White Album 3 (A Possibility)

by ElectronicBee8771

Twenty years after Haruki and Kazusa left their homeland for forbidden love, the product of their union flees to Japan to seize his freedom. Blessed with the talents of his parents, 19-year-old Kitahara Leon is also a conflicted, vulnerable soul. But a chance meeting with a lingering thread from the past draws him into a musical and romantic journey that will change him forever.

2. Part 2

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

With a finger, I punched the "End Call" button with enough force to knock the phone out of my grasp. As it clattered to the floor, I reflexively bent down to try to catch it and ended up slamming my forehead into the edge of the folding table. Fortunately, it was just plastic, so I didn't open a gash on my forehead. I still reeled back, pressing my palms to my hairline and roaring my agony through my clenched jaw. My heart pounded as I finally found the wherewithal to sit my ass down in a chair with my face buried in my hands. That didn't just happen! He didn't just tell me to go fuck myself!

"Who was it?" Saeko asked. She emerged from behind a flimsy curtain in the back of the green room, now dressed in her usual tracksuit.

"Just…" I patted my cheeks and took a deep breath to calm myself. "Just a robocall. Nothing important."

She gave me a disdainful look, bent over, and picked my phone up off the ground. "You were pissed off enough at a robocall to break your screen?"

I took it from her, and sighed at the big crack that now ran from top to bottom. I really should have bought a better case for it. Just in case my father decided to call me again, I quickly set it to silent. "Yeah. I mean, it did interrupt something special." I smiled weakly at her. "You know, if you wanna keep going…"

She crossed her arms. "When you lie like that, it makes me so dry I could go into early fucking menopause."

Before I could ineffectually protest, the door swung open and Yukiko tromped on in, followed by Haruto.

"Here!" she said, thrusting a can of Green Dakara in my face. "Sacchan, they didn't have any C.C. Lemon, so I got you a Dekavita. Oh, and since I'm a genius, I also had a great idea for what to do next!" She glanced at me and stopped. "Eh? What's up, dude? You look like someone just shat in your cereal."

"I'm fine," I said, lying again. "I'm just really tired," I said, opening my canned drink. My mouth had gone dry again, and I chugged the contents. "Aren't you? We worked like crazy for the last two weeks. I don't think we slept for most of it, either. We should probably get some rest."

"Yeah, but tomorrow they're making us study," Yukiko said, making a disgusted expression. "As I was gonna say, why don't we all go to late night karaoke? Leon, you should change back into your boner pants, and our yakuza manager can sing! Izumi-san! You know the words to '24-Hour Cinderella?' I bet you do, you friggin' criminal."

"Yes, yes, Ogiso," Haruto said. "I'm glad you think I'm as cool as Majima Goro, but Leon is right. We should pack it in."

"You're both limp-dicked chumps!"

"Kiko, you're being overruled," Saeko said. "I also wanna go home. I feel like an old lady with her uterus exploding out of her vag."

Yukiko let out a growl and sank into one of the chairs. She morosely sipped her drink, reminding me of a sullen toddler. Despite the intense trepidation I barely kept at bay, she still made me want to laugh. Haruto's phone buzzed and he glanced at it.

"Just in time," he said. "Ogiso, Setsuna and Ogata-san will take you home. I'll drive you two to your places," he said, to Saeko and me.

"Lame!" Yukiko said, rolling her eyes at me. "I thought we were rock stars! I thought this was America!"

#

For the entire ride back, Saeko and I didn't talk to each other. Instead, she stared blankly out the window of Haruto's Tesla, as if trying not to make eye contact. When we pulled up in front of the Iizuka household, she wordlessly unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door.

I leaned over and touched her shoulder, desperation leaking from my fingertips. "Want some company?"

She shook her head and exited. The fact that she hadn't slammed the door or made a snide remark stung me harder than any retort of hers could have, anyway. I sighed and balled a fist. Fucking Dad…

"Hey Leon," Haruto said. "I know I said we should all rest, but do you wanna catch a drink first? I did promise you I'm buying."

I smiled, glumly. "You kinda read my mind, man. But isn't the drinking age like, twenty, here?"

"Don't make a scene, and it's any age you want," Haruto said. "I know a nice place that's close by."

A little while later, Haruto and I walked into a softly-lit and almost deserted shot bar and pulled up stools to the counter.

"You like whiskey?" he asked me.

"Yeah, sounds good."

"Master, Hibiki Seventeen for us, thank you."

"Whoa, sounds pricey. You don't have to go crazy for me," I said.

"No, it's fine. After all, I'm happy you finally called me Onii-san."

The bartender placed our glasses in front of us. Fancy spherical ice balls completed the high-class look.

I took my glass and raised it to Haruto. "I mean, you're my closest guy friend in this country, even if you're paid to do it. I don't really have anyone else like that. So yeah, I'm glad to call you my onii-san sometimes."

We clinked our glasses together and I took a generous sip of the stuff. I wasn't a huge drinker, nor was I a whiskey connoisseur, but it was smoother than I expected, and had pleasant notes of caramel and vanilla. It still burned going down my throat, like all spirits did.

"I have to confess, I was little nervous about taking this job, Haruto said. "I wasn't sure what to expect from the only child of Touma Kazusa. Don't take it the wrong way, but I thought you'd be a huge brat."

I laughed. "I can see why. Mom had a bad reputation early on, and she's still weird during interviews. Dad's put a lot of work into making it so she doesn't just sit and glare at reporters, or say something completely off the wall. She gets away with all kinds of crap because she's apparently attractive or something."

"Oh, there's no doubt about that," Haruto said. "I know it's difficult to see because she's your mother, but… yeah, your dad's a lucky man, and that's all I'll say about it. Speaking of which, have your parents been in touch with you at all?"

I looked down at my glass. I didn't want to tell him about my father's call, but I couldn't just lie to him, either. "Yeah, my dad called me."

"He see the show?"

I swirled my drink in my hand, watching the shrinking ice ball bump against the sides of the glass. "Yeah, he did. He…wasn't happy."

In my thoughts, I begged Haruto not to press further. And to my surprise, he didn't.

"My mom was the same way, when I switched careers," Haruto said. "Until about a year ago, I was basically her understudy. I learned the craft how she learned it, which is basically extreme method-acting."

"What does that mean?"

"Say you wanna play Mario. You know, from the Nintendo games. Well, you fake an identity and do an apprenticeship with a real plumber. You might throw a turtle at someone, too. Or you wanna play a yakuza. Mom had me, no shit, take sakazuki with an oyabun of the Inagawa-kai. I might have caused a few concussions in my time."

"Whoa! Do you like…have tattoos on your back?"

Haruto laughed. "As badass as it would be, no. Actually, they really don't do the tattoos and finger-cutting anymore. Too difficult to blend in to society that way. Anyway, Mom had me do all kinds of crazy shit, all for my career as an actor. I'd done small parts here and there, some commercials, and she was really pushing for me to take the starring role in 'ToToNo.' It would have been my big break. But I pulled out of the auditions in the final round."

I raised an eyebrow. "You know I have to ask 'why,' right? I mean, being a professional pianist is one thing, but why turn down being a movie star?"

"As I told your grandmother, it was mostly nepotism that got me there. I also fundamentally didn't want it. Yeah, lots of people out there would hate me for throwing away an opportunity to be a big movie star. But I had to do something for myself, and in my own way. Isn't that why you turned down Julliard?"

"Can't argue with that."

"So, is your dad's call why you looked like someone shot your dog back there at the studio?"

"Yeah," I said. "Was it stupid of me to hope Dad would change his mind about me coming here? Or at least enjoy the fucking songs?" My eyes burned.

"Sounds like he's a stubborn bastard," Haruto said. "All I can say is that I'm glad you're here with us. So are the girls, no matter how much they try to downplay it, and so are Eiji and Rina and Hanako. I've also never seen Setsuna so animated. So please know that you're not alone here."

"Thanks," I whispered, wiping my eyes. "I mean it."

"Well, I should probably get you back to Touma-san's place before she starts hunting me down with a shotgun," Haruto said. He slid a ten-thousand yen note to the Master to settle us out. "Sleep in for a bit, okay? Just call me when you want me to pick you up tomorrow."

"Will do."

"And I don't mean to keep badgering you about work, but you might want to choose a disguise outfit as soon as possible. The band is going to get pretty famous pretty fast, so there'll be reporters out there stalking you, fans coming up to you at all times, and it'll get dangerous. Even something simple like glasses and a hat will do the trick."

After that, Haruto drove me back to Youko's house. She was likely long-asleep, so I silently let myself in. I fully expected to crash the moment I'd finished my long-awaited shower, but instead, I found myself in bed, fully awake, staring at the ceiling. I couldn't say why—I hadn't even been thinking directly about my parents, and my jitters from the Tomo show had long since faded. I simply felt like I didn't need to sleep.

Rather than waste hours on fruitless attempts at slumber, I climbed out of bed and made my way to the basement. The great thing about a professionally acoustically-sealed practice space was that I could jam as loudly as I wanted to without waking Youko or anyone else up. So that's exactly what I ended up doing until it was time for breakfast.

#

If Youko had thought it strange that I was up in the morning practicing the night after my debut appearance on national television, she hadn't said it. Instead, she'd quickly come to the same conclusion as Haruto had, and had already chosen my "disguise" for me.

"There," she said, pushing me up to one of the full-length mirrors in her room. "You look different enough from what people remember from TV, but still super pretty!" Upon seeing my look, she cleared her throat abruptly. "I mean, you look dashing! Really studly!"

My first impulse was to complain, because I looked neither dashing nor studly, but I wasn't about to be ungrateful to the grandmother to whom I owed everything. The outfit looked suspiciously like it had been originally intended for someone else's use. A charcoal newsboy cap, thick-framed glasses, purple scarf, and black peacoat rested over a white, un-tucked blouse, a red patent leather belt (that didn't actually hold anything up), and herringbone-patterned pants with maroon pumps. Yeah, with that combination, only one other person in the Touma family came to mind. Still, it was just a disguise for going out and avoiding unwanted attention, so I could live with it.

"You know, it needs something else," Youko said, mischief creeping into her voice. She produced an exquisite, blue cowrie shell-patterned comb. "Wear this in your hair."

I shook my head. "Thanks, but no thanks, obaachan. You've done so much for me already. Oh! I think I hear my manager outside. I've gotta go! Love you!" I said, and hugged her warmly. She slipped the damned comb into my hair anyway. Treating me like a dress up doll… I decided against pulling it out, and left the house to join Haruto.

"Whoa there! Who the fuck are you?" Haruto asked in his yakuza voice as I opened the door and got in.

"Touma Friggin' Kazusa," I replied, grumpily. After a moment, we both laughed. "I didn't actually put this together, just so you know. My grandmother did."

"It's pretty good," Haruto said. "Don't take this the wrong way, but it's easy to mistake you for a chick. You'll be completely safe in that. Touma Youko-san is very wise."

"Well, shit, there goes my dating life," I said. "So, are we going to Setsuna's mansion again?"

"Not really. It's too distracting at Setsuna's, with instruments and stuff everywhere. You'll still be going to an Ogiso residence, all the same. Setsuna's parents live only about three or so metro stops away. That's where you'll study with Yukiko."

"Oh, I see. So…what kinda people are they?"

"Her mom, Akina, is the sweetest, kindest lady you'll ever meet. Her dad, Susumu, is a caricature of the overprotective father archetype. The first time he met Ogata Eiji, he threw Eiji out of the house. Because you know how Eiji is."

I snickered, imagining the emperor of 1980's pop being chucked out the door head-first like a drunkard being ejected from a pub. "Now I definitely wanna meet this guy."

"He wants to meet you, too. I assume Setsuna told you about what happened between her and your father in the nineties, right?"

"Oh…shit, that's right." I felt my stomach turn.

"It's okay, he's a fair man, despite his weirdness. I mean, you're not trying to date Setsuna, I would hope."

"Absolutely not," I said. I willfully fought back my recollection of what her lips had tasted like. The feel of her breasts in my hands. Her hands exploring my skin. Our encounter had been thrilling and also completely insane. I was grateful to her for stopping, because I hadn't possessed the sense to.

"Yeah, so no problem. You're just a nice friend trying to help Yukiko not fail out of college. And my advice is that you keep it that way. At least while under her grandparents' roof."

"Hey, buddy, I think you have me confused with this kid, Kitahara Leon. I'm Touma Kazusa. I'm…"

"Like Leon, minus the impressive cock?"

"How did you know I was gonna say that?"

"I consume just as much trash as you do, man. Okay, we're here. Have fun, stay as long as you need to, and give me a call when you're ready to leave."

"Thanks, Onii-san," I said, and exited the car.

I pushed the gate buzzer under the "Ogiso" nameplate. It wasn't too long until someone answered.

"Hello?" a woman asked from the other line. I didn't recognize her voice, but I assumed it was Setsuna's mother, Akina.

"It's Kitaha—" I stopped. "It's Leon, I'm here to study with Yukiko…" I sound twelve, right now.

"Ara! Okay, come on in!" The gate buzzed, allowing me access to the front door. As I made my way toward it, the door opened, and Yukiko rushed out to greet me. For a moment, I was struck by the innocent beauty of the smile on her face. Or at least, before she stopped in her tracks and gave me dumbfounded look. Then, just as quickly, she doubled over and started to laugh.

"Holy shit, Leon! I know I told you to cross-dress, but I didn't expect it at my grandparents' house!" Her uncontrollable cackling made my cheeks burn. I swore I could have seen shark teeth erupt in her maw.

Annoyed and somewhat angry at her for destroying that earlier beatific expression, I took off the hat and tore the comb away from my hair before shoving it in a pocket. "It's just a disguise! My grandmother put it together! I couldn't tell her 'no!'"

"Yukiko, you're being unwelcoming to our guest," said an older woman who came out right afterward. Based on her features, I could tell that she was Setsuna's mother. It was easy to see where Setsuna had gotten her looks from. "Sorry, young man! You must be Kitahara-san, right? Please! Come in and make yourself at home!"

She knows. I swallowed and bowed to Akina. "Thank you." With some trepidation, I made my way toward the door and stepped in. I carefully doffed my outside shoes and stepped in with socks on. Yukiko pushed past me, grasped my hand like it was the most casual thing in the world, and practically dragged me to the living room, where two other men were seated at a couch before a coffee table.

One of them, with a severe expression permanently grafted to his face, was obviously Ogiso Susumu, Setsuna's father. The other, who seemed to be slightly younger than Setsuna, seemed to be more easygoing.

"Hey Gramps, Uncle Takahiro, this is Leon," Yukiko said, gesturing to me. "We're gonna go up and study now, because Mom thinks I'm disabled and about to fail school or something."

"Now hold on, Yukiko," the older man, Susumu, said. "This isn't the proper way to treat or introduce a guest in our household. Takahiro and I would like to talk with him, first. Bring us some tea."

"Relax, Grampa! He's just the guy who sings in the band, I'm not gonna marry him or something dumb like that!"

"That may be the case, but he still deserves respect. So please, give us a few minutes of his time."

"Fine," Yukiko said, and let go of my hand. I was acutely aware that both men had noticed it. Fuck, gets better and better. "Okay, Leon, don't say anything stupid. I'll be upstairs, yo!"

"Sure," I said, bowed decently for a gaijin, and sat down in one of the free couches nearby. "Er, first of all, thank you for your hospitality! Forgive me, I should have brought a gift from home, but I didn't pack any suitcases on the plane from Europe…" My voice trailed off under the intensity of their gazes. Or glares, whichever they were.

"He doesn't really look like Haruki, eh?" the younger man, Takahiro, said to Susumu.

"No, he really doesn't. Almost identical to his mother, the pianist."

I squeezed my left index finger with my right hand. "Etto…" I was running out of material, fast. Actually, I hadn't had any to start with.

"Ah, my apologies, young man," Susumu finally said. "We were just a bit lost in our memories. Believe it or not, we used to be quite close with your father, Haruki. How is he, these days?" Surprisingly, his tone was warmer than expected.

I smiled—really, grimaced—and ran a hand through my hair. "Oh! Thanks for asking. He's doing well. You probably know this, but he's my mother's manager. He's been pretty busy preparing her for a concert at the Vatican…"

"Oh! I saw a taping!" Takahiro said. "It was beautiful! Do you play like she does? Makes me wish we had a piano here."

"Ah, thank you. I'm not nearly as skilled as she is, sad to say, but you know, she does have almost twenty years on me, so I might get there…one day…"

"And we also saw the songs you all played on the Yanagihara Tomo Show," Takahiro said. "Very cool! A really catchy melody, and that Morikawa Hanako, isn't she amazing?"

"Oh, yeah! Hanako-san is out of this world! And, uh, thank you for your support!"

"I think your outfits could have been less revealing, though," Susumu said. "Must they sexualize every single new musical act so heavily?"

"Oh, I agree," I said, remembering the horrible Lycra pants. "I don't want to have to wear that again," I said, and laughed, nervously. "I wish they'd just let me onstage in a hoodie…"

"That's too gangster-ish for me," Susumu said.

"Ah…" This is torture. Is this what Dad went through every time he visited?

"Now, now," Akina said, finally bringing us the tea that Yukiko had completely ignored. "You two are making the poor boy nervous. He's just here as a friend, and to help Yukiko study, right?"

"Y-yes!" My voice nearly cracked. "That's right, we're friends. And we both need to pass our midterms. So, uh, once again, I'm grateful for your hospitality. And…I don't want to impose or take advantage, though, so please know that Yukiko is welcome to come to my house to study, any time she likes."

I saw Susumu's eyebrow twitch. "You're a very considerate young man, but Yukiko will have her group study here," he said, with a note of firm finality. Haruto had been completely on point with this guy.

"Darling, you may not remember this well, but Leon's mother also came here once," Akina said. "It was when Setsuna had first decided to sing at the school festival."

"Oh!" Takahiro's eyes widened. "That's right! Ha! Mom, remember? We were spying on them because we thought Setsuna had brought her over for something else entirely."

"Yes," Akina said, chuckling. "We thought Setsuna had stolen Touma-san's boyfriend and was trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement!"

Oh Christ, please save me, Yukiko! Anyone!

"Alright, that's enough of that," Susumu said. "Yukiko needs to study, and Takahiro and I need to get to our game, otherwise we'll miss tee time." He stood and gave me a perfunctory bow, which I returned to both of them. "Well met, Kitahara-san. Please, help Yukiko stay on the right path."

"Thank you, Ogiso-san. Ogiso-san," I said, bowing repeatedly. The two men, chuckling with each other, left soon. I wanted to curl up and die a bit.

"Go on up, young man," Akina said, gently. "Yukiko's been flustered all morning. She wanted to see you very badly. I'll…come up every hour or so to check on you two, so don't do anything too naughty," she said, and added a conspiratorial wink. "Or at least, keep track of the time!"

That made me want to die even more. "T-thank you…" I said, and shuffled my way upstairs.

"Holy shit, what took so long?" Yukiko said, as she looked away from her manga. As expected, she hadn't actually been studying, but had been laying on a bed reading the latest volume of "Pure Love Hectopascal," which was based on another one of Kasumi Utako's popular novels.

"That doesn't look like English, Computer Science, Business, or Japanese Literature," I said. "Anyway, I was talking to your family. Like a normal first-time house guest would. Why weren't you down there?"

"I wanted to read more 'JunHec,'duh," she said, using the common abbreviation for the manga's proper title. To my chagrin, she kept flipping through the pages. I sat myself down at the small kotatsu where a stack of textbooks had been neatly piled up once upon a time, and then ignored thereafter.

"Okay, whatever. Playtime's over. We're gonna hit the books. What do you wanna complete first?"

"'Cyperpunk.' I've only got twenty more gigs left and they're all done. Then I can finally meet Goro at Tom's Diner."

"Are you one of those sickos that does every goddamned side quest in the game before actually advancing the plot?"

"You don't?"

"No, because I wanted to play 'Phantom Liberty.' So Mi's fucking hot. Anyway, you don't have a gaming rig here, so you'll just have to keep Takemura waiting. Let's do English first. Get it over with."

"You're such a Ned Flanders. You even wore the tight pants that showed off your ass like he did."

"Like I'm wearing nothin' at all," I replied to her in English. "Actually, I'm curious," I said, back in Japanese. "This is a nice room, like, fully furnished and everything. Is it yours?"

"Yeah, I used to stay here a lot as a kid, though it was originally my mom's old room."

"Oh, that makes sense. That way your grandparents could watch you while Setsuna was out doing shows and stuff, right?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"It was kind of the same way with my parents," I said. "I mean, my dad needed to coordinate everything for my mom, and my mom was the performer, so obviously they couldn't do all that and take care of a small kid, right? So my grandmother kind of took over the job for a long time. I started to call her 'mom' instead of my actual mother. That kind of upset everyone."

Yukiko pressed her lips together as she rolled out of her bed and took a seat at the kotatsu. "But it wasn't your fault. You were just a little shit, you know? It wasn't like you were trolling them. Same thing happened with me, you know."

"I guess we have a little in common, huh?" I smiled at her. "I bet you were trolling, though."

"Bite me."

"Alright, sorry. Here. Let's start on page fifty. I can do this shit with my eyes closed, but you're terrible. We'll go over conjugations first…"

#

Somehow, despite Yukiko's grumbling, constant need for drinks and snacks, incessant bathroom breaks, and general tendency to doze off in the middle of reading, we had at least gotten most of the way through English. I honestly had my doubts that she'd ever pass the midterm, but we were increasingly strapped for time and the day was wearing on. I figured we'd need another two days for Business, then a day for Computer Science (I was grateful that Saeko had actually emailed me her exam notes), and then the rest of the time for both of our weakest subject: Japanese Literature.

Akina had, like clockwork, come up every hour to refresh our drinks and snacks that Yukiko kept wolfing down, thus necessitating more breaks. The woman really had, good as her word, kept to a strict schedule. Almost like she'd expected something to happen between us.

Meanwhile, however, all Yukiko had done for the last few minutes was doze off again instead of reading her assigned passage from "Huckleberry Finn." I was annoyed enough to prank her. I uncapped a correction fluid pen and started to poke her cheek with it.

"Ew!" she said, suddenly rousing from her slumber. "What was that for?"

"I'm whitewashing you, obviously."

She glared at me, grabbed the pen from my hand, and started to slather the stinking fluid on my forehead. In turn, I grabbed another pen and started to try drawing on her cheek with the viscous substance. It quickly and inevitably degenerated into a grapple between us, as if we were preschoolers rolling around a sandbox. The kotatsu had already been shoved aside.

Sensing that I was getting off balance, she suddenly swept one of my legs with hers, causing us to both topple onto the bed, with me on top of her. Our fingers had become intertwined as we'd contested each other for dominance and tried to pinch, poke, and prod each others' pressure points. But in that moment, we both silently realized how close our faces were to each other's.

I could feel her breath against my lips, and she could feel mine in turn. Her expression, previously a mix of aggression and snark, had softened noticeably. Those lovely chestnut eyes were watery and unfocused as they stared into mine. She wasn't wearing a bra. I was aware of the swell of her breasts against my chest, her nipples erect and pushing through the fabric of the blouse she wore. She'd wrapped her legs around my waist. During our melee, I'd of course developed an erection, and I knew that she felt it pressing against her crotch. She squeezed her legs together, further pressing us together. In an irrational lapse of judgment, I pressed my lips gently to hers.

And, to my disappointment, she turned her head and craned her neck, so that my lips went to her cheek, and then to the area between her ear and the angle of her jaw. I started to withdraw, but she gripped my hands even harder.

"Wait. We have…thirty minutes before grandma comes back up," she whispered. She let go of one of my hands, pushed it past the top of my pants, under my underwear, and started to stroke my manhood. "I want it rough, but don't make a sound. Can you do that?"

I nodded, and hurriedly undid my fly. She hiked her skirt up to her hips and pushed her panties aside, then guided me to her opening. When I entered her, she convulsed and I felt her squeeze down hard enough on my member that it almost hurt. She practically boiled.

Fortunately, the bed wasn't a flimsy affair, and my thrusts didn't make the dreaded squeaking sounds that were a dead giveaway. As commanded, I fucked her hard, without any special consideration for her pleasure. We were racing against time. I scraped my teeth against her neck and roughly pushed her shirt up to expose her breasts. I pinched and licked at her nipples, which made her open a line of welts on my back with her fingernails. She shoved the meat of her forearm against her teeth to stifle herself, but to little avail. Her gasps, her leaking moans, and the way her eyelids shuddered as she violently came were enough to send me over the edge a few seconds after her. There hadn't been enough time to put on a condom. I slammed my face into the duvet, right next to her ear, to stifle my own shouts of pleasure. I felt her strongly contract around me again, as if to wring me completely dry.

For what seemed like an absurdly long time, we simply held each other while our ragged breaths punctured the silence. Eventually, she hurriedly tapped my back. I got the message and got off of her. She smoothed her clothing out and teased her hair back into a rough approximation of respectability. Finally, she pulled the kotatsu back into its previous position. Meanwhile, I hurriedly zipped my fly and smoothed out my hair. I even managed to put my fake glasses back on, for all the good they did. We'd barely had time for our breathing to come back to normal when Akina cheerfully knocked and came in with more drinks and a platter of cut oranges.

#

KL: Obaachan, I'm going to have dinner at Ogiso's place. They invited me. Felt it would be rude to say no.

TY: No problem, have fun! Going to bed at 8.

I looked up from my phone and gave Yukiko a thumbs up. Akina smiled and looked pleased at the outcome. About an hour after the tryst, Susumu and Takahiro had come back home, sweaty after a round of afternoon golf, which still enjoyed white-hot popularity with Asia's middle class men.

"Yukiko, come help me in the kitchen," Akina said, much to Yukiko's chagrin. Still, she probably knew better than to look like an asshole to her grandmother, and acceded. Although I'd also offered to help, Akina was a traditionalist, and insisted I spend some more time chatting with Susumu and Takahiro.

"Grandma, where's the pepper, again? …I don't know what 'over there' means!" Yukiko protested from the kitchen. I heard drawers opening and shutting.

"Fine, I'll get it! Just put this in the microwave and ding it," Akina said, in return.

I turned my attention to the two Ogiso patriarchs, who looked a little bit ridiculous in their golfing outfits. The older one silently sipped his tea and seemed to be content with Takahiro taking the lead.

"Oh, Kitahara, do you golf at all?" Takahiro asked me.

I shook my head. "Not really. In Europe, it's not as accessible as it is in the USA or Japan. You usually need to be a member of a club with limited membership, and it's pretty expensive. And I was in high school, anyway, so not a lot of chances to play."

"It's pretty fun, though! Say, if you're gonna stick around for college, or even stay to work, I'll teach you, okay?"

"Oh, thanks," I said, somewhat unnerved by how friendly he was being. I'm pretty sure that he, as Setsuna's brother, probably didn't hold my father in high regard. No man was ever too friendly with the guy fucking his sister, and much less so if said guy proceeded to abandon said sister. "So, uh, how'd you both do?"

Takahiro laughed. "Terribly, sorry to say. I was at least ten over par after I got stuck in a sand trap, and never recovered. What a disaster! Dad here did a bit better."

"Ah, ha… Oh, I'd been meaning to ask, Ogiso-san. What do you do for a living?"

"I work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Specifically, the Immigration Office. We do the visa approvals, as well as things like naturalization and asylum requests and the like."

"Oh, sounds…interesting," I said, probably not sounding entirely genuine.

Fortunately, Takahiro laughed. "It's really not. My wife's job is far cooler. She's a cop."

"That so?" For some reason, I couldn't see Takahiro, who struck me as something of a gentle goofball, being married to some hard boiled lady detective.

"Yep, she's a chief inspector for the Tokyo MPD. Helps run the Organized Crime Countermeasures Division. Basically, the people who keep the yakuza and other gangs in line."

I raised my eyebrows. "That's pretty amazing! Um, I know she'd probably get annoyed if I asked this, but is it like how the video games portray it?"

Takahiro laughed again. "No, not at all like in Ryu ga Gotoku. Although Koharu-chan did once hit a guy with a kendo shinai during a raid. It was by accident, and she had to apologize for police brutality. Weirdly enough, the incident made her into some sort of idol among the cops as well as the gangs."

"Dinner's ready!" Akina announced, and we all got up and went to the table. In front of me was a veritable feast. The Ogiso family standby seemed to be croquettes and cutlets, and it all looked mouthwatering. With a spread like this to come home to, why was Yukiko always either living on junk food or starving?

"Eat slower, Yukiko," Akina chided. "No one's going to take your food away. Also, what's this on your cheek?"

Yukiko rubbed at where Akina pointed, and shot me a glare as she peeled off a dried glob of correction fluid. "Oh…Leon here was making a stupid joke. But that's okay, he's still wearing his!"

My hand shot up to my forehead and I peeled away a glob of congealed correction fluid from our earlier wrestling match. "You really just let me wear this until now?" I scowled at her, while she started to cackle.

"We didn't want to say anything," Takahiro said, clearly amused. "Maybe it was a motivational technique?"

And yet even with how annoyed I was with Yukiko, as our banter continued over dinner, I couldn't help but feel a growing sense of comfort. Even Susumu seemed slightly less imposing after he'd drunk his dinnertime shochu and conversed more freely about the finer points of amateur golf.

Akina at least allowed me to help clear the plates after dinner. I was about to call Haruto to come pick me up, when she sidled up to me with what looked like an old-fashioned photo album and insisted I sit with her. Yukiko, however, looked mortified.

"No! Grandma, please! Don't show him those!"

"But they're your baby pictures!" Akina said, clearly delighted to troll her granddaughter back a bit. "They're precious memories!"

"Gah! Avert your eyes, sinner!" Yukiko said, as she tried to plaster her hands on my face.

"Don't break my glasses!" I protested, trying to squeeze out of her grasp.

Meanwhile, Akina opened up the album. "That's the first picture of Yukiko in the hospital with Setsuna," she said, pointing to a picture of a clearly exhausted, twenty-two-year-old Ogiso Setsuna in a hospital gown cradling a screaming newborn. Her disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes told me that labor had been a knock-down, drag-out fight with little 'Kiko. I noted the conspicuous lack of Ogata Eiji in the picture. Akina went through a few more baby pictures from subsequent months, all of them sans Eiji. I wondered if he'd initially tried to distance himself from his pregnant girlfriend and her child. Still, something nagged me about that assumption; for all of his goofiness, Eiji didn't seem like the type to disavow his own offspring.

"And these are Yukiko's first steps," Akina said, proudly. Finally, I saw him. Eiji's unmistakable silver fox features as he and Setsuna stood in the background watching Yukiko toddle on. From that point onward, nearly all the subsequent pictures had Eiji in them, clearly playing the role of doting father with gusto. Yeah, my original hypothesis had probably been wrong. So why hadn't he been in the picture—literally—for the first year of Yukiko's life?

Eventually, Akina got to the end of the album, and Yukiko was about to blow a gasket. To keep the peace, I called Haruto. He arrived shortly after, and drove me back home.

That night, as I lay in bed, I again didn't feel the need for sleep. Instead, I took it in stride and used the "opportunity" to practice all night again. It should have, but never did, strike me as something odd or perilous.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Leon, you know perfectly well that ignoring your family is not the answer to your problems. Because you will not take our calls, you leave us no choice but to come to you. Your mother and I are flying in tomorrow, and we are leaving as a family the day after. There will be no discussion or argument. Please resolve any remaining business or personal obligations in Japan within the next 24 hours.

-Dad

Haruki Kitahara

President

The Kazusa Touma Company, Inc.

+43 (0)1 55 55 555

My finger hovered over the "delete" button, as if simply erasing a few bytes of data would prevent him from getting on board a plane to come collar and drag me home like a runaway dog. But even I had enough rationality to know that whatever I did wouldn't change anything. My father was willing and able to drop thousands of Euros to fly thirteen hours straight across the world just to prove a point. That was the kind of man he was, unlike me, who waffled ceaselessly and ran away from his problems until the last minute. Not knowing what else to do for the moment, I put my phone back down on the kotatsu.

It was now day three of my week-long planned study session with Yukiko. We'd gotten through English, and we were now reviewing Saeko's notes for the Computer Science midterm. In reality, the "notes" were essentially an answer key for the upcoming exam, and I made sure to send multiple prayers of thanks to our twin-tailed, blond-haired, sailor-mouthed tsundere savior-goddess. She still hadn't answered any of my calls or replied to any of my texts, so prayer was all I could attempt to make my feelings reach her.

"I'm bored," Yukiko said, petulantly as could be. "Let's go to an arcade. I wanna play Time Crisis."

"Fine," I said. "If you can answer this question: what's the correct syntax to output 'Hello World?'"

"Easy! It's 'echo(Hello Za Warudo!)'"

"Wrong!" I made a neck-cutting gesture at her. "'print(Hello World).' Jesus Christ! Don't tell me you're gonna fail even with the cheat codes right in front of you?"

"That was unfair, though. It's gonna be a multiple-choice test, and I'll be able to pick out the right answer choice when I see it."

"I wish Saeko were here to chew you out."

"Nah, you just wish she was here to give you a blowie," Yukiko said, giving me the finger.

I blushed, despite trying not to. "That's got nothing to do with anything."

"Oh, don't play innocent," Yukiko said. "We're best friends. We know who each other's fucking, and it just happens to be the same dipshit."

I weighed my words carefully. "And what do you two think of that?"

"Besides the fact that our taste really sucks, we don't mind."

Unexpected, but…kind of a relief. "That's, uh, really progressive of you guys."

"Well, I'm definitely better than my mom in that respect. After all, you're nice to look at sometimes, and you've definitely improved your technique, but do I really want to spend all my time around you? I'd lose my mind, and I can't afford to do that, as a certified genius. Saeko is the same way. We take what we want, when we want, and you're just here for the ride."

I laughed. "I feel like a piece of meat right now."

"Yeah, you are. So, what'd you do to piss her off, anyway?"

"Huh?"

"She's been mad at you ever since after the Tomo Show. What'd you do? Break one of her figmas or something? Do not touch an otaku's figurines!"

I suppressed the nausea rising to my gorge. The last thing I wanted to talk about—to think about—was what my father had said. "It's…complicated. I don't wanna talk about it."

Yukiko's features softened for a moment. "Well, whatever then. It's just that she's concerned about you. It takes a lot to make her give a shit about someone else's biz."

My lips started to quiver. "She hasn't been answering my calls, anyway, so I can't even sort things out with her." Now my teeth started to chatter. Shivers ran down my spine. What the fuck is happening to me? At this point, I hadn't really slept in nearly 60 hours, but I'd been feeling fine, otherwise.

I rubbed my hands together. My fingers felt like they were freezing, despite the temperature in the Ogiso house being set to a comfortable (and economical) seventy degrees. Was I coming down with Covid? I hunched over, unable to straighten myself out. I need to study, damn it! I need to…

Suddenly, warmth flooded into me from my face. Yukiko's palms were pressed up to my cheeks, and she met my gaze with her compassionate chestnut eyes. Her expression was devoid of the usual snark. I blinked, and slowly placed my hands over hers. My breathing, which had previously been fast and shallow, now slowed to something more normal.

"Don't get the wrong idea," she said. "I'm not some pussy empath or something, but even I can tell you're in some deep shit."

I nodded. "Thank you… Something bad was about to happen."

"You're freezing," she said. "Let's take a shower."

"But, your family…"

"I don't know if you noticed, brain genius, but the old guys are out doing stupid shit, and Grandma decided she needed to go halfway across town for some errands. I know my own household. Besides, what if you die? Japanese courts have a ninety-nine percent conviction rate. I ain't doin' ten years in the joint."

With that sort of iron-clad argument, what could I do to contest her? She took my hand and took me to the bathroom on the second floor. There, she peeled off my T-shirt, which I realized had been practically soaked in my nervous sweat, and tossed it disdainfully into the laundry pile. My pants and underwear came next. She turned the shower on and practically shoved me under the warm downpour before quickly stripping her clothes.

"You stank something fierce, too," she said, pressing her front against my back. I braced myself against the wall to stop myself from pitching forward. Her hands found my manhood and started to stroke it. I responded in kind, and reached behind me to rub my fingers against her entrance. Unlike Saeko, she only seemed to do the bare minimum grooming to her pubic hair when it suited her. I slipped a finger into her, and she bit and sucked on the back of my neck.

"From behind, this time" she said, switching positions. I could only do as commanded. Unlike the other day, we didn't have to be silent anymore. And once again, her moans, her accidental whimpers, and the sensation of her orgasm were enough to drive me over the edge soon after her. Drained in more ways than one, I sat on the small shower stool after disentangling from her, and breathed deeply of the warm, sweet-scented air.

"I'll get one of Takahiro's old shirts for you," Yukiko said, as we toweled off and started to get dressed again.

"I should probably make sure I, uh, take the evidence with me," I said, reaching for my sweat-soaked top in the laundry bin.

"It's fine, I'll just tell Grandma you spilled a drink on yourself."

"I hope she hasn't figured it out yet," I said.

"Oh, she totally has. Old ladies always know. But she likes you for some reason. So…whatever. By the way, can you just like, empty the tank beforehand if we rawdog it again? You were so annoying, yesterday."

"I don't follow."

"You dumped a whole bottle of hot Elmer's glue into my snatch. Do you know how shitty that is to deal with? Stuff leaks like crazy."

"Oh…" I blushed. "Sorry…"

"Well, you can make it up to me by talking about what's bugging you. I think I've earned your trust, no?"

I could only nod.

#

I told her everything. I even showed her the email from my father. And though I'd expected her to make fun of me, even mercilessly so, she'd remained silent throughout the whole exposition. The silence continued, turning from tense to simply awkward.

"So…" we both said at the same time. I frowned. "Stop that!" we said in unison again. "You're talking over me!" Unbelievably, this happened a third time.

"Gonorrhea!" Yukiko belted out. My words died in my throat. She took in a deep breath. "Thank fuck…"

"Sorry," I said.

"Okay, you realize, first of all that you're like, legally an adult in both Europe and Japan?"

"Yeah, I do," I said.

"So if your father comes to Japan and tries to strong-arm you onto a plane or whatever, that's like, illegal, right? That's literally kidnapping. Doesn't matter if you're his kid."

"I'm well aware."

"And, based on what you told me, your grandmother pays for your tuition and living expenses anyway. Plus, we're supposedly getting paid by Double-O. So he can't threaten to cut off your allowance or some shit."

"I guess."

"So what's your friggin' problem? He can't do jack to you. Just laugh in his face if you see him. Or I guess you could be a pussy and hide at Mom's place until he has to leave."

"I can't do that," I said. My father had already hurt Setsuna more than enough. Knowing him, he'd be able to find out where she lived, or find some other way to drag her into my mess.

"So what're you gonna do? Go back to Vienna with your tail between your legs? You really gonna fuck us over like that?"

"No!" I threw up my hands. "Of course I don't want to do that! But I also don't want to cut my parents off. They have a lot of issues, but…still. They're my parents. I know Reddit's full of stories about people going no contact, but that's for extreme stuff."

"I'm sure it won't actually end up like that. Like, they'll be pissed off, and they might make you pay them back for the ticket they wasted, but that'll be the end of it."

"You don't know my father. He has grudges that last for decades. He cut his parents off in high school. He hasn't talked with his mother in years, and it genuinely doesn't bother him. Plus, I don't want to make things hard on my mom. I do love her."

"Have you told anyone else about this?"

"No. You're the first and only one."

She sighed. "I hate to admit it, as a genius, but there's only so much I can do here. We should call Mom, or at least that yakuza manager of ours. They'll know what to do."

She pulled out her phone, but I quickly put my hand over hers to stifle the attempt. "Please, don't do that. Seriously."

"Why not?"

"Remember there was history between our parents? Setsuna—your mom—told me more about it. It's deep. It's really, seriously fucked up. Both of them—my dad and my mom—completely hurt her. Like, in a completely unforgivable way. So I can't take the chance that they'll meet or anything."

"The hell are you on about?" Yukiko crossed her arms. "That sounds like a retarded plot straight out of a VN. Look I'm sure it sucked, whatever went on, but obviously Mom's okay now. I mean, she's okay with you."

"And I'm completely surprised by that. But what if she starts getting awkward around me? Then we can't succeed as a band. I can't afford to do that to you, or to Saeko. Or, even, to Haruto."

"So what do you want, then? You just told me all this crap, but then you rejected all my suggestions and told me I can't bring in anyone to help you out?"

"I don't know!" I buried my face in my hands. "I'm sorry. Just… Look, I'll figure it out, I promise you."

"I don't believe you."

"I know. But I have to solve this, somehow. Okay, I've decided. All I want from you is to promise you won't tell anyone else about this. This is my problem, my burden to bear. And I will get through it without hurting anyone else. And if I end up not talking with my parents for a few years, fine. I'll take the hit."

"I'm telling you, I think the others can help. It doesn't have to end with some weird extreme."

"I'm not letting anyone get hurt. Particularly Setsuna."

"Don't act like you're some shitty white knight."

"Kiko, please. Promise me! Keep this to yourself. In fact, I'll tell you something for sure. I'm going to be here, tomorrow bright and early, and we're gonna get through Japanese Literature, okay?"

She clenched her jaw. I could tell she was shaking. In my irrationality, I wondered why she was being so illogical. Things would be fine. Finally, she relented. "Okay! Whatever! Fine! I'll keep this to myself, I promise! What a fucking terrible idea…"

I reached over and clasped one of her hands in mine. "Thank you. I'm truly sorry I burdened you with this. I shouldn't have said anything in the first place."

The next thing I felt was the palm of her hand crashing into my cheek. The world spun like crazy for a second, and I yelped more in confusion than pain.

"Fuck you! How dare you say that shit?" Yukiko's voice broke. "Aren't we friends? Can't you trust us? Did all the stuff we've done together mean so little to you?"

"I'm not saying that!"

"But you are!" Now, she sobbed in earnest. "When you hid this from Saeko, you basically told her she's nothing more than dirt under your shoe! And now you're doing the same thing to me! That's not how you treat friends! That's not how this works!"

"Friends don't hurt each other!"

"But they do! You're supposed to share stuff that makes you happy, and stuff that sucks balls! And if you won't do that, then…then it means we're just fucking meaningless to you after all." She took a ragged breath, trying to compose herself. "You should leave. I don't want to see your face right now."

"Okay," I said, shaking as I stood up. "I'm sorry. I'll…I'll give you a call tomorrow."

I quickly exited the front door before calling Haruto for a ride. He didn't ask me why I was leaving the study session so early. And that night, I also didn't sleep, as hard as I tried to.

#

The next morning, I pulled on my disguise far slower than I usually did. For some reason, I had trouble navigating my arms into the sleeves of the peacoat. When I looked through the glasses, my vision seemed to blur, even though they were just clear lenses without any distortion or magnification. I decided to leave them sitting on my nightstand.

I sent Haruto a quick text to let him know I was ready for pickup. I wasn't hungry at all, so I skipped breakfast with Youko, and stepped outside. It was a clear, fall day in Japan. The leaves had changed colors already, and some of the trees had started to shed their foliage. The air smelled fresher than usual—almost intensely pure, which made it unexpectedly hard to breathe. With every step I took, I felt winded, as if I'd run a marathon instead.

I saw the Tesla pulling up to the sidewalk outside the house, and waved cheerfully to my manager. Oh, one more thing… I took my phone out of my pocket and found Yukiko's entry in my contacts list. I pushed the "call" button. She'd been pissed at me yesterday, and there was a non-zero chance she'd tell me not to come over. If that was the case, I'd just study at home. I'd need to apologize to Haruto for wasting his time, though.

"Moshi moshi… Eh? Leon? That you?" Yukiko asked.

"Hey," I said. "Is it okay…" For some reason, I couldn't speak a full sentence. "…if I come over…"

"Leon! What's wrong? Leon! Answer me!"

Strange. I was on my knees now. Yukiko's voice sounded further and further away. I saw Haruto jump out of the Tesla and sprint toward me. What's the big deal? I thought, before I knew no more.

#

When next I woke, I was in bed again. Except it wasn't my bed. I groggily opened my eyes and took stock of my surroundings. The mattress was hard and my lower back felt like someone had driven a stake into it. My forearm ached from the eighteen-gauge intravenous catheter dug into my flesh, pushing lactated ringers solution into my veins. The monitor above me beeped incessantly with an alarm long-ignored by the staff. Yep, I was in an Emergency Department.

Touma Kazusa, the world-famous concert pianist and last year's winner of the Van Cliburn International, sat in a shitty plastic chair near the head of my bed and tenderly stroked my hair. She quickly wiped away an errant tear. "Hey you," she said, her voice huskier than usual.

"Mom," I replied, my voice wavering. "I missed you."

She leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. "I'm so sorry. I should have called you much earlier."

"Don't be. I know you had to practice eighteen hours a day. Did the Pope like it?"

"Probably," she said. "Don't tell your Dad, but I also liked your song. The one on TV. I could tell…I could tell Setsuna wrote it, too."

"She's awesome," I said, causing my mother to smile. "I can see why you fell in love with her."

"I thought there was a chance you'd run into her," she said. "With your talents, and your voice, how could she ignore that? I'm glad you two met. She's always been special. But why'd you think I fell in love with her?"

"Mom, I saw the video. From the school festival. I understand, now."

"I see… Say, those girls in your band… are you friendly with them?"

"Most of the time," I said, with a shrug. I wasn't quite ready to talk about my sex life with my mother.

"The guitarist is Setsuna's daughter, isn't she?"

"Yeah."

"And the drummer is Takeya and Io's child, right?"

"Yeah…how'd you know?"

She chuckled. "They were all my friends, once. Still, though, to think of all the people in Japan that you'd run into… Perhaps the past always finds a way to catch up with us."

My mother's musings were interrupted by the arrival of two men. One was obviously the physician, and the other was my father, Haruki.

"Oh, good, he's awake now," the doctor said. "I'll be discharging him after the fluids run in. The workup's been completely fine."

"So why'd he faint?" Haruki asked.

"The same reason any Japanese student does. Too much work and too little sleep. If you'll excuse me."

The doctor left abruptly. Haruki sat next to my mother. I tensed up, preparing for the tongue-lashing he was sure to give me.

"Are you in any pain?" Haruki asked me, somewhat unexpectedly, and more gently than I'd anticipated.

I shook my head.

"Thank goodness," he said. "You know, I once worked at a publishing house in the city. Kaiou Graph. I don't know if they're still around. The hours were long, I always took on extra work, and this nearly happened to me a few times."

"I guess I stayed up too much," I said, unsure of where he was taking the conversation.

"No matter what your professional obligations are, if you don't take care of yourself, you'll be unable to fulfill your promises to anyone," Haruki said. "I learned that lesson the hard way."

I looked around for anyone from Double-O, but as far as I could tell, only my parents were present. "Do you guys know if anyone else came by to see me?"

"There was a manager from your organization," Haruki said. "He's the one who saw you collapse and brought you in. He seemed to be a decent fellow. I thanked him and sent him on his way. I also told him about our plans to take you back home. He said he'd take care of smoothing things over with the company and ensuring a smooth severance."

"Haruto…" I made a fist. Blood backed up the IV tubing. "Did he just… agree like that?"

"He was very professional," Haruki said. "He'll go far in the industry, I'm sure. We mutually agreed that it was time to do the right thing for you. His company will be fine. After all, they have that idol, Morikawa."

My father wasn't one to lie. Had my manager, who I'd started to call "brother," simply folded up and accepted my departure? Did he really think that little of me? My eyes started to water.

"Leon," my mother interjected. "Don't forget that you're dealing with a record label. As painful as it is to hear it, remember that us musicians are pretty expendable in their eyes. Your father only treats me as well as he does because I tricked him into marriage."

Haruki's cheeks reddened a bit. They exchanged a warm glance with each other. I'd always liked my parents more during those moments. I sighed. So they were just another corporation after all. Already done with me. Moving onto the next young thing. My thoughts wandered back to Yukiko and Saeko. And Hanako. No, they'll be fine. They've got talent and drive. Unlike me.

A nurse came by and deftly pulled the IV out before slapping a dressing onto my new puncture wound. "The doctor says you're free to go now. Discharge papers for you," she said, and handed them to Haruki. I really was just the child here.

I swung my feet over the side of my bed and slipped my feet into my shoes. After wrestling the hospital gown off, I pulled my T-shirt and hoodie back on. Although my heart still pounded when I changed position, at least I didn't feel like I was on the edge of fainting again. "So…what's next?" I asked my parents.

"Well, it's not a good idea to just fly back on the same day as we've arrived," Haruki said. "We're going to bring you back to Youko's house so you can pack whatever belongings you want to bring back. You can sleep there, tonight, if you don't want to stay with us. Then, we'll come back and get you in the morning and bring you to the airport. Don't worry about your school or anything else. I'll take care of everything."

"Leon, I missed you so much," my mother said, wrapping me in an embrace. I buried my face in her hair and squeezed her with all my might. "Don't go away like that again," she said. "Or at least, stay with me a bit longer, okay?"

"Okay, Mom, I will," I said, letting my tears flow freely again. Her touch, her scent, her voice, and her overwhelming gentleness were more than enough to make me forget about what had happened since I'd arrived in Japan all that time ago. With her, I could forget about Yukiko, Saeko, Setsuna, Rina, Eiji, Haruto, and Hanako. I could forget them all. I was ready to leave forever.

#

We stepped out of the sliding doors at the entrance of the Yuunagi University Hospital and into the dying sunlight of autumn. The air had picked up a chill, and I shivered, involuntarily. My mother squeezed my hand, and I drew closer to her. For Touma Kazusa, I was a shameful mama's boy.

"I'll call for a cab," Haruki said, and approached the roundabout facing the main entrance. One of the drivers started to open his door, when a Tesla Model S drove right up onto the curb between us and the taxi, and almost sheared the cab's door off.

"Hontoni gomen nasai!" Haruto shouted at the driver as he exited. The taxi sped away. All of the doors on the Tesla opened up, and Setsuna emerged from the front passenger's seat, followed by Rina and Eiji from the back. Almost simultaneously, a 1991 BMW 5 series (with a caved-in front quarter panel) roared up behind the Tesla. Youko, my grandmother, flung open the driver's side door and adjusted her sunglasses like she'd stepped right into an action film. Following her, out stepped yet more familiar faces. Saeko, as well as two others who collectively bore a striking resemblance to her. I knew, without asking, that those were her parents.

Finally, a Mercedes Maybach GLS pulled up ahead of the Tesla. Hanako stepped out, followed by her manager, Yayoi. My heart started to pound again. Everyone from—and even peripherally associated with—Double-O had arrived in full force. I loosened my grip on my mother's hand and started to jog toward them. Toward Setsuna. I opened my mouth to tell her I was okay, and to tell her I was sorry. Above all, I didn't want her to notice my father.

The edges of my vision blurred and darkened, and I felt my legs become jelly again. I fell to my knees, but before I could topple over and smash my face against the pavement, two sets of hands latched onto each of my arms with enough force to cause pain. I looked up. Setsuna held me by my left arm, and Haruki held me by my right. They looked at me, and then slowly looked up and at each other. Everything I'd dreaded had just come to pass.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Ogiso-san…" Haruki spoke first.

"Kitahara…san…" Setsuna replied. Her eyes flashed with indignation. "No. I have the right to call you Haruki. And you have the right to call me Setsuna. So let's drop the formalities, and act like we actually know each other."

"Fine, Setsuna. Thank you for your concern over my son," Haruki said. "I can tell you care deeply for him."

"I do," she said. Neither of them had loosened their grip on my arms. My knees were on the ground, but I was still suspended between them, as if I were the child about to be divided by King Solomon.

"It's good to see you again. You look well. I wish I could talk with you for longer. But we really need to be going now," Haruki said.

"I know what you're here for," Setsuna said. "And it sure wasn't to see me. I can accept that. But I can't accept you taking Leon away like this from under our noses."

"Is that so? I remind you that he's my son. And you're not his mother."

"Kazusa," Setsuna said, looking past Haruki. "What do you think of this?"

"I just want my child safe and home," my mother replied, clutching her handbag in front of her. "Surely you understand, as a mother."

"Leon is an adult, though," Setsuna said. "He is perfectly capable of making his own decisions, and he's more than able to support himself, financially. He also has friends and family right here. So why wouldn't he be safe or happy?"

"He just collapsed and had to be sent to the hospital," Haruki said, his tone hardening ever so slightly. "Was he overworked? Did your company have anything to do with it?"

"Haruki, don't be disingenuous," Setsuna said. Her gaze turned flinty. "The only responsibility he's had lately is studying for exams. You, however, decided to come for him right after you saw the television spot. Can I ask why you're sabotaging his dream? He's going to be an extremely successful musician. He has everything he needs to make that happen, and we're going to support him every step of the way."

"He has the talent, I agree. But there's a proper way to do things like this, Setsuna. He'll be a lot more secure and stable if he goes to a world-renowned music school and polishes his skills. After that, he'll start winning competitions and booking concerts. His reputation will grow quickly. I have the means to secure his future, guaranteed."

"You watched the show, didn't you? Did you see how the audience reacted? They begged him for another song. Competition trophies and degrees from famous schools can't buy you that kind of reaction. He already has a special magnetism. It's impossible to not fall in love with him. He simply needs the exposure. Which I will give him, guaranteed."

Haruki tightened his grip on me. "Setsuna, think rationally about this. Your top idol, Morikawa Hanako, has already exceeded all projections. You should be concentrating everything you have on her. But instead, you're expending resources on an unproven band that probably won't even go gold. Don't tell me you don't know the statistics."

"It's not about the sales figures, Haruki."

"Then what do you actually want out of all of this?"

"I want to help three lovely young people fulfill their dreams. Is that so wrong?"

"Now you're being disingenuous, Setsuna. Musical acts fail all the time. In truth, it won't be a problem for you if they do. You'll just try again with another talent. But the people left behind have to deal with shattered dreams that'll haunt them forever. And out of all of the young musicians in Japan, you chose to entice my son. Don't try to tell me you didn't know. You were always keenly aware of these sorts of things. I ask again: what are you trying to do, here?"

"I already told you. Did I stutter, Haruki?"

"This is revenge, isn't it? Because of how much I harmed you all those years ago."

"I thought you'd gotten over that. You and Kazusa, both."

"Did you know? Not a day goes by that I don't regret what I did."

"Haruki, stop."

"I swear to you, Setsuna. If cutting off my arms and legs, gouging out my eyes, and ripping my tongue out would actually atone for my crimes, I would do so in a heartbeat!" His expression morphed into something frightening that I'd never seen before. "But I'm warning you…do not involve my son in this. I will not let you harm him, no matter how much guilt I carry."

Setsuna's jaw twitched. "How dare you say such ghastly things in front of your wife and your son? In front of me? I can't believe you're still so tormented with things that happened more than twenty years ago. Unlike you, apparently, I haven't been living in a stinking cloud of regret. I got over the hurt. I moved on with my life. And I found someone else to love. So drop this stuff about revenge. I am too old for this bullshit!"

The insanity faded from my father's eyes. "Good. Thank God. I'm happy for you. And I'll be forever grateful to Ogata-san for doing what I couldn't. Now let go of my son and stay out of our way. We're leaving. Forever. Kazusa!"

"Fine." Setsuna said, and let go of me.

I tried to steady myself. I couldn't look at her—I was too ashamed. Ashamed it had come to this. That even though she wore a brave face, I knew her heart bled in that moment.

"One more thing, though." Setsuna said, and produced a copy of the contract I'd signed, along with Yukiko and Saeko. She thrust the papers in Haruki's direction. "If you won't listen to reason, then how about this? Leon's contract. While we reserve the right to terminate without cause or consequence, Leon doesn't. Furthermore, if he's poached by another agency, which includes the Touma Kazusa Company, said agency will be responsible for at least five-hundred million yen in recompense. This is internationally enforceable and binding. So even if you fly off the Vienna, you'll be on the hook."

Haruki flared his nostrils, let me go, and then dug around in his coat pocket. He pulled out a checkbook and angrily scrawled what I assumed to be his signature onto one of the checks. Then he tore it away and thrust it in Setsuna's direction. "That's about three million Euros, give or take a few ten thousand. Done. I don't have time to calculate the exact figure. Fill in the numbers yourself. Add on whatever else for pain and suffering, if you want to. We're out of here."

"Hold on a damned second, Guitar-kun!" Youko shouted, angrily storming up to us. "What are you doing?"

"I'm buying my son back from my ex-fiancee."

"That's not your money to spend," Youko snapped. "Who do you think earned that? You? Don't make me laugh. Kazusa! Are you really willing to let your husband squander a year's worth of your performances for this? Your blood, sweat, and tears?"

"I'm fine with it," my mother said, looking at her feet. "As long as it gets my boy back home to us. I'd perform for free, for the rest of my life, if I had to."

"I didn't teach you to devalue yourself like that," Youko said. "And why all this fuss, anyway? You know that Leon can just re-apply to Julliard at any time if this doesn't work out, right? He got in once, and he'll get in again. I don't understand you kids! Why don't you just let him sink or swim for once?"

"Youko-san, I don't need to remind you that you once abandoned Kazusa," Haruki said. "We won't make the same mistake."

Setsuna took the check from Haruki, ripped it into shreds, crumpled them, and threw the mess at his face. "Haruki, I can't believe what you've become. Frankly, I can't believe I ever loved you. You can't ever talk about not abandoning a child, you know. Not when you abandoned two of them!"

Haruki's righteous anger instantly seemed to deflate. As if he'd visibly shrunk, he stepped back, seeming smaller. "That's not fair!" he rasped. "You never gave me the chance! Nor did Chiaki! You…"

"Guys, guys! Please, everyone chill." The man who I assumed was Saeko's father—I knew his first name was Takeya—now stepped forward with his hands raised. His gentle features told me that he was a born salesman and a natural mediator. "Don't forget we're making a scene in front of a hospital. Too much drama is bad for the heart, you know? Haruki, Kazusa, you guys must be dog-tired after a long and shitty flight. By the way, it's nice to see you, too. Setsuna, you're worried sick about Leon over here, just like my daughter is. So we're saying things we never meant to say, and completely out of context. Why don't we just take a moment and get a drink and something to eat, and we can talk about this like normal people?"

Haruki straightened up and shook his head. He'd regained some of his earlier composure. "Takeya, while I appreciate the effort, I can't just blow everything off with you and Io. I came here to bring my precious son home. This isn't the life for him. He literally just got discharged from the hospital!"

Saeko's mother, Io, now spoke up. "But Haruki, Setsuna said you'd made the decision to come here before you even knew about him being in the hospital. So you're not making any sense. See? You're too tired, dude. At least let us feed you or something, first. Come on, I wanna drink with you and Kazusa!"

Haruki rubbed his temples. "Dammit, Takeya, Io. I had really hoped our first meeting in twenty years wouldn't go like this. I really wanted to see you guys again, but if you try to prevent me from leaving with my son, you're both strangers to me."

Amid the rapidly-spiraling chorus of voices, I felt like I couldn't do anything but quiver dejectedly on my knees. I wanted to shrink. To become so small that I simply slipped into one of the cracks in the sidewalk and disappeared from the surface of the earth. I'd unleashed twenty years of pain and regret on the people I cared most about in the world. They'd leave here, whatever the outcome, with more darkness in their hearts, and it was all my damned fault.

"Hey, Lil' Bro," Haruto said. I hadn't noticed him squatting in front of me like some chinpira from some crime drama, smoking a cigarette. "Wanna drag?"

I looked at him with my teary eyes, reached out and took the offered cigarette. I'd tried them before, as they were ubiquitous in Europe, but never really got the hang of smoking. I always coughed and sputtered, and this time was no different.

"Fucking hell," I forced myself to say amid my own hacking. Still, though, I'd just been hit by a tiny drop of normalcy in a raging sea of shit. "Thanks, though," I said, as I handed the cig back to Haruto.

"Don't worry, Setsuna won't notice. Anyway, remember what I told you when we first met?"

"I think so."

"I will always have your back. I said it, and I meant it. So I find it annoying that all these people are talking about you, but they're not talking to you. So I think we need to shift their attention a bit. Are you cool with letting me say a few things to them?"

I looked at him and nodded.

"Thanks," he said, and dropped the cigarette to the ground. He stood up, stamped it out with his foot, and then let out what could only be described as some sort of war cry. It was loud enough to instantly bring every other conversation to a halt, and everyone's eyes to him. "Gomen, gomen! Don't worry, I'm not armed or anything. Except with these," he said, flexing his biceps. "But now that I have your attention, I'd like to ask you all something. Has a single person here directly asked Leon what he wants to do?"

"Of course I have!" Haruki said.

"Okay, but did he actually say something like: 'Oh Daddy, take me back to Austria, the land of little sausages and that town named Fucking?'"

"You're out of your mind!"

"I might be, but I'm also his manager! So while we're all piling on him and disregarding his opinion, I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind!" He grabbed my collar and lifted me to my tiptoes. "Leon! First of all, I'm disappointed in you, ya little shit! Why'd you have Yukiko make such a stupid promise in the first place? 'Don't tell anyone I'm in a world of shit and about to break down at any moment?' Who the hell treats their precious friend like that? She cried her heart out when she confessed everything to me! And worse, she still couldn't come out here to see you because she thinks you'll never forgive her! If she hadn't taken the hit, you'd have no one here to save your sorry ass! If you ever pull this crap again, I will personally punch you in the dick!"

He dropped me to the ground, then cracked his neck from side to side, amid the stunned silence. "Second, I think you should be a bit more grateful to your father. I'm opposed to what he's doing, but I also appreciate it. I never had a dad. I spent a lot of my childhood praying for a guy like Kitahara Haruki in my life. Someone who'd fly halfway across the world and shove his nose in everyone's business just because he cared about me. So I know that even if you choose to go back with him, you'll be in good hands. You'll be happy and safe, even though you might grumble a bit at first. And that's all I really want for you, kyoudai. So at this point, you have to make a decision, and it truly has to be yours. Ignore all these other people, man. Even your mother, as hard as it is because she's got a great ass! Just tell me, straight up, what you want to do with your life."

Unsteadily, but surely, I got back to my feet. As Haruto had instructed me, I purposely turned my gaze away from everyone else. From my parents, Setsuna, Saeko, Rina, Eiji, and even intrusive thoughts of my mother's fantastic rear end. I just looked at Haruto. Clarity came to me when I met his gaze.

"I came here because…" I cleared my throat. "I wanted to find my own dream, even if it all crashed and burned at the end. I don't want to do what my mother does. They don't let you sing at piano competitions, you know. They don't let you play shit like Ben Folds Five or Sum 41 there. Yeah, I know they're not Mozart or Beethoven, but they're pretty awesome all the same. And the other thing I noticed was that I was getting way too cocky at recitals. I got bored and started to hate it all. But when I was on the Tomo Show, it scared the shit out of me. I hurled twice after that, but you know what? It actually felt good. I felt like I needed to prove something. I haven't felt that way on a piano in a long time." I made a fist and thumped it against my chest. "So I'm… I'm gonna stay. I'm sorry, Dad. I am grateful to you. And I'll come home eventually, but first I'd like to make it up to Yukiko and Saeko and everyone else by turning our band into something to be be proud of. Even though the name kinda sucks more every time I think about it, and I wish we could change it."

Haruto rapped the palms of his hands against my cheeks and then turned. "Ahem! Well, you heard it, everyone! He's staying right the fuck here. Now let's clear out before we're all arrested. And I apologize, Touma-sama. But when I think of women's asses, something comes outta me."

#

And we did in fact, nearly all get arrested. Our little disturbance had long since summoned the police, who had approached the scene of our collective standoff with a mix of confusion and trepidation on their faces.

"Everyone," one of the sergeants said, with a nervous laugh. "Please move your vehicles and disperse. You're blocking traffic and causing a disturbance for the patients."

Fortunately, Rina knew exactly what to do. "Oh! My apologies, officer! Just that one of our own had a little accident, so we wanted to make sure he had a nice welcome on the way out! Let's get back to work, everyone!"

The cop reddened as he realized who'd approached him. "Are you… Are you Ogata Rina-sama?"

"In the flesh! Thanks for your hard work keeping us all safe!" She smiled brilliantly and gave him the universal idol salute, with her hands forming the shape of a heart. The cop, who looked old enough to have been a huge fan of hers in the eighties, practically melted in place and became a blubbering mess.

This, of course, allowed us all to start clearing out without drawing even more attention to us, or leaving in handcuffs. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hanako blow me a kiss, and quickly get back into the Maybach with Yayoi. They stealthily zoomed off. It had been a huge risk for her to reveal herself in public just to support me. And even though she hadn't said a word, I still felt intensely grateful to her.

Haruto squeezed my shoulder. "I've gotta move the car. Those cops are giving it the side-eye."

"I'll come with you," I said.

"No. Spend a little more time with your parents first. They came all this way for you. It's the least you can do. I'll wait for you around the corner."

"Hold a minute," Haruki said, placing a hand on Haruto's arm.

"Kitahara-san?" Haruto said, his demeanor now back to immutable professionalism. I tensed, ready for my father to give my manager a black eye.

"You just snatched my son away. I should be angry at you," Haruki said. "But how could I be? It's obvious you love him, too. And you're probably the only person here who doesn't see me as an enemy. So… even though you just screwed me, thank you."

"As I said, Kitahara-san, I think you're a good father. The kind I often wished I had for myself. So how could I ever see you as an enemy?"

Haruki swallowed and extended a hand. "I'd have been proud to have you as a son. Okay, I've kept you long enough. Take care of Leon for me."

Haruto shook Haruki's hand. In that moment, I couldn't help but notice how similar both men looked to each other. But that was just idle speculation. My manager quickly jogged back to the Tesla right as the police started to try prying its door handles away from its body.

"You've caused a lot of trouble for everyone," Haruki said to me.

"I'm sorry, Dad," I said. "I really was going to leave with you and Mom. I missed you guys so much. Why didn't you call me right after her concert was done?"

"I'm sorry about that, Leon. It's no excuse, but a bunch of things came up. We saw your emails. You seemed to be doing fine. So I'm sorry I didn't prioritize you. Maybe I deserve to go home alone."

"No, Dad. As my manager said, you were trying to do right thing for me. I'm not too stupid to realize that. And I am glad to see you. But everyone showing up reminded me that I have a lot going on here, and I made a lot of promises I'm gonna have to keep."

"Then you have to make absolutely sure you keep them," Haruki said. "No matter how hard it becomes, you have to keep your word to people. Don't be indecisive. It leads to a world of hurt."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Did you really hate the songs we played on the show? Did you even get a second of enjoyment from them?"

Haruki chuckled. "I never said I hated them. Actually, your single is really catchy. And your band is on a whole different level than we three were in high school. I can only assume Setsuna told you about what happened."

"I saw the video. You, uh, weren't too bad on the guitar. Is that why Grandma calls you 'Guitar-kun?'"

He rolled his eyes. "Probably. Your guitarist looks like Setsuna did when she was about that age. She's light years ahead of me, though." He fixed a deadly serious look at me. "Are you sleeping with the girls in your band?"

"Why'd you assume that?"

"I'm not saying you are or aren't. Just do me a favor and don't let history repeat itself. For my sanity, and for yours."

Saeko and her parents, Takeya and Io, came up to us. "Oy, Haruki, Kazusa said your flight's not till tomorrow," Takeya said. "So you're trapped here with us. We're taking you out whether you like it or not!"

Haruki shrugged. "Don't you two have work or something? We're old now."

"Haruki, don't be shitty, we need to catch up on twenty years of gossip," Io said, clamping a hand on his arm.

"Fine, I'll get Kazusa," he said.

"Kazusa's gonna hang out with her mother and Setsuna," Io said. "They decided on a girls' night out. Far away from annoying men. So she'll be fine! Also, you're buying."

"Why am I buying?" Haruki protested.

"Don't pretend you didn't just offer Setsuna hundreds of millions of yen like it was pocket change for you," Takeya said. "Although I suppose you are technically our guest, so we'll split it. Sacchan, any preferences?"

"I'm going home," Saeko said, as her parents started to drag my father off.

"Wait," I said to her.

"No. I'm still pissed at you," she said, and continued to walk.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hide anything."

She whipped her head around and stung me with her twin tail hair. "Nothing you can say is gonna make up for this. What a clusterfuck! Was it truly so hard to use your stupid words? Or is talking with me about as useful as talking with an onahole?"

"No! I grasped her hands. "Never! You're more than that to me."

She pulled her hands out of my grasp and slapped me. "You'd better say that to Kiko, not me. After all, we're just fuck buddies, so I couldn't give less of a shit. But her…you hurt the hell out of her, you cowardly douchenozzle herpesblister fuckstick. That's why she's not here right now. She's not answering her phone or anything. So before you try and slither your way back into my pantsu, you need to apologize to her and beg forgiveness."

"Then help me, please," I said, as I hung my head. "Do you have any idea where I can find her?"

Saeko turned around and started to walk off, before throwing her hands in the air with incandescent exasperation. "Fine, whatever! She's probably at the station, since you know, you were banned from the premises. Whenever she gets super depressed she starts to play the cello, of all things. It really bums me out, so I can't stay with her. Well, that's my good deed for the rest of my life. Don't ever ask me for anything again."

I bowed deeply to her. I will make it up to you, Saeko. I promise.

By now, everyone else had departed with their groups. And I knew what I had to do.

#

Haruto floored it all the way to the station once I told him I wanted to find Yukiko and apologize to her. A few times during the trip, I almost thought we'd crash and burn up in an inextinguishable electric vehicle fire, but that thankfully didn't come to pass. And before too much longer, we pulled into the parking lot at N54 Television.

"He's with me," Haruto said, as he waved his credentials at the security booth and swiped me in. The place was still a bustling hotbed of activity, as their hiring manager had told me a while ago. Under normal circumstances it would have been impossible to locate one person hiding within, but I had my suspicions where where she was.

Together, we went up to the second floor, where I'd first sang and played with what would later become The White Album 3. Where my future had diverged so sharply from its original projection. I heard notes. And even though I'd never heard her play the cello before, I knew those were hers.

"I'm leaving this to you," Haruto said. "And I'm gonna take the rest of the night off."

"Thank you," I said, embracing him.

"Don't fuck this up," he said, before turning to leave.

I slowly pushed open the door to the small recording studio where I'd first played with her. True to form, she hadn't locked up. Now, I heard her clearly.

The piece, "Kotoba ni Dekiani Omoi," had originally been written as something cheerful, even celebratory. But the arrangement she played was profoundly sorrowful in its execution. Her bow thrummed across the strings and evoked a feeling I could only describe as love fighting a desperate, and ultimately futile, struggle against inexorable doom. I imagined looking up at contrails from an international flight that contained my soul mate thirty thousand feet above, whisking them to a place I could never reach. All while my heart slowly froze on the ground, fighting against the warmth offered by another desperate soul.

Finally, her bow came to a standstill. I could tell, by the subtle movements of its tip, that her hands shook. I knew she was crying, without even having to see her face. I knew she was, because I also was.

"Hey," I half-whispered. I wiped my face with my sleeve.

Slowly, and without looking at me, Yukiko gently set her cello back in its case and slipped the bow in. Then, she removed what I recognized as a small wooden block for holding rosin, and immediately whipped around and threw it at me.

"Scheisse!" I yelped, and ducked right before it would have smacked me in the face. "Why?"

She glowered at me. Her eyelids were puffy and her mascara was smeared and ran down her cheeks. "Fuck you!"

"I just want to talk!"

"Get back on the plane, shitheel!"

"You saved me. You're the reason I'm still here."

She closed her cello case and worked the latches with more force than necessary, then slung it on her back. "I'm going home! Don't follow me!"

"Everyone was there," I said, as she stormed past me.

"I don't care."

"Haruto told me everything," I said, following her as she tromped down the hall and made her way down the stairs. "And he had some harsh words for me. Which I totally deserved!"

"You deserve a firm kick in the ass."

She pushed her way through the front doors of the station and started to run. But, burdened as she was with her instrument, I had an easy time matching her pace.

"Come on," I said. "Don't wear yourself out. If you really wanted me to stop following you, you'd have called the cops already."

"I'll tase you, bro."

"They're illegal in Japan. Please, just listen for a moment! I'm sorry for what I did to you. I'm sorry I made you promise not to tell anyone about all the shit I was going through. I wasn't thinking clearly. I was completely wrong!"

"Then say the fucking line."

I took a deep breath in. "Yukiko-senpai is always right!"

"Louder!"

"Yukiko-senpai is always right!"

"Bullshit, I can't hear you!"

I took a deep breath and bellowed so loudly the entire neighborhood likely heard it: "Yukiko-senpai is always right!"

She turned. "I'm going to give you three seconds. Exactly three fucking seconds to wipe that stupid-looking grin off your face or I will gouge out your eyeballs and skull-fuck you!"

I blinked. I guess I'd been smiling because she was finally talking with me again. "That's a line from that war movie Setsuna likes, isn't it?"

She huffed and started to walk again. "So what happened? Did you grow some balls and tell your parents to fuck off?"

"No, because I don't hate them. And I don't hate my father for coming over. He thought he was doing the right thing. But I told him I had obligations here. I promised I'd make music with you, and with Saeko, for the entire world to hear. I'll do whatever it takes."

"You're insufferable," she spat.

"I mean it."

We were now in the foyer of her apartment building. She jammed her thumb into the elevator button repeatedly, until the doors opened. I joined her and we rode silently up to her floor. Wordlessly, we walked to her apartment, where she fumbled with the keys before letting herself in. I took her cello off her hands.

"Put it over there," she said, pointing to a corner. "It's a Stradivarius, so don't fuck it up."

"My dad nearly bought Setsuna one of those, today," I said, carefully uncasing the instrument and setting it on its stand. Obviously, hers wasn't an actual Strad, but I wasn't going to argue with her over petty things. Not when we still had a rift between us.

"Well, I guess you're still here shitting up the place," Yukiko said. "Congratulations, Shinji! I'm not giving you a celebration blowie, so if that's what you came here for, get out."

"I don't want anything besides to tell you how sorry I am, and to swear to you that I won't hide things from you in the future. Neither of you. Nor Setsuna, nor Haruto, nor anyone else who came out to support me today."

"I wasn't there. Didn't feel like it."

"I don't blame you. Also, I didn't know you played the cello. It was beautiful. Is there any instrument you can't play?"

She frowned. "Apparently my voice sucks."

"I disagree. We should harmonize more often."

"Why are you interrogating me?"

"I don't mean to. It's just that I think we have so many amazing skills between us. We should think of ways to show that to the audience."

"Stop." She balled her hands into fists. Her teeth chattered. "A few hours ago, you were totally ready to ditch everything and fly somewhere I could never reach you. Do you know how that made me feel?"

Tentatively, I approached her. "I do. And I hate myself for doing that to you. So I promise it will never happen again. I'm here for the band. I'm here for you."

I slowly reached out and wrapped her hands in my own. She initially shook them away, but right afterward, pressed her palms to my chest. "How can I believe that?" she asked. Fresh tears rolled down her face.

"Because, Yukiko, I love you," I said. "So even if you don't love me, know that I'm hopelessly stuck to wherever you are, okay?"

She looked up at me. Her face was flushed, as if she'd downed a whole bottle of sake at once. Her lips quivered. "You know I'm weird about that, right?"

"I know. It's okay. I find it endearing. Because it's part of you."

"Then, as long as you know this isn't permanent or anything…" she closed her eyes and drew forward. Her breaths were quick and shallow. Her body shook. I felt her nipples harden as they pressed against me. I gently pressed my lips to hers.

She was, by any objective standard, a terrible kisser. After all, she'd been avoiding it for probably most of her adult life. But she still tasted brilliant.

We slowly undressed each other while sharing light, inexperienced kisses more typical to a pair of middle schoolers acting out TV dramas than a pair of adults ready to make love. I didn't care. I raged with excitement at the chance to partake of this forbidden part of her. And based on how wet she was when I slipped my hand under her panties, she was just as volatile. Gently, I laid her onto the cluttered, un-made bed. We took our time, clumsy and tentative with each other as if we'd both been virgins unsure of what to do with a naked human in front of them. And when I finally entered her, she climaxed almost immediately, which induced me to do the same.

That was probably the most embarrassing sex I'd had in my life thus far, and that included losing my virginity in the first place. We both started giggling at the absurdity of what had happened.

"What the hell, man? You like, regressed or something," she said, as she drew closer to me under the sheets.

"Pot's calling the kettle black," I said, giving her another kiss on the lips.

She blushed and buried her face in my chest. "No fair. I'm banning all kissing going forward. We're gonna fuck like normal people."

"Normal people kiss when they… okay, fine, as long as I get to be around you. I don't care if we're kissing or what."

"We missed a day of studying," she said. "We're gonna have to work harder tomorrow to make up for it. That means we actually have to study, okay?"

"Yeah, I'm glad you realized that."

"So that means we have to get it all out of our system tonight," she said, starting to suck again on my neck. "Can you get it up yet, or do I need to finger your asshole?"

"Yukiko, I love you."

She blushed even harder, and started to shake. "Not fucking fair! I'm banning that, too!"

#

The next morning, I saw my parents off at the airport. It was my obligation to them, and I wanted to see them one more time before many more months would go by. My mother would have concerts, my father would get her through interviews, and life would go on. Unexpectedly, Setsuna had joined us. I didn't know whether she was there as "insurance" to make sure my father didn't just strong-arm me past the gate, or whether she genuinely wanted to spend just a bit more time with my parents.

"Ah, Kitahara-san," the ticketing agent said to my father. He'd just checked his bags. "I don't know how flexible your schedule is, but the flight's been overbooked by one seat. Would you be willing to exchange a boarding pass for a credit voucher? We'll make it worth your while."

"Oh, actually I do have an unused pass…" Haruki started to say.

"Michiko! Please don't go! I love you!"

We all turned our heads to the sight of a pair of teenagers, a boy and a girl, caught in a desperate kiss. Whoever Michiko was, she possessed a striking and rare beauty. Long, black hair and snowy skin. I also caught a third teenager, brunette, standing nearby. She stood by herself, looking forlorn and abandoned as she cried into her shoes.

"I'm sorry, Jun," Michiko, the black-haired girl, said, before breaking off the embrace. "Take care of Kotone for me. I will always love you. Goodbye!"

My parents, as well as Setsuna, quickly looked away from the scene, their faces flushed. I watched as Michiko went up to the ticketing desk to check in. Her two friends huddled in an embrace. Meanwhile, her face scrunched up in a frown.

"What do you mean, the flight's overbooked?" she asked.

"We're terribly sorry," another gate agent said, "but you simply can't fly to Vienna today. If you'd like, we can re-book your flight for next week. Unless someone gives up a space, you're out of luck."

"But I have to fly today. My mother's expecting me… She's got lessons all lined up. And isn't it the airline's fault for selling too many tickets? Why am I the one who has to pay?"

"Sorry, Young Miss, I simply can't do anything about it."

Michiko stepped away from the counter, looking shocked but also relieved. Her friends joined her soon after, and the trio quickly became a sobbing, elated mess.

My father looked at my mother, and at Setsuna. They all looked like they didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Actually," Haruki said to the ticketing agent with a wistful smile. "Never mind. I don't have anything I'd like to cash in."

"Very well, sir. Gate C8. Safe travels."

Haruki turned to me. "We might not see each other for a while. Your mother has concerts coming up."

"That's okay, Dad," I said. "At least call me, though. Or answer my email."

"We will," he said, hugging me.

"Leon, you have to practice hard, okay?" my mother said, also hugging me and kissing my cheeks. "At least eighteen hours a day."

"I will, Mom," I said, hugging her tightly. I breathed in the sweet scent of her hair. I would miss it, badly. But I'd made my decision, and it was time to stick my it.

My parents gave a final wave to Setsuna before they set off for the security cordon. Setsuna stood by me for a while, watching them grow smaller and smaller, before they vanished into the crowd.

"That insufferable man," she said, her voice wavering as she watched the nearby trio of teenagers, still crying with relief in each others' arms. She wiped at her eyes with her handkerchief, and quickly composed herself. "You're not off the hook, you know. It's right back to studying for you," she said, flashing me a smile.

"Setsuna, can I ask…" I gestured to the trio.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she chuckled, and started to walk to the exit.

#

It was early afternoon when I got back to the Ogiso household with Setsuna. She'd told me that just to be sure we were actually studying, she'd also be spending the day hanging around with her parents.

"For you," Yukiko said, handing me a wide headband that looked like something a World War 2 kamikaze pilot would have worn. Besides the ornately done demon's face, the words: "Bring On The Fights!" were prominently embroidered on its face. She'd already tied hers on. The whole getup was both comedic and deranged.

"Is this like…a motivational thing?" I asked.

"Damn right," Yukiko said. "It has little plastic caltrops on the inside. So if you doze off, they'll poke you and force you to get up again and study!"

"That's kinda crazy," I said.

"Just shut up and put it on! We only have forty-eight hours to ace this shit! We're gonna do nothing but study, you hear me? We're not gonna eat, sleep, shit, fuck, or take pee breaks!"

"Without most of those, you won't be able to function," I said, as I reluctantly tied the headband on. It really did have small spikes that pressed on my forehead.

She assumed a ridiculous pose that involved covering half her face with splayed fingers, and punched her other hand into my chest. "I reject my humanity, Jojo!"

"Alright, 'Dio,' that's enough," Setsuna said, and shooed us upstairs. "Don't hold it in or you'll get a UTI. Dinner's at six."

Three days later, we took our exams in accordance with Japanese disability accommodation law. I scored A's in Computer Science and English. I had a B in Business and a B-minus in Japanese Literature. Yukiko scored C's across the board, but still passed by the skin of her teeth.

I learned later on that she'd have outright failed Japanese literature if not for some "extra points" that her professor happened to glean out of nowhere. Coincidentally, said professor happened to be a huge fan of eighties pop idols, and was obsessed with one Ogata sibling in particular, who had also coincidentally agreed to a dinner date the day after the exam.

Overall, it worked out for everyone. Eiji got to enjoy a full-course meal at Joel Robuchon, and Yukiko got to stay in school.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

By the time our delayed midterms were over, Yuunagi University was nearing the end of break. But while most other students still enjoyed the post-exam halcyon days, we were back to work again at Setsuna's manor, bright and early in the morning.

Dorekurai no tsukihi ga sugireba

Kono kioku wasurete shimau koto ga dekiru darou ka

Iki ga dekinai you na koishita

Taisetsu de shiawase na kioku datta

Kami kakiageta hosoi yubisaki

Fureatta bamen mada iroasenai mama

Makimodosu koto dekinai you ni,

futari, deau ano hi ano toki e

Onaji sora no shita de ikiteiru kimi ni wa nidoto fureaenai…

I lifted my hands from the keys and took in a breath. My quality hadn't degraded overly much, which I'd feared would happen after several days of not touching an instrument. But more than that, I was simply happy to see Saeko and Yukiko back in action, playing their instruments with me and having fun.

"Good," Setsuna said, as she removed her earplugs. "I think we'll be ready to record and start mastering very soon. A few weeks, give or take."

"Who's doing the mastering?" I asked.

"Rina and Eiji," Setsuna said. "They're still the best in the business."

"Shouldn't we have recorded before the show?" Yukiko asked. "I mean, we killed that shit so hard, and now we're gonna have to make up for lost practice time."

"It's better this way," Setsuna said. "To really make a song that people will want to listen to over and over again, you have to let everything percolate for a while. You had great technique and timing when we all went on the Yanagihara Tomo Show, but I wouldn't have wanted that on the record."

"What the hell, Mom? Why not?"

"Because you're only at about sixty-five percent of your potential that way. It's the classic 'learning curve.' In fact, I expect you to lose some proficiency with the song and get frustrated with it. Especially because you'll be learning your other songs simultaneously."

"Then record the final version now, while we don't suck!"

"You can always do better," Setsuna said. "Okay, take a quick break, and we'll show you the full track listing."

After Setsuna left us, Yukiko and Saeko immediately started to gossip about me in front of me.

"Oh! Sacchan," Yukiko said. "I didn't have a chance because I was studying my brains out, but what exactly happened when you all went to stop the kidnapping?"

"Pretty much how I thought it'd go down," Saeko said. "Douchenozzle over there was being useless, and his dad and your mom were duking it out over him. I was like that wise American king from the Holy Bible and told them to cut him in half, but no one listened to me."

"Ara ara! Did they actually hit each other and stuff?"

"Oh, it was fucking lit!" Saeko said. "Like, straight out of an RGG boss fight cutscene. His dad and your mom totally ripped their jackets away to reveal the sick tats all over their bodies, and then totally went to town on each other! She totally clowned on him, though. He failed every QTE and there was blood everywhere. Some of it even got on our manager!"

Yukiko nodded intently, possibly failing to realize she was being trolled. "I always knew that woman was involved in sketchy business, but I didn't know she had irezumi! Aha! That's why we never go to hot springs!"

"We don't go anymore because you complained the entire trip when we did go," Setsuna said as she returned along with Eiji.

"Alright," Eiji said. "We have a lot of songs to cover and not too much time, so let's get right into it. Remember, just like the score to 'Shiowase na Kioku,' these do not leave this building."

He handed thick folders of sheet music to each of us, all prominently marked: "CONFIDENTIAL" in stark black letters. I closed the Kawai EX Grand's top and organized each score on top of it.

Let's see. 'After All,' 'Closing,' 'Replacing You,' 'Memories of Falling Snow,' which has Yukiko on the cello, very cool… 'Love Illusion,' 'Toki no Mahou,' 'Yasashi Uso,' 'Todokanai Koi…' which I suppose was inevitable. Good thing I actually like the song a lot, although the other two probably hate it. 'Shiowase na Kioku,' of course, which makes enough tracks to qualify for play on the major streaming services, and…another cover, it looks like. Hey…

"Ogata-san, is this a joke?" I asked, pointing at the last cover piece.

"No, it's certainly not," Eiji said. "We've secured cover rights and approval from not only the label, but also the artist, who happens to be one of my close personal friends."

"But…Ogata-san! This is 'Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting' by friggin' Sir Elton John!"

"And? Can't believe I'm friends with him? We spent most of 1985 smashed out of our minds on bottom-barrel Suntory and got thrown out of every dive bar in Yokohama. If that's not the epitome of beautiful friendship, I don't want to live on this earth anymore!"

"Don't look at me," Setsuna said, crossing her arms. "I wasn't around to rein him in. But still, this is a major coup for us. It'll be a huge selling point, even among demographics that don't normally go for our usual mix of songs. And at the very least, it'll probably make Sir Elton happy to see it."

"Fuck, I don't know if I'm up to the task," I said, inhaling deeply. "Also, it has glissandos, which you said I couldn't do, ever."

"Just don't do them during practice," Eiji said. "I'll make an exception for shows."

"This is going to be a lot of work," Yukiko said, running her fingertips along the guitar parts of the scores. "But not impossible. I guess we'll get to skip classes."

"That's the neat part," Setsuna said, winking at her daughter. "You don't! I'm not having my talent fail out of school and blame their educational downfall on my 'corporate greed.' No, you'll attend as many classes as necessary, plus do your schoolwork. We've moved all your sessions to evenings, so as soon as you're done with practicing, you'll go right to campus. Izumi-san took care of everything."

"How could you?" Yukiko grimaced. "Betrayed by my own mother!"

"It's fine, Yukiko," I said. "You knew this was part of the deal."

"Oh, there's more!" Setsuna said, clearly enjoying Yukiko's torment. "See, it's not just practicing and recording the songs. You're also on a months-long mission to relentlessly promote yourselves at every opportunity! The album isn't going to sell if you don't do things like open for other bands, record music videos, perform in collabs, and yes, do interviews and make nice with reporters. Basically, you won't have any time to yourselves at all until the album release!"

"But…muh Comiket…" Saeko rocked morosely back and forth in her seat, hugging herself.

"Remember we talked about this?" I asked her. With how childishly these two were acting, I felt like I had to play the part of responsible band leader. After all, these were all reasonable expectations that any performing group were expected to meet.

"And finally," Setsuna said, her expression morphing to an intimidatingly lascivious delight that only the female face could produce. "We have the marketing survey results back. They loved those costumes you wore on Tomo-chan's show."

I blinked, and instantly regretted my earlier haughtiness. "Hold on, Setsuna… I don't like where this is going!"

She bit her lip to stifle her lustful glee, and I never felt such fear as I did then. "The pants must be tighter."

#

For the first time ever, I was grateful to be wearing my "super pretty" disguise, as Youko had inadvertently described it. Classes at Yuunagi were back in session and it was the start of a new semester. And, whether we wanted it or not, The White Album 3 were now the talk of the campus.

"Did you know they're all students here?" and "What classes do you think they're in?" were the most common refrains we'd heard so far, as Yukiko and I navigated the campus at night like a pair of fugitives.

"Is it working out for you?" I asked her, as we finally trudged back in the direction of her apartment after our final class had adjourned for the day.

"No, this all sucks," Yukiko sighed. "Why does she give a shit if we do well in school? We're professional musicians! This is why I should have never let my mother be my boss. Too much conflagration."

"I think you mean 'too much conflation,'" I said. "But I really meant to ask you about your disguise. Is it actually working?"

"I think so?" Yukiko said, with a shrug.

I regarded her skeptically. Unlike my fairly elaborate disguise, which relied on partially obscuring my defining features and—I hated this part—making me seem a bit more feminine, hers was of the "easy best" variety. In fact, all she'd done was change her hairstyle from her usual ponytail to simple twin-tails tied with two black ribbons.

"You just look like 'Discount Setsuna' that way! You should at least wear a mask or something."

"How about you tongue my asshole? My disguise is fine. Besides, you're the one most in danger of getting recognized. Sacchan and I are just faceless background NPCs!" She let out a frustrated growl. "Also, why can't our shady manager drive me home? Why do I have to walk? I'm a genius! I shouldn't have to touch the toad-strewn earth!"

"We're trying to be incognito, remember? A fancy foreign car will draw attention we don't want. Besides, your place isn't too far for a walk. We don't get too many chances to exercise as it is."

"Ugh, I'm fucking hungry. We're going to hit the conbini first."

A few minutes later, we exited the local 7-11 near Yukiko's apartment laden with beer, snacks, and a pair of salmon onigiri. But mainly we carried beer. After that, we took the elevator to her apartment. Seeing that she wasn't going to stock her own fridge with the beer she'd just bought, I took the liberty of putting them up for her.

This had been our routine for the last few days, since school had started back up again. From morning to late afternoon, we'd learn our new songs individually, before getting a round or two of group practice in to keep our cohesiveness. After that, Haruto drove us to campus and dropped us off at an inconspicuous spot, from which we'd walk to our classes. Yukiko was essentially remediating her first year, despite her protestations that she was a second year, and thus we attended the same lectures or small groups. Then, we'd walk back to her apartment, where the usual plan was for Haruto to pick me up and take me to Youko's place. The only thing was that so far, I'd spent every night with Yukiko, and I'd assumed tonight would be the same.

It certainly started out in the expected fashion. After I'd put the beers in the fridge, I came back to find her laying in bed wearing nothing but a pair of thigh highs. She beckoned to me, and I immediately stripped my disguise off and jumped into the sack with her. I'd never admit it in a thousand years to her, but I was much harder than usual because she looked more like Setsuna with her hair like that.

"Let's try something different," she said. I lay on my back and quivered with anticipation as she reversed her direction and brought her womanhood to my face. I reacted in the only way a man could, and started to pleasure her with my lips and tongue. She gasped in pleasure, and so did I when she took me in her mouth. I freed one of my arms and put two of my fingers in, causing her to clamp down on them. I loved how reactive she was to my touch. I loved making her squirm with delight. I loved that she was turned on by the stupid sounds I made when I came. I loved those things about her. I loved her.

I threw my head back as I emptied myself onto her face, her breasts, and of course, onto myself. She enjoyed the sensation of it on her skin, and abhorred the taste. Meanwhile, spurred on by my strained cries, she reached her climax without the aid of my tongue, and clamped my fingers so strongly I thought my career as a pianist might be over. A thin trickle of viscous fluid pooled into the hollow at the base of my throat.

"Nice," she said, giving me a smirk as she rose off me and headed to the bathroom to clean up. I could only lie there, limply, and savor the afterglow. Eventually, she kicked me out of bed and into the shower.

"I figured out why you're always dealing with a famine in your base," I said to her later, as I finished my wholly unsatisfactory single onigiri. She'd taken a bite out of it already while I'd showered, so it hadn't even been a full portion. "Maybe you should buy more solids, and less liquids."

"Beer is food, too," she said, taking a swig of her Kirin. We sat next to each other at the kotatsu, leaning our backs on the side of her bed. "Besides, if you want to eat more, you should cook for me. Isn't that how it is in Europe, anyway? I heard the men do all the cooking and chores in Sweden, or something. Japan needs to be more like Sweden."

"I can cook, but you're never in the mood to get ingredients."

"You can cook? Bullshit! What can you do? Boil water?"

"Yeah, that and…" I bit my lip. Neither of my parents had ever taught me how. Haruki had banned my mother from the kitchen a long time ago, and his repertoire consisted of hamburger steak and rice. He'd claimed he'd worked in a restaurant once, but he obviously hadn't learned anything from the experience. "…I can make a mean hamburg steak?"

"Nah, I don't like hamburg steak."

"Okay, then how about you come over to my grandmother's place? She has staff who prep meals and stuff. I'm sure she wouldn't mind having you over."

"Are you an idiot? What if your grandmother spies on us while we're…you know?"

I had to laugh. "Says the girl who wanted me to keep perfectly silent that one time…"

She blushed and threw a nearby pillow at me. I smiled, even as the projectile hit me square in the face. One of the things I enjoyed most was seeing her face turn red, and for her to get flustered.

"We should probably tone it down a bit," Yukiko said, crossing her arms and turning away so I couldn't see her expression. "I mean, our manager's totally reporting our comings and goings to my mom and probably Rina and Eiji. They're gonna start…making weird assumptions about us. I mean, doubly so if we start going to your house on the regular."

"He told me the company doesn't really mind. We just need to keep the drama to a minimum."

"Says the guy who caused a huge scene in front of the hospital. You're lucky the press didn't catch wind of it till too late."

"You got me there. But what if they start making assumptions about us? Is that such a bad thing?"

"I…I just don't like to be tied down or anything. I don't wanna carry people's burdens like that."

I let out a sigh. Our discussions always stalled like this whenever I tried to talk about our status. Right now, I didn't know what "us" really meant, and neither did she, apparently. "Okay, no worries. But, honestly, I like this," I said, gesturing around us. "I hope you do, too."

"Have you seen Sacchan around school?"

"Honestly, no. Ever since our class schedule got rearranged, I've been in a different CS lab. The TA is more professional."

"Is she taking your phone calls, yet?"

"I haven't tried."

She looked downcast. "You should make up with her. She's pissed at you about the same thing I was. Actually, I'm still pissed at you, but not enough to punch you every time I see you. So if you say the same things…and do the same things…I'm sure she'll forgive you."

"I like her a lot, don't get me wrong," I said. "But…you know, she was pretty straightforward with me. Our relationship, if you can even call it that, is just professional and physical."

"So is ours."

I felt a pang in my chest. "Is that what you truly believe?"

"I tell you all the time that I don't wanna get too close to anyone. And you always ignore me."

"But don't you like this? Don't you like…me?"

"Of course I do!" She growled and buried her face in the bedcovers nearby. "But you have no chill! Why can't you just enjoy things as they are? Like, I'm obviously not fucking any other guys! I don't have time for that! You're practically the only dude I speak to at length, these days, besides my dad."

Although it was hella chauvinist of me, knowing that brought me far more relief than anything else, and that included preserving amicable relations with my parents. Still, she wasn't making a lot of sense. "So why can't you just admit that we're dating? I'm not like, proposing marriage or something!"

"But you might!"

"And is that so wrong?"

"I'm scared!"

At that, I had to laugh. "Okay, now who has no chill?"

"Ugh! Go home! I don't wanna deal with you right now!"

I stood and brushed myself off. "Alright. Sorry I upset you. Hey, do you at least want me to bring like, some bento over next time?"

"Yeah, I want sausage and steak."

"You get chicken and fish."

"Fine. I also order you to make up with Saeko. Headquarters grants authorization to do her up the ass, if needed!"

I crossed my arms in annoyance. She was on this bullshit again. "That won't be needed. As I said—"

"I'll feel a lot better about us…moving forward, if you make her happy, too."

"I don't really get it."

"Use your stupid heads. Both of them. Now get out!"

#

It's getting late have you seen my mates

Ma tell me when the boys get here

It's seven o'clock and I want to rock

Want to get a belly full of beer

My old man's drunker than a barrel full of monkeys

And my old lady she don't care

My sister looks cute in her braces and boots

A handful of grease in her hair

Oh, don't give us none of your aggravation

We had it with your discipline

Oh, Saturday night's alright for fighting

Get a little action in

Get about as oiled as a diesel train

Gonna set this dance alight

'Cause Saturday night's the night I like

Saturday night's alright alright alright, ooh

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday

Saturday, Saturday,

Saturday night's alright, ooh

Even though Eiji had told me not to, I couldn't help but finish the song off with a quick, two-handed crush of the lower registers. It sent my sweat flying all over the keyboard, the sheet music in front of me, and probably into the innards of the Kawai EX. Yes, it had been in direct contravention to what he'd told me earlier, but I couldn't help it. For a brief moment, I'd gotten to pretend to be Elton Friggin' John.

Of course, we'd totally deviated from the original score written by the legend himself. I'd thrown in a handful of chord-heavy solos, and Yukiko had added in her own set of bangers the moment I'd let up. We'd extended the originally four-minute song by two minutes, making it completely unsuitable for radio play. And at some point, I'd accidentally kicked over the bench, forcing me to stand for much of the entire song. In short, we'd all had way too much fun.

Even Saeko, who normally looked like she was either concentrating heavily or getting annoyed, sported a grin, which she just as quickly hid when I looked over at her. We all prepared to get dressed down by Eiji, because we'd broken every rule in the book.

"You know, I was in Central Park in 1980 on that day when he played for four-hundred thousand people for free," Eiji said. "It was the single best performance I'd seen in my life back then. It also terrified me, because I realized I had so much further to go. Reggie was older than me by only a few years, but he was centuries ahead as a musician."

"Pops, are you going senile? Who's 'Reggie?'" Yukiko asked.

"I'm not senile!" Eiji said. "That's his real name. Anyway, what I was about to say, until my lovely and loudmouthed daughter cast aspersions on my age, was that I almost heard echoes of that day just now. You're nowhere near where he was, of course. But if you keep working at this, I think we can use it as a show finisher. It's better for your brand if you use one of your own songs, but I think this will leave a lasting impression that won't be forgotten."

"So, you're not gonna yell at me about the finishing move?" I asked, chuckling nervously.

"Oh, of course I'm annoyed at you for doing that. But if you feel absolutely compelled to slam the fallboard on your dick, do it at the very end of the show, and not the beginning. Alright, I think that wraps it up for the day. On Monday, we'll tackle 'Replacing You.' Thanks for your hard work!"

And like that, we were free for what remained of the weekend. With the advancing fall days, daylight had become more fleeting, and it was already past twilight despite only reading "17:00" on the wall clock. In an ironic twist, today happened to be a Saturday, and thus Yukiko and I didn't have classes to go to, or exams to study for.

"Kiko, we're going to dinner at your grandparents' house," Eiji said to Yukiko as she eased her Paul Reed Smith gently onto its stand.

Yukiko shot me a glance, and to my surprise, didn't complain as I thought she might. "Aw, thanks, Dad! The famine is over!"

"Who are you, and what have you done to my daughter?" Eiji joked, as they walked out of the rehearsal room.

"I guess she's spoken for," I said to Saeko. "What're you up to? Got an FF static, or gonna catch up on that backlog?"

She sniffed and turned away. Great, another awkward ride home in silence, I guess. She'd been giving me "the treatment" ever since we'd started up our practice schedule again, and didn't even give Haruto more than one- or two-word answers when he'd tried to engage her in conversation. And what made it worse was that I didn't even have an excuse to talk with her in school. I'd expected her to eventually break down and start talking with me in a few days, if for no other reason than sheer boredom. But she'd remained steadfastly hostile.

"Hey," I said, as we walked toward the manor's exit. "You looked like you were having fun, at least. I mean, it's not every day you get to play one of the greatest classic rock songs in history under a full license, right?" I sighed at her lack of a response. "I really liked seeing your smile. I missed it."

She fixed a glare at me. "That was just a facial tic. I have Tourette's Syndrome, you know. Fuck! Shit! Ass!"

"Yeah, I don't really believe you. I mean it, though. I missed your smile." I blushed a bit, despite my attempt to seem cool. "I think you're beautiful when you do that."

The tips of her ears reddened and she turned away from me. "Why do you give a shit what I'm doing tonight? You know it's probably gonna be gross otaku fuckery. Why should you care?"

"Because I like you," I said. "A lot. I care about you. A lot. And I'm sorry I hurt you. I'll do whatever it takes to try and atone for it. But I can't do anything if you're always shutting me out."

She sighed and balled her fists. "You're annoying. Way too persistent of a guy. Just… Ugh, fine. There actually was something I wanted to do tonight, but I'd kinda written it off."

"What was that?"

"A VN circle I like is having a limited re-release of their debut game. And if you go to the event, you'll be able to get it signed by the team. They're all talented, but I really like the lead artist in particular. She did the remaster for Fields Chronicle."

"Oh shit, I enjoyed the hell out of Fields Chronicle. Why wouldn't you be able to go to that? We're free the rest of tonight, and tomorrow's a day off."

"I don't like going alone to these things. I was gonna ask Kiko to go with me, but Eiji snapped her up."

"Let me take you. Haruto can drive us directly there, and pick us up after."

"Are you sure? You're a normie. I saw you laughing during the Tomo Show. That's hella 3DPD of you."

"Look, I was a gross nerd in high school, and I'm never gonna change."

"Fine! If you're not gonna be weirded out or act all disgusted, I guess we can go together."

#

Luckily, the event took place right on campus at Yuunagi University's student union building. Because the university was a known tech incubator, the student body tended to skew towards those with STEM interests, and it was a well-known fact that those students were by and large mostly otaku.

By the time Haruto dropped us off, the place was already jam-packed with fellow students all cradling their re-issued pressings of Blessing Software's debut title, the critically-acclaimed "Cherry Blessing: The Reincarnation Story of a Blessing." And only due to the freakish luck that seemed to grace my band's resident otaku, Saeko snatched up the last copy offered for sale. Now, we faced a three-hour wait to get her copy signed by the development team.

"Sorry you didn't get one," Saeko said as we stood in the winding line. "In case you're wondering, I'm not gonna give it to you because it's the right thing to do or some stupid shit. If you want your own, you can buy it off Ebay like everyone else."

I chuckled. "Uh, don't worry. I wouldn't presume to ask you for it. I have my own copy of 'Cherry Blessing,' anyway. It's fine if it's not signed."

"You actually like it?"

"Yeah, I do," I said. "I actually liked it better than their second game. One of the few people in the world who does, based on the hateposts I got for saying so."

Saeko gave me a furtive look. "I see. I mean, 'Saekano' is obviously superior to 'Cherry Blessing,' but perhaps I—they—went a bit overboard on the subreddit…"

I frowned as I realized something. "What's your handle, anyway?"

"That's not important! It was a throwaway account!" she shouted, prompting laughter from the other people in line.

"Anyway, I'm glad you mentioned this to me. I'd really like to at meet Kasumi Utako in the flesh. She was the main scenario writer, after all. Oh, and the main reason 'Saekano' sucks compared to 'Cherry Blessing' is because she wasn't the writer for that one. There, I said it!"

"Them's fightin' words, Boy," Saeko said, elbowing me in the ribs.

"What're you gonna do? Stick an Arkansas Toothpick in my gut? The internet already did it for you!"

Three more hours of banter and nerdly arguments later, we finally reached the dev table. It was clear that the event staff were eager to leave, and had already started teardown. I was just glad to have gotten to spend a few hours acting normally around Saeko.

"Hey! I'm Aki Tomoya," said a glasses-wearing man in his early twenties as we approached. "Thanks for hanging in there!"

"T-thanks," Saeko said, as he signed her copy. "Uh, I don't mean to be rude, but is Kashiwagi Eri-sensei still here?"

"That's pretty rude," I whispered to her.

"Ah, no worries," Tomoya said, waving. "She was just about to leave. Let me stop her!"

I looked at the other devs milling about. I didn't see anyone who looked like my recollection of Kasumi Utako, however. I suppose it's my lot in life to never romance a hot and super pervy writer, I thought, dejected.

"Rinri-kun," someone nearby said. "Why didn't you tell us there was another fan?"

"Ah, my bad, Kasumigaoka-senpai! I messed up the counts…"

My heart skipped a beat. Kasumigaoka… That could only mean…

A pair of women stepped up to Saeko and quickly signed her copy. "Thanks for your support and your patience!" they both said to her. One of them had her hair done up similarly to Saeko's, and I could only assume she was the lead artist Saeko really loved. Perhaps the look had been deliberate?

Kasumi Utako, however, was simply breathtaking in real life. I reached out to her, trying desperately to think of something witty to say. Something that would make me seem like a suave motherfucking rockstar and sweep her off her feet. Confidence, you bastard! Otherwise you can't ever pretend to be Elton John!

"Excuse me, but haven't I seen you on TV?" another one of the devs asked before I could open my mouth. I looked down at her and realized she was their chief programmer, as well as the model for the main heroines of their games. For some reason, I couldn't, for the life of me, remember her name.

"Uh…" I didn't want to lie to her, but I didn't exactly want to compromise my identity in a busy student union building. In a flash of inspiration, I took off my glasses. "If it was the Yanagihara Tomo Show a few weeks ago, then yeah, that was me." I bowed to her. "Kitahara Leon, from Double-O Productions."

She smiled and pressed her hands together. "Ah! I knew it! I really liked your song! I put in a preorder. The chocolate deal is great, too."

"T-thanks for your support!" I said, grinning like a fool. Unsolicited praise was as addictive and euphoria-inducing as heroin.

"Oh, take my card. Our circle works closely with Icy Tail, and they might want to do a show or two with you guys. You never know." She offered me her business card, and I took it in both hands while bowing again. Business 101 hadn't been entirely useless.

"Kato Megumi-san," I said, reading it. "Thank you. I'm sorry I don't have a card on me. Usually I have a manager around to take care of that…"

"It's okay. Is she your drummer?" Megumi asked, pointing at Saeko, who was busy gushing praise to her artist doppelganger.

I nodded.

"I saw you joking around in line. You two are really cute together," Megumi said, chuckling. "Anyway, I've gotta help with tear-down. It was nice meeting you, Rockstar-san."

With that, she got up, bowed, and left. I quickly tried to pick up where I'd left off with Kasumi Utako, only to find Saeko standing alone, hugging her signed copy of "Cherry Blessing" and swaying unsteadily around like Bjork in "Dancing in the Dark." My dreams of hot writer romance had eluded me. But at least Saeko was in a good mood again.

#

Wordlessly, Saeko and I made our way to my room in Youko's house. It was long past my grandmother's bedtime, so we treaded softly to avoid any possibility of disturbing her. Haruto hadn't commented on the fact that we'd both gotten out at my house. Perhaps he'd noticed that during the ride over, Saeko and I had held hands with our fingers interlocked. I knew that to a certain type of anime fan, we might as well have been publicly fucking at that point. But as I slowly opened the door to my room, I knew that this was not a joking matter.

Most of the times we'd made love in the past, she'd been the one to initiate and lead us. It was one of the things I most enjoyed that about her. There was something innately appealing about being a little submissive, especially if one's partner was an incredibly hot, blond-haired cosplayer with a mildly sadistic streak. And today, she was no different. The first thing she told me to do after we closed the door was to strip. She didn't take anything of hers off, however, as she watched me while sitting on my bed.

"Get on your knees. You can start your apology with this," she said, as she grasped my head and pulled my face into her crotch. She was still wearing her panties under her skirt. I started to push them aside, but she slapped me with her other hand. "Nope! I'm still mad at you. You don't get to touch that."

"Sorry," I said, as I continued to lick and nibble at her through the thin cloth. My saliva aside, she was already drenched. I continued to stimulate her with my tongue, until she squeezed my head with her thighs and arched her back as she came. Was she perhaps more sensitive than other girls, hence why she didn't like me to attack her directly?

I'd already taken off my cap and glasses and everything else, but for some reason the comb that Youko had given me was still in my hair. I reached for it, only for Saeko to stop me.

"Leave it in," she demanded. "It makes you look cute as fuck. You're gonna learn what it's like to be a girl tonight. Get on the bed and spread your legs. Where's your lotion to fap with? I know every guy has some lying around."

She knew more about this stuff than I liked, but she was nevertheless right. I gestured to a small bottle of "hand cream" inconspicuously placed on a corner of my nightstand. After all, I was a pianist, and I needed to take care of my…hands. She grabbed the bottle, dumped the contents into her right hand, and started to probe my ass with a fingertip. I shivered and pushed my head into my pillow as she firmly, but gently advanced. She started to lick and suck on my nipples, making me writhe and moan. I was seriously worried I'd wake Youko at this point.

I wasn't going to lie—initially, it was just a vaguely unpleasant pressure I felt, but with her continued stimulation, I started to feel increasingly warm. My hips relaxed. I started to lose my erection, but she only needed a quick stroke or two to bring me back to full strength. She gradually increased the force and frequency of her finger thrusts, and I started to shook and curled my toes with anticipation.

"Do you want to finish?" she asked.

I nodded and whimpered.

"Then tell me you're sorry for hiding shit from me."

"I'm sorry I hid the truth from you!" I said, although it came out as more of a sob than anything else. I blubbered from the sheer crush of sensations jamming through the small doorway of my brain.

"Will you ever do it again?"

"Never!" I pressed my legs together, wracked with pleasure.

"Fine, I guess I have no choice but to believe you." She curled her finger up, putting even more pressure on my "special gland," and I nearly fainted as I emptied myself all over my body and face. Saeko pulled her finger out, which made me convulse one last time. She casually wiped her hand on my chest and looked down at me.

"I really like this look for you," she said, a predatory smile thinning her lips. "Like a VN heroine after a really degrading hardcore scene! Can you cry a bit for me? That would complete the picture."

"Sorry," I said, weakly. "Aside from your…incredibly problematic tastes, I'm not feeling particularly sad right now."

"Fine, be that way, 'Anita Sarkeesian.' I'm gonna wash my hands. Feel free to stay like that. I'll take a cell phone pic if you do."

"You're kind of horrible, you know that?" I said, as I rolled to my side and started to wipe my face off with some nearby tissues. "But…are you willing to let me prove myself to you, now?"

"I guess," she said. "I didn't like it, you know. I didn't like not being able to talk to you."

"Then why didn't you talk with me? Or at least yell at me or stomp on me or something?"

"Because I knew you'd like it, you maso dipshit. But also, I didn't wanna get too much between you and Kiko. I mean, you guys have been super lovey-dovey lately. It's disgusting and makes me wanna puke, but…"

"She told me she wanted me to make it up to you first, before we progressed."

"Usually, fucking your girlfriend's best friend is a great way to not advance a relationship."

"I know. But she told me to. I've kind of come to accept that I don't have a normal relationship with either of you."

"Well, as long as Kiko's okay with it, I don't mind using the band bicycle for a while."

"Bicycle?"

"Everyone gets a ride."

"Oh, ha ha," I sighed. "So, we do have a free day tomorrow… Did you wanna hang out? If you have thesis stuff or want to game alone or whatever, I understand."

"I wasn't going to ask permission to crash at your fancy house and catch up on my backlog all Sunday. I was just gonna do it. I want Hawaiian pizza for all three meals and you're gonna keep me stocked with Monster and Doritos. Also, if I wanna fuck, you're gonna do it, no questions asked."

"You really are a horrible human being and an example of everything wrong with internet and gamer culture. Suki-desu."

"I…I… suki-desu."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Weeks after that fateful encounter with my parents, where my fate was again decided, The White Album 3 had our noses firmly pressed to the grindstone. Setsuna hadn't been lying when she'd said we would little to no time to ourselves until the record's release. For not only were we supposed to learn and master our pieces, we also needed to be our hardest-working promoters.

Although truly independent musicians literally had to do everything themselves, it was a myth that a group with a record deal could just sit back and simply play their songs and call it a day.

Our higher-ups like Rina and Eiji handled grand strategy—choosing our venues, hiring an online advertising firm, rounding up sponsors, and the like—while Setsuna was mainly responsible for getting us ready to record and perform. She also used her contacts in the industry to do her fair share of networking for us. But the day to day still needed to get done, and get done right.

"Alright guys, let's confirm we're all on the same page," Haruto said, looking up from a heavily-annotated sheaf of papers. "From eight-thirty to ten-thirty, you're shooting a guest episode of Nogizaka Under Construction. You have a thirty-minute break for costume change and anything else you need, then you're on Ningen Kansatsu Monitoring from eleven to twelve-thirty. After that, we're gonna have a half-hour lunch at Echoes, and go right into filming 'Replacing You' at the station. We break at five exactly, and I take you all to campus for your classes. Got it?"

I sighed and nodded, feeling somewhat dead to the world. We sat in our green room at N54 Studios, which had supposedly banned me from the premises a while ago. Yet somehow, I'd ended up there nearly every day for the last week or so. It was peak taping season for that uniquely Japanese mix of inanity, sadism, and commercialism known as the "Variety Show."

I'd only caught a few episodes of those shows online while growing up in Vienna, but never really understood the sheer horror of being on one of those until recently. Rina had told us that one of the best ways of getting our name out there was to appear regularly over the broadcast season, for the vast majority of the thirty-and-up crowd (a critical sales demographic) still tuned into these things.

She'd probably spent a solid two thirds of most years taping shows at N54 back in the 80's and early 90's. And this was still what Hanako spent a lot of her time doing as an idol, when she wasn't actively performing or practicing. Frankly, I didn't understand how they hadn't just stepped into traffic after a single day of that shit.

"Btooom!" yelled the two hosts toward the camera. "We're Eggplant and Squash, and welcome to another episode of 'Nogizaka Under Construction!' Now, normally, we're all about our regular girls in Nogizaka486, but they're on a well-deserved summer break…in bikinis! So we've got some young, cute, up-and-coming guest talent here for our Studio Spot Sale event!"

Yukiko, Saeko, and I sat in our stage costumes on plastic chairs arranged on a small dais, along with another group we were unfamiliar with. As the camera panned over us, we made sure to smile and wave for it as the audience clapped. Haruto had drilled it into me to give the biggest shit-eating grin I could, along with a thumbs up. I noticed now that I was the only guy there, as the other group was all women. Thank fuck, maybe they'll ignore me and focus on the girls.

"So who do we have here today?" the thinner host, Squash asked his larger counterpart, Eggplant.

"I don't know, but who let a guy on here? We're supposed to be all cute girls all the time!"

The audience laughed. I feigned covering my face in embarrassment. I knew it was all scripted beforehand, but I still felt called-out. Eggplant was obviously the funny man, or boke, while Squash seemed to play the straight man, or tsukkomi.

"Your mother asked him to come on," Squash countered. "She's been obsessed ever since she saw him on Tomo-chan. Leon-kun, how do you feel about being ogled by the ladies-over-fifty crowd?"

"Well, tell your mother thanks from me and the rest of The White Album 3. A woman's age is a just a number, but the higher, the better," I replied, prompting cheers from female members of the audience. That was another scripted response.

"Smooth!" exclaimed Eggplant. "But I'd like to talk more with Michiru-chan, myself," he said, giving the other group's leader an exaggerated wink and a kissy face. "Michiru-chan! Aishiteru!"

She laughed and blew a scripted kiss back to Eggplant. "Thanks, Eggplant-kun! That's right, we're Icy Tail! It sounds like 'aishiteru!'" More cheers from the audience.

I remembered my conversation with Kato Megumi with Blessing Software. I'd given her card to Haruto, but never imagined we'd be meeting their circle band like this. The plan was that if we were good sports about the variety show's antics, we'd actually get to play a little bit of music for the crowd—our payoff for getting mildly humiliated onstage.

The only problem was that I didn't see the usual complement of instruments that a rock group would normally need. And even if there was a shared set of instruments, the drum configurations, tuning, and pedalboard and microphone setups would be completely different between our two groups. Rina and Setsuna had warned us to expect the producers to throw a wrench into things. I had to be prepared for anything.

"Without further ado, let's start the Studio Spot Sale," Squash said. "Today, we're going to test out the absolute sketchiest products you can buy from Am*zon Japan on our lucky music guests here! Remember, folks, these are probably dangerous to use, and can definitely cause injury! Will our cute upcoming groups be able to survive the gauntlet of stupid goods?"

For fuck's sake, I thought, not letting my smile waver.

"Okay, lemme pick first!" Eggplant shouted. "I wanna see Michiru-chan with…" His eyebrows undulated like snakes. "The 'Hitacky' Magic Wand!"

The audience laughed. Michiru stepped off her chair and came to the center of the stage. An AD handed her what looked like a badly-made parody of the original Hitachi massage device.

"Okay, I love a good massage," she said, and flipped the on-switch. Its coarse vibrations were unpleasant to behold, but she, like a champ, simply pressed the ends to her shoulders and started to rub. "Oh! This isn't too bad!"

"I heard a rumor that a lot of women were using these for…" Squash began.

"Back pain?" Michiru said, innocently, provoking laughter. "I get a slipped disc now and then, you know! This is really strong! Let me keep it!"

"My hopes and dreams, crushed!" Eggplant lamented. "Okay, enough of that. Now, our next sketchy Am*zon buy is this 'Deluxe' edition personal waxing kit from 'ENHOMY' or whatever the heck this brand is! Sounds fake and dangerous! I want Leon-kun to show us how it's done!"

Fuck you, man, I thought, as I cheerfully walked to the center stage and came up to a small table where the dubious-appearing waxing kit had been set up. It was a standard-looking kit, with a warmer, the wax, some wooden stir sticks, and cloth strips.

"So, what're you gonna depilate for us today?" Squash asked. "I know what the ladies wanna see!"

"But Squash-san, they won't let me show that on TV!" I said, miming shock. The audience laughed and cheered.

"Thank you, Jesus!" Eggplant howled, shaking his hands in exaggerated prayer. "Okay, well, we still gotta use it, so why don't you show us some leg?"

"You got it," I said, and rolled up my Lycra pants to the knee. I hadn't the hairiest legs in the world, but I still had something to use this horrible idea of a device on. Carefully, I dipped one of the wooden stir sticks in the wax and pulled it out. I blew on it for comedic effect (and to make sure I didn't give myself third degree burns on national television) and then slapped the lukewarm stuff on the outside of my calf. Then, I pressed one of the cloth strips to it.

"What're you waiting for?" Squash asked. "Pull it already!"

"But I'm scared! Guys don't do this stuff!" I said, following the script.

"Can one of his cute bandmates 'encourage' him?"

"I will!" Yukiko said, and hopped off her chair to join me. "Leon, close your eyes, okay?"

"Okay," I said, and pressed my hands together to mime a prayer.

"Here goes nothing!" She ripped the strip away. I yelped as a strip of my leg hair went with it and into the air.

"Holy!" I shouted, in real pain.

For the next hour and a half, this went on. Fortunately, there was a limit on how much they could actually hurt us, or how much nudity or innuendo was allowed, which the hosts and producers mostly followed. The rest of the sketchy products were mostly limited to goofy stuff like budget massage chairs or aromatherapy foot soaks, so no one besides me had to lose their hair or other body parts. Finally, our ordeal was drawing to a close.

"Well, I want to thank Icy Tail and The White Album 3 for being such good sports and giving our normal girls a rest," Squash said. "We'll be sure to show you their bikini pictures on the next episode!"

"Hey, does the audience wanna hear some music?" Eggplant asked, to resounding applause.

"Looks like they do! But…we kinda forgot most of the instruments!"

Fuckers, I thought. Haruto and Setsuna were probably having aneurysms right now.

"Well, we did manage to scrape together a guitar and a keyboard, at least," Squash said. "Why don't we have Michiru and Leon each sing something for us?"

"But there's a twist!" Eggplant countered. "See, we wanna know if they can play stuff other than their usual songs. So the rule is that you guys have to play something not on your CD's!"

I looked at Yukiko and Saeko. They kept their placid smiles, but were probably fuming inside. "Can you do it?" Setsuna mouthed to me from where the cameras were. I gave her a thumbs-up. If these vegetable men were going to screw me, I had a surprise for them.

"No sweat!" Michiru said. "I'll go first, if you don't mind, Leon-kun!"

One of the AD's handed her a guitar as she walked onto center stage. She quickly checked the tuning and then plugged it into the amp before giving us a pretty peppy rendition of the classic anime standby 'Sorairo Days." And she killed it.

The audience shouted and cheered as she walked back to her chair and high-fived her bandmates.

"Okay, Leon-kun, your turn," Squash said. A pair of ADs brought out a Roland FANTOM FA-08, which was much better than what I'd been expecting, and plugged it into the amp. I checked the keys to make sure they responded properly, and selected the standard concert grand sound profile. Then, I quickly called up a standard 4/4 snare drumbeat in eighth notes. It was an extremely poor substitute for having Saeko actually drumming for me, but it would have to do under exigent circumstances. I was going to show these bastards not to screw with us, and I knew how to do it.

I hit the rhythm start, and shouted out: "One! Two! Three Four!"

So you wanted to take a break
Slow it down some and have some space
Well, fuck you too!

Give me my money back
Give me my money back you bitch
I want my money back
And don't forget

to give me back my black t-shirt

Takai meshi ogotta sono

Ato de poi sute

Sayonara suru nante!

Kane wo kaese

Kane wo kaese you bitch

Ore ni kaese

Wasureruna

kuro no t-shatsu mo

#

We ate lunch at Echoes in almost complete silence. We stank of sweat, our costumes itched something fierce, my leg burned like hell after the dubious depilation, and we were all hungrier than sin, but definitely not for eggplants or squash. I shoved the last bits of my BLT in my mouth and washed it down with the dregs of my coffee.

"So," Haruto finally said, after putting his cigarette down. "I got good news and bad news."

"Normally, I want bad news first," Saeko said. "But I can't take this shit anymore, so tell us the not-gonna-make-me-wanna-seppuku-right-here-and-now news."

"The good news is that we probably won't get punished by Sony for an unlicensed rendition of 'Song for the Dumped' on a nationally-syndicated variety show. The chairman's got a thing for Rina, after all."

"That's the good news?" Yukiko asked. She tried to reach over to grab Haruto's cigarette, only for him to slap her hand away.

"Yep," he said. "Bad news is that the hosts really liked your performance," Haruto said. "They want you all to appear on more guest episodes during the season, and do some music numbers along with Nogizaka486. For our marketing, that's insanely great."

"Wait, how's that bad news?" Yukiko asked.

"I mean, it's fucking Eggplant and Squash. I detest those shitheads," Haruto said. "But yeah, congrats, Leon, you made your bed and now you can sleep in it."

"Fuck me," I growled, burying my face in my hands. It was the last thing I'd wanted to hear. At least the second show we'd been in, "Ningen Kansatsu Monitoring," had been more of a straightforward game show that involved us all getting lost in a maze and having to assemble clues to get out successfully. We'd actually managed to have a tiny bit of fun, although it was all scripted, too.

Yukiko shrugged. "I kinda liked the banter, though?"

Saeko and I both glared at her. "Your new name is 'Melon-chan,'" Saeko said. "Like your enormous, thick head."

"Fight me," Yukiko said, wheeling on her.

"Enough!" Haruto said, blowing a cloud of smoke in their direction. "Melons aren't vegetables, anyway. Call her 'Potato-kun' or something."

Even I had to giggle at that, earning me a quick swat on the head from Yukiko before she did the same to Haruto.

Now I wanted to whine. "Seriously, how the hell did the Ogata Rina and Morikawa Yuki do this shit every day? I heard the eighties were way worse, too."

"Well, you've probably noticed they treat the girls a lot better than the guys, at least physically," Haruto said. "We can usually shut down anything too egregious, like the machine that slaps your balls if you get a question wrong. But you just have to swallow your pain and fuck your pride, sometimes."

"So in other words, more waxing."

"It's the price of showbiz," Haruto said. "Remember, if you were a true indie act, you'd never get this level of exposure. And watching TV is all the over-thirty crowd does all day in Japan. Park their assess and inhale trash. You'll thank us once you see the revenues from the record sale and start getting royalty payments."

"You think they're gonna make him shave his armpits or something?" Yukiko said, cackling.

"I wouldn't put it past them," Haruto said. "But you girls, on the other hand, have to be careful, too. Most of the bullshit you have to deal with will come from competing female acts, especially as you get more exposure. Expect your shit to get messed with and stolen. You might get slapped, too."

"Then I'll choke a bitch."

"Don't. That's scandal bait, and we're can't fall for it. I'm a guy, so I can manhandle a scummy producer trying to corner you, but I can't touch girls. You just have to take it, sorry."

"Or, don't get caught, if you slap back," our hostess said with a wry smile as she picked up our empty plates. I'd seen her manning the counter before, often when Master Nanase Akira had to tend to the secret basement part of the cafe.

"I apologize," I said, needing my curiosity to be sated. "But I never got your name."

"No need to apologize. I'm Nanase Sayoko. I'm one of the owners here, along with my husband, Akira."

Haruto frowned in concentration. "Nanase-san, was your family name Kisaragi, by any chance?"

"Yes, you're correct."

"You're a former taicho of the Sakura-dan, aren't you? You seemed familiar with what we were just talking about."

She chuckled. "A long time ago, yes. I'm done with that life, though. Still, my advice stands. Give them back worse than they gave to you, and don't get caught. Hang in there, girls and guy."

"Thanks for indulging us," Haruto said. "And I really liked 'Kissing Booth.'"

Sayoko flashed him a smile and left with our plates. I whistled under my breath in appreciation. The Sakura-dan were widely considered to have been Morikawa Yuki's strongest competition during the late eighties, and possibly would have eclipsed her if not for their sudden disbandment shortly before the Venus Festival. Sayoko definitely oozed "idol" out of her pores. Master Akira had found himself a true prize.

Haruto glanced at his watch. "We're out of time, sorry to say. Well, at least the afternoon's not so onerous. We're gonna be shooting the music video for 'Replacing You.' Hanako's directing, in case you didn't know."

"Whoa, I didn't know she could do that," I said.

"Setsuna's showing her the ropes. Of course, she's still going to be filmed in the process, for her own segment on another show. Maximizing returns on your work, that kind of thing."

"So they're filming her filming us?" Yukiko said. "That's a bit like a famous movie I saw once. What was it, again? Sacchan, you're the film buff here."

"You're thinking of 'Freddy Got Fingered,'" Saeko said, pantomiming deep thought. "A cinematic masterpiece and praised the world-over. Whenever anyone asks you what your favorite film is, just namedrop that and they'll think you're a true woman of culture. Kind of like telling people your favorite author is Murakami Haruki, your favorite composer is Chopin, and your favorite artist is Monet."

"Oh! Thanks for the tip, Girlfriend," Yukiko said, reaching out to fistbump Saeko.

I hadn't the energy or the will to tell her she was being trolled yet again.

#

"Hey guys!" Hanako greeted us with her inextinguishable cheer as we piled back into the studio. She was, as always, utterly perfect no matter where she was, who she was dealing with, and even if her most basic bodily needs had gone unmet. We, on the other hand, looked like surly, messy children in need of our afternoon nap.

"Hanacchi," Saeko whined, hugging her. "I wanna die!"

"There, there," Hanako said, giving her healing headpats. "If you're going to die, do it after the video shoot, okay?"

"I'm not gonna be able to do a lot," Yukiko said, sitting on the first folding chair that became available. "I ate way too much! I'm farting up a storm here!"

"That's fine! This isn't Smellovision," Hanako retorted. "Okay! Let's go over the plan! And I remind you all, you're going to be on camera in a few minutes. Leon, anything you want off your chest before we roll?"

"I just feel like chopping vegetables," I said, giving her a smile crossed with a grimace.

"Oh! I heard about that!" Hanako laughed, musically as she always did. "They really liked it, though, with all the American swear words. I'd use English curses, too, but the rhyming gets thrown off."

"Hanako-sama," one of the AD's asked her. "Can we start filming now?"

"Go ahead!" she said. I noticed that she wasn't dressed in her usual idol persona outfit, but instead, something that looked like a fluffy cross between an American prom dress and a peasant girl's skirt. It was extremely adolescent and titillatingly innocent-looking. In her hands, she carried a Nikon D7500 DSLR, which was a digital camera especially suited for video shoots.

"Okay!" She began. "So if you haven't guessed by what I'm wearing, I'm not only directing the shoot, but acting in it, too. When I'm in the scene, one of our cameramen will take over, but I'll otherwise be behind it. With me so far?"

We nodded.

"Good! Think of every music video as a mini-movie. It has an overarching plot, a beginning, a middle, and a conclusion. 'Replacing You' is about a couple breaking up with each other because the girl has found new love. The guy in this case is Leon, of course, and the girl will be played by me."

Yukiko's hand shot up. "Who's the new lover?"

"We're on a budget here, so it's going to be Izumi-san, your manager."

"Seriously? I'm not that good of a singer," Haruto said, chuckling.

"Oh, don't worry, all you have to do is just pantomime a few things. None of the audio here makes it to the final cut, although I will ask Leon to actually sing the parts and for Saeko and Kiko to actually play their instruments for real. Lip syncing and pretend playing don't come across as genuine, in my experience. We'll also have the song playing on speaker during segments where the band isn't fully on display, so you can move with the proper rhythm."

I couldn't help but smile at her. "You really know your stuff, Hanako." For a second, I thought I perceived the tips of her ears turn red.

"Setsuna taught me, and I've always liked directing these," she said. "I'd like to do this after I graduate from being an idol. Anyway! Let's begin with the most critical thing, first. I need a full-length shot of the band playing the entire song from start to finish. This is the central reference point from which everything branches off, and to which everything returns. Ready?"

"Let's do it," I said to the band.

The AD's had already built the small set, whose backing I recognized from tourist brochures showcasing the tiny "instant wedding" chapels in Las Vegas. The tacky red curtains, balloons, and disco ball strung overhead added to the kitschy look. I recognized the Roland FANTOM FA-08 from earlier. I almost saluted it like I would an old war buddy, given what we'd both gone through. As the vocalist, I was of course front and center, with Yukiko on guitar on my left and Saeko on drums behind us.

"Go ahead and start when you're ready," Yukiko said. "It doesn't have to be perfect, so don't get too caught up on little mistakes. I also want you to overact a bit. Remember, this is a video, so your movements are equally as important as your sound."

I set the Roland to my preferences, and Yukiko and Saeko double-checked their tuning and seating. After confirming they were ready, I pressed the keys.

Futari wakarete kara mikka ga sugita

Kimi ga doko ni iru ka ima demo wakaru

Hoka no hito to kimi wo kurabete ita yo

"Sore dake wa shinai" to omotte ita noni

Heya wo dete yuku kimi no tonari de

Mou hitou no boku ga furikaeri boku wo miteta

Kimi no ie wo chizu de nagameteta toki

Hajimete kimi kara no denwa ga natta

Ano koro no itoshisa torimodosu ni wa

Aenaku naru hoka ni nakatta no kana

Toki ga nagarete boku wo wasurete

Kimi ga deai soshite ai shiatte yuku hito wa

Boku no kawari ni iru wake janai no to

Omoeru you na hito ni deatte

"Good," Hanako said, waving her hand to signal a cut. To my pleasure and surprise, the AD's around us also clapped. It was reassuring that they seemed to be enjoying the show, rather than just enduring this all. "Actually, this is very usable. I won't make you do a second take, which I'm sure is a relief."

"I don't mind playing again," I joked. "It's a lot more enjoyable than getting waxed or vibrated or something."

"You'll have to show me where they waxed you, next time," Hanako said, with a giggle. "Okay, let's move on. Leon take your microphone, make sure it's unplugged, and I need a shot of you singing from measure twenty to thirty while sitting on the stairs looking dejected."

"I can definitely do dejected," I said, and followed her instructions.

For the next few hours, we shot and re-shot the wide-angle scenes, close-ups, and dancing scenes that Hanako wanted. Since she played the part of the ex-girlfriend, we had scenes of her jumping on a heart-shaped bed in slow motion, while I walked tragically down a hallway or moped in front of a mockup of a storefront. I was also glad that my bandmates were in a much better mood doing this sort of work than appearing on yet another variety show.

"Sorry, guys," Haruto eventually said, and pointed at his watch. "It's about time to wrap up for the day. Classes about to begin and such."

I pulled out my phone to check the time, only to see a text notification pop up from Yuunagi University.

YU: Evening Classes canceled for today. Please go to the website for details.

"Yukiko, you getting this, too?" I asked her. She pulled out her phone and nodded at me excitedly.

"Hell yeah! Maybe the entire place burned down!" she exclaimed, pumping a fist.

"Don't be feral," I said, giving her a playful chop on the head. I quickly checked the university website. "It's just some issue with climate control. They'll be back up tomorrow."

"Nice!" Hanako said, peeping over our shoulders. "We actually have a tiny bit more to shoot, but I won't force anyone to stay."

"You sure, Hanako?" I asked, earning a kick in the shin from Yukiko. "Ow!"

"No one likes a friggin' Goody Two Shoes," Yukiko said. "Besides, I'm completely beat and hella gassy. I'm gonna go straight home and sleep for a year. Sacchan, it's your day, anyway."

"Pass," Saeko said. "The beta for 'Nukitashi 8' just got leaked, so I'm gonna be checking it out. Sorry, Leon, but first crack at a new eroge is strictly a 'me and my hand' activity."

I gave her my best side-eye. "I didn't need to know that, but have fun. I guess I'll go to back to my own place, then."

At that moment, Hanako touched my arm. "Leon, I actually only need you for the last bits. They're at the Arumi hotel. If you're free, can you go there with me for a just a few minutes? It would be a big help."

I could have sworn I'd heard nervousness tinge her voice. "Sure, that's totally fine," I said. "You don't need the rest of your shoot crew?"

"No, camera's all I need. Yayoi will drive us there, and the room's already booked. Like, I just need a shot of you looking out through the window over the town…and some other scenes."

Why does she sound so on edge? "Okay, I'll go. Haruto, you good with that?"

Haruto nodded. "Yeah, and thanks for staying extra. I'll ask Rina to approve overtime, and I'll take care of the girls. You go with Hanako and Shinozuka-san. Oh, Yayoi, can you give him a ride back if he needs it?"

Hanako's manager nodded. "Let's go."

#

The Arumi Integral was probably the tallest luxury hotel in our particular area of Tokyo. Although it was by no means a true skycraper like the Mandarin Oriental in Nihonbashi, it was still known for impressive views from its floor-to-ceiling windows.

"Thanks for doing this, Leon," Hanako said, as we got into the elevator along with Yayoi. "It saves us some serious cash, because we'd booked the room for today and tomorrow, but if we wrap up, we can just cancel tomorrow."

"Hey, small things add up, right?" I said. "Even for a record label, I'm sure sixty-thousand yen or something still sucks to lose for no reason."

"I'd lose my mind if that were coming out of my pocket," Hanako said, smiling at me. The backs of our hands were resting on each other's. I became acutely aware of Yayoi standing in front of us. Her back was turned to us, nevertheless. The room was on the thirtieth floor, and this was a slow elevator. My heartbeat quickened as Hanako's hand moved to clasp my own.

My throat went dry as her fingers started to interlace with mine. I silently tried to will my growing erection away. I wasn't a twelve-year-old on my first date ever. That shit was utterly childish of me. But still, the feeling of her hand, so soft and smooth, provoked feelings that I knew were objectively wrong. Stop. She's an idol and she's supposed to be enticing. This doesn't mean anything. I emptied my lungs. Like that kiss.

Finally, the elevator chimed and the doors opened.

"Etto…" Hanako said as we came to a stop in front of one of the rooms. "Here, Thirty-oh-four." She swiped the keycard and opened the door to a nondescript hotel room like any other. Once inside, she set her camera down on the nearby desk. "Do you need to use the bathroom?"

"Maybe I should," I said. I'd noticed that Yayoi hadn't entered with us. She was probably posting guard outside, in case we'd been spotted and followed by the press. I hadn't actually seen Hanako hand her a keycard, now that I thought about it.

I took care of what I needed, washed my hands, and splashed cold water over my face. "Don't overthink this," I whispered to my reflection in the mirror. Then I quickly toweled off and went back to join Hanako.

"Let's start," she said, and clambered onto the big, king-sized bed on her knees. She aimed the camera at me. "I want you to sing while you look out through the window at the town below. Sing any measure, doesn't matter what it is. Try touching the glass with your hand, but not so it blocks your face, okay? Remember, look really sad!"

"Got it," I said, and gave her my best "guy who got dumped and rethinking his life" impression, while I softly sang some of the song lyrics.

"Good, good," Hanako said, satisfied. "Now, sit at the desk and start writing a note on some scrap paper. Write something like, I don't know, 'To my beloved.'"

I did so, and she stood to my side, working the camera to zoom in and out of my face and my hands.

"Easy, right?" She laughed, went to her bag, and pulled out a mini tripod. She screwed the camera to the bottom, and positioned it on the desk, facing the bed. She climbed onto it and sat with her knees splayed to one side. "Okay, final shot."

"All yours," I said. Despite the fact that I was going to look like a kicked puppy for the entire song, I'd found myself enjoying the process. "What happens in this one?"

"It's a bit…" Hanako's gaze dropped away from mine. "It's a bit of a stretch. Probably won't make the final cut. You know, censorship and all. S-sit with me."

I obliged her and climbed on. "What are we gonna do on the bed?" The fluffy duvet gave off a distinct "pomf!"

"I thought maybe the end should have a shot of a happy memory or something for the couple," Hanako said. "You know, before they broke up and she married the other guy in Las Vegas. So I thought I'd show the couple kissing each other."

My heart started to pound again. I started to bulge through those cursed, sweaty Lycra pants I'd been wearing the entire day. Fuck! Get down, you bastard! This is just acting for a video!

"Is that okay with you?" I asked, unable to meet her eyes. "It means we have to kiss each other…again…"

"It's just for the video," she said, sounding uncharacteristically sheepish. "If you don't want to, we'll just act like we're about to k-kiss."

"Let's try that first!" I said, breathing quickly. I realized in that moment that I was alone in a hotel room with none other than Morikawa Hanako. Furthermore, I was about to kiss her, or at least pretend to kiss her, on camera.

"Okay, we'll play it by ear," she said, lifting her chin. She closed her eyes and brought her lips close to mine. Then she caressed my cheeks with her hands. "Closer, please," she whispered, with a shy smile.

I obeyed. My lips were less than a millimeter away from hers. The sensible, logical, no-stress, professional, and sane thing to so would have been to call it off at that moment. We had everything to lose. My muscles tensed to back away, but she simply closed the infinitesimal distance between us and pressed her lips to mine.

My arms hung loosely by my sides at first, as if I'd become useless jelly. But my lips moved with hers. Her tongue slipped past my lips and pushed against my teeth this time, without any of the earlier hesitation from the first time we'd done this. I had no choice but to reply with my own tongue, which now pushed insistently against hers. We continued like this, inured to time, until she finally broke away. I didn't know whether to feel deprived or relieved.

"Touch me," she whispered. Her violet eyes were watery and unfocused. "Touch me like you touch them."

"Is that okay?" I asked, also in a whisper.

"I'm begging you," she said, her voice almost breaking.

"Okay," I said, compelled by a mix of desire as well as the innate fear all men possessed: a woman's tears. I found strength in my arms again as I pressed my lips back to hers. Tentatively, I placed my hands on her hips. Then I slid them upwards, and started to caress the swell of her breasts over her dress. She moved as well, although she did so far more aggressively. One hand slipped up under my costume and started to explore my chest. The other made its way between my legs and started to rub on my throbbing erection.

"More," she commanded. "Touch me directly."

I could only follow her commands. My hands now slipped under the hem of her dress and found the curves of her hips. I felt the sides of her panties where they rode over her hips. Then, I moved upwards. She hadn't been wearing a bra. We both tensed as my fingers brushed her nipples, but this only made her kiss me with more force. She'd commanded me to touch her like I did Yukiko and Saeko. So I did, and gently squeezed and rubbed her breasts, circling her areolae with my fingers and rubbing her nipples between my fingers. In turn, she gripped the waistband on my Lycra pants and tugged them down to expose me fully. I gasped as she started to stroke my manhood in earnest. "Hanako…you shouldn't…"

"Shut the hell up," she whispered fiercely in my ear. It was the first time I'd ever heard her curse in the entire time I'd known her. "Touch my pussy."

My breaths were ragged as I moved my hands away from her breasts, hooked my thumbs on either side of her panties, and pulled them down. I noticed a thin, clear strand stretch from the underwear to her womanhood. Her pubic hair wasn't as unruly as Yukiko's was, nor was it perfectly waxed and smooth like Saeko's. Just neatly trimmed, so as to not cause a fuss while changing costumes and not stick out if she needed to wear a swimsuit for a shoot. Her dress was hiked up to her chest and she shrugged herself out of it. I started to suck on one of her nipples, and touched my fingers to her opening.

I'd barely brushed against her when she shifted her rear, which drove my fingers in to the first knuckle. She moaned, grit her teeth, and started to gyrate her hips. I obliged, rubbing her small nub with my thumb. Then, to my surprise, she pointed the tip of my manhood straight at her opening and started to push against it.

"Wait. Sorry. Did you bring a condom?" I asked. Of all the fucking times to not have my own.

"No," she said. Her violet eyes were wild. I started to back away, but she continued to tug on me. "And I don't care."

At that moment, a rush of clarity hit me, despite my entire body aching to penetrate her. What the everloving fuck was I doing? I was this close to potentially ending Morikawa Hanako's career. I couldn't go any further.

"No!" I barked, and rolled off of her. I shoved my fingertips through my greasy hair.

Anger mixed with desperation contorted her features and she immediately rolled on top of me. She clamped her hand on my mouth.

"You can't stop!" she growled at me, wildness overtaking her beautiful features. Tears coursed from her eyes and fell onto my cheeks. I wrenched her hand away from my mouth.

"I can, and I will. Hanako, what if you get pregnant? What if I'm carrying a disease I didn't know about? Men are asymptomatic with a lot of these things! I will not ruin your career like this! I am not worth it!"

She slapped me. "Do you seriously think I haven't had sex before? Do you seriously believe that crap that idols have to be pure virgins all the time?"

"Even if you've had sex in the past, this is too risky! You won't be able to get the morning after pill or an abortion! Even if you do in secret, you'll be found out!"

"Kiko told me. You've definitely done it raw with her!"

"She's on the pill, Hanako. And so is Saeko, for that matter! I know you're not. I know this because you can't risk being exposed for taking contraception!"

She started to sob and pound the bed next to my head. "Why? I just want to feel good! I want to feel good with the guy I like! Is that too much to ask? Haven't I suffered enough? Haven't I done all that was asked of me? With a smile all the fucking time!"

She grasped my cheeks in her hands, hard enough to leave marks, and forced me to behold her as she gave me a ghastly parody of a smile. A rictus that made me nauseous with terror. "No matter what happened, I always had to smile! Fuck! Fuck you, Leon! And fuck my life!"

My breaths were quick and haggard. I didn't know what else to do but gently stroke her hair as she wailed on my chest. Her makeup ran down her face and left flesh-colored streaks on my skin. Her eyeliner was a soggy mess. I had to do something. It was only a matter of time before Yayoi got suspicious and barged in. She'd probably heard us yelling. She'd probably be calling hotel security right now to unlock the room, if she didn't just have a keycard in the first place.

"Hanako, listen to me. Listen to me! I like you, and I want you. I want to pleasure you. I want to come, too. I promise you I'll have condoms next time. But let's do it safely, today."

"I don't want to sixty-nine," she said, sucking back snot and tears. "I want to see your face up close. I want to kiss you when I come."

"That's okay. Here. Let's use our hands then."

"You've gone soft," she said, disappointment evident in her voice.

"I'll get hard again soon, trust me. Let me take care of you for now," I said. I gently shifted my weight to roll her onto her side and reached between her legs. She sniffled and tensed as I again slid my fingers in and started to move them. I started to kiss and suck on her neck and on her collarbone. I couldn't quite crane my head down enough to reach her breasts, so I moved back to her lips. And after a few more minutes of this, she shuddered, squeezed her legs together, and I felt something warm and wet soak my entire hand. We rolled onto our backs, breathing heavily.

I turned my head and watched her, slowly taking in the fact that I was in bed with a naked Morikawa Hanako, and had just pleasured her to climax. The realization alone was enough to bring my erection back. She looked at me expectantly.

"I want to stroke you, but everything feels like jelly," she whimpered. I leaned over and kissed her again.

"It's okay, I'll show you how I pleasure myself," I said. "I've never actually done this in front of a girl, you know. This first time is truly yours."

With some difficulty, she rolled over to her side to watch me as I brought myself to an unexpectedly powerful, back-arching climax. Then again, with her watching me so intently, I shouldn't have anticipated the normal, simple satisfaction of a carnal urge.

"Thank you, Leon," she said, and gently lapped up a stray spatter on my chest. "Ugh, still tastes terrible. But that part of you is now mine. Mine alone."

"I'm so lame. I didn't even bring a cigarette or anything," I joked.

"I don't want to pay a fifty-thousand yen smoking fee, so it's perfectly fine," Hanako said, finally chuckling again. Her face was a complete mess, but in that moment, she was improbably more beautiful than ever before. I reached over and caressed her face, still in disbelief that it could have produced such a terrible expression earlier.

"Hanako, about us, I…"

"It's okay. I won't interfere with you and the other two. They're both falling in love with you, by the way. I honestly wonder how much longer they can go on sharing you as they are. But, even if I could force you to be only with me, it's not like we can find many chances for something like this. The stars just happened to align for me today. My luck finally turned around!" She took in a deep breath, planted her face in the covers, and screamed. Not in sadness or pain, but in what was unmistakably triumph. She lifted her head. "Thank you, Leon. Thank you, truly. We should…get going. I don't want Yayoi to get too anxious. It's not kind to her."

Silently, we cleaned up and helped each other straighten out our clothing. I glanced at her camera, still on the tripod.

"Oh shit…was that recording everything?" I asked. "You need to delete that like, yesterday."

She picked up the camera, pressed the "Play" button for the most recent video recording, and showed me the screen. Fortunately, it had run out of memory shortly after our lips met.

"I'll never delete this, even if I don't use it in the video. I want to watch it over and over again. I'll watch it when I pleasure myself," she said, and put the pair of panties I'd taken off of her into my jacket pocket. "I want you to have these. I want you to hold them when you masturbate. That way, you'll never forget me."

My cheeks flushed and my heart throbbed when I exited the room with Hanako. She was a master at concealing her emotions, and played the part of the bubbly gadfly perfectly as we walked down the hallway. I felt Yayoi's stare burning holes in my back the entire way, however.

#

Hanako's apartment was somewhere within an imposing, fortress-like complex with a heavy security presence. Tall, stone-faced men armed with expandable batons stood at the entrance like medieval soldiers, and I knew that if I ever tried to enter a place like that on my lonesome, a concussion would be the least of my problems. Hanako, however, seemed utterly unfazed by their presence, and cheerfully waved to the guards as she passed the threshold into the foyer.

As soon as she saw that Hanako had entered the building safely, Yayoi silently sped off in the Maybach GLS with me. I'd sat in the front, just in case anyone was able to see clearly through the tinted windows to identify Hanako and some random guy. During the entire drive, including to Hanako's apartment, Yayoi hadn't said a word to me.

After what seemed like an eternity, she finally pulled up in front of Youko's house in my neighborhood. I pulled at the latch to open the door, only to find that it didn't open.

"A moment of your time, Kitahara-san," Yayoi said, turning her head. I turned to face her, expecting her fist to smack me right on the nose. Instead, her gloved hand wrapped around my throat. Her grip was firm enough to make me worried, but not enough to actually impair my breathing.

"Shinozuka-san, we didn't…"

"I know," Yayoi said. "Otherwise I wouldn't have brought you straight here. Perhaps—and this is entirely hypothetical, young man—I'd have found a deserted spot under an overpass, pressed a stun gun to your neck, and then dropped you into the Kanda river. But fortunately for you, you showed appropriate judgment and restraint. So you don't have to hypothetically die, and I don't have to go to hypothetical prison."

"If you're aware of what happened, then you know she's really hurting inside." My eyes stung, and not because I was about to be choked out by the world's scariest manager. Or because she'd told me she'd have murdered me if things had gone slightly different. "I don't know what to do for her."

"Are you familiar with her circumstances?"

I shook my head. "No. All I know is what's already out there. That she was an orphan teenager in some slum, and Setsuna heard her singing by chance. I know Morikawa Yuki adopted her at some point, too."

"Very well," Yayoi said. "It's best if that's the extent of your knowledge. I'm aware that she harbors a foolish attachment to you. And I'm not against you providing her emotional support. I am painfully aware that I alone am not sufficient for someone as deeply scarred as she is. I'm not even against you two having safe sexual relations, as long as they're discreet." She slowly let go of my neck and offered her hand, as if to shake mine. "If you ruin her career, as you so nearly did today, I will ruin your life. Are we in agreement?"

Shivering, but unwilling to take my eyes off hers, I shook her hand.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

As the weeks went on, another semester at Yuunagi drew to an end. Probably because Yukiko had been forced to attend her classes, she'd been in a much better place to take the finals than she'd ever been for the midterms. It had worked out well for us, because we could no longer afford a whole seven days devoted to either academics or drama. Even in the week before finals, we'd done a show with Icy Tail, opened for Hokagou Tea Time, and played a spot in a local music festival. We'd also gotten to the point where we'd been able to record a few of our singles for mastering.

All this had left us extremely little time for anything but our jobs, school, and sleeping and eating. I hadn't even had time to get my hair cut. While I'd been a little shaggy when I'd first arrived in Japan, my mane now almost reached my to the small of my back. I'd always had a problem where mine grew faster than average, so I'd taken to simply slicking it back and hoping for the best, but that was becoming more difficult by the day. In desperation, I'd asked Setsuna for help during one of her small slivers of down time, which is why I now sat on a chair in a bathroom at the Ogiso household wearing a trash bag with a hole cut into it for my head.

"Setsuna, please, you don't have to go this far for me," I said, as she toyed with a pair of barber's shears in one hand and made some rough measures with her fingers pressed against the side of my head. The blades went snickety snak as she quickly opened and closed them. "I was just asking for a recommendation, or whoever the company uses for their hair needs. Surely you have someone? I mean, who does Hanako's hair? Or Eiji's or Rina's?"

"Me," Setsuna said. "Stop moving around, it's important I get this right."

"You?" I raised an eyebrow. "You're a professional hairdresser, too?"

"I'm a single mom," she said. "Of course I know how to cut hair and do a good job. Alright, hold still for real. You're gonna love this."

I bit my lip and closed my eyes as she moved in with the shears. I was pretty sure she'd chop off the tip of my ear or botch the job so badly I'd be better off getting the classic "baseball cut" that cursed certain Japanese high school students' dating prospects for years. The shears went snippety snap for a few terrifying minutes. I felt her tug my hair this way and that, all while moving my head around like a flight simulator joystick. Finally, she stopped.

"Open your eyes, you big baby," she said, and held up a mirror for me to see. I again raised an eyebrow. To my relief, she hadn't chopped off any skin or made me resemble Takeshi Six Nine. More like she hadn't actually done much to start with.

"Um, it looks…" I struggled to find the right words. After all, this was my boss holding a mean pair of shears. "Like I didn't really get a haircut at all?"

"No, I did a lot of work!" Setsuna said. "Look, I cleaned up and straightened up the bangs, chopped away the split ends, undercut so you'll feel a little less top-heavy, and made everything symmetric. It's perfect, and will make your costumed appearance even cuter— I mean, it'll make you very appealing to a wide variety of audiences. Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

My stomach churned as I realized something. I turned my head in the mirror to view myself from different angles and realized what she'd done. I fixed an accusatory glare at my scissor-wielding boss. "You just made me look like Touma Kazusa, didn't you?"

Setsuna turned away, probably to hide her guilty expression. "I didn't mean to, at least at first! But if you coincidentally look like her, is that a big problem? You should be willing to take advantage of your mother's fame! It's free advertising! Think of the business angle, here! Japanese people love her! They'll make the association and it'll drive our sales up! You both play piano and you both have really nice bodies! I mean, it's not like I want you to wear that outfit she wore during the festival or anything! That'd be too ridiculous! It'd never work! Not in a hundred years!" She turned, her expression both lascivious and pleading. "You know, we could get a tailor to make a male equivalent. You could totally pull it off. Won't you wear that for me? Just as a joke…"

I crossed my arms. "I'm shaving my head."

"No!" she shouted.

#

Fortunately for Setsuna, I simply hadn't had the time to actually shave my head or go to another stylist. Our bosses had tried to give us at least one day off a week initially, but even that had fallen by the wayside as our responsibilities kept piling up. I hadn't been able to hang out at all with Yukiko or Saeko, either (Hanako was a nonstarter, as she was busier than all of us on a good day). Still, though, we members of The White Album 3 had successfully lobbied to at least get the night off after our finals and Saeko's PhD qualifying exam.

Our beer glasses made a satisfying, dull clink as they collided together. We then proceeded to drain them in a single long chug, before slamming them down on our table.

"Ah!" Saeko exclaimed. "I'm so happy to be done with that shit, I could die!"

"I thought you'd be able to ace that stuff without any studying whatsoever," I said to her. "I mean, how many grades did you skip?"

"A lot, but it doesn't mean I'm some eldritch computer horror who can ace tests by driving the proctor insane. If I could do that, I wouldn't be playing in a band. I'd hijack Elon Musk's stupid rocket and nuke the entire planet from orbit. It's the only way to be sure!"

"Aw, there, there. It's hard not to be a genius like me," Yukiko chuckled, giving Saeko indulgent headpats.

"So, how hard did you bomb Japanese Literature?" I asked her. "Is Ogata-san gonna have to give up something precious this time?"

"You know, your dad comes to Japan to crush your dreams. My dad would gladly suck a mile of dick to protect my smile. We are not the same."

"That doesn't mean you have to make him actually do it!"

To give us a buffer against inquisitive Yuunagi students, we'd met at a tavern just across the street from Houjou University. According to Saeko, her parents, as well as Setsuna, had made it their unofficial "spot" when they'd attended college, and even in some of the years beyond. With inflation, the prices had gone up considerably, but I liked their beer.

"Yo, Leon," Saeko said, poking my cheek. "I've been meaning to ask, but what's with your hair? I thought you were going for an 80's glam rocker look for a while. I wasn't gonna say anything about it, because I think Tommy Lee's hot, but something's weird now."

"Sorry, it's Setsuna's fault," I said. "I just asked her if the company used anyone in particular for cutting hair, and next thing you know, she has me undergoing the home salon experience."

"You seriously screwed up," Yukiko said. "Did it never occur to you to just ask one of us, or our shady manager, or even your grandmother? You had to go straight to the most perverted woman in a ten-kilometer radius."

"So what do I do? Should I try to find another stylist?"

Yukiko took my head in her hands and again moved my head around like a joystick. "Oh, Jesus. I know why she did this. You can't change it, now."

"Oh no. I see it, too," Saeko said. "Yeah, you can't change that. We'll all get shit on. You'll have to live with it."

"So it wasn't just me," I buried my face in my hands. "She made me look like my mother. Fuck me!"

"Not very ladylike of you to say that, Kazusa-san," Yukiko said, sneering at me.

I turned to Saeko for support, only to see her deliberately lick her fingers and give me the "up your ass" gesture.

"Anyway, your hair is a national treasure, so you're forbidden by law from altering it," Yukiko said. "I suppose if you're really that pissy, you can put it in a braid that drapes over your shoulder. Then you'll look like an otome game prince, instead of a hooker with a penis."

"Don't call my mom that!"

"I found out who originally composed 'Todokanai Koi.' I was so pissed about having to play it that I badgered my mom and Eiji for the origin story. I fully stand by what I just said."

"So do you hate it less, now?"

"Ugh, I've gotten over it a little. I still can't believe my mom made the song popular, especially since it wasn't written for her."

"You're the second person who's said that, now. What gives?"

"You didn't know? It was written by, of all people, your lame-ass dad as a love song to your mom! Ha! Apparently she was a total chode to him all through high school, but he pined for her anyway!"

I shook my head and signaled to a nearby waiter. "Three more Kirin, please!" I needed a drink. In fact, I'd probably need a night to relax after this night of relaxation.

"I dunno," Saeko said, as she sipped from her new beer. "I think it's kinda cute. He fell in love with a tsundere, is all. And if tsunderes can't win, then I don't wanna live on this earth, anymore!

"Changing the subject away from my parents, forever, I call a toast to no more god-damned variety show tapings for the year," I said, raising my glass. The girls smashed their glasses into mine hard enough I feared they'd all break.

"Still, am I the only one who's sad to not hang with Eggplant anymore?" Yukiko asked.

"Yeah," Saeko and I both said.

"But he's like, a man of culture! We talked for hours about our love of 'Freddy Got Fingered.' By the way, Sacchan, I'm forever in your debt for recommending that movie to me. You were absolutely right. It's a true masterpiece. Tom Green may be the only person smarter than I am. It made me laugh, and cry, and really think about life and the universe, you know?"

Saeko looked like she wanted to correct a grave misunderstanding, but I motioned for her to drop it.

"Anyway, I wish we didn't have to work tomorrow," Yukiko continued, drinking her beer morosely. "Was it that hard for them to give us another day off?"

"Well, we gotta finish the video for 'Todokanai Koi' tomorrow, since we ran into a delay with 'Yasashi Uso,' and that's Hanako's only available time before she has to do her Budokan prep," I said.

"I know, but…" Yukiko sighed. "It's fine. She did such a fuckin' banger job on 'Replacing You,' after all. Hey, I gotta ask, since we're on that topic. Did you guys smooch at the hotel?"

"No," I said, without a hint of hesitation. I definitely wasn't going to tell them anything, since it would put Hanako at risk. For her, I could be a liar.

"You sure? It kinda looked like you were on camera," Saeko said.

"Her manager was right there off camera. If I'd actually locked lips with her, I'd have been thrown out of a plate glass window thirty stories above ground. And afterward, every idol otaku in Tokyo would have drawn and quartered my twitching corpse and sent the pieces to all corners of Japan as a warning to others."

"They still might do it anyway," Saeko said. "Idol otaku are the most dangerous of our kind. If you see them coming for us, Kiko, we're gonna bust Leon's kneecaps and run."

"Thanks, you two," I said with a laugh. Secretly, I was glad my answer seemed to have placated them. "And at least we have the twenty-fourth and Christmas off, right?

"My parents are dragging me off to Okinawa," Saeko said. "I'll try and catch a tuna or something, I guess."

"And my grandparents are going to Kyoto for Christmas, so I have to make sure they don't fall and break their hips," Yukiko said. "Sorry I didn't tell you. Just found out today."

I sighed, genuinely disappointed. I guess I'd be alone on the most traditionally romantic holiday in Japan. "No worries, we all need to spend some time with our families, I'm sure. I probably don't spend enough time with my grandmother. And she's one of the main reasons I came here in the first place."

"I like your grandma," Saeko said. "I thought she'd be all 'why are you not practicing piano, Leon-kun?' at first, but my opinion changed when she just started watching anime with us and eating my pizza."

"She likes you too," I said, with a smile.

Something unexpected flashed across Yukiko's features. "Why haven't I met your grandmother yet?" she asked.

"I offered. You said no, because you didn't want people making assumptions about us."

"I can change my mind. In fact, why don't I come over there after this?"

"It's my night, though," Saeko said, matter-of-factly to her.

Crap, I forgot they'd actually worked some weird system out between them.

"Ordinarily, yeah," Yukiko said. "But like, our schedule has been so terrible that I'm owed time."

"We had an agreement, Kiko."

I quickly drained the rest of my beer, not liking where this was headed. "Sorry, I'm completely bushed. I kinda want to go home and get some shut-eye. We all had a long exam day, you know. Plus we have to be at the studio early tomorrow. Not really up for anything right now."

They both looked like they wanted to object, but quickly relented. "Fine, I guess if you can't get it up, you're kinda useless for my purposes," Saeko said.

"I'm still gonna meet your grandmother soon," Yukiko said. "But I guess she's probably asleep at this hour, huh?"

"Yeah, she turns in at eight sharp. You know, boomers."

To my relief, they settled down about me thereafter. After Haruto dropped me home, I showered, changed, and decided to catch up on some "Koisuru Metronome," which I hadn't been able to touch for at least a month. It was amazing how much my work schedule sucked all my free time away. My thoughts strayed quickly, however, to my near-fated encounter with Kasumi Utako, the author.

Now that I thought about it, she looked strikingly similar to Hanako. I of course knew they weren't the same person, but it was a giddy fantasy to imagine them both naked and servicing me. The only difference was that I'd actually seen Hanako naked. I opened the drawer of my nightstand, lifted the cover of an old Hanon finger exercises book, and took Hanako's panties out from between the pages. She'd implored me to imagine her and hold them as I pleasured myself.

I still vividly remembered the softness of her curves, and the feel of her skin. I was compelled to obey her.

#

On December 24th, the day before Christmas, I was again alone, although thankfully not forever alone. Even Youko had friends and old flames she'd gone out to see. While she'd offered to take me, I didn't see the appeal of hanging out with a bunch of people in their seventies. Also, I'd heard that the elderly were extremely promiscuous, so I didn't want to chance upon any of that hot mess.

The rest of Double-O were busy making last-minute preparations for Hanako's concert to take place on Christmas Eve. The famous Nippon Budokan was one of the most venerable concert halls in Japan, having hosted The Beatles, Diana Ross, Judas Priest, AKB48, Queen, and Ozzy Osbourne, to name a tiny handful of acts. Hanako's show had not only sold out, it had been overbooked by accident, which made finding a ticket impossible. I wouldn't have been able to go even if I'd been Jeff Bezos himself. Therefore, I had nothing to do but read, play games, and laze around and eat. Basically, a perfect miniature vacation.

I'd just settled in for a great day of wallowing in my own crapulence, when the doorbell to Youko's house rang. I ignored it at first, since I'd assumed it was just a salesman or a group of proselytizers. But when it rang again, and repeatedly, I had to act.

Annoyed, I tapped the intercom button. "Touma-san's not home," I snapped.

"But Kitahara-san is," replied a familiar, unexpected voice.

"Wait. Hanako?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Can you let me in, please? It's chilly out here."

"Yeah, sorry!" I said, and pushed the "unlock" button for the gate. I slid on my shoes and opened the front door to meet her. "How are you… anyway, come in! Where's your manager?"

Hanako kicked off her shoes and started to poke around Youko's house excitedly. "Ara ara! I'd heard your grandmother was wealthy, but this is beyond expectations!"

"Sorry, she's not here right now, otherwise I'd introduce you first thing," I said. I eyeballed her. "That's a good disguise."

"Thanks, Yayoi helped me come up with it." She turned so I could see it all. She sported the same kind of puffy coat and flannel pants that adorned millions of middle-aged women across Japan, along with a plaid scarf, sunglasses, and a tan, floppy hat. She was indistinguishable from any random oba-san on the street, like this. At least until she opened her mouth.

"It's a lot better than mine," I said.

"Your hair!" Hanako said, coming up to me and running her fingers through my tresses. "I like it! Did Setsuna cut it for you?"

"Yeah, unfortunately," I pouted.

"She did a good job. You know you look like Touma Kazusa now, right?"

"I'm painfully aware. Unfortunately, I can't change it on pain of death, or something." I shrugged. "Hanako, can I ask why you're here without Yayoi, instead of at the Budokan?"

"I've completed my part," she said. "Dress rehearsal finished two hours ago. And I've always taken some time off right before a show. It helps me think. Focuses me."

"I'm flattered you want to hang out with me, but I wasn't planning on anything. Haruto's off today, so not like I'm very mobile."

"You can ride the metro, right?" Hanako teased. "After all, you're not a genius like Kiko is, so you can walk among us toads like everyone else."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." I had gotten so used to Haruto taking me everywhere that I hadn't ridden the metro in months. There was still a decent amount of money on my card. "Did you want to go somewhere?"

"I have a few errands to run," Hanako said. "I want you to come with me. Is that okay?"

"As long as it doesn't put you in danger."

"That's why I wore my disguise. Also, I want to see you in yours. I've never really seen it, you know?"

"Guess not," I said. "Give me a bit to put it on. Bathroom's over there if you need it."

A few minutes later, I stepped into the hall fully kitted out. Now that my hair was much longer, the comb had become an invaluable part of the ensemble. I hated that friggin' comb, but I couldn't get rid of it.

Hanako clapped her hands. "Kirei!"

"Could you not call it pretty, please?"

"Oh, sorry." She giggled. "It's studly. Yeah! Studly."

I sighed again. "Okay, let's go. Where are we headed?"

"Koreatown."

#

I hadn't really had the chance to see too much of Tokyo besides the immediate areas around Yuunagi, my grandmother's house, and of course Setsuna's manor. In fact, as far as getting the full "life in Japan" experience, I was doing poorly in terms of sightseeing. One of the things I'd sworn to do was go to a maid cafe in Akihabara, but so far, that hadn't happened and probably wouldn't happen for a very long time.

Koreatown was just the informal name for the Okubo district, near Shinjuku. Fortunately, Hanako was much better at navigating the Tokyo metro system than I'd ever be, so we found our way to the Shin Okubo station without incident. Historically, as a place that attracted large numbers of minority immigrants, the neighborhood had started as a slum, but in the current year was just as heavily developed as any other part of the city proper. The real estate was simply too valuable to leave as sketchy bars and empty lots to be fought over by yakuza.

Still, Hanako had managed to somehow drag me straight past the bustling shopping and entertainment venues that permeated most of the neighborhood, and right into what still remained of the slums.

"Hanako, I don't mean to be a wuss, but is this actually safe?" I asked her, as we emerged into a sketchy, deserted alleyway. It literally looked like a boss fight waiting to happen, with its haphazard construction, obviously stolen power cabling, and furtive eyes that peered at us from between slats of decaying blinds.

"Very," she said. "I spent a lot of my childhood here. An outsider has little to fear."

"But this is totally Korean mafia turf," I said, keeping my head on a swivel. Now I definitely wished Haruto or Yayoi or both were with us.

"We're not in a video game," Hanako said. "The mafia is real, but they're not going to come out and shake you down for a few thousand yen. Relax and follow me."

Resisting the urge to hide behind her like a scared little child, I followed her as confidently as I could into a nondescript building without any obvious signage. I knew people were inside, but none of them seemed to want to show their faces to us. We walked up a few flights of stairs—the elevator was long-broken—before finally emerging onto the top floor of what I realized was some sort of abandoned retail property. Hanako knocked on the door and said something in Korean, which surprised me. Shortly after, the door opened.

The space within, fortunately, was much better-looking than the dilapidated building had suggested. For all intents and purposes, it was a small but cozy apartment. An elderly couple, who I estimated in their sixties, both came up to Hanako and embraced her. She started a rapid-fire exchange of more Korean while she took her disguise off. The elderly couple started to point at me, and she seemed to assuage them in Korean.

"Sorry," she said to me in Japanese. "You probably don't speak Korean."

"Nope."

"I was just telling them who you were. A very dear friend of mine, is what I told them. And where are my manners? Leon, these are my grandparents."

"Oh!" I was slightly taken aback. I hurriedly and politely bowed to them, unsure of what to say. They probably understood Japanese, but there were still many immigrants who didn't. Problems integrating were especially prevalent among the older crowd. "Nice to meet you, I'm Kitahara Leon," I said, resorting to Japanese as the default option.

"Please, sit," Hanako said, gesturing to some nearby couches. "They'll get you some tea."

"Thanks," I said, following her orders. The older woman set a mug of fragrant-smelling oolong tea before me and I politely sipped from it. The flavor was excellent.

"I'm going to talk with them for a bit in Korean, if you don't mind," Hanako said. "Just don't want you to get too bored or anything."

"I'm fine," I said. "I'm glad you wanted to show me to your family."

She smiled and blushed at my words. The old couple must have noticed, as they started to lightly tease and cajole her. No matter what language was spoken, I knew they were saying some variant of: "Is he your boyfriend?" and "When are you going to give us grandchildren?" and the like. I decided to let her stew as I sipped my tea.

After about fifteen minutes of their exchange, Hanako pulled an envelope out of her handbag and presented it to them, politely with both hands. Probably a money gift to the grandparents. I didn't think much of it, since the custom was common in Asia. However, when the elderly man opened it and counted the bills, my eyes widened.

Hanako had just gifted her grandparents a sum of just over forty million yen. That was the equivalent of a two hundred fifty thousand Euros. That was, by any measure, an excessive amount even for a gift to elderly grandparents. Even if she was their sole means of support, they surely didn't need to spend so much to live in a slum like this.

"Hanako…" I started to say. She quickly shushed me with a gesture.

The elderly man spoke again in Korean to her, in a tone that I could tell was equal parts praise and equal parts promise. I didn't know what he promised, but the intent was fairly obvious. Hanako bowed several times to him, and now I saw tears form at the corner of her eyes. The elderly couple took her hands and patted them until she'd composed herself.

Finally, she stood up, bowed to them yet again, and methodically put her disguise on again. "I'll explain everything at Echoes," she said to me, quietly elated.

#

"Thank you, Master," Hanako bid Akira as he placed our gourmet, siphon-brewed coffees in front of us. She'd not only taken us to the underground part of Echoes, but also to one of the small private rooms that jutted off of the central hub. These had acoustically shielded doors that muffled sounds off both ways, to ensure confidentiality. They also had the type of rippled glass that prevented viewers from seeing any details.

"Always wonderful to see you, Hanako-san," Akira said, and closed the door behind him. We were now completely isolated from the rest of the world.

I sipped my coffee. I didn't know whether the coffee had a fault in it, or whether it was my own skewed perception, but the stuff had an unwelcome, bitter undertone.

"You're, uh, really generous with your relatives," I said. "I heard Koreans were into filial piety, but damn!"

"They're my grandparents, after all," Hanako said. "I am their sole source of support, even since they came over a few years ago. I thought I'd lost them forever."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I counted out the money along with your grandfather. Forty million could flat out buy them a new apartment in a better part of town. Do they actually like staying in a slum?"

"Think about it, Leon. They don't speak any Japanese. They're old enough to remember their parents being used as forced labor during the colonial period. They wouldn't feel comfortable anywhere else."

"Good point," I said. "But still…forty million yen. How often do you do this?"

Hanako beamed. "Every quarter, at least, for the last three years."

"Where does all this money come from?" I took another sip of my bitter coffee.

She giggled. "I am the top idol of Double-O productions."

"But that's still a million euros a year." I let out a slow breath.

"They're not hoarding it," Hanako said, chuckling. "Or buying cryptocurrency or something stupid. They make sure a good part of the money goes back to the people back home, and also to help bring my parents over."

"Your family's Korean, right?"

"North Korean."

"Whoa."

"Oh, relax, I'm not a double agent," Hanako said. She reached out and interlaced the fingers of both hands with my own. "I promise I won't make you kill the Prime Minister. You're too hot for prison."

"If I ever end up in the joint, I'm getting my head shaved like everyone else. Also, I know it's not really my business, but does anyone else know about this?"

"The money part, or the North Korean part?"

"Both."

"They know I'm an illegal immigrant. That's why Yuki-sama formally adopted me. It's an imperfect solution, but mostly protects me from being deported. And, more importantly, she gifted me her precious name."

"I wondered what the connection was. Do they know about the money?"

"No. You're the only one who does. Setsuna and Rina don't pry. They trust me. I'm sure Yayoi has suspicions, but I'm very careful around her."

"Why show me, then?"

She stood up partly, leaned over, and planted a kiss on my lips, before sitting back on her padded chair. "Because you're the guy I like. I can't give you any of my first times, sorry to say. But I wanted to let you see a part of me I can't show anyone else. Will you hear what I have to say?"

My mouth started to dry. Something told me to stop, but I nodded anyway.

"Thank you, Leon. Where to begin? It's, of course, impossible to just go directly from North Korea to Japan. And there is no such thing as a living wage in North Korea. So most people trying to earn more end up as slaves in Chinese factories on the border. They can kill you if you try to escape. But some people do, and find work as drifters in northern China."

"That's completely fucked."

"To most of the rest of the world, that's just Tuesday," Hanako said, without a trace of irony. "My parents smuggled me out of the Donggang XinXin factory barracks in the middle of the night and paid a snakehead their entire accumulated savings to bring me to supposed friends of theirs in Japan. I ended up as an orphan in Okubo. Every night, I starved. Every day, I was beaten. I never went to school. The people who took me in started pimping me out before I had my first period. Eventually, they had me cleaning toilets at a karaoke club in a better part of town."

As I looked at her, completely lost for words, she casually took a sip of her coffee. "Oh, this is bitter. Is yours the same way? I need to tell the Master before he serves it to others."

"It's…really bitter," I said, at this point almost unable to form a coherent sentence.

"Sorry, I got off track. I was telling you about karaoke. I loved working there! I had an arrangement with the manager where I could sleep in an empty booth after they closed for the night. All he wanted was a quick blowjob before he left for home. How could I not sing when given the opportunity? I did this for hours on end, every night. One day, I lost track of time and didn't realize that Setsuna had reserved the first spot of the day. I expected her to be furious and throw me out. But she just asked me to sing more, instead. And now you know how we met."

I'd expected her hands to shake. For her voice to waver. For her eyes to water. But instead, she simply laid out all of this incomprehensible misery to me in a completely banal, matter-of fact, and most horrifically of all, liltingly pleasant tone. Morikawa Hanako, top idol of Double-O Productions, was twenty-one years old, and a perfect shining star.

#

The last thing Hanako did before she left Echoes was pass me a small envelope. I hadn't had the presence of mind to pay attention to it. What she'd told me had already left me churning with a mix of sorrow and hatred. Not for her, of course, but for all of the people responsible for her suffering. I knew, of course, that there was nothing I could do about any of that. We weren't in a video game. I wasn't going to tiger drop Kim Jong-Un.

"I apologize for the quality of the coffee, earlier," Akira said, as he passed me a new, steaming cup. "On the house."

"No problem at all, Master," I said. I took a quick sip. No traces of bitterness remained.

"Are you going to Hanako-san's concert?" he asked.

"I haven't got a ticket," I said, with a shrug. "Even if I could find one to buy, I'm sure I couldn't afford it, either."

"That so?" Akira said. He pointed at the small envelope in front of me. "You may wish to open that."

I slipped a finger under the flap of the envelope and prised it open. Inside was a single, VIP seating area ticket to the Morikawa Hanako "Christmas Eve at the Budokan" concert. It was for the center seat in the front row.

"I wouldn't presume to tell you what to do, Kitahara-san," but it's traditional to bring a bouquet of flowers and a small gift to an idol concert if you're a big fan," Akira said. "Don't worry. They don't have to be expensive purchases. Just something to show her you care."

I nodded. I now knew what I'd be doing on Christmas Eve.

#

The Budokan pulsed with unbridled energy and the collective hopes of the twenty thousand souls inside who all shared a singular purpose: to share a brilliant night with Hanako. I sat in my cushy, velvet-upholstered VIP seat and felt slightly guilty for doing so. Most everyone else in attendance stood, packed like sardines. I'd been able to give my flowers to one of the VIP attendants, however I kept a hold of my gift, since it was small enough to keep in my jacket pocket.

I'd gone to an independent jewelry store and picked out a small silver bracelet whose links looked like little hearts. Now that Double-O was paying me a wage, I'd finally had money in my account. It hadn't been an extremely expensive purchase, and I didn't even know if such things were to Hanako's taste, but it was still better than showing up empty-handed.

The overhead lights suddenly dimmed, deep bass pulsed through my body, and twenty thousand voices screamed in earnest. An explosion of lurid crimson erupted from the stage, and Hanako slowly emerged, standing on an elevated platform rising from under the stage. She wore a sleek, body-hugging idol outfit that left little of her curves to the imagination. Like any other man in the audience, I was instantly enraptured.

For a moment, I saw her gaze sweep the front row VIP seats, and stop as we made eye-contact. A look of what could only have been unfiltered euphoria washed over her features, and she started to sing.

Taiyou wo akaku tojikomete

Kuruma wa doko e susumu

Konton no fukiareru yoru ni

Bokura no koe ga hibiita

Negai no akari wo tomoshite

Kokoro wa yume wo nugisutete

Shiroi michi wo yuku

Kurai sora ni wa akeboshi ga mirai wo

Dou shitemo sashite ugokanai kara

Yasashiku sasou kinou ni te wo futte

Bokura wa naita

Mata hashiridasu tame

Mayottemo nageittemo inochi wa

Akarui hou e te wo nobasu kara

Hikari wo inori sora takaku, utagoe

Semete kimi ni todoku you ni

#

She'd sung for three hours, had performed four encores, and had only ended the concert because the Tokyo MPD had entered the arena with megaphones demanding that everyone disperse peacefully. Online, her show had already been declared one of the greatest Budokan shows of all time. And amid the crush of protesting fans, police riot shields, and the smell of tear gas, Yayoi had quickly whisked me backstage.

Now I was in one of the most improbable locations in the entire world. By any reasonable standard, a single man had a greater chance of accessing the innards of Fort Knox, Vladimir Putin's bedroom, and the Secret Archives of the Vatican than he had of visiting Morikawa Hanako's bedroom.

I'd been standing near the entrance to her bedroom, both from a combination of awkwardness as well as the fact that her apartment was strikingly spartan. Besides a bed and a nightstand in her bedroom, the rest of the place was bare. As in, no television, desk, extra chairs, or even kotatsu that seemed ubiquitous among young Japanese.

"You realize I can't ever take this off, right?" Hanako said, admiring the simple bracelet I'd bought her before the show.

"Hanako, I'm sure you have jewelry that's way better than that," I said, embarrassed. "I mean, you probably have billionaires as fans."

"I do," she said. "One of them likes to send me Cartier bracelets and earrings. I've never worn them, nor will I. But this," she ran her fingertips lovingly over the heart-shaped links, "this stays on. Even if taking it off would save my life."

I felt a growing need to change the subject. "You were amazing, by the way. I know you've probably heard this hundreds of times a day, but that doesn't make it less true."

As if she was still performing she slowly sauntered up to me, swaying rhythmically. She was still wearing her performance outfit from the show, minus the platform dancing shoes, of course. I knew she must have been drenched with her sweat many times over the course of the night, but she didn't smell overly offensive. She wrapped her arms around my neck.

"Leon," she said, coyly. "I'm an artist. I'm just as addicted to praise as you are. As any creator is. So your words aren't hollow at all. But since you're special to me, I want more than words from you. Don't I deserve that, for my hard work today?" She lifted her chin and kissed me. "Do you want to do me in this costume? It's why I haven't changed yet. Or, if you're not into idols, I can wear something else. I know the place looks barren, but my closet's pretty packed. Maid outfits, schoolgirl stuff, evening gowns, swimsuits, even kigurumi. Sorry, I don't have a full-on fursuit, but I know where I can get one."

Her smell was cloying, musky, and made my head swim. "Like you are is good," I said, as she pressed her body to mine and started to kiss my neck. My manhood started to react.

"Good boy," she cooed. "Hey, what are you into? I can do anything to please you. Anal, titjobs, rimming, face-fucking, nothing's off limits. You can choke me if you want. I bet none of the girls will let you do that," she said, with a giggle.

My stomach churned. I placed my hands on her hips to still her. "Hanako, I really like you. You're also insanely beautiful. And you're a better musician than I am." Now, I needed to be careful. I'd seen what happened last time I denied her. "But with all the fucked-up shit you went through, I'm not the answer to your problems. You need a therapist, not a boyfriend."

She continued to gaze at me with her violet eyes. I expected a slap at any moment. Instead, she nodded. "I'm aware of that. But just as it's too risky for me to get contraception, it's also too risky to see a counselor. So I have to make do with whatever I can. It's how I've survived my entire life."

Of course, I should've known. What a fucking poser I am. I lowered my forehead to touch hers. "Sorry, I didn't mean to mansplain to you. I just…want to help you, even though I'm useless at anything that matters."

She chuckled and then looked back up at me with an expression that could only be described as unbridled gratitude. "Be careful, Leon. I just like you a lot right now. But if you say stuff like that, I'll definitely fall in love with you. And then there will be problems."

She pressed her lips to mine, and I allowed myself to fully give in to her intoxicating essence. As we kissed, I slowly shuffled with her to the bed. True to my word, I'd brought a few condoms with me. And that night, I made gentle, utterly vanilla love not to the idol Morikawa Hanako, but to the lonely woman behind her perfect mask.