CHAPTER 7 - A Day in the Life

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His mobile phone rang shrilly, absurdly loud in the quiet room.

Shuichi moaned and reluctantly pulled out of his partner's tender embrace. Disoriented, he glanced about searching for the offensive device. Spying it, he dived awkwardly from his perch on his lover's office desk but fell over in an ungraceful arc, the ground rushing up to meet him. Coming to a loud crash on the hardwood floor, he groaned.

He rubbed his injured shoulder and groggily sat up.

Looking around, he realised he was not on Yuki's office floor.

He was not even in Yuki's apartment.

He was in his room at home, the 'Bad Luck House' as they called it, on the floor having fallen out of bed. The sound of what he thought was a mobile phone ring was actually his alarm clock. He bounced up, wincing a little at the pain from the fall, and shut the alarm. Wide awake now, he tossed his coverlet over his bed without bothering to make it up completely.

Scratching at the imprinted skin beneath the stretchy waistline of his cotton pyjamas, he briskly made his way to the bathroom down the hall, snagging his towel off the rack on the back of his bedroom door as he went.

The warm water was revitalising, accentuated by the fresh citrus zest of his shower gel. Scrubbing the liquid wash into his hair, Shuichi pushed the remnant memories of his romantic dream firmly away and hummed a few experimental bars of the song composing itself in his head.

He could always hear music, wherever he was and whatever he was doing. It was a constant noise in his head, a persistent beat, and one he had always found comforting. No matter where, when or how, he was never really alone if he had the music.

Soaping up, he was dismayed to find his morning hard-on had not abated. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it was in the way. He hissed as he soaped up, his necessary touch sending unintentional sensations sparking through his body. He really did not want to deal with this right now and instead focused on the melody he'd been working on.

He still needed to find a good beat for the tune, though.

Running through a few experimental combinations in his head as he rinsed, he methodically tested slow rhythms and worked his way up faster ones –all in his head. He had a good imagination, it wasn't too hard really. Despite the honest effort, he couldn't quite find a suitable beat and, with a sigh, he shut off the water spray and grabbed his towel. Drying off, he chewed his bottom lip a little. Maybe he just needed to hear the song put out of his head, hear it with his ears instead of his heart.

Lately, the only way to clean out a song was to 'put it down' and record it, no matter how fragmental it was. Somehow, the music in his heart had become a little distorted, and there had been occasions where he couldn't get his voice to sound like the song in his head. He sometimes felt that his body and his music were no longer communicating properly, and the lack of synchronicity could sometimes truly irritate him.

Humming the tune to himself, he shut the light and quickly marched back into his room to dress. He felt… green today.

Throwing open his closet doors, his eyes were pulled to the green section of his colour-sorted wardrobe. He snagged a fresh lime green cotton stretch tee shirt with sleeves that came down to just past his elbows. It had a large, black bulb-headed alien on the front dizzyingly clutching its head where its flying saucer had bounced off. He pulled out a pair of flare-leg low-cut dark blue jeans and selected a cotton-weave canvas military belt. He liked the camouflage green print contrast against the shirt, and decided he would choose the belt-matching boots to complete his ensemble.

Head bobbing to his own beat, he snagged a bottle of fruit-based hair crème conditioner and applied a dollop into his hands. Applying the scented pomade into his hair, he examined himself in the full length mirror mounted on the inside of his closet door. He looked… nice, but not as nice as-

Never mind that.

He elbowed the door shut, locking it in place with his foot and turned to wipe his hands down on a wet wipe. He dipped a finger into his moisturizer before dropping the tub along with his hair cream into his bag, and rubbed the cream into his face as he marched downstairs to the kitchen.

He put on his MP3 player and listened to Sakuma Ryuichi croon about loving from afar, drinking up a glass of orange juice and downing a bowl of coco pops. He checked his bright pink G-Shock watch as he put the dishes away in the dishwasher. i Six fifty five/i it read.

Shuichi paused to grin and wish a sleepy half-lidded Hiro good morning on his way out of the kitchen. Both were aware that K and Fujisaki had already departed sometime during Shuichi's shower, having left together so the manager could bring the younger boy to school before heading in to work.

They heard a car horn sound a quick blast from outside.

"Itekimas! " (1) He yelled from the door, after pulling his boots out of the shoe cabinet by the door. He grabbed a chocolate brown lined leather coat from the coat closet to ward off the February cold.

"Iterashai!" (2) replied his sleepy best friend.

With his chauffeur and sometimes body guard, Komamura-san, to ferry him about his day, Shuichi settled into the leather interior of the simple mirror-tinted Toyota Camry. He hummed and sang his way through a few melodies, jotting the music down. He scribbled in a few lines into the margins, some interesting thoughts he'd conjured, watching people on the street as they passed.

There were a lot of kids heading to school, and he envied them their uncomplicated lives. Watching them always gave him a sense of nostalgia, brought back memories of the days he had been a carefree boy attending school.

At seven twenty five, he was walking through the doors of his first stop for the day: The gym club.

Changing into appropriate apparel, Shuichi met with today's personal trainer. It was always changing, the gym staff liked to have a rota in place. Shuichi supposed it was because the staff liked to have a turn each with the celebrities who attended. There was a set program in place, the trainer was really only there to help him warm up properly and to supervise him with weight training. He didn't mind, he greeted them all politely and treated each one with the same friendly warmth. They sometimes mentioned that he was more polite to them than some of their other guests.

That was nice. He liked it when he pleased people.

At eight, Shuichi took the elevator up a few floors to the studios where he met his dance instructor, a wiry muscled young man named Nara-san. There, they ran through some hip hop and break dancing routines, sequences to both teach him more moves and to work on his cardio. The rock star loved this part of the day. He adored the music Nara-san chose everyday, the scattered bass resetting the music in his head.

By eight fifty, Shuichi was showered and re-dressed, reapplying his hair cream and moisturizer in the car.

At nine-fifteen, he arrived at NG's underground parking lot.

By nine twenty, his assistant Sachiko sat with him in their office to give Shuichi a run through of his day. He liked his office, this small but now colourful room with bean bags scattered about and music posters up on the walls. It had been a very plain looking place when he and Sachiko had first moved in. Most people didn't even know what it was really for – the door was unmarked and the IT department marked it in the company intranet directory as Hinamori Sachiko's office.

It was better that way anyway. Shuichi appreciated the anonymity of his sanctuary, understanding now why Yuki hadn't liked it when he would invade Yuki's office…

He pushed that last thought away and focused on Sachiko's voice.

There was nothing really important, though she had a few reminders that needed his attention. She was running through this week's To Do list in preparation for the upcoming Valentine's Day concert and subsequent tour. He had dance rehearsals and a dress rehearsal coming up. He nodded to everything, as she was always careful to plot his day efficiently.

Hinamori Sachiko had been 'lent' by Tohma only a few months prior, when he began work with NG Records. A lot of follow up things needed doing now that Shuichi was working more with the marketing and promotions teams. Sachiko provided much needed coordination and organisational skills that kept the pink-haired mess under control.

She was exactly Shuichi's age, a bright, quiet, solemn and very discreet young lady. Most importantly, she kept her cool whatever the situation. Her calm personality and unruffled attitude kept Shuichi balanced both in and out of work. As an exemplary NG employee, she did as she was told without questioning too far into matters –which was quite appreciated when the Bad Luck front man had therapy or slipped into an 'episode'.

Sachiko had perfectly straight chocolate brown hair chopped off at just below her shoulder, blunt cut bangs falling to just above her eye brows. Her large brown eyes, framed by lashes almost as long as Shuichi's, were innocently wide and open. Today, her boyish, slender frame was unconcernedly flattered by the little flower-print V-neck sleeveless cotton dress worn over a yellow polo shirt. She wore cream stockings with brown leather boots.

Shuichi thought her quite cute, and genuinely liked her. Her help with his work was invaluable, though sometimes she was too efficient. He had wanted things to do to fill his time when, as a vocalist, he was not needed in the recording room or production studios. So sometimes, he was rather displeased that his assistant accomplished as much as she did.

At nine-forty, Shuichi came bounding down the halls toward the recording room halls, speaking with Hiro on his mobile phone. He had wanted to reassure his concerned best friend that all was well at his 'work with Seguchi-san'. He let the guitarist off the line before bouncing into one of the lesser-used recording rooms and cheerfully greeted the assembling crew.

The staff welcomed the celebrity they had met before he had become one, asking after his band mates and music. He answered almost everything but shook his head, smile dimming, at polite queries after his former lover.

The excited yet harassed band, Jubilee, pounced on him the moment he was done with the greetings. They were happy to see him, but were stressed out and worried about their music. They bombarded him with questions and showed him sample after sample of their creativity. Shuichi laughed and teased, scolded and smiled.

They were his babies, this group.

He had written a handful of songs for them, or fed them a fragment of a melody, leaving them to compose the song as a whole. It was a challenge that he wished one had been posed to Bad Luck when they had first started out. As a i sempai /i (3), there were things that he did for them such as this which he hoped would help them become better musicians with time.

He pulled out pages full of scraps of song stanzas and paragraphs of thoughts for the band to peruse. The quartet wrote and composed almost all their music together. So it was not unusual that, together, they merged ideas and bashed out melodies. As a group of very different individuals, they agreed on more things than they logically ought to.

As Shuichi observed the youngsters, he began to feel a little… old. He envied them their bright-eyed enthusiasm and their guileless laughter. As they joked and teased, they used common words, band jokes and shared memories to conjure lyrics. They strung out their instruments and jammed for the sheer joy of it, no trend to conform to and no image to uphold. They had no critics to dent their pride and no style to conform to. They thought outside the box because they didn't know there was one. Best of all, they were young enough to love with true love, to write from that achingly honest perspective…

He felt a gaze on him, and turned to find the lead singer and bassist, a scrawny pixie of girl with long straight dusty-blonde dyed brown hair, watching him carefully. She looked startled, a faint question in her smoky eyes.

Shuichi found he had unconsciously relaxed, drawn away by his thoughts. This would not do. He immediately smiled reassuringly, she seemed to need it. He gave her his high wattage and newly trademarked smile, the media-pleasing and advertisement gracing smile. It had fooled millions over the past three months since he had stepped back into the media spotlight.

It was suddenly not working. He could see it in how she half-heartedly smiled back, concern creasing her brow. She reached out a hand to him, an offer of touch and a question to be allowed to come closer. He shook his head slightly, almost imperceptibly, and she withdrew.

He could see she wasn't fooled. He knew that expression she wore now.

When Shuichi let Jubilee go for lunch at one o'clock, he marched himself up to Seguchi Tohma's office. The incident with the Jubilee singer had left him feeling emotionally unmasked.

He waved at the guards who flanked the outer office doors, nodded and smiled at the secretary at her desk, and sauntered right past without pause to the inner office door. As far as he knew, only he, Mika, Ryuichi, Noriko and Eiri were allowed past her announced.

Yuki...

Sighing, he knocked sharply and paused for the briefest moment before pushing the door open. He found the King of the music industry sitting behind his cherry wood desk, calm smile in place, speaking to…

"Mattieu!" Shuichi smiled warmly, coming forward, holding out his hand in greeting to the Swiss-Japanese producer whom Tohma had introduced at his album launch party just the previous Saturday.

"Shindou," murmured the tall lanky blonde as he stood to shake the newcomer's hand.

Shuichi thought the man looked dashing in his double-breasted suit the colour of blue that complemented his eyes well, a lacy pale cream button down shirt peeking from beneath. Mattieu smiled in return, his bright gaze glowing with interest as they exchanged pleasantries. The vocalist recognised the intense expression in those bright blue eyes and, blushing slightly, firmly ignored it.

"Good morning, Seguchi-san," Shuichi flashed him a big smile, "I apologise for the intrusion, should I come back later?"

Tohma's smile warmed slightly as he beheld his pink-haired employee and friend, "If you please, Shindou-san," he nodded apologetically. "We have a few more things to discuss today, I'm afraid."

The NG president watched his friend carefully, missing neither the clouded expression nor the tinge of pink across his cheeks and the reason behind it.

Shuichi waved, mentioned his visit wasn't important and left, noticing how the foreigner's gaze followed him out. He sighed in the elevator, deciding his next move.

After grabbing a sandwich, a juice pack and a box of Pocky from the cafeteria, Shuichi made his way to his office. He knew he could be alone there, seeing as how none of his band mates knew it was his office, or that he even had one. They would be together by now, settling down to work on arrangements for the concert.

He made himself comfortable in one of the bean bags by the window and pulled out his trusty notebook. His hands picked at his lunch as his mind picked at his thoughts. He chewed on his pen, looking out the window, humming a distant tune. Thinking back to last night's dream, his thoughts were filled with only one thing, with only one person.

He began to write;

Show me your winning smile, toss back your sunshine hair

Say goodbye coz its okay, its not like you were really there

If I smiled too, if I asked you to stay

Would you hold me close or push me away?

Your golden eyes have strung me out, I'm tangled in your line

Cover me in your chocolate kisses and drown me in your wine

Make me dizzy on your scent, let me memorize how you feel

Give me my last fix of you, let's pretend none of it is real

Fill my mouth with the taste of you until I'm completely addicted

You pull me close and reel me in then throw me down rejected (4)

"Are you feeling well today, Shuichi?" asked a gentle voice from above.

Shuichi gasped, startled, tilting his head backward to meet Tohma's gaze upside down as the man stood behind him. The blonde hair disoriented him a second, and it took him a moment to stabilise his runaway imagination. It wasn't too long before the seated boy realised that from his position, Tohma had the perfect vantage point to read the notebook in the singer's lap.

"I'm just fine, Tohma," he glanced down at the lyrics and shrugged a shoulder. "I needed to write out the dream I had last night, that's all."

The blonde walked around the occupied bean bag to sit on the window sill bench. They had dropped formal addresses, as they always did when they spoke as friends and without an audience. They were, for the time being, not employer and employee.

"Better out on paper than replaying in my head, don't you agree?" Shuichi didn't smile. He didn't need to. He regarded his visitor with a polite and friendly air, it was enough.

"Do you find it helpful to write these things down?" Tohma asked as he bent to gently tug the notebook from the younger man's lap. He re-read the lines, and absorbed a few scribbles on the opposite page.

"Much better on paper," Shuichi muttered, stretching out on the bean bag. He absently nodded assent when Tohma shot him an inquisitive look, indicating the used pages of the notebook.

As Tohma browsed his work, his emotional diary, Shuichi looked out the window, tapping a rhythm out on his leg. He had other melodies in his head.

"Do you like being married? Shuichi asked suddenly, staring at a flock of birds racing around the building tops. "Do you like belonging to one person?"

Tohma wasn't certain he wanted to decipher the emotions behind that question. He responded with humour, "Marriage is good, and you get to wear a ring." He smiled teasingly at the startled lavender gaze that flew to meet his. "A ring shows you're stable and dependable, that at least one other person on this earth can stand you."

An honest grin spread its way across Shuichi's face.

Tohma's eyes glinted evilly as he continued, "To that last bit, a ring also means that either your libido or bank account function without fault."

Shuichi's startled laughter sounded quite genuine, he decided. It was good to make the singer laugh once in a while when he was feeling dark. He had noticed it when he'd been visited earlier, that the singer had been shaken and now needed honest company. He smiled warmly, an expression only those dear to him ever had the privilege of seeing.

"Thanks," whispered the smiling boy, checking his watch before getting to his feet.

"Do you have work today?"

"Plenty!" Shuichi put his arms above his head and stretched, standing on the balls of his feet. He accepted his notebook back and stuffed it into his back pack, swinging the carrier onto his shoulder. They companionably made their way out, Shuichi nodding his thanks as they parted in the hallway.

At two thirty, Shuichi and Sachiko entered a conference room. There, they met with a local radio station manager to discuss the promotion gimmick for Jubilee's release of their new single.

At three fifteen, Shuichi gave Jubilee and their manager the update on the promotion plans.

The group showed off the afternoon's work, the beginnings of the song they'd been working on that morning. He praised them for the good work. He laughingly encouraged them to follow their hearts and reassured them of their skill and talent. He spent a little time giving ideas and providing a wall to bounce their ideas off of.

At four thirty, Shuichi went to another meeting room where Sachiko met him at the door with his keyboard. There, he faced an advertisement agent and beat out various ideas for a Pocky commercial jingle he had been working on.

At five fifteen, Shuichi sat down at his desk and laptop to run through a CD from another of NG Records' talents. While he absorbed the music, head bobbing to the beat, he filled in a questionnaire. It was from a prominent music magazine, a short column for one of their feature sections.

At six thirty, finished with the survey, he handed it back to Sachiko to deal with. Done with the CD, he wrote a blurb for the band's promotions team and, together with the disc, handed it over for his assistant to return. He logged on to his personal email account…

You have no new mail.

At six forty five, Shuichi and Sachiko got into his car. She was dropped off at her apartment building by seven thirty in spite of the early evening traffic. Alone in the backseat, Shuichi exchanged his shirt for a filmy camouflage sleeveless top from Wardrobe at NG. He donned the accompanying leather collar and silver cross necklace.

At seven fifteen, he alighted from his car and stepped into a restaurant.

There, he was deprived of his coat and escorted to a table where he met with an interviewer from Pop Culture, a teen magazine. They laughed and teased, swapped stories and traded jokes, somehow managing to complete the dinner interview. He had sidestepped questions into his private life, obtusely relaying vague notions. He had conspiratorially pouted when the woman offered her sympathies at his failed relationship with a certain novelist.

At eight fifteen, Shuichi was charmingly escorting the lady into his car to bring her to her home, amidst flashes of a few cameras.

At eight forty-five, alone in his car again, Shuichi stared unseeingly at the passing lights. At a traffic stop, his eye was drawn to a glinting shade of yellow and he stared. Whoever it was, the blonde hair was the same, but neither the smile nor the features were what he sought. The car slowly accelerated away, banishing the vision from his sight.

At ten past nine, Shuichi took a deep breath and schooled his features before stepping from the vehicle again.

He bounded up to the front of a little club café where Tatsuha stood waiting, smoking, looking far too similar to someone else. He apologised for being late in his usual cheery voice. Shuichi noticed the young man was wearing a familiar black trench coat, but said nothing.

Inside, he sat with his back facing the crowd, so as not to see who was there and not be seen. He asked after Tatsuha's job hunting and asked about his painting. The younger man was an artist with colour as his brother was with words. Shuichi watched him talk about colours and expressions with eyes bright with excitement. He was happy for the guy, he really was.

But it was difficult to look at him and not be reminded of someone else.

He relayed how the band was doing, how the preparation were coming along. He joked about how he was of little use now that the album was finished, how Fujisaki and Hiro were doing the most work now. He invited Tatsuha to come see the dress rehearsal, as the artist would not be in Tokyo the night of the concert.

At ten fifteen, the two parted ways companionably and promised to meet up again.

At ten thirty, he bowed to thank and bid Komamura-san a pleasant evening before heading into his shared house.

"Tadaima! "(5) He called wearily.

"Okaeri!" (6) Chorused two voices from the kitchen.

Shuichi stopped by to ask after them and their day, listening to how much progress they'd made and what ideas they had come up with. Soon he pardoned himself then turned to shower, dress and ready for sleep. He laid out tomorrow's necessities and crawled into an empty and cold bed.

At eleven o'clock, Shuichi cried himself to sleep.

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(1) Itekimas – Standard greeting of departure, i.e. "I'm off" or "I'm leaving"

(2) Iterashai – Standard reply to (1), roughly meaning "Return safely"

(3) Sempai – Upperclassman; someone who is of a senior ranking. Applicable in various situations

(4) My own original work – just jotted it down thinking of Shuichi's dream, without really intending to and ended up with a poem of sorts!

(5) Tadaima – standard call for "I'm home"; In its full form, "tada ima modorimashita" which literally means "and now I have returned"

(6) Okaeri – Standard reply to (5), this is a welcoming greeting; "welcome back"