clicked. She chose the video for The Statue Got Me High because she recognised it from the track listing of Apollo 18, and started watching.
It was surprisingly conventional, save for the astronauts with saxophones and skateboards. The song was good, too. But it seemed to be about looking at a statue which makes your head explode.
While Mio watched, Ritsu gave the flash drive to the others, and they chose videos to watch. Five minutes later...
"That was pretty cool!" said Ritsu. "So, the guy with glasses is Mr. Flansburgh and the guy with the messy hair is Mr. Linnell?"
"Yeah, I think so." said Mio.
"They were sooo cute in that Don't Let's Start video!" sighed Yui, dreamily. "Now I can't wait to meet them!" "I know!" replied Mugi, a similar dreamy voice and expression emanating from her. "That voice, that hair... He's mine!"
"Yui, Mugi," said Mio. "That video is from the eighties."
"So!?" the two of them said with defiant faces.
"So, they're in their fifties now."
"Oooohhhh..." sighed Yui, seeming to comprehend what her friend had just told her. Mugi didn't seem to be listening. "That shot halfway through the video... His crotch was right in front of the camera."
"Shut up, Mugi," said Ritsu. "Anyway, aren't you a lesbian?"
"I think I kind of went bi for him, actually." Mugi said, blushing.
"Oh, god," sighed Azusa. "It would be an interesting experiment to lock Mugi-sempai in a room with him to see what would happen."
"Don't give Sawa-chan any ideas!" shrieked Ritsu, waking up the man sitting in the seat in front of her.
~~~
"WOW! Look at that cloud! it looks like your mom giving your dad a hug, then they have a round of wild, unrestrained- hey! Are you even listening to me?" said Ritsu to Mio. They had been in the air for about four hours now. Mio had been largely unresponsive for since Sawako insisted on overloading them with music videos. She was mostly just staring out her window and listening to her iPod.
"Hey, Mio?" said Ritsu. "Miiiooo...." Ritsu plucked Mio's earbuds from out of her head, causing Mio to look at her with a dazed expression.
"Huh?"
"How long are you gonna stare into space like that?" Ritsu said, dangling the earbuds in front of Mio's face as if to hypnotise her.
"Stop it," snapped Mio, pulling the earbuds from her friend's hand and pushing the pause butting of her iPod.
"Sooo..." said Ritsu, drawing out the word and clicking her tongue for effect . "Whatcha listening to?"
Mio showed her the iPod. Displayed on the screen was the Apollo 18 album cover.
"How many albums have you listened to?" asked Ritsu.
"Three, not including this one and all of the EP's and singles," said Mio. "I went all-out with the first two and listened to Then: The Earlier Years disk one and two, but there was still so much. I must have had my CD player on every day. Oh, think of all the electricity I wasted!"
"God, Mio, don't be so concerned." said Ritsu. "Frankly I'm just surprised you listened to all that music by one artist. You usually need to listen to a bunch of different ones. These guys must be really good for you to do that!"
"No, I wasn't having any fun at all actually." said Mio. "It was like studying for a test. But, I guess that's exactly what it was!"
"Geez, talk about over thinking." said Ritsu, sighing. "You need to stop worrying and have fun!"
"Yeah, I guess..." said Mio. "Hey, weren't you saying something about my mom and-"
"Mio-chan! Rit-chan!" squeaked Yui. "Look! You can see the land! It's got to be America!"
Mio and Ritsu looked out the window, squishing their faces together in an uncomfortable way. The tip of the land of the free was in view. Mio instantly thought about Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner. Then, remembering about the political and economic situation, thought about Simple Minds' version of Rockin' In A Free World.
"Make sure you have all of your things." said Sawako from the row next to Mio and Ritsu. "You don't want to forget anything on the plane!"
Sawako tried to her and Azusa get a seat with a view and a TV. Instead, they got a seat with someone who appeared to be a grammar school teacher. A very old grammar school teacher. His suit was as dusty as his desk probably was, his hair as white as the chalk he most likely used on a daily basis, and his eyes as dark as the blackboard which he almost certainly stood in front of. In an attempt to make the flight more interesting, Sawako slipped her foot in and out of her high heeled shoe in the most alluring manner possible, upsetting the old man sitting next to her, who tried in vain to pay attention to something else. Azusa covered her face with her hands and hoped the elderly fellow wouldn't think that the woman who was slowly moving her foot towards his, was her mother.
"California, here we come!" sang Ritsu, disregarding the normal politeness which the American attendants had come to expect from Japanese passengers. Interestingly, Sawako seemed to have no idea as to where all of the shows were going to be, and if she did, she wasn't acting like it. This of course provoked the obvious question of, "Just how much do you trust these guys anyway?" Sawako always insisted that she trusted them with her girls more than anyone else. Of course, considering how she dressed the girls up in weird costumes, trespassed into their homes, had violent moods wings from a motherly figure to the kind of person your parents warned you about, and of course seemed to have their measurements memorised, this had to be taken with a grain of salt. In fact, until they had found out about the children's records, they were all beginning to get a little uneasy with the whole idea.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," said a slurred voice over the speaker. "We will be arriving in the airport in twenty minutes, so set your watches to 12:53. Please fasten your safety belts and remove all loose objects from your tray and put them in an up...uh, position. Also, since internet using devices can interfere with our instruments, please switch off all cellphones, iPads, or anything else transmitting a signal which could interfere with ours... and stuff. Huh? Shut up, Jones, I know my goddam' job! Good afternoon, and thank you for choosing Oceanic 714. Muwahahahaha!"
Sawako slipped her foot back into her shoe and moved her bag under the seat in front of her. The point of her high heeled shoe came down on the loafer clad foot of the grammar school teacher. True to his humble and quiet nature, he did not cry out. He simply sat up quickly, looking as if he had been bitten on the posterior by a venomous snake. His eyes were nearly popping out of his head.
"So, where were you on Apollo 18?" asked Ritsu.
"I was actually on the last song, if you could call it that." Mio said, looking at her iPod.
"Let me see!" said Ritsu, taking the iPod from Mio's hands and scrolling through the songs. "Wow! How many songs are there?"
"I lost count," said Mio. "It was normal until this one." she pointed to a track entitled Everything Is Catching On Fire. Ritsu inserted the earbuds into her head and pressed play.
Everything is catching
Yes!
Everything is catching on fire
Before she could press pause, another song came up called Fingertips.
Fingertips
Fingertips
Fingertips
Ritsu looked at the CD liner notes Mio had moved from her tray to her lap.
"What's the deal?" she said. "It only mentions Fingertips."
"That's the weird part," Mio said. "Fingertips isn't just one song, it's a series of these songs which break just about every rule of song structure I can think of. They're all really short. In fact, they just seem like they'd be the choruses of full songs! When it first started playing, I though something had gone wrong when I transferred the CD to my iPod, but this is how they're supposed to be."
"These guys seem pretty avant-garde to me," said Ritsu. "I wonder how many drugs they're on?"
"Ritsu!"
"Hey, I'm just saying. Jimi Hedrix was on all these painkillers and stuff, and he made a little sense. But some of this stuff is just plain trippy!"
"Well, maybe they were just going through a phase!" retorted Mio. "Anyway, they can't have had too many weird songs on the album Sawako-sensei gave you. You'd never let me hear the end of it otherwise!"
"Okay, there weren't too many weird ones," said Ritsu, shrugging. "But they had two really depressing ones. Hopeless Bleak Despair was about being followed by hopeless bleak despair for your whole life, then dying and going to Hell while the the despair goes to Heaven! And Older was about how we're all getting older constantly! Ugh! I can't tell if these guys are crazy, depressed, or just constantly high!"
"Ritsu, please!" Mio squeaked. "You're making me more nervous than I should be!"
~~~
"Ladies and people, may I have you attention please?" said the voice of the pilot. "We are making our final de... de... I can't read this... oh! Right, um... We are making our final descent. Please strap in (oh that sounds kinky) please... yeah, do that. Thank you."
"Look at all the buildings!" gasped Yui. "So this is America."
"I hope you remember all the English I taught you." said Mugi. "It's a big city with a lot of people. If someone says something to you, you need to at least be able to tell them you can't have a decent conversation."
"Oh, right!" said Yui. "I am sorry, I can no speak much Eigo - oh wait, that's wrong - English, I sorry very much. How was that, Mugi-chan?"
"Um, great!" lied Mugi. "In fact, you're so good that you probably shouldn't say anything in English to anyone ever while we're here!"
"Huh? But that doesn't make any - oomph!" Yui bounced in her seat as the plane came in for a landing. It seemed the plane was going too fast and far on the runway to be even remotely safe, however the plane finally came to a stop before it could crash into the airport, taking away the lives of hundreds and earning a spot on the front page of Wikipedia, complete with a link to an article written about exactly when, why and how the plane crashed. It would have whole section written on its pilot, Jack Allen Willard Harley, his alcoholism, and why a person like him shouldn't have any business flying a plane.
"AAAWWW YEEEAAAH!" said Jack Allen Willard Harley. "I ALWAYS GET THE PLANE TO IT'S DESTINATION! NO MATTER HOW DRUNK I AM! WHERE THE HELL ARE WE, ANYWAY?!"