My eyes wandered to the stain on the wall. I should probably get a wet cloth to clean the beer off, but again I found my brain drifting to the reminder that I could use this. “Don’t go there again, Ryosuke. You got a second chance when you shouldn’t have,” I said to myself.
I sat back on my heels, staring at the spot a few moments longer before getting up and leaving it. It may have made me look like a slob, but I didn’t care. Not really.
I tossed the broken pieces of the bottle into the trash can before grabbing my pack of cigarettes and heading out onto the little balcony attached to my apartment. The feel of the smoke burning inside my lungs would ground me, and it did just the trick as I sat on the damn concrete and inhaled the addicting nicotine.
My cigarette dangled from my fingers as I watched the street below me. It was another thing I liked about my apartment. It was located in a part of Tokyo that wasn’t as busy, but I could still see all the unusual people who made their way through the city on a day-to-day basis.
Up ahead there was a group of girls in their school uniforms huddled together and looking at something on their cell phones. They giggled as they handed their devices back and forth. It made me think about when I’d been carefree like that. Of course, my friends had always thought my music tastes were a littlestrange when my parents had shoved me into private schools thinking that I’d end up being a doctor or something.
The joke was on them.
I had no desire to go down that road. My grades were good, mostly because there was no way I wasted that kind of money, but wasn’t it still a waste if I wasn’t using the education I’d already received?
My cigarette was burnt halfway down before I realized it was still in my hand, and I took another long drag from it. Little wisps of smoke filled the air as I exhaled before snubbing it out and standing from my spot. As much as I’d hoped the cigarette would help, it didn’t. Not out there anyway. Not where I could see all the things I had missed out on and thinking about what it would have been like had I wanted to live a normal life.
A normal life was fucking boring.
The group of girls broke apart, and one of them walked down the road and under my balcony. She had music playing on her phone, to which she was singing along. It took everything in my power not to smile, realizing that it was Pink Cherry, the band that I would soon be joining.
At least they were popular.
Chapter 3
Itsuki
“How about this one?” I held up the baby-blue dress in the mirror before turning to face Riku.
He didn’t seem all that interested and continued to scroll on his phone, causing me to frown. I wasn’t particularly close to anyone in the band outside of Yasu and Riku. I’d known Yasu since high school, and we’d always been good friends. He hadn’t even blinked when I got excited about a new outfit.
Riku had come along shortly after we started putting the band together and was always a little more detached and aloof. There were times I’d wondered if he only tolerated me and my eccentricities, but he never told me no when I asked if he would come shopping with me.
Yasu would come with me too, but he’d been in such a bad mood since Mamarou left the band. Out of everyone he’d known him the longest, so maybe I understood it was like losing a close friend. I just wanted to do my best to be optimistic that he’d keep in touch, just like Mamorou promised. None of my other friendshad become parents yet; we were all still a bit too young for it, but hopefully having a kid wouldn’t change him too much.
“Riku,” I whined, “come on.” Shaking the blue dress at him.
He finally looked up from his phone and gave me a nod.
“Don’t you already have one like that?”
I held the skirt out to the sides and studied it. A lot of their designs were fairly similar.The problem was that Ilovedthis brand, it wasn’t cheap, but I knew I was getting quality.
When I frowned in the mirror, Riku stood and stuffed his phone in his pocket. “I don’t know why you bother to ask. You’re just going to get it, anyway.”
He was right, but it was fun to get other people’s opinions. I hated shopping by myself and was there anything wrong with wanting someone to give me a little attention?
I went back to the fitting room to change.
The second the heavy material of the dress was over my head, I couldn’t help but stare at my reflection in the mirror. Not that I didn’t like what I saw. Most days I had no issue with saying that I was Itsuki Kobayashi, guitarist for Pink Cherry. Sometimes, my body didn’t always feel right. I didn’t have the words to describe how I felt about myself, but there was an actual reason. Sometimes I was comfortable in a pair of pants and a fitted shirt, and other times I wanted to prance around in a frilly dress and bloomers.
All I wanted to do was pinch my eyes closed as I trailed my hand down my flat chest. I didn’t want boobs. I didn’t feel like a girl. I liked the way my body looked. There was just something off about all of it. And maybe that was why I’d been so compelled to grow out my hair, wear makeup, and put on dresses.
“Itsuki?”I jumped as Riku called to me from the other side of the curtain.
It wasn’t like I’d been in there for very long, though; maybe it had been longer than I’d realized.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Do you still need me? I need to get to the store and catch the train back to Asakusa before it gets too late.”
