[oneshot] Chasing Dreams
Title: Chasing Dreams
Author: Luna (dreamweavernyx )
Pairing: Takaki x OC
Genre: Fluff
Summary: AU. She is all that he has never expected, and so much more.
Notes: For Saki (shiroikazex ).
~
The poster certainly stood out on the noticeboard, stark bright yellow and blue against the drab white notices.
Battle of the Bands, it read in catchy bold lettering, First Prize: An all-expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles to participate in the Global Band Summit.
“Ne, Takaki, look at this!”
Pulling his friend by the sleeve, Hikaru went closer to the noticeboard, and jabbed a free finger at the lurid poster.
“It’s a band competition! On a national level!”
“…And so?” Clearly, Takaki did not see the point.
Hikaru frowned, and turned to face Takaki.
“Let’s join! It’s an excellent platform for our band, and if we win we can go to America! Didn’t you always say you wanted to find new places for our band to do gigs?”
Hikaru’s logic was perfect - an extremely rare occurrence - and Takaki found no argument to refute it except I’m terribly busy with my job at the salon, but Hikaru was equally busy at the boutique, so he shut up.
“Let’s ask the rest,” he said instead with a defeated sigh.
~
“Sounds awesome!”
Yabu grinned after Takaki had shared the news, and gulped down a mouthful of beer.
“I’m all for it. Besides, my football team just finished a season, they want a month or so of break before they resume training. Lazy boys.”
Inoo laughed, reaching across the table for the carrot sticks, the only semblance of healthy food present at the table.
“I don’t any upcoming concert tours,” he said mildly, “so I can play keyboard for you if you want. When is it?”
“Audition’s in three weeks.”
Inoo nodded, crunching thoughtfully on the carrot stick, when suddenly a thought struck Yabu.
“But Nakajima-kun has gone overseas to London with his friend, to study at Oxford, remember? We don’t have a drummer now.”
The grin melted off Hikaru’s face faster than butter in a hot pan.
“…Oh. What now? I don’t have any friends who play drums.”
“Arioka-kun?” Inoo asked neutrally, and Takaki made a face.
“He can’t play for nuts. I can ask him to be our manager if you want, but let him within ten feet of your instruments at your own risk.”
“He made my bass explode!”
“Don’t exaggerate, Hikaru,” Yabu laughed, “Arioka-kun only dropped it.”
“Down five floors, to land on the roadside outside my flat!”
Inoo rolled his eyes, and deftly shoved a carrot stick down Hikaru’s throat to prevent any further argument. While Hikaru gagged, Inoo shared his idea.
“I have an old university classmate who plays the drums. If you want, I can ask her.”
“…A girl?”
The protest was shot down with a heated Don’t-be-sexist rant from Yabu, and Inoo sighed, digging out his keitai to send a text message.
~
Inoo arrived at band practice two days later with the promised drummer in tow.
Takaki’s first impression of her was that she was strange. The image of a drummer had conjured in his mind someone who was badass, with perhaps a tattoo somewhere, coloured streaks in her hair and a loud voice. Their new drummer was anything but. With sleek long hair dyed a pretty mix between auburn and chocolate-brown, and large sparkling eyes, she looked like she belonged in a shoujo manga or perhaps working the cashier at a konbini, not rocking it out behind a set of drums.
Her voice was like a faint whisper of autumn wind pushing a single dried leaf across the pavement, and added with the bangs hanging over her face and partially obscuring one eye, it made her look extremely withdrawn.
“Everyone,” Inoo said, hand on the girl’s shoulder encouragingly, “I’d like you to meet Inoue Sayaka, our new drummer.”
~
Sayaka may have been all that Takaki never imagined a drummer - a female drummer, at that - to be, but she was good at what she did. So good, in fact, that she put their previous drummer, Nakajima, to shame.
According to Inoo, she had been in a band during their university days at Meiji, which he used to occasionally play keyboard for. The band separated after graduating from Meiji, but he and Sayaka had remained good friends.
When Inoo had texted her, asking if she would like to drum for his new band, she had immediately agreed. She was very much still jobless, and thus had plenty of free time to practice.
They put her to the test with one song, and after that instantly made a unanimous decision that she was to join them.
After that day, each band practice was spent furiously debating over which 2 songs to play at auditions. Takaki, as the leader of the band, was given veto rights, which he put to good use denying every suggestion by Hikaru to sing songs by Linkin Park or Bon Jovi.
“B-b-but they’re awesome!”
“We suck at English. We’re not singing English songs. Deal with it.”
In the end, they decided to use some of their original songs, and improve upon them before performing at the auditions. Now that they had a female member, Inoo reasoned that they could add some higher harmony for her to sing.
By the time they had finished improving on the 2 chosen songs, one week had passed.
~
“Ohayou, Takaki-kun.”
Sayaka was always the first one in the studio after Takaki, and she always brought two bottles of drink, one for him, one for her. They would sit at the table in Takaki’s garage and drink while discussing the scoop on the latest bands, or the changes in world fashion. Sayaka, Takaki found, was just as interested in fashion as he, and time would fly when they talked and drank.
The rest of the band would only arrive one by one, long after they finished their drinks.
Today, it was soy milk, and the topic to debate upon was the issue of women wearing bikinis in most magazine shoots. Obviously Sayaka was against it, while Takaki didn’t see much wrong with it.
“It’s sexist!” Sayaka protested, even standing up and slamming her hands on the table to prove her point, something rare for a quiet person like her.
Her long straight hair swung down to cover her ears and throw her face half into shadow like a curtain, and her eyes sparkled with outrage.
“Somehow, you look pretty when you’re angry.”
The words slipped out before Takaki could close his mouth and push them back down his throat, and he noticed Sayaka instantly flush red and sink back down into her chair, carefully avoiding his gaze.
When the rest of the band came in, she retreated to her drumset, and stayed there for the whole day.
Takaki sighed to himself as he finished singing their first song, and as the band continued to play the closing instrumental, he let his thoughts wander.
Why exactly had he blurted that out to Sayaka?
It sounded exactly like those lame shoujo manga Inoo liked to read, at the part where the protagonist fell in love.
But he wasn’t falling in love, was he? There was no way he could fall in love with a girl he had only known for one and a half weeks, a girl who he had only been talking to for five days, and purely about fashion. This was a girl he knew next to nothing about.
There was no way that he could fall in love just like that…right?
~
Sayaka acted normally the next day, as if Takaki’s slip-up had never happened, and he was grateful for that. For the next week and a half, he drowned himself in a flood of work and practice, trying to forget his possible feelings.
One day Hikaru came in with the audition form, and they spent half an hour trying to fill it in.
“…We need a band name,” Yabu said, jabbing a finger at the blank labeled Band Name.
“Let’s call ourselves Hikaru and the Fleas!”
“Takaki’s our leader, idiot,” Inoo grumbled, whacking Hikaru’s head.
“How about The Awesome?”
“…Too egoistical. Somebody ban Hikaru from making suggestions, please?”
Sayaka cleared her throat, and waited till all attention was on her before she quietly made her own suggestion.
“What about Yue?”
Takaki blinked.
“Whazzat?” Hikaru asked, not very eloquently.
“It’s Chinese,” she explained, “for music. Which is what we do, correct? Furthermore, the character for Yue in Chinese also means joy or happiness, which is how we feel when we make music.”
Hikaru wrinkled his nose.
“It’s too complicated, though…”
“I like it.”
Takaki blinked, surprised at the words that had just fallen out of his own mouth. Sayaka beamed at him, thanking him for his support, and then proceeded to eyeball Yabu and Inoo until they caved in.
Yue, Yabu scribbled on the form, and that was that.
~
The audition went smoothly, and when they stepped out of the room, the PASS certificate clutched in Yabu’s hand, they were fighting hard not to break out into shrieks of joy.
“We did it, guys,” Hikaru laughed, slinging an arm around Inoo’s shoulders, “we’re in the competition!”
“One step closer to America!” Yabu whooped, and pulled Sayaka into the massive group hug, and she in turn yanked Takaki in. They were a strange mass of arms and legs, laughing and exclaiming and generally being very much of a nuisance in the lobby.
The actual competition was another month away, and they had to choose three new songs to sing. Sorting through their file of original songs, they realized that they only had one more song that was actually half-decent, and it was decided that Yabu and Inoo would write one song and compose for both, while Sayaka volunteered to write another song.
“It’s fun to write songs,” she said mildly, when she showed up two days later with a complete set of lyrics, beating Inoo’s fastest record of five and a half days. “Besides, I had free time. Inoo-chan’s been busy trying to convince his manager that he doesn’t need another truckload of piano scores for his concert in six months’ time.”
Yabu and Hikaru and Takaki peered at the sheet of messy pencil scribbles while Inoo yelled over his phone - “Please, no! I already have 4 huge collections of Mozart, I don’t need another!” - but it was full of metaphors and vague comparisons and in the end Takaki asked Sayaka to explain it to them.
“It’s a song about unrequited love,” she explained, “and love at first sight, and the courage to fall in love.”
For a moment, Takaki thought he detected a faint melancholy note in her voice, but in the next moment it was gone, as she shoved the lyrics to Yabu.
“Have fun composing the melody!” she smiled, “please don’t procrastinate it!”
She brandished her drumstick in Yabu’s face to prove her point, and hid a giggle behind her hand as Yabu went cross-eyed trying to keep track of it.
~
It rained as they finished dinner at a yakiniku restaurant after a long day of constant practice.
“Man,” Hikaru sighed, “I’m glad tomorrow’s Sunday, I can sleep in!”
Inoo smiled as he opened up an insanely flowery umbrella that looked like it had been made out of curtains from an old grandmother’s house.
“Well, I’m off!”
Yabu and Hikaru opened up their red and blue umbrellas, and left in the same direction, both heading for Shinjuku station.
Takaki sneaked a sideways glance at Sayaka, and immediately noticed that she had no umbrella hanging off her arm, and there was no way an umbrella would fit into the slim tube she stored her drumsticks in.
“Inoue-chan, you don’t have an umbrella?”
“It’s Sayaka,” she corrected mildly, “The rain’s pretty light, so it’s okay. In any case, I like the rain.”
Takaki turned his head to look at the rain again, and decided that it was anything but light. In fact, it was probably closer to buckets rather than a drizzle, and he came to the conclusion that she was lying so as not to inconvenience him.
“I’ll walk you to the bus stop,” he said, shaking out his big white umbrella, “our buses go in the same direction, don’t they?”
She turned her whimsical eyes to him, and smiled as she brushed her bangs behind her ear.
“I don’t want to trouble you.”
“It’s no trouble.”
Truthfully, Takaki had no idea why he had decided to play the chivalrous hero. It seemed that nowadays, his mouth and brain worked in tandem and functioned on their own, especially around Sayaka.
Putting an arm around her waist to keep her under the umbrella, Takaki stepped out into the rainy night.
Can you feel the love tonight? some mocking voice in the back of his mind sang, and Takaki mentally squished it into nothingness.
“It’s such a quiet night tonight,” he heard Sayaka say softly, voice almost drowned in the roar of the falling raindrops.
“Mm.”
They stopped at a crossing at an intersection, and the pedestrian’s light had just turned red. With a sigh, Takaki held the umbrella steady as they waited for the light to turn green, rain splashing off the canopy of his umbrella and onto the pavement around them.
He felt a sudden wait on his shoulder, and turned his head a fraction, only to see Sayaka leaning her head on his shoulder, eyes closed and a small smile on her face.
“Let’s stay like this for a while,” she half-whispered.
“Okay.”
She fell silent, and he could hear the comforting sound of the falling rain, mingling with their intertwined breaths.
The wait for the light to turn green felt strangely long, and he gradually became hypersensitive to every breath she took, as time seemed to slowly crawl by.
Finally, the little red man turned green.
“…Inoue-chan? It’s time to cross the road.”
She let out a sleepy mumble, but didn’t open her eyes.
“Sayaka-chan?” Takaki asked hesitantly, reaching up a hand to slowly pat her head.
Her nose twitched, and she blinked open her eyes to look straight into his.
“Hm?”
“The light’s turned green. I think we’ll need to run if we want to make it across in time.”
“There are no cars on the road,” she said confidently, “we’ll make it across even if the light turns red while we’re halfway there. Besides, we may slip if we run.”
There was nothing Takaki could do except agree, and so they began to make their slow way across the wet road, raindrops splashing musically as they rolled off the umbrella and onto the black road.
Suddenly, in the distance, Takaki saw yellow light.
Headlights.
“Sayaka-chan?”
“Yeah?”
She was looking the other way, footsteps slow as she gazed at the rain, entranced.
“I think we should start running now.”
She turned her head to face him, and as she caught sight of the car her eyes widened comically. With a small squeal, she began a mad sprint, unhooking his arm from her waist to drag him along behind her, while he ended up clutching onto the umbrella with his free hand, feeling very much like Mary Poppins.
They made it to the opposite, barely a second before the sports car whizzed by them, raising a wave of dirty water which they avoided by jumping backwards. The water splashed around their shoes instead, and Takaki suddenly became aware that he was panting, now that the short adrenaline rush had worn off.
Sayaka was giggling as she scooted back under the umbrella, hair dripping a little and cardigan half-soaked.
“That was fun!”
“Fun?!” Takaki’s heart was still going at a hundred miles per hour, and to him the sprint had been anything but fun. “We could have died!”
She patted his hunched-over form gently as he tried to regain his breath.
“What’s life without risk?”
After a while, he had finally gotten his breathing and heart rate back to normal, and they continued their walk to the bus stop.
“…Wait. Since when did you start calling me Sayaka-chan?” she asked suddenly.
“You didn’t respond when I called you Inoue-chan just now. Should I switch back to that?”
She shook her head, small droplets of water flying off with the motion.
“I’d prefer us to be on familiar terms.”
“…And yet, you still call me Takaki-kun,” he said, and he could not help a slight note of dryness in his voice.
Sayaka sighed.
“Calling you Yuya-kun sounds strange, see…”
“What about…I don’t know, a nickname or something?”
She laughed, and bumped his shoulder.
“Hm, we’ll see~”
As they neared the bus stop, they caught sight of a bus already stopped there, preparing to leave.
“…Isn’t that your bus?” Sayaka asked, squinting at the bus number, “you should run if you want to catch it.”
“It’s okay. I’ll just catch the next one, this one comes quite frequently.”
The look she gave him showed that she didn’t really believe him, but she didn’t pursue the matter, remaining silent as they continued to walk slowly towards the shelter of the bus stop.
Several minutes after they had reached the bus stop, Sayaka’s bus came.
“I’ll see you on Monday then?”
“Mm. See you.”
“See you, Yuu-kun.”
With that, she boarded the bus before he could react to his new nickname.
Yuu-kun?
A small grin spread across his face. I like it.
He stood at the bus stop and waved to her until her bus rounded a bend and disappeared. Opening up his umbrella again, he took in a breath and prepared himself for the walk home.
He hoped she hadn’t known, but the bus he had missed was in fact the last one for the night. He could have run and caught it, and saved himself a half-hour walk, but somehow he felt horrible even at the mere thought of running off and leaving her in the rain, so he had chosen not to.
The rain showed no sign of lightening.
Sayaka is like the rain, he thought suddenly, they both have a quiet, understated kind of beauty.
He hummed to himself as he walked home through the rainstorm.
~
Finally, Yabu and Inoo had gotten both songs ready, and practice was in full swing. Everyday, they would gather in Takaki’s garage at around 4 in the afternoon, after work (or 8 in the morning on Saturdays) and would practice continuously until 11 at night, only stopping for an hour for dinner.
Sayaka’s song had been split into a duet, and while the main singer was confirmed to be Takaki, there was some dispute as to who the secondary singer would be.
“I think it should be Sayaka-chan,” Takaki suggested staunchly, “after all, it’s her song.”
But Sayaka declined.
“It’s hard to sing melody properly while I’m playing drums. At least when I sing harmony it’s harder to notice if I screw up.”
“Try? I think the vocal range suits you!”
Sayaka bit her lip, and shook her head so violently that her hair went flying, nearly smacking Hikaru in the face.
“Yabu-kun can sing it. I don’t want to.”
Her facial expression was fierce, and Takaki sighed.
“Yabu, are you okay with it?”
“Anything’s fine~”
Risking one last glance at Sayaka, Takaki saw that she now had her head down, face hidden by her bangs.
“Alright,” he said, “let’s do this.”
~
“Don’t ask Sayaka to take the melody ever again.”
Takaki blinked dumfoundedly at Inoo, after the lanky boy had dragged him out of the garage during dinner break.
“…Why?”
“Sayaka…doesn’t like singing. It took me forever to convince her to take the harmony, and she only took it because nobody would be concentrating on her singing, and nobody would hear her over the melody.”
Takaki groaned, and ran a hand through his hair.
“How come she doesn’t like singing?”
Inoo winced.
“…It’s kind of a long story.”
“We have time.”
Inoo looked around nervously, and cleared his throat.
“If I tell you, can you not tell her that I told you, or even hint that you know about it?”
The look in Inoo’s eyes was one of dead seriousness, and Takaki knew he wasn’t joking.
“Alright.”
With a sigh, Inoo began his story.
“Back when we were still in our first year of university, Sayaka had a boyfriend. None of us in the band we were in really approved of him, but because Sayaka liked him we didn’t say anything, even though we noticed that he wasn’t exactly treating her like how a boyfriend should treat his girlfriend. He was aggressive, and if she did something that he wasn’t pleased with he would yell at her a lot. But Sayaka was in love him, she didn’t complain, so neither did we.”
Takaki made a face at the description, and immediately decided that he did not like Sayaka’s boyfriend.
“Six months into their relationship, she happened to stumble across him making out with another girl in a hidden corner of the campus. She was extremely upset and ran away, but confronted him about it a couple of days later. He said really awful things to her, and let slip that he had been dating her only because she let him copy her homework for the classes they shared, and raised his grades. Back then, you see, Sayaka was extremely shy, and she didn’t have much self-esteem, so if anyone said bad things about her she would believe them all. That guy, he said many things about her that broke her heart, but the worst was when he told her that he hated her voice, and that her singing sounded worse than a duck trying to cough fish bones out of its throat. Sayaka’s always been a little conscious of her voice, so that comment scarred her deeply. Even now, she doesn’t like singing, in case more people criticize her voice like how her ex-boyfriend once did.”
“What a jerk,” Takaki grumbled, and Inoo nodded emphatically in agreement.
Suddenly, a head popped out of the garage.
“Inoo-chan, Yuu-kun, you eating? The food’s getting cold.”
“Coming!” Inoo called to Sayaka for the both of them, and then turned back to Takaki.
“Remember, not one word.”
“Roger.”
They headed back to the garage to find Yabu and Hikaru squabbling over the plate of chicken wings.
~
A week before the competition, Yabu caught a flu.
The band tried to press on, anyway, but gave up after half of Sayaka’s song. Yabu’s voice sounded like Squidward, and it was definitely not the kind of voice that fit the song.
“We’ll need a replacement for sure,” Inoo sighed, vocalizing Takaki’s thoughts.
“Let’s practice the first song first.”
While they played, Takaki sifted through his options for secondary singer. Inoo’s voice, he knew, would not fit in with the song, which left him with Hikaru or Sayaka, and despite Inoo’s warning, he found himself seeing Sayaka as a better choice.
And so, before he could change his mind, he dragged Sayaka out to the back of his house, where the rest of the band wouldn’t hear them.
“Can you please sing the other part?”
She frowned.
“I already said that I’m content doing the harmony. You could let Hikaru-kun sing it.”
“I think it would sound better if you sang it.”
“I can’t sing,” she insisted stubbornly.
“Look, just because that guy told you your singing voice sounds horrible, you’re going to believe him and put yourself down like that?”
Shock flashed across her face, before she concealed it carefully again.
“If you know about that,” she ground out, fists beginning to clench, “you should know that I don’t like to sing. Ever. Never bring that up again.”
Without waiting for a reply, she spun on her heel and headed back for the garage.
~
Hikaru blinked as he stared at Sayaka, furiously pounding away on her drums.
“Wow,” he commented, “she’s really worked up about something.”
Inoo threw a sidelong glance at Takaki, who was studiously avoiding his gaze.
What did you do? he mouthed.
Takaki shrugged.
I have no idea, he mouthed back, burying the lingering sense of guilt deep in his heart.
~
For the rest of the week Sayaka refused to speak even a single word to Takaki, and when she really had to her tone was more frigid then he had ever heard her use.
Thankfully, this dip in teamwork did not affect their music very much, and two days before the competition he was feeling full of confidence as they ended practice.
“Alright, everyone,” he called, clapping his hands, “good work! Get a good rest tomorrow, because the day after that is our big day.”
Everybody nodded, and began unplugging various instruments and pushing amplifiers back into the corner. Sayaka was the first to leave, walking out of the garage with drumsticks in hand, without so much as a glance at Takaki.
Hikaru sighed, and clapped Takaki heartily on the back.
“Tough luck with the girl, bro.”
“Oh, shut up.”
~
The day of the competition dawned bright and clear.
The band arrived early to pack all their instruments and amplifiers into Yabu’s campervan, and they all drove off to the arena where they would be competing.
“We’re third to perform,” Yabu reported, after he came back from registration. “That gives us some time to calm our nerves before going up on stage.”
They headed to the dressing room to change into the outfits they would be wearing, and to fix their hair and put on some light makeup.
“We can do this,” Yabu whispered as they all gathered into a circle, “we’ll show them what we’ve got!”
“Oh!”
Confidence filled Takaki from tip to toe, but it quickly drained away when they stepped up to the wings to be on standby.
The first band to perform was confident, sure of themselves, and incredibly good. The female lead vocalist had a powerful voice, and her backup singers were good.
“It’s alright,” Inoo whispered, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, “we can beat them.”
The second band that went up had a wide range of instruments, including a cello and two violins. The roar that went up from the audience was scarily amazing, and a swarm of butterflies began to flutter around in the pit of Takaki’s stomach.
“Next up!” the announcer cried, “we have a five-member band, Yue!”
That was their cue, and Hikaru had to prod Takaki to get him to walk out of the wings onto the stage.
Behind him, he heard Sayaka set the tempo, and the instrumental for their first song began to play.
Breathe,, he told himself, be calm, be confident, you can do this.
The instrumental reached the point where he had to join in and begin singing, but when he opened his mouth no sound came out.
He could feel confusion practically radiating off his band members, but at that moment fear and anxiety had clogged up his throat and he couldn’t sing a single word.
Suddenly, he heard a quavering scratchy voice sing lyrics that he had sung himself so many times before during practice. The voice made it through the first verse alone, before he had regained enough confidence and wits to sing along at the chorus.
Sayaka.
Sayaka had sung for him.
Questions were whirling in his mind, but he had no choice but to press them down. They would wait until they finished their song and disappeared backstage to wait for the rest of Round 1 to be over.
Finally, the last chords of the keyboard died away, and they exited amid cheers from the crowd. Inoo and Yabu and Hikaru headed straight for the refreshments table, but Takaki held Sayaka back.
“Thanks,” he said sincerely, “for helping me out back there.”
“I couldn’t just let everybody’s efforts fail right there, could I?”
She made to head for the buffet, but Takaki stepped forward.
“Wait, does this mean you’ve forgiven me?”
Her eyes searched his in a long look, and she turned away again.
“I think your voice is beautiful, no matter what anybody says!” he called as she began to walk away.
He saw her pause.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and began to walk towards the food table again.
~
They made it through Round 1.
“I knew we could,” Inoo said proudly, and dragged everybody in for a massive group hug.
“Let’s ace Round 2 as well!”
“Yeah!”
~
Clearly, Inoo was good at making predictions.
Only 3 bands could make it into the final round, and when they heard the announcer bellow out “Yue!” they were suddenly a shrieking flailing mass of arms and legs and hair.
The last song was the duet, and Yabu’s voice had not recovered enough to sing it, which meant that Hikaru would. Unfortunately, Takaki knew that Hikaru had not had enough practice with the song, so he was worried.
“Don’t worry,” Hikaru told him, “I’ll be fine.”
“Alright.”
With those words, they headed up on stage.
Yabu played the starting chords, and soon Sayaka and Inoo and Hikaru joined in with their own instruments. Takaki sang his first verse, voice now clear and void of fear or worry.
As he finished the last line of his part, his gaze flicked to Hikaru, whose part in the duet was soon coming up. But to his utter shock and surprise, Hikaru was not standing anywhere near the microphone, and as the secondary singer’s turn drew near he felt panic flare in his heart.
And then he heard it once again.
Sayaka was singing Hikaru’s part, just like how he had originally envisioned it. He quickly pulled his jaw shut, and as she progressed into the chorus he began to sing again, their voices twining with each other.
Sayaka…looks like you’ve forgiven me, haven’t you?
He sang on, a pool of silver light shining down on him.
~
A guest band went up on stage to perform while the judges deliberated over the results, so the band headed backstage to eat some more.
“Ne, Sayaka-chan…thanks again.”
She turned to him, this time with a tiny smile.
“It’s nothing, Yuu-kun. Hikaru-kun came crying to me yesterday and told me that he couldn’t remember how to sing his part, so I did it for him.”
By now, Takaki was confused.
“But how come you know it so well?”
Biting her lip, her cheeks turned a slight pink.
“I…always sang along, during practice. Just never into a microphone.”
“Well,” Takaki said sincerely, “I’m glad you did.”
She nodded, tucking some hair behind her ear.
“You want to get some food?”
“Sayaka-chan,” he said instead, “does this mean we’re back to normal again?”
Sayaka sighed.
“I realized that I should really let go of what Kenichi told me back then, just like Inoo-chan’s been telling me too…”
“Kenichi?”
“My ex-boyfriend.”
“…Ah.”
“He’s been lecturing me regularly, you know. About how I need to be more confident of myself. Like a broken tape recorder, you know? I’d have to give in eventually.”
Takaki laughed.
“Inoo’s an old man~”
When both of them had stopped giggling, he turned to Sayaka again with a serious face.
“But really. Even if we don’t win, I’ll be satisfied.”
“Why?” Sayaka asked confusedly, “I thought America was your dream!”
“It was,” smiled Takaki, “but perhaps…perhaps I’ve found a new dream to live for now.”
Sayaka rolled her eyes.
“Don’t get your hopes too high, you sentimental idiot.”
“Eh?!”
“You haven’t taken me out on a date yet!”
Winking and grinning, she turned away and walked off to stop Inoo and Hikaru from fighting over a bottle of strawberry cordial. Takaki watched her go, a small smile forming on his face.
A date, hm?
~
“…And the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the Battle of the Bands is…”
Takaki’s hand found Sayaka’s, and she squeezed his fingers comfortingly.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, “we did our best.”
“Give it up for Yue!”
Yabu sucked in a huge breath, and Hikaru let out a huge whoop, glomping Inoo. A beaming Sayaka gently prodded a shaking Takaki to the centre of the stage, where he received a trophy from the announcer.
“We did it!” he yelled happily, and the crowd cheered with him.
Turning to Sayaka, he passed her the shiny trophy.
“It’s all thanks to you that we made it this far,” he answered her questioning look, “it’s only fair that you’re the one to hoist the trophy up into the air.”
She beamed at him and did so, as the rest of the band came up to stand behind the two of them.
“We did it, guys,” Yabu said breathlessly, “we’re going to America!”
It was probably one of the best moments of their lives.
~
Two months later found them sitting Business Class on a flight to Los Angeles.
Looking out the window, Takaki smiled as he stroked the head of Sayaka, fast asleep on his shoulder.
Yes, he thought to himself happily.
I’ve definitely found myself a new dream to live for.