CHAPTER ONE
LET'S DO IT

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     She didn't know what to do with herself after all these years. She didn't have any way to release the tons of emotions swirling around inside her mind until she was nauseas. While her mother put her energy towards working and keeping the house in order and her sister had a boyfriend to lean on for support, Luna was practically a ticking time bomb. That was until she grabbed a pen and notepad to write down every word she could think of to describe what was going on in her head. Once she found a rhythm, it all started to fall into place. The little poems she jotted down to release her thoughts became songs that would release her emotions once she would sing them out loud along with the melody of her guitar. But of course, nobody ever heard her songs. That was until a girl with pink hair at Southside High walked in on her playing her guitar in a room she didn't think anybody would go.

     Luna's hands started to sweat from the anxiety and she could feel her skin boil from the embarrassment. She quickly closed her notebook and packed her guitar while mumbling all different kinds of apologies.

     "I didn't think anyone would hear me," she said as she quickly walked toward the door of the classroom without looking at the girl who walked in on something very personal.

     "Wait! I just wanted to say that I really liked your song and I thought the lyrics were very deep," the girl said and Luna turned around to look at her.

     "You understood my lyrics?" she asked.

     "You're Japanese right?" the girl asked and Luna nodded. "Me too."

     "Good to know you liked the song but nobody was supposed to hear that," Luna said with a sheepish smile. "It's personal."

     "Music hasn't been personal lately so I think personal is what makes it worth listening to."

     "Do you see the student population at this school? About eighty percent of the kids here are either in or affiliated with a gang and the last twenty percent are just Southside students trying to get through the day."

     "Your point?"

     "My point is that nobody is going to care about a song written in a language that not even five percent of them will understand. Most of them won't even recognize it's Japanese and will most likely mistake it for another Asian language."

     Luna sighed while the pink haired girl looked at the floor.

     "I just thought it would be cool if you were to play your song for everyone to hear. The Southside could use a little depth right now," she said and Luna briefly looked at her notebook which contained all the songs she had written since she found music as her outlet.

     All of her songs were written in Japanese, which was her first language. She had been speaking it for as long as she could remember. Her mother wanted to be sure that Luna and her sister Rosalie had some sort of connection to their roots. Writing the lyrics in her first language made the songs even more personal to her but it was also because she was sure that nobody would be able to understand the lyrics. That way they couldn't judge them.

     "I'm sorry, but I can't," she said before walking away.

     Nobody was supposed to hear anything, which was why she went into a room where nobody ever went. Until now. She spent the rest of the day wishing she could go back in time and tell herself not to play any of her songs at school to avoid having a run in with the pink haired girl whose name she never got. Even the next day, she left her guitar and notebook at home and only took her school bag with her. She was hoping that she didn't run into that girl again but the odds didn't seem to be in her favour when lunchtime came around and the girl joined her at one of the tables. She was even more confused when two more girls and a boy joined her as well.

     "What the hell is going on right now?" Luna questioned.

     "Naomi over here told us about your song," the girl with blonde hair said while pointing at the pink haired girl and Luna's eyes widened.

     "You told someone?" she asked in horror.

     "I may have let it slip that I walked in on a very good song that more people should hear," Naomi said sheepishly and Luna sighed.

     "I told you that song was personal and you went and told everyone?" she questioned.

     "Not everyone, just us three," the boy said.

     "Look, no one was supposed to hear me. That's why I was using a room nobody ever went in. At least not until yesterday. I didn't think anybody would care. I didn't even think anybody would understand," Luna said, hoping that they would drop the subject and forget about the whole thing.

     "Do you honestly think that out of everybody who goes to Southside High, not one other person would understand Japanese?" the girl with short black hair asked.

     "The point is that Naomi here heard something she wasn't meant to hear. What's next, an entire band?" Luna questioned with a glare.

     "Well, why not?" Naomi asked.

     "What?"

     "Why not start your own band?"

     "Southside High could use an outlet, especially the Serpents and Ghoulies," the blonde said and Luna narrowed her eyes.

     "Wait, you all understand Japanese?" she asked.

     "Yeah," the blonde said. "I'm Peyton by the way and this is Maya and Kai."

     "Hold on a minute. You guys really think I should start a band and play my songs that are very personal to me? They're all written in Japanese! How many people are going to understand?" Luna questioned.

     "Start a website where you can post the original lyrics and the translations," the boy ─ Kai ─ said while shrugging his shoulders.

     "This is insanity," Luna protested.

     "No, it's genius. We could help," the girl with short black hair ─ Maya ─ said while smiling widely. "I play a little guitar but I love playing percussion."

     "Let's say that hypothetically, I did start this band. You would play percussion?" Luna asked.

     "Yeah," Maya said.

     "Oh, I play the bass!" Naomi said.

     "I could do lead guitar and you can do the rhythm guitar," Peyton said while smiling and Luna looked at Kai.

     "What instrument do you play?" she questioned.

     "I only started learning to play guitar and I play some piano but I just don't like performing," he said while looking down.

     Luna looked at the other kids around her and thought about the idea of starting her own band. She never even thought about letting anyone hear her songs and now there were people who wanted to perform those songs with her, even though two of them never even heard them.

     "You know what? You can be in charge of the website," she said and they all looked at her.

     "What?" Naomi asked.

     "If I do start this band, someone will have to be in charge of managing the website," Luna said. "That includes tracks, lyrics, translations and updates. You think you can handle that?"

     "I didn't take computer science for nothing," Kai said while smiling.

     "And you three are okay with performing?" Luna asked while looking at the three girls.

     "Absolutely."

     "Hell yeah."

     "It'll be fun."

     Luna looked at the four of them and many thoughts crossed her mind. She was still hesitant about letting other people hear the songs she wrote but when she looked at everyone at Southside High, she remembered that not everybody found an outlet like she did. It was a possibility that starting her own band and letting people hear her songs would let them know that they weren't alone in whatever they were going through and maybe it would push them to find their own outlet.

     Luna sighed and smiled. "Let's do it."

hey! just to put it out there, many of luna's songs will be mostly japanese but some will have some english lyrics as well. the songs will be found at the end of the chapters in which they are involved and credit goes to the songwriters and producers of those songs. most of the songs will either be by a fictional band called girls dead monster. with that being said, enjoy reading the revamped version of my s1 au ♡