WAIFU RADIO: Love Live Actually (Part 1)

⏩ ⏩ SONG 1 cont.: Speed No More ⏩ ⏩

Moving away from the cities of London and New York, we now travel to our final destination: the city of Toronto, Canada. Within this city are loud guitar riffs coming from a house within the suburbs. In fact, these riffs are so loud, that the neighbors residing in this place are only a few seconds away from filing noise complaints.

Inside this house is a garage---the source of these crunchy and distorted guitar riffs. You can also hear fast-paced drum beats, and a little bit of some bass guitar. This is the sound of local underground punk rock band Speed, led by the young wildcard Elijah Walters, a.k.a. Liam Speed. He looks exactly like the actor Joe Keery, except with possibly even greasier, giant blonde hair, and dresses in leather jackets and ripped jeans like it's still the mid-1970's.

On lead guitar is Elijah's childhood friend, Matthew Yvonne, a somewhat slender, Indian-looking senior high freshman who's had his back for longer than the both of them could remember. Then you have the bassist and drummer; Nicolas Murphy (the tallest, skinniest, blondest member of the group---while also being the youngest of the band), and Kathy A (a Korean-Canadian rebel girl whose bright pink hair is humongous, that her eyes are almost always covered by it). Last but not least, you also have Elijah's girlfriend; Anna Nishikinomiya, his old childhood friend/crush, who moved to Japan for a year to become the president of a---let's say, uniquely interesting---school council, before moving back to reunite with Elijah and join Speed as a rhythm guitarist.

Sharing a love of old punk rock music, Speed would almost always jam out covers of Ramones, Bad Religion and Descendents songs, every they come together in this garage. (But don't get them started on pop punk!) In fact, Speed also guarantees that their music is so loud, raw and visceral, that they've had nearly a thousand noise complaints for the two or three years they've been together.

But just like Oliver and Alex before him, Elijah's Christmas miracle was about to be one that would change his life forever. It was during this one night within their garage, when Speed spent no more than two hours covering Christmas carols (punk rock style, of course!) and classic Ramones tunes---until their final cover of the day, "Beat on the Brat".

"One, and two, and three! One, two, three!" Elijah yelled onto the microphone during the final guitar riffs. "Alright, that'll do for the night, thank you!" He added, as his bandmates finished their night's jam session, and prepared to pack their instruments. (Additional brief guitar riffs and drum fills could also be heard.)

During their break, Elijah was taking a quick drink from a small bottle of water, when Nicolas approached him with a harrowing suggestion.

"Hey, uhm...Liam?" Nick nervously asked, while holding his crimson red Yamaha RBX-270 bass guitar. "I was wondering if I could get your attention for a quick minute."

"Yeah? Let's hear it..." Elijah opened up his ears, while unplugging the amplifiers at the end of the garage, and his microphone by the wide garage gate.

"So, uhm...it's something that the other guys and I been kinda considering for a while now." Nick nervously says, as he cleans his bass guitar.

"And what's it about?" Elijah calmly asks Nick.

"It's actually really hard to say, uhm..." Nick grew even more nervous. "But I was wondering if we should put Speed to sleep for a while."

Elijah froze in his place. He widened his eyes and stared at Nick over his words. "Sorry?" He then grew confused. "Put Speed...to sleep?"

"Yeah, you know..." Nick continued. "Like a hiatus. Honestly it really sucks we gotta break this out to you, but before you kill me---the other guys were actually thinking about it, too."

"I-I don't get it." Elijah rapidly shook his head.

"It's true..." Matthew added. "Look, brother, as much as I love playing music with you---we got lives to live, man." The other bandmates slightly nodded alongside him.

"내 결승전이 다가온다... (My finals are coming...)" Kathy added, still seated by her drum set. "그리고 우리 가족은 졸업하면 한국으로 돌아갈까도 생각하고 있습니다. 더 이상 친구들과 음악을 가지고 놀 수 없을 것 같아요... (And my family's even considered moving back to Korea once I graduate. I don't think I can play with music with your friends any longer... )"

Elijah sighed in disappointment. "But we've barely hit it big together!" He complained. "We've only played, like, a few concerts around punk rock clubs around the city! And what about our second album?"

"We haven't even started work on that one, yet..." Matthew responded. "Don't even remember if our last one sold all that well."

"You mean the self-titled one?" Nick questioned Matthew, to which he responds "Yeah, that one."

"I'm not really buying into this, guys..." Elijah added, shaking his head even more. "What exactly do you mean by 'lives to live?' I get we have finals coming, and I understand where Kathy's coming from, but I don't know what's stopping you guys from playing music together."

"My grandfather's sick." Matthew angrily defended himself. "Recently got dementia. My family's calling me over to look after him. Not sure how long I'll be there, though, but very likely to be more than a year."

Elijah, shocked by his recent outburst, simply stood still without a word to say.

"I'm moving away from Toronto..." Nick murmured. "Recently applied for McGill...might move away to Montreal with my sister after graduation. So there's that, I guess..."

The band struggled to comprehend this decision in silence. "So a majority of you are moving away?" Elijah sadly asked, while glancing at his bandmates. Without any time to think, they all nod in response.

"Well, except for me, I suppose..." Anna, his girlfriend, became the last of his bandmates to speak up. "Seems like I'm the only one staying with Elijah here in Toronto."

"So, you satisfied?" Matthew angrily asked Elijah. "You got your answer?"

"I'm sorry..." Elijah calmly apologized. "I mean, it was years ago when I knew deep down in my heart that I wanted to keep playing with you guys for the rest of my life. Now, I don't know where I'm gonna go for the next few years without playing with Speed..."

"But Elijah..." Anna kindly asked. "Didn't you also say that you wanted to have one of our concerts in the States someday?"

Elijah widened his eyes again, glancing at Anna. "I actually don't remember that, no..."

"Well, I remember..." Anna added, closing her eyes. "It was that fateful day, you had a night out with us, and you said, and I quote: 'How cool would it be to play a concert in America, yeah?'"

"Damn. Huge oversight..." Elijah thought to himself as he clenched his own chin and held his waist with both hands. "I mean, as long as we're still together---that means we still have time for that, right?" He then kindly asked his bandmates.

As they all agreed to that idea, one by one, Elijah then brought cans of soda for each of the band members, pouring them onto glasses filled with ice as he declared; "Alright then. I guess while we're at it; we'll have at least one concert in the States, and then we're done. How does NYC sound for y'all?"

"Not that bad at all, yeah..." Nick softly agreed, as the bandmates collectively put away their instruments to band together in a circle with a glass of soda in each of their palms. Together, all the other band members nodded, smiled and laughed at the idea, even Elijah himself.

"To NYC..." Elijah raised his glass up in the air, before his bandmates shared cheers with their drinks altogether, alongside some banter and good ol' friendship together.

And so, the band began their final journey together; as they all cleared up their schedules, buying tickets for New York City, and rehearsing their instruments---for the concert of their lives.

But as for Elijah, this was merely just the beginning of the time of his life.