Like a Demon

“Kyo needs body armor.” Die smirked as the singer was hit with another piece of food. Throughout their dinner, Mei, various members of Dir en Grey, and Management had tried to help Ray with his use of chopsticks. However, none were too successful. Now it was Kaoru’s turn, and even he was looking ready to give up. Poor Kyo had chosen to sit directly across from the four-year-old, and had at least a small portion of everything on Ray’s plate bounce off of him.

“He’s doing his best. You have to remember he’s used to a fork… and his hands are little. Maybe with shorter sticks he would do better.” Drew grinned as Ray’s face lit up proudly as he lifted the small piece of fish he had managed to pick up and keep held and showed it off, announcing his victory excitedly. Everyone congratulated him and applauded quietly before bursting into laughter when he dropped it and began pouting in defeat, pushing his meal away and refusing to eat anymore.

“Don’t worry, Ray. You’ll figure it out.” Robert chuckled while struggling with his own set, “Me, on the other hand. I’m too old to learn new tricks.”

“You’re not old, Robbie, you’re experienced!” Ray squeaked to assure him, earning a roar of laughter. “That’s exactly right, Ray-Ray!” Dex nodded, failing to learn to eat with chopsticks, which was the “Akuma Goal” for the tour now, and settling for the fork he was so accustomed to.

The rest of dinner was turned into a serious meeting, demanding from Kyo and Jayne that they have no more fights, or surprise stage displays. Both bands were also asked to be more careful when out in public, to try and cut down on the rumors of who was sleeping with whom. Currently, it was going around that Jayne was dating Kyo but sleeping with Shinya, Mei was engaged back home but sleeping with Toshiya, Jayne and Dex were together, Jayne and Kaoru were together, Jayne and Mei were both sleeping with Kyo, Die, Toshiya, Shinya and Kaoru, and everyone’s favorite –except Drew and Shinya– that the two drummers were lovers. Needless to say, they needed to be a little more careful of how they were seen by the public eyes.

After dinner, everyone went back to the hotel and fell asleep. They had an early morning flight, and Dir en Grey had engagements non-stop until the show. Akuma, only had the show scheduled that day, and they were thankful for that.

Since there was nothing going on until the show, it crept up on the Akuma members faster than they could believe. It seemed one minute they were all annoying the hell out of Kaoru and Toshiya on the plane, and the next they were pacing around backstage, feeling the usual pre-show nerves.

“I’m going to be sick,” Jayne breathed finally, and ran down the hall to the nearest bathroom, pushing Die out of the way in the process, and sending him stumbling into Kaoru.

“She’s sorry,” Mei nodded while closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the wall as she sat with her bass between her legs, leaning the neck against her forehead.

“She looked sick,” Die frowned.

“She is, you know how nervous she gets. She’s probably vomiting until there is nothing left in her stomach.” Drew nodded. Normally he would make a joke about her that she was pregnant or something stupid, but right now he was just as nervous as she was.

“Where are Jayne and Dex?” Kyo questioned as he joined them.

“Jayne is throwing up in the nearest bathroom, and Dex has been missing for almost an hour.” Mei explained, still hiding behind her bass.

“Akuma in five!” someone announced, causing both Mei and Drew to groan and whimper as Jayne returned in search of her mouthwash she carried with her to shows for this exact reason.

“Toshiya said we’d get used to it. Die and Kaoru agreed with him! Hey guys, when are we fucking going to get used to this?!” Dex demanded, appearing seemingly from nowhere.

“You will, just keep with it.” Die laughed after getting the translation. Dex just grumbled and went for his guitar.

“Where have you been anyway?” Jayne asked curiously.

“Fucking around with Ray, playing cars with him and Shinya, and our managers.” He laughed.

“You got both managers to play cars?” she asked in disbelief.

“You know, when you need to distract Ray from throwing a tantrum, people will do almost anything. And when you’re about to piss yourself from being so nervous, it looks like Shinya will sneak some distraction of his own to get your mind off of it. His sneaking led to racecars and Japanese lessons. Oh, and a drumstick sword fight.” He laughed. After a few final minutes of silence, they all took their places on stage and all hell broke loose. There were no nervous meltdowns as they started their first song, and from then on each member of Akuma became the demons they were inside, raging and screaming for the crowd and earning screams of equal volume in return.

“You know… I think we may have to work a little harder on stage now.” Kaoru announced after their third song.

“Why?” Kyo questioned blankly.

“He means if we aren’t careful, this tour will become Akuma featuring Dir en Grey.” Die nodded with a grin before watching Jayne start their final song.

“That was so shitty!” Dex grumbled as he and his band “cheerfully” stormed off the stage after bidding their crowd farewell. To the audience they looked happy as the bounced and jogged away, but everyone else knew different. Something was wrong with the band, and Robert was the first to ask what happened when they went to pack their instruments away.

“Third chorus of that last song I missed three beats! You didn’t hear that? After that I threw Mei off, who missed a string and messed Dex and Jay up!” Drew ranted.

“Not only that, but did you see that stumble half way through the first song? This has got to be one of the worst jobs we’ve ever done.” Mei grumbled, reliving the way she nearly tripped on stage.

“None of us noticed any of that.” Robert frowned.

“That doesn’t matter, Rob, WE noticed!” Jayne snapped and it looked like she was about to cry. That was when the observing members of Dir en Grey became the most confused. Robert started laughing and pulled the whole band into a hug, continuing to laugh as Jayne cried for a very short while before Mei joined his laughter, and Dex and Drew lightened up. Jayne ended the hug, kissing her manager on the nose before flicking his forehead and bouncing away with her band to find Ray for some after-show celebration.

“They all want me to ask you what just happened?” Carl frowned awkwardly, having been caught by Kaoru as he passed by, and given orders to demand a translation.

“We all know how they get over shows, so being so nervous caused them to make a big deal out of everything.”

“That’s a lie. We all know them better than that.” Kyo argued, nodding to Carl to translate so they could have the real reason.

Robert sighed heavily and started laughing and shaking his head, “Fine, but it’s on your heads.” He sighed, still chuckling, “Jayne’s on her cycle, it must have hit today. When she’s this on edge, the whole band gets upset and snaps easily. They all may as well be suffering from the same thing. It’s the same if Mei has it.”

“Cycle?” Die asked in a short moment of failure to realize what was going on.

“Idiot, Jayne is menstrual.” Kyo informed, letting Die earn a chuckle from his fellow guitarist as his embarrassment came and went within seconds.

The next few minutes passed lightly before Dir en Grey went on, making the crowd scream ten times louder than Akuma had.

“Just to let you know, Kyo, Die, and Kaoru know about your condition.” Dex yawned as his band chilled out and waited for their Japanese friends to finish their show.

Jayne’s eyes went wide before she stormed off to find her manager. “Way to throw him under the buss, jackass.” Drew smirked as they followed. She found him watching Dir en Grey backstage; clearly unaware he was about to suffer.

Kyo had just finished one of his longer screams and was pausing for air while Toshiya entertained the crowd when he noticed Jayne out of the corner of his eye, beating Robert with a drumstick. He was on his knees, and at first he wondered why no one was helping until he also noticed that both were laughing. He became more confused when she took Robert’s folder and started scribbling on it with a marker he always kept.

“Kyo pay attention!” she yelled while holding a sign that read the same thing. She then pointed at Kaoru who she knew wouldn’t be happy if he missed his queue, which was only a few beats away.

To her relief he jumped right back into the song and finished out the show without any problems. That didn’t stop her from slapping him, and punching Die when they got off stage though.

“The show was so horrible! I missed a note! The entire tour is ruined!” Die whined in his most feminine voice.

“I almost missed my queue, I can never sing again!” Kyo joined, obviously vexing her.

With a grin, Toshiya tossed a box of tampons her way, letting it bounce off the back of her head as she punched Die as hard as she could in the shoulder.

“If my job wasn’t dependant on NOT harming you, I’d shove that box up your ass, Toshiya!” She growled, whipping it back as Dex had a fit of laughter in the background. “He could easily play Bass with a box up his ass, he doesn’t play with that part of his body.” Kaoru remarked, sending Jayne into her own fit of laughter. He usually didn’t join in the teasing, and was often the voice of reason, but when he did finally tell a joke, they killed her just from the shock of hearing him say something like that.

“GUYS!” Drew shouted suddenly, interrupting the fun for a moment.

“What?” Jayne and Dex demanded in unison while the guys of Dir en Grey continued to goof off while somewhat paying attention.

“Mei wanted me to let you know she had to take Ray to the bathroom. I just got a text saying they’re lost.” He informed.

“Mei lost my baby boy!” Jayne shouted dramatically, still laughing hard enough to cause a bit of pain as she and Dex said goodbye to the band and went to find her son and bassist. They would meet at the night’s hotel room, if the guys were still awake when they got there.

“What would you do if I wasn’t your manager?” Robert asked with a sigh as they all rode back to the hotel, four hours later.

“Still be searching for Mei and Ray?” Dex questioned.

“Be shit drunk, in the living room?” Mei smirked.

“No! No! We’d all be dead by now, or at least one of us would have killed the other.” Drew corrected.

“We probably wouldn’t be on tour with Dir en Grey.” Jayne beamed.

“That wasn’t a serious question, you nerds.” He chuckled.

“Victory! We’re here! I want to go break into Toshiya’s room and see if he really does sleep naked.” Mei grinned before slowly crawling out of the van, trying to keep Ray asleep.

“He probably does. The question can you resist molesting him if you saw him sleeping like that?” Dex smirked. “I have a boyfriend!” she squeaked. She would have shouted, but Ray was asleep in Jayne’s arms only a foot away from her.

“Yeah, so? If I were a chick, or gay, I’d do it,” He laughed.

“That right there is why people spread rumors! That could be all over the place by tomorrow morning!” Robert scolded, ending their joking as they finally got to the elevator.

Once they reached their floor, Robert led them to their rooms. Dex and Drew in one room, Jayne and Mei in another. As soon as she hit the pillow after changing Ray into his nightclothes, Jayne was dead asleep and cuddled up with her son. Mei took a picture with her cell and texted it to Michio before crawling into her own bed and passing out from exhaustion.

The next morning was madness. Ray was cranky, and refused to get dressed to go to the airport. It was no later than five in the morning, and he hated flying. Jayne was exhausted still, and Mei hadn’t gotten off the phone with Michio since she woke up two hours ago. Dex was asleep in the hallway outside his room, using his bags as a pillow while Drew played some game on his phone.

Ray, however, was lying in the floor of the room he shared with Mei and Jayne, throwing a tantrum because he didn’t want to go on the airplane.

“Please, Ray, PLEASE! Just get up so we can go! You can sleep more when we get to the airport!” Jayne begged, but he just screamed more that he didn’t want to fly anymore.

After half an hour of fighting with him alone, she got a little help from Shinya, and surprisingly, Kyo. “Ray,” Kyo demanded firmly, ordering the defiant child to look at him, “This is NOT going to continue!” he scorned, making Jayne flinch as she expected him to worsen the meltdown.

“I’M NOT GOING!” Ray shouted, kicking at him until Kyo grabbed a hold of him and forced him to stop.

“You are showing disrespect to your mother, and her band, and Robert. Not only them, but you are disrespecting us, as well!”

“I HATE YOU!”

“Kyo, just stop, it won’t help.” Jayne tried, but was hushed by Shinya who was standing calmly beside her. “I think he actually knows what he is doing.” He nodded as Kyo continued to stare down the four-year-old.

“Get up.” He ordered.

“NO!”

“That wasn’t a request, Ray. Get up, we are leaving, apologize first.”

“YOU apologize.”

Kyo took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second before exhaling and looking at Ray with full understanding. “I know this isn’t easy, all right? We don’t like waking up early, and flying to each show, and listening to all that noise all the time, either. We don’t like having to pack, and unpack, and then pack again, and we don’t like sleeping in different beds every night, but it is a part of our lives. Your mother is trying very hard to let you have fun while she works, but this is her job, Ray. You have to understand.”

Ray stayed silent and continued to pout.

“Ray,” Shinya called softly, coaxing a small glance from him, “When you behave this way, it hurts Jayne-chan too. She doesn’t like to see you cry, and feels that she is hurting you when she has to drag you to your feet. It also makes her look like a bad mother to other people. Do you want them to think that she is a bad mother?” he asked.

More silence.

“Two minutes!” Robert announced from the hall.

“If you respect us, and your mother, you will stand up and finish getting ready.” Kyo nodded, “Do you respect us?”

Ray nodded sadly as a few more tears slipped down his face. “Good, I knew you did.” He smirked, resting a hand on his head.

“Thank you,” Jayne breathed as they left, both nodding to her as she grabbed what was left to grab before picking her son up and carrying everything out.

To everyone’s surprise, Ray was silent for the rest of the morning. He wouldn’t even answer questions about what he wanted for breakfast; he would only nod yes or no and that was it.

He ended up sitting between Jayne and Kyo on the plane, and finally opened his mouth half way through the flight.

“Are you mad?” he asked quietly, just above a whisper. Both Kyo and Jayne looked down at him questioningly, but he seemed afraid to look back.

“No, of course not. I would have been furious with you for acting like such a child, but you are supposed to. You’ve only been alive for four years.” He nodded.

“Mama?”

“Baby, I’ve never been mad at you like that.” She smiled, kissing his head and making him smile.

“I respect you, Kyo.” He announced, looking hopefully up at the singer.

“I respect you too. Now get some sleep, this is actually going to be a long flight.” He nodded before pulling the hood of his sweatshirt down, and dosing off himself. In fact, the only person who didn’t sleep on that flight was Mei, who was busy keeping in touch with Michio.