Fan Fiction |
by distant origin
“My friends and I used to come here a lot before I moved to Taiwan,” Vanness replied, as the four of them alighted. “I’m not really sure now, but this place used to have the coolest indie* bands perform every night.” (*indie – independent/no record label)
“Do you know this band?” Ken asked, pointing at the board where the name of that night’s performers was written.
Vanness looked at it, and then shook his head. “Nope,” he said, turning the door handle for them to go inside. “But it’s rock night, plus I haven’t been here in the last 5 years, so maybe they’re pretty famous around these parts already and I just haven’t heard of them.”
“It’s rock night?” Vic echoed, then turned to Ken. “Lucky you’re here then.”
Ken just nodded as they went inside the pub.
Sure enough, as soon as they were inside, they all felt like covering their ears. Not because the music was bad, though. The band’s rendition of Puddle of Mudd’s ‘Blurry’ was actually pretty good. Only, it was so loud that it was a wonder the walls still hadn’t crashed down.
Vanness looked around and found an empty table near the stage. “Let’s sit there,” he pointed and walked towards it.
“Wouldn’t that be harder on our ear drums?” Jerry shouted, following him.
“Nah,” Vanness shook his head. “We’ll get used to it faster if we’re near the source of the music.”
“Besides, they’re good,” Ken noticed and said as he patted his friend at the back and went to sit beside Vanness at the table. Vic and Jerry followed.
“It’s a good thing Dave let us take the night off,” Vanness said loudly so his friends could hear him. He gestured for a waiter to take their order.
“It’s not like we’re scheduled to do anything else anyway,” Vic pointed out.
“Well, yeah, but we’re supposed to start shooting early tomorrow morning,” Jerry told him.
“And Dave wouldn’t want his precious Dana to have to deal with tardiness,” Ken added, frowning.
“Man, you REALLY don’t like her, do you?” Vanness asked, sensing the tension in Ken’s voice.
“What’s there to like anyway?” Ken said, shrugging.
“Why? I think she has a really pretty face,” Vanness told him.
Ken raised an eyebrow at him. “Don’t tell me YOU like her.”
“I don’t,” he replied.
“Neither do I,” Jerry interrupted. “But you gotta admit, she is kinda cute. And she can really direct,” he said. “I mean, I know I said that she was too much of a perfectionist, but then I got to thinking and now I think I see her point.”
“See?” Vanness said, smiling at him. “Good looks, directing skills, speaks Mandarin—“
“Plays the drums,” Vic suddenly said.
The 3 looked at him sharply, and then turned to where he was looking at, or rather, to whom he was looking at, because right on top of the stage, behind the large drum set and the tall guitarists of the band, was a head of familiar bright red hair, unmistakably belonging to their new director, Dana Summers.
“What’s she doing here?” Ken asked, taken aback and more annoyed than ever. Dana was the last person he neither wanted nor expected to see that night, or any other night for that matter.
“Cool, she has a band,” Vanness commented. “And they’re really good,” he said, looking around, noticing that most of the audience were nodding their heads to the music.
“The guy on the lead guitars looks familiar,” Jerry pointed out.
“That’s her boyfriend,” Ken remembered. “The guy who came to the set earlier.”
“Right,” Vic said. “I remember him, too. They sound really good.”
“Yeah,” Jerry agreed.
“What are you guys talking about?” Ken asked, looking at them as if they’d all grown extra limbs. “This is Dana, as in wicked witch of the west?” He couldn’t believe his friends. Had they all forgotten what happened earlier at the observatory?
Vanness rolled his eyes and waved his hand to dismiss it. “Give her a break, maybe she just wasn’t feeling well when she arrived. I mean, she was in a pretty good mood by the time she left, right?”
“Yeah,” Jerry said, looking back up at the stage, where the band had just finished playing their song. Their vocalist/lead guitarist started thanking the people for being there as the other members, including the drummer, looked around the audience.
“What the—,” Dana gasped the moment she saw the F4 sitting at a table. What the hell were they doing there???
Vanness caught her looking and waved his arms in greeting.
Ken tried to pull his arms back, but Vanness just waved him away.
Dana nodded in greeting and smiled. She figured she might as well make friends with the guys, after Jeff told her that they were only probably being difficult because she was also being difficult for them. “Jeff!” she called, and Jeff, who was still talking to the audience, immediately stopped and turned to look at her.
“Yeah?” he said.
“F4 is here,” she told him. “Dedicate the next song to them, okay? I want a truce.”
Jeff nodded. “Will do,” he replied, and turned to the audience again. “Now, our drummer has just told me that we’ve got very special guests tonight, all the way from Taiwan,” he said, immediately finding the F4’s table. He nodded at them in greeting, and then turned to the rest of the audience. “And since they’re the first real celebrities to watch us, this next song’s for them,” he said as he turned to look at Dana.
She smiled, nodded and beat her drumsticks against each other to start their next song, one of their originals, which was conveniently entitled ‘Ceasefire’.