Work Text:
The Guitar
“How much ya got there kid?”
The man with kind eyes behind thick bifocals, sporting a thick gray mustache, and wearing a fuzzy green cardigan sweater, asked me as I drooled. Blood red intermixed with black, curvy and dangerous, as if it was daring me to tickle it: it was a beautiful guitar. It came with an amp and everything looked untouched. I then looked at my jar of money, far more heavy with coins than packed with bills.
“88.57,” I replied, a little defeated. It was nowhere near enough for the guitar that was in front of me. One did not sell mint condition Schechter Demons with accompanying amps for a pittance like that.
I didn’t know why, but I was so drawn to that guitar. Like it was calling out to me and telling me that it would be the thing that filled the loneliness in my soul. I wanted it .
“Well you’re in luck.” His eyes twinkled behind his glasses. “We are having a special garage sale deal right now , that this guitar and that amp costs exactly that much. But...”
There was always a but. I wondered if the kind-looking old man was actually a creepy old man and would find ways for me to “work” off my debt for the guitar, probably shirtless, as a poolboy or something similar. Weirdly, I wanted it so much I actually considered it for a second…
“...It needs to go to a good home. I need you to promise that it won’t sit in the basement like it did for me.” The man’s twinkling eyes got brighter.
“I… I promise! ” I cried.
And it was a promise I would keep! I handed over the jar of money it had taken me all summer to earn: mowing lawns, raking leaves, weeding gardens, and allowance, because for some reason that guitar called to me.
“Mushin honey!” An amber-haired lady called for the kindly man. “Isn’t it time we started packing up?”
“In a minute dear! I’m just making a deal with this young man.” Mushin looked over at his wife, then back down at me. “It’s a Demon. Just like you. You two belong together.”
That man changed my life. He changed my life by selling me the Demon. It was all I needed. I didn’t need my dad (he left us when I was still a pup.) I didn’t need my mom (she blamed me for dad leaving). I just needed this guitar. It was my ticket to everything I ever dreamed of. It was my ticket to the love no one ever seemed to give me. It was my ticket to my name being shouted by millions of people.
Kōga! Kōga! Kōga! Kōga!
And for some reason, I knew that the guitar was meant for me. And that we were meant for something bigger. I just had to figure out how to play.
The Lyricist
“🎶 You got me on my knees Layla 🎶”
I hated singing covers. But… they paid. I had a decent enough handle of the vocals that I could make people sing along, but… I loathed it. No one was going to mistake me for Eric Clapton, no matter how amazing my rendition of Layla was.
“🎶 Darlin’ won’t you ease my worried minddddd. 🎶”
The raucous applause wasn’t for me , not really. It couldn’t be. It was for Eric Clapton. But… at least they heard me and liked me. It felt good. It got me ready for the next of the covers I had to do. Maybe I could get them to whoop even more. Maybe I could…
“🎶 I want to break free... 🎶”
Queen always got a really great response. It did this time too. I got ready for my favorite part: improvising Brian May’s guitar solo. Adding my own little touches to it.
It was getting them ready for what I wanted to do next. I wanted to try something in that room. Tonight. I wanted to see if it would work. Maybe now, after they’d listened to everything I could replicate , they would be ready for what I could do on my own. Because I wanted them to cheer for me the way they did for Eric Clapton. I wanted them to whisper my name with the reverence they whispered the name Freddie Mercury. I wanted it. I needed it.
“I have one last thing I want to show you all. Something that is all me. Something original ,” I announced and watched the tavern owner give me a little frown, but it was too late. I’d done my job, and I’d done it well. He’d sold a lot of food and drink on the back of my guitar, so I got to do this one little thing for me.
Artwork commission by MamaBearCat
I took a deep breath, placed my hands on my guitar, and I let the Demon sing. I played a ballad that had been begging me to be unleashed now for months, nearly since I first laid my hands on the beautiful instrument. I wove a tale out of chords and notes and saw just how fast I could move my hands. I wondered if people could hear the story in the notes as well as I could as I played it. It was his story, of a lonely kid trying to earn the love of a mother who seemed to have saved all of it for the father that abandoned them both. It was a thank you to the kindly man who sold him the guitar. It was asking for more. Wanting more. Thinking maybe this right here, in front of these people, playing his Demon, he could maybe attain more .
Finally, I was done. Spent. My dissertation had been put to the crowd, and all I could do was wait.
Then it happened. The applause. It wasn’t Queen level of applause, but… they liked it! I wanted to hear more applause, more love, more adulation for… me! Because this, what I was getting right now, wasn’t enough. I… I wondered why it didn’t fill me up, what it would take to be satisfied. Because I wasn’t. Maybe one more song. Maybe I could move my fingers faster, maybe...
“Kōga, everyone!” the tavern owner abruptly cut me off, ending my set.
I got one more set of applause before it was over. It was appreciative, which was a whole lot better than polite, but it didn’t satisfy. If the bastard had just let me play one more original, they would have given me more.
I wanted to growl and tell the owner to go fuck himself, but… he was my paycheck, so I stayed quiet.
The crowd shuffled out, but someone caught my attention: an unassuming redhead with striking green eyes. She was a wolf demon, like me. And she was… well… she was easy on the eyes. Even though she was wearing a green t-shirt the same color as her eyes and a white corduroy jumper, she looked damn sexy. Like a kindergarten teacher that all the dads fantasize about (not that I was… dad-aged, but… just for reference). I wondered if she was naughty under that facade of purity.
“Hi!” She extended her hand confidently. “I’m Ayame. I… um… well… I think I can help you.”
Did I have a groupie? The way she was blushing in her apple cheeks all the way to her pointed ears definitely drew my interest, but she didn’t smell like I’d expected were she… interested in that.
“Oh yeah?” I acted nonchalant. I was curious about what this woman wanted to help me with.
“Yeah. Your last song… did you really write it?” Ayame’s eyes turned intense, as if she were checking me for a lie.
“Yeah. Why?” I tried not to sound too defensive.
Of-fucking-course my song was original. Of-fucking-course I wrote it myself. Why did she think I didn’t?
“Well. I… I could hear words as you played it. Lyrics . I wondered if you… if you had a lyricist.” Ayame’s intense eyes changed over to hopeful, and… I was intrigued.
“You’re telling me… you want to… write? For me?” I was skeptical. This random (good-looking) woman had walked up to me and told me she could hear the words to my music? Music that I wrote from my soul?
“Well, yes.” Ayame broke eye contact. “When I heard your ballad I just… it made me feel so lonely , like every time I tried to grasp at something it ran further away from me. It made me sad but then… it changed and I could feel this hope welling inside of me. I’d… I’d like to try to write something for it, if you’d let me?”
Holy shit. She felt the things I played, the things I hummed, the things I—I wanted to say .
“Yes.” I didn’t need to add anything else.
“Great! Um, here’s my contact info. Just… can you send me over that song? So I can work on it?” Ayame smiled brightly, pulled a pen out of her cute little jumper, and wrote her name, number, and email address on a napkin, handing it to me. “You… you really have talent Kōga. I’m really glad I came tonight.”
I was too.
The Set
“🎶 I’m not gonna stop until I hit the top — and I earn your love one note at a time. 🎶”
I howled the last line, ending the song with a last few melancholy chords.
“I want to rework the middle verse, only a little. It’s a bit too free-form.” Ayame’s eyebrows always knitted in concentration when she thought about lyrics, listening not only to the words themselves, but the way the vowels and consonants came off of my lips. She was a perfectionist.
“I thought it sounded fine,” I shrugged.
“You would Kōga. But don’t worry. It’s almost there. I’ll… get it.” Ayame looked back down at her notebook, erasing the same line for the fifth time this session. The woman still used graphite pencils and did everything by hand. It was sort of… endearing.
“It’s really no big—“ I start.
“It is a big deal! I told you… apparently my cousin’s husband’s college roommate is coming tonight and he’s an agent. Tonight, you’re gonna play in front of someone who can actually discover you .” Ayame’s eyes were lit with fire. “So… I want your originals to be perfect . They’re perfect from the composing side. It’s my job to make sure they are perfect from the lyrics side.”
“Speaking of jobs…” I tried to broach the subject Ayame seemed intent to avoid, “What exactly do I owe you for all this?”
Ayame growled. It meant back off . But I didn’t want to back off. I was tired of feeling indebted to her.
“How about… 20% of record sales?” I smirked. “When I make it big.”
“Deal.” Ayame looked up thoughtfully. “You do know only predatory managers make that sorta cut, right?”
“You’re the words, I’m the chords,” I chuckled.
“Fine. And here. Better words.” Ayame handed me the new section. She was right; it did work better.
“Thanks.” I memorized the new section, and put my hands back on the Demon.
I sang the new song one more time with the new lyrics. It felt good. I had a set! And we’d finished just in time, because showtime was in exactly an hour. The tavern owner had finally let me start playing originals (probably because Ayame sweet-talked him), and I was drawing a little following to the bar. It felt fucking good seeing all those people, all those eyes, on me . They were hungry for me, and I was hungry for their hunger.
“Get food Kōga. And not too much booze.” Ayame shooed me away, reading my hunger but not the reason for it.
“Fine,” I grumbled, and we said our brief goodbyes.
Ayame knew my routine. I’d make myself something easy—tonight it was instant ramen—then take a long shower. I’d let the water massage my body and settle my stomach while I pictured the music, letting my fingers move as if they were on my guitar, and humming the melody as Ayame’s handwriting danced across my vision. Tonight was the same as it always was, but tonight was also different, because tonight, one pair of hungry eyes in my audience could decide to make me into something bigger. And goddamn I wanted it .
The crowd that night was a bit rowdier than they usually were, but it didn’t phase me. My Demon, Ayame’s words, my voice, my dream. That was all I needed. I let my hands tickle the strings, and… I sang. I let myself dream as the words flowed over my tongue, of what I could be, of what I could become. Of stadiums full of their eyes instead of this little tavern. Of applause so thunderous I could feel it roar through my body instead of the polite clapping that sometimes wasn’t even loud enough to overtake the clinking of forks on plates. Of having millions cry their adoration for me instead of people politely bobbing their heads to my thrums. It was like my soul transmitted through my chords that night and I stepped onto the launchpad of something greater than this: greater for myself.
One set of red eyes fixated on me: the eyes I desperately needed to have look at me. The eyes of my ticket to something bigger, something that maybe— just maybe —would fill me up inside. Something bigger than a tavern.
“🎶 I’m not gonna stop until I hit the top — and I earn your love one note at a time. 🎶”
The crowd howled as I finished the last of my set, and I took a bow. It was the best set I’d ever played. I made eye contact with Ayame, and I could see tears filling her eyes. We’d been building to this day, to this moment, and I was… at least a little bit… happy that I could get there for her. Someday, maybe I’d also be happy to have gotten here myself.
The fans were energetic, but with every person who was not my ticket to bigger things, to more fans, to the record deal that would get me more , my mood soured. I kept my grin plastered to my face, but the way the fans started to shrink when they approached me, I knew that the mask was not holding.
“You have talent.” A silken voice called to me as I slammed my third beer, two hours after my set was over.
I looked up from my mug, my eyes meeting red irises. His hair was wavy and contained by a low ponytail that ran down his back. He was dressed in a black suit with a blood red button-up shirt underneath, and he had… a strange odor, insectoid. A demon, like me.
“I’m Naraku,” the man purred, handing a black business card with silver writing on it. “Kohaku told me to check you out. Thought I might… see something I liked. And… I did.”
I looked down on the card, and saw the words: Naraku Onigumo, Talent Manager, Shikon Records. I stifled the gasp that wanted to break from my lips, having realized that the agent, the one that Ayame had mentioned to me, was currently grinning at me.
“I-I’m so… glad !” I barked, trying to contain my excitement. I could see the stadium lights and hear the screams of the crowd, all for me!
“Let’s set something up… soon. Gimme a call.” Naraku winked, then got up to leave.
Before he made it out of the door, he looked back at me one more time, and leveled me with one more smirk. I knew I should feel elated, but something about the way he sized me up sent shivers down my spine.
The Record Deal
“Stop fidgeting Kōga. Seriously, you’re giving me an ulcer,” Ayame growled as we sat at the swank rooftop restaurant that Naraku planned to meet us at.
I wasn’t sure why he insisted on meeting outside his office, but who was I to argue? He was a scout and I was about to be discovered and rocket to fame . It was the break I had been waiting for since the day I paid the kind man $88.57 for a guitar. Ayame sat next to me, her notebook full of her songs tucked into her messenger bag. She wanted to be prepared. She also had the flash drive with a few of our songs, which she’d insisted we quickly record in case he needed to hear more.
“Hello you two.” Naraku shook my hand and I had to fight the instinct to pull away. “Let’s get down to business.”
Naraku slid a stack of papers across the table, to me. A contract.
Three albums, three years exclusive with Shikon. They would handle the promotion, the distribution, as well as my tour. Naraku would manage me, and all I had to do was… sing and play.
“Let me see it for a second.” Ayame grabbed the contract and pawed through it, her eyes narrowed as she read. “30%?”
Naraku’s glare showed fury for a split second before another slippery smile appeared on his face. “I have a lot of work to do to get you to where you deserve to be. To the top . Without my help, you won’t get there. And so… since we have to… grow you more than more established artists, I’ve worked to incentivize this investment.”
I could hear Ayame growling quietly under her breath about lawyers or some shit. Did I care that he was taking more than he should? Well shit, if I was able to make millions of dollars, if I was able to sell out stadiums full of fans crying my name and loving me, if he could give me everything I’d ever dream of anyways, what difference did it make? And this Naraku guy, he looked like the type who would do anything to help his artists make it.
“Gimme the contract back,” I growled back at Ayame, who shot me a murderous look.
With my own fanged grin, I took out my pen, and I signed on the dotted line. I probably should have kept my eyes on Naraku as I did it, because I would have seen them flash with unadulterated desire; it was a look that Ayame didn’t miss. A look, she told me later, that made her blood run cold.
“Well well well… it will be a pleasure doing business with you,” Naraku purred. “Time to kill the person you were, to become the person you are destined to be.”
I should have understood just how prophetic Naraku’s words were, but instead, I thought about what this meant. It meant fame. It meant fortune. It meant getting everything I could ever want. It meant… admirers… maybe even the whole world. Perhaps, finally, it would be enough.
Ascent
“Of course I sounded fucking brilliant!” I shouted, ripping the stupid headphones off of my head. “It’s the idiots behind me that are fucking it up.”
The no-name backup band members looked at each other sheepishly. It wasn’t my fault they couldn’t keep up with me. They never seemed to be able to keep up with me; it wasn’t that hard and was the bare fucking minimum that I required of them. Because if they weren’t perfect, then I would disappoint my fans. And I couldn’t do that. I needed them to love me.
We were two weeks away from me having to go on the fucking road, trying to finish this one last set, and the two numbskulls couldn’t keep up the fucking pace. If they couldn’t, I would look for a better band, a band that could bring my music to more people, bring me more love, more money, more everything . I thought I was just fine without them. But… fucking Naraku had insisted. My music sounded deeper if these two fucknuts played drums and bass as accompaniment. I’d overcome my plateau in sales if I played with the backing of a band. I’d had to write the fucking beats for the drummer and the fucking notes for the bass player.
It meant I couldn’t work on my new music, my new songs (Ayame at least kept me well-supplied with lyrics), my new look. The things that would bring me more adoring fans.
“Put your goddamned headphones back on, Kōga,” came the poisonous growl of the man I was learning to hate more than I hated even my shit dad. “I don’t want to pay for a studio to contain your temper tantrums.”
“Fuck you.” I pointed at the red eyed villain frowning at me, but I did as I was told.
It took another couple of hours, but we finally got it. It and all the rest. The masters were ready to deploy to radio stations, to late night shows, to everywhere . And all it had cost me was weeks of sleep, my sanity, and any hope I would ever have of taking a day off. I walked out of the little glass box that felt like my prison, then reared on the two shitheads that Naraku hired to make my music sound ‘deeper.’
“Try to keep up with me next time dipshits. ” I bared my teeth at them, even more annoyed to see them to stare blankly back at me.
I couldn’t remember if these were the same shitheads from the last recording session or not, but I didn’t care. They didn’t matter: not to my music, not to my fans. Not to my climb to the top.
“Hey,” her voice was soft, but razor sharp. “You acted like a right ass today, Kōga.”
I scoffed. “Maybe if they could do their fucking jobs I wouldn’t have to act--”
“They were doing their jobs,” Ayame enunciated quietly, pinching my hand just hard enough to force me to look at her. “ You were the one making it hard to do them.”
Ayame always did know how to crash me back down to Earth.
“They got paid. They don’t have anything to complain about,” I grumbled, but she was right.
“You look exhausted .” Ayame’s eyes changed from angry to concerned, and her grip lightened on my hand. “Take a break.”
“I don’t need a fucking break Ayame .” I ripped my hand out of hers and stormed away.
I didn’t need a fucking break. I didn’t. I needed more. I needed a better backup band. I needed more songs. More fans. More albums more…
More energy.
I just needed a little bit more energy, more time . To write songs. To sing. To book the next concert. To make the next dollar. To get the next fan to scream my name. To cause the next groupie to beg for my cock.
“Kōga.” Naraku’s voice caught me off-guard. I hadn’t noticed him in my snit. “This is an associate of mine, Byakuya.”
Next to Naraku stood a petite man with long, sleek black hair and dark indigo eyes; the slightest dusting of stubble on his face was my only clue that he was not a woman. He offered me a slimy smile. One that told me he had an agenda: an agenda that apparently he and Naraku shared.
I replied by grunting. I had no desire for Naraku to parade me around some more, especially to someone who looked like that .
“Naraku has told me all about you, Kōga.” Byukuya’s dark eyes became darker, even as he smiled. “I may be able to be of some service to you.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” I scowled.
“Now now now… hear him out.” Naraku put his hand on my shoulder, and I felt myself shudder at the contact. “He’s offering… a pick me up . A muse …” Naraku then paused, adding, “He has no desire to replace some of the services that your… fans … provide you.”
Thank christ for that. I wouldn’t let that slimy little man anywhere near my bed.
“I am merely a procurer of… anything you could want,” Byakuya purred, then handed me a small packet. I could smell its contents, and when I opened it, I was not surprised to see a fine white powder looking back at me. “A pick me up.”
I looked at Byakuya, then back at Naraku. What the fuck were they getting at? Sure, I loved my alcohol and I loved my groupies, but… did I really want to keep walking down this path for… for…
Fame. For more.
“It’s a good… pick me up, ” Naraku said, then handed me another one of his black business cards, this time with a phone number written in white. “Should you find yourself needing more vigor , Byakuya has been an associate of mine for a long time. He will know how to take care of you.”
I stared down at the little packet. Then back to my manager and his associate . My instinct told me to walk away, to throw the little packet down onto the ground and never think about it again.
But a larger part of me wanted to see just what new doors this little package could open for me. Just how far I could push myself toward more. Was this my gateway to more fame, more groupies, more songs, more albums, more everything?
“Thanks,” I said, and I turned away.
That night was the first time I used cocaine.
That night was also the night I composed my first platinum record.
Tailspin
“Keep goin’ baby…” I moaned to whoever it was that was currently bent over my lap. Yuka? Yuna? Maybe it was Yuma.
Her hair was sleek and cut into a precise bob. Her ruby red lips were wrapped around my cock and she was swirling her tongue in ways that were getting me close to popping. As her good work was coming to a head, I gripped her hair, then finally started pushing myself deeper down her throat. She was handling it well, humming more and more enthusiastically the further my cock burrowed. She was really enjoying herself, or at least trying to prove to me that she was the queen of sucking dick. I didn’t really care which.
But she was doing her job, and I was close. I could feel the tightening of my groin and the instinct to pump into her mouth and paint it with my cum.
“Just like that baby…” they always seemed less peeved that I fucked their throats if I gave them a little encouragement. “You feel so fucking good.”
I grabbed the back of her head, holding it in place, and I thrust until my release. The bitch didn’t even gag. After I came, she tilted her head back and swallowed down my seed, a fake smile on her face.
I had to hand it to her. I’d already had four groupies in my dressing room that night, so it was a testament to her skill that she even got me there. But she meant next to nothing to me, just another woman who got me off even as I was thinking about the next one. And blowing me was probably going to be one of the highlights of her life.
She tried to stay longer, but she was shuffled out of the dressing room, like all the rest of them. Nope, sorry Yuma, no private jet ride for you. Go home and tell your sorority sisters about the time you sucked the cock of a rockstar. She might’ve thought I was an asshole, but my dick was thick and my dick was clean.
I stumbled out of my dressing room after I was sure they were all gone. Naraku did a good job shooing them away when he knew I was done.
“What’s next?” I asked, my manager and dealer standing shoulder to shoulder.
“Dallas. And remember Kōga, Texans riot if you get it wrong.” Naraku’s voice was soft and edgy, like he was trying his damndest to hold in his temper.
“Then write it on the fucking stage and I’ll get it right!” I growled, holding my hand out for Byakuya to hand me the hit for the night. “I’m selling out fucking stadiums. You’re buying vacation homes because-of-fucking-me. So… write fucking Dallas on the stage and I’ll get it right.”
I didn’t get it right.
But the crowd didn’t care.
Days had started to blend together. Plane, concert, hotel rooms, women, cocaine in the morning to wake me up, and Ambien to put me the fuck to sleep. I don’t even remember the day that I left my Demon at home for the custom “Kōga” Fender that Naraku insisted was ‘better for my brand.’
Dallas was Sydney was Seattle was New York was London.
It was fucking amazing . I was called a ‘prodigy’, I went platinum on every album that Naraku could drag out of me, and stadiums sold out and screamed my name. It was everything I could ever hope for!
But… it wasn’t enough.
The most recent review of my new album said “I was getting comfortable with my voice.” ‘Prodigies’ would keep pushing the envelope, and I needed more music critics to call me a genius. And stadiums sounded great but… they didn’t sell out fast enough. If my fans really loved me, wouldn’t they be selling out in minutes instead of hours? And platinum albums were not diamond albums.
“ Kōga?” Her voice was soft, tentative, sad .
I focused my eyes. We were on the jet. Heading to who-the-fuck-knew-where.
“Yeah? What?” I tried to keep the growl out of my voice. Ayame was still my lyricist. The one person who seemed to see me. It was fucking annoying.
“I need a break.” Her words were final.
“What the fuck are you talking about? You write the words and I write the chords Ayame.” I was trying to hold in my temper as I said it.
How fucking dare she?
“This… this life Kōga. It’s… it’s too much… for me.” Ayame’s brilliant green eyes refocused on her hands, sad and longing.
“It’s everything you could ever want .” My voice had taken a dangerous edge. Apparently I was taking on some bad habits from Naraku, besides the drugs he kept me supplied with. “What? Do you want more? Need more? More money? More chords? A bigger fucking chunk of my paycheck to be satisfied?”
“No Kōga. And fuck you. You know I’m not after more of your money.” Ayame took a deep breath. “Is… Is this truly what you want?” Her words flared my temper even higher.
“Don’t fuck with me Ayame.” I felt my aura flare, and I threw it at her, a warning. “Every-fucking-person on the planet wants this .”
“Yeah, well… maybe I thought it was what I wanted, but it-it’s not.” Ayame didn’t resist. “I feel so out of control . Like everything is spiralling away from me and I can’t feel the ground anymore.”
“Then maybe that’s what you need.” My voice turned dark. “The ground.”
Ayame didn’t reply; she just kept looking down at her palms.
“You know? I’ve been meaning to replace you anyway. I’m tired of the same clichéd bullshit you always seem to give me. No wonder I’m in a fucking rut.” My words were meant to cut. “Get off when we land and don’t ever fucking talk to me again. ”
Ayame nodded. “Chicago. We’re landing in Chicago, Kōga.”
Chicago was where we met.
“Whatever. I don’t want to see your ugly face anymore.” I crossed my arms and looked away from her.
She was fucking wrong. I was fine . Great, actually. Exactly where I always wanted to be. I was famous. I was rich. I was fucking talented . And I could get more. More famous. More rich. I could make every fucking person in the world love me. I didn’t need fucking Ayame .
I didn’t.
Emptiness could be filled with fans, money, sex, and drugs.
Rock Bottom
Fuck.
There was no other word for how I was feeling. I was about to die and not a single fucking person even knew. Even cared .
Byakuya got me anything I wanted. He never challenged my order. He just “procured.” And I consumed. It was symbiotic, right?
No.
Because I always needed more. I needed more Ambien to sleep ( fuck Ayame! If she hadn’t left I wouldn’t have such a fucking hard time sleeping because our last conversation replayed like a broken fucking record in my mind) and then I needed more coke to get up. And so I spiralled further and further upward until I was waking up in half-destroyed hotel kitchens with staff cowering in the corner or recreating the iconic scene from Scarface .
Nothing seemed to do it for me anymore. Stadiums were never big enough. Hos were never wild enough. Albums never sold enough. And the songs… the fucking lyrics to the songs were shit . Every new mewling ‘wordsmith’ was worse than the next. Naraku finally threatened to cut me off if I didn’t make something , so I just sang the pretty flowery bullshit songs that his songwriters gave me. Maybe I signed away more of my life? I’m not fucking sure.
And now, here I was, my face white with the cocaine I needed and my heart feeling like it was gonna explode. I had no family, no parents, no friends, and frankly, I think Naraku would be happy to see me die, because he’d still be getting his 30% cut. WIthout the inconvenience of me .
I tried to sit up, but my body erupted with pain from the effort. I tried to breathe, but I was having trouble pulling air into my lungs. If my heart kept up at this pace, I would burn from the inside out. And it hurt so fucking bad.
I pushed everyone away. I called my mom a cunt and threw her a check to never speak to me again. ‘Friends’ were there to be used, or to constantly show them how much better I was than them.
Ayame.
I told her she was only worth the words she wrote, and that her words were cheap. Fuck . She was the only person who was there for me, really there . And I told her to fuck off and leave.
And now, no one was here at the time I needed someone the most.
And it was completely my fault.
I deserved to die alone.
I closed my eyes and I felt it.
Grief.
Nothing I did, nothing I attained meant anything at all. Every new record made me want more. Every supermodel I banged wasn’t as good as the next one. None of it mattered. My fucking life was a house of cards, a veneer of accomplishment that disguised my emptiness.
All I did was seek more to try to fill a void that was endless and unfillable.
And instead I ended up with nothing.
The First Step
“Why don’t we start here? Tell us your name and anything you think would help us help you.” The counselor’s voice was gentle, soothing .
“I’m Kōga. And I need… help.”
Those words. The words I could never say before. The words that it took me nearly dying to finally come out of my mouth were the only words that mattered.
I woke up the morning after I thought I’d died in a pool of my own vomit. It smelled disgusting, and somehow also wonderful, because it meant I was still alive. I will never forget the way I felt, like I’d been given a reprieve by the gods to make things right.
I found the rehab center’s number and called it. I told them who I was and that I was coming.
I didn’t want to die alone in a pile of my own vomit. And I knew that drugs weren’t the only demons I needed to fight.
The counselor, who wore a small but clear tag that said ‘Dr. Hitomiko,’ didn’t respond to me, but silently encouraged me to continue.
“I-I’m addicted to drugs. And women. And money. And fame ,” I continued—the words felt scripted—“I… I’m tired of never feeling like I have... enough. ”
Money, drugs, and women were tangible. You could count them. I could look at my bank accounts or the stacks of Benjamins I sometimes packed into my pockets to go to strip clubs. I could keep a log of not only how many groupies I fucked, but what degrading shit I could talk them into doing. I could… think about just how much went up my nose or down my throat, and sometimes, when I was in the mood, into my veins. Fame was less tangible. It was newspapers and blogs and ticket sales and the screams of the crowds.
“Then that’s what we’re here to help you with.” Dr. Hitomiko smiled, and for the first time in such a long fucking time, I felt hopeful again, seen. And… well… I wanted to change.
The only other person who ever made me feel like that— seen —was… Ayame.
I don’t really know how much time passed, but unlike the frenetic chaos of being on tour and drowning out the emptiness, I could feel again. I felt the pain as I talked about the emptiness that had been with me since I was a child. Dug by my father’s abandonment, then constantly maintained by my mother’s contempt. I started to acknowledge the lonely and angry child that just wanted to be accepted.
And when I finally let myself come face to face with that child, I got it.
Fame couldn’t fill the void left by the absence of love.
I lengthened my stay. I escaped my contract with Naraku (helped along by the fact that he was outed in the press as being an abusive groomer who liked to keep his artists strung out on drugs—greed has a way of biting back). I thought about walking away completely from music and starting over.
That was when she found me.
“Hi.” I don’t know if Ayame remembered that that was the first thing she said to me, but I sure remembered.
Ayame was wearing yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt, and her eyes somehow looked like those of an old woman on her beautiful and youthful face.
“How did you find me?” I asked, mostly out of curiosity. I had been a right prick to her, and here she was, coming to find me in an off-the-grid rehab center.
“When you broke your contract with Naraku, I got a call,” Ayame answered. “I… I… missed you.”
“I… missed you too .” Rehab had taught me to be honest, and having Ayame here, having found me unprompted, had done more for me than I thought possible. “I’m so sorry Ayame. For everything.”
“You’re forgiven.” Ayame smiled, then pulled me in for a hug.
I’d known for a while, but the way she smelled, the way her body curved to fit so perfectly into mine… simply confirmed for me what I’d been stuffing down deeper than the emptiness. That I loved her.
“Ayame I—” I wanted to tell her, I wanted to confess everything. That she was the one I thought about. That when Dr. Hitomiko asked me to talk about something steady and constant in my life, it was her . But Ayame’s finger stopped me.
“I brought you something.” Ayame pointed to a box I’d failed to notice. “I thought… you might need an old friend.”
Artwork commission by MamaBearCat
I tentatively took a step toward the box and saw what was inside. Blood red intermixed with black, curvy and dangerous, looking up at me, asking me to take it back. My first guitar. The guitar I replaced with that custom gimmicky Fender that never fit my hands right. My Demon. I looked back over at Ayame, trying to hold back the gratitude that was threatening to escape me. I wanted to say everything to her now. All of it. But when I tried speaking up, Ayame’s look told me to hold my tongue, because she wasn’t done.
“There are a couple of … songs in there. I wrote them… for you.” Ayame looked so deeply into my eyes I couldn’t look away. “When you get out, I’d… I’d love to keep working with you.”
“But…” I was so much better at keeping my temper under control, but that she kept silencing me was starting to hurt a little bit.
“One year.” Ayame smiled, a slight pink dusting her cheeks. “Ask me the thing you’re thinking about right now after you’ve been clean for a year.”
I didn’t need to ask, she understood without me having to say anything. And I could stay clean for a year— forever —for her.
The Second Chance
“We’re a small outfit, without anywhere near the resources you’re used to, but… we take care of our artists.” A mohawked wolf demon extended his hand toward me: Hakkaku.
“It sounds perfect for our needs,” I replied, a smile on my face as I looked down at the recording contract.
“You… you really want to sign with someone as small as Ookami?” the wolf demon with the silver hair and black stripe down the middle interjected, looking skeptical and elated all at once.
“Shut up Ginta!” Hakkaku growled at his colleague under his breath.
“I… I’m looking for a fresh start,” I answered honestly. “And a smaller more personal touch will let me… reconnect. ”
“What he means to say is you’re not assholes who will try to feed him drugs to squeeze every last penny out of him,” the illustrious redhead next to me grinned. “I can’t be the only one keeping my eye on him!”
The two wolf demons laughed, then quickly went silent when Ayame shot them a look. I knew exactly the look she shot them, because for the past year, I saw that look a lot. When Ayame came and visited me in rehab, I should have known she’d only sent me a small fraction of the beautiful songs she’d worked out. The ones that she knew would grab me and bring me back to her (like I was ever anywhere else…). And so we’d worked and prepped, and when we came to Ookami Records, we came with two albums worth of mostly polished material. And… it was the happiest I’d been since before I’d become famous.
“Great! We look forward to working with you!” Hakkaku shook my hand one more time, then Ayame’s hand.
We could hear the two squeal as we left their office. Yes, landing Kōga for their little label was probably the biggest break that either of them could imagine. And for me? It felt… good. It satisfied some of my lingering desires to be pampered, even as Ayame kept me grounded.
“Do you know what today is?” Ayame’s eyes danced playfully.
I sure as fuck did know what today was. It was the one year anniversary of Ayame returning my Demon to me, the one year mark since she told me I could… say everything I needed to if I could stay clean.
I fucking stayed clean.
“I love you.” The words rushed out of my mouth before I could stop them. Hell, she did say I could tell her everything after all…
“Jesus Kōga, not even ‘can I take you to dinner?’ first?” Ayame snarled, but I detected the playfulness to it.
“Can I take you to dinner?” I retorted, delighted in Ayame’s reaction to my love confession.
“I suppose,” she cheekily replied.
I couldn’t resist. She wore an adorable grin on her face. The one she got when she thought of particularly clever lyrics. And… I needed to do it. My demon came over me. That was why I kissed her.
Well… then she kissed me back. And it was everything.
It was all I would ever need.