Voice

The young vocalist could feel the burning in her throat as the tears pricked the back of her eyes. Her head was bowed down, her eyes staring at the guitar she held in her hands, her fingers picking skillfully at the strings. She was doing her best to ignore the burning sensation and the tears that wanted to spill over. But even if she could ignore the pain, she couldn’t ignore the sound. Every time she opened her mouth to sing, she could hear the scratchy and raspy tone of her voice. And she knew that everyone else in the room could hear it too.

“Stop, stop.”

Haruna heard that familiar phrase, the one she had come to dread. She had started hearing it a lot more often these days. Their manager, Eisuke, would stop them in the middle of practices more now than he ever had in the past. Haruna knew it was completely her fault too. If only she could sing again like she once had…

Haruna’s playing came to a stop, her mouth closing and her hands falling away from the guitar she had strung around her neck. She could hear her bandmates come to a stop as well, a soft shuffling going on around her. She let her eyes drift up, looking across the room at their manager. Eisuke coughed lowly, pushing himself out of the chair he was seated on. He crossed the room halfway, coming to stand only a few feet away from Haruna.

“I’m sorry, Haruna, but this isn’t working. I think you need another break.”

“You’re wrong,” Haruna said quickly after she had heard the words. Another break? That would be the third one in the hour and a half that the band had been practicing. Haruna had never needed so many breaks so quickly in all of her years as a musician, and she certainly didn’t need them now. “I’ll be fine, let’s just keep practicing.”

“I’m afraid that I cannot allow that, Haruna. We need to take extra care of your voice; I can’t allow you to push yourself too hard. Take a break and rest your voice, we can pick this up in a bit.”

“But, Eisuke--”

“That is not negotiable,” Eisuke said quickly, ending the singer’s sentence abruptly. “You will be taking a break even if I must drag you out of this practice room myself.”

Eisuke didn’t like being so harsh with the girls, but he didn’t have a choice. If Haruna wouldn’t listen to him then he needed to make her listen. Often times, the singer was a stubborn one and Eisuke would usually just let her do things how she wanted them but that couldn’t happen this time. If Eisuke allowed her to do that, she’d make her condition even worse. She was always too focused on her bandmates and her work to ever take notice of when she was working herself too hard.

Haruna could hear a nervous coughing beside her. Her eyes snapped over to the blonde guitarist that stood to her right. Mami was looking down at her guitar, her fingertips messing with the tuning on the neck of it. She was doing her best to pretend like she wasn’t listening to the awkward exchange going on between Haruna and Eisuke. The singer knew that her other bandmates were doing the same thing; they always tried to pretend they weren’t listening when Eisuke and Haruna went at it like this.

“Fine,” Haruna grumbled in frustration. She pulled the guitar strap over her head before setting the instrument down onto its stand. Without another word, she pushed past Eisuke, the manager letting out a soft and dejected sigh as she did so. He didn’t mean to upset her but he couldn’t just sit back idly and watch her continue to harm herself. He had made the mistake of doing that once – he had made the mistake of believing Haruna was taking care of herself on her own – and he didn’t intend to make it again.

Haruna walked past the quiet staff sitting in the back of the room, none of them making eye contact with the angered vocalist. As she left the room, Haruna closed the door behind her, the hot tears slipping out of her finally and rolling down her cheeks.

She couldn’t hold it back anymore. The tears continued to spill as she made her way down the hallway, her hands shoved into her jean pockets. Haruna was SCANDAL’s center, she was their lead singer and yet, she couldn’t sing. She had lost her voice and she didn’t even know how it had happened. But how it happened didn’t matter, all that mattered was getting her voice back. If she couldn’t sing, how could she stay in the band?

A lead singer wasn’t much if they couldn’t sing.

Haruna furiously wiped at her eyes, sniffling back the tears as she stormed down the hallway, ignoring the people who walked past her. She didn’t know if what she was feeling was anger, hurt, or regret. Her emotions swirled around in her head, clashing with each other and confusing the forlorn vocalist.

“Haruna!”

The vocalist’s walking came to an abrupt stop as she heard the high pitched voice call out her name. No, no, no! No one was supposed to come after her. She was supposed to be alone. She couldn’t let Tomomi see her like this; Tomomi wouldn’t respect her anymore if she saw the headstrong vocalist crying like this.

“Please wait up!” Tomomi called to her again, quickening her pace as she saw Haruna begin walking again. The younger bassist managed to catch up with Haruna, picking up a steadier pace as she walked behind her.

“Leave me alone,” Haruna said coldly. The tone of her voice didn’t bother Tomomi though, she was used to it. Haruna often used a harsh tone even when she didn’t mean to, it was just a defense mechanism for the vocalist.

“Why don’t you talk to me? It’ll make you feel better,” Tomomi tried again.

“What will make me feel better is to be alone,” Haruna choked out. She was doing her best to contain her tears. She had managed to make them stop, only a small sniffling coming from her now. But even if she had stopped the physical signs of her tears, she couldn’t stop the cracking in her voice that made it obvious she was crying or, at least, was ready to cry.

“I don’t believe that,” Tomomi stated to her. The bassist refused to back down. She knew how Haruna worked. She knew the older vocalist always wanted to be alone when she was upset. She hid her emotions from everyone and when they needed to come out, she would rather handle them herself.

But Tomomi didn’t want that to keep going on. It wasn’t healthy for Haruna to be bottling her emotions up like this and then being forced to handle them alone. Even if Haruna wouldn’t admit it, Tomomi knew that the leader desperately wanted someone by her side.

No one ever truly wanted to be alone.

“Please, Tomomi, just leave me alone.”

Tomomi could hear the begging tone of Haruna’s voice but she could also hear the fear lacing it. What was Haruna scared of? This was Tomomi, her friend all the way back from high school. There was no real reason for Haruna to be scared of Tomomi right now, she hadn’t done anything wrong. But Haruna was scared of Tomomi.

No, that wasn’t entirely accurate. Haruna wasn’t scared of Tomomi; she was scared of Tomomi’s reactions. She was scared of opening herself up to being vulnerable and scared to see how Tomomi would react if the bassist could see that Haruna wasn’t the always strong leader everyone thought she was.

A true leader didn’t need help. A true leader didn’t need to lean on anyone; they let others lean on them. Haruna had always believed that. She had always believed that if she wanted to be a leader, she had to be strong. She would be there for everyone, letting them push their problems off onto her and helping them feel better. If there was an issue to be solved, Haruna would be there to solve it. She would do whatever it took. She would never back down from anything and always stood tall. She took the hard interview questions to protect her younger bandmates and she faced what they didn’t want to. She was their older sister and their leader; she was supposed to be the always strong one.

“Haruna, stop it!” Tomomi cried out. She reached out impulsively, grabbing onto one of Haruna’s arms and yanking her back. The vocalist stumbled back, her movements coming to a stop. She didn’t turn to look at Tomomi; she couldn’t look at Tomomi. There was no way she was going to let the bassist see the physical evidence of her crying. Haruna kept her back to Tomomi, her body tensing up as she felt the bassist tighten her grip on Haruna’s arm.

“Let me go,” Haruna said in a low whisper. She yanked her arm, attempting to get it out of Tomomi’s grasp but it was to no avail. The younger girl kept the leader held tightly, refusing to let her go.

“Talk to me, Haruna, what’s wrong? Eisuke didn’t mean to upset you; he only wants to help you.”

“I don’t need help!” Haruna snapped suddenly. She hadn’t meant to and she hadn’t even thought about what she had said before she had said it. Her emotions just burst out of her like that. Haruna had only spoken the truth. She didn’t need Eisuke’s help; she didn’t need anyone’s help. She was their leader and a leader didn’t need help. She could fix her voice on her own.

“That’s not true, Haru. You do need help and we’re all here to help you, but you’ve got to let us in. You have to stop shutting us out. Let us get you a vocal coach to retrain you. Cry to us when you’re hurting. Tell us what’s wrong but please, you need to let us in.”

Haruna shut her eyes tightly, her hands clenching into fists at her side. Tomomi was wrong. Haruna didn’t need to let them in; she needed to keep them out. If their leader allowed herself to fall apart then the band would fall apart. Haruna was the rock that kept everyone together; she couldn’t let them lose that.

“This doesn’t concern you,” Haruna said, giving another attempt to pull her arm away from Tomomi.

But this time, Tomomi did something different. Instead of just holding her tightly, Tomomi pulled the vocalist back before using her other hand to give Haruna a shove. She shoved the older vocalist against the wall, stepping in front of her so there was no escape for Haruna.

The two girls locked eyes, Tomomi’s shining with determination. She couldn’t be the crybaby that she always was. She couldn’t just accept Haruna’s answer, she had to push her. She had to be strong and push the older girl into talking. Haruna was stubborn but Tomomi was going to be even more stubborn this time around.

She was going to get through to Haruna no matter what it took.

“This does concern me, it concerns everyone. Haruna, you are more than just our center. You are our friend, our sister. You’re one of the most important people to us all, we care deeply about you. We want you to get your voice back but more importantly, we don’t want you to feel alone. Haruna, you don’t need to suffer through this alone, you’ve got us. We’ll be here every step of the way.”

“It’s not that simple, Tomomi,” Haruna responded. She bit down hard on her lip, biting back the tears that wanted to spill over. No, she wouldn’t cry in front of Tomomi. She wouldn’t disappoint the younger bassist like that.

“Why can’t it be?” Tomomi asked, her voice laced with complete desperation. Tomomi was about to start crying herself. She was about to start crying and begging Haruna to let her in. She didn’t want to see Haruna keep dragging herself down like this.

“Because I’m the leader!” Haruna said forcefully. “A leader doesn’t fall apart. A leader stays strong; they’re someone that everyone can depend on. If I fall apart, who is going to hold you all together? Who is going to absorb the band’s problems?”

“We will handle it together,” Tomomi responded almost instantly. “Haruna, what you don’t seem to understand is that we are a family. Not just the four of us, but every single one of our staff. They’ve stuck by us through everything and they’ve helped us. All of us are a family and we’ll always be there to help each other. So let us help you, stop locking us out.”

“Tomomi… I can’t…”

“Stop saying that!” Tomomi cried out, her grip on Haruna’s arm tightening. “Haruna, I care about you. I don’t want to see you hurting yourself like this. You lost your voice because you were so focused on everyone else that you never noticed yourself. You never noticed how much your voice was hurting. You losing your voice is our fault as well, we should have stopped you but we didn’t.”

“That’s not true--” Haruna started but quickly found herself cut off by the overly-emotional Tomomi.

“Yes it is! You haven’t cared about yourself because you’re always trying to help others. We didn’t care for you either, we let you keep going like this and that was wrong of us. We want to help you so let us help you. Let us make up for it. Haruna, I love you so much, more than you could ever know.”

Tomomi was preparing to do something she never thought she would have the courage to do. She’d fantasized about it, but she never thought she’d go through with it. She had no choice though, she needed to make Haruna see how much she was loved and how desperately Tomomi and everyone else cared for her. She had to get through to Haruna and this may very well be the only way she could do it. She was going to put her feelings out in the open for Haruna.

Staring into her eyes, Haruna remained silent, unsure of to say to Tomomi. Her body was frozen as she felt Tomomi reach up her other hand, gripping Haruna’s other arm tightly. Haruna didn’t have a chance to sleep as Tomomi pulled them together, pushing their lips against each other.

Tomomi kept her grip on Haruna tightly, pressing the two of them together. She could feel that Haruna wasn’t responding to her, though she didn’t know if that was from shock or from Haruna not returning her feelings. But she didn’t pull away; she had to make Haruna see this. She had to prove to the vocalist how loved she truly was.

Tomomi pushed the two of them backwards a few steps, keeping them connected. Haruna’s back hit the wall, her eyes fluttering shut as Tomomi deepened the kiss between them. The bassist could feel Haruna’s arms raise themselves, her bony fingers curling around Tomomi’s tiny arms. Just when Tomomi thought Haruna was going to shove her off, the bassist felt her do the opposite.

Tomomi could feel Haruna begin to respond, beginning to kiss her back. She could feel the older girl bringing their bodies closer together. Tomomi pulled away from Haruna finally, her breathing slightly heavy as she stared into Haruna’s eyes. She let one hand go from Haruna’s arms, bringing it up to gently caress her cheek. Haruna leaned her head to the side, leaning into Tomomi’s touch. The feel of Tomomi’s soft fingertips running themselves over her delicate skin felt like heaven to the broken vocalist.

“Don’t you see, Haruna? You’re not alone, you were never alone. We’re all here for you. We’ll get your voice back, all of us together. You sounded like an angel before and we’ll help you sound like an angel again. It’ll be hard but we can do it. Please just let us in, let us help you. We’ll get you a vocal coach and we’ll practice with you. We’ll do whatever you need to get better; I promise you that we’ll never leave your side.”

“Tomomi…”

“A leader doesn’t mean being alone. You’re our leader, Haruna, and nothing will ever change that. Letting people in and showing vulnerability doesn’t make you weak. If anything, it makes you stronger. Just please, I’m begging you, listen to us. You don’t have to hide anymore.”

Haruna didn’t respond. Instead, she broke her arms out of Tomomi’s grasp, bringing her hands up to hold the bassist’s face in her hands. The vocalist gave her new lover a smile before bringing them together in a kiss. But unlike Tomomi’s, Haruna’s kiss wasn’t as forceful. Tomomi could feel the need and the love in Haruna’s kiss. The older girl was desperate to feel that same love again, she was desperate to be held in Tomomi’s arms.

And Tomomi did just that. The bassist wrapped her arms around Haruna’s waist, pulling the two of them closer together, about as close as they could get. She could feel Haruna’s rough fingertips stay on her cheeks, her hands never moving. Tomomi broke the kiss and Haruna leaned forward, letting her head fall down onto Tomomi’s chest.

“I need help,” she said softly, finally admitting to what she had held back for so long. Deep down, she had always wanted help but she had always been too scared to admit it… Until now. Until Tomomi made her see the truth.

“I’m glad. We’ll help you get your voice back, my sweet angel.”