A Cacophony of Angels
Part VI

 
I arrived home to a very dark and very empty apartment. There were no messages on the machine, and Yoshiki hadn't stopped by, because there was no note. It was funny now how when I was with people, I wanted to be left alone, and when I was by myself, I wanted company.

I was a little buzzed but could still see straight enough to walk myself to the kitchen and sit down in one of the chairs around the table. It was still early afternoon and in hindsight, I realized it was probably still too early to be as full of alcohol as I was, but hide's favorite drink was something addictive. The bartender had tried to make small talk with me, but I'd basically told him I was having personal problems and wanted to be left alone. He had given me a strange look – obviously hide either had no personal problems or he didn't talk about them. I doubted the first and was coming to strongly believe the second.

I'd confided in some of my friends back home, when I'd been Kouki, of my home problems. I had been rather hesitant at first, because seeing as we were all children of affluent parents and had more money than we knew what to do with, none of us really bothered waxing eloquent on the deeper issues of life. The biggest crisis I'd heard from any of my friends was who was dating who.

I was surprised, then, to find out that many of my friends shared the same deep insecurities as I did. Their fathers and mothers weren't all musicians – there were corporate executives, TV personalities, actors and actresses, politicians – but no matter who their children were, no matter how beautiful or intelligent, all of us shared the same feelings of insecurity, abandonment, the welling loneliness of coming home at four o' clock in the evening and having the huge house entirely empty.

After that, I hadn't felt so alone anymore.

I dropped my jacket on the back of one of the chairs in the living room, deposited the guitar carefully on the floor by its feet, trying not to drop it the case like it was some kind of corpse. I still wasn't entirely comfortable with what had happened at the rehearsal this morning, but who would be? I told myself. Having your muscles controlled by a consciousness not entirely of your making was something that I hoped very few people would ever experience, because it had not been pleasant.

"I've made you some coffee."

I was not surprised to hear the voice or to see hide sitting there in one of my chairs as I entered the kitchen, sprawled over it like a limp throw rug, dressed in a bright green jersey and red parachute pants, laconic and looking a little smug. In fact, I would probably have been surprised if he had not been there waiting for me.

"I hate coffee," I said, but nevertheless got a cup out of the cupboard and filled it up to the brim. "You want some?" The question came out before I'd thought about who I was talking to, and he laughed.

"I wish. Unlike you, I like coffee. But unfortunately it doesn't do me much good at the moment."

I shrugged, taking a sip. It was hot, burning my tongue, but I slurped it down. It was like udon. It was still hot but you just slurped it down and nursed your burned tongue for the rest of the day. If I had been raised more Japanese than I had been – if my mother hadn't died and my father a workaholic who never came home, I might have gotten used to that.

"What are you thinking, Kouki?"

I finished off the cup and set it on the table, not looking at him. "Why don't you tell me?" I said. "I thought you could read my mind."

He looked at me thoughtfully. "I could. But not without you being uncomfortable with it."

"Like this morning's rehearsal."

"I figured I'd do it first, ask apologies later." When I didn't move, still staring at him, he sighed. "Look. Would you have rather you stood there not knowing how to play a thing? They'd have put you in the mental hospital or something."

"Maybe I would have!" I snapped. "What gives you the right to invade my mind like that without permission?"

His face darkened and he looked like he was going to stand up, but I stood my ground. I was not afraid of hide, ghost or no ghost, and I was going to let him know it.

"You agreed to this deal," he said, low and quiet and venomous. "And everything that came with it."

"What if I said I've changed my mind?"

hide laughed hollowly. "It doesn't work that way, kid. What's done is done. You can't break the pact."

"This sounds like I've sold my soul to the devil or something," I said warily, backing away from him. His dangerous expression didn't change.

"Maybe you have."

My alarm must have shown on my face, because he slumped back in his chair and sighed again. "I was kidding. But….the truth is, you can't back out. Not without probably killing yourself. And that would just put your father in a great mood, don't you think?"

Two days ago, I would have said that I didn't matter what happened to my father, that he could rot in hell for all I cared. But now something held me back. Yoshiki wasn't just the distant parent who was never home and held secrets behind the closed doors of his study. Yoshiki was the best friend, the driven band leader, the one who wanted to make his friends happy, but at the same time was so ambitious I could just see that the road he was traveling down would lead him to disaster.

And that disaster led to me.

It was a pleasant thought.

The scraping of the kitchen chair as hide got up startled me, and I focused on him, on the intense dark eyes under the shock of bright pink hair, on the ridiculous fluorescent green and red clothing. He didn't say much, just looked at him, his eyes roving over my face as if hoping to find something there that would give him some kind of answer.

An answer to what, I didn't know.

"Kouki," he said after a minute.

"Yes?"

He offered one hand to me, inviting. "Let me show you something."

There was an undercurrent to those words that somehow troubled me, and I gave him a wary look. "Why should I?" I said.

"Because. Because I want you to understand."

I looked at his hand, then back at his face. The dark eyes were serious, troubled. I was tempted to say no, as I had all those times before when hide was trying to tell me things. No, I don't want this. No, go away. No, leave me alone.

No.

Slowly, I reached out my own hand, put it in his.

There was a pull.

Smoke. Loud music. Voices.

"Where are we?" I tried to say, turning to him, but I realized I had no voice and that hide wasn't there. I reached out my hands in front of my face, watching the smoke pass through my suddenly translucent skin.

Don't worry, he said, and I could hear him speaking to me even though he was nowhere to be seen. We can't be seen. This is not real.

Not real?

You'll see what I mean in a minute. Over there, to the right.

I knew he was pointing even though I could see him, and turned my head to where his outstretched finger was. I saw the top of a head – curly hair, another beside it with long, straight hair. Familiar voices.

See anyone you know?

I focused on the curly head, feeling an eerie sense of foreboding, squeezing between chairs of other patrons to reach that table where he was. Bent down and looked into his face, animated with a light I had never seen.

It was my father.

"-to this band," he was saying, and the man next to him was nodding, and with a start I realized it was Toshi, Toshi with long hair. Both of them looked so young, so hopeful. My father flicked the ashes of his cigarette onto the table. "Consider it. You're the perfect addition."

"I'd love to say yes and make you happy," the man across from him said, "but I need a little while to think about it. You know how it is. Can't be a spur-of-the moment guy all the time."

"I agree," my father said, and it was then I realized the third man, the one who was sitting with his legs crossed, cigarette in one hand and beer can in the other, with a slightly arrogant jut to his jaw, was hide.

I was a pretty good looking guy back in the day.

Whatever, I growled. Where is this? Where did you take me?

1987. Had just met your dad and Toshi. I'd gone to a couple lives and played a couple sessions, but I wasn't official. They were trying to convince me to join X.

"You know, Hayashi," hide said, taking another drag from the cigarette, "you gotta admit that even if I wasn't an official member, I'd stay. I've gone in far too deep to get out now. I've gone to your performances, I've played with the band. It's not like I'll just walk out of your lives tomorrow and never come back. Why don't we leave it at that?"

Yoshiki looked at his drink for a moment, then looked back up at hide, and I saw he had a faint sardonic smile on his face. "Because I don't want a band like that. It's easy enough to walk in and walk out without ever giving that definite answer, and some people think that's all right. I don't."

hide seemed to think about that for a few seconds, then cocked his head to the right, studying Yoshiki's face. "Why does there always have to be this commitment thing? I've never done it for other bands. Why should I do it for you?"

Yoshiki's smile vanished, and he leaned forward. "Because X isn't those other bands. X isn't a part time deal. You do it wholeheartedly, or you don't do it at all. I need to know you'll be here when I need you."

The presence behind his words shocked me for a second, and I thought back to the careworn face of my father behind his desk in the study, at the picture of hide on that desk that was no longer there. There was a conviction in the young Yoshiki's voice that I'd never heard in my father's, a promise of something that I never had.

When I looked back up, hide had gotten up from the table, throwing the cigarette down on it, and Yoshiki looked like he was saying goodbye. On the other side, Toshi looked like he was nursing a mild buzz, staring into the depths of his beer. Yoshiki ignored him, and so did hide.

It was always like that, hide said. Toshi was the odd one out, you know? I really didn't know why at the time. He was a good guy…he's always been a good guy. He's the kind of guy who'd drop everything at a second's notice and go out and do whatever you asked. I guess that was the problem.

You mean he was easily influenced.

You could say that. hide sounded thoughtful, if a little sad. We should have taken better care of Toshi. We used him, really. Yoshiki did most of all, and I don't know if he ever regretted it. For all that he said they were best friends…they weren't really.

No, I said. You were.

He was silent and we watched Yoshiki a little longer. hide left. Yoshiki finished his drink, tapped Toshi on the arm. Toshi said something and Yoshiki shook his head.

They're about to leave, hide said. Enough about Toshi…you talked to him yourself today, didn't you? I figure that told you most of what you need to know about him.

Do you think….? I left the question unasked.

Do I think there's still hope for him? I think there is always hope for anyone who decides to take hold of it.

I turned to ask him another question, but before I could think of the words, I felt the same pull, and the bar and my father and Toshi had vanished.

Someone was playing piano.

What-

Shh! hide cautioned me. I blinked, tried to look around, but it was completely dark and my eyes, used to the dim glow of the bar, were entirely blinded. Just listen.

I stood and listened. The piano's music encircled me and I heared the notes fall like little tinkling droplets into the darkness, like drops of rain on the still surface of a pond, where each ripple would move outward like molten silver, intersecting and intertwining with the other ripples in an almost sexual pattern, like a dance. The rhythm ebbed and flowed, a tide of sound that took hold of me and pulled me into its embrace, and I could do nothing but listen as the piano played out its song, as the notes came faster and faster and more intense, as the jeweled notes became a fountain which then became a roaring waterfall.

I gasped as the music flooded over me, frozen, overwhelmed by the wall of glorious sound that completely enveloped me like a storm, and I felt I was drowning.

Kouki!

The piano stopped.

In the enormous swelling silence that suddenly assaulted my eardrums, I staggered, fell, felt hide's hands under my arms and let him pull me back up on shaky legs that I wasn't sure would support my weight.

I had no doubt that what I had just heard was my father playing piano, the way he used to play piano, before everything. Take me back, I wanted to cry, take me back…I want to hear him…I want…

He doesn't play like that anymore, does he? hide said gently, and if I had been here in the flesh I would have started sobbing again. But instead I just felt the unshed tears sting the insides of my non-existent eyelids and clenched my fists.

No, I said. He doesn't. He doesn't play at all.

I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't have brought you here.

The correct response would have been to agree with him. That no, I hadn't needed that and no, he shouldn't have brought me here. But for some reason, though I still felt like curling up in a little ball on the floor and though my whole body was still shaking, I felt strangely…liberated.

It's all right, I said instead. I wish he…still played like that.

I felt hide smile. I do too, he answered.

I felt him take hold of me and we were pulled again, and when I opened my eyes, it was still dark, but the still, hushed, dark of a night under the stars. I felt trees around us, watching. There was the sound of bubbling water too, somewhere in the vicinity. A fountain?

Yoyogi Park. Nice place to go at night. Have you been?

No. Well, not till now.

He pointed again and I noticed a figure on one of the benches to my left. Head bowed, shoulders slumped, clothes looking like they hadn't been washed in days. I felt the sense of familiarity again, but when I walked closer to look, it wasn't anyone that I recognized.

hide?

The man gave a soft sigh, ran his fingers through greasy long hair, and glanced up at the fountain. I was struck by the utter despair in his eyes, the look of a man who had nothing left to live for but didn't even have the energy to end his own life.

Who's that? I said. I didn't think hide would have brought me to the park to meet some random bum, but I'd learned never to put anything past him.

He didn't answer for a moment, and I thought he hadn't heard my question, so I asked him again. This time I knew he heard, and there was the feeling of him standing very still, listening not to me, but to something else, perhaps something only he could hear, something out of the past. There was something about this man…something…

What do you know about Taiji? he finally said, and I blinked.

Taiji?

Taiji had been the motorcycle gangster, the wildcard, the temperamental bassist. Nothing really, I said. Other than he left the band.

The man raised his gaunt face again, and I blinked.

Well, hide said. Here's your chance. Meet Taiji.

My brain went blank for several seconds and all I could do was stare. No…it couldn't be. The man sitting here on the bench was not the Taiji I knew from what few pictures and interviews I'd read. What happened? I breathed.

We all make mistakes, hide said gently. Taiji just happened to…make them at the wrong time.

Did he fight with my father?

Hide snorted, as much as one could snort without making a sound. We all fought with your father. But I knew when to shut up. Taiji didn't. Taiji had his own idea about the band, and he wanted to run things. Personally, I think that it was best for all of us that he left the band, because he and Yoshiki would have probably self-destructed and left the band hanging if he'd stayed.

You didn't like him, then?

We drifted left, towards the row of trees above the bench where Taiji sat, his head bowed once more. It must have been cold outside, though my ghostly (was I a ghost?) body couldn't feel any temperature, because he was shivering through his ragged jacket. He was so thin.

Don't say that. I miss him.

I couldn't see hide, but I could feel his churning emotions through the space between us, a space so vast it seemed like eternity and yet we were so close that I could almost feel him breathing, feel his sorrow and his tears that he could not cry.

I miss him a lot.

I'm sorry, I said, not knowing what else to say.

He was an amazing bassist. He was a great musician. He just…something happened. Perhaps it happened before we met, perhaps he was at a crossroads in his life and he had to choose. Perhaps it was just that he could not handle Yoshiki. They were too alike. But…in the end, it destroyed him.

I heard in the echo of hide's words a sorrow for someone else, someone who had come to a crossroads in his life and had had to choose, and had at the end been destroyed by it.

I remembered then that Taiji had written Voiceless Screaming, the X Japan song that I'd been strangely fascinated with since I could remember learning about the band. Was that what he had felt like, living with my father?

Yoshiki seemed to have a way of destroying everything he touched.

Looking down at Taiji again, I noticed that under the too-short jacket sleeves, I could see faint scars in the moonlight. Needle track marks.

I suddenly felt sick.

Let's go home, I said.

What?

Home, I repeated, turning away from the sad shadow of the man who had once been X Japan's bassist. I don't want to be here anymore. I can't bear to watch…

Although I couldn't see hide, I knew that he had paused, reached out a hesitant hand towards the shoulder of the shivering man slumped on the bench. The wind changed direction, and Taiji suddenly straightened, turning his head slightly to the right, alert like a watchful bird of prey, and in that moment I could see, under the tattered clothes and the drug addiction, the proud man he used to be.

"Who's there?" he whispered.

I felt a flurry of anguish and regret and knew that hide had withdrawn his arm hastily, turning away. I reached out to him and in that moment I could almost see him staring back at me in the moonlight, eyes haunted.

You're right, he said. We don't need to be here.

The wind died then, and there was the sensation of pulling once more, and the last thing I saw before it took us was Taiji still sitting upright, one hand outstretched slightly towards the spot in which we had stood.

 
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