A Cacophony of Angels
Part XI

 
The thing Yoshiki was doing as we locked the car and headed inside the building could be called a version of a run-walk, with emphasis on the run. He was holding the door open for me as I caught up to him, looking very put-out by the whole situation, was already run-walking to the elevator as the door slammed behind me, and I lengthened my stride, dashing after him, wondering if his potential clients were safe. From what I knew, when Yoshiki was upset, he went off like a rocket.

The elevator ride up to the sixth floor was silent except for the hum of electronics, the tapping of Yoshiki's foot furtively against the metal of the elevator deck. I did not look at him. There was a nice view of the downtown Ebisu area out of the glass-fronted elevator, and I busied myself with that instead, squinting into the distance to see the skyscrapers of Shinjuku.

"We're here," his voice said from behind me, and I turned as the doors opened and almost rammed into him.

"What," Yoshiki's voice grated, "are you doing here?'

Pata stood quietly as the doors opened all the way, hands in his pockets, looking very out of place in the elegant, modern lobby in jeans and an old t-shirt. His eyes smiled at me, and then darted back to Yoshiki, placid as always. But there was something in the air that I'd never felt around him before, something in his face that was hard and set and just as stubborn as the blond man standing before me, blocking my way out of the elevator.

"Yo-chan," I said softly, "the doors are going to close."

I could see a muscle twitch in his jaw, almost thought he was going to stand there and let the doors close on Pata's slightly frowning face, but then he gave a great heave and stepped out. It was like he was crossing an invisible boundary line, a country border.

"Hello, Pata," I said.

I thought the two of them would face each other down in a staring contest, but to my mild surprise, Yoshiki did not even glance at the other guitarist, simply took off down the hall. I could hear hurried steps, the sound of surprised voices, the slam of a door. I blinked.

"It's my friend," Pata said. He sounded almost apologetic, and it took my brain a few seconds to figure out that he meant the artist who was making so much trouble for Extasy. "I thought I'd come. You know, for support."

I scratched my nose. "That was a bad idea," I told him.

He smiled calmly. "For Yoshiki, maybe. Not for me. Yoshiki can't tell me who I can be friends with."

I had a retort on the tip of my tongue and swallowed it. It was Yoshiki's temper wearing on me, I told myself, and dug in my pocket for my pack of cigarettes instead, feeling the itch between my shoulderblades that meant I needed a smoke, and badly. I offered one to him, but he waved it away, staring out the window. I lit the cigarette and stuck it in my mouth, glancing at Pata's profile and then at the closed door down the hall, behind which my friend was surely wreaking havoc.

"You should go with him," Pata said. "Don't mind me."

I hesitated two seconds, and said "I don't think so. Not today."

"One of his moods again?"

I laughed and took a long drag of the cigarette. "Something like that. What's Yo got against your friend?"

"Who knows, these days?" Pata muttered darkly. I frowned at him, about to remark that that hadn't been an especially Pata-esque statement, but then he brightened. "Nice day, though."

I blinked, then grinned. "You got that right."

We stood in comfortable silence at the window, watching the Shinjuku traffic from great heights, cars and scooters and trucks snaking in and out through the labyrinth we called Tokyo, that we called home, a private world revolving in isolation, time suspended. I could stay here forever like this, I thought fuzzily, something nagging at the back of my mind that I had something important to do here, that I didn't belong here and that this was only temporary. I leaned against the side wall, trying to capture whatever it was, but the nagging would not respond, slid out of my grasp when I thought I almost had it.

"You ok?"

"I've got a headache," I muttered, massaging my temples with my fingers, and the thought slipped away quietly and vanished.

"My friend's got some real good headache medicine he swears by, if you want me to get you some."

"Your 'friends'," I said mock-disapprovingly, "have a lot of 'medicine' you're always trying to get me to try. No thanks."

Pata shrugged nonchalantly. "Suit yourself. I think this one's mostly legit."

"I'll pass, thanks."

Silence, then he said casually, "You know, I wasn't just asking about right now."

"What?"

"If you were ok, I mean," he said.

I took a deep breath, staring at the cigarette between my fingers as if it could somehow give me all the answers I was looking for. "Pata, have you ever...felt like you were somewhere you shouldn't be?"

"Oh all the time-" he began, and I cut him off.

"I mean, say you'll be standing here in the middle of some office building lobby, and then you suddenly get this feeling like you just shouldn't be there. Something like that. Like you've taken a wrong turn somewhere and got lost and wound up here and didn't even realize it."

Pata crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the opposite wall, tapped his foot against the carpet a few times, looked up at the ceiling and back down at the floor, and then looked at me. "I take it you're talking about yourself."

"Maybe I'm crazy-" I said, and he smiled.

"Matsumoto, if you're crazy, then we're all crazy. Look at Yoshiki."

I forced a laugh. "Maybe. I don't know."

"You've been strange ever since that accident. Actually I take that back. You were acting strange that day too, come to think of it. You sure you haven't been talking to those friends of mine?"

I looked at Pata sharply. "The day of the accident? What do you mean?"

"I guess you don't remember that either." He looked up at the ceiling again. "You were mostly just distracted, which isn't like you at all. Kind of like how you've been all this past week. You kept starting sentences and wouldn't finish them, and then once you took me aside and asked me all these questions about time travel. I tell you, it was a bit bizarre." He paused. "You know, I think I will have one of those cigarettes."

I pulled the box out of my pocket and offered him one, and the lighter. He blew the smoke out in a long, slow breath across the room and regarded me solemnly. "Then you go calling me last night all philosophical again, like you've seen some premonition in a dream and you want to make your last amends before you die." I must have jumped, because he fixed his eyes on me suddenly, frowning. "You haven't been having weird psychic dreams, have you?"

I gaped at him. "What the hell are you talking about?" I sputtered, more because I could think of no other response through the shock. Who would have thought that Pata, of all people, would believe in what was actually happening to me?

"Wife's into all that astrology stuff," he said offhandedly, then rounded on me again. "You listen to me, if you're having some of that weird shit, you seriously need to come over. She's got a bunch of books and things."

"I don't know if I-," I began incredulously, then stopped, suddenly realizing that here was a key to one of the many locks chaining me in place, dangling in front of my face if I was willing to take it. If I could somehow explain to Pata what had happened to me, who I was, what I was doing here, then maybe he could help hide, sort things out with my father, and get me home-

Kouki, you know I'd like you to follow me into the music industry. I know I haven't been the best father-

The sense of vertigo hit me again and I staggered, banging my head against the glass, grasping onto that sharp throbbing because it was the only thing I could hold to at the moment that I knew to be real.

I've spent the last five years wondering why there's a picture of a dead man on your desk when there isn't one picture of me or Mother around this house. You love hide more than you love me!

"hide!" Pata said sharply, grasping me by the arm, and it was only then I realized I'd spoken out loud.

"Kouki," said a voice softly from behind me, and I went limp, falling to my knees because my muscles had suddenly lost their will to stand. Pata's hand let go of my arm with a sharp motion almost like he was flinging me away, backing away to the wall, cigarette dangling from his fingers almost forgotten, his eyes wide with shock and something akin to terror. I didn't have to turn around to know who the voice belonged to.

"I'm losing myself," I told hide quietly, putting one hand to my head.

"I'm sorry," he said. I felt a ghostly hand on my shoulder. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

"Wait," Pata whispered shakily. "You're - but you....which....how...?"

hide's hand dropped from my shoulder and I watched him move forward from my half-squatting, half-sitting viewpoint, which meant that I was watching his legs and shoes come into view and stop a few centimeters from the corner of my eye. "Hello, Pata."

"Fucking hell," Pata said.

"No, not quite like that," hide said patiently. "Meet Hayashi Kouki. He's eighteen, or will be in 2019."

I took a deep breath, blew it out slowly, shakily, leaned my head between my knees on the window glass and stared blurrily at the moving objects below. Cars, I thought to myself. Cars. They're cars. "hide? What's happening to me?"

The man whose body I now belonged to dropped down on his knees beside me, head on a level with mine. "Funny," he said. "I'd forgotten how high up this place was. Strange seeing all those cars down there."

"Stop fucking with my head," I said wearily. The throbbing had returned in full force from when I'd banged my head against the glass, and I reached out a hand, touched the slight bump. "I just can't take this anymore."

"You have to, Kouki."

"I don't have to anything!" I cried, rising from my squat and slamming my hand against the window, . "Forget this! I quit!"

I expected some whirlwind to fill the room and suck me into whatever vortex I'd created by saying those words. Perhaps it would spirit me away to some kind of purgatory for lost souls, or maybe I'd be damned to eternal hell for not filling my part of the bargain, but I didn't quite care at the moment. My muscles tensed, waiting for the crack of the gun, the shattering of some invisible bond, but nothing happened.

I was still hide.

"I told you," hide said quietly. "You can't break the bond until it's broken. You promised."

"Yeah, so does everyone," I shot back. "Taiji promised he'd stay. Toshi promised. You promised!"

He staggered as if I'd physically hit him. "That's not fair," he whispered.

"A lot of things aren't fair," I continued ruthlessly, staring down those dark eyes in the not-quite-living face. "That didn't stop you either."

"All right," hide ground out, his mouth set in a thin line. It was the first time I'd ever seen him truly angry, even after the stunt I pulled with Taiji. That was a mix of fear and relief. "I was stupid. I paid the price for my stupidity, and this is where it's got me now. You happy?"

"You're still lying to me," I told him, knowing in my gut that what I was about to say was entirely true. "You didn't just bring me back to see my father. You brought me back because you were going to try and change the past. Weren't you?"

He balled the fingers of one hand into a fist. I could see it clench, could see the effort it took him to hold it back and not let the punch fly. I didn't see why, as we'd already figured out he couldn't touch me and I couldn't touch him, at least not like proper human beings. We stood there, staring at each other, me breathing hard and him trying not to hit me, until at last he flung the hand down and turned his back to me, channeling his rage into the corner.

Yoshiki is my greatest regret.

I turned my head with an effort, leaned against the window again and looked down at the highway. "Forget it," I told him softly. "It's not like it matters now, anyway. I'm still stuck here, and you're still dead."

Someone gasped, a sharp sound suddenly muted, and both of us turned, my heart sinking into my stomach. I'd forgotten there was another person in the room with us, and apparently, so had hide.

Pata.

"He's...dead?" The guitarist looked from one of us to the other a little dazedly. "I don't understand."

In two strides, hide was away from the wall and at Pata's side, hands outflung at his sides in a grand gesture of begging forgiveness. "Look, Pata, this isn't what it-"

Pata said, "I know you. You're hide." There was conviction in his voice, a statement of fact, and the dazedness had gone from his face to be replaced with a matter-of-factness that was somehow comforting. He looked at me. "Then who's he?"

I glanced at hide and saw him looking back at me, unrepentent, face mullish and closed, pale in the glow of the ceiling fluorescent lights.

"I'm Hayashi Kouki," I said wearily. "Yoshiki's son."

 
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