Like a Demon

The day after the bands’ eventful night with Thomas, things were tenser than they had ever been. Kyo, Kaoru, Die, and Toshiya were still confused and displeased with the way Jayne’s band had treated her, and had been given no explanation to it yet either. Robert was checking security every three minutes it seemed, making sure everything was covered and that Ray was safe at all times. Jayne had Ray within inches of her at every second, and usually he was in her arms or holding her hand. Mei had been on the phone with Michio since Jayne went back to Shinya’s room the night before. As for Dex and Drew, they hadn’t said a word to Dir en Grey, since they all seemed pretty angry with them, and stayed by Ray and Jayne most of the time.

“This is driving me insane!” Jayne announced finally after they boarded their plane.

“What is, Jayne-chan?” Shinya questioned, unsure of what had caused such an outburst.

“This!” she answered, gesturing to their band members as they sat around them, mainly Kaoru as he sat beside the drummer, still glaring at Drew for hitting her last night, “Everyone is pissed off at each other, Shinya, and it makes me want to jump off a cliff.” She huffed.

Both Kaoru and Shinya tensioned at her comment, and she quickly apologized for it, remembering what had happened on top of that hotel.

“Listen, I know you are all frustrated with how Mei, Dex, and Drew reacted. That’s normal for us, though. I know you’re angry with Robert for not caring, but that’s how we deal with things. We fight, we scream, we cry, we laugh, we’re family, guys. They were trying to remind me that they’re here for Ray and me. Drew didn’t leave a mark, Kaoru, and Mei and I fight like that all the time, we’ve just tried to act more like adults around you all out of respect. Deep down, we are just big children.”

“I don’t agree with the way they treated you, attacking you for something that left you with no fault.”

“I could have let them know how serious it was getting, instead of having them help me hide it as if it were nothing. During that meet and greet signing thing, they didn’t even know what we were talking about. They all just kept us away from fans that would hear it. Ray knew something was wrong and went to ask Kyo for help, but Mei interrupted to take Ray away from the situation. In a way, what happened last night is my fault, Kaoru, I needed a wake up call.”

“But Jayne-chan, that still doesn’t justify Drew hitting you.” Shinya frowned.

“I don’t expect you to see the situation the same way as we do, and I am deeply sorry that we can’t see it from your side… I just don’t want this to ruin the relationships we have built between our bands, and strain the tour. Things are filled with enough stress, just being on tour like this.” She sighed, closing her eyes for a second. “It would kill Ray if we all started to hate each other,” she muttered, not realizing that she had said her thoughts out loud.

Shinya’s frown deepened as well as he watched the few tears she couldn’t stop slide down her face before her eyes opened again with another act of happiness. In the seat behind her, Kyo was sitting with his eyes closed, listening to their conversation as well. Jayne was one of those people who drove him completely insane, just by existing. Yet somehow, she had become a very close friend of his because of it. She called him cute every chance she got, and made fun of how short he was, even though he was taller than she was.

“I wonder what he’s dreaming about,” Kaoru smirked after hearing Kyo chuckle softly.

“He’s probably thinking about kicking my teeth in.” she giggled, turning back to face him and laughing a little herself after his smirk grew, “Or he isn’t asleep at all, and is listening in on our conversation!” she grinned before taking the hat that rested over his eyes and placing it upon her own head, and sitting properly in her seat. “Woman,” he growled, making her giggle.

“Man,” she mocked as he sat up and reached for his hat, but she caught his arm and refused to let go. “If you were any member of my band, or Toshiya, I would have licked you from your fingertips to your elbow at least.” She smirked after he took his arm back and retrieved his hat. “You would lick Toshiya?” Kaoru asked in surprise.

“Only for revenge, in one of Mei’s pictures she was taking to send home to Tochikura’s, he licked my face.”

“It wouldn’t be vengeance, he would more than likely enjoy it.” Shinya explained.

“Who would enjoy what?” Drew questioned after waking from his nap beside her.

“Toshiya would enjoy it if I licked him.” She answered with a shrug.

“You’re going to lick Toshiya?” Die asked.

“No! You all decide to start listening at the worst times, did you know that?”

“Robert told us to watch what we do, because of the rumors.” Drew reminded.

“Robert isn’t here. He’s with THEIR manager, going over some security things.” She shrugged.

“You should lick Toshiya then.” Die chuckled, as if daring her and clearly not thinking that she would.

Drew frowned deeply when he did that, and went to grab Jayne but was too late as she stood up and walked over to where Toshiya, Dex, and Mei were sitting with Ray. “Hey Toshiya, I have something to tell you,” she announced, motioning for him to lean closer to her so that she could whisper in his ear, but when he did she licked him from his chin to his hairline.

“There. We’re even.” She grinned proudly and walked back to her seat.

“Don’t ever underestimate what I’ll do, Die. You still don’t know me.” She smirked as she passed him, and sat comfortably until Ray came bouncing over to her and crawled into her lap.

“What’s wrong, baby?” she asked worriedly.

“He’s mad at you.” He giggled and hugged her, “I came to keep you safe!”

“Oh he’s mad at me, is he?”

“He called you bad names.”

“Toshiya! The kid is telling on you!” Die announced loudly, making everyone except Toshiya laugh until he flipped them all off.

“That’s five minutes in time out when we land!” Jayne scolded.

“I’d like to see you put him in time out.” Kyo smirked.

“I have a kid, I know how to work time outs and grounding.” She shrugged, and relaxed for the rest of the flight as the atmosphere between the two bands lightened.

When they landed Akuma fell into the routine they had quickly put together. Mei and Jayne took Ray to the bathroom while Drew and Dex went to get their gear with Robert to help carry. As soon as all of that was dealt with, Mei, Ray, and Jayne took their own gear and the boys went to use the bathroom and usually find some form of food to munch on.

“What do you mean? … No, no that doesn’t work at all! We have enough security problems for the bands, changing transportation like that isn’t going to help! …. Yes. … Yes, but, … No that isn’t what I was saying. … I understand. … I still can’t let them go through with this, who called and canceled? … No, he isn’t on our staff. … I will ask, but I doubt they have an American handling their Japanese transportation, considering they ARE a Japanese band, and speak only Japanese for the most part. … Then I know for a fact he wasn’t on their staff, they wouldn’t have called in transportation from the US!” Robert ranted, refusing to let anyone know what was going on, or who he was talking to until he slammed his phone shut. “Idiots,” he grumbled before furiously dialing another call.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Mei asked Die, since he was closest to her.

“Something about our transportation being canceled, and an American service being hired. Neither manager knows how it happened, but now we have to wait a while before we can leave the airport.” He answered, obviously bored with the situation already.

Ray after two hours of sitting finally had had enough, and crawled out of Jayne’s lap and walked over to Kyo, tugging on his hand as he stood leaned against the wall, looking out of the window.

“Yes?” the singer questioned.

“Wanna play cars?”

“Not now,” Kyo frowned, and turned his attention back to the world outside the airport.

“Come here, Ray. I’ll play cars!” Shinya smiled, sitting on the floor with him as he pulled his toys out of his backpack to play with. Jayne smiled at the two briefly before continuing to stare blankly at the door.

“Jayne, can I ask you something?” Toshiya asked, surprising her by how serious he was being. His serious tone also worried her.

“What is it?” she nodded, letting him sit beside her in her corner she had chosen to isolate herself and her son. Though Ray decided to find entertainment out of his boredom.

“What did Ray’s father do to you?”

Jayne was silent for a long time; suddenly unable to even look at him as she closed her eyes and thought of a way to answer him.

“Forgive me. It is too personal, and none of my business.” he nodded, bowing his head respectfully as she looked at him finally.

“I’m sorry. I haven’t really spoken to anyone about it much. Enough to tell the band what happened, and why I was suddenly pregnant. I tried to tell my parents, but you see how that worked out. Please don’t think I’m upset with you in any way, Toshiya, I don’t mean it that way at all, it’s just that I have a difficult time talking about him.”

“No need to apologize to me.” He smiled and put his arm around her, “You need to relax though. I know what you’re worried about, we all do. I’m going to join the game of cars, you should join!”

“You’re still on that bet with Dex that it’s impossible to get Kyo, Kaoru, Shinya, Die, you, me, Drew, Dex, and Mei to all play cars with Ray at once, aren’t you?”

“I’m going to be victorious. I have the whole rest of the tour.”

“What are you betting for, anyway?”

“A bowl of ramen.” He grinned proudly and went to ask Die to join, receiving a tired decline. Just to help her friend, Jayne stood up and picked up the little pink drag racer that was often neglected in the boys’ games of cars, and joined the fun.

“I’m starting to notice that we’re more at home in airports than anywhere else on tour.” Drew smirked as he too joined the game. “Well, we spend more time in them than anywhere else… maybe in the venues we spend more,” Jayne shrugged, pretending to crash her car into Shinya’s. “That’s true. Airports sweet airports!” he laughed.