One More Extra Stage

Chapter Six: Interest, Intention and Intrigue

“You have a band?” I asked, staring at Anthony with curiosity.

More than a week has passed now since my little showdown with him, and a lot has happened through the course of the past week. I got to know the guys a little better, Amy had much more victims to play her jokes on, and as odd as it seems, Mikki is being much more sociable now. Whether it has anything to do with us being friends with the guys or not, I do not know.

Now we’re idly strolling around the campus ground since our vacant period is pretty long anyway. Amy and Rei were with us a while back, but they both left since Amy had another Math test coming up and dragged her tutor along with her, leaving me and Anthony alone to enjoy our time of freedom.

He stared back at me with a large smile on his face. “We don’t look like the band-type, huh?”

I smiled back sheepishly. It is true, after all. Anthony is one of the last persons I’d think of being in something like a band. I expected him to be the kind that sits around at his room, playing video games until dawn, but I guess you can’t really know a person just by looking at him.

“But yeah, we have a band. I recorded our songs here in my cellphone, you could listen to them if you want.” He said as he took out his cellphone and began looking for the songs. “We don’t have any originals of our own yet, but I’m working on one right now.”

“So, what’s the name of your band?” I asked while he kept on rifling through his cellphone’s folders.

“I dunno, we haven’t decided yet.” He replied. “Ah, here they are…” He said, handing me his phone. “They’re just remakes of some DDR songs we chose.”

There’s only three songs here. The first one is some kind of rock song, the second, I recognized as that anime-like song we keep playing at DDR, and the third…

“Oh my god, you have a version of this song?” I exclaimed all of the sudden.

“Which song?” He asked, looking over at the phone screen.

“The third one.”

“Oh, yeah. The others were pretty reluctant on doing that song, but I managed to persuade them in the end.” He said proudly. “If you want, I can give you a copy of it.”

“Please.” I said eagerly as I took out my own cellphone. Anthony then set up a Bluetooth connection between the two phones and began sending the file. “So, who else is in your band?” I asked while waiting for the transfer to be completed.

“Let’s see… Rei is the lead guitarist, I’m the bassist, Teku as our drummer, Miguel as our keyboardist, and we had a friend from high school as our vocalist.” He said slowly, counting them off by his fingers. “The first song’s an exception, though. Rei did the vocals on that and Miguel is playing the lead guitar.”

“I see.” I mumbled, not really taking into his words. I know it’s rude since I’m the one who asked him, but I didn’t expect to hear a fully-detailed explanation. Besides, I’m much more concerned about watching the transfer’s progress anyway.

“You could also jam with us if you feel like it. We don’t mind.” He suddenly added, grinning. It took me a while to react then I stared at him as if he did something both funny and unbelievable.

“Haha, thanks, but I’m not really good with any instruments.” I said, with all honesty. I don’t have enough time and willpower to play an instrument, let alone perform in a band.

“Then you could do the vocals.” Anthony insisted. I just laughed in return. The thought of me singing in front of a large audience is pretty hilarious…