Heavy Metal Tears

I was really excited to read the comments that we received on the album Haruto Saiki and I had just released: “Rainbow Music”. It was mostly positive and we even had praise coming in from local bands and performers! A week had already gone by and the album had reached Number 3 on the website’s music charts!

That Tuesday, I was walking happily to school without a care in the world. I actually didn’t mind the normie traffic today and slipped among them with a smile on my face. Ikki slapped my back in greeting like always, but I didn’t care; I accepted it with a smile and greeted him back in the same way. When Ai surprised me, I didn’t flinch or yell or respond back in any form of aggressive manner at all; I took it in stride and welcomed her. Needless to say, they were both surprised and suspicious of my behavior. But what can I say? I’m just feeling it today!

I was like this the entire way to school. When the first break came, I saw Saiki talking to her friends like always and decided to approach her about the good news. As I was walking towards her, she saw me and quickly got up from her seat and left the room. It was like she was ignoring me. When I looked at Fumi and Taka for an answer, they simply looked away with awkward expressions. Fumi rubbed her arm and gave me one last glance before exiting the room. Taka placed a hand on my shoulder and said, “Good luck, Kiyoshi,” before promptly leaving the room too.

I didn’t know what was going on, but I decided that maybe it was a girl problem and that I shouldn’t poke my nose in their business. Maybe it was temporary and she would return back to her usual self in a bit. At least, that’s what I wanted to believe. But throughout the entire day, she wouldn’t talk to me, approach me, or got anywhere within three feet of me. When she saw me, she would automatically leave. When I called out to her, she would ignore me with a sad and blank expression on her face.

What was going on? The carefree happiness that had infected me since the morning had now dried out. The usual me wouldn’t let something like this bother me. But I’m not the usual me. I know that I shouldn’t let this get to me, but I couldn’t help but be irked for being treated this way without an explanation! Hadn’t we already establish a rapport? Weren’t we friends? Haruto Saiki said it herself! But after I helped her achieve her dream, she discarded me to the side like a piece of needless trash. Is that all I am to her now? Was our bond fake? Did she make the whole thing up just so she could use me? My head was full of questions and I was caught in a downward spiral of confusion and anger.

I didn’t know what to do in this situation, so, in my desperation, I consulted Ikki and Ai for help during lunchtime. They listened to my problem with intent ears like the true friends I know them to be…on my better days. “That’s harsh,” commented Ikki once I finished talking.

“I knew she was a witch,” said Ai with a scowl. “Maybe now, your eyes are opened to her real nature,” she implored to me, “I will never treat you that way, Yoshi-kun.”

“Wait a minute,” said Ikki. “Calling her a witch is a little too far, isn’t it?”

“Shut up, Icky,” snapped Ai.

“Now, hear me out,” Ikki told us, “maybe she has a reason for doing this.”

“Yeah, and that reason is she’s a witch,” slandered Ai.

“What do you mean by a reason?” I asked Ikki.

“Well, how did she look whenever she ignored you? Did she look happy or content about it?” he posited.

The image of Saiki’s sad and blank expression that she wore every time she had to ignore me flashed in my mind. “Not really,” I told him.

“Then that means that something’s wrong,” concluded Ikki. “Why don’t you try talking to her?”

“Or you can ignore her too and come back to me?” offered Ai quickly.

“I’ll talk to her,” I decided.

That afternoon after school, I calmed myself in preparation to confront Saiki. I waited near the gate and saw her walking towards me with her friends. She was caught up in conversation with them and didn’t see me at all. When the distance between her and me closed, I stepped out from near the gate and called out to her: “Haruto Saiki!”

Saiki froze and her friends looked back and forth between me and her. Without a word, they quickly left us alone. Now, Saiki was by herself with a sad and frustrated expression on her face. I took a step forward and she responded by taking a step back. “Haruto, what’s—,” I began to say.

“It’s good to see you, Shiomi-san,” she said with a bow. Her voice was empty and emotionless. The tone itself told me that she really didn’t want to talk to me. But I didn’t care—I needed answers.

“Why are you avoiding me?” I asked her.

“The album was great,” she said with a forced smile. “I read the reviews. We did a good job, didn’t we?”

I frowned at her attempts at avoiding my questions. “Why are you acting like this? What’s wrong?” I asked anxiously.

She bowed her head respectfully and said, “I enjoyed our time together. Thank you.”

That pissed me off. I couldn’t take anymore of this farce. I angrily grabbed her hand and pleaded with furious eyes, “What do you mean by that?” As I did that, I realized one important detail that I was too stupid and selfish to realize before: her eyes. She wore those godforsaken eyes that I despised so much. And the words that I have said drew out a tear from them. I have never felt like a bigger jerk in my entire life than right now.

Suddenly, a black car pulled up besides us. The back door opened and a very beautiful woman dressed in a finely-tailored purple suit and knee-length skirt stepped out. Around her neck was a string of thumb-sized pearls, and clasped to her ears were precious amethyst earrings. She had long, flowing brown hair and stormy gray eyes behind a pair of thin silver-framed glasses. It only took one look for me to feel completely intimidated by her. “Saiki!” she called.

Saiki nodded her head and wrung her hand out of my mines. She then began to walk towards the woman. But I wasn’t finished yet—I wasn’t going to let this go until I get an answer out of her. I aggressively (even for me) grabbed her hand from behind and stopped her. “Not yet!” I shouted. Saiki immediately looked back at me with a terrifying look in her eyes.

The woman looked at me with an annoyed expression and asked, “And who are you?”

“I am Haruto’s friend, Shiomi Yoshiki,” I confidently told her.

“Are you that guitar player that helped her with the album?” asked the woman with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, I am,” I answered confidently without thinking.

The woman brought her fingers to her face and pinched the bridge of her nose—a universal gesture to convey annoyance or disappointment. She then looked at me with critical eyes and asked, “Tell me, was the album your idea?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused by her question.

“You must be the reason why she turned out like this,” grumbled the woman while shaking her head. She cleared her throat and made the following announcement: “From now on, please stay away from Saiki. She has been led astray into believing that that despicable evil genre is music. I was wondering who was responsible for this, but now I have found him. You may believe that you are a musician just because you can play that poor excuse of an instrument, but don’t fool her into believing the same thing. What you like and do is your business, which I have no intention of intruding upon, but keep it to yourself in the future.” She then turned to Saiki and continued. “Her future is bright and I intend to keep it that way. But now that she has been adulterated, I must purify her once again. And this time, I won’t let her be led astray. She must face forward and accept the bright future that has already been gifted to her.”

As I listened to these words, I only felt anger. Why am I the one being lectured by a woman I didn’t know? What did this woman have against me? “I don’t think that’s right,” I spoke out.

“Silence!” commanded the woman. She looked me up and down. “Judging by the way you look, you must be one of those self-proclaimed social outcasts who have chosen to live a life alone because you desperately believes that ‘no one understands you’. You must have very little self-esteem and confidence to believe that no one cares about you, but in reality, you are just a self-righteous megalomaniac who believes that everyone must give you attention or you will suffer crippling depression. But since no one ever does pay attention to you, you believe that you are fine and that you don’t need it and instead turn to this aggressive, ugly, and disgusting thing that you call ‘music’ to relate your megalomaniac feelings. In the end, you’re just a coward.”

With each sentence she said, she got just a bit more intense and aggressive than the last one. Each of her statements slapped me hard and I was desperately looking for a place to counterattack. But her relentless barrage of disparaging remarks made it hard for to retaliate accordingly.

“That’s not fair!” cried Saiki. I turned my head and saw her fighting for my sake with tears in her eyes.

“And another thing,” continued the woman. She grabbed Saiki by the hand and pulled her away from me. “You must’ve somehow found out that she possesses the voice of an angel and must’ve manipulated her to sing on that album. And in the process, you must’ve brainwashed her with your disgusting music.”

“I—,” I uttered out.

“You know what? I’m just going to say this,” said the woman with a shake of her head. “From this moment on, I forbid you to have anything to do with Saiki ever again!”

“But—!” protested Saiki.

“Is that clear?!” she said to Saiki. Saiki immediately shut her mouth and lowered her head like a submissive dog. “Let’s go,” said the woman, walking back to the car.

“Yes, mother,” said Saiki, following the woman back to the car.

‘Mother?!’ I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. This woman was Haruto Saiki’s mother?! I watched with confused, angry eyes as mother and daughter walked to the car. They both got into the car without a word. But before they left, I saw Saiki give me one final glance. My heart sank as I saw her miserable eyes look back at me. But the message they conveyed to me was beyond just simple suffering. In that very moment, those eyes called out to me for help.

I watched as the car left my view. I can’t emphasized enough how much I desperately wanted to chase after her. But I just couldn’t. My legs were paralyzed and I stood there like a statue. I couldn’t do anything at all. In the end, I was just a coward like she said.

The next day, I didn’t go to school. I woke up feeling like crap: my head hurt, I couldn’t eat, and I had a very bad cough that made it impossible for me to talk without having to enter a fit. Was this all connected to what happened yesterday?—I don’t know. For the entire day, all I did was cover myself with a blanket and watch TV in the living room. I was home alone and watching weekday anime because what the heck?

As I relished in my sick day from school, sipping on the cup of tea that my mother had prepared for me prior to leaving for work, I heard my phone rang. I ignored it. Three minutes after it stopped, it rang again. And again, I ignored it. Three minutes later, guess what? No, my phone didn’t ring a third time—there was a knock at the door. I ignored it and let whoever it was to sort it out themselves. It must be the postman or a door-to-door salesman or something, I don’t know and I don’t care. Besides, this anime was getting to the good part!

But the knocking continued and it quickly got on my nerves. It kept on knocking and knocking and I couldn’t ignore it anymore! I stood up from the couch and walked over to the door with my blanket still wrapped around me. I opened it and was about to go off but didn’t upon seeing who it was.

“Hey, Iomi!” greeted a cheerful Ikki.

“H-Hey,” I greeted back. “What are you doing here?”

Ikki held up a stack of papers. “Here to bring you your schoolwork.”

“Thanks,” I slowly said, reaching for them.

Ikki handed them over and asked, “Can I come in?” I didn’t say anything and just slightly tilted my head in answer. I then walked back to the couch and Ikki came in. “Pardon the intrusion!” he happily announced. He joined me in the living room and kept his attention focused on me.

At first, I ignored him and turned my attention back to the anime on TV. When the funny parts came on, I laughed; when the dramatic parts came on, I teared up; when the suspenseful parts came on, I held my breath. And throughout the entire time, I felt Ikki’s eyes on me. He said nothing and just stared at me with a smile on his face. I seriously thought that it would be easy to ignore him, but damn was I wrong. I felt like his eyes were staring right into my soul! I just couldn’t ignore him anymore and angrily yelled, “What?!”

“You know, if you’re sick, you should be sleeping,” he told me with a stupid smile on his face.

“That’s it?!” I cried.

Ikki’s expression suddenly turned serious and he asked me, “Are you okay?”

The gravity of his statement surprised me and I settled down. “What do you mean?” I asked back.

“The situation with Haruto Saiki,” he said. I became quiet. If you’re wondering how Ikki knows, I told him what had happened yesterday after returning back home. “Her mom is one of the most powerful people in all of east Tokyo,” he continued. “She has worked with many famous celebrities and holds considerable influence.”

“But that doesn’t give her the right to dictate her daughter’s life,” I contended.

“The Haruto family is very traditional,” informed Ikki. “Especially when it comes to music. You know, my father is a professional session drummer. He worked with Haruto Ichiko (Saiki’s mother) before on a few of her older albums prior to her becoming a voice teacher. He told me that the Haruto family are strict in their musical values and they never stray away from classical and folk music. The closest they will ever get to pop is crossover music. Every other genre out there are considered unclean and abnormal. Especially rock’n’roll and its descendants.”

“That’s not right,” I said with a shake of my head. “There’s beauty in all kinds of music. It’s subjective to the listener but also to the kind of music it is.”

“But there are a few people who don’t see it that way,” said Ikki with a shrug.

“Did you know how happy Haruto Saiki looked every time we talked about music? Did you know how much she enjoyed listening to the same kind of music we liked? The amount of joy and love and respect she has for rock and metal, I couldn’t compete with that!” I smiled sadly to myself as I said all of that.

We stayed in silence for a little while. After about five minutes had passed, Ikki got up from his seat to get ready to leave. He suddenly stopped and turned back to me. “Oh yeah, our school festival is coming up. Today, our class was discussing what we should do and we all decided on doing a historic cosplay café.”

“Historic cosplay café?”

“Basically, everyone dresses up in cosplay of famous historical figures,” explained Ikki. “I already know who I’m going to be!” he happily announced.

“Who?” I asked.

“Peter Smithfield from Smithfield & Greyhound,” said Ikki. He was referring to a popular British-American folk rock duo from the 60s.

“Really?” I said, unamused.

“And you can be Walt Greyhound!” he quickly added.

“Who are you calling short?!” I snapped back.

Ikki laughed at my reaction and said, “That’s the Iomi I know!” He then said farewell and showed himself out.

The next day, I decided to show up at school. It appeared that Saiki’s mother has influenced the school because Saiki is now constantly surrounded by people whenever class isn’t in session. And when it was time in certain classes to pair up, everyone would immediately go up to Saiki and forcefully offer their services in their attempt to prevent me from doing the same. They acted as a barrier between me and her and I could tell that they kept their eyes on me. I knew this because every time I was in range, they would gather around Saiki like a herd of elephants protecting their young. It wasn’t until I passed that they finally let Saiki breathe.

Isn’t this going a little too far? But I guess her mother did it just in case I decided to ignore her wishes and continue to make contact with Saiki. My bond with Haruto Saiki is now completely dissolved. Today was the worst school day of my entire life.

School had ended and I opened my shoe locker to change into my personal shoes. As I did, I found a folded note in there. I looked around my area but there wasn’t anyone acting out of the ordinary. I took the note and unfolded it. On it were written the following words: “Come meet me at the rooftop after school.” I didn’t know who it was from, and I was too afraid to wish that it came from a certain someone. I crumpled the note and placed it in my pocket without another thought. But as I was changing out of my school shoes, the words written on the note flashed in my mind. I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t ignore it. What if it actually came from who I thought it was?…

I made up my mind. I put my school shoes back on and quickly made my way to the roof. I got there and I immediately opened the door. And there, I saw waiting for me, a girl. Could it be? I walked up to meet her and said, “I got your note.”

She turned around and nodded. “Good.”

“What did you want to talk about?” I asked her.

“No matter how much I really want to say this just because I don’t like you all that much, I now say this for your own safety,” she said. “Stay away from Haru.”

“What? Why?” I asked her.

“You don’t know what her mother is like,” said Fumi. “Haruto Ichiko is a force to be reckoned with. You already saw just how much influence she has over the school. She has resources to bribe families into doing what she wants them to do. There’s nothing that she won’t resort to to protect Haru.”

“Can you really call that protection?” I asked her.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied back. “It’s their family’s business. We have no right to place ourselves in their business.”

“But—!” I wanted to protest.

“Just drop it,” she snapped.

I shut my mouth and said nothing further. What Fumi was saying was right about staying out of their family business. I know that I have no right to judge Haruto Ichiko’s parenting style. She was only doing what she thought was best for Saiki. But is what’s best for her really what she wants? Haruto Ichiko may think that she knows her daughter the best, but I believe that I know Saiki even better! I knew what she liked and didn’t like. I knew her favorite artists and songs and styles of music. I knew what she considered good and what she considered bad. But in the end, how could I win against her mother?

“I guess this is the end for me and Haruto, isn’t it,” I said with a grimace.

“Yes.”