Prompt: 026 ~ Nervous                                                                                                                                                                            May 2011©
Fandom: Alice Nine
Focus: Saga x Yuuki
Word Count: 846

            20 Minutes.

            Alice Nine would be going onstage in 20 minutes.

            Less than 20 minutes actually. It just rounded to 20. Not that Saga really cared about proper rounding at the moment He’d looked at the clock for half a second and let the fact that he hadn’t really focused on the numbers round them for him.

            In approximately 20 minutes he would be slipping the smoothe strap of his bass over his head and parading out before the biggest crowd Alice Nine had ever played. It was a larger crowd than any of them had imagined playing. Except Hiroto, that hyper little squirrel may have once imagined a crowd almost this large, but everyone knew that Hiroto was crazy.

            No one rational had ever imagined playing a crowd this size.

           Saga fiddled with the pick in his hand, shifting it between his fingers, hand to hand. He was standing back stage, just off to one side of the dark platform he would soon be standing on. He was looking out at the dark smudge of the crowd that was already high with energy and excitement. The crew was scrambling around in the dark between him and the crowd, their shadows moving as black against black as they worked through the concert’s final checks in the dim light.

            “Ner~vous~?”

            The sing song whisper met Saga’s ears just as Yuuki’s pale arms slid around his waist. Yuuki’s hold was unabashed and firm, speaking without words to tell Saga that she could be his support if he needed her to be, even as her voice was teasing.

            Saga didn’t reply, but he shifted slightly lean back against her. Even in heels, Yuuki was a bit too short to rest her chin on Saga’s shoulder. Instead, she pressed her cheek into his back and murmured, “So even the amazing Saga-sama gets nervous.”

            Though he remained silent, Saga answered in his head. Of course he was nervous. He was a human being, as fallible as anyone in the audience, not the sort of magical god they were waiting for. He was only ‘Saga’, not ‘Saga-sama’, and even that he only had on stage. Sakamoto Takashi wasn’t good enough for this. What if he messed up? What if he tripped over the wires? What if he somehow got in his bandmates’ way? There were so many things that could go wrong.

            “Nothing’s going to go wrong,” Yuuki murmured into Saga’s back, knowing his thoughts easily without needing him to say a word. “You’re an amazing bassist. You know your stuff, you know your songs, and you know your boys. Something might not go as planned, but since when has any Alice Live really gone exactly as it was rehearsed? You will give a fantastic show.”

            “I know . . .” Saga promised, though he didn’t sound too terribly sure about it.

            “Good,” Yuuki said, pretending she hadn’t noticed the hesitation in Saga. She pulled her arms from around his waist and laced one through Saga’s arms. The other hand went to fold gently around Saga’s. He paused in his nervous swirling as Yuuki held the pick in his fingers still.

            “You are absolutely amazing and have no right or reason to be nervous,” she informed him sweetly. “At least not about the concert. You are permitted to worry about Namie, because she sent me to grab you ten minutes ago whining that you were already late.”

            “Hm?”

            “The concert starts in three minutes.”

            Yuuki’s statement shocked the bassist into pliant stillness and the little actress was able to tow her boyfriend to his proper backstage post and prop him up with his instrument like a puppet without any fussing or complaints.

            Stepping up onto one of the stairs leading onto the stage access, Yuuki brought her eyes level to Saga’s. “You’re not allowed to be nervous,” she said firmly. Then she leaned across the small gap between them and pressed her lips to his with a firmness and surety that was equal to her statement.

           The sudden pleasant sensation woke Saga up quickly. Yuuki’s unabashed nature always caught him by surprise, and her self-assuredness was able to push its way into Saga and banish his nerves completely. Only Hiroto’s snicker broke the moment as the guitarist joined Saga and Yuuki in the backstage wing with less than a minute to go, but even he couldn’t make Yuuki blush.

            As she pulled back from Saga with a smile, she instructed, “Don’t be nervous.”

            By then the rest of the band had arrived as well. They were mulling about with final rechecking of their equipment. Yuuki sighed. They were all nervous. But despite the butterflies, she knew that they were all completely ready for this.

            “Don’t be nervous,” she repeated. “And play me a good show!”

            With that the lights went up and Alice Nine took the stage to the massive, delighted uproar of the crowd. Not one of them could remember how nervous they had been feeling only seconds ago. They belonged onstage, in front of crowds, and nervousness had no place there.



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