My little Girl - the GazettE - Aoi -

Am I allowed to be nervous? Is it okay for me to feel like this? I shouldn’t be nervous to meet my dad. A dad whom I’ve never met before…

Well, technically speaking I do know a little about Aoi, at least what every other fan knew, so I’m kind of being a bit of a dram queen at the moment. But still man! I’m totally nervous! What else am I supposed to feel? Excited perhaps –I kind of am, I guess-, scared –not really, I don’t think that’s the right word.

Would anxious be the right word? Yeah that sounds good. I’m anxious.

I released a shaky sigh and glanced out of the airplane window; the clouds over the Pacific Ocean looked so soft and fluffy, I wonder what it would be like to lie on them? Painful, probably. I’d go right through and smack down on the ocean, worst belly flop ever. No, starch that, Alex performed the world’s most painful belly flop last year when we all went swimming at some pool that I couldn’t remember the name for the life of me. I winced at the memory; all you could hear was the smack when he landed gut first in the water, he miserably failed at trying to do a flip off the seven foot diving bored.

I wonder how my friends are doing anyway…

My heart contracted a bit in my chest when I thought of my three friends. God I miss them. I wish I could text them or something but a few days ago I got my phone disconnected seeing how I won’t be needing it anymore. Thankfully though I was still allowed to keep the actual device. My orange Blackberry has been my life for over the years, and I’m pretty sure Carlie would kill me if I got rid of it seeing how we swapped backs, I have her purple back and has my orange one. Hollowed colours. I really wish I could talk to them, I couldn’t even when I had my stopover in Toronto (switching terminals is a snot, I just made it when they started boarding) I never had anytime. Now I have to wait until I get to Japan and back home.

Home.

See, when I think of home I think of icebergs, whales, and my grandparents’ house. Now Japan is my home? I never thought I’d be calling it ‘home’ so soon. Like six years from now, when I move out. I suppose it’s a head start. A new chapter in my complicated life.

At that moment I was pulled out of my absent daydreaming when I heard the captain on the speakers, I paused my iPod –Decode blasting through the devise- and listened to the captain announce our arrival in Tokyo, it took me a minute to switch between languages. I glanced out my window and I seen the island appear from under the cotton clouds, we were close enough to the ground from me to make out the buildings and parks and…. Is that Tokyo Dome?

As we began to descend even more I felt my ears begin to pop and I could now see the traffic on the streets and the sun’s reflection on the glass windows of a few buildings. The closer we got to the ground, the more nervous I got and I absently began to flick my tongue agents the metal in my upper lip, playing with my Monroe piercing I got for my birthday this year along with the adorable baby harp seal charm on my cell phone. I played with the charm and my piercing as we got closer and closer to the ground.

Now I could see Tokyo airport, the plane circled around for a moment as I watched other planes take off and land, the size of the building looked to be about the same size –if not a bit bigger- of the one in Toronto. An hour or so and I’ll be with my dad. I squeezed the seal charm a bit tighter.

The nose of the airplane turned down slightly and slowed as I watched the runway came closer and closer to the plane. A sharp thud erupted once we landed and the plane rumbled as it began to stop. Once the aircraft slowed down it started to circle around for a moment before pulling up to the designated gate. About five minutes later I seen people start to leave the aircraft, I garbed my purse from under the set ahead of me and fowled the crowd out and said my good-byes to the kind flight attendants.

Seeing how I have no clue where to go I kept on fowling the swarm of people hoping that it would lead me to the baggage pick-up where friends and family waited patiently for their loved ones to come.
As it turned out I was a good idea to go with everyone else; ahead of the much taller people than me I seen many other people waving to us, and few souls ran out of the group and hugged their family. I smiled at them.

And speaking of family, where is the man who was supposed to pick me up? Mrs. Bishop said that the Social Worker that they have been working with in Japan would be meeting me and driving me to Aoi’s.

I glanced around the body filled room and tried my best to stand on the points of my toes to give myself another inch or two as I made a pathetic attempt to see over the people ahead of me. But that never helped and I went back to the flat of my feet. I scraped and pulled my lip ring with my teeth a few times as I began to feel a bit light-headed.

Thankfully though before I could really start to panic the man ahead of me moved out to the side, revelling a few people who held signs with names. One of witch, thanks be to God, had my name on it. I quickly walked over to the man who held the sign.

As I walked over to him he gave me a friendly reassuring smile, he was quite tall with dark brown hair and forming stubble on his face, he looked to be about nearing his forties. Once I reached him he set down his sign and held out his hand. “Hello Skylar-chan, my name is Toshi Kudo, I’m the Social Worker who has been working with you father you. It’s very nice to meet you.” He said in English, it was easy to tell he was struggling a bit.

I reached over and shook his hand –much larger than mine, I might add- and returned his smile. “It’s nice to meet you Kudo-san.” I replied in Japanese and giggled a bit at the relief that washed over his ageing face.

Kudo-san released my hands and picked up the neglected sign and a black briefcase. “Did you have any other luggage with you?” He asked in Japanese.

I shook my head. “Just this.” I shrugged my shoulder that my purse was on.

Kudo-san chuckled a bit at me. “If that’s so then lets get going.”

I smiled a bit as well and followed him towards the exist.

~*~

“So, Skylar-chan,” Kudo-san started. “How was your flight?” he asked.

I took my gaze out of the window and turned to him. “It was alright, but very long.”

Kudo-san chuckled. “That has to be the worst thing about flying.”

I laughed a bit to. “I find it’s the worst when your ears pop. Everyone says that yawning or chewing gum will prevent it but it never works for me.”

The Social Worker nodded. “I agree, but they seem to fade rather fast for myself.”

“You’re lucky, my ears will stay popped for hours.”

“Are they still?”

I sighed. “Yeah, everything sounds weird.”

Kudo-san smiled again then turned his focus out on to the road ahead, as I went back to staring at the trees and tall buildings out my window. We had to have been driving for over a half-hour by now and we were in a very high class looking area of the city. Each apartment complexes got taller and taller as we drove by, and all of the trees were now street decorations, they were all perfectly aligned with one another and trimmed to the point. I never saw anything like it before; it was all quite overwhelming.

“Um, where exactly does, uh, Yuu-san live?” I asked.

Kudo-san glanced down at me. “Hmm? Oh it’s not much further.” He said. “It’s a very lovely neighbourhood, isn’t?”

I nodded meekly. “It’s very… fancy.”

Kudo-san chuckled. “Quite. Ah!” the Social worked made a sudden turn to the left. “This is Shiroyama-san’s apartment.”

I suppressed a gasp as we turned into the tall complex. The building was gorgeous. It was tall and rectangle shaped with the sides smoothed and curved, and there were more windows than wall on the outside.

‘Well,’ I thought. ‘He is famous after all.’

Kudo-san made a few more turns around the building until he reached the –at least what I assume to be- visitors parking witch was located near the side of the apartment.

The Social Worked turned the car into a packing spot and turned off the engine and began to gather a few things around him. Once he was finished he turned towards me with a reassuring smile. “Are you ready?”

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly and blinked a few times before I nodded. “Y-yes.”

Kudo-san gave me another smile before stepping out of the car and closing the door behind him as he came around to my side and opened the door for me. I took another deep breath before stepping out on shaky legs. Kudo-san closed the door behind me. “It’s okay.” He comforted

I nodded and started to play with my lip ring again. “I’m ready.”

Kudo-san once nodded before he began to walk to the building with me following and in less than a minute we were going through the complex doors and into the foyer. I quickly found myself looking all around the lovely entrance and to the very modern furniture, from the stain-less steal and dark wooden front desk, to the black leather couches and low glass coffee tables. The decorators did a fantastic job.

“This way.” Kudo-san called out to me, I never even released I stopped walking. I quickly hurried up to him as he waited in the elevator, holding the doors so I could come in.

Once I stepped inside the steal box he released the doors and pressed the twenty-fifth button and I felt the elevator rise. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly. In and out. In and out. ‘This is it.’’ I thought.

After a too short and too long of a minute, the light at the top of the doors blinked for the twenty-fifth floor and the doors opened to the hall. Kudo-san stepped out into the hall first with me not far behind as I followed him down the much to long hall.

It didn’t take him long though to stop at a wooden door that was the third from last. I felt my legs shake under me and I did my best to keep myself from wavering. ‘Oh God. Mom, please help me.’

Kudo-san looked down at me. “Are you ready?” he asked and placed his hand on my shoulder.

I took a deep breath and swallowed. “Yes.”

Kudo-san gave me an encouraging smile witch I couldn’t help but return. He took his hand off my shoulder and raised it to the door and brushed his knuckles off the chestnut wood.

Knock, knock, knock.

There was a scurry on the other side; someone’s feet were shuffling quickly across the floor in a hurry to reach the door and to us. I smiled a bit at that.

The silver door-handle turned down and the door slowly opened into the apartment, time in that moment seemed to be moving at an extremely slow pace.

Soon though, the figure on the other side began to be revealed. He had on black jeans, a light grey long-sleeved shirt with chains around his neck. His hair was –obviously- not styled like what it would be when he was on stage, but it was easy to tell that there had been effort put into it to make it look nice, but not over the top. There was no make-up on him and it only took me a second to process his face in my mind. I really did look like him.

As I stared up at him he stared back at me. I knew he was doing the same thing I was, inspecting the foreign and similar face. I knew, though, the one thing he was looking at the most was my eyes. Mom’s eyes. They were familiar to him. But everything about him was both familiar and strange to me. I knew Aoi, but not father.

It only took him one word, one word to ease my nerves. Even though I heard his voice thousands of times over and over again, even though I knew tone like any other fan knew. But this time, it was like I was hearing him speak for the first time. I never heard him sound so different, so… Joyful.

“Hello.”

And at that moment I realised that this was his first time truly seeing me. His first time knowing me. He’ll know one me and not see two of me. There is one Skylar for him, but for me, there is multiples of this man. Aoi, Yuu, and dad. My hero, a stranger, and family. But I knew then to that I’d get to know all of him, because at this moment, I just meet my father.

I smiled back at him. “Hello.”