Maybe we should trust Bob [Saphy]

"Ohh Romania. I've been there once,but my gig got cancelled so it was pretty.. uneventful." She huffed, remembering that one time where a small riot broke out in front of a radio station that promised appearances by her and her bandmates. Up until this day, she had no idea why they chose to abruptly stop the show instead of letting them continue on with it. Its not like any of them would've minded sticking around for a few more hours just to have a meet and greet autograph signing session with their fans. "Pfft.. don't tell me you believe in those superstitious things. Vampires are fictional. Nothing more than just shitty mythological creatures that people made up to keep their kids from going out at night."

By no means did Leanna believe in the supernatural. Life after death, heaven and hell, ghosts and ghouls, all of that. She's a realist, and so she'd choose to believe in things she sees with her own two eyes. Up until this point of her life, she hasn't exactly encountered anything that's considered to be out of the norm. "The whole mafia thing is way more scarier than any fucking children's fantasy novel characters."

In a sense, that's true. Vampires wouldn't blow up someone's brains when that particular someone is standing around two feet in front of you. In fact, the only thing she knows about vampires is that they liked blood, and something about being allergic to garlic, though the latter is probably a comedic theme that the adults implemented into their stories just to keep it from going over-the-top scary and cause their children to start peeing their pajamas. 

"Yeah yeah, unisex. Still sounds way more feminine than you'd think." As she continued munching on the peanuts and pretzels, it took her a few moments before she finally realized that the strange sounds that suddenly grew louder and louder, actually came from the television that he had just turned on. And coincidentally, they started documenting something about bodies being blown up. Of course, they didn't go too much into graphical details, since the show was still rated PG, but it definitely showed enough to make one feel disgusted about it.

"Why'd you join them?"

That's the million dollar question, wasn't it? Judging from how those people swarmed in to protect him, he must have been a big shot in his mafia family. There could be a lot of reasons, and she wouldn't really pursue those answers if he were uncomfortable with answering them. However, curiosity got the best of her, and she couldn't resist asking.

Every since coming to Japan, Leanna's dealt with a lot of things, and she's met a lot of people. Most of them she'd probably never see again because of her introverted nature and the bad habit of not wanting to form any sort of bonds or relationships with others because she knows for certain that most people would distance themselves from her if they were to find out just how she lives her life. It wasn't her being pessimistic, its just the harsh reality of this cruel, beautiful world. "Yeah.. I definitely understand what you mean."

Living a normal life was indeed hard in a lot of ways, not only for the male, but for the former rockstar as well. She wouldn't admit to missing all the grueling travels, all the sleepless nights and all the time spent in airport immigration, but those were only a minority, compared to all the wondrous things she's had to experience traveling with the world with her then best friends- which, come to think of it now, they were probably still out there somewhere. No matter how hard she tried to let go of the past, it just wouldn't release its grip on her life. That feeling of performing on stage, where thousands upon thousands of people were chanting and screaming along with the lyrics that you wrote, it was indescribable. No amount of drugs in this world would be able to replicate those sensations and just the pure emotion that she's experienced night in and night out.

But even now, the enthusiasm to perform and write lyrics, they were growing thin. Leanna wakes up every morning, needing a good puff of smoke and a syringe full of stuff that would stop her aching stomach from acting up. It was either getting wasted, or that, and getting wasted usually resulted in her vomiting everything out, anyway, so why bother.

His explanation of the whole mafia business was a bit prolonged, as she didn't even ask him that much, but it did provide her with a substantial amount of satisfaction when it came to her curiosity. She's never really interacted with someone from that particular country, much less some big shot belonging to a mafia family. "I see. "

Although it was interesting for several minutes, the topic of their current conversation did little to stop her thoughts from reverting back to her old days as a traveling musician. Her bandmates have tried contacting her, just to see how she's doing, and Leanna knew for a fact that deep down inside, they truly did care, but she couldn't find it in her to forgive any of them for what they've done.. how they just tossed her out like a bag of useless garbage and replaced her with someone far less capable. They used to be grunge. They used to be all about the lyrics, all about the emotion, all about the music and all about the fans. But now? They've sold out. And nothing's ever going to change that.

For a good few moments, there would be nothing but silence coming from the girl, and though she might be used to it, others would probably be wondering why there's a somewhat depressive space-out blank faraway look on her face.

'Sadness is a wound even I can't heal, this facade that we own, won't make it any less real'.

With the above being her very own lyrics, written while she laid wasted in her band's tour bus, feeling completely miserable and depressed as all hell, one could pretty much imagine what most of her songs sound like. Yes, there were other themes, such as love and pain, but being a person who's never really fallen in love before, the lyrics on those songs didn't really mean as much to her as these. That particular song was written straight from the heart, and her very own perception about sorrow that one feels, to the point of wanting to walk off the edge and just give up.

Its funny how all these years later, she really did end up giving up, huh?

Even when her conversational partner spoke up, Leanna hardly paid any attention. Her space outs just kept continuing, and she could feel a searing pain in the pits of her stomach, burning her up from the inside out. Ever since she was young, she had to deal with these pains, but back then, they were still tolerable, and they only came at certain times. As she matured into adulthood, there was hardly a time where she'd remember not feeling it. That is, until she found those artificial remedial treatments in the forms of booze and drugs.

Slowly, she moved an arm under her chest and clutched her own waist, lightly wincing as she proceeded to take the full glass of her drink and downed its entire contents in one breath. The burns in the back of her throat were nothing compared to what was rising in her stomach, but as mentioned before, one of the only remedies that she had was what she's drinking. And in order for that to even work, she had to drink it in excessive amounts. "R-Refill.."

This really brings back memories of her parents, going around and taking her to different specialists just to get a clear diagnosis of what might have been the problem. In the end, it only resulted in a lot of money wasted. Money that could have been spent on things that are way more beneficial, things that could have actually been of use instead of relying on others. Of course, back then, she didn't really know any better, but this sickness definitely took its toll on her parents' marriage, and soon enough, that fell apart altogether.

".. What?" would be her only response when the accidental slip of the foreign language tongue occurred. Being born and raised in the USA, she didn't really have much knowledge of other languages, other than the slight bit of Spanish she managed to absorb while watching Dora the Explorer during her younger days. Upon realizing that Romanians did indeed, speak Romanian, the guy had already eagerly hopped off to his kitchen- well that's a first, claiming to have something for her upset stomach. "Don't even.. bother with that."

The pain had risen. Through many years of having to endure this, her threshold of pain had probably been elevated by a tenfold. Quickly, she reached for her glass and took another whole mouthful of that flavorful liquid fire, just in time for him to return with a bottle with nothing else labelled on it aside from 3 simple words - For Stomach Aches. Gee, it really makes you wonder how much you can trust something that had no medicinal descriptions whatsoever, but even so, she doubted that this would work on her. She's tried countless types of medicines, conventional and unconventional, but the most effective results are usually the same: It prolongs the pain, but after awhile the medicine's effects are completely nulled out, and the pain returns soon after, at its full force.

"This ain't no.. ordinary shitty pain. All the meds that I've tried in the past.. it doesn't work. Nothing ever works. Well, nothing.. aside from two things."

Of course, she's not going to explain in detail about those remedies, even though he could probably already guess one of them, based on her requests and her speed drinking. The other, well.. sooner or later he's bound to figure it out. It wouldn't take an Albert Einstein quality IQ to know that drugs helped. In a way, they helped her more than she could have imagined, but at the same time, the negative effects are destroying her body, cell by cell, organ by organ, and if she keeps continuing on with her lifestyle, she knew for a fact that she'd probably get about a good year or two before.. the inevitable happens.

Mr Mafia Vampire-country dude had a point there. She wouldn't really know if the medicine worked or not unless she tried it. Still, judging by how little information he was willing to reveal about it, it wouldn't take a genius to figure out just where he got it from. She's seen enough mafia-themed movies to know that there were jealous members working for other families out there, and those people are willing to go to endless lengths, even if it means poisoning or murdering someone influential. 

Or maybe she's just over-thinking things because of her vivid imagination.

And so, with a small shrug, the girl lifted the tiny bottle of pink up to her lips and chugged it down in a single breath. In a simple lesson of physics, your teachers would have taught you the basis of 'what goes up, must come down', but in this case, what went down almost came back up. The taste was indescribably horrid, and the texture was full of lumpy bits. Leanna amazed even herself when she managed to keep it all down, but that didn't stop her from coughing and gagging. "What kind of bullshit did you just feed me! Son of a fucking motherfucker!"

Over the years, the former rockstar has ventured all over the world and eaten the strangest foods that one could possibly imagine. Bird's nest soup; fried scorpions and grasshoppers on a stick; live octopus tentacles dipped in soy sauce and the like. Never in a million years would she ever expect that the foulest tasting thing she'd ever put in her mouth was in the form of a simple bottle. "It tastes like rotten eggs and meat, dipped in a hint of shit and fried in the remains of your mother's liposuction! FUCK!"

Needless to say, she's never trying anything of the sort, ever again. Not only did it leave a foul lingering taste in the back of her throat, it didn't even remotely help with her stomach issues. "Jesus fucking Christ I ain't ever doing that shit again.."

Again, that was true to a degree. Medicine in general, no matter good or bad, tastes awful, just like everything else that's supposed to be good for you. You don't walk around seeing people claiming that a Greek salad is the best thing that they've ever tasted in their entire lives, because if that were to happen, those people might probably be in the running to become the most miserable human beings on the face of this planet. "Ughhhh.. fucking hell, man.."

It still didn't change the fact that the medicine sucked. Those pretzels and peanuts are not doing anything to take away the foul aftertaste from her tongue, so you could imagine the utter glee on her face when the male returned several minutes later with a pack of chocolates. Of course, she didn't let the whole 'sweet' comment go unnoticed, as evident when that small smile on her face suddenly twisted and turned into a thin line. No words are needed to describe her current expression, as the look itself is pretty much self explanatory, offering a face that read 'did you seriously just fucking say that?' whilst unwrapping the chocolate.

Needless to say, Leanna wasn't one for compliments, unless it had to do with her former profession. She wasn't interested in people commenting on how curvy of a body she owned, or how big her melon were, or how amazingly amazing her bandonkadonk was. It was amazing how her ex-boyfriends managed to put up with her for so long, but then again, she was always drunk and always on tour, so one couldn't really fault her if she can't even remember half the things she's done with any of them.

"Usually I wouldn't give a shit- scratch that, usually I'd knee someone in the gut for saying something like that, so be glad that you brought some chocolates. Fuuuuuuuck my gut hurts.."