Like a Demon

It was the night of the final show for Dir En Grey’s tour with Akuma, and the last night they would spend together. Come morning, Akuma would be on a flight home to the United States, and the guys would all be returning home as well. Tonight though, was going to be a non-stop celebration of the amazing tour and experiences that both bands were thankful for, as well as a going away party.

In the room that was originally meant to be a dressing room for Dir En Grey, both bands were packed together, hardly fitting, with snacks and drinks on the tables and music playing. Everyone wore a party hat of some sort, and there were noisemakers in every hand. Even Shinya was getting in on the party action, until his streamer-horn broke. Now he was left with a handheld shaker for a noisemaker that had a dancing bear on it.

“All right! All right listen up! Tonight, we have to put on the best show EVER to play in Japan! In the history of Japan! We are going to be the greatest performance these people have ever seen!” Mei shouted, standing on a table and holding her bottle above her head in a toast. Everyone cheered until she stumbled and fell into Die’s arms, letting him catch her bridal style before they both fell to the ground laughing.

“Then tonight, we go out to celebrate!” Dex added.

“No, we should stay here at the venue as long as possible, and celebrate here. Make our last memories together… the hotels are cold rooms with a bed, with stern staff that don’t want noise. I want something to remember, and I want something that Ray will remember.” Jayne replied. She and Kyo were the only two completely sober ones in the room, other than Ray, who was cuddled up between Toshiya and Shinya on a small couch.

“I agree.” Kaoru nodded and set his bottle down, “But for now, it is time for you to go on stage!”

“Take care of our little boy!” Mei squeaked while Drew tried to carry her to the stage. Kyo and Jayne walked hand-in-hand while Ray got to ride on Toshiya’s shoulders.

When Akuma appeared on stage, the crowd went completely wild, and emotions were already running high. “Thank you all so much!” Jayne laughed into the mic, “Tonight is going to be one for the memories, we aren’t holding back this time! Please help send us off with some real noise! Let go and SCRRREEAAAMM!!!!” she roared, bending down as she roared into the mic, triggering more screams and cheers from the audience as the Dex, Drew, and Mei kicked in, giving an instrumental break while she took her guitar off of the stand and placed it around her neck before joining in to play a set that would rock their whole world.

As Dir En Grey watched the show from the side of the stage they noticed just how emotional Akuma’s members were getting. Drew was slamming against the drums as a few tears leaked from his eyes, Mei and Dex were both so far into their music and performance that they weren’t sure if they even knew where they were anymore, and Jayne had never screamed so hard, or sang with so much power at any other show at the tour.

“As far as Akuma’s goal to make each show better than the last, they have achieved it.” Kaoru nodded, unable to take his eyes away from the band before him. Toshiya nodded with tears in his eyes as the first song ended and they went straight into the second, unable to break to speak to the audience.

After the last song of Akuma’s set, the crowd roared and the band waved their goodbye, and bowed off the stage with tears in their eyes and smiles on their faces. Their dream had come true, and now it was going to end. The term “bittersweet” had never had so much power to them before.

“This was your best performance yet,” Kyo smiled, kissing Jayne quickly. She nodded and laughed with more tears rolling down her face and hugged him tightly before he went onto the stage.

As always Jayne was lost in the music as she watched her friends play as hard as they had. Half way through the set Kaoru brought Ray on stage to play with them one last time, and just like the other musicians of the night, he put his entire being into his performance.

“This is going to hurt,” Dex whined as Kyo silenced the audience and introduced the next song.

“This song was written by members of both bands. All nine of us contributed to this last song of the tour. Akuma wanted to give something memorable for the final song, playing a video in the background that goes to the song.” He explained as Jayne, Mei, Drew, and Dex joined Dir En Grey on stage. There was a second drum kit set up for Drew, and more microphones brought out for Jayne, Mei, and Dex as they stood on their marks.

“This song is called ‘One’.” He Jayne whispered emotionally and let Die, Drew, Mei, and Toshiya play the intro.

It was a metal symphony on stage as both bands played. Behind them on the screens around the arena, scenes of the tour played. Video clips taken by the handheld cameras that different members had with them as they sang of a life united.

The crowd laughed and smiled as a picture of Die, Kaoru, and Shinya sitting at a table came up, with Toshiya and Ray in the doorway behind them dressed as superheroes circled to bring the audience’s attention to them.

There were pictures of Mei asleep, being carried to bed by Jayne, Die, Shinya, and Robert, all four smiling and laughing. A picture of Jayne and Kyo fighting, a video clip of Toshiya jumping up and celebrating his video game victory against Dex in an arcade while Dex put his head down and dramatically accepted defeat. Pictures of Dex in the hospital, pictures of Kyo and Jayne together, pictures of both bands back stage. All memorable moments played out through the song as the bands got more and more emotional.

Mei was sobbing while she played, Jayne was screaming the lyrics as tears poured from her eyes, and Kyo’s performance was very similar. Shinya and Drew made eye contact before their drum duet while everyone else took a break, and played their souls out, both feeling the hot sing in their eyes as “goodbye” came closer. Kaoru shook his hair into his face, hiding his tears from the cameras and crowd, and Die a few times turned his back to their fans to regain his composure. Dex found himself screaming a few times just to let it out, and Toshiya laughed sadly through the whole song, not wanting it to end.

“WE. ARE. ALL. ONE! AND THESE ARE THE DAYS WE WILL NEVER FORGET!” Shinya, Die, Kaoru, Dex, Drew, Mei, Toshiya, Kyo, Jayne, and Ray shouted together as the video came to an end, and the crowd screamed their hearts out.

All ten musicians stood in a line before them, seeing tears in the eyes of their fans as they joined them in their emotional goodbye. Toshiya lifted Ray up to hold him in a tight hug before setting him down beside him and taking his hand as his arm went around Die’s shoulders. Die put his arms around him and Mei as everyone else stood closer together to take their final bow of the tour.

Jayne and Mei both found themselves sobbing on stage, in front of everyone as they held onto the men around them. Before their fans they hugged each other tightly, and walked off the stage.

“They want an encore.” Robert announced.

“So do I… I don’t want this to be over.” Dex laughed.

“So let’s play it again!” Die announced and picked up his guitar. Everyone else agreed and went back onto the stage to play their song one last time before the end of the show.

“This is going to be historical for both bands.” Carl announced to Robert as they stood side by side with Ray, watching them perform.

“Historical, and heartbreaking.” He nodded sadly.

“Something worth some concern on our part that just came to my mind is Jayne and Kyo’s relationship.”

“They are both willing to try for a long distance sort of thing.”

“No, that isn’t going to last. Either Akuma is going to lose their singer, or Dir En Grey is going to lose theirs. One of them is moving to a new country if this goes as well as I think it is. They are actually IN LOVE.”

Robert went silent; he was afraid of that.

One last bow out, and the tour was over. Both bands rejoined Carl, Ray, and Robert for a short while before going back to their room to celebrate, and say goodbye.

Once the crowd left the crew had a surprise for the bands, and brought them back into the arena to see it decorated and ready to party in a MUCH more comfortable environment.

“To the best crews that any band could ask for!” Kaoru announced, holding up his drink as everyone made toasts to the end of the tour. Everyone cheered and joined him, except for Jayne and Kyo, who held up glasses of cola.

“To new lovers!” Shinya smiled, toasting the singers and drinking down the last of his pain for losing Jayne. He saw now that Kyo and Jayne not only deserved, but they needed each other.

One by one toasts were made, until Robert stood up and Jayne’s heart stopped. He wasn’t smiling, and was holding a report from the hospital.

“To good health,” he nodded, and held up the report before taking a lighter from Kaoru and burning it, “and a life without cancer.”

Jayne screamed and tackled him in a hug, thrilled that he was better and that the cancer was under control. Mei, Drew, and Dex joined her and lifted Robert above their heads, nearly dropping him had Kaoru and Carl not jumped over and caught him.

The party continued until they were literally kicked out of the venue. The sun would be rising in a few hours, and the city was already bustling with early morning commuters. “Well, this is it, our last trip to the hotel before we all go home.” Toshiya laughed as they made their way to the vans. “Last trip for now.” Die corrected, “Remember, we are going to be flying out to see Mei’s wedding to Michio.”

“You won’t be in a hotel for that,” Drew cut in, “You will be staying with all of us.”

“And what about Kyo and Jayne’s wedding?” Kaoru grinned, making Kyo choke and Jayne freeze mid step.

“Who said anything about that?” Kyo demanded.

“I think Kaoru just did.” Jayne giggled, taking his arm and pulling him into the van with her.

“HEY! I thought the seating arrangements were Dir En Grey in one van, us and the managers in the other?” Mei questioned.

Jayne just flipped her off and pulled Kyo into a kiss by his shirt, making a few of his band members laugh while hers sighed and climbed into what would have been Dir En Grey’s van. “You can have them.” Drew announced and shut the door, letting the guys ride with the lovers.

Kyo went straight to his room while Jayne took Ray to hers to get him ready for bed. Mei was going to stay with him to give her and Kyo a night alone before they had to say goodbye, and would be in after her shower and bedtime routine in her own room.

Jayne had Ray sit on the bed and watch a movie while she got his shower ready, talking to him about their exciting night happily until he got quiet suddenly. Ray was never one to suddenly fall asleep after a tiring day, so his silence worried her and triggered her motherly instincts that something was wrong.

“If you scream, I WILL pull this trigger.” Thomas warned darkly, slurring his words as he stood behind the bed with his hand over Ray’s mouth and the cold barrel of a gun to the side of his head. Ray was shaking with fear and his eyes were as wide as they could possibly go as he stared at his Mama for help.

“T-Thomas let him go.” She breathed as her heart and lungs struggled to function.

“Why can’t we be a family?” he pleaded with tears in his eyes, “I love you!”

“I… I love you too, Thomas.” She answered, willing to say anything that would calm him down.

“Not as much as you love that chinky bastard, Kyo!” he growled, tightening his grip on Ray and pressing the gun harder to his head, “This is OUR son, and HE is raising him now?!”

“Thomas!” She gasped, taking a few steps closer to her son before freezing in fear as his finger moved to the trigger. “Do you love me, Thomas? Do you really love us?” she demanded, thinking fast over everything she could possibly do to save Ray.

“More than anything in the world, Jayne, please, don’t leave me again! I need you!”

“Let him go, then.” She ordered calmly, closing the gap and putting her hand on his arm that held the gun, while resting her other hand on his other wrist, lowering his hand from Ray’s shoulder.

The gun slipped from the side of Ray’s head as Thomas’ hands moved from his son to the shaking woman beside him. “Let me show you,” he pleaded, backing her against the bed.

“Sh-show me what?” she asked, smelling the alcohol on his breath as the gun now rested against her head while he pushed her to lie on the rumpled blankets below her, and feeling tears form in her eyes as his hand slid up her side.

“How much I love you! I’ll be gentle this time, I promise, but I think we both know you like it rough.”

“Thomas, don’t do this.” She pleaded, struggling not to cry as Ray watched his father undress his mother, struggling to understand what was happening.

Her shirt was completely unbuttoned, and Thomas was working on her bra when she finally went to fight and grabbed his wrist, causing fury to flare in his eyes as he took the gun and aimed it at Ray again.

“Just don’t do this in front of Ray!” she pleaded, “I don’t want him to see this, please!”

“Ray, go wait in the bathroom.” He ordered, but Ray didn’t move. He just stared wide-eyed at his mother, as she lay helpless below the Yelling Man.

“Ray, sweetheart, listen to me. Go wait in the bathroom. Turn the water on in the sink and sit against the wall facing the door, okay baby?”

“Why do you want the water on?” Thomas demanded.

“So he doesn’t hear,” she answered sharply as Ray obeyed and went into the bathroom.

“Close the door!” she ordered, gasping as Thomas roughly removed her bra and moved her to properly lay on the bed, tying her wrists to the headboard with her shirt.

Ray sat exactly where his mother had told him. As the shower caused steam to fill the room. He could still hear Jayne crying but didn’t know why as he leaned against the door behind him.

He thought it was funny that Jayne’s room and Kaoru’s room shared a bathroom at first, but now thought it was a very good thing because he wanted Kaoru really badly right now. However Kaoru’s bolt was locked on the other side of the door, and he was afraid to knock. If Thomas heard him making noise he would kill Jayne, and he knew that. Mr. Tochikura always told him how dangerous guns were, and that you should never touch one because they are very easy to accidentally fire. There were older kids at his school that had a gun once, and the cops took them away because they shot a teacher. After that Jayne took him out of the school and put him in a new school.

He remembered something he learned in school when a police officer came to talk to his class about safety. He said that if a bad person ever came and he needed help where he was hiding, to find quiet ways to signal that something is wrong. The officer told him that if he was in a kitchen, or bathroom, or someplace with water, that it was okay to flood the room then.

He climbed onto the sink and pushed the plug down as far as it would go, and pushed the rug out of the way, up against the door to Jayne’s room as Thomas started making strange noises, trying to block them out. He then pulled the shower knob to just fill the bathtub with water from the faucet, and put the plug down.

Within five minutes the floor was getting covered in water. But Kaoru wasn’t coming to help him. The police officer was wrong.

Feeling completely helpless, he sat against Kaoru’s door and cried.

Kaoru and Die had just gotten back to his room with gift boxes and some wrapping supplies when Die noticed some water on the floor by the bathroom door.

“Kaoru,” he nodded, pointing to the floor, “Did you make a mess?” he teased.

“No, I haven’t been in here since this morning.” He frowned, walking closer to the door. Once he was close enough to hear Ray sobbing, he dropped the gift boxes and fought with the door bolt.

“What’s going on?” Die demanded as he threw the door open, causing Ray to fall backwards into the puddle. He was soaked from sitting in the water on the bathroom floor, but he didn’t care as he threw his arms around Kaoru’s leg and cried harder.

“Ray what happened? What’s wrong?” he asked, pulling him up to sit in a chair as he checked for injuries.

“Th-the bad man came!” he choked, gagging with his sobs.

“Shh, Ray calm down, come on take deep breaths,” Die instructed, not wanting the poor boy to pass out or vomit.

The breathing worked a little and Ray was able to choke out more of the reason he was so upset.

“The b-bad man has a g-gun!”

“Where is your mother?” Kaoru demanded, but his question was answered when he heard one of Thomas’ louder moans and Jayne’s voice softly in the background over the water.

“Die call the police!” Kaoru ordered, but Die was already gone, on his way to get help. “Come on, Ray, it will be all right.” He promised, picking up the distraught boy and hugging him tightly while he followed Die’s path.

Shinya, Robert, and Dex were already in the hallway with Die when he joined them with Ray. Robert jumped and took the boy from him, soothing his tears far better than Kaoru had been able to do as he took him away from Jayne’s door.

“Mei ran to get Kyo.” Shinya nodded.

“The police are on their way.” Die added, putting his phone back in his pocket as Mei chased Kyo to Jayne’s door.

“We should really think about this, if he has a gun then he could kill her! Or you! Kyo would you calm the fuck down?! You aren’t thinking!” she ranted, trying like hell to hold him back, but it wasn’t working.

“If you want to break the door down, the bathroom is closer to the bed. It is literally feet away.” Kaoru announced.

That stopped Kyo from kicking the door down, but only for a moment as he barged into Kaoru’s room, and into the flooding bathroom. Shinya chased after him, as well as Dex and Die, while everyone else waited for the police.

Kyo threw the bathroom door open and felt a whole new wave of fury building in him. Thomas had Jayne on the bed with her wrists bound and a bandana crammed into her mouth to muffle her cries, while he mercilessly drove himself into her, causing her as much pain as possible as he took his anger out on her through his rape.

Without thinking about the gun he darted over to him and grabbed him by his hair, throwing him against the television stand and breaking that as well as the TV in the process. After a few kicks to the chest and ribs, he pulled him up again and delivered a series of pissed off blows to the face, completely losing himself to his rage as he tried to kill the naked man lying before him.

“Kyo, KYO! Enough!” Kaoru ordered, pulling him away from Thomas and shaking him back into reality, “Jayne needs you.”

Kyo took a few sharp breaths as he looked over to see her on the bed, bruised and broken, and wrapped in one of the sheets as Shinya held her shaking form and Die and Dex tended to her.

After one more hard kick to Thomas he walked over to her, taking over from Shinya as the other men backed away and let him hold her.

Tears leaked form his eyes as he held onto her, pressing his lips to her head as he held her as tightly as possible, letting her cry into his shoulder.

“The police are here,” Mei announced quietly from the doorway as a couple of officers stepped into the room, staring in mild horror at the sight before them. One of them called for an ambulance while the other went to talk to Jayne, but Kyo wouldn’t let him anywhere near her.

“Forgive them, you will have to understand that this is a very painful thing for both of them, and it only happened moments ago. We were only able to stop him minutes before you came in.” Shinya explained sadly.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know exactly, Kaoru found her son in their shared bathroom after he flooded it to get his attention, and he said that this man had his mother and had a gun as well.”

“How old is the son?”

“He’s four.”

The officer nodded and turned to Jayne, keeping his distance, “Can you tell me what happened?”

She only shook her head and cried harder into Kyo’s shoulder.

“Ma’am, please, we need to know.” He pushed, not taking her feelings into much consideration until she snapped completely.

“You want to know what happened?! HE FUCKING RAPED ME! ARE YOU HAPPY?!” she screamed, making the officer jump while Kyo held her tighter to keep her from swinging at the police. The officer nodded and turned to his partner, holding a quick conversation before they left her to get dressed.

The rest of the night was spent in the hospital with the police in and out of Jayne’s room. Kyo didn’t leave her side, even when ordered by the doctors so that they could run some necessary tests for rape victims. When they tried to take him out of the room, Die just shook his head and laughed, knowing that there was no force on earth that could get them away from each other right now. Jayne was terrified, and Kyo had let her down to protect her and her son; there was no way in hell he was going to do it again.

“So much for a romantic night together before we fly home.” Mei muttered as she sat outside with Toshiya as he smoked to relieve some of his stress.

“I’m sorry?”

“Jayne and Kyo, I was going to take Ray so that they could have a nice night together.” She sighed, “If I just took him to my room, and let her go to Kyo’s, this wouldn’t have happened!”

“Don’t blame yourself. This is not your fault, Mei.” He frowned, putting out his smoke and putting his arms around her as she started to cry.

“Kyo,” Jayne whispered as they lay together in the dark hospital room. Everyone else had gone to bed hours ago, but he stayed beside her.

“Jayne you need to rest,” he sighed, hating how weak and raspy her voice sounded. Between screaming so hard at the concert, and crying from the horrible crime that had been committed against her, her voice was nearly gone.

“No, Kyo, listen!” She hissed sharply, “I’m sorry,”

“For what?”

“I didn’t fight him. I let him do this to me.”

“Shh, no, Jayne.”

“Yes! I even helped him undress!”

“Why?” he demanded.

“He was going to kill Ray, I had to do whatever it took to save him.” She cried as he sighed and tightened his arms around her, “I didn’t want to do it, but he had a gun, and he was going to kill my baby.”

“Ray is fine, he didn’t hurt him. And I forgive you for this; I could never be angry with you for something like this.”

“There is something else,” she sighed, terrified of what was to come next, “Before you stopped him, he… h-he came twice. He didn’t use protection, Kyo.”

He didn’t know what to say to comfort her, but continued to listen silently.

“I understand if you don’t want to be around anymore, especially if I am carrying his second child. I will miss you, but I won’t hold it against you.”

“Jayne, we didn’t think to use protection either. There is also a chance that you could be carrying MY child.” He muttered, making her heart stop as he tightened his grip on her, “I couldn’t risk losing that. I love you too much and couldn't live without you. As our song says, we are one.”