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// The Girl with the Bump on her head.

"Hey Saga, Who's that?"
Saga was taking a drink from a brown bottled beer and turned to see whom I meant, she was leaning against the balcony fixing the lights that made an arc on the railing. She had long wavy hair, or it might have been curled, dark brown, light tan skin, and a mouth that was small, but made a very appealing arc when it widened, her smile must be pretty. She wore a black collar shirt with sleeves that ended at the elbows, no ruffles, but it clung and had chains on the buttons, a tattered vest, those necklaces with the long chains and a bat necklace. She had black devil horns for a costume, and a tail that hung from her ripped yellow newspaper printed jeans, like me she wore creepers, but hers were leather black, and two inches thick, mine were half an  inch, I was already heading for 6'4" she must have been a whole foot and half shorter than I was, maybe 5' maybe 5'3" I wasn't sure. While wondering this Saga had revealed her identity, "Oh, that's Charlotte, she's in Seiko's band." Her head jerked away from the lights, and for a few seconds she looked in my direction, seamed to hear her name but didn't recognize us, so she looked away a bit disappointed.


However, that wasn't the first time I'd seen Charlotte.
No else knew, but the day I got into USC, majoring in Physics, that day we played a gig, and it surprised me how popular we got, I got three girls coming up to me trying to sleep with me, maybe if I was raised differently i might have taken the offer, but I didn't like that kind of attention, I left the show after the gig and went down to the beach to think about it, we just played a show in Venice a few houses away from the beach by the bus stop and the playset.
I remember walking down the sand and seeing something black by the water in the moonlight it was hard to tell without my glasses, it was a girl, she was sleeping, it was summer and the water was warm, but it was still strange. Thinking maybe she'd wash away I picked her up,she didn't weight much, and took her to the grassy playground. At this beach lots of people sleep its not uncommon, but if she was by the water she could get taken by a rouge wave, I've actually done this before, so I didn't particularly mind. Looking at her as she slept, she winced when I set her down but she didn't wake up, she opened her eyes for a split second but they didn't focus on me, she must have been spent because she slept right through it. I watched over her for a while, not really thinking about her, but about how I was going to juggle school, a job, and the band. I had two girls talking about dating, but I just don't have time for that, and on top of everything, I would be moving to LA. I already discussed that part with my step-dad a few months ago when I mentioned I might be going to USC, he came to a decision that I would live in an aparment close to campus, Saga and Shou already are looking into places by Koreatown, incidently the music scene. It wasn't very far from campus, but not too close either. We drive around for most gigs at Long Beach, but Los Angeles is intergrated, we would certainly do all our shows in town. The street lights were coming off, the sun must be rising in about an hour, I took my jacket off and placed it over this girl, looking at her before I left, I noticed that her face was bleeding, and so were she hands, they had scrapes on them. I called an ambulace, and  waited until they got there, I directed the paramedics to her, they quickly realized that she was unconscious from a concussion, if I hadn't called them she would have died, they thanked me and took her away,  I took a last look at her as they strapped her into the cart and into the ambulance. Who ever that girl was I hoped she would live, I don't remember the color of that jacket, because it wasn't important to me, but that jolt when I touched her ribs when I set her down, and her eyes flashed open and she whined. I know from that fight I got into with Marcus Saint, that her bones were broken, someone must have beat her but out here, i don't think so, on the drive back I kept coming back to that girl, maybe I should have stayed, maybe I should have gotten in the ambulance and taken her to the hospital myself. What was I afraid of? I don't know, but when I got home I was so tired I jumped on the sofa and slept.

That memory stirred again later that night, we were getting ready to see the first band perform, so we headed over to the stage area. Just then Saga and I got thrown onto the stage area by a drunk girl who incomprehensibly was asking where the bathroom was, I hit someone hard and knocked them into the drum set, and could feel the pain in my ribs from them hilt of the snare, Saga was luckily behind me and suffering no damage, but the person in front of me, let out a groan. "What the fuck is your problem?"  a girl, he turned for an explanation but instinctively i bowed and apologized to her, my hair was long and tousled covered most of my face, but I could see, that it was her. Now with a red bump on her temple from the silver gears of the drum set, she held her head and disappeared behind the stage.  "Dude," Saga behind me laughed a little, "Did you make the girl cry? Vicious." He shook his head in disaproval but was still laughing at my expense, I tried to go after the girl but I lost her in the crowd.  I returned to the stage and realized that Saga, Shou and Riki were already there, in fact, Riki was on this drums and I realized that it was his set, I hurt a girl who was setting up our equipment, the guilt hit me, but I promised I'd appologize properly to her when I saw her later, now, we have a show to do, and we can't let Seiko down, specially for Saga's sake. He joked with me, and tuned his bass at an angle like he was shooting me, I knocked him back a bit and the chord hit a high note, causing everyone near the low toned speakers to reach for their ears, we had a laugh. The crowd had finally finished to form around us and Seiko jumped on the stage with another guy, he was as tall as I was, and had medium length, mildly blond bleached and black hair, wearing sunglasses and a biker jacket, he looked intimiating, I could see Saga reach for Seiko to pull her in closer, and he did, the other guy didn't even care, must have been a test, but from Seiko's annoyed reaction, all he tested was the resistance to the back of her hand on his jaw, and he quickly let her go and she grabbed the mic and welcomed everyone, all while Saga rubbed his jaw and seemed to carry out a mini dramatization mouthing "oh woe is me". I couldn't tell if her was acting but Shou and Riki laughed anyways as well as a bit of the crowd who saw, it made Seiko look back at him, but he straightened up and pretended to tune his guitar looking as innocent as he could he blew her a kiss, she rolled her eyes and caught it, before Saga could et lovey again,  the biker looking guy took the mic and spoke inj a quite chilling voice, kind of a like a yakuza. "Can I get some noise up in this nest?  Tonight we have five local visual bands with us, you know very well the scene we have and if you are unfamiliar you will meet our talented Japanese enthusiastic homless boy bands, and dare I call it Mischiveous brats princess, I'm talking to you Charls,-" He seemed to shoot out into the balcony, and there she was, laughing and a bit shyly, looking down to the veranda, but for an instant her eyes met mine, again I had that feeling, it made my bones shiver, and then I looked away, I shouldn't stare not are girls like her, and specially since I attacked her practically.

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