Bird Cage

Chapter 1

The dream

"Kaoru… Kaoru…" I opened my eyes and find myself floating in a beautiful yellow sky with bright blue clouds. "Kaoru… Kaoru…" I heard it again, that sweet voice. I sit up and look around me only to realize that the only thing that surrounds me is the big yellow sky and the bright blue clouds. Where am I? Since when are clouds blue? And since when can I levitate? More importantly, where did that voice come from?

"Kaoru… Sing for me…" There it is again, that beautiful voice. Hearing it makes me want to reach out and touch it. As if I could reach out and touch sounds, but if I could I'd bet it would be soft. As soft as these bright blue clouds.

"Kaoru… Be my song bird… Be my bird… Be mine." I feel a flutter in my chest. They wanted me? Me? I took a much needed deep breath and smiled out of pure happiness. Someone wanted me! Someone wanted to love me and care for me! Be yours, of course I would! That is, as long as you promise never to leave me behind. But wait, who are you? As I questioned that sweet voice I could feel the warm happiness draining from my body, leaving a cold, empty shell. Do I even know you? Are you just another one of those crazy fans that loves me for my voice and my looks? They say they love me, they chant my name, as if it were a secret prayer. But do they really love me? No, they don't. They don't even know who I am.

"Be mine. Be mine. Be mine… Kaoru…" No. I'll never be your's, I'll never allow myself to fall that far down. To allow myself to be owned by someone that pretends to love. As soon as I thought those words the sky darkened from the warm yellow to an orange, to a sinister blood red. The clouds, no longer fluffy and bright blue surrounded me, obscuring my vision with a thick gray fog. No knowing what to do, I reached my hand out into the dark fog, searching for something to hold on to. My fingers brush against cold metal and I curl my slim fingers around it. And in that moment all I can think of is how cold it is. The metal bar in which I have griped onto is cold, the air I breath into my lungs is cold, the ground beneath my bare feet is cold. I am cold. My empty body is cold. Everything becomes even colder as the fog disperses slightly, allowing me to see other black metal bars. Like the fog, these bars also surround me, but more in a circular like fashion. I look up to see that all of these black bars are holding aloft a black, circular metal roof. It dawns on me than that I am in a cage. A very dark and cold cage to be exact. I shiver.

"Kaoru. Sing for me. Be my song bird and sing." The voice is more demanding now, and has taken on a strong serious tone. I can't help but shudder slightly, because of the fear the voice has induced on me. "Kaoru!" It barks at me, "You are my bird, now do as I say and SING!" I jumped with light yelp as the voice yells at me.

Bird? I am most certainly not a bird! And I belong to no one! I realize just then that I am in no ordinary cage, I am in a bird cage. I look down at my self for the first time to see that I have sprouted beautify monochromatic orange bird wings. I have indeed become some sort of bird. As I gaze at my exotic new wings I began to forget about the troublesome situation I have currently found myself in. They where so beautiful, every feather glistened with a slight iridescent shine and there were small speckles of gold, as if my wings had captured the sunlight in them.

The voice, no longer beautiful, interrupted my thoughts and brought me back to the current situation. "Since you refuse to sing, I am forced to punish you." it said angrily and not a second later my beautiful wings began to rot, golden feathers began to slowly fall from my wings in clumps. The pain was extricating, but I did nothing for fear that it would worsen the state of my beloved wings. Rotting, burying holes began to take form in my wings, growing bigger and bigger by the second. Not being able to withstand the pain any longer I fell to my hands and knees and let out a pained scream. "Now you choose to sing, Kaoru? Kaoru…" The horrific picture began to slowly dissolve, "Kaoru… Kaoru…" I felt numb, relief that there was no more pain, but sad that I was once again empty. "Kaoru…"

"Kaoru… Kaoru… It's time to get up. Will you wake up already?!" This time when I open my eyes I don't see a great big yellow sky, but instead I see another pair of big golden eyes staring straight into my own.

"What is it Hikaru?" I sighed loudly to show my twin brother how irritated I am that he woke me up.

"It's almost time to leave for the show. Also, Tamaki wants us to get there early so we can discuss tonight's concert. Plus, you looked like you were having a bad dream." he said the last bit with a worried tone, "Are you feeling all right? You looked kind of…uh, sad."

"Yeah, it's whatever. Im just nerves, you know how it is." I smiled as I easily lied to my twin brother.

"All right… Sure. Anyways lets go see what that dumb blond wants. The driver is waiting outside." he says as he turns his back to me and walks out of our bedroom. I release a sigh of relief as I sit up in our comfy bed. I really didn't want to go to tonight's show. To be honest I didn't really want to go to any of the shows. I had my taste of fame, and now I am ready to go back to my normal life. The life were I would go to school, hangout with friends, pull pranks with my brother, and relax. Being in a band with all of your friends had been lots of fun. That is, until we had become famous. Now all there was was pressure. The pressure to sing right, the pressure to act right, the pressure to look right. This pressure was causing me to constantly be on my toes, and walk on thin ice. Yes, this new "fabulously famous" life was causing me lots of stress, and the fact that Hikaru, my best friend and twin brother, has been acting distant isn't helping. I guess you could say that I, Kaoru Hitachiin, was unhappy with his current life. Gawd, I feel pathetic that I seem to be going through my midlife crises at age seventeen!

All this stress is causing my "Kaoru is supper happy with his life" act to become a bit difficult. I'm not sure how long I can keep this up, to continue to be in our band and to remain sane. But for the sake of my brother, and the sake of my friends, I keep going. I will continue to put myself out there and sing, for them. After all they have done for me, I owe it to them. Without my new friends, Hikaru and I would still be trapped in our own little world, not having any contact with the real world and the people in it. How could I possibly think of quitting now after all we've been through together?

It had all started as a dream that Tamaki had had as a young child. Ever since a very young age, Tamaki, loved to play the piano. He would spend countless hours playing for his sick mother, instead of playing outdoors with other children his age. He felt that his true purpose in life was to make people happy. Making others happy always made him happy, so he sat in his mother's room day after day, making her happy with his songs. After his mother passed away, Tamaki continued to play and his songs continued to make people happy. So, to fulfill his life's purpose, Tamaki choose to start a band were he could make music and smiles at the same time.

I remember it like it was last week, about two years ago my brother and I were confronted by this blond haired boy named Tamaki, during our lunch period. We were sitting alone, as usual when he came up to us and started talking. He basically begged us to join a band that he was going to form the next year. At first we thought that it was a very stupid idea, but Tamaki just kept bugging us until we finally agreed to join. We where bored and need a new game to play anyways.

We started off just played together for fun, and occasionally host small concerts for our school, friends, and family. Each of us being part of very rich and elite families, it did not take long for our music to become well known to the rest of the world. We've been the biggest 'thing' for a while now and I'm already tired of it. It's not as exciting as Hikaru and I thought thought it was going to be, well at least to me. If I had known that this becoming famous thing was going to put a strain on my close bond with Hikaru, I would have dropped out as fast as I could. It's funny how being so famous, and constantly being crowded by fans only makes you feel more lonely.

As I slid into the seat of our limo and next to Hikaru I began remember the strange dream I had just a few minutes ago. It was a very strange dream indeed. And this had definitely not been he first time I have had it. I've been having that same dream for a whole straight week now and it was driving me insane! It always started the same, with that sweet, light voice and the great yellow sky. What could it mean? Who was that voice coming from?

As our limo pulled up to the auditorium theater I can't help but shudder slightly. I glance over at Hikaru, praying that he hadn't noticed and from the looks of it, he hadn't. I released a sigh of relief, there was no need to pull Hikaru into my problems and give him unnecessary stress. From what I could tell, our new found fame was doing him some good. He is successfully slipping from our own private world and into the real one, he was opening up and beginning to trust other people. I love my brother, and I was proud of him for finding the confidence to leave our protected world and to venture out. That is what we wanted, wasn't it? So as long as it was making Hikaru happy, I would go along with it, until I can bear no more. Not only that, but people were now counting me. How could I quite a band that I had established with my friends, especially when I am the lead singer. Quitting would mean letting all of them down, and I don't think I'm ready for that kind disappointment yet. I love my friends and it would kill me to disappoint them so.

When our family limo finally pulled up to the concert hall Hikaru glanced over at me as he held the door open, "You've been awfully quite, Kaoru. Is there something bothering you?"

"No, I told you already, I'm fine. I'm just a bit tired, thank gawd today is Friday! I can't wait to sleep in tomorrow!" I said with a soft chuckle to emphasize that everything was all right and that I was just tired.

"I see, well that's good… Oh! Hey! We got a new video game earlier today! we should play it this weekend! I heard that it's really good! What do you say, Kaoru? Saturday- video- game- marathon?"

I smiled at my brother's attempts to make me feel happy, he really is a great brother. Finally being truthful I look over at him, "I would love to, Hikaru." With that he blushed slightly and quickly looked away. What was that?! Could it be that my own twin brother is afraid of me or is nervous to hang out with me? Have we really grown that distant in these past few months?Thinking about this new troubling issue I follow quietly behind Hikaru as we walk into the auditorium.

BAM! My head shot up, what the hell was that?! The fist thing I notice as we step into the great big bright dressing room is that our blond king is sitting in his emo corner growing mushrooms.

"Hey guys, whats going on?" Hikaru asked looking over at Kyouya, who was sitting at a table in front of his laptop with a smirk on his face. Kyouya was the only one in our group who had gotten out of being a performer, claiming that he was terrible at anything musical and that it was a wast of his time, thus becoming our very useful manager.

Without glancing away from his laptop he calmly stated, "Tonight we will be sharing the stage with two other groups and Tamaki didn't take the news well."

"But Tono, sharing is caring!" Honey said sweetly from Mori's solders. "Right Mori?" Mori nodded his head.

"But we won't have time for my big piano solo! Whaaaaaa! It's not fair!" Tamaki cried as he stomped his foot like a six year old. Was that really all he was worked up about? God, This blond. To add onto his princely character, Tamaki, our leader and keyboard slash piano player, had his own songs that he would perform on stage by himself while the rest of us take a short break. Which was very helpful, because out there under the lights with all those screaming teens, you can get tired really fast!

Ignoring our Tamaki I look over at Kyouya and ask, "So who are these people? Are they any good?"

This time looking up from his computer Kyouya said, "Well, the first group you guys already know; it's just Nekozawa had his gang of black magic freaks." We did know them well, they went to our high school and have played a lot of shows with us in the past. Tamaki acts like he is afraid of Nekozawa, with his gothic looks and weird behavior, but Hikaru and I think that he has a secret crush on him and doesn't know how to handle it. God, if it wasn't for the dark cloak and the fetish for cats and scary things they would be like the same person! Im sure that if Tamaki had photophobia he would be just like Nekozawa, maybe a little more emotional. Also their music is basically the complete opposite of ours. While we play up beat pop music, they play dark alternative. They call themselves Belzeneff, which I believe is his cat's name too.

"Humm… That's nice. Let me guess, there's going to be an awesomely huge after party at their house afterwards?" asked Hikaru excitedly. Nekozawa was also known for throwing crazy rock star parties at every chance he got. After every show Belzeneff would throw a huge party and invite everyone from the show, plus other musicians and models. And being the crazy party animal that Hikaru has recently become, he loves going to all of their parties.

Kyouya rolled his eyes, "Yes, Hikaru, there will be a party. We are expected to at least make an entrance. But," He looked pointedly at Hikaru, "I would hate to clean up any unnecessary messes, is that understood?"

Hikaru scratched the back of his head remembering last time, when he had gotten so drunk that he had thrown up on Kyouya's expensive leather shoes, "Yeah… Im still sorry about that by the way…"

Kyouya glared at him, "Show me you are sorry, and don't do it again." He then looked back at the rest of us with his emotionless face again, "The other group I believe call themselves the 'Zuku girls' They are an all girl group and from what I've gathered their lead singer used to be a model for the Hitachiin's Fashion industry, so you may recognize her." Great, another stupid kid who thinks they have what it's got to be out here. Whatever, tonight will be interesting; another model or actor who thinks they know what its all about. They just want power, fame, and money. Thats what they all want. To live the "dream".

Hikaru and I both shrugged our solders in sync and said, "Whatever". Hikaru turned his head and smiled at me over his solder. I simply rolled my eyes, he's been acting weird lately, like whenever we do something twinsy he acts like it's such a rare moment. As if we never act like twins anymore, when in fact we do all day, every day. I just wish we could hang out together again like we used. I just want to be close to him again.

Kyouya looked back at his laptop and continued to type whatever it is that he is always typing, "Well, I hate to break your moment over there Baka, but we really should start getting ready. Everyone your costumes are in the back, and don't forget hair and makeup." With that we all broke up into our own directions, getting what needed to get done, done.

~Aki Autter