Friday school passed in an interminable blur. Risa and Shizuoka laughed about Hikaru's inability to concentrate and promised to share notes later. Then it was time to get ready for the competition. Mirage dressed in their black and silver, assembled, and showed up together in the Saito mini-van. Hatsuharu's wife dropped them off.

They wouldn't have their own drum set, so they only had the smaller instruments to carry. Hatsuharu still carried his own sticks though.

--

Kiri frowned as he saw the enormous line for the competition. He might not get in, he realized. But then someone waved and called out to him near the front of the line.

When he walked up, his boss, the owner of Inline Productions, said, "You didn't put this on your schedule."

Kiri replied, "I only intended to stay for the first act, but it looks like I won't get in."

Emri Enrico laughed and said, "You'll get in." He waved a business pass and added, "As long as you've got your company ID on you."

"Hey," protested the next person in line.

Kiri's boss gave the man a cool look and said, "If you didn't purchase your admission ahead of time like I did, it's not my problem." Then he asked Kiri, "What's so good about the first act? And why not stay for the rest?"

"It's my girlfriend's band, and they're doing another show right after, so I'm going along," Kiri answered uncomfortably.

"Are we expecting to sign your girlfriend?" his boss asked curiously.

"God, I hope not," said Kiri, then guiltily added, "not that they aren't good enough."

There was a brief silence while his boss looked at him consideringly. "I see, well we'll talk about that curious statement in a more private location later."

Kiri winced.

--

Mirage checked in with the various necessary people, starting with the verification of their ID at the entry.

A lot of the bands backstage knew Rin and one guy belligerently said, "Entering a competition like this with temporary bandmembers is cheating."

Hikaru stared at the man blankly but Ryuske looked at Rin, curious as to his answer.

Rin said coolly, "Guess you should drop out then. My band hasn't changed members in over two years."

Ryuske grinned.

Everyone who knew Rin turned and stared, except for one guy who just muttered, "Anyone who's heard of Mirage knows that, stupid." That guy turned to Rin and asked, "What number?"

Ryuske replied before Rin got a chance, "Number one, of course."

Hatsuharu, Hikaru, and Rin laughed.

"I mean in the line up!" was the annoyed reply.

Rin grinned and repeated the information, "We're first, so you better not lose to us, or you'll just look sad." He shook his head in mock despair.

Several people winced and said things like, "ouch," and, "rough draw."

Mirage headed for the stage.

--

Kiri sat down beside his boss and looked up at the stage when the lights dimmed and the song began.

On the dim, unlit stage, Ryuske set up his keyboard while singing the opening lines. The drums joined in as Hatsuharu took his place. Then the bass and guitar slid in as Rin and Hikaru took positions on either side of Ryuske.

When the lyrics hit the words 'somebody turn on the lights', the stage lights snapped on. Rin and Hikaru snapped into motion, perfectly in tandem. When the chorus rose, the keyboard carried it and they froze except for the motion of their instruments as they played and their mouths as they sang their parts.

The timing was perfect, and as the next verse began the harmony ended, they twirled away through their practiced moves, and exchanged sides in one slick motion. Ryuske's voice soared over the audience. He made a gesture with his hand as he beseeched the audience to dance with the lyrics and Kiri sat up straight in shock.

"Holy crap!" he exclaimed. His boss flicked his gaze to him for a moment. "Mirage's Ryuske is Kobayashi Ryuske from Edge!"

Kiri's boss studied the singer for a moment and said, "You're right, I didn't recognize him between the short hair and how much he's filled out." He frowned and sighed with disappointment.

Kiri looked at him inquiringly.

"They're good, they've already grabbed the audience," he said by way of explanation.

Kiri nodded and asked quietly, "Why does that make you look disappointed?"

"He'll never work with us again after that scandal when Edge lost their guitarist and broke up," he said sorrowfully.

Kiri briefly ignored Mirage's performance and asked with shock, "Edge was part of Inline?"

His boss nodded.

Kiri said, "Wow," and went back to watching Mirage.

--

Mirage played their two songs perfectly, and they knew it. Not only that, their plan of grabbing the audience with a cover of a familiar song and then revving things up with one of their own best songs seemed successful and the audience cheered as they stood at the edge of the stage and took their bow.

They grinned like mad as they swapped places with the next band and worked their way out of the backstage area and then the building.

Someone called out, "You're leaving?"

Rin grinned and said, "You know the openers never win, and we've got other plans, but have fun making a better impression!"

Mirage exited the building, all four members bubbling with excitement.

--

Kiri had left as soon as they finished and was waiting for them. He still had his company ID clipped to his jacket.

Ryuske took one look at him and asked sharply, "What do you want?"

Hikaru rushed forward to hug Kiri and said, "He's with me!"

Kiri hugged her and eyed Ryuske cautiously.

"Hikaru, get away from that man," Ryuske said.

She turned and stared at him, but didn't release Kiri.

"Hikaru!" Ryuske snapped.

"What's wrong with you?" Hikaru asked.

"How did he approach you?" Ryuske asked her and demanded of Kiri, "How dare you?"

Hikaru gasped and replied quickly, shocked by his reaction, "I approached him!"

Rin stepped between them and said calmly, "Hikaru, Ryuske is over reacting because your lover works for Inline."

Hikaru stared and asked, "So?"

But Kiri answered Ryuske's earlier question, "I didn't even know she was a musician before we started dating, and I've no intention of trying to work with you. Though I was a fan of Edge."

Hikaru turned to him and stared, several things seemed to click into place.

Ryuske said bitterly to Hikaru, "Inline is the company that produced Edge."

Kiri shrugged at her and said calmly, "I didn't know that either, until very recently. I was still in high school then."

Hikaru didn't say anything and he added a little desperately, "I haven't lied about my job, but after I found out you're a musician, I didn't want to say too much either."

Hikaru nodded slowly, but asked, "Why don't you want to work with us? Are we that bad?"

Kiri groaned, covered his face with his hands and leaned against the wall he stood beside. "No. You're great. I just, it never works, relationships between managers and artists. The few times it seems to work, the couple's are like business partners who find it convenient to sleep together." He dropped his hands and gazed at her desperately, "I don't want that! And I want it to work..."

"OK," she said and took his hand.

"It's not OK!" yelled Ryuske.

Hikaru looked at him and said calmly, "Yes it is, you don't want to work with Inline, Kiri doesn't want to mix work and our relationship, it's fine. And he's telling the truth about his job, he told me enough I could have guessed, it just never occurred to me."

Hatsuharu interrupted as Ryuske gazed at Hikaru with an agonized expression and Kiri clung to her, "We're going to be late to our own concert."

"Let's run," Rin suggested with a grin, and offered his hands to Ryuske and Hatsuharu.

Mirage ran hand in hand, Kiri still clinging to Hikaru, the four blocks to the large park nearby. They arrived a little out of breath, but ready to play again.

--

Nezumi and Hatsuharu's wife and children had prepared the park pavilion for the concert. It was an exceedingly rare occurrence for Nezumi to venture out.

Despite the fact that he designed the electronic setup Mirage used, and maintained their website, Hikaru had only met him three times before. Rin liked to joke that he was a vampire. Ryuske refuted that on the basis that vampires had to touch other people in order to feed, and Nezumi hated touching other people.

Hikaru also had no idea what Nezumi's real name might be. Though she suspected Ryuske must know in order to pay him, she never asked. She felt that his obvious wish for privacy ought to be respected.

Ryuske exchanged his keyboard for the violin, slid his headset on and jumped up on the impromptu stage as Hikaru, Rin, and Hatsuharu finished connecting to Nezumi's setup.

He called out to the surprisingly large crowd already gathered, "Welcome to the third annual Mirage in the park!"

The crowd cheered and Ryuske began to play. Hikaru was the lead in this song, so she released Kiri's hand and joined Ryuske on the stage, leaving Rin to carry up the keyboard and his bass.

Miri waved Kiri over to sit beside her in a small picketed section off to one side. Risa and Shizuoka were seated with her and scooted over to make room. She bounced excitedly when Hikaru began to sing. Kiri grinned at her and leaned close to ask, "Fan number 1, you came alone?" Miri laughed and answered, "I came really early, but Izumi said he'd come after work."

Kiri caught sight of fan number 67 in the growing crowd before the pavilion Mirage was using as a stage and wondered how many of the audience were part of the online fanclub.

Nezumi had a new trick for this concert, part of why he'd agreed to come out. He'd rigged a tracking setup between the portable stage lights and their headsets. One stage light followed each of them about as they moved whenever they were onstage.

After a few songs, Ryuske asked quietly over the internal line if the lights could be modified to return to neutral positions between songs.

Nezumi replied, "Yes, but not immediately," he explained that he'd have to modify the programming to detect idle time on the instrument outputs or they'd have to manually switch tracking on and off somehow.

They usually rotated lead singers and instruments used so that they needed less breaks, but an hour into the performance, they took ten. The people they'd hired to cover security were concerned by the growing crowd. When they'd purchased the park performance permits they'd had to estimate their expected audience size and the crowd was already nearly double that. However the audience were polite and for the most part were following the aisle guidelines marked in chalk on the grass.

When they regrouped on stage after a brief consultation, Ryuske asked the growing crowd to remember to keep the imaginary aisles free. People laughed and shuffled around cooperatively. Then he asked, "Would you all rather see Mirage's competition entry next or hear something new?"

There were so many calls for both that the members of Mirage laughed and Ryuske said, "OK, you want it all, we get it, so, we'll do both. We'll start with a song so new, not even the other three members of Mirage have heard it!"

Hikaru asked over the internal line, "What? How can we play a song we haven't heard?"

Rin laughed and answered over the boosted mic, "Now we improvise?"

Ryuske nodded and said over the internal, "Hatsuharu, when I signal the end of the chorus, just give me a steady 4/4 for the rest of the song. Hikaru and Rin, I'll sing the chorus then a verse, so you can join in when you're ready. I'll wave like this when the chorus ends and when it kicks in again." At their nods he turned and began the song.

He sang the first round of the chorus unaccompanied and though he stood poised at the keyboard, didn't play the instrument, "I'll give you half of my heart, I'll give you half of my soul, so don't go!"

He signaled the end of the chorus and Hatsuharu picked up the beat as Ryuske began to play on the keyboard and sang the first verse. "Whenever you are standing here beside me, that is when the music flows. I was frozen in time until I found you, just standing breathless in one place."

When he began the chorus again Hikaru joined in on vocals and Rin on his bass. Together they sang, "I'll give you half of my heart, I'll give you half of my soul, so don't go!"

Ryuske grinned at them and repeated the chorus before going on to the next verse, but instead he modified the lines and cried, "Oh god I love you so!"

When he finished that verse and repeated the first version of the chorus, Hikaru and Rin echoed the don't go quietly as he began the next verse. "Sometimes I want to wrap my arms around you, and just hold you in one place, but if I'm keeping you held captive, how can I look you in the face?"

They were all ready for the final chorus when it came, and all of Mirage sang once more, "I'll give you half of my heart, I'll give you half of my soul, so don't go!"

When they fell silent, the silence echoed across the crowd for a moment before excited cheering burst out. Without giving it a chance to die off, Mirage duplicated their competition entry performance and then they followed that up with the other two songs they'd practiced before learning they'd pulled the opening slot.

Then they ran through one of their usual sets, a comfortable line up where they swapped leads every other song.

They finished their third annual concert in the park with their title song Mirage.

They led in turns and joined in on harmonies, "The bright light lies, but it always tells the truth. It leaves me drowning in the desert, chasing islands across the sea."

They cried, "The bright light lies, it's always shining in my eyes! It shows you standing here before me, laughing into my eyes."

And softer again, "And if I never try to touch you, if I don't reach out my hand, you'll keep walking here beside me, across the burning sand!"

They cried, "The bright light lies! It leaves me drowning in the sand, chasing islands across the ocean, and never reaching land!"

Then they sang the last part gently, "The bright light lies, but it only shows the truth. The best mirage, is you."

Mirage called out in chorus, "Thank you all for coming!" Then Rin gently chided their audience to carry out their trash and disperse in a polite orderly fashion. He also reminded them of Mirage's website and online fanclub.

Mirage's third annual concert in the park, the first of which had started their public performances together, ended with nearly two thousand attendees, and was remarkably incident free.

When Hikaru stepped down from the pavilion into Kiri's embrace, she was surprised to see Izumi standing with her mother. She wasn't surprised at the string of grumbles that emitted from him.

Ryuske and Rin both hugged Miri, then Ryuske told Izumi sharply, "Yes, we did get proper permits, yes we did hire people for security," he waved toward the small handful of people walking around in "staff" T-shirts and finished, "and yes, there were three times as many attendees as we expected, but everyone behaved excellently."

Alex called over the internal line, "We've got a line up here who want autographs and after concert greetings."

Mirage quickly assembled at the head of the organized queue. Fan number 67 was one of them and she shook with nervousness but boldly asked Rin on a date. Rin laughed and accepted easily.

The unexpected signing session took about forty-five minutes and when they finished, they found that Hatsuharu's family, with Risa and Shizuoka, had them all packed up already. Nezumi had made his escape from the dread outdoors filled with people, and their small security staff, with Kiri, Miri, and most surprisingly Izumi, had doubled as clean up crew, so Mirage was ready to go.

Kiri picked Hikaru up and spun with her for a moment. "You were amazing," he said with a grin. She kissed him and grinned back, then looked around.

Hatsuharu was the one who asked, "Should we go out for food to celebrate our success?"

So they did. Hatsuharu's family and Hikaru's friends and family joined them, and Kiri never let go of Hikaru. Ryuske watched them, but said nothing. In the middle of eating, Rin got a call from a friend who'd also been in the competition. Mirage had placed second.

Stunned disbelief held them immobile for a few minutes. And then they celebrated.

Ryuske said ruefully, "I miscalculated, we missed a chance to take another bow."

Rin laughed and ruffled his hair. "The great leader has failed us, we missed five seconds of stage time!"

Ryuske grinned.