I wake up with a dead arm, my fingertips tingling but feeling foreign on my arm which is acting like it's doubled in size overnight and Jenny's housemate is singing loudly again as he walks past her room while his girlfriend tries hard to make him be quiet. I'm not sure why she still tries, I've only slept here a dozen or so nights and even I can tell it doesn't work, in fact, it might just make it a little bit worse. "I hate him so much." Jenny moans, curling into me further and releasing the pressure on my arm which is then swamped with the prickle of pins and needles as it comes back to life. "It's five in the morning... On a Saturday. It's like he has to punish those of us who aren't masochistic enough to voluntarily get up that early." "Shh he's gone now, go back to sleep." I whisper, stroking her hair with my normal, tingle free hand, loving the feel of her snuggled into my chest. It's been so good the last few weeks, we've hung out with her friends quite a bit and even her si
Kenji is not a morning person, if anything I would say he's an anti-morning person, he's happy to stay up until the early hours, but getting him out of bed before ten o'clock is challenging. He pretends not to notice when I'm trying to escape his clutches and when I finally manage to get up, he burrows deep under the quilt and fakes being asleep, therefore he apparently can't hear me talking to him. This also means that the first thing he wants to do when we get into town is to go and get brunch, which seems to be fairly difficult when he's also trying to keep himself disguised from being recognised. "Oh em gee, are you Kenji from Kokoro?" A woman shoves past me to sit beside Kenj as soon as he removes his scarf. "Nanishiteruno." (What are you doing?) Kenji shouts suddenly, standing up and taking my hand. "Daijōbu desu ka?" (Are you ok?) I have no idea what he's saying but I'm guessing it's Japanese and am incredibly impressed that he can speak it. I don't know why I never assumed
Jenny left early this morning for a class, from my room in the hotel, after we ordered breakfast and had it together in bed. I hadn't planned to, but I fell back to sleep once she was gone, waking up to the noise of my friends playing music in the communal space."Kenj, I didn't realise you were still here? Thought you'd gone out early this morning." Harrison said, a pen in his hand as well as his acoustic guitar in his lap. "I know we're meant to be on break for Christmas, but it's been a few weeks now and I was itching to play something.""Nah, it's all good, what've you got so far?" I sit on the arm of the chair and listen to the tune he's written so far. For the next few hours we're in "musicland", a place where nothing but the room being on fire could tear us away from what we're doing and I'm fairly certain even then we'd still be working out lyrics and chords while we watched the fire brigade doing their thing."What's going on for dinner? Shall we order in or go out?" Laurie a
I'm not normally the paranoid type, but I'm pretty sure people are talking about me. I've been in the library since my last lecture and about an hour ago there was an influx of girls filling the tables near mine. I'm trying to tell myself it's because it's nearly the last week before the Christmas break, but about three quarters of the people in here seem more interested in what I'm doing than the books right in front of them.When the same girl looks my way for like the fiftieth time, whispering something to the girl beside her, I don't care if it's paranoia or not, I know I'm too distracted to get any work done here and I'll have to risk there not being a party at mine so I can try to get a good chunk of my work done there.Packing up my stuff quietly, I hear the footsteps getting closer before I look up and see three girls, including the one who couldn't stop looking at me, standing beside me."Hi, you're Jenny Kaur, right?" The peeping Tom says, smiling from ear to ear. "I'm Rache
Jenny snores when she's drunk! It's nearly one in the afternoon and I'm lying here watching her sleep, face down on my pillow, mouth open with a little damp patch from her drool, hair standing up at weird angles and sounding like an angry wildebeest. It should be unattractive, but somehow, it just makes me like her more. She's completely and utterly real, every crazy thing about her is her and I can't get away from the fact that I really like her.A light knock at my door has me slipping carefully and quietly from the bed. "You do know it's my room you knocked on?" I say to Laurie when he looks surprised to see me."Yeah, yeah, I just…" He peeks around my door and sees Jenny still asleep. "Fuck, dude, I thought that was you snoring.""Nah, she was beyond drunk last night." I grin looking back at her and feel Laurie watching me, an odd sort of grimace on his face. "You ok?""Fuck, you really like her don't you? Shit… I don't want to be the one to do this." He gestures for me to follo
Don't look, Jeniliya! Don't. Don't look! Don't look!It's no good, morbid curiosity is eating away at me. I know whatever they've written is going to be bad, but I can't help myself needing to know how bad. It's like when I was seven and I skidded across concrete on my bike. All the colour drained from Priya's face when she saw my leg but it didn't hurt until I saw the blood running down my leg and soaking into my frilly white socks.I know I'd be better off not seeing what's been written and the cruel comments posted by the public, but for some reason, I can't stop myself.Checking that Kenji is still asleep beside me, I give in to temptation and grab my phone. I don't even need to search, somehow my phone knows I'm trying to torment myself and has it under the headlines that may interest me. Who is Jeniliya Kaur? Kokoro singer's mystery lover revealed!I breathe out a sigh of relief at the article, it's not great, but it's more factual than anything else, my name, my age, where I g
Yesterday was a bit of a shit storm, but once Jenny came off her social media and sorted stuff out with her sister, she relaxed considerably. Fred's dealing with the major news storms, but all in all, we're waiting for it to blow over and I cannot deny that I'm actually enjoying it.It's like the best kind of holiday for me right now, I know that's an odd thing to say for someone who travels for work, but I don't get to really enjoy myself when I'm there for work. This… this is everything a good holiday should be, swimming, alcohol and lots of sex. Jenny is trying to study or write her assignment or whatever it is she needs to do for her uni course and I'm doing my best to leave her to it, but there's only so much I can do to distract myself from touching her when she's right there."Give me two hours, I swear I'll be all yours then until four o'clock." She moans when I slide my hands under her t-shirt, stroking the smooth, warm skin of her stomach. She's only wearing her pyjamas, so
Who knew I'd enjoy being housebound? Enjoying it so much in fact, that I'm reluctant to pack a bag for the week Priya and I promised our parents we'd spend with them over Christmas. I actually considered faking an illness, but Priya pointed out that wouldn't help because knowing Amma, she'd turn up on the doorstep to look after me here instead."I've promised Kira and my parents I'll stay home for a bit too, then hopefully something else will have happened so the paps won't still be camped out outside here and we can get back to a normal life." Kenji tells me, although I notice he's yet to release his arms to allow me to leave the bed and get packing."I know. And I know it's just a week. I hate myself for being this girl." I roll my eyes, pushing against his arms which tighten, pulling me closer to him as he rolls above me, his hair still scruffy from sleep."I love that you're being this girl." He leans down to kiss me. "It makes me feel better about missing you as much as I know I
The year abroad was the best year of my life, Kenji and his band were amazing, obviously, but the things we did and saw outside of the performances were amazing too. I completely filled up the rest of the scrapbook Priya made, as well as two others and I'm making sure to keep scrapbooking even though I'm back and studying again. Not only does it give me downtime to relax while I'm studying, but it also reminds me to enjoy myself too, so I don't get too caught up in studying all the time. I also got a part time job at a solicitor's, I actually started before I went back to uni so I knew it was definitely what I wanted and it really, really is, I even sat in during a hearing a few weeks ago and it cemented in me that this is my dream career. I feel like a different person, I'm still focused, but more balanced, which is great. Kenji and I are still together, I think I can truthfully say I am completely head over heels in love with him, but I mean who wouldn't be? He made me an office i
The guys are really excited about the tour, and I am too, it's what I've dreamt about for as long as I can remember. I would rather Jenny was with me, I'd love to share it all with her, but I know she needs to follow her own dream too and as my Okasan so wisely said, love finds a way and if we're meant to be together, it'll work out. So I'm allowing myself to get fully excited about the trip, where we're going and what we'll be earning, which I hadn't seen before but it's considerably more than we've ever earnt for a tour before! I'm pretty sure if I sat down and worked it out, it's probably more than we've earnt for all our previous tours combined! Akira has already told me when she's visiting, all the cities that are hot and have beaches funnily enough, and I've made a list of places that we'll be during Jenny's uni breaks so she can choose which ones to come for. All of them hopefully but I won't push it. I've done my shopping, with Akira's help, or so she told me. But it's a
I'm trying not to show everyone how stressed I am, but I'm so close to losing it and having a meltdown in the middle of class. I was stupid to take so much time off especially after everything thats been going on since I met Kenji. I've missed so much and now trying to catch up it feels like there aren't enough hours in the day. I lied to everyone, my tutor didn't recommend trying to catch up, she thinks that's an impossible tasks, so she suggested I drop out now and repeat the year next year. She tried reassuring me that loads of people do it. But I'm not loads of people, I'm me, and I don't give up. Besides, once I'm caught up, the stress will be over and I'll be able to spend a few weeks of the summer wherever Kenji happens to be, which will also mean getting to explore another part of the world. So it's all going to work out, if I could stop daydreaming about exploring the world that is.I've deliberately not looked at his itinerary, otherwise I know I'll start thinking about and
We've been home a month and my house is looking good, Jenny has been working crazy hours to catch up so I've barely seen her and I miss her like crazy. I’m going to ask her to move in with me, I wanted to when we were in Australia but she was in a strange headspace. To be honest ever since we've gotten back she's been weird, like she's not quite present when we're together, which is the main thing that's stopped me asking her already. But I'm planning to ask her when she comes over for dinner tonight.I've got flowers, candles and her favourite meal nearly ready. She should have been here half an hour ago but she's been late a few times recently, saying she lost track of time while studying. I'm trying not to think the worst, I don't know what I'd do if she lost interest in me. I’ve fallen head over heels for her.After an hour of waiting, I give up and call her.“Hey, are you on your way?” I ask cheerily, when she answers the phone.“Um… what?” She says, her voice sounds strained.“J
I don't want to go home and go back to university, back to my boring normal life. The thought has been getting stronger and stronger the longer I've been out here and it's worrying. I brought some textbooks with me, planning to study while Kenji was working or sleeping or whatever, but I've done nothing even remotely academic. There's just too much to see and do. The world is so big and I've been practically nowhere. It's never bothered me before, I had a plan and I stuck to it, never wavered, not until Kenji came along and I know my family will probably be annoyed that I've lost focus, but I can't seem to keep my mind on what I'm learning.Even now, I'm sitting with my books out in front of me, the band is with Fred sorting out the chaos that happened last night and Ivy is sitting quietly watching TV on the sofa near me. After saying good morning and then sitting on the opposite side of the room it was obvious she doesn't want to talk, I think she's still shake from last night, she'
The last week has flown by, I'm exhausted but I've never been happier. Every night we do a show and Jenny is there with Ivy cheering us on, then we go to the after parties and everyone loves her. Even Fred has come around to the idea once he saw the positive response from the pictures of Jenny at our show the first night she arrived. I reposted it on my Instagram page, where I clarified that we are together and very happy but most definitely not in an open relationship. There have been some upset and even some angry fans with some very negative posts about the situation and, Jenny in particular, but I've focused on the positive posts, replying to only those on my page and the positive posts are increasing every day. There are even a few who have started copying her style, posting pictures of themselves wearing outfits they've seen her in on her Social media. I haven't told her about that yet, I think it might freak her out and I just want her to enjoy her time with me here without wo
I'm having the best holiday of my life. I emailed my lecturers this morning and for lack of a better excuse, I actually told them all that I'd flown to Australia to meet my boyfriend for the last two weeks of his tour. I don't know how that'll go down, but hopefully I'll get points for being honest, maybe? I'm all up to date with my work and they know I'll catch up on whatever I've missed anyway but from the moment I sent the email and I fell back to sleep beside Kenji, I've not thought about my course at all, which is so not like me, but I'm happy and relaxed, which is also so not like me. After breakfast in bed, Kenji told me to get dressed because he was taking me out and the next thing I know he's driving me across the country towards a mystery location.I think I saw a camel!!We rushed passed so quickly that it might have been a horse standing oddly, but I swear it was a camel, which as ridiculous as it sounds since I flew for half a day, made me realise I'm in a different coun
I've been trying to get hold of Jenny for hours but her phone keeps going to answerphone and I can't pretend I'm not starting to panic. I've got two weeks left over here but I'm seriously considering what the repercussions would be if I skipped the rest of the tour and got on the next plane home.Keeping my phone in my hand, I drag myself to the pre-gig meeting and sit through it without really hearing a thing.A plane rumbles overhead and it's almost like a sign, or at least that's how I'm taking it and as soon as the meeting finishes, I grab my passport and hide it in my jacket pocket. "Oi, what's got you looking so serious?" Harrison kicks my foot with his in the car, jolting me so I'm not sure if I've clicked on the right flight."Nothing " I grumble, going back and reselecting one that I should be able to make if we finish on time, but then with encores?Just as I'm about to pay for the ticket, my phone starts ringing and my entire body goes into panic as I see it's Jenny's sist
I sit on my bed staring at my phone, I'm not sure what time it is or how long I've been sitting here, but I just can't bring myself to move. Texts come through, making my phone buzz in my hand but it's like my brain's shut off because I can't fathom quite what they say. Well, at least that part of my brain isn't working, there's another part that is more than active. The part that's going wild about the fact that Kenji actually thought I'd slept with those men. I never doubted him, even with the photos, but he didn't even question it, I can't shake that look in his eyes from my mind. He didn't trust me and without trust, how can we say we're in love? It feels like I've been in a sort of bubble since getting together with Kenji, there's been so much drama, one way or another, maybe that's why it feels like we've fallen for each other so quickly. But what do we really know about one another? Why do we like each other? Aside from physical attraction? Do we even have anything in common?