Silence [Shou Alice Nine] 1

“Hiroto!” Saga growled in the little mans ear, “this was such a stupid idea!”

“This wasn’t my idea!” Hiroto spat, looking angrily over his shoulder at him. “What the hell are we going to do?!”

People were starting to leave as the band desperately searched for a solution to their problem. Since they were all frozen to their spots, their heads getting number and number as the insults kept coming, nothing could be done to stop the outrage of their once loyal fans.

Shou had ruined everything. He knew it. There was nothing he could do, and because of this, he’d ruined the bands reputation and probably their whole careers. Watching the crowds of people head to the exit was like watching everything they had ever hoped or dreamed of drifting away. It was the only thing on his mind; the work they’d put into their work, the passion they’d driven into each song, the good times they’d had together.

He’d ruined it all in one night. Shou bit his lip, holding back tears. He was still on stage, so he couldn’t look vulnerable, but it was so difficult to keep strong when everything was going downhill.

That’s it, Shou thought, I can’t stay here.

He proceeded to walk off stage and get lost, just like the audience were telling him to do.

“Hey!” Came a loud shrill from a microphone. It screeched a little as the speakers went haywire, but this sudden noise made the crowds stop and look back at the stage.

Shou stopped in his tracks and turned back to the stage in front of him. Nao was climbing across his monstrously sized drum kit, literally pushing the floor tom on its side to get to the front. “Alice Nine are going to explain themselves!”

“Nao…” Saga warned, standing in his way as the purple illuminated drummer came charging to the microphone stand Shou had dropped, “What are you doing?!”

“Someone has to do something about this!” he snapped, staring Saga down and pushing past him. Saga was pretty bewildered by that, but put it down to the fury that Nao was probably holding back.

Once he was at the front he put the stand back up and placed the fallen microphone back into the holder. Once he’d put it together he looked over the expectant crowd and suddenly felt a little anxious. Boy, he felt about ten times safer behind his drums.

“We’re sorry for what happened!” Nao excused genuinely, “And we know that miming to our songs is completely unacceptable. You as an audience have the right to be angry!”

Suddenly there was another angry chorus of shouts and cries. After Nao’s comment, they all started to rampage towards the front. Well, at least he’d managed to stop them from leaving, but they weren’t staying to enjoy the rest of the show.

“Stop!” Nao shouted, “I didn’t finish! We did it because Shou is very ill! He can’t talk at all! His voice is completely gone! We chose to perform this way so that there was a gig, rather than cancelling the show altogether!”

After this excuse, the shouting continued. Nao could hear a few ‘yeah right’ kinds of scoffs from below, but along with that he could hear the low mumble of discussion. Maybe a few of them were debating whether he was right or not? But what was he going to do to prove himself right?

“We’re not sure what it is yet, maybe something like a really bad case of tonsillitis or something. But it could be worse. Shou was thoughtful enough to keep going even in these conditions, so I believe that this once, miming and faking the music can be excused for now, right?”

Shou was staring at Nao in amazement. Nao had been furious before, sticking with the belief that Shou had been faking his illness all day. That stubbornness was a trait of his, but Shou had never found it so intimidating and hurtful in his life. Now it seemed that the truth had broken through that headstrong layer and Nao was coming back to his senses.

Thank god, with Nao on my side things might work out…

For the majority, it did. But in the crowd you could tell where certain clouds of fans still weren’t impressed. Shouting could be heard over the rest, and eventually, there was a big rush into the centre of the arena.

It was an argument, and sure enough, it had turned into some kind of fight. Shou stared in horror as the fans seemed to run to the scene like a magnet was pulling them in. Not only had he disappointed them, but also he was causing horrible arguments between the crowds that resulted in violence.

Suddenly, Shou felt someone grab his arm and pull him backstage; dragging him down the stairs so quickly that he literally fell down them to get to the bottom. Once he got the time to wipe his hair away and take a look at who had hold of him, he realised what was going on.

It was a security guard. Did that mean the band was in danger of being hurt by the crowd? Or was it just a stupid precaution? Even if it was the lesser, Shou quickly went back to hanging his head in shame. Wherever he was being taken, as long as it was a quiet place where he could be alone, he didn’t care.

All he wanted was to be away.

---

“Shou…” Came the twelfth message on his answer machine that night, “It’s Hiroto… again… please pick up Shou. It’s not your fault this happened! It’s all my fault. If I didn’t knock your stand over then we would have pulled it off. I know I’ve been saying this over and over but I need to make sure that you’ve got that in your head! If you wont pick up then you can just listen… It’s not your fault!”

He hung up, and a long beeping noise followed it. Shou was getting ready to shower after being sat motionless on his hotel bed for what seemed like hours.

In fact, it might have been. He wasn’t sure when he’d come in or what time it was then. Time didn’t seem to be passing anymore; it just felt like one huge block that wouldn’t move away from one point in his life.

And that was this gig.

Was it the worst thing that had ever happened to him? He’d racked his brain to think of some other time that was much worse, but he had pulled through… and he couldn’t find anything. This was it. The stupidest most destructive action he could have possibly done.

He looked back at the answering machine, flickering with a little green light to indicate that messages were waiting for him. He stared at it for a while, clinging to the towel over his shoulder. They couldn’t possibly have been fine with him. How could Hiroto blame himself? What if something bad happened soon? What if they were branded liars? Manager-san had told him that if these kind of things happened to a band they ended up in the trash. Was that where they were headed?

They probably knew already. They were probably talking to manager-san and discussing what happened, what they were going to do about it, and along with that, what they were going to do about Shou. He felt like a useless piece of junk. No, he was a useless piece of junk.

He was a disgrace to everyone. He couldn’t even make it better without his voice. Damn it, why had it gone so suddenly? What the hell was wrong with him? He’d just woken up and poof! It was gone! Just like magic…

Sudden dread made him freeze up at the bathroom doorway. He couldn’t say a word, and no one knew why… would he ever get his voice back? Ok maybe it was a bit dramatic to think that way, but he’d heard of it happening, and such an impossible occurrence could have a pretty unpredictable outcome right?

Shou switched the shower on. The pounding of water against plastic was thunderous, and in a way, distracted him away from his thoughts for a moment. The steam made by the heat was refreshing, but only satisfied him for a few moments until it became bitter and dirty in his chest.

He took off his clothes, pulling his top over his head and quickly unzipping the jeans he’d put on after changing out of his gig clothes, and stepped out of them. He slowly stepped into the shower and let his bare feet touch the boiling hot water spreading along the floor.

He thought the water would help make him feel different and ‘cleaner,’ but this definitely wasn’t working. The pounding spray on his back started to aggravate him, and his thoughts got more frenzied as time went on. Along with that, he could hear the phone ringing in the distance yet again.

Silently, he started to sob to himself. He covered his face, letting the water fill up in his palms, and quickly pushed the collected water into his face to wash his cheeks of tears. Gradually it stopped him from crying, but it didn’t help the need to release.

“Shou… Shou pick up please… I’m really worried…”

He remembered doing the same thing in high school, and never thought much of it. He didn’t think of himself as someone who needed help, but instead, this was the best way of expressing himself when the need to cry just wouldn’t come.

“Please Shou, answer the phone, I know you can’t talk, but we need to know you’re listening to us. Make some sounds or something, you know, or even do that Microsoft Narrator thing! I don’t care, just answer the phone.”

Before he’d started doing petty things like tugging on his hair so hard that it came out, or gripping his arms or his stomach so hard that he punctured the skin. This time, the feeling of the shower on his back just seem to drive him to do something else.

It wasn’t anything too bad; it was just a way of getting things off his chest. But he felt so pointless after tonight that he felt like he could go as far as he wanted without any reason to stop. His talent was gone, his fans hated him, his band was fading away and he was now completely useless.

“SHOU!” Hiroto shouted down the phone, “I’M COMING TO FIND YOU WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!”

Shou stopped half way through what he was doing and stared blankly round the shower curtain.
OOO shou.... i like him with this hair, he looks similar to sex! Or what I think sex would look like *cough*