Chapter 5: Ch 005

"I quit."

 

Toshi had thought about it and from the stories he heard from his sister, he had come to the conclusion that he was a self-center narcissist and that the problems started when he became a pop idol. He decided that he needed to tell his manager to her face and asked she be allowed to come visit. His parents insisted that they were present for the meeting. The manager, a lady in her mid thirties with slicked back hair and a smile dripping with greed looked shocked, "Baby! King of the J-pop! You can't just quit! The internet is abuzz! Everyone is worried about you! You need to strike when the iron is hot!"

 

Toshi marveled from his hospital bed at just how evil this woman was, "Look. I was dead, which causes memory loss. I got pumped full of Rohypnol, which causes memory loss. I got raped, which can cause people to have... you guessed it!" He sighed, "I am fairly certain not only do I have no memory of the job, but it isn't coming back any time soon." The manager thought for a second, "So basically you are saying you want to take a few weeks off. It'll be tough, but if you promise to work more weekends, I'm sure we can move some dates around."

 

Toshi's mother spoke quietly, "I'm going to kill her." Then leapt for the manager's throat. Hirofumi held her back, "Asuka! Don't!" Eventually she stopped and just glared at the manager. Hirofumi let out a sigh when she finally relaxed.

 

"Because I'm going to kill her first."

 

Father spun around and clocked the manager in the face. Toshi was surprised for two reasons. One, that his father was cold cocking a woman. Two, the punch was super lame. The manager just staggered back a few feet, "Hold it!" She rubbed her jaw and kept her hands up to block any further blows, "Let's just calm down for a second and think about this logically."

 

Hirofumi was about to launch himself at the manager when Toshi jumped out of bed to interpose himself. He faced his father to hold him back, "Dad! Just let it go!" He looked over his shoulder at the manager, "No time off. No breaks. No nothing. I quit. Don't care about the contract! I woke up and didn't remember my NAME. There is NO WAY I-" Toshi stopped dead when he noticed the manager was checking out his ass. It would appear he didn't do a good job of tying his hospital gown and it had fallen open. The manager's expression clearly indicated she hoped it might fall open just a little bit more. Toshi was so utterly boggled by this, he was stunned into silence. Toshi's mom also noticed, but she was not stunned. One might say she was displeased. Unhappy. A bit miffed, even.

 

Perhaps one might say she was filled with the white hot rage of a thousand exploding suns and an urge for homicide to give Vlad The Impaler a run for his money.

Yes. Let's go with that one.

 

"DIE!"  Was the only word to fly from her mouth, along with some spittle as she lunged for a throat she so desperately wished to tear out. The manager snapped her gaze up towards Asuka, "Oh shit!" Then ran away as fast as she could. It took both Toshi and his father to hold her back, and even then she managed to drag both of them all the way to the door. Toshi yelled at his mom, "STOP!"  several times before he finally succeeded in getting through to her. She stopped, took a deep breath, let it out slow and said, "I'm calm." Before she turned to look at Toshi.

 

Toshi let go and took a few steps back, "Okay! You were right!" He gestured about aimlessly, "It was a bad idea inviting that chick here. I'm still glad I said it to her face." He slapped his hands together as if dusting them off, "I'm done." Hinako looked embarrassed as she averted her eyes, "Can you tie your gown, PLEASE?" Toshi looked behind himself, "Ah." He proceeded to do as requested, "Sorry."

 

His sister stepped closer and put a hand on Toshi's shoulder while keeping her eyes looking above the waist at all times, "You sure about this? You used to tell me being up on stage was the only time you felt alive." Toshi looked back at his sister, "Then I was a goddamn fool. If I can't feel alive around my family, then I had to be the worst brother imaginable." His parents looked shocked at his words as if they never, in a million years, expected to hear such a thing. Hinako cleared her throat and then lightly punched Toshi in the shoulder, "Stop making me feel things. I can only take so much."

 

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Toshi squinted at his sister, "Uh... okay?" He shrugged, "By the way, when do I get out of here?"

 

His parents looked at each other. Asuka answered, "Tomorrow. It's been four days and... we talked. We're all moving in with me. We already hired movers, so we'll need to do a bit of unpacking over the weekend." Toshi frowned and looked at his sister, "Wait. Are you getting yanked from your school? What about your friends?" She smiled softly and squeezed his shoulder, "I already live with mom. You live with dad. So I'm not moving to a new school, you are." His father chimed in, "We both think you need a fresh start. You didn't-" He cut himself, "You know what? Never mind. Let's not get bogged down in useless details." Toshi noticed something was going unsaid, but let the topic go with a nod of his head, "Ah. Okay then. I look forward to..." He struggled with how to phrase things, "My... new home?" Asuka nodded, "New to you home."

 

Toshi smiled softly, "New to me."

 

---

 

Toshi kept up the conversation for a while. When visiting hours came to an end, he spent another ten minutes persuading them to go home and get some sleep. When he was alone he reached for the controls to turn off the lights.

 

Leaning back in the bed, alone with his thoughts, he stared at the dark ceiling. It had been a rough couple of days. He had endured  a great deal of testing where every single nook and cranny of his body was poked, prodded, and perforated in some fashion or another. He had wondered if they would learn something that was useful to him. Alas, the only thing they discovered was that there was nothing to be discovered. This was by far the most baffling of developments to the doctors. They had scans of his brain from before he woke up, and scans afterwords. Before there was clearly brain damage and a large portion of his grey matter was just inert. Now there was no sign. A full, total, and complete recovery. Alas, this made the doctors a tad bit more suspicious of his memory loss. The currently theory was that while the brain rebounded, it was like a hard drive. The drive itself might be intact, but the information on it was wiped. An alternate theory was that perhaps the index file was destroyed, so that all his memories are still intact, he just doesn't have any access to them.

 

Nobody suggested the possibility that he was a transmigrator placed in the body of a dead child by a flakey god.

 

Toshi got up out of bed and headed to the window, like he had several times the past couple of days. He reached up to spread the slats apart so he could see through the blinds. Doing this had become a bit of an obsession of his, as of late. He stared out across the divide to the billboard on the building across the street. On the billboard was a nearly naked, muscular man wearing nothing but stars over his nipples and a pair of bulging speedos. He held a long-neck bottle of beer at crotch height that had foam practically exploding from it. Both above and below the man were written the following words:

 

Swallow The Flavor!

Sperma Dry Original Craft Beer

 

Toshi kept staring as he slowly knocked his head against the wall over and over, "God? I think you and I need to discuss the meaning of the phrase..."

 

"'Seems basically the same.'"

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