AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am so sorry it has been forever! :( A lot of things happened and it was difficult to find enough time to come back to FanFiction. But alas, here is chapter 4! (Thank you guys so much again for following and reviewing the story! I came back to update for that very reason ;w;) Enjoy~

Ichigo rushed downstairs and out the front door of his house, carrying his suitcase and guitar case in his hands. He had decided in the end that he would rather play his own guitar than an entirely different guitar that he would not be as familiar with on stage.

There's no way I wanna jinx this one...

A mixture of excitement and nervousness caused his heart to beat hard against his chest. He had not been this anxious for something so big in so long. It would surely be one of the luckiest and most amazing opportunities to appear in his life. Though at the same time, it was also scary to think about. Being on an actual stage, performing in front of an actual audience, playing louder than he and his band probably ever had before.

His feet carried him quickly down the sidewalk under a clear grey sky. The air and wind itself were freezing, though there had not been any more snowfall aside from the small piles left from the day before.

Ichigo found himself fidgeting at every crosswalk when he had to wait for the lights to turn green. He tried to breathe in a deep breath, just to remind himself to relax.

"Are you in a band?!" a small voice asked in awe to his left, breaking his long train of thought.

Ichigo blinked and looked down in the direction of this stranger. It was a young boy in a dark blue hoodie with a cap, appearing to be about 9 or 10 years old. His eyes were wide with interest and focused on Ichigo's guitar case.

Glancing at his own guitar, Ichigo looked back at the child and replied, "Um, yeah, I guess I am...We're gonna perform a concert tonight."

The boy immediately looked up at him and grinned, "Cool! Can I see your guitar? I won't hurt anything, I just wanna-"

The boy's mother quickly pulled her son with her to cross to the other side of the street, apologizing as he pouted and dragged along with her.

Ichigo waved them off with a small smile on his face. This had somehow made him feel a little better. At least the part of himself that had been feeling afraid and anxious inside.

As he made his way down the steps to the subway station, he could see Kazuki sitting on one of the benches with his luggage and guitar case leaning next to his leg. There were all sorts of crazy punk stickers decorating that guitar case, from a surfing skeleton with a mohawk, to a green German Shepard in shades, smoking a cigarette. It made it easy to point him out.

"Hey man, you ready to rock?!" Kazuki asked him, putting his cell phone back in his pocket and throwing up a high five.

"Yeah, hopefully," Ichigo replied, giving him a high five and sitting down beside him, putting his stuff on the floor.

"Hopefully? C'mon man! We're gonna bring the house down."

"I mean, I'm still really excited. I'm just worried about making any mistakes up there."

"Well yeah, we're gonna make a few no matter what. It's our first time so that's kinda unavoidable. But we're still gonna rock! And we can learn from whatever we don't get right."

"...Do you think people are gonna like the way we sound?"

"Dude! Stop sweating so much. It's gonna be fine."

Kazuki ruffled Ichigo's orange, spiky hair playfully and patted him on his back, ignoring his annoyed groans.

"Hey guys!" Yoko called, sprinting down the steps with a wave as she took out one of her pink ear phones to hear everyone better over her music. She made her way over to the bench and leaned against the side of it with her bass on her back, brushing a strand of bright red hair out of her eyes.

"Hey Yoko," Kazuki called back, straightening up a bit. "I see the color of the day is crimson: the color of terror...and love."

Yoko snorted at him while shuffling through her playlist. "Yes. That's exactly why I picked it. Check this out! It's one of the newest songs by Love and Monsters!"

Ichigo quickly sat up and grabbed one end of the ear phones, sticking it in his ear. Kazuki leaned over him and got as close as he could to try and hear the song, nearly knocking Ichigo over until Yoko surrendered her end of the ear phones to let him hear it for himself.

A hard, metal sounding guitar came from the tiny speakers, filled with a burst of energetic drumming and catchy intricate bass lines. The voice of Riku, the lead singer, had a dark and dreamy tone to his voice which would have caught the three of them off guard if they hadn't already been looking into the band's music on the internet.

Yoko was always expecting the singer to start screaming at the top of his lungs, but he instead appeared to keep that cool, smooth, almost gothic aura about his singing voice.

"My world has shifted, it is black and white
I'm fighting demons every day and night
The wolves have come to put our fear at bay
The fear of living, just to die some day"

"Can this guy get any more depressed?" Kazuki asked loudly over the music, causing some people around them to give them strange looks.

"I think he's cool!" Yoko exclaimed, taking her ear phones back after having let them listen to the song long enough. "He seems to like writing a lot about mythological creatures. And death.."

"I still don't really get why he chose us to open up for him. Our sound is kind of..." Ichigo started, but was then interrupted by the sound of the intercom informing them that the train was about to be leaving soon.

"Oh crap, does anybody know where Takumi is?" Ichigo asked, looking over his shoulder and trying to spot him in any of the crowds.

"Late," Kazuki replied, trying to call Takumi up on his cell phone.

Yoko looked around as well, gripping her suitcase handle a little more tightly as more people boarded the train.

The woman on the intercom spoke again, announcing that the train would be leaving in 5 minutes.

Unable to get an answer, Kazuki tried calling again. The three of them were starting to worry whether they would even make it to leave in time.

As Kazuki tried calling a third time, Takumi finally came flying down the stairs. He flashed them a big stupid grin but soon caught his foot on one of the steps and fell directly into a group of people in front of him, apologizing profusely to them.

Ichigo shook his head and quickly gathered his things with Kazuki and Yoko, each of them shouting for him to hurry as they scrambled onto the train and found places to sit. It was difficult to find anywhere they could all sit together, as there were quite a few people on board the train.

Ichigo found an empty spot by the window near the back, Kazuki tailing after him and sitting down beside him. Yoko grabbed one of the last seats a couple of rows down from them. Takumi started to make a run to the back but found that there was no room left, so he slowly turned around to stay standing with the others.

"Hold me, Yoko. My weary feet..." Takumi cried.

Yoko made a face at him and put her ear phones back in.

Ichigo leaned back into his seat as the train doors closed and the train began to move, now on its way over to Shibuya. It wouldn't take them longer than half an hour to get there, but they needed to find a place to stay and get themselves situated. They also had to meet with the band and find out what type of set up they would be sharing on the stage.

It was hard not to keep picturing what the show would be like. If people would like the music they played, if they would get booed off the stage, if everything turned out awesome and they had one of the best shows they ever performed. But Ichigo did his best to push away the doubts and remind himself that no matter what happened, this would be fun. It would be an adventure for them.

Kazuki kept Ichigo locked in conversation for the next few minutes. It was long enough for them to lose track of how long they would be sitting there waiting, until the train slowly started to come to a stop. The door opened up and the same friendly voice from before then stated, "Welcome to Shibuya Station."