“Throwin’ off an orange glow and makin’ people nervous...”

The redhead on stage twisted her waist this way and that, playing with the flowing knee-length skirt of her yellow sundress as she moved. Despite all the stress with Yokai, she was all smiles. Nabiki will handle it her way, and I’ll handle it mine. I’m just glad that freakazoid Natsuko’s not here today. She seems decent enough, but holy fuck, she’s a lot to handle.

It was barely one in the afternoon, and none of Ranko’s sisters had arrived at the Phoenix to begin their prep work for the evening’s service. She had to squeeze in rehearsals around her classes as best she could, especially when working on new material, and that sometimes meant an earlier start than she might have liked. She’d promised Yokai a replacement for Freak in the set list by the start of the second leg of her tour, which was less than seven weeks away.

“Spreading out of all control, and …”

Ranko stopped her rehearsal mid-verse, smiling up at the double door as it opened. She squinted a bit at the bright afternoon sunlight pouring through the door into the fairly dark bar room, shielding her eyes until it closed behind the newcomer. Recognizing him, she pulled off her headset, tossing it back on its charging shelf before bounding down the three steps at stage left to the floor. “Hey, bud!”

“It's sounding really good, guys.” Ken Hirata smiled weakly to the redhead as he closed the distance to the stage area from the door. He wore a black Ranko and the Dapper Dragons tee shirt under an unbuttoned red plaid button-down shirt, paired with black jeans. “Almost ready for prime time.” He reached out as he met Ranko, hugging her tight. He seemed to hesitate to let her go.

Crash nodded, carefully propping his guitar in its stand before descending the steps himself. “It’s getting there. I still wanna play with the bridge a little bit. It needs some more… I dunno, oomph.”

“Needs a drummer, too,” Shinji said, sitting on the edge of the stage and dangling his legs off of it. “You're almost twenty minutes late, bro. What gives?”

Ken winced visibly, nodding his head. He said nothing.

Jacob clapped his hand on Ken’s shoulder firmly and gave him a little shake with his arm, his elbow locked stiffly extended. “Good thing we got the best drummer there is, then, huh?”

“...Yeah.” Ken’s voice was distant and hollow, and he turned his back to the band, taking a few steps to one of the round tables at the left side of the stage and slumping into one of the seats facing the stage.

Shinji waved toward himself from his seat, an exasperated expression in his brown eyes. “Um, hello? Dumbass, you do know the band practice is up here, right? Or are we gonna stop for lunch first? Maybe a light supper?”

“Guys,” Emi said, waving her hand downward at Shinji to shush him. “Shut up. Something’s not right.” She pulled off her green denim jacket, tossing it over the back of the chair next to Ken and sitting in it. “Ken, are you okay, buddy? What's going on?” Emi reached over the tabletop, resting her hand on her friend’s forearm.

Ken lowered his eyes to his hands, fidgeting idly with his fingers. “I…”

Ranko’s face took on a pallor of concern as she slid into the chair on the other side of her friend. “Ken, you're starting to scare us. What's wrong?” She reached out, resting her manicured hand softly on his other flannel sleeve.

“I…” Ken bit his lip, trying to steel himself. His eyes shimmered with nascent tears that he kept from falling down his cheeks only through sheer force of will.

“I have to… leave the band. I'm so, so sorry, guys.”

“What?! Ken, why would you…” Crash hurried to the table, leaning over Ranko’s shoulder. “Don't listen to Shin. He's just being a dick. That's just what he does. You know that.”

Shinji groaned, hopping down to his feet. “Sitting right here, you know. But really, Ken, I give you shit, but you don't gotta get that dramatic about it. Come on, now. Knock this crap off and let’s get to work.”

Jacob sighed, shaking his head sorrowfully. He took a step closer, putting a supportive arm around a visibly distraught Hitomi’s back. “This… isn't ‘cause of the stress, is it?”

Ken shook his head, staring down at his hands as if he thought the answers might be written in invisible ink on the backs of his thumbs. “So, I, um… I told you guys I was gonna go to the doctor about why I'm getting sick all the time. Well, they did a bunch of tests, and…”

Ranko sat up bolt-straight in her wooden chair, terror in her eyes. Oh, gods, no. She patted his arm softly, her voice quiet and reserved. “What is it, Ken?”

The drummer continued, each of his arms held by one of the women sitting beside him. “So, there's something new that's been going around the last few years, and the doctors say it's been happening a lot to… guys like me and Ryo. Basically, it's a virus, but it doesn't get you sick. At least, not by itself. It just sorta wrecks your immune system. So, it means I get sick a lot easier than everybody else, and when I do, it’s a lot worse, ‘cause my body can’t fight it off.”

Shinji, who had just reached the table, took two big steps back away from it. “Is it catching?”

Ken managed the tiniest of smiles, blushing a bit. “Yeah. It's contagious, but you can't catch it from me. There's only two ways to really pass it to somebody. You'd have to either touch my blood, or… do something else with me. And Shinji, I promise, you don't have to worry about me wanting to do that with you.”

“Oh, one of those, huh?” Shin nodded in sagely understanding. “Yeah, I've had my share. They give you some antibiotics, and it clears it up pretty quick. Couple, three days, you’re right as rain.”

Ken's eyes fell to the tabletop again, a sullen, hollow timbre in his voice. “Yeah, with this one, not so much.”

Emi swallowed hard with an audible gulp. “So, what do they do to fix it?”

The drummer shook his head, his shoulders slumping. Already the smallest member of the band besides Ranko, he seemed to physically shrink by the moment as he spoke. “They… don't. At least, not yet. It's still being researched.”

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“So, let me see if I get this straight,” Jacob said softly. “So, like, it just means you’re always getting colds and shit? ‘Cause you’ve been dealing with that for years now. We’ve worked around it this long; we’re used to it. We could get you a mask or something for the plane rides and stuff, if you’re that worried about it.”

Ken sighed despondently, fidgeting with a stack of cardboard coasters advertising light beer that he’d picked up from the table. “It’s not that easy. Like, that flu I had in Australia? All of you guys were probably exposed to it, too. Especially you, Jake, since we shared a hotel room in Perth. I mean, we traveled together, we ate together, we were on the planes together, everything. But none of you got sick. I did, ‘cause my body couldn’t fight it off, and then once I caught it, what would have given you the runs for an afternoon flattened me for a week and a half. But it means if I caught anything even remotely bad…”

He tossed the coasters aside dejectedly with a loud sniffle. “And basically, the longer I have this thing, the weaker my system gets, and eventually, the same germ that would just give you a runny nose could easily kill me. Like, I’ve got this big, scary disease, but when it finally gets me, the disease won’t even be what does it. It sits back and waits for something else to do it, like a fucking coward. I’ll die from a motherfucking cold. And the doctors say it’s already pretty advanced, or I wouldn’t be getting as sick as I have been all the time. I just… I can’t screw around with it and take the risk of big crowds and planes and a new city every night. Not right now. I need you guys to understand. Please. I feel shitty enough as it is, bailing on you all like this.”

Biting her lip, Emi slipped out of her chair, kneeling next to Ken’s on the floor. Her voice trembled, but she fought to maintain a brave face for her friend. “Hey. Of course we understand. We’ll figure out the music part later. But, what are you gonna do? You can’t give up. You just… can’t.”

Ken shrugged, sitting back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling. “I’m not. They're doing a lot of work on it around the world, but especially in the United States, and some of the stuff they’re trying looks promising. That's why I've gotta disappear for a while. My dad pulled some strings, and he threw a bunch of money at some research college over there to get me in one of the trials at the last minute. So, here's hoping. But I gotta be out there by the end of the month. Dad’s trying to charter a private plane so I don’t even gotta risk flying out to California with other people.”

Ranko swallowed hard. She had to ask the question, much though she did not think she wanted the answer. “You said it spreads by…” She wiped her eyes with her quaking hands. “Is… is Ryo…”

The singer’s friend physically recoiled at her words. “I don’t know. We’re still waiting on his test results. But…” His voice was even hollower than before. “I’m sick, and he’s not. Which means if he does have it, I’ve probably had it longer, so I would have to have been the one to…” He could not finish the thought, paralyzed as he was in horror at the doom his relationship with Ryo might have wrought for the man he loved, and he trailed off into silence.

Hitomi wiped her eyes, still leaning against Jacob for support. “If he does have it, then your dad’ll just take care of both of you.”

Ken shook his head again, losing the battle to restrain his tears. “Dad doesn’t know Ryo exists. If he did… forget helping Ryo, he probably wouldn’t even help me. And Ryo’s family doesn’t know about us, either, so… whether he’s sick or not…”

Crash winced, shaking his head. He spoke softly, rubbing Ranko’s back for comfort through her yellow dress as he did. She wasn’t sure if it was more for her comfort or his, but she appreciated her friend’s loving gesture. “He’s… not going with you, is he?”

The distraught young man could not answer in words, but his sobbing increased by an order of magnitude at the guitarist’s words, all but confirming Crash’s assumption.

“Oh, my gods, Ken… I’m… I’m so sorry.” Ranko rocketed forward from her seat, wrapping her arms tightly around her crying friend’s neck. “Is there anything we can… anything?”

Ken took two great handfuls of the back of Ranko’s dress, bawling into her shoulder as she held him in her arms.

“FUCK!”

A feral roar came from the back corner of the bar, and table six flew a full meter in the air. The round wooden table landed upside-down against the edge of the stage, in three separate pieces. Shinji lowered the foot he’d kicked it with, his black boot making a loud clack as he stomped it on the hardwood floor.

“He’s not honestly thinking about the band right now, is he?!” Hitomi looked up nervously at Jacob, who released her with a pat on the back and started walking tentatively toward the enraged bassist.

“Shin, hey.” Jake reached out gently with his hand as he approached, as if trying to quell a raging predator. “Take it easy, dude.”

With a loud whoosh of his black duster around his thighs, Shinji whirled to face Jacob. The rage in his eyes was undeniable, but so too were the twin rivers drenching his cheeks. “What kind of rat bastard would do that to his…”

The green-haired keyboardist stepped forward, grabbing his friend and pulling him into a hug. “I know, Shin. I know.” A furious scream rose within the elder man, muffled into the shoulder of Jacob’s black denim jacket.

Whoa, Emi thought, her eyes darting between Shinji and Ken. I’ve never seen the big guy cry before.

“You guys are gonna be okay,” came an almost-whimper from the young man in Ranko’s arms, and Ken sat up, drying his bloodshot eyes with his right sleeve. “I’m sure Zoe can replace me, like they did in Australia. It’ll be like nothin’ ever happened. They’re gonna do great. I know it.”

Ranko shook her head urgently, reaching out for his hand as Emi darted in for a hug of her own. “Ken Hirata, don’t you friggin’ dare say that! No one could ever replace you!”

Ken managed the smallest of smiles, blinking through his tears. “You know what I mean. They’ll take good care of you guys for me.” He bit his lip hard. “Just until I get back, yeah?”

Crash nodded resolutely, despite his sniffling. “You bet your ass, Ken. Just until you get back. That’ll always be your seat back there behind the cans, man. I’m sure Zo will keep it warm for you as long as you need, but you’d better go kick this thing’s ass with a quickness and get back to it.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his left hand as his right flashed forward, forcefully grabbing a handful of Ken’s black tee shirt. He pointed down into Ken’s face with an outstretched index finger that quivered mere centimeters from the smaller man’s nose.

“You are going to beat this thing. That’s not a request. Do you fucking hear me, Hirata?! ‘Cause I’m not gonna fucking tell you again!”

With a powerful yank, Crash heaved the slight young man out of his chair and pulled him forward onto his feet. He clasped both of his arms tightly around Ken’s back with a loud clap.

“I fucking love you, brother. Don’t you ever forget it, you scrawny little son of a bitch. Never.”