track seven

I was definitely limping the next day, something K made a point to tell me the moment he threw open Tohma's office door. Tohma was sitting behind his desk, unruffled in his feathery coat and leopard print shirt, covered head to foot in leather and silk. I was in my usual jeans and oversized shirt, stretched out on the floor drawing, but when K came in yelling, I had jumped to my feet and tried hiding behind Tohma.

It didn't work. It never worked. Somehow, K could spot me in a room filled with look-alikes. I blamed Kumagoro. After all, K did put a tracking device in the bunny just so he could find me when my mind went wandering. Why my body insisted on going with my mind was another matter, but anyways, Kumagoro's tracking device was handy. Most times. I think.

Though I didn't think it was this time. Tohma and K were talking and I was ignoring them, looking Kumagoro over for a seam that might lead me to finding the evil tracking device and getting rid of it. I certainly wasn't paying attention even though they had said my name a couple times and were waiting for me to say something back. Finally K smacked me on the head, making me drop Kumagoro and look up at them.

"Huh?"

Tohma sighed, his smile one of fondness and almost real. "We were just asking you if you would like to do a few shows while you're figuring out where to go next."

"A few shows?" I scratched my head and frowned, looking over at K who looked like he wanted to say something else. "Like music shows?"

"I was thinking that you could use the exposure," Tohma replied.

I made a face, picking up Kumagoro and gnawing on his ear. Oh boy, that meant they had more then music shows in mind when they talk that way. I really didn't want to go do some lame interviews and take pictures all day long.

"Your American label have contacted us about the possibility of making your last album an international one, but of course they need my approval as well."

I blinked and looked at K. My manager was nodding slowly.

"It's true," he said. XMR e-Board had taken a deeper look into Grasper history and decided to capitalize on it."

"So, N-G will be printing the album out in a limited press," Tohma added, glancing over at K. "We will receive a percentage for it and we can work off the stir it might make among the core Grasper fan base."

"Then you guys will sell a greatest hits album or something?" I asked, finding the business talk boring and trying to figure out where they were going with all this stuff.

"It may happen," Tohma said.

I shot him a dirty look. Tohma raised an eyebrow, his smile becoming small and tight and rather smug. I glanced over at his keyboard setup and remembered that song we put together, the beat suddenly filling my head.

"Evil blonds and their evil plans and their evilness," I muttered, flopping over onto my back. "Fine, fine, whip up a couple shows and photo shoots. I might as well do something instead of drive all of you mad."

Tohma and K exchanged nods and they started hashing out whom to call for what. After listening for a few moments, I tuned them out, instead crawling back to my sketchpad and crayons. I was in the middle of drawing a huge dinosaur chewing on cars and it would be rude to not finish the drawing. A few minutes later, K was squatting down next to me, looking at my drawing like it was a code to find the Holy Grail.

"Are you all right, Ryuichi?"

I looked up at him, frowning a little. "I'm fine," I replied, going back trying to make a perfect wheel for the car. "Why?"

"You look tired."

"Jetlag," was my answer, followed by bopping him on the head with Kumagoro.

He frowned down at me for a few more minutes and then shook his head. I added some glittery purple specks to the dinosaur and made some fire while waiting for his next big announcement. It didn't take him long.

"You didn't go home last night."

"I was here with Tohma catching up on all the gossip."

"Well then." The American stood up and reached down, yanking me to my feet and spilling crayons all over the place. "Let's get you home and into a decent bed. You'll feel much better after a nap."

"What? K!"

I flailed, but of course it didn't stop him from shoving Kumagoro into my arms and grabbing my suitcase. I pouted at Tohma who was trying to hide the laughter in his eyes and hung there as K carried me out the door and down the hall. He ignored a couple 'Good Mornings' tossed his way, continued holding me like another piece of luggage on the elevator ride down to the garage, and only sat me down when we reach a dark blue company car. I stomped my foot, turned around to go back upstairs but then I heard a sharp click that echoed in the garage.

Turning slowly, I looked down the barrel of his favorite .44 Magnum, his finger on the trigger and a really dark look in his eyes. Now, I didn't think K would actually shoot me, but I knew he would shoot everything else, and not wanting to see Tohma's building get turned into a firing range, I sighed and got in the car. Immediately, K was his smiling sunny self.

"Good boy!"

"Did anyone tell you you're a sadistic bastard?" I asked, slumping in my seat. The car shifted as he tossed the suitcase in the back seat and got in.

"All the time," he quipped, adjusting the seat and mirrors to fit his height. "Especially when I get out the whips and chains."

"Too much information, K," I said, making a face.

He laughed and pulled out into traffic. I liked K, I really did. He was a fun guy to be around when he wasn't blowing things up or trying to mother me all the time. But this was just too much after last night. I wanted to stay near Tohma and try to figure out what had happened with everyone. I wanted to not let go of him because I was afraid he was going to fall. Something was building and I didn't like it.

"Don't, Ryuichi."

"Huh?" I looked over at him. K had his serious face on, his eyes fixed on the road as he weaved through morning traffic.

"Let Tohma work this out by himself. Don't kill yourself over something that you can't control."

"I didn't know I was that transparent."

"Oh no, I've just been your manager over the past three years. I don't know anything about you!" He let go of the steering wheel and held his hands out, shaking his head to the side.

I stuck my tongue out at him and turned away. Like I needed to hear advice from a gun toting American. I knew exactly what I was doing with Tohma. I had known him since school and I knew how to read his body if not his words. No, I knew that letting Tohma work this out alone could possibly be worse than if I stayed there for him. He had the tendency to take the entire burden on himself instead of asking for help.

We got to my place in little under an hour, K actually obeying some of the speeding limits for once. He frog marched me up to my apartment and tossed me into my bedroom, telling me to get some rest before disappearing down the hall to the kitchen. I huffed at the treatment and rooted around for something soft to wear, settling on a faded tank top and some fleece flannels before shuffling off to see what he was doing.

He was cooking. I stood in the kitchen's doorway watching the blond as he rooted through the cupboards and dumped stuff into two steaming pans. I didn't even know I had half of the stuff that he was tossing together unless he actually had someone stock my kitchen before I came here, which was a pretty neat thing that managers did to keep their stars happy. It didn't keep me as happy as most though since I couldn't remember a time when I had a real meal, and the smells of cooking food were making me feel dizzy.

"I told you to go lay down," K said over his shoulder. I bit down on my lower lip and nodded, feeling my stomach drop and my insides churn. He softened his tone, smiling a little. "It'll be ready in a couple more hours, so you should be hungry by then."

I decided to do what he asked, after first making my way to the bathroom and hacking up the bile in my throat. Running a cold washcloth over my face, I looked in the mirror, seeing an old sickly guy with messy hair and lines taunt around his eyes and mouth. His cheekbones were far too stark, and his eyes were feverish against the dark circles around them. I frowned and turned away. Sleep might restore some of my looks, but I knew that soon, there would be no stopping the decay.

I dug out Kumagoro from my pile of clothing and got into bed with him, putting the rabbit on the pillow next to me, although he often would wander away at night and sometimes end up over by the TV or on the chest of drawers. Pulling the covers over my head, I practiced some deep breathing to calm my stomach down and tried think of something other than what kind of mess K was making in the other room. I didn't really sleep, but I did doze off a little, the unhappy gurgling of my stomach settling down. Stretching out, I looked over at the clock and decided that I had enough of a nap and went to see what K was doing.

"Perfect timing," the blond said, bent over something steaming on top of the stove. Gone were the two pans he was cooking things in earlier instead he had a long deep pan, and a knife. He used it to point at the cupboards. "Grab a couple plates and bring them over."

"What did you make?" It smelt a bit odd garlic and tomatoes and something else were the chief ingredients I could pick out, but it wasnt familiar. I took down a couple plates and went over to him, making a face at the mess bubbling in the pan.

"Lasagna!"

I stared. The closest thing to lasagna I've seen wasn't as violently red, and it didn't have thick layers of melted gooeyness that stuck to the knife as he cut a couple squares out. He used it to shovel some onto each plate, tugging at the gooey stuff to get it to break and then shoved one of the plates at me.

"Dig in, Ryuichi."

"What is it?" I asked again, staring at the plate and the strange red dripping sauce and wobbly gooeyness and the white edge of something thick.

"I told you before." K had cut himself a bigger piece and was now setting his plate on the small table and going back for silverware. He seemed delighted that there were a number of Western styled utensils in the drawers. "Sit down and eat before it gets cold!"

Still thinking that he was trying to kill me, I sat. I picked up my fork and stabbed at the food a couple of times, expecting to see it move or something weird like that. "K. . ."

"Tomato meat sauce and cheese layered between pasta, Ryuichi," he said, leaning on his hand, his fork poised to attack his own plate. "It's filling and it should help in putting some weight on those bones of yours."

I dropped my fork. Suddenly, my stomach was churning again.

"At least try a bite," K said, and he sounded almost sad. "If you can't eat it, I will give you some soup instead. But Ryuichi, you've lost too much weight."

He didn't add 'again' even if he remembered how wasted I was when I first made the move overseas. It took me so long to return to a healthy weight, even if it was a little on the thin side. I didn't do drugs or take a lot of pills, and while I did drink it was far less than what people expected from a rock star. So really, I had nothing to blame me being too thin than my own lack of hunger.

I picked up my fork, took a small piece and chewed on it slowly. The weird hollow feeling of my stomach changed into a growling need for food, though the edges were a bit wobbly. I swallowed and tried another bite, feeling the wobbliness fade as I ate slowly and took long moments between bites. It made K happy enough, and he didn't press me to have another piece even though he had three big pieces of his own. The leftovers were wrapped up and put away in the fridge and I noticed that he gotten a lot of small, individual wrapped fruits and veggies and drinks stuff that I could easy grab on the way out the door or chew on while working.

"Okay!" he said, pulling out a planner and tossing it at me. "We've got a few things lined up for the next couple of days."

I opened the book and stared at the crammed notes in today's spot. "A few?"

"You're still popular, babe," he replied, grinning. "I didn't even have to pull strings for people wanting a piece of you."

"Bad mental image," I said, making a face and handing the planner back. I really wasn't that interested in the PR schedule when there was nothing to really sell. "I guess you better lead the way, oh fearless manager."

He folded his arms across his chest and smiled, looking up and down at me. I scratched my head, wondering what the heck was wrong with him. I didn't have to wait for long since he leaned forward and gave my sleeping pants a tug.

"Are you sure that you want people to see you in these?"

I looked down. Bright blue fuzzy flannels were nice and warm to wear, but they really did not say 'rock star'. Especially bright blue fuzzy flannels with tiny bunnies and ducks dancing across them. I felt my cheeks heat up and I ran off to my room, changing into a stretched to perfection yellow sweater and a pair of jeans with a hole in the left knee. Sunglasses and baseball cap, and Kumagoro completed my look and I was following K out the door. He handed me a piece of mint gum and I chewed away, humming a little as we got into the car and drove off to the first of many interviews.

The next few days past like that. K would show up in the morning and make sure that I had a large breakfast American style, and then we went off to do interviews and public appearances and other stuff that I had to have a part in. I found out that I actually had a vote in a couple N-G matters and sat a couple times on the board just to get a feel for it. I spent a couple hours with Tohma listening to the stuff being worked on by Bad Luck and somehow we created another song together. I visited Noriko and hung out with her and her daughter and then Noriko and I managed to talk Tohma into going out drinking with us.

So a month passed and I was getting back into shape, even if I really wanted to go hide somewhere for a day. Not that I didn't like all the posing and preening I was a showman after all but I just felt like there was too much of it going on for being the front man of a band that split three years ago. So I told Tohma as I laid on his floor, coloring a big purple butterfly with guns over his nice carpet.

"You're bored?" he said, looking up from his papers.

"I guess so," I replied, adding a few more explosions to the drawing. "Kumagoro and I like talking to peoples but we can't do it all the time. It makes our heads hurt."

"Oh. Well, we really don't want that," he said, closing the file and setting it aside. He opened a drawer and took out a thick book, opening it up in the middle and running his finger down the page. "What if I was to tell Kumagoro that you two don't have any where to be tomorrow?"

I chewed on Kumagoro's ear. "He would say that he wants to do something fun with his friends."

"I would like that but I have a meeting with XMR and Noriko has to finish Bad Luck's album."

Bad Luck again. I made a face and hugged Kumagoro tight. I wasn't sure if I liked Bad Luck any more. "They need to stop hogging Noriko all the time."

"I'm working on that."

I huffed a little, still put out about it. It would have been nice if the three of us could just hang out without any work in the way. Out of all of us, I was the one with no real obligations, and it really sucked.

"I could ask K. . ."

"No, he's been following me too much as it is." I liked K but still a guy got tired of having a big blond shadow that shot anything that came near him. I couldn't even get on a dance floor without him scaring everyone away.

"Hm, well, there is Tatsuha."

"Who?" I rolled onto my back and stuck my feet up in the air, looking over at Tohma. He was chewing on his lower lip, frowning down at his address book.

"Mika's younger brother," Tohma replied. "He's young but responsible. The only problem is that he's a fan."

That made it click together. "Eiri's look-a-like?"

Tohma laughed slightly. "Yes, that's him. I can't guarantee he won't try to molest you, but I do know he will make sure you're not mobbed by fans. He. . . wouldn't want to share."

I thought about it. The one thing I hated about stardom was I couldn't hang out like a normal person. I couldn't just go out and buy a hotdog without first wearing something to disguise myself. Even if I wanted to be surrounded by bodyguards all the time, I still would cause a scene and start trouble by appearing among normal people. If there was a way to get around it, I was all ears.

"Alright, but if he starts grabbing me, I am so telling K."