Confessions & Cigarettes

Brutal was an understatement. They had been woken before dawn and packed into the bus, where K and Sakano went over their schedules. Then Tohma took control, going over what the two managers told them. Then they were hustled out of the bus and into a small airplane and were flown to Tokyo, and then took a train the rest of the way to Yokohama. There they met some people from the press and a whole gaggle of other managers from other labels. A few explosions later, Tohma had control of the crowd and started directing them around as well, using the members of Bad Luck and Grasper as bouncers and messengers. There were more orders. There were more explosions. Someone brought a giant panda mecha and tossed a few cars around. And when everyone's ears stopped bleeding, Tohma calmly stated that in three days all the bands needed new song lists.

If Hiro had thought the bands were already panicked enough, he was left dumb by how everyone reacted to news outside of members of Grasper. Even his bandmates, used to how N-G worked, spent the next minute running around like headless chickens. Hiro just sighed and snuck away from the general chaos, finding a spot out of the way to watch until everything settled down. It took a while until everyone was either unconscious or busy.

That was when the real work begun.

So it was late when Hiro managed to drag himself to his hotel room and let himself in. He could have gone home, but then Shuichi opened his big mouth and then Tohma decided that no one was going anywhere until their songs were completed. To make matters worse, Tohma had gotten K on his side, so there was no appeal there. Even the other bands were stuck since he took over the whole show, even to the point that appealing to heads of the various labels wouldn't work.

"I don't know about you, but I almost strangled that boy."

Hiro stopped unlacing his shoes and looked up, seeing that again he was not alone in the room. Ryuichi was sitting on a bed, his apple green guitar on his lap, and Kumagoro's pet carrier sitting on the table between the two twin beds. He was wearing his hip-hugging plaid sleeping pants, but he hadn't stripped off the bangles and rings from his hands and wrists. They made a clicking sound as Ryuichi ran a hand through his hair, blue eyes narrowed and his mouth a hard thin line.

Toeing off his shoes, Hiro stepped fully in the room and sighed, rubbing at his forehead. "It's not really his fault you know."

"That doesn't mean I wished he could have kept his mouth shut for just five minutes," Ryuichi said, his arm dropping and hugging the body of his guitar against his chest. "We all had people we wanted to see tonight. Tohma had forgotten about making us stay until Shuichi reminded him."

"He was just excited," Hiro said and shrugged. He did not feel like arguing with anyone, especially not with an angry Ryuichi. "He just loves Eiri-san so much he can't keep his mouth shut about the guy."

Ryuichi stared at Hiro for a long moment and then snorted, bending his head down and playing with the machine heads on his guitar. Hiro let his breath out and placed his bag on the unclaimed bed. He took out his traveling kit and went to take care of his nightly routine. When he came out, Ryuichi was playing the guitar using a pick, the notes a half-familiar snarl of sound.

"Why don't you play guitar for Grasper?"

The guitar made a jumbled growl as Ryuichi stopped and looked up at him, blue eyes narrowed and the skin around them taunt. Hiro looked back and tried not to fidget, keeping his expression carefully neutral. He figured that if he could get the singer's thoughts away from something destructive and get him to talk, then maybe he wouldn't lay awake wondering if Ryuichi was going to try to harm Shuichi. It had been a couple years since Ryuichi had stirred up his fans and sent them after Shuichi but he still remembered at how hurt Shuichi had been.

And to tell the truth, there were times that Shuichi still felt hurt about it, although he never actually came out and said it.

Whatever he saw in his face had Ryuichi sigh and shake his head, weaving the pick into the top two strings of his guitar and setting it down. He leaned over the side of his bed and opened a drawer, taking out a half-filled pack of cigarettes and tapping one free. He lit up and inhaled the lines of his face relaxing a little, giving an illusion of youthfulness again.

"We decided that the guitar part can be easily made on the snyths instead of me sawing away all the time."

"But. . ."

Ryuichi sat up, planting his left foot on the bed, leg bent at the knee and his right leg dangling over the side. He cocked his head to the side and his lips twisted. "But what?"

"You're good," Hiro said, almost in a whisper.

Again the hard stare. Ryuichi looked for a long moment at him and then started laughing, falling over to his side with one foot in the air and his right hand dangling over the edge of the bed. He stifled his laughter by burying his face against his pillow, shoulders shaking and his cigarette threatening to set fire to the covers. Hiro frowned and sucked hard on his cigarette, wondering what was so funny.

After a minute of muffled laughter, Ryuichi pushed himself upright, his eyes bright and face red from all that laughter. He hiccupped and ground out his cigarette butt into the ash tray, taking out a fresh one and lighting up. Still grinning, he pointed the cigarette at Hiro. "I'm good now."

Hiro blinked. "But it takes years of practice to get that good."

"And I had those years, but when we started out, I was still using a chord book for our songs." Ryuichi blew a smoke ring, tapping ash into the ashtray. "I even had these little stickers to put under the strings so I wouldn't forget which one was which."

"But. . ."

"Again with the 'buts'. . . Hiro, you really are a different kind of guy."

Hiro felt his face burn. Ryuichi smiled slowly, cupping his right elbow with his left hand while holding his cigarette at an angle to his face. He no longer looked so upset but Hiro wasn't sure if he should continue. All his questions were doing was making Ryuichi laugh.

"Hardly anyone 'buts' me anymore," Ryuichi said with a wistful sigh. "I could suggest we dye Tohma's hair pink with orange dots and they will agree."

". . .Didn't you played guitar for the first album?" Hiro asked, toying with the paper on his filter, ripping it a little.

"I did. By that time, I at least remembered what string was for what note and range. But after that, we decided to let the keyboard handle the guitar part and I'll handle the singing and lyric writing."

He tried imagining that. Seeing that face with those sly blue eyes bending over his apple green guitar, hammering away at the notes while the other two Graspers made faces and shook their heads. And then going through show after show, singing while wielding that guitar, trying to make people see exactly how different the Graspers were.

"That was my favorite album of yours," Hiro said, grinding out his cigarette. "After it, everything just started sounding so smooth."

"We actually started working with our producers instead of fighting them," Ryuichi replied, sucking on his cigarette. "By the time 'Purple Nurple' came around, we've learnt enough to do it all ourselves."

"Is that what Seguchi trying to do with us?"

"Are you learning anything?"

Hiro thought back on their last album, at how Tohma pulled out all but an assistant and a couple studio musicians to finish off the edges. While Shuichi tried helping out around the studio, Hiro found himself behind the mixing board more and more, playing with the different sounds it did to their tracks.

"I think so. . ."

"Don't think that Bad Luck's not important to N-G," he said, blowing one last ring before he snuffed his cigarette out. "Don't ever think that. I gave Shuichi my place for a reason, and for good or bad, the rest of you are a part of it."

". . . I guess we are."

Ryuichi picked up his guitar and tugged the pick out of the strings. He looked at it for a moment and then flipped it over to Hiro's lap. Hiro frowned and picked it up, turning it over in his hands and feeling the worn edges scrape across his calluses.

"You really shouldn't be using this," Hiro said, flicking the pick against his thumbnail and feeling the give. "It's almost at the snapping point."

"I know, but it knows me and my tricks." Sly blue eyes met his and Ryuichi's mouth stretched into a dazzling smile made wicked by the touch of his tongue against his lower lip. "But now it can learn yours."

Hiro looked at the pick. Just a normal pick, made out of a bit of plastic dyed a bright purple and then shaped into a triangle. The logo was American, as was the name, and Hiro turned the pick over a couple times trying to figure it out.

"I take it you aren't that good with English."

"I know some," Hiro replied, putting the pick down next to the ashtray. "I always thought I would learn more when I got into med school."

"So you're the brains?" Ryuichi arched an eyebrow, looking up from packing away his guitar.

"Sometimes. Sometimes I'm the brawn."

". . .Huh."

"Someone has to be the center for the band," Hiro said, feeling the need to explain things to the legend.

Ryuichi snapped his case closed and set the guitar next to the bed, raising an eyebrow at Hiro's tone. "Isn't that what Shuichi is?"

"No, he's the heart."

"In some cultures the heart and the center are the same," Ryuichi said, kicking at his blankets, his pants sliding even lower than before. Hiro looked away, fighting the urge to watch and maybe get more than a glimpse of that tattoo. Bed springs creaked, and Hiro looked back, watching the singer shift around until he could yank the blankets up.

"And for some cultures the center is the rock for everything else to lean against."

"Ah, I get you." Ryuichi saluted him, bangles chiming softly. "Is that why I've never heard of you dating?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

The older man turned over, presenting his back towards Hiro. "Goodnight, Hiro."

He stared at the singer's back, wondering where he picked up such an annoying habit. It wasn't American, precisely. He knew they could be rude and lacking some modesty - or a lot - but asking questions and just not waiting for a person to respond, well, that was just plain weird. Maybe a piece of his everyday face snuck into his private face. Or maybe he did it to annoy him. Whatever the case, Hiro needed to plan out their next meeting so he was ready for the singer's strange comments.