Pop Rock Love

by Raine Koh

  “I don’t see why not. Why else would I be your manager?” he asked. Mimi laughed. Somehow Kenta’s confidence reminded her of someone.

  “Are you sure you’re not related to Sato in any way?” she asked.

  Kenta shook his head, “Of course not, I am so much better looking!” Mimi laughed in reply. But her manager turned serious and started to speak in a low tone, “Actually, there’s something that I need to tell you. Maybe it’s because you’ve been so busy that this hadn’t occurred to you.”

  “What is it?”

  “I think you should find a new apartment before your official debut.”

  He was right, even though her ankle had recovered for months, Mimi had only been thinking about her music that she totally forgot about moving out. And Sato never even mentioned it to her. It made sense to move out as soon as possible, yet, why did the idea make Mimi a little sad?

  *

  By the time she got back to the apartment it was already past midnight. She glanced at the shoe rack and noticed Sato’s snake-skinned boots. Was he home? She wondered. The whole apartment was dark though. Mimi walked over to the spiral staircase and looked up. The lights from his bedroom and study room were off. Truth be told, in all the months that she’d been staying at Sato’s, Mimi had never seen him sleep without the aid of alcohol. She decided to check up on him and walked over to his bedroom. She found him sleeping in between the bed covers in his room and was about to close the bedroom door when she heard him mutter, “No...no...why are you lying....it can’t be true...stop it....no...no....”

  She turned back, alarmed. Talking in his sleep? However what startled her was that beads of sweat were starting to form on his forehead. “Sato...” she whispered. Mimi sat by his bedside, looking at him.

  He suddenly let out a shout and sprang awake, grabbing her close to him. Mimi yelped in shock. His whole body was trembling and he was drenched in cold sweat. Mimi didn’t know how to calm him down, so she just sat there, on his bed, by his side, letting him hold her as long as he wanted to.

  It was probably only about five minutes later when his breathing slowly steadied that he finally loosened his grasp on her.

  “Please excuse me,” he said, turning away.

  “Don’t worry about it. Do you want something to drink?”

  “I’ll get some coffee downstairs. Can you have some with me?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  “I really hate sleeping, but sometimes it can’t be helped,” said Sato, pouring a cup of coffee.

  “Do you hate sleeping or do you hate dreaming?” she asked, taking a seat at the dinner table.

  “I hate the nightmares,” he replied, joining her. He took a sip of coffee from his cup. “How are things between you and Yuki?” he asked, suddenly changing the subject.

  “I haven’t heard from him. We broke up eight months ago.”

  Sato rubbed his eyes and sighed. “You know, I used to be in a boy band.”

  Mimi raised her eyebrows, “What?”

  “Yeah, I was even under Fame Factory.”

  “Same as the Fire Boys. What happened?”

  “I was in a trainee group when I was 15. We did not debut officially, but it was just for practice purposes. I was in a three-member group. Hiroki, Daichi and I would do acrobats and sing cheery songs. We were actually quite popular for a trainee group. One of the fans gave me some expensive chocolates. Daichi, loving sweet things, was playing around and ate them first. But then, we realised that the chocolates were filled with talcum powder and it was given to us by a fan from a rival talent agency. He started choking and we had to send him to the hospital...”

  “What happened then?” Mimi asked, fearing the worst.

  “He didn’t make it. The worst thing was, Daichi had asthma. If I had eaten the chocolates, I doubted that it would have had such a fatal effect.”

  “I’m sorry, Sato...”

  “No one really remembers this anymore since we were not an official pop group. So I left Fame Factory after that and everyone only knows me as a rock music producer now.”

  “The song ‘Farewell’... It’s about Daichi, isn’t it?”

  Sato looked at her and nodded. In a way, Mimi somehow understood why he was telling her all this now.

  “Thank you for letting me sing it.”

  “You’re the only one who is able to sing it,” he said, gulping down the remainder of the coffee from his cup. “I’m going to do some work now, good night,” said Sato. Mimi looked at the retreating figure and wondered what he meant by that.

  Track #9

  “Farewell”. Mimi heard that song almost every night, yet recording it was so difficult. Partly because she found it hard to sing it without tearing. To Mimi, it was a song about losing someone you’ve loved forever. She’d never gone through what Sato did, but thinking about her parents made her understand his feelings somehow.

  She emailed her brother Roy about her upcoming live. Even though she missed him like crazy, she didn’t want to trouble him by asking him to come all the way to Japan just because she was going to be on stage for ten minutes.

  Mimi’s keyboardist, Kamaki, had been working with her in the studio too. He was cool, probably in his forties, with hair that flowed to his waist and wore silver-rimmed glasses. He reminded Mimi of an eccentric artiste. He told her that his wife was currently pregnant with their first child and seemed ecstatic by the news.

  She was heading to Sato’s office with the raw demo for “Farewell” when she heard shouts coming from behind the closed doors.

  “What is the meaning of this?!” shouted someone. Mimi recognised the voice. It belonged to Shuji from Filth.

  “What are you talking about?” replied Sato calmly.

  “Don’t act dumb! Filth was supposed to record Farewell! Why is she recording it?”

  “I never said that I would give the song to Filth.”

  At that moment, Mimi heard the “clang” of broken glass and Shuji’s voice became even more audible. “Filth used to be number one in your eyes! Why are we being treated like this now? You care about nothing else but her!”

  “Shuji, don’t be childish.”

  “You’ll regret this,” hissed Shuji and he stormed out of the office. He noticed Mimi standing outside and glared at her before walking away. If looks could kill, Mimi would have been struck dead.

  With his office door left wide open, Sato also noticed Mimi standing outside his office. “Mimi, what do you want?” he asked, irritably.

  “Sato, here is the demo, please listen to it,” she said, holding it up.

  He nodded curtly. She wanted to ask him about what she heard just seconds ago, but Sato didn’t seemed to be in the best of moods. She decided to just place the demo on the table and leave quietly. Mimi felt terrible. Ever since she joined Niji Records, the relationship between her and Shuji felt strained. He kept throwing her dirty looks and now it was going to be even worse. Ignoring him didn’t seem to be the solution and what’s worse, she was the opening act for Filth’s upcoming concert. The stress was piling on her. For eight months she had been cooped up in the studios and she needed a breath of fresh air.

  She decided to text Shina:

  Hi Shina, if you are free tonight, let’s meet for drinks.

  Sure! I’ll meet you at Shibuya at nine!

  That night, her Japanese friend decided to introduce Mimi to the wonderful world of Tachinomi, otherwise known as a standing bar. They ended up at a place called Coins Bar 300, where food and drinks were going for 300 yen each.

  “Guess who I had a fashion shoot with today?” Shina asked.

  “Hmm... Brad Pitt?” she said, taking a wild stab.

  “No. I shot the Fire Boys for a feature.”

  “Didn’t you feature them the last time?” she asked, turning her attention to the peanut snacks.

  “Yeah, but they are really hot property these days, they seem to be hitting a winning streak. All their singles have reached the number one posit
ion on the Oricon music charts and they are filming lots of commercials. Anyway, your ex-boyfriend looked well.”

  “How is he?” Mimi asked, not looking directly at Shina.

  “Very professional. In fact, all of them are. But you can tell they are very close to each other. I’m quite proud of this shoot in particular. But how are you doing? Ready for your big performance?”

  Mimi sighed and said, “I don’t feel exactly happy about it. Even though I have lots of things going for me right now, part of me feels like I have nothing.”

  “I think you’re just nervous. I mean, it’s a really big deal.”

  “Maybe it’s because, besides you, I feel kinda alone here.”

  Shina put her arm around her and helped fill Mimi’s glass with beer. “Cheer up beautiful! You’re going to have a hit single and a great music career ahead. Let’s cheers to that!”

  They both clinked their glasses and Mimi took a deep gulp of the beer. She reached for her fuchsia Vivienne Westwood long wallet and passed Shina the concert ticket she had tucked inside. “Here’s the ticket for the show. I’ll only be performing for the opening, but you can watch Filth. They are really good.”

  “Sure. Thanks for this! Is anyone else going?”

  “I asked my brother, but I don’t know if he can come. I mean, he would have to cross oceans for this.”

  “Well, judging by how you describe him, I don’t think he’ll miss it for the world.”

  Between the both of them, they continued to down a few more mugs of beer.

  “Anyway, there’s something else we can cheers to. My divorce has been finalised,” said Shina, out of the blue.

  “I guess, that is a happy thing?” Mimi replied, rather uncertainly. She wondered if people celebrated divorces.

  “Yeah. I really loved him. We were working on a fashion shoot together. He was the photographer. We were married for two years but he had a temper problem and he would hit me whenever he was stressed up or drunk.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “I really wanted to work things out. I thought my love was enough to save the marriage, but everything just took a turn for the worse. I couldn’t live with him anymore.”

  “It’s so depressing. Sometimes love just isn’t enough,” said Mimi, sniffing a little.

  “I don’t really believe in love anymore,” Shina declared, a little tipsy, “Women need to work hard for themselves!”

  Mimi sighed and guzzled down more beer. After a while, she felt dizzy and slumped her head on the table.

  “Mimi... Mimi?” called Shina. She was unable to respond though. Mimi’s head was spinning and soon she found herself in her own apartment in Singapore with Roy beside her. He was in his school uniform and she was cooking breakfast for him. The eggs Mimi cooked were always slightly burnt, but he never complained.

  “Roy, you forgot something!” she cried in her sleep. Mimi woke up to find herself on Shina’s bed, lying next to her. Her head hurt a bit and she saw the clock pointing at 7am. She fumbled around for her mobile phone and saw eight missed calls. And they were all from Sato. She smelled trouble as she quickly dialed his number. “Sato, you called me? Is something the matter?”

  “Where are you now?” he asked coldly.

  “I stayed over at a friend’s place, Shina... I think I told you about her before.”

  “Just checking if you were still alive,” he replied and then he hung up.

  Mimi shook her sleeping friend and said, “Shina, hey, thanks for putting me up. But I need to go now.”

  Shina just nodded and grunted, her eyes still closed. Mimi quietly gathered her things and took a cab back to her apartment. Surprisingly, he was still home when she arrived an hour after they spoke on the phone. He was in the living room, watching the morning news. Mimi suddenly felt like a teenage daughter who broke curfew.

  “Next time I would appreciate it if you told me or your manager when you decide to spend the night somewhere else.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Sato stood up and confronted her, “As your producer, I would really appreciate it if you treated your music more seriously, instead of gallivanting at God-knows-where. This is not a game.”

  Mimi felt that these words were a little unfair. “What? How can you say I’m not treating my music seriously? Haven’t you heard the demo? Haven’t you seen me clocking 20 hours a day at the studio? Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I went last night, but you’re not my father.”

  “You’re right. I’m not. Have you found a place to stay yet?”

  Mimi stayed silent. Sato raised his voice, “You think too highly of yourself, don’t you? How much longer are you going to freeload at my place? Who do you think you are? Don’t you ever think that we are friends.”

  She stared at him. What was his problem? Mimi felt her cheeks burn and in her anger, she felt like crying, but she didn’t want this unreasonable man to scorn at her tears. She turned around and walked out, slamming the door shut. Mimi went inside the elevator and burst into tears. She was fuming. Can’t he ever speak cordially? What right did he have to say those words? The lift finally reached the ground floor. The lift doors opened and right in front of Mimi, she saw her brother.

  “Roy,” Mimi cried and wrapped her arms around him tightly.

  Track #10

  “He is well aware that I have been so busy preparing for my debut. How is it even possible for me to find time to search for a new place?” Mimi said through gritted teeth, waving her arms around, clearly exasperated. They were both sitting on a park bench near her apartment. Her brother just listened, never interrupting her outburst. Roy was wearing his glasses and he looked very perplexed. Mimi suddenly felt bad. Here he was, in front of her. He had traveled for six hours via plane and she didn’t even ask how he was. “I’m sorry Roy. I’m so selfish. Here I am babbling about something else when I should be asking what you’re doing here?”

  “I got your email and decided to come here as soon as possible.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you to call me?”

  “Well, I wanted to surprise you.”

  “You sure did. Where are you staying?” she asked.

  “At one of those backpackers hostels at Asakusa. All my bags are already there.”

  “Thank you Roy, I’m really happy that you are here,” said Mimi, reaching out to pinch her little brother’s cheek. He moved away from her grasp and put his arm around her instead. She looked at him quizzically and added, “Did you grow taller again? You look like you did.”

  “I think so. But do you want to stay with me for the time being?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I just want the performance to go well. But I don’t even know if I can do it.”

  “Sure you can. You’ve performed a million times before.”

  “Yeah, in front of ten people. But now we’re talking about thousands of people who are not even there for me or my music. It’ll be a tough crowd.” Mimi’s head pounded just thinking about it. Her mobile phone started ringing. It was her manager, Kenta.

  “Hi Kenta, my brother just came to Tokyo. I’ll be at Niji Building soon.”

  “Actually, can you swing by Shibuya O-Nest instead. There will be rehearsals over there in the afternoon,” said Kenta.

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “One more thing, Mimi. I just spoke to Sato and he sounded rather sulky. Did you two have a fight?” he asked, rather cautiously.

  “Why don’t you ask him? He’s the unreasonable one!” she exclaimed, snorting in disbelief.

  “Okay, okay, I get it, don’t take it out on me. But Mimi, just remember that Sato’s bark is worse than his bite.”

  Mimi sighed as she turned towards Roy, “I need to go.”

  “But it’s the weekend.”

  “Well, the concert is happening in less than a week... Oh dear, and you can’t speak Japanese. Wait, let me call someone, she’ll take care of you.” Mimi looked through her contacts in her cell phone.

 
“Don’t worry sis, I can walk around on my own.”

  Ignoring his words, Mimi called Shina. Thankfully, she was free for the day and agreed to bring Roy around Tokyo. “She’ll come by in twenty minutes. So just stay here, and here’s her phone number in case anything happens.”

  Roy nodded as he stored Shina’s phone number in his cell phone. Mimi ruffled his hair and gave him another tight hug before running off towards the live house.

  “What happened to your face?” asked Ayaka, her make-up artist and wardrobe assistant, slightly taken aback by Mimi’s sallowed appearance. Not only was she suffering from a hangover, her eyes were puffy with dark circles. Ayaka sat Mimi down in front of the dressing room mirror and started patting some powder on her face.