Chapter 3
Itsuki
“How about this one?” I held up the baby-blue dress in the mirror before turning to face Riku.
He didn’t seem all that interested and continued to scroll on his phone, causing me to frown.
I wasn’t particularly close to anyone in the band outside of Yasu and Riku.
I’d known Yasu since high school, and we’d always been good friends.
He hadn’t even blinked when I got excited about a new outfit.
Riku had come along shortly after we started putting the band together and was always a little more detached and aloof. There were times I’d wondered if he only tolerated me and my eccentricities, but he never told me no when I asked if he would come shopping with me.
Yasu would come with me too, but he’d been in such a bad mood since Mamarou left the band.
Out of everyone he’d known him the longest, so maybe I understood it was like losing a close friend.
I just wanted to do my best to be optimistic that he’d keep in touch, just like Mamorou promised.
None of my other friends had become parents yet; we were all still a bit too young for it, but hopefully having a kid wouldn’t change him too much.
“Riku,” I whined, “come on.” Shaking the blue dress at him.
He finally looked up from his phone and gave me a nod.
“Don’t you already have one like that?”
I held the skirt out to the sides and studied it. A lot of their designs were fairly similar.The problem was that I loved this brand, it wasn’t cheap, but I knew I was getting quality.
When I frowned in the mirror, Riku stood and stuffed his phone in his pocket. “I don’t know why you bother to ask. You’re just going to get it, anyway.”
He was right, but it was fun to get other people’s opinions. I hated shopping by myself and was there anything wrong with wanting someone to give me a little attention?
I went back to the fitting room to change.
The second the heavy material of the dress was over my head, I couldn’t help but stare at my reflection in the mirror.
Not that I didn’t like what I saw. Most days I had no issue with saying that I was Itsuki Kobayashi, guitarist for Pink Cherry.
Sometimes, my body didn’t always feel right.
I didn’t have the words to describe how I felt about myself, but there was an actual reason.
Sometimes I was comfortable in a pair of pants and a fitted shirt, and other times I wanted to prance around in a frilly dress and bloomers.
All I wanted to do was pinch my eyes closed as I trailed my hand down my flat chest. I didn’t want boobs.
I didn’t feel like a girl. I liked the way my body looked.
There was just something off about all of it.
And maybe that was why I’d been so compelled to grow out my hair, wear makeup, and put on dresses.
“Itsuki?”I jumped as Riku called to me from the other side of the curtain.
It wasn’t like I’d been in there for very long, though; maybe it had been longer than I’d realized.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Do you still need me? I need to get to the store and catch the train back to Asakusa before it gets too late.”
I blew out a breath and looked at my reflection one more time. There wasn’t a need to keep Riku hanging around.
“You’re good. Thank you for coming with me today.”
Riku grunted before I heard his feet moving across the carpet of the shop.
Instead of continuing to dwell on things, I pulled my shirt over my head and pulled my long black hair from the collar and adjusted it to sit nicely on my shoulders.
As carefully as possible, I placed the dress back on the hanger. Riku was right that I already had one like it, but I loved these dresses and I was always worried that something would happen to them. It was nice that I could afford to buy them thanks to the band doing well.
After thinking about it for another moment, I draped the garment over my arm and carried it out of the fitting room and over to the counter to pay for it.
The girl standing there gave me a smile as she took the dress from me and rang it up.
The amount was hefty at 85000yen, but worth it.
If anything, it wouldn’t fall apart on me, and I knew it could hold up to our performances.
The brand knew me and often cut me deals since I was a walking advertising campaign.
And this girl knew who I was. She could barely contain her tremors as she took my payment card from me and charged me for the dress. Her eyes watered as she wrapped the dress and placed it in a bag before handing it over to me.
“Itsuki-sama, please have a great rest of your day.”
The smile felt forced. At one point, I’d craved this.
Hell, I’d wanted the attention only a little while ago while my bandmate was still present.
This was different. I didn’t like the way the girl’s eyes trailed my body as I took the bag from her and made my way to the exit.
It made my skin crawl as if something was living beneath the surface.
As soon as the afternoon sun hit my face, I took a deep, cleansing breath.
I didn’t feel so suffocated outside, even though the Harajuku streets were jam-packed with people.
It was always a risk to go out during the day, but I was fairly blessed to look different without my stage make-up on.
Most times I could walk the streets without someone spotting me.
The girl in the shop had been an exception because of how often I was in there.
Plus, she’d seen me trying on the dress. .
People bumped into me as I made my way toward the train station.
All I wanted to do was get home and call Yasu to make sure he was okay.
Tomorrow was going to be a rough day. We’d just lost Mamarou, and the label was already replacing him.
We had the final say with the new guy, but we were all still nervous. It was hard to fix what wasn’t broken.
Mamarou had left a gaping hole that would be impossible to fill.
The second I landed in a seat on the train back to Shibuya, my eyes closed. The day caught up with me, all I wanted to do was take a nap. There wasn’t enough time since the ride was barely fifteen minutes.
Tokyo was nice. Most of us had grown up in the southern part of Japan in Kokura, so living in the city made a lot of things easier.
There were times that I missed my family, but thanks to the bullet train, it was only a four-and-a-half-hour ride.
Though if I were feeling like that was too much, I could fly from Tokyo to Fukuoka and take a train ten minutes to their home.
Before I knew it, the overhead system called out the stop for Shibuya Station.
I stood with the rest of the passengers ready to disembark.
That was the other nice thing; my apartment wasn’t far from the station.
Most things in Tokyo were easy to get to via train, subway, or taxi.
There were times I wished I’d learned how to drive to get myself around, but it seemed pointless with the narrow roads and how congested everything always was.
By the time I made it home, my feet were beyond sore. I kicked off my shoes at the entrance, giving a half-hearted “tadaima,” to the empty space. Maybe one day someone would say something back, but today was not that day.