Pop Rock Love (7 page)

“Wait a minute, you have been
talking so much about Sato that you haven’t even mentioned Yuki. Are you sure
you are not in love with Sato instead?” Shina asked, raising an eyebrow at her
friend.

Mimi stared at her friend,
stunned, “Are you sure you did not put any alcohol in your tea? Of course not!
Who can possibly be in love with such an airhead?”

“That airhead is the reason why
your dear Filth is even worth listening to. And I have seen him in person. He
is handsome. My magazine has been trying to feature him on our cover for ages,
but he seldom gives interviews. I believe the only magazine that succeeded in
interviewing him was one of those global news magazines.”

Mimi snorted in disgust, “He is
better off not giving any interviews, if not, everyone will know what a vile
person he is. Anyway if I talk about him anymore, this lovely cake will start
to taste bad.”

Shina shrugged and passed a
copy of her magazine,
Flash!
to Mimi.
Flash!
was an edgy
lifestyle monthly publication which included dining spots, entertainment news,
street fashion and dating rules –
 
all essentials for the Tokyo urbanite. Mimi flipped through the magazine
with interest and paused when she saw a fashion shoot with the Fire Boys. The
five pop stars were dressed in the latest collection from Y-3, a collaboration
between avant-garde designer Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas.

“They were very sweet, if
you’re curious. Seemed really closeto each other too. The shoot was done about
four months ago,” remarked Shina. Mimi couldn’t take her eyes off Yuki, who was
clad in a deconstructed black jacket and khaki pants. She couldn’t help but
sigh.
 

“I’m not in love with Sato. He
is the kind of guy that just irritates you and you find it hard to ignore him.
But the reason why I am not mentioning Yuki is because I want to forget him.”

“Then why are you still in
Tokyo?”

“Because I still want to see
him. Pathetic, aren’t I?” she said, burying her face in her hands.

Track #5

Yuki sneezed on stage. He
didn’t remember Yoyogi Stadium being so cold before. Together with the other
Fire Boys, they were rehearsing in the 8000 seating capacity arena for their
summer concert, “Burning Up”. Standing on stage, together with the four other
members, the Fire Boys were currently doing a dry run for their opening act.
The problem was, he could not stop sneezing. He hoped he wasn’t coming down
with something, although he did feel a little under the weather ever since he
came back to Tokyo. Maybe he just wasn’t used to the lower temperatures here.
Or maybe it’s because he had been working non-stop, coping with only two hours
of sleep after coming back from his “holiday”.

“Yuki, are you alright?” asked
Jiro. They were going through the dance steps for their new single, “Love Love
Night”. Yuki answered him with three consecutive sneezes. Jiro placed his hand
on Yuki’s forehead. “Maybe it’s hay fever?”

“Do you want to go and see the
doctor?” suggested Makoto, who had rushed down to the stadium after he was done
with his drama filming.

“No, there’s nothing wrong with
me! Let’s continue...” insisted Yuki, rubbing his nose. The introduction for
“Love Love Night” started to blare through the speakers, and the five of them
swayed their hips to the music. The dance routine had traces of finger-jabbing
from the movie, Saturday Night Fever and included various b-boy moves. Yuki and
Naoki were the rappers of the group and were widely considered by their fans to
be the strongest dancers. The other three were in charge of the vocals.
Although they’ve known each other since they were kids, the five of them spent
three years together as a professional group at Fame Factory. Yuki recalled the
previous year to be the most challenging by far, with various troubles and
politics surrounding the Fire Boys. But the members always believed, that as
long as they stuck together, there was nothing that couldn’t be resolved. In
Japan, pop idols were not expected to just sing and dance, but had to host
various variety and radio shows and act in dramas too.

Their latest single was to be
released in music stores in a week’s time and it was the opening theme song for
Makoto’s drama. Pre-order sales have been reported to hit the roof and critics
in the music industry were speculating that it would be their 8th consecutive
number one single. The group had been doing endless media promotions and there
was also talk of an Asia Tour. Out of all the activities the Fire Boys did together,
Yuki loved holding concerts the best. He was pretty sure the other members felt
the same way too. Naoki even took it upon himself to be in charge of
 
the stage direction. It was the only
time they could interact directly with the fans who supported and adored them.

“There’s a television
performance tomorrow at
Music Stage
,” reminded Naoki. “So we’ll pretty
much be stuck at the television station. We’ll return to the stadium at night.”

Their manager, Jun, came on the
stage to talk to Yuki. “The CEO wants to see you tomorrow morning at 8.”

“Yes Jun, I understand,” said
Yuki, biting his lower lip. He caught Jiro looking worriedly in his direction.

*

Mimi arrived home late that
night. The whole house was quiet and she had a feeling that Sato wasn’t home
yet. She should be doing some song writing, she thought. But instead she
switched on the television and turned to the MTV channel. An old music video of
Filth was playing with Shuji singing and looking very beautiful on screen. It
suddenly dawned upon her that she had met her idol. She regretted not taking a
photograph with him even though it would have seemed unprofessional.

“Who cares about looking stupid
since I’m leaving Tokyo in a month’s time?” she muttered to herself. She turned
the television off and sat slouched on the couch. Shutting her eyes, Mimi felt
drained. The sound of a running tap was heard echoing in the house. She quickly
woke up and looked around. The strange thing was, the sound seemed to come from
her bathroom. “Did I forget to turn off the tap?” she thought out loud,
scratching the back of her head. Mimi limped over to her room to investigate.
The bathroom door was shut and the sound of running water was getting louder.
It seemed like she forgot to switch off the bathroom lights too. She pushed the
door open and to her horror, there was a stranger in her bathtub! The
brown-haired stranger had the whole tub filled with soap foam bubbles and Mimi
even spotted some rubber duckies floating around. He was oblivious to her
presence and was even happily humming a tune. Mimi let out a high-pitch shriek
and lost her balance, causing her to fall on her butt on the toilet floor.
 

“Ow!” she cried, holding her
ankle.

“Oh my, are you okay?” the guy
exclaimed, standing up. He climbed out of the bathtub, without a single thread
on him.

Mimi quickly covered her eyes
and started screaming at the top of her lungs. “You pervert! Don’t come near
me! I know Kung Fu!”

She started waving her right
hand wildly around, slapping the air, while her other hand was used to shield
her eyes.

“Calm down, I’m not a pervert!”
he said.

“All perverts never admit that
they are perverts! Go away!”

“What’s going on!?” shouted
Sato who had just come home. He was greeted with one of the weirdest sights
ever. Mimi was on the floor, flapping her hands around and screaming her head
off while his half-brother, Jiro was squatting next to her, butt naked with
shampoo and soap suds in his hair. Sato grabbed a towel and threw it at Jiro.

“Jiro, what are you doing here?
How many times have I told you to call me before you barge in here!” Sato
shouted. Jiro quickly wrapped the towel around his lower regions while Mimi
looked at the producer helplessly. He sighed and walked towards her, carefully
carrying her up in his arms and brought her to her bed. “Are you hurt?” he
asked, looking at her ankle. She shook her head and answered, “Just a little
traumatised,” Mimi turned her attention to the other guy, who had finally
gotten out of his naked state, and was now dressed in a black tracksuit. “Who
is he?” she asked Sato.

The guy bowed at her and said,
“I am so sorry for scaring you. My name is Jiro and I’m Sato’s younger
brother.”

“Half-brother. We have the same
father,” Sato corrected.

Jiro? Mimi wondered why the
name sounded so familiar. She furrowed her brows and tried to recall.

Sato crossed his arms and sat
at the edge of her bed, facing his half-brother. “Anyway, what are you doing
here? Aren’t you busy with your song promotions?” Sato asked, glaring at Jiro.

“Our schedule is packed to the
max, we just finished rehearsals at Yoyogi Stadium.”

“Jiro’s a member of some boy
band called Fire Boys,” Sato explained, turning to Mimi. Her eyes widened upon
hearing this piece of news. Fire Boys? Isn’t that Yuki’s band?

“Is she your girlfriend?” asked
Jiro, sitting down next to her.

“Oh please, since when does
your half-brother have bad taste? Even you are prettier than her,” snorted Sato
in disgust. Mimi was too caught up in her thoughts to answer back.

“But she’s pretty. So who is
she?”

“Just a stray cat I ran over.”

“What?” shouted Mimi and Jiro
in unison.

“What is your name?” Jiro
asked, looking at her unblinkingly with his huge brown eyes.

“My name is Mimi, nice to meet
you. I’m sorry for calling you a pervert...” She thought, at least Sato was
right about one thing – Jiro was prettier than most of the girls she
knew.

“Don’t worry about it. It was
just one big misunderstanding. Mimi, do you know who the Fire Boys are?” he
asked, earnestly.

“Not until I came to Tokyo,”
Mimi answered, truthfully. Jiro jumped up so suddenly that he scared her. He
held his hands up to his cheeks and started to freak out. “Oh no! Big brother,
we are in big trouble! She doesn’t know who the Fire Boys are! Our Asia Tour is
going to be a failure! No one is going to buy our tickets!”

“Calm down! Mimi is just more
into rock music.”

“Really? Mimi, where are you
from?”

“Singapore.”

“No kidding! Yuki, one of my
members just came back from there. What a small world!”

You have no idea, thought Mimi
to herself.

Sato cleared his throat and
raised his voice slightly, “Jiro, you still haven’t told me what you’re doing
here.”

“I made something for you. Wait
here, I’ll get it!” Jiro came back with a black knitted sweater. He placed it
on his brother’s lap.

“Wow, you made that?” said
Mimi, rather impressed. Jiro beamed at her proudly and nodded.

“He can be a little dumb at
times, but he is gifted in knitting, and since he only picked it up less than a
month ago,” said Sato, holding up the sweater, looking bemused.

“Anyway, since I’ll be leaving
for the Asia tour soon, can I stay over tonight?” Jiro asked, looking at Sato
with the sweetest smile he could master.

“No,” was the curt reply.
Jiro’s face immediately fell.

“Why?”

“This isn’t an animal shelter.
One stray cat is more than enough. And besides, I have no time to listen to
your incessant chatter.
 
I’ll send
you home now.”

“Alright then, if you insist. I
was just trying my luck anyway,” said Jiro, shrugging his shoulders. He turned
to Mimi and bowed, “It was really nice meeting you. Please support the Fire
Boys when you can and I hope we can see each other again.”

“It was nice meeting you too.
Have a safe trip.”

Sato grabbed his car keys and
ushered his brother out of the house, leaving Mimi alone. She laid down on her
bed in exhaustion. “I can’t believe this!” she exclaimed, holding her hand to
her forehead. What was she going to do now? Finding Yuki never seemed easier.
But did she really want to see him? But wasn’t seeing him the reason why she
came to Japan?
 
“I’m such a coward,”
she said with a sigh. Mimi stared at the ceiling, searching for some answers.
But all she got was a blank.

An hour later, her mobile phone
started to ring. It was Sato.
 
“Meet
me downstairs,” he ordered.

“Why?” she asked but he had
already hung up. Grumbling to herself, she slowly made her way to the lobby
with her crutches. She was getting quite familiar with them these days. When
she reached the ground floor, a loud car horn sounded. Sato was sitting in a black
BMW convertible with the top down. Mimi limped towards to the car and stared at
it. “This was the car that ran me down!” she shouted, giving it a stern stare.

“Hey, don’t blame Baby. You
were the one standing in the middle of the road,” retorted Sato.

Mimi snorted and got in the
car. “Baby? This thing is called Baby?”

“Why not? It’s more precious
than most humans,” Sato said, looking at her suggestively.

Mimi narrowed her eyes at him
and wondered why he asked to meet him here anyway. “Did you send your brother
home?”

“Half-brother, and of course I
did, I’m a responsible person. He lives near here,” he said, starting the
engine. The engine started to purr.

“I miss my own brother,” Mimi
muttered.

“What?” Sato said.

“It’s nothing. Where are we going?”

“I’m hungry.”

“Oh, why didn’t you eat with
your brother?” Mimi asked.

“Are you kidding me? He doesn’t
eat after 7 pm.”

Mimi had never been in
convertible before. She could feel the wind through her hair and she concluded
that Tokyo looked much prettier at night. A soft rock ballad was playing
through the speakers and Mimi thought that this whole scene would be so
romantic if not for the present company.

“Sato, can I trust you?” she
asked, out of the blue.

“You don’t really have a
choice.”