A Cacophony of Angels
Part VIII

 
I woke up in the same position and place I had fallen asleep in – on hide's living room couch, his thick blanket wrapped around me, with the sun shining through the blinds and a crick in my neck and a throbbing headache like the worst hangover in the entire world.

Groaning, I pushed the blanket back and put a hand to my face, expecting to feel burned, charred flesh. But no, everything was still there, smooth except for the two-day-old stubble that had started to grow out over my cheeks and my chin. I ran my hand over my jaw, to my forehead, smoothing back unruly hair that was still pink, because I was still hide.

Or hide was me.

Or something.

It hurt my brain to think about it anymore, so I sat up, staring out the window and fumbling automatically at the coffee table for my pack of cigarettes. Miraculously, it was there, as was a convenient lighter, and I flicked the flame close to the end of one of the sticks, leaned my head back against the armrest and took a deep drag of the smoke.

Kouki Hayashi rarely smoked, but at the moment, I needed it.

I hadn't dreamed last night, though I had fully expected to. Or perhaps my adventure through Yoyogi had already been dream enough for me. I didn't know. When I tried, I could hardly recall Taiji's face, but I could still hear his voice.

Don't worry. It's all right.

Yoshiki, I thought softly, then shook my head, stuck the cigarette into one corner of my mouth and set my feet gingerly on the floor. The world did not tip over upside down, so I stood carefully, making sure to hold on to the wall on my way to the door.

Reaching the bathroom, I splashed cold water on my face and stared at my haggard reflection in the mirror, wondering how on earth I was supposed to be presentable in case anyone called. Though not many people seemed to ever call for hide. It couldn't be because he didn't have any friends, because a cheerful, easy-going person like him would be someone everyone would want to hang out with. Maybe Yoshiki chased them away.

I wouldn't put it past my erstwhile father to do something like that. He could get very possessive.

Musing on that thought, I found some bread in the refrigerator and settled down to watch the 9 AM morning news. There was very little going on in the world that morning and even less in Japan, and after about five minutes I flicked the television off and wondered what exactly I was going to do with the rest of my day.

Then the phone rang.

It took me a few seconds to realize it was my cell phone and not the apartment line, and I spent another extra two seconds locating the cell, buried under mounds of old newspaper ads and boxes and trash littering the coffee table.

"Moshi moshi?"

"Hey!" a cheerful voice chattered in my ear. "You're awake! Whaddya know."

I blinked. "Uh…"

A crackle of laughter. "It's Heath."

I blinked again.

"What are you doing right now?"

"Well," I said, a little confused, "I was watching the news and eating breakfast, but it was boring so I turned it off."

"You feel like going out?"

I gave an incredulous laugh. "This early in the morning?"

Heath laughed again. "Why not? It's never too early to get drunk!"

"I don't-"

"Oh, I was just joking." His cheerfulness was almost scary, and I could imagine him bouncing around the room on the other end, putting clothes away, getting ready to step out the door grinning like a million bucks. "I just haven't talked to you in a while. Wanna meet up at the studio?"

"I don't have a car," I hedged.

"No problem," he chirped. "I'll come get you. Gimme ten minutes. See ya."

Click.

I stared at the dead phone in my hand, wondering which bullet train I had hopped aboard and where I could get off, but my confusion was more bemusement than anything. If it had been anyone but Heath, I would most likely have been annoyed, nervous, a little frightened of venturing out into Tokyo again with this façade, but somehow, Heath put me at ease.

I was ready at the balcony in jeans and a sweatshirt when he pulled up into the parking lot in a red sports car, waving from the open window, heavy metal music blaring. I slid into the passenger seat and glanced at him, not surprised to see him wearing a leather jacket, torn jeans, heavy gold rings on both hands, and a cheerful smile under his sunglasses.

"Ready to rock?"

"Where the hell are you taking me?" I said.

He bit his lip, looking uncertain for the first time. "Promise me you won't kill me."

I wondered if I should be wary. "I'm not promising anything. If you deserve to be killed, I'm not going to stop myself. You know that."

Heath sighed, an exaggerated, drawn-out sound. "I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask."

I stared at him.

He finally grinned again. "Geez, you look like you'd kill me regardless. It's nothing – I was going to check out a few things around town for that party we want to throw for the band and Yoshiki and figured you should come along, since you're Yo's best friend and all."

"Best friend," I echoed. "Yeah."

He gave me an odd look. "What, you two had a fight or something?"

I leaned back against the seat, feeling the wind whip my skin from the open window. Heath pulled on to the expressway and the scenery whizzed by, Tokyo in all its glory of gray houses crowded in on one another under blue sky and scudding clouds. "No. We're good."

"If you say so." He sounded dubious, and I shrugged, the American gesture feeling odd in someone else's body. Or was it someone else's body? Everything was blurred and I wanted to crawl back into my cocoon and hide, wanted to disappear suddenly.

"Tokyo's an ugly city, isn't it?" I said.

Heath blinked, caught off-guard. "Huh?"

"It's so drab," I said. "Gray. Like someone just decided to start building random buildings in the middle of nowhere and then decided to mix and match. There's no order. Everything's so crowded. It's claustrophobic, I think."

He didn't say anything, and after a minute, I shook my head. "Sorry."

The dark eyes were unreadable behind the sunglasses. "Say," he said, "I hear there's a nice dance hall somewhere around these parts that's out of the way and won't be crashed by the fangirls. Might be a good place for the party. Want to check it out?"

If he wanted to change the subject, I'd let him. I wasn't sure what had come over me, anyway. Tokyo was the only city that I'd really ever known; growing up in Yokohama barely an hour away, moving here to pursue a music career that I wasn't even sure I wanted then. Wasn't even sure I wanted now.

"Sure," I said. "I wouldn't mind checking it out."

The rest of the morning was a blur of toll booths, open highway, tall buildings, men in smart suits and women at the front counters of reception desks bowing politely, asking if they could have the pleasure of helping us. Mostly we were recognized; I wasn't sure what percentage of the Japanese population actually listened to X, but it seemed to be quite a lot in the neighborhoods that we frequented that morning. I mostly trailed along after Heath, watching from a safe distance as he flew from one place to the next, restlessly impatient, like an eager puppy.

His energy amazed me. He had something about him that was not quite charisma but not quite crossing the boundary of what would be called "hyper" – a simple, honest enthusiasm that I suppose I should have gotten used to at least as the day went on, but somehow, with every word out of his mouth, with every gesture, he surprised me.

Several times, he caught me watching him, and he'd flash me an uncertain grin and I could almost see his eyes crinkle behind the sunglasses before he turned back to whatever deal he was negotiating at the moment. He tried to draw me in, but I extracted myself politely each time.

It might be strange for Matsumoto Hideto to be hiding, but that's what I wanted to do. Go away from the stares and the people, sit by the wayside and just watch. I felt very tired.

Don't worry, Taiji had said. It's all right.

I mused, mentally sliding Taiji's face in front of Heath's, the weathered, skeletal face of the homeless man in front of the suave, smooth, rich face of the rocker. Taiji had been like that, once. I still remembered him that way, the images of him parading before me as Heath pulled in and out of parking lots, drove too fast on the expressway, threw cigarettes out the window and tried to engage me in conversation.

At the last stop, I didn't even get out of the car. Instead, I told him I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep the night before (which was technically true) and that I just wanted to take a short catnap. He left the windows open and went into the shop to negotiate his business.

I was almost asleep when he came back. The sun was warm and the wind was a cool lullaby in my ears, and there were almost no cars coming down this road. I barely heard the car door open, barely felt the vehicle rock as he slid into the seat, and mumbled something intelligible as he shook me, pushing my shoulder with one hand.

"Oi. Matsumoto."

I grumbled.

"That's done. Hungry for lunch?"

Was it only lunchtime? The day had seemed so long already. But I looked at my watch, and yes, it was only a little past noon. He laughed before I could reply.

"You've been drooling in your sleep."

I wiped the offending traces away with a glare that would have been more effective if I'd been fully awake, and he started the car. "Lunch sounds good," I said.

"You're lying," Heath said abruptly.

Unable to come up with a more appropriate response, I said "Huh?"

"Something is wrong with you," he said. "And I don't know what it is, but you've been all weird ever since…you fell down the stairs that day."

"I'm fine-"

"I'll make lunch," he said, and swung onto the road, a familiar road, a road that I realized was the way to his house. If I had been more awake, it would have been chilling.

I saw Taiji in front of my eyes again and shivered a bit in the warm sunlight.

Heath's house was not more than ten minutes from our last stop, and as I swung the door open, he was already bounding down the walk with his keys. Unlike me, the slob, Heath had a real house – two story, with the works. It was small by Western standards, but it was a house, and he was proud of it. I would have never been able to live in a house like that – I could not stand the thought of waking up in the middle of the night, alone in a two-story house with so many empty rooms.

There was always the option of having a roommate, or bringing home a girl, but in the end, it would still be just me alone in the house. I didn't like the thought of that.

I followed Heath into the front door, slipping off my shoes. He was already making a beeline for the kitchen, throwing open the windows and letting the wind whistle into the room.

"Have a seat," he said, gesturing to the table. "And a beer." Throwing me one, which I caught with numb hands. It was cool against my hot skin. "I have some steak."

I watched him rummage around in the refrigerator, humming to himself, and as I popped open the top of my beer can, I finally realized what it was that was bothering me about Heath.

Heath had no layers. All that he was, all that he could be – it was all there at the forefront, in his bow when he introduced himself, in his handshake. It was as if he was saying, I am Heath, someone who has no secrets, nothing to hide, and here is everything that I am right from the beginning.

It was startling, really, because I had been so used to living with the secrets and the guilt and the fear that someday, something might go wrong.

"hide?"

I looked up, saw the plate of beef lowered in front of me, and managed a stammered thank you before Heath plopped down on the chair next to me with another beer.

"Talk," he said.

I gaped at him.

He set the beer on the table with the clunk of aluminum against wood. "Spill," he said. "Something's not right, and I want to know."

I didn't say anything.

He favored me with a long-suffering look, but his eyes softened a bit. "Look. hide. We're not great friends and maybe never will be, but when a fellow band member is down in the dumps and hides out in his apartment day and night, refusing to see anyone, I see it as my duty to help."

"Bullshit," I said, but Heath actually smiled.

"That's more like you."

I rolled my eyes.

"Cigarette?" he offered, and I took one gladly, needing the nicotine to keep my system in check. I didn't realize how much I had been craving it until I took a long, slow drag of it, feeling all that ugly, cancerous smoke swirl into my lungs and yet at the same time somehow clear my head. The smoking would probably kill me one day.

Something about that thought was off, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

Don't worry. It's all right.

"Yoshiki," I said finally.

"I thought so," he said, sounding satisfied. "You two did have a fight."

I shook my head. "No…not really." Placing my hands on the table, picking up my steak knife and stabbing restlessly at the piece of meat with the tip. "Heath…how do you do it?"

He frowned. "Do what?"

I looked up at him, and Taiji flashed in front of my eyes again, melding in a disturbing mosaic with Heath's face and I had to blink, look away. I remembered the heat of his presence, the splashing of the fountains in the dark, his dark eyes asking more questions than I could answer. I had let him down. We had let him down.

Yoshiki had…

"Love life," I said. "How do you do it?"

He looked a little surprised. "Everyone loves life."

"Do they?" I murmured.

He leaned forward, and I did not want to meet his eyes, but there was something again that drew the eye to him, not of charisma but something else. Because he was simply Heath, and he was unobtrusive, quiet, unassuming, and yet so bright. He was something real in a world of imitations.

"I've been the bassist for X Japan for only a few years," he said. "I know when I came in I was trying to replace a ghost – something that can't be done. Ghosts have a way of staying with you, don't they?" Searching my face for some kind of answer. I had to look away.

"He's not quite a ghost," I mumbled. Not yet, anyway. But almost.

"You can deny it all you want," Heath said. "Taiji had many things that I didn't have, and I know that the first year or so, whenever any of you looked at me, you saw him. You heard his bassline, not mine. Sometimes Yoshiki would look at me with something in his face that I didn't like, and then it was like he realized it was me, not him, and he'd look relieved. Like I was something safe, something he didn't have to deal with. I felt like a dog."

An eager puppy…

If we hadn't been so pigheaded stubborn…if we had just taken the time to listen...

"We didn't mean it," I said slowly.

He favored me with a shadowy smile. "It doesn't matter now. I realized in that first year that there were many things I could have done, if I had wanted to become Taiji. I tried, at first, I really did. But then, you know what?"

I didn't say anything for the longest time, staring out the window at the leaves of the tree outside, branches bending slightly in the afternoon breeze.

How did that song go again? I can't remember…

"What?" I answered, finally.

"I'm not Taiji," Heath said simply. "I was never Taiji and I can never be Taiji. So I do what I do best – live every day through, and be Heath."

I shivered, looking down at my feet, not wanting to look into Heath's face and see the truth there. Heath had nothing to hide because he wanted us to know the truth of things, the truth of who he was and what he wanted, and that did not include the memory of Taiji.

"I'm sorry," I said at last. "Do you blame-"

"I don't blame anyone. Not any of you. Not Yoshiki," he said before I could ask, and I could only shake my head at him. Taiji had said much the same thing, and I couldn't understand it.

"Why not?" I said. "Not Yoshiki?"

He smiled. "Not even Yoshiki."

"I don't understand."

"Yoshiki made this band what it is," Heath said. "He might have gone about things the wrong way. And yes, he let a lot of people down. I know you're living afraid he'll let you down, don't you? You're afraid the same thing will happen to you that happened to Toshi. To Taiji. That you won't be good enough."

"He's never going to be good enough for himself," I murmured. "One day…he'll let himself down, and I don't want to think about what will happen then."

Heath chuckled softly, and the sound was so unexpected that I looked up. "One can be many things," he said, "but one can't be God. Yoshiki wants to be God, and he knows he can't do it – but he'll come as close as he can so that he can feel like he means something. That he's worth something."

The tone of his voice caught me. I was used to people talking about Yoshiki with wariness, as if he could even hear from afar though he was not physically present, as if their words would come back to haunt them if they said something amiss about his character. But Heath…

Heath's words had a ring of honesty in them that I realized I'd been waiting to hear for a long time.

"That's why I don't begrudge him anything," he continued. "I hope someday, Yoshiki finds what he's looking for."

He still hasn't, I wanted to say, but I didn't. "I'm sorry," I said instead. "You're worth more than that."

Heath looked out the window. "It's fine," he said at last. "X Japan is X Japan, and I am me. I hope Taiji is happy, wherever he is."

The tears almost spilled out of my eyes then, but that would have been hard to explain so I held them in, blinking them away. "I hope he is too," I said. "Wherever he is…"

He picked up his fork. "Food's cold," he said. "Beer's warm. Damn."

I watched him take a bite of the steak, fumbling for my own fork with my free hand, wanting to just open my mouth and let it all come out, about how Yoshiki, twenty something years later, still had never found what he was looking for. That he was still working as frantically as ever, chasing after some restless dream that in the end was most likely nothing but dust. And that he couldn't stop. Couldn't slow.

That everyone he had ever loved had died.

That I, the man he trusted most in the world, had let him down in the end.

But I couldn't say that, not to Heath, to someone who had shared his view of the world so honestly. I couldn’t burden him with that knowledge, because he was one that had come into Yoshiki's world and had remained untouched, unscarred by the things he had seen there, and I wanted him to have that to take with him when at last he did move on and leave it behind.

Everyone would move on, and someday it would be just me and Yoshiki, the two of us alone, and then it would be just Yoshiki, because in the end, I hadn't been good enough.

The steak was cold and the beer was warm, and we ate in silence, listening to the wind in the trees, except for me it was Taiji's voice again, haunting me. I gritted my teeth, trying to silence the memory of him, and knew I could not. The ghost of him, a ghost that had passed Heath by and claimed the rest of us instead.

Yoshiki is my greatest regret…

 
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