As of late, The GazettE have had a huge boom in popularity. They’ve released singles so close to each other and just finished their tour NAMELESS LIBERTY SIX GUNS. They’re featured on almost every j-music magazine you can think of, from SHOXX bis to Neo Genesis. Keeping all this fame up is really hard you see, and they needed something new to keep their fans interested.
With this said, Kai called together a band meeting at his place. With him, he had a copy of alice nine’s NUMBER SIX DVD single release, which included their little movie.
Kai had watched the little movie in which alice nine’s members decided to take on roles of acting. He found himself inspired as he watched through NUMBER SIX and decided to run an idea through the group.
The band leader decided that it was best that he break this idea to the group over dinner, that way they would probably me in a more agreeable mood, then details could be discussed after the consumption of their food.
Aoi and Uruha arrived together, as did Reita and Ruki. All of them went about in their chatter until dinner was served, which was a home made hot pot.
When it came to food, Reita and Aoi argued like children over the meat pieces, leaving Uruha would break them up like a loving mother and lecture them about sharing.
After the arguments settled down, Kai called for everyone’s attention.
“Now that I have everyone’s attention, I just wanted to discuss something.”
“What is it Kai? Is there something wrong? Did the fangirls from Germany track you down or something?” Uruha spoke with concern. Fangirls could be pretty scary in Uruha’s opinion – they either wanted to rape them, or do something unspeakable to them. But then again, he reminded himself that not all fangirls were like that.
Kai looked at Uruha with a puzzled look. “Where in the world did you get that idea?”
Uruha remained silent and scratched the thigh of his pants, trying to distract himself from his feeling of discomfort from making a fool out of himself.
Ruki chuckled at his fellow band member’s comment of concern. “We know that you worry about your friends, but that was kinda funny Uruha. How could fangirls from Germany trackus down, eh?”
“You never know,” Aoi said in his defence. “Some people can be pretty crazy you know.”
“Guys! We’re not talking about fangirls or stalkers here!” Kai exclaimed on top of their conversation. “I wanted to talk about our next step in terms of publicity!”
“That’s fair enough,” Ruki agreed, helping himself to more food.
“Yeah, it’s pretty hard to keep up. We’ve been in so many shoots lately and releasing Filth in the Beauty and Regret so close to each other was pretty risky, and not many bands can pull that off.” Reita seemed to have the same worries about the band, and didn’t want their efforts to come crashing down so quickly.
“That’s exactly right,” Kai agreed. He walked over to his furnished lounge suite and picked up the NUMBER SIX DVD, then headed back to the dining table. “Everyone has watched Shou-kun and alice nine’s efforts on NUMBER SIX right?”
The band nodded in unison, still immersed in their meal.
“Well, I was thinking, why don’t we do something to do with acting? But since we’re short on time, I was thinking do a short play of something that’s already been written.”
“That actually sounds like a good idea!” Ruki exclaimed. “Got any ideas in mind?”
“We’ll talk about all the details after we finish, ne?” Reita said, eying the last piece of meat which was quickly snatched away by Aoi, who promptly placed it in his mouth and began chewing.
“OYE! That was my piece!” Reita exclaimed.
“Too late now~” Aoi replied in a sing-song voice.
“Don’t even try singing because you suck at it. Stick to your guitar.”
“What was that broken-nose boy? At least I look sexy when I play the guitar.”
“Stop it you two!” Uruha commanded, giving them both a stern eye.
“You’re both washing the dishes tonight,” Kai said simply, not caring if he seemed impolite.
If looks could kill, Reita and Aoi could have won World War II together.
—-
It took a good half an hour before Reita and Aoi finished with the dishes. It was a miracle that nothing broke, but by the end of it, everyone was happy and all in good spirits. Not for long though.
Kai took position in front of his LCD flat screen TV and faced the band. He cleared his throat and began his announcement.
“Ok! I decided that we should do a gothic lolita version of Alice in Wonderland. Most of us will have to keep switching characters throughout the mini-play since we don’t have the budget to hire actors. I’ve already assigned your roles!” He then pulled out a stack of paper which turned out to be scripts from the drawer of his coffee table, beside the chair Ruki had chosen to sit.
The scripts were handed out one by one, and a pile of highlighters were dumped in the middle of the coffee table. Once everyone had received a script and read through the casting, an angry yelled came from the beloved vocalist.
“WHY DO I HAVE TO PLAY ALICE?” Ruki screamed, infuriated that he was nominated to play the role of the main girl in the story. “Make Uruha do it! He looks more girly than I do!”
“No can do Ruki,” Kai replied, pointing at the script. “Uruha is going to be the Queen of Hearts near the end, so that’s an automatic no. You have to be Alice because you’re the vocalist.”
“That has no logic in at all! Why do I have to be the one that dresses as a girl?” In a situation like this, he would have expected Uruha to play the role because the reality was, he did look the most feminine out of the group, not that it was essentially a bad thing. Uruha had earned a large fanbase because of his features. It surely wasn’t a bad thing at all.
“If you look at the standings of a main character and vocalist, most people would think of them first when talking about a story or band in general. All you have to do is wear a dress. You’re already used to wearing make-up so you’re half there already.” Kai had spent a lot of time and effort getting the castings ‘right’, so to speak. The band understood that he wouldn’t have given them roles without good reason.
At this point, Ruki had run out of things to argue, so he just sat back on the black leather sofa with a sulky look on his face.
“Cool, I get to be the mad hatter!” Aoi exclaimed. “Hey, what outfits are we going to use for all this Kai-kun? You said we have a limited budget didn’t you?”
“Yeah that’s right. I was thinking that we could mix and match all our outfits from our past PV’s and shoots, except for Ruki. For Ruki, we need to buy him a dress, and it’ll be ok since it’s only for him and he’ll be the only one who doesn’t change roles in the play. It should work out. We should probably go with Baby the Stars Shine Bright. I think they have a line for this type of stuff. I even heard they donate dresses sometimes if it gets them publicity.”
“What about my outfits?” Uruha asked, noticing that he had nothing that would suit for his ‘Queen of hearts’ role.
“We should have enough to buy you an outfit too. I was thinking either to get you something excentric or SEXY DYNAMITE LONDON. What do you prefer?” Kai had everything planned out, and he wanted everything to go his way.
“I’ll check out both later I guess.” Uruha found himself a highlighter lying around and started to highlight his lines.
“For the mad hatter role, can I mix and match it with some of my BPN* stuff?” Aoi seemed to be piecing his outfits together in his mind. It was important that he always looked sexy in whatever he did.
(( *BPN stands for “BLACK PEACE NOW”, a clothing brand.))
“I see no problem with that. Actually, that’s a good idea. Everyone! Think of your own wardrobe and what you can mix and match.”
That comment seemed to raise spirits even more about the idea. It meant they got to wear things that they were comfortable with as well, and it gave them a wider selection of costume.
“I’m… the rabbit? The dormouse and Mr. Mouse, wait, aren’t those two the same character?” Reita was pretty satisfied with his roles, but he was just a bit confused on some of the characters.
“How come you get to be the Cheshire Cat, Kai?” Ruki was still sulking, and taking anything he could to start an argument with Kai.
“I tried my best to sort roles out to everyone’s image, and I took most of the stuff that was leftover. Besides, if we do this as a film, it shouldn’t be too much of a big deal because we don’t have to do it in front of a live audience.” One again, Ruki had not succeeded in finding a flaw in Kai’s plan.
That night, they proceeded to plan outfits, stage and filming areas. They were going to show what The GazettE was capable of.
—-
After careful planning and weeks of rehearsal, their first day of shooting quickly arrived upon their doorstep. Everyone was in separate dressing rooms with their different clothing changes, except for Ruki. He was hiding away, refusing to wear the lolita dress the band had picked out for him.
“Trust me, you’ll look great Ruki-kun!”
“The girls will be all over you. Its fanservice for the girls! Think of our fans Ruki!”
“If Mana-sama can do it, you can too!”
But I’m not freaking Mana-sama. I don’t parade around in a dress, pretending to be a girl. FOR CRYING OUT LOUD I’M A GUY!
“I swear, this better make sales or else I’m going to KILL Kai.”
—-
A month later, their DVD named “Gazette in Wonderland” was released and their sales skyrocketed through the roof. They were already doing a second print of DVD’s because it was in such a demand.
Once again, the band had gathered at Kai’s apartment for a celebration dinner. Everyone was in high spirits, except for Aoi and Reita, who were fighting over meat pieces once again.
“If you eat too much Aoi-kun, you’ll get fat.”
“Same goes for you, broken nose boy.”
“I’m not even wearing my nose strap right now so that insult is invalid. Please try again.”
“Will you two put a sock in it or I’m sending you both to different ends of the room,” Kai warned, giving them a stern eye. It seemed that Kai took on the father figure in the band, and Uruha fit the motherly role quite well.
“Anyway, now that the children have settled down,” Kai looked at Aoi and Reita’s direction, though they seemed to be eying the last piece of meat still, “I’m glad to announce that we have sold two million copies of the DVD! An amazing achievement it is, and we all have to thank Ruki for being such an adorable and appealing Alice.”
With that, everybody gave an applause to Ruki, who sat there embarrassed with his cheeks flaring red.
“I swore if it didn’t sell well, that I would kill you Kai. Seriously, that is the first and last time I’m wearing a dress.” Ruki was quite pleased on how well their sales were, but being in a dress was the oddest experience for him.
“Oh, Ruki, I don’t know about that being your last time in a lolita dress,” Reita said as he succeeded in claiming the last piece from Aoi. He happily chomped away at his victory morsel as Aoi pouted and looked away.
Ruki looked at him with a look mixed with surprise and shock. “What in the world do you mean by that?”
“Well, it seems that Aki bought a DVD and you have been a great inspiration. Aki is now naming the lolita line “Alice Ruki” and asked me if you could model some clothes.”
Ruki looked at Kai, half hating him. “This is completely your fault.”
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