Jet Black

So the television had turned against her after all.

It was like watching a scene from her life play before her eyes, though without the cheesy cliché of slow motion. Those were, somehow, her boys, the boys she grew up with, loved, had been through thick and thin with. But she couldn’t help but notice they looked like they had been through hell and back.

Frank’s hair was long, black, and unkempt. He looked tired, though his puppy dog face housed a smile that she missed more than she could explain. Mikey’s hair, too, was strange, an undercut with a blonde section combed back from his forehead. He wore sunglasses, a fact which puzzled her exceedingly, and he refused to take them off as her sat down. Ray looked much the same, upbeat and cheerful, and for that she was thankful.

And then there was him.

His hair was now a startling red color, a leather jacket sitting placidly across his bony shoulders. He had lost weight, and a lot of it. She barely recognized him anymore, and as he sat, he tucked a piece of his nearly shoulder length hair behind his ear. He looked as if he might snap in half, and the shirt beneath his jacket was obviously baggy against his dainty frame.

“Welcome!”

There was applause, seemingly from every direction, and the four guys waved, some more energetically than others. The camera flashed from face to face, until it landed on the gauntest and, terrifyingly, the most familiar.

The light in his eyes had died completely. He was sallow, with heavy bags under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. He barely smiled, his teeth not even breaking his lips, and he crossed his leg over his left knee, looking uncomfortable in what was usually his spotlight.

“Thank you so much for joining us,” the man in the armchair said enthusiastically, and the band returned his words politely as people shifted positions to get comfortable. Mikey was leaning away from everyone else, whether he was doing it purposely or not, and Ray was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Frank looked the most relaxed, though she noticed his fingers fiddling weirdly with the non-existent collar of his shirt.

“Now, obviously, the first thing we need to talk about is the new album.” Surprising grins spread across just about everyone’s face as the studio audience screamed, immediately lighting up the atmosphere on her television. The talking resumed after the response died down, and the host said, “So it’s called ‘Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys’. “ He took a breath, cracking a grin. “That’s quite the title.” The band chuckled, and she smiled to herself, looking down towards the ground as she recognized Frank’s voice as he started speaking.

“Y’know,” he said, giggling, “It was one of those things that we already conceptualized but hadn’t quite found words for. Someone, had, uh, actually said really early on that that’s what recording an album was.” He tapped at his knees. “It’s a dangerous time,” he continued, “And finally, sometime in July we were approached like, “Okay, the album’s great, but we need a title”, and Gerard just looked up and said, “’Danger Days’. It’s ‘Danger Days’.””

“It’s gotten a lot of positive reviews,” the host acknowledged, and more cheers interrupted the flow of the interview. She noticed Mikey shift to remove his glasses, and he tucked them neatly into the front of his animal print tanktop. “So ‘Danger Days’ is, what, a concept album?”

“Not as much as records we’ve done in the past.”

He had finally spoken up to say something, though she couldn’t tell at first that is was actually he who had spoken. But as his lips moved further, she simply observed, listening. He still used his hands as he talked, still rubbed at the knee of his jeans when he was searching for a word, but it was different somehow.

It was as if something was missing.

“I mean, yeah, I guess it’s kind of got this backstory behind it,” he was saying, rubbing awkwardly behind his right ear. “But in terms of concept albums we wanted to like, ya know, center it around music that, as a band, we wanted to play.”

“It wasn’t so much as we didn’t like our old stuff,” Frank added, looking to his friend for reassurance. “But touring ‘Black Parade’ was exhausting, and when we were done, the dark material just had that weird energy-sucking effect that made us go “What do we do now?””

“So you scrapped the first version of the album, is that right?”

“Well, for the first year,” Frank said, leaning forward. “We actually had this idea of what we wanted the album to sound like, or be like, and we had nearly gotten to the end when we looked at each other and went “This isn’t what we wanted.”” He chewed on his lip thoughtfully. “So it was like we had those three or four songs that held that sound we were looking for, and it took getting rid of that first album to reconvene and just build on what we liked.”

“And now you just like all of it.”

More laughter followed this observation, and the host questioned them again, getting each member to discuss the favorite tracks on the album, and the things they were most proud of. She couldn’t bring herself to look away as each member took their turn, swapping ideas and casual banter as they picked their way through the inner workings of their newest compilation.

“Now, I know this next question may seem silly, but it’s on my card.” The group laughed as the host fixed his notecards clamped in his left hand, and he looked up. “Though it’s obvious that you guys have really come through with this new album and fixated upon this new sound that you like, is there any track on the listing that you would consider your least favorite?”

It seemed like an innocent enough question, and for that fact she disregarded it until she realized that no one had answered right away. So she looked up, and the camera panned out, showing the sudden discomfort in the room.

Everyone was staring at him.

“Seems as if you have the answer to this one,” the host tried to joke, and the redhead smiled feebly, his long fingers folding and unfolding with themselves.

“Ah, well.” He cleared his throat. “To pick a least favorite, I mean.” He was beyond uncomfortable; anyone could tell, but she could particularly. “It’s only the least favorite because I don’t like the fact that I felt the necessity to write it.”

The rest of the band had, at this point, looked away from each other. Frank was now paying attention to very little, or so it seemed. His smile was gone, his fingers had crossed together and he was simply staring down at his open palms. Mikey was determinedly looking anywhere else, and Ray was picking at his shoe with a suspicious determination. But her eyes were drawn to the screen, to him, to where he seemed to realize that he was alone in answering this, and he swallowed.

“We.” He stumbled, correcting himself almost immediately. “Uh, I, wrote a song for the record called ‘Vampire Money’. It’s, uh, well okay.” He shifted where he sat, though his position did not change. “We were asked back in mid...February, maybe, if we would do a song for that movie series Twilight.”

She had now abandoned all other thoughts as she watched him on the screen, her stomach tightening and wrapping itself in a mess of knots.

“At the time, it was a really huge deal because everyone was chasin’ that fucking money, you know?” he said, “And a lot of people who knew us were like, “For the love of God, do this fucking movie.” But we’d grown up.” Frank gave a dry cough, and she could feel her throat close, watching him as he bit his lip. “We didn’t want to be mainstream, or do it to get our name out there again. And some people didn’t agree with our decision.”

She wasn’t quite sure how to react to what he was saying. Here it was, blasted out into the open; the reason she was sitting on her couch, alone, watching him live his dream. It was all because of that stupid movie. Of her. Of her decision to take a risk for her job, for the two of them, and it backfired in more ways than just one.

“I just, out of curiosity, pulled up the lyrics here,” the host said, using his finger to scroll through a page on his phone. “You really hold nothing back.”

“There were people who we thought we knew and would support us in everything we did,” he said. “But they got sucked into the movie’s success, and that was that. We cut them out of our lives and moved on.”

A dry sob fell through the room, and she immediately covered her mouth, her lips trembling pathetically with the effort to hold in her tears. Frank was shaking his head, still staring at the ground. And yet he sat there, with his flaming hair that should have been black, with his lips set in a grim line. Her fingers grasped the remote, fumbling for a moment before the room was plunged into complete darkness, the only sound her quiet crying as her shoulders shook slightly.

She felt as if he had walked out all over again, as if he had simply torn out her heart for the second time. She could almost hear the door slam, hear him tell her goodbye. She could see their last parting, Frank’s hug, Mikey’s expression and Ray’s simple avoidance.

She wanted them back.

She wanted to be on a tour bus again, to throw marshmellows at Mikey while Frank snickered from his bunk. She wanted Ray to sit in her living room and tease her about her carpet while he consistently put his feet on her table. She wanted Frank to curl against when she couldn’t sleep, when she needed her best friend more than anything.

And she wanted him.

Her fingers had blindly reached out, and her tears had unregulated her breathing as she found the plastic of her phone. She didn’t know what she was doing, or why she was doing it, but she had found his number and hit call before she could fully process her actions.

She couldn’t remember it ringing, and she didn’t quite register his half asleep answer before the tears were coming harder than ever and she couldn’t fight out a single word.

“Hello?” his voice was worried, now, louder, more alert. “Hello? Who is this?” She tried desperately to respond, but with every shuddering breath she took, the more constricted her throat became. She had half a mind to just hang up, but she fought to control herself, trying to let him know that she was there on the other end.

“Look, if this is some fucking joke---“

“Gee.”

She sniffed, covering her mouth and biting her lip. She had managed the word, however shaky and choked it had been, and she waited for him to respond.

“Who is this?”

She sniffed again, pulling the phone from her ear and looking at it. She could hear him calling through the receiver, and her finger touched the glowing red on the screen, ending the call with a deadening irrevocability.