CHAPTER 3
Savior
Kenji awoke the next morning and proceeded to the kitchen to grab some bar food and coffee. He felt almost no stress, and more importantly, almost no need for his usual poison. Instead, sufficiently fed and caffeinated, he made his way to the empty central area of the bar, hopped up on stage, and began practicing. He played just about any song that he could think of. Some Weezer here. Some Janne da Arc there. Some Metallica, O-Zone, and Blue Oyster Cult for good measure. Hideki half-watched from a nearby beanbag chair as Kenji played and played, immersed in a fantasy game at the same time. Hideki’s headphones were wrapped around the hinge of the laptop, which meant that Kenji at least had the full attention of his ears. The occasional patron wandered in while the sun still shone for a shot or a beer, but for the most part, Kenji and Hideki spent the day alone together, drowning themselves in music. This went on from the time that Kenji woke up, all the way until sunset.
Around the time the sun began to set, young couples and swingers filtered in to bathe in Kenji’s music. He played a little bit of everything, from Oomph! to Janne da Arc and Whitesnake, keeping a close eye on the crowd’s reactions and tailoring his song choices accordingly. Sweaty people, moving in time to the music, formed a hypnotic blur as Kenji played his heart out. A tap on the shoulder knocked him out of his daze, and the sour note he hit as a result jerked the crowd up abruptly. He kept playing as if nothing had happened, and turned around to find that the source of the tap was none other than Ikutsuki Yuji. “Hey!”, he yelled over the speakers, “How did you get in here?” Ikutsuki pointed to where Hideki sat by the stage, and there was his drumset, rolled up and ready to be carried about. Kenji motioned with his head, and Yuji set up next to him. Once Yuji was ready, Hideki shut off the drum machine, and the two high school boys played as one, diving into the music like a swimming pool.
Around four o’ clock, Hideki began shooing people out, with help from Shuji, the massive bouncer. Once the place was empty, the boys finally stopped playing, both panting and grinning from ear to ear. “Ha!”, Hideki screeched, slapping his knee, “You two look like you just had sex or somethin’!” “Yeah,” Kenji sighed, “Or somethin’, alright.” Hideki walked up on stage and slapped the two boys on the back. “Listen, I have a business proposal for the two of you.” He made his way off the stage, and the boys followed. The three of them wound up in Hideki’s office. A quick phone call later, a gangly young man named Junpei was standing in Hideki’s office with a bass guitar slung over his shoulder, fiddling with his baseball cap. A stocky youth by the name of Shinji arrived just a bit later, carrying a keyboard in a large suitcase and whipping about his dyed white hair.
The four of them rocked the stage together, and their chemistry kept them plugging away side by side with no issues. Whether it was Yuji’s goofy antics while out on the town for pizza, Junpei’s insistence on dressing his bandmates fashionably, or Shiji’s raw moxie when the boys went somewhere with a cute girl present, they always had something to laugh about and bond over. Kenji had never felt this way before. He had a band. He had brothers. He had a family. The tip jar overflowed each night, and before long, the club was one of the hottest scenes in town.
One morning, as Kenji sat on stage eating a tart and tuning his guitar, Hideki approached him. “Kenji”, Hideki sighed, “I gotta let you fly, man.” Kenji’s heart sank. He knew this day would eventually come. “You have to go out into the big world and discover yourself. You can’t be confined to this bar any longer.” Kenji nodded grimly. “I love it here, but…” Hideki cut him off. “But nothin’! I got you and your boys into Fuji Rock!” Kenji perked up. “You WHAT?!”, he screamed, “Aw, Hideki, I love you, man!” He threw his arms around Hideki, the fruity filling from his tart scattering about the wooden stage. The bar owner guffawed. “I know you won’t make me regret it.”
Another few weeks of rehearsals saw their band writing some original music and gaining popularity in the local scene in preparation for their big show at Fuji Rock. The day finally came, and Hideki loaded the band and their equipment into his van. Before doing so, however, he noticed that his van had been keyed. “What is this crap?!”, he yelled, “Arven Repner?! What the fuck even is Arven Repner?! Who did this shit?! I’ll Arven their fuckin’ Repner, all right!” Kenji put up a hand for silence, and Hideki calmed down slowly. “It’s our band name.”, he said in a near-whisper. Yuji stepped forward. “You’re joking, right?” Kenji shook his head. “Don’t ask,” he breathed, “but I feel it’s right.” Shinji decided to butt in at that point. “I actually like it a lot!”, he cried with a flourish. “It’s quite avant-garde. I think it will make us stand out from the crowd!” Junpei rounded the side of the van, nodding. “Seems legit to me.”, he chirped. The five of them loaded up into the van, and set off toward the base of Mt. Fujiyama.
Somewhere along the journey, Kenji fell asleep. A hard bump sent his head into Shinji’s lap, elicting laughter from the other occupants when Shinji sweetly stroked hair out of Kenji’s face. When he finally awoke, the rest seemed like a blur. They were signed in, behind the curtain, and set up in what seemed like just a few minutes. Sweat pooled on Kenji’s aching brow. The guitar strap dug mercilessly into his shoulder. His vision began to blur. Ignoring all of it to the best of his ability, he walked out into the bright stage lights. He felt his heart about to burst from his chest as the crowd demanded music. Yuji sat calmly at the drums a few feet away, Junpei fiddled with his bass guitar and Shinji paced the length of his keyboard. “You guys ready?!”, Kenji called to his bandmates. In return, he received a collection of nods. The curtain began to rise. The voice of the announcer gave some loud, crowd-pandering banter, then finally boomed its announcement. “Next on our stage here at Fuji Rock, give it up for Arven Repner!”
The boys opened with The Gazette’s heart-rending “Reila” to show off Kenji’s vocal chops, gave Yuji and his drum set the spotlight with Metallica’s “One”, let Shinji and his keyboard into the limelight with a mesmerizing performance of Janne da Arc’s “Mebius”, and rounded out their set with Psychostick’s bass-heavy “Obey The Beard”, eliciting a mix of confused laughter and vacant stares from the audience. The crowd demanded more.
Kenji was nearing his limit, finding it far more taxing to play to thousands than he thought it would be. Still, he decided that he would endure; this was, after all, his dream. He decided to take a chance. “Bandmates!”, he shouted over the microphone, not giving them a chance to back out, “Let’s rip it up with “Too Much Courage”!” The stage was silent for just a second, but nobody protested. The four fell into the song that Kenji had written, full of fire and conviction. The crowd reacted accordingly, with some singing along by the second chorus. The song wound down, and the crowd lost their collective minds, jumping and roaring. The four boys bowed, then took their leave.
Back at the van, Yuji punched Kenji on the shoulder, grinning at him. “You big bully!”, he giggled, “So bossy!” Shinji sat down against the van’s back right tire and sighed. “I can’t believe that song got the reaction it did.” Junpei hopped out of the back of the van after packing up the instruments. “I can believe it. Kenji’s a damn fine songwriter.” Kenji simply stood there and grinned like a fool for a minute, letting his giddiness get the best of him.
Kenji’s reverie was broken by screams. Smoke began to rise from the direction of the stage. Hideki and the other members of the band were hot on Kenji’s heels when he took off toward the smoke as fast as his legs would carry him. The five found a roaring blaze engulfing the stage. Speakers above the crowd fizzled and exploded, setting smaller fires here and there. A young girl and her mother jumped away from one of the smaller blazes, then ran headlong out of the mass of people. The five of them leapt into action, with Hideki strong-arming panicked concertgoers into efficient lines and ensuring nobody was left behind or trampled, while the four bandmates carried the young and the old out of the blazes’ paths.
After only a few minutes, the staging area was clear. “Mia!”, an older man shouted over the roaring blaze, “Mia, where are you!” Kenji ran over to the distressed man. “Is somebody still in there?”, he yelled, “What does she look like?” The man shouted once more, growing hoarse with tears and panic, before noticing Kenji. “Dude!”, Kenji screamed in his face, “What does she look like?!” The man jumped slightly at being accosted so bluntly. “U-um, about half my height, very long hair, um… black hair! She’s slim, wearing overalls and a red shirt.” Kenji nodded, then headed to the refreshment stand. “I’ll pay for this later, sorry!”, he yelled as he upended a bucket of ice water over his head. The shopkeeper said nothing as he plunged into the flames.
Once he was in the hellish landscape, it didn’t take him long to spot little Mia. He scooped her up, then took a quick look around for any other survivors. Finding none, he put Mia under his hunched chest, shielding her from smoke and fire as he carried her away from the middle of the massive blaze. A creaking was heard overhead, and a stage light dropped. Kenji dove to save himself and the little girl, barely avoiding the falling light fixture. After a few more seconds of running, another creaking noise made him look up again. The entire scaffolding abruptly crashed down, trapping Kenji and Mia in the latticework. “Am I going to die, mister?!”, Mia sobbed. “Not today, kid!”, Kenji screamed. With all his might, he threw Mia overhead and forward. She landed in a crumpled heap at the outskirts of the blaze, unconscious. Her father scooped her up. “Where’s the kid that saved her?!”, he screamed, “Is he okay?!” The intensifying fire was accented by more exploding electrical equipment. Nobody dared to enter the inferno at this point.
Arven Repner took the stage at Budokan with Hideki on the guitar and a microphone stand inside Yuji’s drum perimeter. Before a single note was played, he leaned into the mic. “This first song is in loving memory of our founding guitarist, Kenji Satomo. Anybody who was in that crowd at Fuji Rock, lighters up!” A few small lights blazed in the thousands-strong crowd. "Thank you, Kenji!" Mia's cry went up amid the moment of silence, echoing throughout the venue. The four bandmates smiled, and launched into another performance of their most popular song, “Too Much Courage”.
Life 2/1,000 concluded.
998 to go.
ARVEN 3 PREVIEW
The cockpit rumbled with the force of the huge engines. The raggedy spaceship could barely stay together as it reached cruising speeds well into lightspeed territory. Arven grinned his death’s head grin, and pulled up hard on the yoke. A quick twist later, he was above the pursuing fleet of police ships. Before the officers knew what was happening, their ships were coming apart around them, rocked by explosions and pierced through by lances of laser light. Arven’s grin widened as the vacuum of space drowned out the screams he knew he would otherwise be hearing. He kept on course to the client, knowing that he, his cargo, and his paycheck were all safe for today.
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