Disclaimers: Same as before. Such a broken record even.

Author's notes: Some mild swearing and the blowing up of a building.

track five

L.A.'s smog had a nasty greenish tint to it that morning. Yawning, I wiggled down into my oversized jacket, letting the hat cover my eyes and messy hair as I trailed after K. People were running around the terminal, some in orderly lines, others hurrying from place to place, looking at ticket stubs and checking signs. It was completely different from the hush of Japan's airports that I had to stop and stare at the two kids hanging off their mother's arms and the guy with the earphones blaring in his ears and the businessman typing away on a batted laptop.

K appeared and grabbed me by the collar, frog-marching me through Customs and past the displays. I caught a glimpse of reporters and a couple thin model types before I was deposited in a red sports car. I rubbed the back of my neck, pouting, while K rushed around, commandeering luggage carriers and chasing away a few reporters before he jumped into the driver's seat and took off. I slouched down as far as the seatbelt would let me and tried to hang onto my hat.

We whipped in and out of traffic, K lighting up a smoke as we went along. The freeway merged into another one and then we were going down and around to a highway, that soon split into a regular street with some shiny tall office buildings and gleaming stores. I let go of my hat and took a deep breath, watching the women in their tiny dresses, men in their suits, kids running and playing like they did everywhere, and sighed.

"Is something the matter?"

"Huh?" I looked over at K, not really seeing his eyes because of the sunglasses he habitually wore. Despite the wild ride we just had in an open car, K's long blond hair wasn't even tangled.

"You sound depressed."

I thought about it for a minute as we crawled to a stop, resting my elbow on the armrest. Two pretty women in red walked by, both walking tiny poodles decked out in gemstones. The sky didn't look green since we had landed, and all I could see was a warm blue sky and bright people everywhere.

"Have you ever gone home?"

"Me?" K snorted, shaking his head. "I am home with the sun and the sand and the short dresses on the pretty women!"

"Ha ha, K," I said, looking away. "I meant going home to see your folks."

"Ryuichi, you didn't. . ."

"No. Like my old man would want to see me. Nah, I was just wondering if it always feels small."

"Maybe you should ask yourself that."

"How am I supposed to know if everyone feels it that way if no one tells me?"

"Because you are an artist."

I snorted and rolled my eyes. "Not a very good one right now."

He laughed. I stuck out my lower lip and wondered if I could get Kumagoro out to smack K with him before he shot me full of holes.

"Ryuichi, you're one of the best artists I've ever managed," he said, growing serious. "You understand other people's feelings more than those people ever could. If it feels small to you, imagine what it would feel to others. There's a reason why going back home never feels right."

I smacked him on the shoulder and grumbled at him under my breath. He didn't pay me any attention, driving into a parking garage and pulling into a spot marked as being reserved. I sat in my seat, arms crossed and pouting while he got out and made a few phone calls. Then he was back, pulling me out of the car by my sleeve.

"Do you think you can behave today?" he asked, straightening my long choker chain and tucking Kumagoro into my inner jacket pocket.

"Why?" I eyed him, feeling decidedly suspicious.

"Guess where we are!"

I looked around, frowning at the very familiar walls and the equally familiar elevator. I tugged my sunglasses down and eyed the parking spot sign, noting that it had K's real name written under the big word 'RESERVED'. I glanced up at the ceiling and then my sleepy brain remembered exactly where we were.

"Oh hell no! No way! I'm tired! I haven't slept! I gotta wax my arms!"

Admittedly, I was panicking just a little. K tried grabbing me, and I wiggled free from his grip, leaving Kumagoro and my jacket behind as I tried for the exit with K right at my heels. I ducked and rolled as something loud went off, reversing my direction and heading east. I heard a maniacal laugh, stopped and made myself as small as possible as another explosion hit the parking garage and several cars exploded. Getting up, I ran around a couple burning husks, and ducked between the legs of an office woman in a pencil skirt, gained my feet and kept on running. Spotting an opening, I skidded left, slid in between the closing doors and fell flat on my face.

"Uh, hello?"

I looked up and waved the peace sign at the two men in suits. "How's it hanging?"

"Was someone shooting at you?" the older man asked, blinking at me.

I shrugged and got up, dusting myself off. Faintly I heard some generic pop song play over and over in a loop and wondered if K was even now sawing away at the elevator's cord. I hit a bunch of random buttons, trying to get it to hurry up before K did something drastic like bungee jump his way down with guns blazing or sending in the Marines. The elevator dinged and I was out, tearing past a couple harmless office workers and ducking into a room. Slamming the doors shut I leaned against them, panting heavily.

I was not ready to go into the studio and record something. I didn't have anything. No song, no lyrics and definitely no idea why I was acting this way. I just wanted to be left alone while I tried figuring out what was wrong with me, but no, K was determined to get the tracks done. As if I could just turn on my lyric writing with a gunshot or something.

"Ah, Mr. Ryuichi Sakuma is it?"

I blinked at the door in front of me. I wrapped the words in my head and realized just who was talking to me. I slowly turned around, stuck my hand in my hair and laughed. Sort of. "H-hi!"

Phil Loveless was the head CEO of my American label's L.A. office. He ran the place with an iron fist and he knew each and every recording artist under him by appearance alone. He did not listen to the music that was a task he left in the hands of producers and managers. He also looked like a kid trying to play dress-up in his father's business suits, even though I knew he was about ten years older than me. He'd probably look like a kid even when he loses all his teeth and hair and was in a nursing home.

The room I ducked in was a boardroom. Not only was Mr. Loveless there, so were several other members of the board of directors, all of them looking torn between shock and amusement at my appearance. It really did not help my image that I was a bit messy from all that running around and a twelve hour plan trip.

"I'm sorry for barging in like this," I said, inching towards the doorknob and possible freedom.

"It's quite fine," Mr. Loveless said, folding his hands together and smiled. I suppose it was suppose to look friendly, but I was used to Tohma's stranger smiles and knew it was anything but. "I was just telling these fine people about our interests in talents from overseas."

Swallowing, I froze. Think, Ryuichi, think. What would I do if Tohma gave me this kind of look while talking in front of a bunch of strange people that know next to nothing about me? And nothing pervy either, gee thanks imagination.

"He's from overseas?" one of the women asked him, looking me over. "Isn't he a little young for our label?"

Mr. Loveless raised an eyebrow, and I stared at the woman like she was a plastic snake that fell into my bento. And she was plastic too, with her weird nose and cheekbones not matching the set of her eyes and her too puffy lips. All that plastic must had something to do with her talking around me like I wasn't there or like I was dumb. Fine then, I'll play rock god to the idiots and see if she'll melt or just explode.

"I'm certainly younger than you are," I replied, flipping my hair back and strutting over to the long table. Sitting on the edge, I arched an eyebrow and smiled slowly. "Maybe by about thirty years. . . You know, word to the wise, but if you want to look young, you need to stop drinking and getting injections. All it does is make you look like the blowfish they served me the other night - puffy and not really that good."

"Miss Talbert, I would like you to meet Ryuichi Sakuma. He is one of our more talented solo artists," Mr. Loveless said to her, his tone telling me that I guessed right and that he really did not like the woman. "I believe you were talking about the hit 'In the Silence'? He is the vocalist and lyricist behind that piece, as well as several others that you were telling me I needed to copy so we can sell more records."

She was turning an interesting shade of molting red. I leaned forward and looked down the front of her barely buttoned shirt, raising both eyebrows, and blurted the first thing that came to mind. "Hey, they're fakes too! Lame."

The doors burst inwards. Choking on smoke, I fell over, narrowly missing getting slapped by that Talbert woman as I tried grabbing on to her to keep from meeting the floor. Standing in the ruins of the door, K swung his bazooka up and grinned wide.

"There you are, Ryuichi!"

"Oh, shit!" I hit the floor and tried scrambling out the other end of the table, but K had a grip on my leg and managed to drag me out, yelling and screaming about dirty prevy fake blondes. K just laughed, swinging me over his shoulder and ignoring my flailing.

"I'm sorry about the damages, boss," he said, swatting me on the head. I yelped and tried to gnaw his ear off.

"That's quite all right, K," Mr. Loveless replied, looking as if having his board rooms blown up was a normal thing. "I'll just have to keep a percentage of the next album to pay for it."

"Fine by me! Now if you'll excuse us, ladies and gentlemen, I have a singer to escort to his recording session."

Still struggling to get free, I was carried on K's shoulder all the way to the recording studios and tossed into a free one. I scrambled to my feet, stuck out my tongue and turned my back on the rest of the room. Of course, the only other person in the room besides me was K, who planted his big American ass in front of the door and started making calls on his cellphone. I tossed Kumagoro at him and flopped down, deciding to make a huge pout in my corner until he got up and then I was leaving.

I wasn't ready to sing after all.

Obviously, he knew the right buttons to push for me to sing. He turned his phone off and sat still guarding the door like he knew what was going on in my mind, someone started playing music. And not just any music, but the tracks for the three songs I was having the hardest time trying to find the right words too. I looked up, listening to how the sound had gained a deeper harmony, the heavier guitar adding a bigger punch.

"Wow."

"Do you think you can write something to that?"

"It sounds better," I replied, already hearing a melody. "What did you do to get it like this?"

"I told them that the tracks sounded too generic and played one of your old classics."

"Yeah? Well, at least they aren't copying it."

K snorted and tossed my sketchpad at me, throwing a crayon as an afterthought. "Okay, flyboy, get writing!"

"I still say you blonds are evil to me," I grumbled under my breath, picking them up and started scribbling. K left once I started working, only showing up a half an hour later with some takeout and coffee, both of which I inhaled without actually tasting either. A half hour of busy scribbling, and I had the songs, and K had gathered a crew together to record the lyrics in place.

Just because I had lyrics now did not mean that I was free by the end of that night. No, I still had to go over the songs again and again, making sure they all fitted together and made some coherent sense when played one after another. We re-recorded a couple songs, and I had to redo a whole list of lyrics and then listen to the mixers as they zapped out all the imperfections like distortions and vibrations. We discussed how to market the finished product I vetoed the whole tour idea because it felt like old news - and went to the video crew for a couple songs. We discussed release dates and possible radio-friendly singles. We had too much takeout and we celebrated the epic scandal of Miss Talbert getting in a fight with another fake blonde and losing her hair extensions in the ensuing catfight. We went to a few premier parties and I got to pose for a couple steamy pictures with K's wife Judy.

All said and done, it was three months later that I fell back on my bed in my L.A. penthouse and thought about how Shuichi was doing with N-G. I hadn't heard from anyone but Noriko since I got back and that was a short voice mail thanking me for coming to Japan just to do a favor for her. I thought about calling her, but after glancing at the time, I decided that she could wait. I really didn't want to wake her up in the middle of the night when she had a kid to get ready for school and a husband to take care of. But Tohma, on the other hand, was too easy to call up. He would be up and already heading for work, if he hadn't stayed the night like he usually did when launching a new group.

After the third ring, he picked up. "Seguchi here."

"Hey Tohma, it's me," I said, stretching out and looking up at the ceiling. "How are you?"

"Ryu," he replied, and I could hear the real smile in his voice. "I'm well. How are you?"

"Oh, wrung out and tired." I shrugged and scratched my stomach. I frowned, feeling bone. I couldn't remember when I last ate something that wasn't an energy bar. "How is Mika?"

"She is well. I take it you're done with recording?"

"Done, sealed and shipped out last night. K blew up half the building so I won't see much in the first month or two, but I think it should do okay."

"Oh?"

"It's got teeth to it." I rolled onto my stomach and hugged a pillow, smiling a little. "K made the session artists listen to some old Grasper and they got the idea of how hard and fast I like it. The first single's going to have the same kind of feeling as 'Be There' did."

"Aa, then you should actually have a real hit there," Tohma replied, and I heard a slight creak of old springs. "'Be There' was voted as the top fan favorite on the Music Fan website."

"Awesome." I wiggled around to find a better position and decided that my pillow was too lumpy. "Who got second place?"

"'Sweet Little Candy'."

"That was one of ours too."

Tohma laughed and I could almost see him leaning in his chair, the street lamps reflecting in his light hair and his mouth curving in his real smile. "We had three out of the top ten fan favorites, and the third one was number five."

"Which one?"

"'Subaru."

I laughed. I should have known. I did run through that old hit with Bad Luck on stage. But thinking of Bad Luck, I had to find out how well they were doing.

"Did anything by Shuichi hit the list?"

"'No Style' was sitting at number seven," Tohma said, an odd sort of reservation creeping into his voice.

I sat up, frowning at the phone. "Tohma? Is something wrong?"

He sighed softly, and my hand tightened around my phone. Something wasn't right. What happened to Shuichi?

"We had an incident involving Bad Luck's rival band ASK," Tohma said, and I could almost taste the tension in his voice. I wished we had those phones where a person could see as well as talk to each other, so I could know if Tohma was putting on his stranger's face over this. "Shuichi was harmed because of his better talent and his attachment to Eiri."

"Wait, he's seeing your brother-in-law and someone attacked him for it?" What the hell had happened in Tokyo while I was busy with music?

"That and because of his singing ability. He is not close to your level, but he is far superior than most. If only he was able to harness that ability."

"Tohma." I stopped him before he was able to distract me with some other gossip. "Tell me what happened."

So he did in short brutal words that did nothing to ease my worries. He also told me about Eiri's reaction to the attack, and the fall out concerning his engagement. After Tohma and I ended our call, I sat in my apartment for a long minute, looking down at the glowing screen on my cellphone. I flipped through numbers and found K's number. I hit speed dial, and left him a message in his voice mail. Then kicking off my covers I went to take a shower and pack. I was heading back to Japan for good this time.