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As with "Diamond Dust," most of the background material for this came from the Perfect Exclusive Interview with Yoshiki. All of the members of X Japan belong to themselves. Though I've tried to characterize them as how I think they'd be, I'm not implying that this is the way they are in real life.
Please C&C at lordofmerentha@yahoo.com
A Cacophony of Angels
--Taiji, 1990 When I closed my eyes, I still saw Taiji standing there in the park, reaching out his hand for someone…anyone… He'd known hide was there. I realized I was shivering, not from cold but feeling more like I had a fever. Looking around, saw that the screen door to the balcony was open. I hadn't opened the door. "Damn you, hide," I muttered, endeavoring to roll over and get up to close it, but my legs buckled under me and I collapsed on the floor again, staring up at the ceiling and resisting the urge to yell at it. I didn't think cursing the ceiling would do much good. Taiji's eyes burned into my memory and the image of him, standing there, looking so lost and alone and hopeless… I shook my head violently. It wasn't my place, I told myself. I wasn't really hide, just standing in for him. I never had known Taiji…he was none of my business. No. I sat up suddenly, staring at the wall as if my eyes could somehow see through it if I tried hard enough, the screen door forgotten. I had to do…it was something I had to do. Not just for hide, for myself. Taiji wasn't just a phantom from my father's past to be forgotten. My father had hurt him, and somehow, someway, there had to be something I could do to make things right. It's a stupid idea, Kouki, said my brain. But it's the right thing to do. Before I could think any more about it, I grabbed a jacket from the couch with one hand and my keys and wallet from the table with the other, heaved myself to my feet and hoped my legs would hold this time. They did. I stuck my feet into my shoes as I ran out the door, hopping down the stairs, trying to shove my recalcitrant toes into the scuffed leather sneakers, scanning the street for a taxi. hide lived on a rather quiet street in a select neighborhood, which I suppose was good for him because he had a car and knew how to get around the streets of Tokyo by himself. But I'd only been to Tokyo once, according to my father, and I didn't remember it at all because I had been too young. I'd come with only my mother because my father was too busy with work to see his family. There were supposedly photographs of that trip, but as my father had either thrown away or locked up all the photographs of my mother since she died, I hadn't ever seen them. In any case, I had no idea how to get to Yoyogi, and damned if I was going to drive and get lost and get in some accident while going there. I could see myself trying to explain that to Yoshiki. I just wanted to go take a walk in the middle of the night. Yeah… The apartment complex was fenced in and I let myself out, heading in the direction of the loudest roar of traffic. Belatedly, I wondered if there were any fans lurking in dark corners at this time of night waiting for their favorite celebrity to take a walk, then decided I was being crazy. The small road opened out onto a broad street that probably was the main road through the neighborhood during the day, but it was almost deserted now. A lone car passed, its headlights blinding me, and I blinked in the afterimage of the glare, still seeing those faint shimmering…things…around everything. I shook my head in irritation. Damn hide, my brain said, and I agreed wholeheartedly. Taxi! I waved frantically and the green car coasted to a stop, door swinging open. I got in clumsily, banging my head on the doorframe. Apparently I still wasn't used to hide's height. The driver cleared his throat. "Err…" I said. "Yoyogi Park, please." If he'd been a New York cab driver he'd have given me several deep thoughts to mull over during the drive about how only bums and drunks and junkies frequented the park at this hour. But he was a Tokyo cab driver, Japanese to the bone, and didn't even give me a raised eyebrow in the mirror, but simply started the counter and pulled away from the curb. The radio was on and I watched my reflection in the glass and what little I could see of the passing landscape as the DJ chattered on about how robots were the next big thing in technology and in ten years, Sony or some other big company would have perfected a robotic helper design so that housewives wouldn't have to vacuum the floor themselves. "Oh yes," said his listener, and I could imagine him bobbing his head enthusiastically in the manner of all Japanese television hosts, gesturing with his hands. "Isn't technology amazing?" The moon was bright in the sky tonight. I realized that I hadn't stopped to reflect on the fact that Taiji might not be there in the park anymore. With all the time traveling we had been doing, hide could have very well taken me to some time in the past, and perhaps Taiji had found his way out of the park, was doing fine now… Somehow, though, I knew that wasn't true. The other scenes, the other events, had taken place earlier in time, but from hide's reaction to seeing Taiji there, from Taiji's instinctive reaction to hide's presence even though we couldn't be seen…it had to have been real. The cab rolled smoothly through the darkened streets, and I could tell that we were emerging into Tokyo's center as the traffic steadily increased and the lights became brighter and more numerous and the buildings grew taller. I saw a small archway spanning the approaching street and squinted to read the green, lighted letters decorating it. It was in English. HARAJUKU The cab rolled to a stop three blocks later, and I paid the driver and dragged myself out of the cab. The wind was chill and I shivered through my jacket. Suddenly this didn't seem such a good idea. You wanted it, and now you're going through with it. Stop getting cold feet, Kouki. Shut up, I told my brain wearily, knowing for once that it was really Kouki Hayashi's own conscience speaking to me and not some vestige of hide's. It was getting harder to distinguish between the two now, but this was definitely just me. I bumbled along, trying to look like I knew where I was going. I remembered reading something about how Harajuku and Shibuya, its neighboring town, were the bastions of teenage rock music fans, and I wished I'd remembered to bring a hat or a jacket with a hood. But it was too late for that now. I kept my head down and stayed in the shadows, hoping no one would catch the flash of pink hair and assume anything. About five minutes later, I found myself on one of the concrete walkways spanning the streets, and looking around, I spotted the tops of what looked like a vast forest of trees. That must be Yoyogi Park. Taking the stairs down, with what looked like a huge dark stadium on my left and the trees on my right, I wound my way around a brick walkway and through a gate. I heard the splash of water. My heartbeat quickened and I swallowed, adjusting my jacket again and shoving my hands in my pockets, walking towards the sound of the water. The park was dimly lit and deserted, unsurprisingly. I found myself following the sound of water along a winding dirt road, dark trees crowding around me on all sides. My skin prickled. I wasn't usually a timid soul and my friends and I had had plenty of fun in dark alleys and abandoned buildings when I was younger, but this was a different kind of darkness – breathing, waiting. Alive. The dirt path ended at the edge of what appeared to be a small lake. Looking hard in the moonlight, I could see dark spots in the moonlit-silvered water which were probably water spouts that would produce fountains in the daytime, but apparently the fountains were turned off after a certain time at night. I stared at the lapping surface of the water for a split second longer, then shook myself and began walking along the edge of the lake. It hadn't been next to a lake that we'd seen Taiji…though he might have moved in the meantime. The lakeshore opened into a wide sort of wooden boardwalk and patio, and my footfalls on the planks were muffled in the stillness of the night. Looking to my right, I spotted another set of fountains, these enclosed in a set of square concrete pools that stretched into the distance towards another archway which I assumed signaled the end of the park in that direction. In the shadows under a stand of trees next to the pathway by the first pool, I saw someone sleeping. I swallowed and made my careful way towards the sleeping figure, feeling the darkness pushing me back like invisible tree branches, slapping me in the face, wrapping around me and barring my way, growing roots under my feet and trying to trip me as I walked. Fiercely, I ignored it. The sleeping figure stirred slightly as I stopped by the stand of trees and bent over and squatted down, trying to see the sleeper's face. Matted hair covered his face, but I could tell from the frame and the way the tattered blankets wrapped around his too-thin body that it was a man. "Wake up," I said, and then clapped one hand to my mouth, not knowing where the words had come from. My brain felt muzzy, and the shimmer around everything, especially around the sleeping man, became slightly brighter, as if little fireflies were twinkling around the edges of my vision. The sleeper stirred, rolling over and brushing the hair out of his eyes and face. He sat up. "I knew it was you," he said. We stared at each other for a second, the rock star and the homeless man, once two friends on the same playing field, now strangers across time. The sound of the water in the pools behind us splashed softly against the sides of its concrete prison, and the wind sighed through the trees. The shimmer in my vision seemed to be holding the darkness at bay, but I could feel it trying to break free, straining. It was Taiji's eyes again that caught and held my gaze, heavy with sleep but still fiercely bright, the only part of him that didn't seem to have been ravaged by the lifestyle which he'd chosen after he had left the band. They roved over my – hide's – face, taking in everything with one glance, but didn't look away. "I…" I said. "What are you doing here?" Taiji said, and the bluntness of his tone wasn't anger or shame or loathing. It was a question to an intruder, someone who wasn't supposed to be there. Well-dressed, well-fed, and warm, before him I still felt very small. "I…" I said again, and suddenly it was as if I was speaking with two voices, both my own in different ways, but one of them was Yoshiki's son and the other was the dead man's who had been Yoshiki's best friend. "I wanted to see you." Somehow, Taiji felt the change, because he stiffened and his eyes on me grew fiercer, brighter, like a wolf's. If he had fur it would have been standing on end. "Who are you?" he whispered. The question hit me like a punch in the face, and I staggered slightly, turning my eyes away so I wouldn't have to look at him. "How are you doing?" I said instead. He laughed softly, acknowledging my dodging of the question and not pressing the issue. "How does it look like I'm doing?" I closed my eyes. "Why are you doing this to yourself, Taiji? Why don't you…" I didn't finish the sentence. I wasn't sure what I wanted to say. "Get help?" He snorted derisively. "I tried. My wife left me, you know. I lost my house and my possessions…living on the streets took some getting used to, but it ain't bad." He cast me a look and I could hear the dripping sarcasm in his tone. "Stop lying to me." "There's nothing to lie about." He spread his hands. "All you see is all there is. What are you doing in a place like this anyway, at this time of night? You're famous now. Isn't that what you wanted?" He was goading me. I wouldn't have it. I sighed. "I didn't come here to pick fights, Taiji." The already thin frame seemed to deflate even more. "That's all you and the others did, you know. Pick fights. I don't need ghosts from the past visiting me, Hideto." "Maybe not," I countered, feeling the word ghosts flitter past me on the breeze, touching my cheek like a wisp of chill air. "But I said I wanted to see you. And I meant it. This isn't about how I found you or what happened in the past or anything like that. I just wanted…while I can…to say I'm sorry." I could feel him suddenly stop, his thought processes grabbing that one phrase and trying to understand it. "You? Sorry?" "Yes." There was a shift of something inside of me, and I knew that I was speaking for more than just Kouki Hayashi in that moment. "I am sorry." Taiji took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, raising his face to the pale moon as if seeking the words to say. I waited. "All I wanted, in the end," he said, "was to…" He stopped, looked at me helplessly. "…come back," I finished for him, feeling the echo of two voices again. He looked away too, and the pressure of his eyes eased. What could I say to that? He was right – he couldn't come back, because Yoshiki hadn't wanted him. And there was nothing I could do about that. "But don't feel sorry for me. I really don't blame you or all the other members of X for what happened to me. Don't…" "Not even Yoshiki?" I questioned. Taiji was quiet. The wind rustled the trees again and a few dead leaves blew past us on the pathway, swirling around my ankles and disappearing into the night. "Yoshiki is my greatest regret," he said at last. I whipped my head around, and our gazes locked again. "Explain," I said, in a voice which was more eager than I had anticipated it being. "It's probably not a good thing for you to hear me talk about him," Taiji said, rubbing his nose with dirty fingers, "you two being such good friends and all. Bad karma and all that." My legs were getting tired from squatting and I supported myself with one hand. "No. I want to know." He looked away. "If we had both been a little older," he said. "If we had both been a little wiser. If we hadn't hurt each other…" His eyes shifted to a spot in the distance beyond me, and I jumped as the fountains sprang to life behind me, twisting around to see the spouts of water shoot high into the air above the concrete pools that held them, jet streams of liquid silver in the moonlight. Little droplets sprayed onto my hands and my neck and face, and I brought my hands out in front of me marveling at the seeming miracle of water that clung there. Taiji smiled. The fireflies at the edge of my vision danced. "I miss you," I whispered. "If we hadn't been so pigheaded stubborn," he went on, seeming not to have heard my confession, "if we had just taken the time to listen-" his voice stopped and I jerked my eyes away from my hands and saw that he was tense, trembling, and not from the cold. "Taiji." "How did that song go again?" he whispered, wrapping his arms in their tattered, dirty sleeves around himself. "I can't remember…" "Taiji." A shower of sparks went up before my eyes like fireworks and I felt like I was being ripped in two. I gasped, falling to both knees, clenching my fists and doubling onto myself as the presence that was me and yet not me at the same time buckled, tore, struggled free, and suddenly in front of my eyes I could see another hide. Nearly transparent, hardly there, but hide. "Taiji," he said. Taiji didn't move, but he had stopped trembling and was now just frozen, standing absolutely still, as if he was afraid to turn around. The transparent hide took a step towards him and held out one hand hesitantly. I felt like everything around me was burning, the trees and the path and the water burning with the intensity of a thousand suns. I couldn't breathe. "I miss you," hide said. Ever so slowly, Taiji's head came around, those eyes drawing themselves up to meet hide's. hide waited. "Who are you?" he said again, and suddenly that bright gaze shifted to me, piercing through the suffocating smoke of my vision, and I felt my head clear. "I'm Yoshiki's son," I said. I saw the confusion and incredulity in Taiji's face, and suddenly I smiled, not knowing why I did so, only that I had come here for a reason, and that reason was to make things right. "It's all right," I said, and I could hear hide echoing my words. Don't worry. It's all right. Taiji raised one hand, a stiff jerking motion that seemed to be a battle between his mind and his heart, and then the figure of hide standing in front of me made a hoarse noise in his throat and grabbed Taiji, holding him fiercely. The world was on fire. Don't worry. It's all right. Don't worry. It's all right. Through the roaring in my ears and the near-blindness of my vision I was crawling forward, crying, feeling rather than hearing the slow tick of my tears on the path, still feeling the cool droplets of water spray onto my neck. I needed to keep moving, keep moving or else…or else I would… "Taiji," I croaked, and my throat was burning too just like everything else around me. I tried to move my mouth again, to say something, but my muscles were no longer working and I collapsed onto the ground, still knowing that I couldn't stay here, had to get home again somehow…had to…. Everything around me exploded, and I screamed.
"Kouki." I couldn't move my arms, but I could breathe. Why was that odd? I hadn't been able to breathe before…right? Oh…yes, there had been a fire, a fire and an explosion, and I was… "Kouki. Oi." A slight shake of my shoulders and I groaned, tried to roll over and met the stout back of a couch. I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was the pink hair and then the rest of hide's face swam into view, looking pale and exhausted but relieved. "Good. You're still alive." "What…happened?" I said shakily, and he closed his eyes and shook his head. "You fucking idiot. What'd you go and do that for?" "What?" "You know what!" I clutched the blanket that he'd wrapped around me to myself, looking at him with frightened eyes. Distractedly, I noticed that I didn't seem to be injured anywhere, despite what had just transpired. I was just very tired. "I don't know." He looked angry, and I shook my head. "No, I really don't. It was just…I had to do it. I don't know why. But I had to go back there. I couldn't leave him just like that, you know, standing there…like that." "You were the one who wanted to leave the first time. And then you go back? Do you know how dangerous that was? If I hadn't been there with you-!" Some part of me realized then that I had taken matters into my own hands, and in this time warp, that wasn't such a good idea. Would I have somehow changed history? Would I have been erased? Would the entire future of the band have been altered? I met hide's dark eyes and he scowled at me. "Promise me you won't try that again." "I promise," I said shakily, but he didn't stop scowling, just shifted it from me to the wall. "Baka." "I'm really sorry," I said again humbly. "But you know why I went. Admit it. You know." He scuffed the floor with one toe, and I realized that this was the first time I'd seen hide when he wasn't absolutely sure of himself or his plan. "I know," he said in a voice that was barely audible. "I couldn't believe it when I figured out where you'd gone…I went to the park to pull you back…and then I couldn't leave." I nodded. "I'm the one who should be sorry, really, for pulling you into all of this," he continued solemnly. "I didn't realize you'd have my-" "-emotional attachments?" I finished. "I don't regret it. Taiji was…he was important to all of you. Wasn't he?" I remembered the world bursting into flames around me when hide's hands touched Taiji, a flood of emotions too long locked away. "Even my father. He was very important to my father." "Yes," hide said at last. "He was. Very." We didn't say anything for a long time and I watched the clock above the fireplace, listened to it tick in slow circles second after second, time slipping away. It was almost 3 AM. "Kouki?" His voice startled me and I glanced at him. He was sitting with a funny look on his face, head propped in one hand, elbow on right knee. It was a calm kind of expression with a half smile, the kind of half smile that people smiled when they didn't want to be caught crying. I wondered if it was because hide couldn't cry, or if he didn't want to in front of me. "Don't worry," I said. "It's all right." I caught the faintest glimmer of unshed tears in his eyes, and then he took a deep breath, blinked, and they were gone. "Thank you," he said. "I…owe you." "It's nothing," I returned, and he smiled. I felt my eyelids getting heavy. "It's been a long day. I'll see you tomorrow." A whisper of a nod, and then he was gone, the lights turned off with a flicker, the wind coming in through the screen door that was still open. Listening to it rustle through the treetops, I closed my eyes and imagined I could hear the faintest echo of fountains and a shimmer of piano melody, and then Taiji's voice. Don't worry, he said. It's all right. |