Chapter 2
Ryosuke
The bitter beer worked its way down my throat as I swallowed another deep gulp, staring at the man across from me.
“I’m serious, Ryosuke. You can’t screw this one up. This is your last chance. Pink Cherry is very tight-knit, and it was a big deal to ask them to take you on.”
The beer bottle made a loud thud as it landed on the table, and I stared at the generic gray label of the Asahi Super Dry.
It wasn’t my favorite, but when I told Toshi that he couldn’t come without bringing me something to drink, I wasn’t about to complain about whatever he brought me.
The brand was popular, but I’d never cared for it.
I would have been much happier had he brought me some hard liquor or something else entirely.
But that had gotten me into trouble to begin with.
Turned out that my contract had a zero-tolerance policy for illicit drug use. All it took was someone handing out a little baggy of pills at a party and Tokyo Roadtrip was no more. It didn’t matter that the guys and I had never been problematic…
Okay, so that was far from the truth. We knew how to have fun.
We’d been kicked out of several hotels for destroying rooms and getting too loud.
Our concerts had a habit of getting a little out of hand, but there was no way that we could control what the fans did.
It wasn’t unheard of for people to thrash around and someone inevitably getting hurt.
Our record was sitting at fifteen people hospitalized after one of our shows.
Maybe that wasn’t a bragging point, but we were loud. We knew how to have fun, and that’s what we’d set out to do since the beginning.
That was also the problem with being part of a band with such a terrible reputation. It hadn’t mattered that I was the only person who hadn’t touched the pills; the rest of the guys had. It was enough for the label to decide that we were too much of a liability and cut us loose.
It was what saved me. There was a reason Toshi stood in front of me, begging me to help this little band.
Their music wasn’t anything like what Tokyo Roadtrip had played.
While their sound was good and they could pull off some amazing riffs, it wasn’t to the same level that I was used to working with.
Then again, maybe I needed to settle for something a little less crazy.
“And they know about everything?” I asked, picking up the beer bottle again to take a long sip.
When Toshi shifted on his feet and refused to meet my eyes, it told me more than his words ever could.
I wanted to throw the beer at him and curse.
It wasn’t fair. These guys deserved to know what they were bringing on board.
Sure, I hadn’t taken part in the pill adventure that time, but it was a part of my past. It wasn’t something I was proud of, and it was why the label had put the zero-tolerance policy clause in the contract.
I would give anything for something to take my mind off things now.
“Toshi—”
He cut me off before I could say anything.
“I know we probably should have said something, but I want you to go in with no preconceived opinions. We ran the drug tests. You were the only one who came back clean. It’s why we’re giving you this opportunity.”
My fingers sifted through my hair. It had gotten long.
Really fucking long, and I could almost pull it back into a ponytail at this point.
I’d never let it get to this length before, but other things had preoccupied my mind over the last few months.
It sucked that I had a history. It was no one else’s fault but my own, but it didn’t change the fact that I messed things up early on.
“I’m not—I’m not going to fuck this up. I promise.”
Toshi only nodded, barely giving me a side-glance before he turned and left my place.
Once he was out the door, I tossed the bottle of beer against the wall, watching as the amber glass shattered and fell into a million tiny pieces onto the floor.
Getting my anger in check was another issue.
I couldn’t just go around destroying things because I didn’t like how things had gone.
Yet here we were. I had broken glass all over my floor and stinky, crappy beer sliding down my wall.
I stared as the dark fluid soaked into the wallpaper before I mumbled a few expletives under my breath and got something to clean the mess. It wasn’t as if someone was around to clean up after me.
The little shards of glass stuck up from the thin slats of the tatami mats that lined my floors, and I sneered at them.
It was something I hadn’t thought through.
I never thought things through. It had seemed like a great idea at the time to have a traditional Japanese home, but the upkeep was more trouble than it was worth.
The idea of being able to vacuum or sweep up a mess quickly seemed more and more appealing with each passing day, and every time I let my anger get the best of me.
I gathered the small trash bin from the kitchen and picked up the bigger pieces of glass, being careful not to cut myself.
I still ended up with a few small splinters, and I would feel those for days as I pressed into the strings of my bass.
Maybe it would be a good reminder to never do this again.
Though this wasn’t the first time it had happened and probably wouldn’t be the last.
My eyes wandered to the stain on the wall. I should probably get a wet cloth to clean the beer off, but again I found my brain drifting to the reminder that I could use this. “Don’t go there again, Ryosuke. You got a second chance when you shouldn’t have,” I said to myself.
I sat back on my heels, staring at the spot a few moments longer before getting up and leaving it. It may have made me look like a slob, but I didn’t care. Not really.
I tossed the broken pieces of the bottle into the trash can before grabbing my pack of cigarettes and heading out onto the little balcony attached to my apartment.
The feel of the smoke burning inside my lungs would ground me, and it did just the trick as I sat on the damn concrete and inhaled the addicting nicotine.
My cigarette dangled from my fingers as I watched the street below me. It was another thing I liked about my apartment. It was located in a part of Tokyo that wasn’t as busy, but I could still see all the unusual people who made their way through the city on a day-to-day basis.
Up ahead there was a group of girls in their school uniforms huddled together and looking at something on their cell phones.
They giggled as they handed their devices back and forth.
It made me think about when I’d been carefree like that.
Of course, my friends had always thought my music tastes were a little strange when my parents had shoved me into private schools thinking that I’d end up being a doctor or something.
The joke was on them.
I had no desire to go down that road. My grades were good, mostly because there was no way I wasted that kind of money, but wasn’t it still a waste if I wasn’t using the education I’d already received?
My cigarette was burnt halfway down before I realized it was still in my hand, and I took another long drag from it.
Little wisps of smoke filled the air as I exhaled before snubbing it out and standing from my spot.
As much as I’d hoped the cigarette would help, it didn’t.
Not out there anyway. Not where I could see all the things I had missed out on and thinking about what it would have been like had I wanted to live a normal life.
A normal life was fucking boring.
The group of girls broke apart, and one of them walked down the road and under my balcony. She had music playing on her phone, to which she was singing along. It took everything in my power not to smile, realizing that it was Pink Cherry, the band that I would soon be joining.
At least they were popular.