Chasing The Light: I

"And where have you been tonight?"

Ugh.

"I told you I would be back late, didn't I?"

I hadn't expected Mama to take such interest.

"'Back late' means 8 or 9. It is nearly 11pm. You have school tomorrow."

"I am sorry. I thought it would be alright."

"And you didn't answer the phone when I called you."

"I was on the platform. I did not want to cause a nuisance."

A lie.

"Papa was worried, you know. He called earlier, and I had to tell him you were out, and that I did not know where."

She was a little tipsy. When Mama drank, she went one of two ways. Either 'fun' Mama— where she tries to be cool— or emotional Mama. Seems like tonight we had rolled emotional Mama.

"I was… I was having fun and I lost track of the time. With my friends."

This wasn't entirely a lie. There were no friends there, and I was fully aware of the time, but—

"Strange. I called Mari's mother and she told me Mari had been home all afternoon."

"I have more than one friend, you know. We—"

"Is it a boy?"

"Mama, no. Of course not. I was…"

"Drinking?"

I chuckled at the suggestion, but Mama's face was ice cold. She leaned in and sniffed my hair.

"You smell like a bar."

Really?

I sniffed myself to check. I couldn't really tell. There had been some smokers I had to walk past as I left the bar, perhaps the smell had clung to me. A hint of alcohol, too? Can't have been. Mama was bluffing. Or she was smelling her own breath on me. Still, I didn't want this to develop into a 'thing'. I had worked for as long as I could remember to build up a reserve of goodwill, it would be stupid to throw it all away.

"I was at a show. A music show. It was in a bar, but I did not drink anything other than soda. I am wearing my school uniform, if I tried to purchase alcohol, they would throw me out and phone the school. If you want, I can give you the number for the venue."

Please just let me take a shower and go to bed.

Mama looked at me for a moment. I couldn't tell what she was thinking. I had just lied to her, but then I told her the truth. Hopefully she would focus on the truth and forget the slight mistruth. I took out my phone and showed her the page for the bar. Chizuru had already uploaded the pictures from tonight and there I was, front and centre. That at least corroborated my story.

"See. It was just a show."

She sighed.

"Even so, Papa would not like you visiting places like this."

"But Papa isn't here."

Oops.

Too blunt. That seemed to pain Mama. I knew she was sensitive about his absence.

"Um, what I mean is… You trust me, Mama, right? I truly just wanted to experience some live music, and I have acquired a taste for it. Papa may not like it, but he does not need to know anything that would trouble him unduly."

There was a long pause, and then she backed away.

"Okay, dear. This will just be our little secret. But the next time you are going to be this late, you mention exactly what time you are coming home."

Phew.

"Actually, there is another show I want to go to in a couple of weeks. But… I might get home after midnight. But it's fine! Because a friend will drive me home. And it is on a Friday night, so it doesn't matter if I go to bed a little late."

I might have pushed my luck a bit too hard. I saw Mama's face twist. If she said no…

"I shall think about it."

***

The two weeks between performances passed surprisingly quickly. School finally picked up, and before I knew it we were already studying for tests. Our homeroom teacher had also started pestering us about our university choices, and that we should start visiting open campuses during the summer. Prospectuses for various universities had also began littering the classrooms and hallways. Pretty soon, we would start getting visits from alumni talking about the benefits of their school over others. Not that it mattered to me, I always assumed I would simply study at the university my parents attended as long as my grades were good enough. If they weren't, then anywhere would do.

Alyx had sent me the details of her band's gig, but that was the only message she had sent me. I replied to say thanks, and express how much I was looking forward to it, and all I received in return was a thumbs-up reaction. I finally learned the name of her band, MY AMERICANA, and followed their page. It seemed to be a really unprofessional operation, with barely any news about upcoming shows or pictures of the band. None of their songs were uploaded anywhere, too.

Stacy's band had way more online presence, and even had a few of their songs uploaded, a couple with music videos. As expected, these studio versions sounded much cleaner than what I remembered from their show, so much so that they almost sounded like an entirely different group. The music videos all had view-counts in the low 1000s, while their streaming page stated they had around 600 monthly listeners. I had added them to my usual rotation. They didn't fit in amongst the more polished and produced mainstream J-Pop groups, but listening to them made me feel a little trendy. If they ever made it big, I could brag that I was there 'before they were popular'.

The clock was dragging. After final period, it was homeroom, and after homeroom it was cleaning. I had to put in an appearance at my club, but this was just a flying visit and then I was free. I felt a little bad blowing off my friends again, but we had plans to meet up on Sunday. The station was as busy as ever, and the train was full to bursting. I had hoped to use this longer ride to catch up on some reading, but I didn't even have the space to pull my book out of my bag. I had no more luck when transferring trains, though thankfully the carriage emptied somewhat after a few more stops. By the time I could sit down, there was hardly enough time to bother starting to read anything, so I just took out my phone.

I'd never been to this area before, but nothing about the area around the station felt all too unique. From all the banners, I gathered that they loved their local football team, and this was about the only thing that reminded me I had travelled to another city. I was hungry, so I decided to grab some dinner before I made my way to the venue. I wasn't in the habit of bringing a lot of cash to school, so I decided to settle for some cheap conveyor belt sushi. It was safe and predictable and it filled me up enough. It also killed enough time that I could head straight to the venue.