"SELF-RESCUING PRINCESS!"
The three teenage girls that had shouted the words together screeched with glee, jumping up and down excitedly at the nodded affirmation of their correct response.
"That's right! And now, for the tiebreaker, one last question: Which member of the Dapper Dragons is the oldest?" Ichiro Hamada reached his microphone through the large square cutout in the wooden cube he had hauled into the parking lot of the Tokyo Dome. The red-painted box was large enough for four people to stand in at a time, though the current batch of young contestants were small enough that they might have been able to squeeze in five if they'd tried.
"Zoe!" cried one of the girls, a blonde in a pink hoodie that read yes, mistress across the front in white lettering.
Ichiro cringed. "Sorry, but that's not right. Anybody else want to guess?"
"Is it Jake?" asked the girl on the right, her hair dyed a vibrant pink not dissimilarly from the drummer her friend had mentioned.
"So close! Jake's the second oldest, by four months. Only a few options left… c'mon!" Ichiro passed the microphone to the girl in the middle of the trio through the cutout. "I see the wheels turning in there… you got this! C'mon! Which member of the Dapper Dragons is the oldest?"
The girl, a tween in a puffy pink parka to fend off the chilly Christmas Day air, barely stood tall enough for her nose to be visible through the hole in the wooden wall. "Ummmm… I'm probably wrong, but… Shinji?" she asked sheepishly.
"The oldest member of the Dapper Dragons is…" Ichiro turned the microphone back to himself, pausing for a moment to generate suspense. "... Shinji Yokota! You just won five thousand yen! Great job!" He reached into the pocket of his denim jacket, producing a bank note for the appropriate amount and handing it through the hole to the ecstatic little girl, who took it with a white-gloved hand.
The girls stepped out of the box, the two older ones stopping to congratulate their youngest sister with hugs and cheers. They scurried off to join their parents on the sidewalk leading to the north entrance of the Tokyo Dome.
Ichiro turned back to the tripod situated two meters behind him, staring into the lens of the commercial video camera mounted atop it. "We're out here broadcasting live at the Tokyo Dome with the Rock Box!"
Ichiro pointed behind him at the bright red wooden cubicle he had set up earlier that afternoon. "Tonight, we're hanging with some Firebirds as we get ready for the sold out last show of Ranko and the Dapper Dragons' Wildfire Tour on this Christmas night! I'm ready for the show! The fans are ready! The Dragons are ready! Santa Claus is ready! We're just waiting on you! We'll be in the north parking lot until seven o'clock so we can make showtime at seven-thirty. If you want to shout out your favorite Ranko lyrics, or win some cold, hard cash testing your Dapper Dragons knowledge, you've only got a few minutes left! Come on down and hop in the Rock Box from Fuji TV! This is Ichiro Hamada, and we'll be back in a few minutes after this message from our sponsors!"
"And we're clear, Ichi," announced the station's lead producer in the field reporter's headset.
Having been notified that his camera was no longer broadcasting, Ichiro hurried behind the tripod and opened a small gray messenger bag, pulling out a bottle of water and popping off its cap. He gulped half of it down at once, his throat parched from more than an hour of excited shouting for the benefit of his television audience.
He set his bottle down on the pavement next to his bag. Man, these live shots are a lot easier when they send me with a cameraman, he thought. Guess they couldn't find anybody on Christmas. "Is the feed coming through okay?" he asked into his microphone. "Framing good?"
"Everything's great! We've got a news bulletin we're running, so you're off air for a couple of minutes. Catch a breather while you can." The producer, an energetic young woman getting her first shot at running a broadcast because the senior producers were all on vacation for the holidays, clapped her hands in front of her face several times so that her microphone would transmit the sound to Ichiro.
"How you holding up over there, Sumiko?" Ichiro asked as he ducked into his wooden box, checking for trash or mislaid items any of his previous interviewees had left behind. He found none.
Sumiko tittered in response. "Are you kidding, Ichi?! This is like, the best day of my career! It's a little crazy though. Trying not to get too overwhelmed."
"Ah, you'll be fine," the reporter said in an encouraging tone. "Besides, it's Christmas, so it'll be pretty relaxed. I'm guessing, public interest stories about overcrowding at the malls yesterday and an in-studio interview with somebody who runs a toy store and had a great year. How am I doing?"
Sumiko chuckled in response. "You're way off!" She paused for a moment to make her friend and coworker sweat in suspense. "It's an electronics store. Video games were a bigger seller this year."
Ichiro laughed as he stepped out of the Rock Box. "Well, pardon me. I can see why that would be more intimidating. So many knobs and swi-" His sentence cut off as he exited the cubicle and bumped into a man walking along the concourse. "Oh! Sorry!"
The middle-aged man cut a burly figure in a blue polo shirt and dark pewter slacks. He laughed, waving to the reporter. "Don't worry about it! I didn't see you either, hiding in there."
"Are you okay?!" Ichiro asked in an urgent tone of voice, ignoring Sumiko's pleas for clarification as to what had happened in his inner ear. Please be okay. If I hurt somebody on assignment, I'm gonna get in trouble with the boss for sure.
"Never better! Merry Christmas!" the balding man shouted back in a jolly baritone, waving to the reporter as he walked away.
Ichiro sighed in relief, walking back behind his camera tripod. "We're good, Sumiko. Just bumped into somebody, is all. It's absolutely a madhouse out here."
"Gotcha!" the producer replied. "We're back in forty-five seconds. You got somebody lined up yet?"
"Um, crap! No! Run an extra promo or something if you can!"
Ichiro hustled toward the main stream of humanity rushing from the parking areas and train stations in the direction of the arena's entrance in order to be in their seats by showtime.
"Hi! I'm Ichiro Hamada from Fuji T… dammit." He sighed as the first person he approached passed by without stopping. "Hi! Ichiro Hamada with the Rock Box. Wanna do a TV interview real quick?"
His shoulders slumped as another group of girls passed him without so much as acknowledging him with eye contact. "Guess that's a no," he mumbled dejectedly.
Ichiro climbed up on the edge of a concrete flowerbed, cupping his hands around his mouth as a makeshift megaphone. "WHO WANTS FREE MONEY?!" he shouted as loudly as he could over the din of frenzied Firebirds.
"I mean, I like money!" said a college-aged boy in an ugly Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer sweater festooned with red and silver tinsel. "What do I gotta do?"
Ichiro hopped down to the ground, pointing back at his cubicle. "Hi. Ichiro Hamada with Fuji TV. Basically, stand in the box, answer a few Ranko and the Dapper Dragons questions, and I'll give you five thousand yen."
The boy stepped back skeptically. "I've seen a lot of game shows on TV. There isn't, like, somebody in there that's gonna punch me in the balls if I get a question wrong or something, is there?"
The television correspondent laughed. "Gods, no. Nothing like that. It's just for fun. C'mon!" He all but dragged the boy to the entrance of the wooden box. As he rushed to the camera, he reached up for his earpiece. "Got somebody, Sumi. Switch me back to the wired mic."
"You're hot, Ichi," the producer replied. "Live in ten. Nine."
"I know," Ichiro shot back in a rakish voice, smirking as he approached the red cube.
"Hey! I… you can't just…"
"Hi there! Ichiro Hamada with Fuji TV, and you're in the Rock Box!" he began, speaking over the flustered young executive back at the broadcast station. "What's your name?!"
The young man leaned forward, leaning on the top edge of the cutout and lowering his face closer to the microphone in Ichiro's hand. "Kyo," he said, seeming to over-enunciate his name as if he were not used to being recorded and did not trust the fidelity of the broadcaster's equipment.
"Right on, Kyo! Alright! We only have a few minutes left until showtime, so let's do a lightning round! Ready?!" Receiving a nod of reply from the young man, Ichiro turned back to face the camera and pulled the microphone back to himself. "Let's start with an easy one. Of Witchcraft, Demon in Your Radio, and You Don't Know Me, which song did not debut on Wild Orchid?"
The collegian grinned. He was right, that is an easy one. "It's Demon. That one was on Phoenix Rising."
"It sure was! You're a third of the way to five thousand yen!" Ichiro said with a grin. "Next one. A little harder this time. Three of the band members have crazy hair colors. Between Zoe, Jacob and Ranko herself, which one's hair color is natural?"
Kyo bit his lip, thinking for a moment. "I mean, I've never seen anyone with any of those colors naturally. Is this a trick question?! I'm gonna say… Ranko?!"
Ichiro paused for a moment, pulling back his microphone. "And I'm going to say… that's right! Just one more to go for the big money! Are you ready?!'
"Wooo!" Kyo exclaimed, pumping his fist. "Hit me! C'mon!"
I thought you were worried about that a second ago, Ichiro thought with a smirk. "Alright. This is a tough one. You clearly know the music, so let's do some band personal trivia. Two of the Dapper Dragons are adopted. We know Ranko. She talks about it all the time, so that's the easy one. Who is the other?"
"Oh, sh-" the boy began, covering his mouth when he realized he was about to swear on live television. "I have no idea."
Ichiro slumped his shoulders, affecting an exaggerated disappointment for the benefit of the came\ra. "Aww, c'mon, man! It was just covered in an interview in the Firebird newsletter two months ago."
"CRAP! My mom threw that one away before I got to read it!" Kyo wagged his finger at the camera, a playful grin on his face. "I'm gonna kick your butt when I get home, Mom!"
"Best guess, then. Ten seconds. Come on. You've got a one in six chance. You can do this." Ichiro coaxed.
"Crap, crap, crap. Umm… I'm gonna say… Crash!" Kyo said, clenching his fists nervously.
The reporter cringed. "Oh! I'm so sorry, but that's incorrect. It's actually Emi. But thanks so much for playing with us here at the Rock Box from Fuji TV!"
"Ichi, you're clear. You've only got five minutes before seven. Just go ahead and pack it in early," Sumiko said in his earpiece. "And I'm gonna get you for that other thing when you get back to the studio!"
"We'll see," Ichiro said with a chuckle. He switched off the handheld microphone and draped its cable over the top of the camera, reaching into his pocket. He hurried after the saddened young man who had just exited his cubicle and pressed a 5,000 yen note into his hand. "Here, kid. You saved my bacon. Merry Christmas."
"Hey!" Kyo said, his eyes widening in surprise. "Thanks!"
"Don't mention it!" Ichiro shouted with a wave as he hustled back to his broadcast spot. He pushed forward on the wooden box and it collapsed backward to the asphalt, folding on the hinges that connected its four sides until it lay flat. He folded it once more along the wider set of hinges at the front and picked up the wood with a loud grunt. It took him a few minutes to haul the solid oak plywood to the open cargo area of his broadcast van, where he slid it down the middle between two rows of equipment. Stupid sending me out here to do a solo when I gotta drag that heavy-ass thing around!
He unplugged his camera, inserting it into its foam-lined hardshell carrying case. This, he buckled closed with a pair of plastic clips. Unplugging the cable from the bottom of his microphone, he wound its length around his forearm and tied it off in the middle, tossing it and the camera case into the van along with the microphone. He hurried up to the front cab, pushing down the lock tab on the door and closing it.
Ichiro hurried to join the stream of people making their way to the north gate. He glanced down at his watch. Crap. Still running a couple of minutes behind. I don't know if I'll have time to make it to the merch stands before showtime. Here's hoping they still have a tee shirt in my size when the show's over!
Some ten minutes later, he made it to the front of the queue, arriving at a security checkpoint. "Ticket, please?" asked the attendant, a short, stumpy woman in her mid-forties wearing a reflective yellow vest.
"Oh! I'm with the press," Ichiro said, grinning. "Fuji TV!"
"Hmm," the woman said, craning her neck to look him over. She was nearly thirty centimeters shorter than him, so the extra height she got from standing on her tiptoes did little to offset the difference. "I'm not seeing your press pass."
Ichiro laughed. "Yeah, it's right here on my…" He grabbed the lapel of his denim jacket, pulling it across the front of his torso, but the laminated badge was not clipped to it as he expected. "What the.." He frantically started searching his pockets, not finding it there, either. Finally, he tore open his messenger bag, but even after dumping out its contents on the security station's counter, the badge was nowhere to be found.
"I swear, I had it when I started the live shot!" Ichiro pleaded. "You can check the playback! I don't know what happened to it!"
The security guard clicked her tongue, nodding her head. "That's rough, buddy. I'm really sorry, but it's a sold-out show. I can't letcha in without it."
"I… but…" The defeated correspondent sighed and shoveled his belongings back into his bag, slinking off to sit on another raised concrete flowerbed. He rested his elbows on his thighs, cradling his head in his hands.
"The boss is gonna kill me…"
* * *
Not bad. Not bad at all! Cushy leather chairs, free drinks, nice and warm in here… this is fantastic!
Genma Saotome sat back in his seat, idly clipping his stolen credentials to the collar of his blue polo shirt. Alright, Tendo, he thought, peering through the press box glass at the teeming capacity crowd of the Tokyo Dome, and the still-empty stage that drew their rapt attention.
Let's just see this incredible daughter of yours.