The next day Akira worked hard, very hard. She had to dance every move again. She knew she would do it all wrong if she didn’t practice the moves with the exact piece of music that went with it. So she asked the teacher to put on the music that went with a specific set of moves. Which the teacher wouldn’t mind. As long as she performed. She worked hard, unbelievably hard.  Shinpei was happy with the effort that she was putting into it. She wanted to work, just to fulfil expectations and make the band, the crew and the fans happy. She actually had fun yesterday after she had processed the whole situation. She was thinking about being a permanent and official Takeru imitator. It could bring in some little money. She always liked dancing, she liked any kind of sport too and that’s why she chose basketball in college. At college she was a hard working student, she did everything that was possible to get her grades as high as possible.

At the studio she walked up the manager and announced she was going to call her college and that he had to back up her story. He offered to explain everything himself. She took a phone, that wasn’t hers and called her college, then she passed the horn onto the manager and left him to explain everything he wanted to explain, she didn’t know if he’d lie or not. In the meantime she had called off every basketball competition, she thought it was worth it, even though it hurt her. Her friends weren’t too pleased either, but she told them she would explain when she got back from her little adventure.

“Don’t slack off now!”, the teacher shouted. She averted her thoughts of everything that bothered her and started to concentrate on her moves.

“Good! Very good!”

“Arigatou gozaimasu, sensei.”

“Don’t speak, dance!.”

“Hai, sensei.”

She danced as ordered. After a while the teacher taught her a bunch of new moves and repeated these quite frequently. He gave her little time to study them. She had seen all the dances in two days and worked her off for the upcoming tour. She sweated as no other had done in one day.

“Go on. You need to master them all.”

“Hai.”

“No talking, dancing.”

Shinpei and the others were busy with their instruments. They cleaned them up, tuned them and then they went to another room and played them. Every song was rehearsed in the order of the tour. This would come in handy as they got to start playing even when the announcement to the song wasn’t mentioned yet. Not only the crew, but the band as well needed to memorize the order of events to get it all right. This will make the tour more fluent. There weren’t many problems while playing, except for Chiyu who sometimes just stopped in the middle of a song to take a break. Then the manager would rush to where ever Chiyu would rest, scold him, put him back on the rehearsal stage and stayed put, tapping his feet, until Chiyu was playing again. The others didn’t bother because they knew this would happen, as it happened every time. the manager would come and disappear to check onto the band. Mostly when the music stopped he rushed in to see if it was just a break to drink or if it was Chiyu being lazy again.

Akira stopped dancing and drank a bottle of water. the teacher said she was ready to dance with the others. It was more of a compliment, but rushed to them so she could tell the news. She entered the room where the stage was put and the band was playing.

“Can I practice with you guys?”, she asked when she stood beside the manager. They were startled and stopped playing.

“Do you think you are ready for it?”, asked Chiyu, “It’s just the second day you know? Final rehearsal is tomorrow.”

“I am ready, don’t worry. Go fetch the other dancers. Let’s practice.” They agreed. And the manager cheered it on. The other dancers were fetched by a man named Daichi who was running about with coffee for everyone every time. They told the dancers to stay in the neighbourhood, so that they could climb up the stage when their cue fell. They started the rehearsal and everything went fine. Shinpei was astonished by Akira’s learning ability and realized that he didn’t know much about her. She was in sync with the others and everything and that she accomplished in a small amount of time. Shinpei felt proud actually, seeing her there, it was like seeing a daughter. He immediately shook his head as that was a weird thought. The manager was pleased with what he was seeing on the stage, the dancers, the band and Akira. The thought that Akira was good at suggesting things that pleased him went through his mind. He wished everyone he worked with was like her. They rehearsed the whole thing. There still were some troubles. People being off beat or Akira syncing something wrongly, but nothing too bad. When they had finished, they all went to the showers. The boys and the girls had their own separate showers. Female dancers tried to talk with Akira in the showers about anything trivial.

“You did great.”, said one of them.

“Thank you.”

“You learned so much in a short period of time. You learned in two days what we learned in weeks”, exclaimed another.

“I don’t have to dance as much as you do besides I have too. Takeru-kun is ill.”

“Yes, it’s quite unfortunate.”, said the first.

“I wanted to dance with Takeru though.”, whined a third.

“Ah, me too.”, agreed a forth. And suddenly all were talking about their admiration for Takeru. Akira felt bad because of this. She already knew everything that they were saying and it already had crossed her mind several times. She was just a surrogate after all.

The band was talking about Akira in full excitement while showering. But Shinpei didn’t feel like participating in much this talk. He was elsewhere with his thoughts, thinking about not knowing much about Akira and if it was a good idea to go through with this imitator business. He was thinking about Takeru, who couldn’t share in the fun, about how he was laying in his bed being severely ill, treated by a lovely lady when they were gone. He was worrying about Takeru feeling lonely without the members of the band around him, how he must hate being in bed all day and this would keep up for two weeks. When everyone had showered they started to dress into clean clothes. The band was talking with the male dancers about today’s rehearsal and how well it went. When they went outside the manager was already waiting for them. He appeared to be very happy and offered to take the band to a restaurant.

“Girl, you did an awesome job.”, the manager said. “How did you manage to learn that much in such a short period of time?”

“I was always lucky in my childhood, manager-san. I have everything, you could say. I am a sportswoman and I have brains. Every teacher praised me when it came to my grades. I was an elite on my own. You see, I am used to learning and taking in stuff in a short period of time.”

“It’s admirable.”

“I’ve heard that a lot, but it’s just a nice compliment, no fact.”

“Actually I am curious if you are also lucky to have the vocals with you.”

“I don’t know, manager-san, I’ve never learned how to sing properly.”

“Well, let’s go to friend of mine. He is a teacher in vocals. Maybe you’re even able to do that too.” This got Shinpei angry and he slammed his fists on the table. The bystanders turned their gaze to the table where they sat with the manager, watching curiously to what was happening, but also annoyed by the sudden disturbance. Who’d fight in public? That was just plain rude, certainly in a restaurant where people are having their dinner. They want to eat in peace like any normal human being.

“She doesn’t need to replace Takeru! She’s only here until he gets better!”, he almost shouted. Shinpei left the restaurant and everyone stopped eating, placing their silverware on the table.

“I never intended to replace Takeru.”, said the manager shocked.
“I’ll talk to him.”, Yuji announced.

I actually still have the feeling that I can write things better.
But I am staring at it for so long, that I don't see what's wrong anymore or don't understand why I see something as a fault.
So for now this will do x-x