The band members, including Jeremie, Herb, and Sissi, all met the next day in the empty gym. It was lonely; being the first day of summer vacation, but none of them had left yet. Yumi, being the only non-boarder, turned to Odd and asked, “So, did you send the form in?”
“Yup, I sure did,” he replied. “Oh, and guess what? The regional competition takes place in about three weeks. We don’t have much time. Did you get the lyrics done?” The Japanese girl nodded and showed him her draft paper, filled with scribbles and all written in Japanese. “You know I can’t read that,” Odd reminded her. Yumi nodded.
“I know, but wouldn’t we want to impress our judges that we’re not singing just in French?” she asked. “Plus, if I translated this into French, it’d just sound bad.”
Odd shrugged. “Suit yourself. What kind of tune do you have in mind?” Yumi gave him a sample of what the first verse and the chorus sounded like. He re-plucked them onto his guitar. “D major, huh? That’s easy enough. All we have to do is think up supporting lines to go along with it!”
“I’m no good at improv,” Ulrich muttered, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Aelita sympathetically patted him on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “I’m sure Odd will think up something for you.”
“Just one thing,” Yumi said. She held out her paper and pointed to a stanza shorter than all the rest. “Here I just want a vocal and piano duet. Nothing that covers the piano up, okay?”
Odd nodded. “Okay then! I’ll go whip up some basics then let you guys pick out the specifics for yourself.” He set his guitar and rushed out of the gym. The other three not in the band came over.
“What’s this song about, huh? Yumi?” Sissi inquired, leaning forward and raising an eyebrow at her rival. Yumi backed up a bit.
“I just saw a shooting star last night and that’s what inspired me,” Yumi said slowly.
Sissi gave a laugh. “A shooting star? You wrote a song about a shooting star? Hah! Like that’ll get you anywhere.”
“Uh, well…”
“Cool it, Sissi,” Ulrich intervened. “None of us know exactly what the song’s about. It’s in Japanese, and only Yumi and her country would know what she’s talking about.”
“I’ll bet it’s the worst song ever invented,” Sissi muttered, sitting back down in her chair.
“It doesn’t sound all that bad…” Nicholas began, but shrank back when he saw Sissi’s menacing glare.
“Well, I don’t know about you guys,” Jeremie stood up and approached them. “I’ve got a feeling Odd will be taking a really long time. I’m going to my room to work on the program. See you guys later.”
Yumi stared after him and turned to Aelita and Ulrich, confusion written all over her face. “What program?” Aelita gave a soft giggle as Ulrich shook his head slowly.
“We’ll tell you later.”
Quite some time had passed and the others were getting restless before Odd finally returned, out of breath from running. “Sorry I took so long,” he apologized. “I was in the middle of writing it when Kiwi needed to use the bathroom.” He gave each of the band members a piece of paper with crudely written notes scribbled on it.
“Odd, I can barely read this,” Ulrich complained as he sat down at the piano bench, slowly fingering out the guide notes.
“Live with it.” Odd threw his music on the floor and strapped his guitar around his shoulder. Nicholas took his place behind the drum set and began to look the music over. “Shall we begin?”
Music filled the gymnasium. Although it wasn’t good music, one could tell there was some effort put into it. Odd and Nicholas really stood out; Odd knew what he was doing and Nicholas, being the great drummer he was, was completely under control and never missed a beat. Ulrich, on the other hand, was tripping over his fingers. He couldn’t keep up with the tempo, and on top of that couldn’t read what Odd had written.
Yumi’s hands began to tremble as they approached the vocal and piano duet. She shouldn’t be this nervous. Nobody in this room knew what the song was about, but she couldn’t help but feel like they knew exactly what she was saying. She took a deep breath as the part approached.
“A-Anata wa itsumo hito...ri, n-nanika to…” She blanked out. Odd turned to her direction and raised an eyebrow, and she quickly composed herself. She continued singing, trying to ignore what the lyrics meant to her.
The song was over quickly, and without waiting for the sound to stop echoing within the room, Ulrich spoke up. “You’re going to have to help me decipher this, Odd,” he said. “It looks like a two-year-old wrote it.”
Odd shrugged. “It sounded fine to me.”
“I don’t know about you guys,” Yumi began, sitting down in the nearest chair. “It sounded kind of like… it was missing something.”
“Aelita didn’t do anything,” Nicholas pointed at the pink-haired girl. “That’s probably why.”
Aelita shrugged defensively. “I’m not good at improv, either. I wasn’t told what to do and it’s not like I can make up something to go along with something already existing.”
Odd gave a small sigh in frustration. “We’ll work out something later. But for now, we’re going to have to keep practicing. Three weeks may seem like a short time, but in reality, it’s not.” The others stared at him for a bit with confused looks on their faces. He waved them off. “Let’s get going.” They once again began to play, preparing themselves for a long night.
It was about six thirty when they finished rehearsing; all of them exhausted and eardrums almost blasted out because of one reckless Odd moment. They thanked each other and quickly packed up their stuff. Nicholas, Sissi, and Herb were the first ones to leave while the rest of them tidied up the place a little. Yumi plopped onto a nearby chair and leaned back, taking a swig of water. “So, what’s this program Jeremie mentioned earlier?” she asked.
They all stood looking at each other with questioning looks on their faces, when Aelita spoke up. “Oh! Jeremie’s designing a program that will help the battle against XANA easier here on earth,” she explained. “He’s trying to get it finished if or when we leave for Japan.”
“You mean he’s staying here?”
“We should convince him to come with us,” Ulrich suggested. “That way, if XANA decides to attack Jeremie, we’ll be there to protect him, and we won’t regret it later.”
“Good plan,” Odd nodded in agreement.
“Well, I’m going to get heading home now,” Yumi said, standing herself up and stretching. “I like the idea, by the way. Jeremie’s pretty smart.” She waved to them and headed out the doors. “See you tomorrow.”
“Speaking of him, we should go check on Jeremie,” Aelita said. “He’s been up there for hours, and his eyes are probably strained by now.”
“Nah, this is nothing,” Odd waved his hand. “While you were still trapped on Lyoko, he’d spend like an entire weekend working on your materialization program.”
Aelita blushed a little and Ulrich chuckled as they followed Odd out of the gym. They made their way across the courtyards and towards the dorms, where they practically raced up the stairs and burst out of breath into their friend’s room. The only light source in Jeremie’s room was the bright glow of his computer monitor. Aelita flipped on the light which was followed by a little yelp of surprise from Jeremie’s end. “You’ll strain your eyes like that,” she scolded. Jeremie just shook his head and ignored her. The three approached him and watched his screen. “Whatcha up to?”
“What do you think? I’m working on your programs.” He said simply.
“You know, Einstein, you should come with us,” Odd said, leaning forward some more. “If we go to Japan, that is.”
“Yeah, you never know,” Ulrich said. “If XANA decides to attack here and you’re here, you’ve got no one to protect you!”
“…Well that was straightforward.” The little computer nerd saved his progress and stood to stretch. “I’ll see. Money’s kind of a problem. I’m not exactly the richest person and plane tickets to Japan aren’t exactly cheap, you know.”
“That’s your polite way of saying ‘no’,” Odd pointed an accusing finger at him.
Aelita smiled. “I’m sure if we make it past nationals then they’ll provide the tickets for us. I would think that a lot of poorer bands are entering this competition.”
Jeremie just shrugged. “I’ll see. I’d really like to get this program finished, first.”
“How long do you think it’ll take you?” Ulrich asked.
“Hopefully in a couple of weeks,” Jeremie replied, heading towards his door. “At the rate I’m going, I think I’ll be done with at least two of them by Sunday.” He turned the door knob and slipped into the hallway. “I’m going to eat. Coming?”
Author's Chapter Notes:
I really apologize for the crappiness of this chapter >< It's kinda boring, and it's kind of hard trying to write about people performing... But I hope you find that the following chapter is more enjoyable.
Anyway, same disclaimer applies to here as did the first chapter. I don't own Code Lyoko and let's just keep it that way ;P
Oh yeah, one last thing: I REALLY apologize for Sissi's attitude xDD; It kind of slipped my mind while I was writing this that it's post S2 and she should be much nicer. Oops ^^;