Chapter 1
Yasu
“Tadaima!”
The word echoed back at me in my small apartment. I sighed as I took off my shoes and set them on the small rack by the door before moving deeper inside. Reiko must have been out. Tokyo could be a little on the pricey side, and while Pink Cherry was doing well, my sister and I still shared this place. She had struggled a bit after school, and it was the least I could do for her helping out with so much while the band was on tour.
Today had been rough, and while my sister was aware of things, somehow, she still wasn’t there when I needed someone. She had her own friends. I understood that, but I needed to vent and let out my frustrations. Things wouldn’t be the same with Mamarou leaving us.
A month ago, our bassist had gathered all of us together to give us the news that his girlfriend was pregnant. While it was exciting, we were all only twenty-two and twenty-three. None of us were ready to settle down and start families. Mamarou wasn’teither, but he was trying to do the right thing when a broken condom changed his plans.
My jacket made a loud thud as I dropped it on the floor. If Reiko weren’t here, she couldn’t get on my case for being a slob. I was just too tired to give a shit. Today was Mamarou’s last day with us, and tomorrow? Tomorrow we’d meet his replacement.
Itsuki, Mamarou, Tastuki, Riku, and I had started off together right after high school. A bunch of punk kids who thought they were too cool. I loved making music and traveling with my friends, and with Visual Kei still being so popular, it was freeing. The costumes and classic melodies made it easy to unleash my artistic side.
I ran my hand through my short, spiky black hair. As far as expressing myself, I was probably the tamest member of the group. Everyone had gone nuts dyeing their hair different colors, but something about being the frontman made me think I needed to keep some part of me the same. Was my hair darker than my natural tint? A little, but mostly you couldn’t tell unless I pointed it out to you.
When I caught sight of myself in the mirror, I groaned. I looked like absolute shit. Dark circles formed under my eyes, only telling me that the last few weeks had gotten to me a little more than I’d realized.
People left bands all the time. It wasn’t the end of the world, and our manager had promised us that our replacement was the best. You just couldn’t replace the chemistry my friends and I had. We’d spent years perfecting it and my heart slammed into my ribcage the more I thought about letting someone else in on that. It just wouldn’t be the same.
That was the moment my stomach let out the loudest and most pathetic growl. Because on top of everything else that was bothering me, I’d forgotten to feed myself. That was a common occurrence, and another thing that Reiko helped with. Did Ineed my sister to watch over me and make sure I ate? I was too old for that shit, but everyone was so scared of how fucking thin I was.
Mamarou thought it was funny that he could wrap both his hands around my waist. Others said it was unhealthy. I understood what they were saying. It wasn’t like I was intentionally doing it to myself. Sometimes I was so focused that I just forgot. Which had become, of course, all the time. I’d been that way my whole life. My parents once tried to have me evaluated for an eating disorder, but the doctors said that wasn’t right.
Hyper-fixation is what they’d called it. They’d run me through the gambit for things like ADD and ADHD, but I didn’t meet a lot of the requirements. I’d just space out and focus on one thing, forgetting whatever was going on around me. It’s how I got so good with music. The second I had a piece of sheet music in front of my face, I needed to know how to read it. There was no resting until the notes made sense and I could carry a tune.
“Tadaima,” a female voice called.
I jumped because there I was, doing it again. There was no telling how long I’d spent sitting there staring at my reflection other than the sun now sat in a slightly different spot in the sky. My stomach now had a dull ache, reminding me I still needed to eat something, but at least Reiko was there now.
She came around the corner and spotted me standing in the middle of the hall. When she propped her hand on her hip and tilted her head to the side, I knew what she was going to say before she said it.
“Yasu, when did you get home?”
I cleared my throat; it felt so damn dry because apparently when I zoned out like that; I tended to leave my mouth hanging open. It was the biggest tell, and when Reiko narrowed her chocolate-brown eyes at me, I knew that she’d figured it out.
“Not that long ago.”
It was a lie, and we both knew it. I’d never been able to pull one over on her. Reiko was a human lie detector, or at least she was when it concerned me. Mostly it was because I hated her worrying so much. If I could make her worry less, I would. The problem was that the more I tried to cover it up, the more concerned she became.
Instead of saying anything, Reiko let out a sigh and directed me to the kitchen, forcing me into a chair while she moved about the tiny space, pulling out a tamagoyaki pan, eggs, and a few vegetables. She set to work chopping the carrots, cucumbers and radishes before warming the pan on our two-burner stove. She mixed the eggs in a bowl, beating them with a pair of chopsticks before pouring them into the pan. Reiko carefully layered thinly sliced vegetables before she rolled the egg.
It was a simple meal, but it was quick and easy to make. When Reiko knew I hadn’t been eating well, it was her way to make sure I got some vegetables and some protein in a hurry.
“You know that you’ll still see him, right?”
I closed my eyes as Reiko’s words washed over me. It was true. Mamarou wasn’t out of our lives for good. He just wasn’t part of the band anymore.
It was a change. The change meant that we were welcoming someone who hadn’t vibed with us from the very beginning and that we were trusting our manager.
Toshi had promised us he had it all under control and that we’d love the new guy, but something niggled under my skin. Like maybe this wasn’t how I wanted things to go. The truth was, I didn’t handle change well at all. If everything stayed the same, then it wasn’t a problem. Someone new being invited into our close-knit group of friends was so beyond scary.
“Yasu?”
I shook my head as I looked back up at my sister. She stared at me, her brow creased with concern. I knew I’d gotten lost in my own thoughts again, and it wasn’t fair. I was normally really good at communicating with her. It was part of the reason she was such an essential part of the band. If I locked up, someone knew to find her and she could bring me back to reality.
“I get it. Pink Cherry is about to undergo major changes. I just hope this guy doesn’t come in and think that he runs the show. We’ve been doing this for too long to have to throw in the towel now.”
