track nine

They both stared at me. I smiled back and tighten my hold on them. Tohma looked at Noriko and she looked back. And then the arms around me tighten as well and we pulled in close together, almost like we were trying to crawl into each other's clothing. Noriko's laughter was high, fast, almost giddy, and Tohma bowed his head, his lips curving into a soft rare smile of true happiness. It was right. It was time, and I could almost feel whole standing like this with them.

Of course, someone had to take a picture of that group hug. We broke apart and I turned to see who it was. The black-haired teen lowered his camera and grinned, looking almost familiar to me even as Tohma crossed the distance and snatched the cell phone away.

"Tatsuha, you were supposed to go home," Tohma told him.

I blinked. "You stayed the entire time?"

"But I wanted to stay for Sakuma-san!" Tatsuha was blubbering again, clinging onto Tohma's coat. "And get pictures of him, and maybe hold him, and have him call me later!"

Tohma glanced over at me even as Noriko shifted so she was in front of me, unconsciously playing guard. It was pretty weird how the two tended to act that way around fans, as if I would get hurt if the fans got too close. I laid a hand on Noriko's shoulder and leaned against her, watching Tatsuha for a moment.

"You know, I guess it's okay that he keeps the pictures, Tohma," I said. "After all, he did drag me around all day and a guy like him probably had a lot of stuff he should have been doing. But, he needs to give us a copy of the group hug, right?"

Tohma sighed and handed the camera back. "If you insist, Ryuichi."

"Well, if he gets weird and sells them to anyone, you can always get K to shoot him," I replied, smiling. I ran my fingers along Noriko's ribs, making her giggle and jab an elbow at me. "Speaking of K, where did he go?"

"I believe he took Shindou-san home since he was the one that brought him here."

"Is he blind or something?"

"You know Americans - they just think we all look alike."

"Seriously, though. Shuichi doesn't look like me that much."

"I believe that K was pressured in trying to find you. It is my fault entirely. I should have double check your schedule before letting you go."

"Umm, can I get your autographs? I mean, since the whole group is here and. . ."

We broke up our conversation and looked over at Tatsuha. He took a step back and tapped his fingers together, a blush creeping up his cheeks and into his hair line. I had totally forgot he was there having finally got Tohma and Noriko all to myself.

"Will you promise to go home if we do that?" Noriko asked, folding her arms under her breasts.

Tatsuha nodded eagerly and produced an autograph book and a black marker. Noriko took them from him and flipped to an open page before scribbling a neat little poem at the top. She handed it to Tohma who covered the bottom half of the page with a few bars of music and his signature and then handed the book to me. I tried. I seriously tried but my kanji looked wobbly and alone in the corner. But since I was known for my crossover success, I figured he would love the English signature and the little Kumagoro I put at the end of it. Finished, I closed the book and handed them back to him.

"Now beat it," Noriko said, winking at him. Tatsuha nodded several times, nearly tripping over his feet, before he turned and ran out the door yelling at the top of his lungs about meeting the true gods of rock. I scratched my head and looked at the others.

"So now what should we do?"

"What do we always do when we get together?" Noriko said, poking me in the chest.

"We go to the NY Club and write music," Tohma said, folding his arms and cupping his elbows with his hands. "And we get so plastered that we end up sleeping on the couch at Ryuichi's place."

Maybe we should skip that part," Noriko replied as she fanned herself. "I am a married woman after all. . ."

"Since when has that stopped you from anything?" I linked my arm with hers and Tohma took her other arm, the three of us stepping outside and heading for the only car left in the parking lot.

"Ryu, you pervert!" She giggled and poked me in the ribs.

"I really think he has picked up a lot of bad habits while in America."

"I know! Did you see how bad his handwriting has gotten?"

"Hey, kanji is hard!"

"Sa, he is such a terrible lead singer, taking off and leaving us here to become such normal people."

"Oh please, like you two are normal at anything you do."

"I am wasting away as a stay-at-home mom and Tohma is stuck in that boring office day after day, toiling away with paperwork," she said, clinging to me and sobbing. "And you, you dirty old man, ran off with that tall American to become such a darling to the people abroad, never calling us or telling us anything!"

"Has she been like this since I left?" I asked, looking over her head at Tohma.

He smiled and unlocked the car, holding it open for Noriko. "Oh, you know how it is when she is away from her husband longer than an hour."

"Oh. Women problems."

"Just you wait, Ryu, I am so going to tell that to your wife when you get married."

"I'm going to get married?" I let go of her and she slid into the seat, tugging her skirt demurely down.

Oho! You think you will escape the marriage fairy, do you?"

"But darling, I'm married to my Art," I replied, and closed the door. Tohma chuckled and walked around the front, and I climbed into the back, leaning forward and draping my arms on either side of Noriko's headrest. "I suppose I could find someone that is more interested in working, but then I'll still go home to a pink rabbit and K's leftovers."

"He's cooking for you?" Noriko twisted around and looked at me.

"He thinks I don't eat right," I replied. "You should see the stuff he makes. Lasagna and spaghetti and some kind of weird potato thing. I think he's trying to clog up my brain with fat."

"Hm, I suppose I should look into getting you a real chef," Tohma said, adjusting his rear view mirror and then starting the car. "I can't imagine how healthy any of that is unless you were completely starving."

"I know. But I guess it's stuff that keeps." I shrugged and patted Noriko's bright hair. "Say, do you have any gray yet?"

"Ryuichi! Stop asking me that!" She smacked my hand and I laughed. "If anyone has gray hair, it'll be you!"

"Nope, sorry. I'll still look this gorgeous long after you lose all your teeth."

"Now children. I am driving."

"You know, pico-pico Nori-chan, I think Tohma has turned into an old man."

"I think you're right, Ryu-chan. Whatever shall we do about it?"

"Maybe we need to steal his hat and his underwear."

"I can always turn this car around."

"Or maybe we can get him in front of a keyboard. He always unwinds when he is given free reign with one of those."

"But what would his wife say? Tohma would be cheating on her with such a huge instrument."

"I possibly can't be hearing this."

"Do you think that she cares? Mika needs a break from his bad love poetry."

"Tohma! You didn't tell me that you write poetry! You have to show me it now!"

"Ryuichi, stop trying to take my jacket off!"

"Oh right, we are in a moving car."

"I don't think he has it on him. I've heard it was all in a huge book."

"Are you sure? Check his pants. He can hide anything in those!"

"I can't do that! What if my husband finds out?"

"I can't believe you two are adults."

"Maybe we should get him plastered first and then search his clothing for crappy love poems."

"That's your job, Ryu. I'll just take a lot of pictures and sell them to some poor fangirl that had been pining away for you two ever since that second encore performance."

"Yeah. . . that was a good one."

"So says the man that undressed me in front of a million fans."

"Hey, I was naked first!"

"Boys, boys, now stop fighting. I'm sure all you need to do is kiss and make up."

"Sometimes, I think Noriko is trying to get us to re-enact that show."

"Maybe you better look for cameras, Ryuichi."

"Do you think she hid them in her wig?"

"Don't make me go back there!"

"Aw, but you love me, Noriko, right?"

"Sometimes, I really wonder about that."

Tohma pulled to a stop in front of our favorite bar. I stepped out first and went to Noriko's door, opened it and gave her a hand up. Tohma came over to her other side, and we linked arms, still arguing good naturedly over whatever came off the top of our heads. We stepped into the club, still linked together and laughing and causing an instant stir among the other people inside. We posed just in case people were taking pictures and then went over to the bar and sat down, still arguing.

The bartender came up to us, took our orders and left. Tohma rested his elbow on the bar and rested his chin in his cupped hand, and smiled at me. "So, you really want to do this."

"Yeah, yeah I do," I replied and patted my sides down for paper.

"Oh come on, Tohma, you can't tell me that you rather sit around working on N-G's budget," Noriko said, tapping him on the nose. He laughed and raises his hands up.

"You've got me there, Noriko."

"We don't have any papers," I said, and waved the bartender down. "We need something to write on and a couple pens."

"Working on new ideas, Sakuma-san?" he asked, handing over some pens and a stack of papers covered with the club's logo.

"You better believe it."

"Let's find a booth where we can work," Tohma said, picking up his and mine drinks.

We got up and headed after him, sliding into the seats opposite of him. I put the paper down and snatched my drink back, and he rested his hands on top of the polished table, looking at Noriko.

"To be honest, I did expect something like this happening," he said quietly.

"You mean Ryu getting in his skull to bring the band back together?" Noriko asked, taking the paper and pens and drawing a little heart in the corner of the top sheet.

"He did write a couple Grasper songs since his return to Tokyo."

"You helped me, Tohma."

"Sa, so I did, but they are not really complete."

"No." I smiled and rested my head on Noriko's shoulder. "They don't have Noriko's touch yet."

She sighed and rubbed her cheek against the top of my head. "I just can't stay mad at you two. . . so where are they?"

"They're on my computer up at the office. We can take them to any studio inside of N-G and polish them up," he replied, taking a sip of his drink. "And we can go from there."

"It sounds like this will be fun."

"So, what'll be the plan of attack?" They both looked at me. I raised my eyebrows and looked back. "We're getting together again, right? Do we just sit on it quiet like and wait until we have a complete album or do we slam people with a single and then announce we're back? Come on, Tohma, you've got the business head out of all of us."

"A good question," he said, putting his glass down and taking some paper from me. He had his own pen, so Noriko kept the pen even though she pouted at his stealing her heart-covered paper. "Both ideas have merit if we let the tension build until we release a full album, there is a possibility we go platinum within a day. The amount of pressing that first album would need might break our production group in materials alone, but the payout would be ten times that. But if we press just a single, we run the risk of alienating the fans with a long wait for our album afterwards."

I craned my neck to look at the figures Tohma was writing up and linking together with balloons and arrows. I looked over at Noriko and rubbed my forehead.

"Did you get any of that at all?"

"Didn't you?"

Tohma crumpled up his paper and tossed it at me, and managed to get it stuck on top of my head. I yelped and knocked it off.

"I suppose we could put together a collection and add a new song to it," he said, picking up his glass. "It will mean less work and give our fan base something to chew on while we work on the rest."

"And we can get something like that out in a day or two, instead of sitting around and trying to keep Grasper's return secret," Noriko said as she raised her glass.

"Because as much as we try to deny it, N-G can be a hive of gossipers and the moment they see us in the same studio, it will get out," I said, raising mine.

We tapped our glasses together, our smiles nearly identical as we all said the same thing at the same time.

"Nittle Grasper is forever."

We drank and then the writing commenced. Tohma took a new sheet and wrote a group of notes down, his elegant handwriting in notations along the margins. He handed it to me and I filled in the space under the notes, linking words together in a shaky hand before switching over to romaji since it was a little bit easier for me. I linked the words together and spaced them out to fit and then slid the sheet over to Noriko. She looked at it for a moment or two and then started working on a second set of notes, her notations all curves and circles. She slid it back to Tohma and he read it over, nodding slowly.

"Yes, that is the punch it needs."

I bounced in my seat and pulled over a new sheet of paper, carefully writing down the lyrics from ages ago the same lyrics I sang at Bad Luck's first concert. Noriko leaned against my arm, reading as I wrote them down. Tohma put his glass down and leaned forward, his eyebrows rising.

"You still remember them," he said, sitting back.

"Yeah. Think you two can make something out of them?"

He and Noriko exchanged looks and they each grabbed a clean sheet of paper. I finished my end of the notes and left them at it while I ordered up another round. When I got back, they both had finished pages. I looked them over and then folded that group together, setting them on top of the first sheet of music, and grabbed the next sheet. Slowly we built up a core of new songs, some only a few scratches while others fully complete singles. Not that we were finished by any stretch of the imagination. What we were doing was getting our ideas together. It would take a lot of hours in a studio to actually go from paper to the airways. But at least it was a good start.

We used up all the paper we could get, and then we were talked into running through a couple of our old hits by the live act on stage. We drank too much, we flirted shamelessly with members of the crowd, and then we stumbled out into the streets about two in the morning, still riding a high. Somehow, Tohma got in his head the idea of serenading the park, so the three of us ended up there, singing bad songs and laughing about it. Parts of the night passed on in a blurry haze while other parts were sharply in focus like Tohma sitting on the ground, his hat hanging off of one ear and his face flushed a pretty pink. We made it back to the car in one piece and Tohma drove us slowly to my place, where we spent a lot more time draped over each other, still working on the music.