Bronze: True Heart 2
by K.Huntsman
JAL, Tokyo-bound from Los Angeles
Arin woke up again and envied her business-minded cousin her ability to sleep in normal patterns. Molly was sitting in the seat next to hers, studying a small schedule on her laptop. "Whazzat, Mol'?" she asked, half in her dreams still.
"Your recording schedule," Molly replied. "We're going to be in Nippon for a few months, remember. I'm doing a tentative work-up of when each song should be finished by; it's completely subjective because you and Nanjou and his band still have to get together and hash out the fine print in lyrics, melody, and such."
"Has anyone ever told you you think too much?" Arin asked, pushing herself up a little straighter in her seat. She looked around at the mixture of business suits and nice dresses in the first-class cabin. She and Molly were the only teenagers. She and Molly were the only ones in jeans.
Molly stuck her tongue out in reply. "I can't sing, so I've gotta keep myself busy with something!"
"Who's supposed to meet us at the airport?"
Molly smiled and returned her attention to the screen. "Nanjou's personal manager. Guy by the name of Katsumi Shibuya. He mentioned in his e-mail that if we weren't too 'lagged, he was going to take us, Nanjou, and a couple others all out for a celebratory dinner. He sounded like a nice guy."
"Arin." 'Toni leaned across the aisle to talk to her. "Are you sure that this trip is going to be okay? You know how you get about Japan and your grandfather. We don't have to go see him."
Arin studied 'Toni's diamond-shaped face, the flowing black hair around the blue eyes. "I can't go and not visit him, 'Toni. You know that. He's family, no matter what happened between him and Dad."
The bodyguard withdrew without further comment. She didn't need to make one; Arin knew how 'Toni felt about her insistance on seeing her paternal grandfather. "Anyhow," she continued, "this is a business trip first and foremost. I get to work with one of the most innovative singers in Japan, so I'm not going to be spending all my time in Kyoto or anything near it. The recording studios are in Tokyo, and it's a ways away."
'Toni remained silent.
Arin sighed and sat back in her seat, pulling out her textbook and preparing herself to study male Japanese speech for the rest of the flight.
The New Tokyo International Airport, Narita, Japan
Katsumi smiled, watching as the people filed out of customs. He'd said that he'd await Hanano-san and Akaiko-san here. He knew what the former looked like from his album covers and the latter had given him a description of herself and Hanano's bodyguard via e-mail.
Suddenly the crowd parted before him and the three stood there.
"Excuse me, but you're not Katsumi Shibuya-san, by any chance, are you?" the girl asked, her Japanese slightly accented with an American tone, but only slightly.
"Yes, I'm him," he replied, straightening from where he was leaning against the wall. "You must be Maari Akaiko-san?"
She smiled at him. "Hajimemashite," she murmured, bowing. "Shibuya-san, may I introduce you to Arin Hanano, my cousin, and 'Toni Alexis, her bodyguard?"
"Yoroshiku!" he said brightly before the two could bow. Not that the bodyguard seemed inclined to; she was scanning around the airport. She reminded Katsumi a bit of a mother warily protecting her child. "It's nice to meet the two of you," he added in his best English.
Hanano smiled a bit at that. "For coming to meet us... thank you," he said hesitatingly. "I am sorry; my Japanese is not good. It has been many years... since I spoke Japanese."
"Better than my English!" Katsumi said back in that language, smiling. "Do you have any luggage to collect?" he asked, switching back to Japanese, making a mental note not to use really hard words for a while. "I made tentative dinner reservations at seven, if you feel you're up to it...."
"We each have a bag to collect," Akaiko-san replied. "The flight wasn't too bad, actually; my cousin slept through most of it!"
Hanano frowned at Akaiko. "I didn't sleep all the time!"
"Oh?"
Katsumi laughed a little to himself; he liked these people already. The three of them walked down the hallway, followed by the black-clad shadow of a bodyguard.
The Heron Restaurant, downtown Shinjuku
Takasaka smiled at Shibuya-kun as the teenager entered the private dining room with three others in tow. He'd managed to meet the Americans; good. Better even that the singer and the girl he assumed was his personal manager seemed to be at ease with this project. The older, taller woman he assumed to be the mentioned bodyguard that was accompanying Hanano-san. Strange to think of a woman being a bodyguard, but somehow she gave off that very impression as he looked at her.
At last, he could relax.
Until Nanjou-kun started giving him his next ulcer.
Kouji studied the quiet young man that he'd be working with for the next few months. Hanano had made a brief apology for the weakness of his Japanese speech earlier, then had retreated into silence. His cousin made up for his lapse, as did the woman bodyguard, her attempts in a Japanese that was far more stumbling than Hanano's making them all laugh until she finally gave up and started speaking in English, Akaiko-san translating for her. Izumi, by his side, had also noticed Hanano's silence and had made brief forays into speaking in English with the singer, but those had died down quickly too, Hanano apologizing again, this time with an offered excuse of jetlag.
Working with someone this quiet was going to be a novelty.
Still, the Arin Hanano Kouji had seen in the music videos, the taped concerts he had watched, was a different person entirely. The American singer loved music, that much was obvious, loved performing. So perhaps this venture might not be that bad; once they were actually talking music, perhaps he would speak a little more. If not, the next several months would prove to be very, very tedious.
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