Chapter six - Kenji

Winter is definitely creeping in, it's absolutely freezing as we make our way to the airport. Granted the sun isn't up yet and I crept from a nice warm bed where Jenny is still sleeping, but for the first time in a long time, I'm not as excited to be flying out for work as I usually am, in fact, I'd quite happily call in sick if I could.

"Kenji." The excited high pitched voice of my sister is quickly followed by a body slam that nearly knocks me off my feet.

"Morning Akira." I stabilise my feet and try to peel the arms wrapped around me open enough to turn and face her. "Morning Okosan, Otosan."

"Kenji, couldn't you get a flight at a more reasonable time? Akira has been up half the night packing her suitcase and you know how she keeps me involved in that." My mother teases me, reaching over my sister to place a kiss on my cheek before doing the same to my friends. 

"Kira is a little excited." My father rolls his eyes as Akira squeals and hugs my friends, taking selfies with them for her I*******m as though she's some crazy fangirl and not the annoying little sister they've all grown up with.

"Oh no way… no, nope… I need more coffee for this." Charlotte, Jamie's sister and my sister's best friend, announces, stopping mid step and turning on her heel to walk back the way she came.

"Lottie, wait for me." Akira releases Jamie and runs after her.

"You'll look after her, won't you, Kenji?" My father watches her run away from us like he's ready to run after her and swoop her up in his arms the way he did when she was a child. I can almost see the muscles in his legs twitch as he stops himself from chasing after her protectively.

"I promise, Otosan." I tell him sincerely. As overprotective as he's being, I know it's hard for him to let his youngest child run around America with only the supervision of her elder brother.

"Ok folks, let's get this show on the road." Jamie offers his hand out to my father to take Akira's suitcase, dragging it along with Charlotte's to the check-in desk. Akira rushes over to say goodbye to my parents before running after him to help check in her bags. I hear him teasing her about "filling her bag with rocks" as they fall into step together and then Charlotte is pushing herself between the two of them, explaining to her brother how important it is for them to have everything they could possibly need.

"He's a good boy, so caring. You must be very proud." My mother says to Jamie's parents.

"We are." His mother confirms, smiling proudly at where her son is lifting the bags onto the conveyor belt thing for his sister and mine. "Are you in a rush? We were thinking of getting breakfast before we go?"

"I could eat." My mother nods, hugging me goodbye and straightening my collar. "Tell your sister to ring us when you get there and both of you stay out of trouble, we love you."

"Love you Okasan." I grab my own bag, waving to my parents as they walk away with Jamie's parents.

"Will you two quit flirting and just fuck already." I hear Laurie snap and for a brief moment I laugh, until I realise he's talking about my sister and Jamie and the laughter dies in my throat.

"Not a chance in hell, don't even suggest that." I pull my sister away from Jamie, glaring at him as he laughs nervously.

"Ken, buddy, you know I wouldn't do that, right? We were just messing around." He avoids looking at my sister and that worries me, I'd thought it would be safe enough having my sister around all month, but now I'm starting to have doubts.

"As if I would sleep with anyone in a band." Akira rolls her eyes, snatching her arm away from my hand. "You forget I grew up with you lot, I see the type of girls throwing themselves at you and there's no way I'm touching any of you with a ten foot pole and a bottle of disinfectant." 

"Good." I nod, lifting my own bag onto the conveyor belt and passing over my passport.

Jamie is the first one to fall back to sleep on the plane, pulling the blinds down and putting his ear plugs in as soon as we're in the air. His sister leaning across the aisle to jab him in the side as soon as he starts snoring.

"Bet you fifty quid, he'll have her in the toilets before we land." Harrison jabs his thumb towards Laurie who's flirting with a red haired flight attendant. 

Although one of her hand's is still holding onto the drinks trolley she was pushing, she's practically climbing into his lap already.

"Let's hope it's the toilets, it's too early for a show and I don't want my sister to have to see that." I reply.

"Fuck, ok, you win if it's in the chair." He chuckles, laying his chair back and switching a film on the TV in the seat in front. I do the same, keeping half an eye on the potential porn show five feet away from me so I can intervene and make sure my little sister doesn't see anything she shouldn't.

The clock shows it's eight in the morning now and I wonder if Jenny is still asleep or if she's getting ready to leave my hotel room already. We're only away for a month this time around, then it's Christmas so we get a full six week break where we don't have any gigs or rehearsals or anything planned. I wasn't looking forward to it, I usually get bored with nothing to do, but this time around I might see what Jenny's doing.

Giggling starts up from Laurie's seat and Harrison and I exchange a look before simultaneously standing up and leaning on the back of his chair.

I cast a look over at Akira, but she's either fully engrossed in her film or she's already asleep, because she's completely still in her seat beside Charlotte. 

"Ken, Harry, what's up?" Laurie smiles but it's obvious he's irritated with our interruption.

"Just making sure you know you've got to go elsewhere to fuck." Harrison says bluntly, jerking his head at the girl's seats. The flight attendant gasps in fake shock, as though the idea of her having sex with him is completely out of the blue.

"What the fuck man." Laurie snaps, glaring openly at the both of us.

"I don't want my sister seeing that, that's all." I explain.

"I… uh… I need to get back to work." The red head practically runs away from us and Laurie unsnaps his belt, purposely banging shoulders with mine as he gets up.

"Can't believe you did that to her. Fuck, man. As if I'd have done it in front of the girls, I'm not a perv." He growls as he strides after the red head and I actually feel bad for assuming the worst now.

"He'll be fine, bud." Harrison claps me on the shoulder and we move back to our seats and carry on with our films.

Thankfully, I manage to fall asleep halfway through my second film so the flight doesn't seem as long as it is and when I wake up, Laurie is back in his seat, looking just as moody as he was when he left.

"Sorry about earlier." I lean over and whisper and he shrugs, pulling his earphone out to hear me.

"I thought you knew me better than that, Ken. I wouldn't do that, I don't even like fucking in front of you lot really, that's Harrison's thing." He looks me right in the eyes so I know he's being sincere. "But, the real issue is, you embarrassed Ivy, she's mortified and doesn't want to come back in here. That's not ok, man, that's not ok at all."

"Ivy?" I ask, taken aback, Laurie rarely finds out the girls' names.

"Yeah, Ivy. She's been working here for months, is a really sweet girl and now she's thinking of quitting because of what you two did." He nods towards the front of the plane and I know what he expects me to do, and actually I know I need to do it too. Following the short aisle to the door, I look through and make sure she's on her own before I open my mouth and make things worse.

"Mr Ikeda, did you need anything, sir?" The girl asks, her cheeks as red as fresh tomatoes.

"Yes, I needed to apologise, Ivy." I cast a glance at her badge before saying her name, just to make sure but Laurie has got it right. "What Harrison and I did… what we said about you… it wasn't right to do that and I'm really sorry."

"It's fine." She ducks her head to look away, waving her hand in front of her dismissively.

"It's not, but I promise it won't happen again." I don't know what to do next, but I'm saved when another girl enters and looks at the both of us suspiciously.

"Ivy, we've got to get the meals out now, are you ready?" She says snottily and Ivy stands up so fast, she nearly headbutts me. I back out of the area, intending to leave until I hear the other girl start whispering as soon as Ivy is beside her. "You can't be having sex with passengers on the flight, if Neil or Brenda found out that'll be the end of your job here, you know that, right? I won't say anything, but some of the others would do it just to get to serve the VIPs themselves."

"I wasn't." Ivy exclaims softly, her beetroot cheeks betraying her into looking guilty.

"Uh… Miss." Both of them spin around and stare at me. "Sorry, I uh… I overheard and you seem to be mistaken about the situation. I was rude to this lady earlier. Entirely my fault, so I needed to apologise, that's all. Nothing untoward was going on so there's no need to embarrass her."

"Of course sir." The girl nods but doesn't look convinced and with a quick glance back at Ivy, I retreat to my seat and explain the cock up to Laurie.

"Fucks sake, Kenji." He says, although he chuckles and shakes his head at my incompetency. "How the fuck do you fuck up a simple apology?"

"One of my many talents." I reply, watching as Ivy and the other girl walk down the aisle with the food trolley.

Like a professional smooth talker, Laurie somehow manages not only to convince this other girl that Ivy and I weren't doing anything inappropriate in the room, but also that Ivy was definitely the aggrieved party and that I'm some love sick fool, angry and grumpy because I've had to leave my girl at home alone for a month, that she turned down my offer to be my girlfriend because of my travel and I'm worried she's going to be sleeping with every Tom, Dick and Harry while I desperately pine for her. The girls are looking at me with such sympathy that even though I know he's putting it all on, I automatically start to think about Jenny and wonder whether I should have asked her to be my girlfriend.

"What the hell, Kenji, are you with some girl who's cheating on you?" Akira pushes the door to my hotel open mere hours after landing. Her voice is a mixture of curiosity and outrage and when I don't reply, she shows me the webpage on her phone where there's a picture of me and a black silhouette of a girl with a huge white question mark over her face. 

Who's Kenji Ikeda's mystery lover?

The article goes on to describe the story Laurie gave to the flight attendants, embellished to make it sound like I'm in a committed but open relationship with someone and how progressive it is that we take care of our "sexual needs" with other people when I travel abroad for work. There's then a couple of photos of me with Charlotte and Akira at the airport, with the author of the piece asking if either of those could be my mystery girl.

My first thought is how I'm going to kill Laurie, my second is what Jenny will think of this article, will she think it's about her? Or worse, will she think it's someone else and that she's just a random girl I slept with because I'm away from my real girlfriend?

Automatically reaching for my phone, I don't even care that Akira is hovering over me, waiting for a reply, I want to explain to Jenny before she gets any wrong idea.

The phone rings and rings, but she doesn't answer. I don't even know what time it is at home, but I'm pretty sure it can't be that late.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck." I give up when she doesn't answer for the fifth time and text her instead.

Jenny: Hey, give me a call when you get this. There's this stupid and very untrue article going around saying I have a girlfriend, but I don't, I swear, it's something Laurie said to the flight attendants that got out of hand.

Rereading it, it looks too much like I'm guilty and backtracking, so I delete it to just the part asking her to call and mentioning the article is false.

"Ok, now you've done damage control with whatever girl you're seeing, you want to explain what's going on?" Akira plops down on my bed and crosses her arms across her chest, her no nonsense pose to tell me she's not leaving without an explanation, but by the time I've explained, she's grinning from ear to ear. "Ok, so tell me about this girl, Jenny, what's she like?"

"Kira…" I don't mind telling her about my own idiocy, but I want to talk about Jenny yet, with anyone. 

"Kenji…" She mimics my tone. "I saw the panic in your face, she must be special."

"I barely know her, but yes, I like her." My phone rings and I jump to answer it without even checking the screen to see who it is. "Hello?"

"I'll leave you to it." Akira whispers with a grin, slipping from the room and closing the door quietly behind her.

"Kenji, how are you? Now, we need to talk about this article and what way you want to play it? To be honest, it's not my favourite sort of story, but if you have settled down it's probably the best story we can go with, still gives the fans hope, you know what I mean?" I sigh in disappointment as Fred, my manager, continues to talk in my ear about his plans for how to play this and what to say in interviews. I hum and grunt, making all the appropriate noises and agreeing to whatever he suggests, jumping and looking at the screen any time it beeps in the hope Jenny might be contacting me, but it's never her and when Fred finally hangs up, I try her one more time before heading off for lunch with everyone else, my ringtone as loud as possible so I won't miss it if she does call.