Speech in square brackets is stuff spoken in Japanese but without the hassle of actually writing Japanese. WARNING: This story is much cuter in tone than anything I have ever read or written on here before. If anything, the cake’s the least sugary sweet thing in it!
It was a chilly December, and The Kayotics were the guest act for pop-metal hybrid Babymetal on a tour of Japan. There was something of a language barrier between the two bands, and so they didn’t talk to each other much. At least, that was the case for four-fifths of The Kayotics.
Our story really starts on a Thursday morning on the outskirts of Nagoya. Yumiko was waking up in one of the bottom bunks the tour bus, having lost the previous night’s squabble for top bunk to drummer Kassidy. She stretched and let out a satisfying, yet considerate yawn, expecting to be the first one awake. After all, she usually was! She picked out a pair of fluffy white slippers from the drawer beneath her bed put them on. To her surprise, Becky was already up. “How you say… ‘ohaiyo gozaimasu’,” the blonde guitarist smirked, waving from the kitchen area at the front. She was sat at a tiny dining table, wrapped up in warm clothes from head to ankle.
Yumiko rubbed her eyes. “How are you the first one up? Or am I still dreaming?” she yawned.
“We might be in Japan, but my body clock’s still not left Heathrow,” said Becky, crossing one jeans-clad leg over the other. “Not that I have a great sleeping pattern anyway! So, Babymetal. First show of the tour tonight. Nervous at all?”
Yumiko shrugged her shoulders. “Can we talk after I’ve had my coffee?”
“Suit yourself, Yooms!”
“Cool. Almond milk, two sugars.” With that, Yumiko turned around and headed for the bathroom to brush her long, currently messy but usually very straight, black hair.
Hours passed and both bands arrived at the venue. With the technicians setting up for sound checks, the bands themselves found themselves with little to do for a while. Yumiko had gone to get herself a snack, and soon found someone who looked familiar. “[Oh hey, you must be one of Babymetal!]”
“[Suzuka Nakamoto. A pleasure to meet you!] said the familiar younger singer with a polite little bow. “[What’s your name?]”
“[I’m Yumiko Yamazaki-Green from The Kayotics. Nice to meet you too, we’re all fans,]” said Yumiko, staying remarkably chilled in front of the celebrity. Then again, she was used to it.
Suzuka giggled a little. “[Your Japanese is really good, Ms Yumiko!]”
“[I learned it from my mum. She’s from Yokohama.]”
“[Oh, that makes sense! You’re from England though?]” asked the Babymetal frontwoman.
Yumiko nodded. “[Yeah, the band and I are all English.]”
As she said it, Michelle dragged herself towards the coffee machine in the corner. “Yumi~! I can’t read the buttons!” she said with a loud yawn.
“[As you can see, some of us are struggling to adapt to being on the other side of the world!]” Yumiko chuckled as she saw Michelle struggling to grasp the buttons on the vending machine. “[I’ll be back in a minute.]” She darted across the room. “What do you want, Chelle?”
Suzuka watched at a distance as Yumiko went to the assistance of her rhythm guitarist. It was quite odd to her that Yumiko and Michelle seemed to act more like a couple of friends rather than professional colleagues – very different to how it was for an idol performer. It warmed her heart a little though, seeing Yumiko and Michelle share a brief hug while the machine dispensed the latter’s beverage. “[You’re back?]” asked Suzuka as the two Englishwomen walked over.
“[I am. Ms Suzuka, this is Michelle Massey from my band.] Chelle, this is Suzuka Nakamoto from Babymetal,” said Yumiko.
Michelle just stared blankly at her bandmate. “Mate, it’s too early for your crazy bilingual shit.” She then looked to Suzuka and smiled. “Nice to meet you Suzuka. See you around!”
“Nice to meet you,” said Suzuka as Michelle left. “[You two seem really close.]”
“[I guess! The founding members of the band are me, her and Rebecca. She’s the one with the yellow hair,]” explained Yumiko. “[What about your band? Aren’t you friends with the others?]”
The Babymetal singer shrugged. “[Well yes, but not like that. We’re more like colleagues. We don’t spend a lot of time together when we’re not doing things as a band.]”
“[Not even special days like birthdays and such?]” Yumiko raised an eyebrow. Suzuka was now twenty, and the other two “faces” of the band Moa and Yui were both eighteen, and they had been working together for over half a decade already – about as long Yumiko’s own band had been together.
“…Not even birthdays and such,” Yumiko fed the rest of the band the translation of her words after the show over a few drinks back on the bus.
Letitia Piers was the new girl of The Kayotics and the only one who wasn’t a rock chick. Rather, she was better known as a jazz pianist and organist who had somehow made enough money doing session work that she was willing to make her experimental temporary replacement job into a permanent position in the band. “Wow,” she smirked, moving some of her wild curls out of her dark face. “I’ve worked with some pretty rigid ensembles before, but that takes the cake.”
“Birthdays. Cake. Nice one!” giggled Becky.
“That wasn’t a deliberate pun,” said Letitia.
Yumiko shrugged. “But it does give me an idea. Suzuka’s birthday’s on the 20th, and we have the day off in Tokyo then. Why don’t we make her a cake?”
The cake wasn’t the greatest, and most of the job had been left to Michelle and Yumiko. Knowing how much of an anarchist Becky was, the quintet made up a batch of chocolate cake batter and didn’t even bother to stop the perky blonde from using it as ammunition in some sort of combat ritual with Kassidy. As soon as the first drops started flying, Letitia very wisely sought refuge by heading into Tokyo with the tour manager. Michelle and Yumiko bravely started fresh, hoping to avoid taking too much collateral damage in their bandmates’ little sweet skirmish. As Kassidy grabbed a couple of cans of whipped cream to defend herself with, the two bakers put their cake into the oven and sought cover. By the time the cake was finished, the four Kayotics that had stayed behind were in varying states of messiness. Yumiko and Michelle were mostly splattered with tiny bits of chocolate batter and whipped cream, resembling some sort of abstract art. Becky and Kassidy were more thoroughly covered, and so stayed behind to clean up both themselves and the inside of the tour bus while the bakers delivered their cake.
Yumiko sent Suzuka a message to meet her and Michelle in the hotel lobby. The two Kayotics barely bothered cleaning up or changing; instead, they opted to walk over in their once-black hooded tops and blue jeans. Yumiko was wearing a pair of purple Doc Martens, while Michelle opted for some low-top sneakers. Yumiko carried the cake, while Michelle carried an acoustic guitar. As they entered the hotel, they saw Suzuka, flanked by bandmates Yui and Moa. “[Ms Suzuka, Ms Yui and Ms Moa! Thank you for coming to meet us!]”
“[What’s this about?]” asked Suzuka, before having her eyes drawn to a pair of big golden candles, shaped like a 21, sitting on top of the cake. The cake was pretty big – easily 15 or more centimetres across. The chocolate icing had been heaped on generously and somewhat hastily, giving a somewhat uneven but generally thick coating on top. Michelle had scrawled “HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUZUKA” in white lettering rather hastily Suzuka’s eyes widened in surprise. “[For me?]” she gasped. “Thank you, Kayotics!”
The five of them found a table to sit around, Michelle sitting a little bit back to make room for her guitar. Yumiko sat across from Suzuka, with Yui to her left and Moa to her right. “[Sorry that it’s a mess, but we’ve never tried baking on the tour bus before. Plus, Becky’s kind of crazy, so that only made it tougher!]” Yumiko blushed.
“[No, no! It’s fine! I’m flattered that you made this!]” beamed Suzuka
Yumiko picked the 1 candle off the cake and held it to the tea light to ignite it, then held it to the 2 and put it back in its rightful place on the cake. “Music please, Chelle!”
“One… two… three… four!” Upon Michelle’s count and with the backing of her guitar, Yui, Moa and Yumiko sang Happy Birthday for Suzuka. The birthday girl blew out the candles with one strong breath. As Yumiko pulled the extinguished ornaments from their mire of chocolate frosting, Suzuka felt a hand grab the back of her head. Before she could react, she felt her head shoot forwards… downwards…
It soon became apparent to Suzuka just how generous the layer of frosting on top of the cake really was. She barely had time to shut her eyes as her face hurtled towards the messy brown dessert, impacting upon the soft and sloppy topping with a splatter. Suzuka squealed in surprise as her features immersed themselves the sticky sweetness. Her head finally free of some anonymous grasp, she sat up, jaw agape. “[Who did that?]” she demanded as she wiped her eyes with an impressively manicured finger. She opened her eyes, only to find it didn’t help much as most of what she could still was still cake and topping. She could just about see Yumiko in front of her, mouth in front of her face, struggling to hold back the urge to burst into laughter. To her right was Moa, phone in hand, snapping a photo. To the left, Yui wasn’t even trying to hold the laughter back and had burst into a fit of giggling.
“[Tasty?]” asked Michelle, using up about a quarter of the Japanese vocabulary she had learned in a single word.
Suzuka licked her finger clean. “[It’s actually really good!]” she gasped. She then scooped up the ruined cake and threw handfuls of it at the other four women. “[Try it yourself!]” Her aim wasn’t great, but she did manage to score some hits on Yumiko, Yui and Moa’s faces.
Yumiko flinched and squealed as a particularly goopy piece of cake splattered on her right cheek. “[Is this the point where you’d traditionally say ‘let’s eat’?]”
Later that evening, Yumiko’s Photogram page achieved its most popular picture to date – a photo of the remnants of an already messy chocolate cake, the five young women who were responsible for its creation and destruction, and the aftermath – mucky faces, messy clothes and big smiles. The description read: “It was Su-metal’s birthday today, so @michellemasseyguitar and I made her a cake… which Yui-metal promptly planted Suzuka’s face in! It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it. #cake #birthday #tourlife #tokyo #japan #babymetal #kayotics”.
If I can be bothered, I might do a play-by-play of Becky and Kassidy’s mess fight.