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Mina’s always so pink, and bubbly, covered in sparkles of eyeshadow that shines nearly as much as her eyes do. Kinky hair pinned back, sometimes in twin buns, or cornrows, or her natural afro. Her touch has always felt warm, her smile and smirks and giggles always illuminating. They way she can glance at you, see into your eyes, peer at you from across the room, and just know you would always mystify--and maybe unsettle--Kaminari.
But at the moment? He has absolutely no fucking clue what she’s seeing in him.
Right now, he has his wrist in two hands as he drags him from the cab and out into the street, her sparkling dress and the glitter on her cheekbones lighting the way just as much as the street lights and neon signs above the club do. Her make up is as gorgeous as ever and Kaminari makes sure to compliment the neat, black matte finish of her nails scraping his skin but she doesn’t hear. Or maybe chooses not to.
“You’ll love it here,” Mina hums, cooes, as she slips them by a bouncer with just a nod, a guy with ink under his dark skin and metal in his ears and a soft look on his face that makes Kaminari feel like he’s met him. But he doesn’t dwell on it.
“Yeah,” Kaminari says, loud, loud over the bouncing, booming, echoing music. The insides of the building are both bright fluorescent and achingly dark at the same time. The hum of bodies and smell of acidic alcohol mixed with sweat feels familiar. “This is exactly my kind of scene.” And he says it genuine because it is. Kaminari was always the party animal, with Mina right on his wing. It was their natural setting. Where they belonged. Most of the time.
Mina turns on him, a nail in his chest, “but you have to try and love it more, okay?” She quirks an eyebrow, something both stern and giddy in her face. “Love it like you’re made for this scene. You’re the only one cast for it. All of this is yours .”
Kaminari laughs, because he doesn’t know what else to do, maybe, and because maybe he’s getting a buzz just the noise and scent and feeling already. “You know I’m fine.” But Mina is already shaking her head, already dragging him past the DJ and the bar and to some booths in the back.
“Don’t play pretend, sweetie,” she yells over her shoulder, hand intertwined with his, “I see you. I see you’re down. Let loose, stop… turtling into yourself and talk to someone.”
“I’m talking to you.”
“You know what I mean!”
The leather seat is cool, the cold digging through his varsity jacket and to his skin as soon as Mina shoved him down into the seat and slid in across from him. His eyes catch on her nails again as they tap against the tabletop. “Really, Mina, I’m not turtling. I get out. I drink. I talk. I’m good!”
Her lips dip into a frown, nails now tapping against her cheekbone. Kaminari notices a slight haze in the air, then. “You’re so sweet,” she hums, “but I’ve seen it, even if you haven’t.”
“Seen what?”
“Anyways,” she didn’t seem to hear him, tipping back into the backrest and craning her next to look through the crowds. “They said they’d meet us here. Friends of mine who’ve I stuck with since elementary, or bumped into and hit it off. You’ll click with someone, I promise.”
Her figure reappears beside him as soon as it had vanished. There’s something light and fruity in his hand that feels sour as he holds it between his teeth and wrinkles his nose after glass after glass after glass. Time passes, or maybe it doesn’t between the words the laughter the conversations, the sound of Mina’s voice. And others and others and others.
There’s bodies and dancing and hands shook and arms of people he’d just been introduced to slung over his shoulder. A girl that’s a pair of translucent eyes behind a niqab that seemed to shine as much as Mina, a boy with mismatched hair that seems way too reserved for the kind of company they were providing, someone with black feathery hair and even blacker eyeliner. None of their names stick, even throughout the dancing and the drinks and the bubbly talks, but Mina says nothing on it, offers a few jokes and jabs at Kaminari’s horrible memory.
“Just like when we were kids,” she accentuates her laugh with an elbow in his ribs.
He doesn’t add that he could easily attach some names to these beautiful faces if he wasn’t so lost in his head. He floated between the words he said and felt buzzed on something other than what burned in his veins or the music or the body heat.
What does she mean ? He says, he thinks, he hums, watching Mina plant a kiss of the side of the girl’s niqab or responding to a question about how they met or laughing at some joke that was frankly kind of shit or making some jokes that were frankly very shitty. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m happy. What does she mean?
When someone with hair that looks kind of green in certain lights and a girl so airy and light he wondered how she walked on clouds, he decided that he needed a smoke break.
“And, I was that one kid in the pool that couldn’t swim for shit but jumped in the deep end anyways,” Mina’s hands wave around in front of her, skin shining with sweat, telling a story Kaminari had lived through and seen her get her sorry ass dragged out of the swimming pool. “So…” she only stops a second to glance at Kaminari.
All it takes is a hand on her arm, a nod towards the door and a shrug on his shoulders for her to instantly scowl, sigh, groan, then nod, all in that order, before going back to it. “ So, where was I? Oh yeah, almost dying, chlorine in my eyes and half full of water…”
Her words drown into static in the background. He nods at the bouncer he probably knows but doesn’t as he steps past the people and out the door and into the night. The chill in the air coats him like mucus and scrapes at his lungs as he steps away, and away, and away, stopping far away from the people.
Bricks dig into his back through his jacket and chill against his skin as he leans back. Kaminari’s movement is horribly practiced as he digs out a pack of smokes from his back pocket, a lighter in the other, slipping one out and between his lips. The light flickers, brightens his skin and lights up his downcast eyes as he covers it from the slight winds.
Only to jump out of his skin, lighter falling between his fingers and to the ground and maybe not hopefully not shattering, at the flash of a camera and the sound of it’s shutter snapping.
Kaminari swivels to his left, seeing a person with black hair and dark eyes and a plain face holding a big, professional looking camera, a bag hanging off their side.
“Oh.” They blink, somehow, maybe, kind of looking more surprised and startled and confused that Kaminari was. “ Oh. I just realized that probably didn’t look so great.”
“Probably not.” Kaminari almost, almost almost, finds himself snickering.
They didn’t see it, or hear what almost was, looking like a deer in the headlights, camera held close to their chest. “Well, uh, uhm. Swear I’m not some weird stalker guy taking photos of you when you’re not looking.”
“You sure?” he raised an eyebrow, talking around the smoke he forgot about in his teeth, “like, you sure you don’t have some catalog of pictures of me up on the wall above your bed?”
“ What? No!” They bristles, shackles raised and shoulders up to their ears. Kaminari found himself enjoying it. “I just,” they frowned and gestured to the camera now held in one hand as if that explained everything. “I’m one of those weird ass photography students, y’know?”
And Kaminari let himself laugh, the kind that throws your head back and leaves your mouth open and gaping to the stars. “N-no,” he snorted, “I don’t.” Then he patted his palm against the brick wall right beside him like it was some sort of stupid, very very lame way to ask them to join him but they took it anyways.
The camera was away in their bag, leaning back. Kaminari tried not to stare at them, looking straight ahead at the people walking down the streets and the cars streaking past in front of them like they did.
“So,” Kaminari hums, “I’m now some permanent fixture in that thing of yours?” Their laugh was airy, low, simple. “Yeah, I guess.” Silence again for a second, then a shrug. “I don’t know, you just--smoke in your mouth? Fire in your hands? The dark light around you with the light you held? Looked so damn good. Couldn’t have made it any better if I’d warned you. Sometimes when the model is aware it just gives off these staged vibes that are fuckin’ lame.”
Kaminari hummed and nodded, like he knew a damn thing about the weird stuff this plain Jane stranger was rattling on about, like yeah that made sense. “Okay…” he dragged out, smiled, “ Now I really get one you mean by ‘crazy photo student’ thing you were talking about.”
“Oh, shut up,” they snorted, mellowed out, hummed. “I can delete it if you want.”
“No, I like the thought of being the sexiest person you’ve got on there.”
They snorted, shook their head, but didn’t deny it or disagree or shoot something snarky back so Kaminari took that as a win. Or maybe an agreement with him. He liked the sound of that, actually.
The bright idea to introduce himself to this stranger and leave the ‘stranger’ title behind with a name popped up in his head; “I’m Kaminari by the way. Kaminari Denki.”
“Oh, I know.” Then Kaminari turned to look at them and meet their eyes and blink once, twice, before something like mortified amusement crossed their face. “U-uh, as in--”
“No, no.” Kaminari offered a shake of his hand and a shrug. “I get it. Forgot you’re my stalker is all.” They stopped stammering, eyes wide, before a cheeky grin spread across their face. “Forgot about that too,” they laughed, or chuckled or snorted or something like that. “But for real. Mina described you to a T. black streak in your hair and freckles n’ all.”
Kaminari offered a hand and they reached out to shake it. “Glad to know I’m a hot topic.” They’re smirk was bright. “Damn well are. Sero Hanta. Mina’s weird photography friend. You know ‘bout her phase with film studies and that summer school thing she went to?”
“Vaguely remember it.”
“That’s where she meet this sorry ass,” --their thumb was jabbed towards their own chest as if Kaminari would confuse the ‘sorry ass’ for any of the no other people out there-- “we were like sixteen. I was there for real. She was probably their to start shit. We clicked over some food fight she dragged me into and got us both busted for.”
Kaminari threw his head back and laughed, entirely at the fact that it wasn’t a struggle to imagine Mina and maybe even this Sero person hitting it off while getting into trouble. Sero seemed to be able to see his thoughts in just his grin and whatever they saw in his eyes. “Yeah right?” They snorted. “Just like her.”
“Definitely.” Silence dawned, although it wasn’t anywhere near uncomfortable which Kaminari was more than thankful for. They both just leaned their in the dark against the cold brick wall, feeling and hearing the thump thump thump ing hum of whatever music was blasting back in the club.
“You’re late,” Kaminari said, or more like just noticed. Sero winced at that as if they were more than content to forget about it completely. “Uh-h yeah?” They’re voice was high, “yeah. Oh yep. Definitely. You think Mina will have my ass?”
“On a silver platter.”
“Oh jeez,” they carded a hand through their hair and Kaminari found himself stuck watching the fluid movement. “Well. I do have an excuse, mind you.”
“Try me.”
“Try ‘I haven’t been back in this city in the past five years and holy shit I need to capture everything with my camera’?”
“Sounds like something a crazy photography student would say.” Sero chuckled and their eyes brightened at Kaminari’s shitty joke, making it sounds just the slightest bit less shitty with their laugh. They looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “You think so?”
Maybe they expected a response or wanted a response, or maybe, Kaminari theorized exactly an hour later in the dark as he walked home, that they’d wanted the silence. Maybe they were building up to this exact moment where Kaminari would stay tongue tied and Sero would stare at him like he was really seeing him.
Then they’d say: “let’s get out of here.”
Which they did. Which made Kaminari blink and frown and shake his head and sputter something unintelligible before giving up. Only to lose what little thought he had left when they leaned in close, so so so so close and right in his proximity.
“Okay, yeah, crazy,” they hummed, quiet quiet so quiet, “I’m crazy. But something’s telling me I’m toeing the edge of being unforgivably late to this little get together Mina had planned so lovingly. And something is telling me you don’t want to go back in there, at all. Not one bit.”
Kaminari stared. All he did was stare back. Because…. Because….
“Tell me I’m right.”
“You are.”
Then their was a hand around his wrist with the fingers right over his thumping pulse and a grin in front of him that made him feel like and airy, and like he wasn’t getting dragged, or more like guided since he sure as hell wasn’t resisting, down the street and far away from here.
“Oh hell yeah!” They hollered and punched a fist into the air like there was nothing better than ditching your friends at a party.
It took two blocks before Mina texted Kaminari with nothing but a winky face and then another two blocks of Sero peering into all the shops that were still open at roughly ten at night before they decided whatever they were seeing was enough to pull them to a stop.
Quite literally, as the sudden stop of Sero had Kaminari jerking at the tight fist bunched into his jacket sleeve pulled him back.
“Oh my god perfect, ” Sero wheezed at the front of what looked like some overgrown coffee shop, like it was the end of the world and whatever humans had used to populate this city were long gone. “Please be open,” Sero sounded strained and slightly panicked as they made their way to the front door, peering in the windows with narrowed eyes.
“This is, uhhh…” Kaminari hummed and dug his teeth into his lips as he looked at the ferns, the tall leafy plants that dipped far out over their pots and the vines that crawled up the brick walls around the windows and the flowers in their hanging baskets or the basket lining the windows. Kaminari fidgeted as Sero rejoiced at finding that the door was open. “Not…. what I expected.”
Sero heard him and looked at him with raised eyebrows and something like they were fighting off a grin. Their camera had somehow materialized in their hands. “What did you, then?” Kaminari shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets an followed after Sero as they disappeared into the building. “More parties. More booze. More noise.”
He was so taken back by how normal and quaint and ordinary the inside seemed at this angle, like some normal coffee shop . He couldn’t help but stare up, around, at the other half asleep customers and even sleepier employees, at the typical paintings up on the walls that wouldn’t look any bit out of place in the starbucks near his apartment, at the drinks drawn up on a chalk black board in strange colours--
There was a flash of light in his face and a shutter fluttering shut. Again.
Kaminari couldn’t help but wince as he stared Sero down and peered with wide eyes at the lens of their camera. Sero looked over it, face just the slightest bit red, grin twisted to the side showing off just a sliver of stupidly straight teeth. “Uhm,I’m sorry? Again? You just looked…. With the--and the plants through the window and--- the light--”
Kaminari’s echo was loud enough to have whatever living soul that shared the same space in that coffee shop with them look over and glower. But Kaminari didn’t care one bit, clapping an arm over Sero’s shoulder and pulling them so starkly against his side they could probably feel his heart pumping harshly in between his ribs.
“No, I understand,” he carded a hand through their hair and stooped their eyelids low, “you need more than a picture just to appreciate all this beauty, right?”
Sero was nice enough to laugh like Kaminari said something funny. “If that helps you sleep at night,” they snorted and pushed him away while taking a step closer to the front counter. The smile over their shoulder had Kaminari nearly tripping and falling face first into cold tiles. “C’mon. I’m craving coffee.”
The coffee in his system was both sweet and bitter and energizing and exhausting all together, all at once. The air was crisp and cool and the moon was probably directly above, hidden behind some swath of dry grey clouds but Kaminari wouldn’t know. He had barely looked up, looked away, looked anywhere but either straight ahead or at Sero’s profile the entire time.
Kaminari had suggested going somewhere else next, maybe a bar maybe a club maybe his appartment or anywhere really, and he knows that Sero nodded their head, smiled, agreed. But things don’t work out.
Now it’s probably either halfway to midnight or half past and they’ve been wandering throughout grubby alleyways Kaminari wouldn’t have even considered walking through in broad daylight, in underneath bright lights lining the busy streets of skyscrapers, between the stray forested trees of parks and underneath the old rusty monkey bars of a playground Kaminari can definitely say he’s never seen in his life.
Sero hasn’t let go of their camera and Kaminari hasn’t once bothered to hide the way he stares and admires, even as somewhere some distant and logical part of his mind tells him it\s hopelessly late and hopelessly lost.
“I used to play here,” Sero says and whatever Kaminari had been close to thinking is gone. Sero kicks a swing, gets on a slide and goes down with nothing more than a nostalgic not-all-there grin that is so plain and simple and Kaminari can’t look away.
“Lived nearby?” He finds himself asking, not really knowing how he made his voice work or the words come out or work his entire brain enough to say anything. Not in this strange but familiar but completely unorthodox state he finds himself in. But he does, and his muscles move him closer to Sero.
“Grew up nearby.” Sero hums, throws themself in a swing. Kaminari doesn’t even hesitate to start pushing him, it’s like some buried instinct from childhood. But whatever, it makes Sero smile as they gesture out past the gangly dark trees and towards some blacked out houses only visible with their glowing lights. “Moved around a lot as a kid. But spent most of my lovely little childhood running from those houses, through these trees, and straight to here.”
Sero stamps their foot down and digs their heels into the gravel, both to emphasize and to stop the motion they were swinging in. Kaminari gets the memo with a grunt, goes to sit in the swing beside them. The chains feel cold under his fingers. “Huh. Never been over here that much as a kid.”
“Well, you’re here now.”
“With you.” Kaminari adds, hopeless, helpless, and wonders how exactly he got here. Here. But that doesn’t matter because Sero looks over with big eyes and something that almost has Kaminari fleeing, before they smile, melt, laugh, shoulders quaking and camera bag tucked on their lap.
There’s silence. Something comfortable and safe, clean, warm. And Kaminari can’t help to find himself thankful; both for the pause to let his sluggish tired thoughts catch-up and to Mina because oh my god she’s a slightly misguided but damn true saint.
The motion is automatic, reaching into his pockets, flicking a smoke out of the pack, lighting it between his lips. But he doesn’t get to breathing in, because something unordinary comes to mind. He raises his eyebrows first than raises his eyes, seeing a camera pointed at his side.
But it doesn’t shutter. It doesn’t flick open or snap in anyway or do any flash or noise or whatever the fuck it is that Kaminari thinks cameras do.
Instead the hands around it shift, maybe shake or quiver, whichever word describes it better. The camera floats, glides down, the face staring at him in clear view. There’s eyes staring at his mouth and maybe it’s just the fire or the cigarette between his lips but somehow he knows. He knows. Kaminari’s face is warm.
He doesn’t get up as Sero does. Doesn’t move a muscle or flinch or frown or anything but stare back and blink as Sero stands in front of him, leans down, plucks the smoke from his lips. It looks like they are holding smoke and flame in their hand and Kaminari loves how that looks between their finger and thumb.
“Hey,” they’re voice isn’t quite booming but isn’t quite airy either, “ Hey, K-Kaminari. It’s…. Uhm, getting late, yeah?” Kaminari nods, nods nods nods, getting what their getting at and feeling glad that finally finally something seems to make sense.
Sero smiles. Kaminari melts. The sudden lean in, the press of lips on his has him thinking oh. Oh. So that’s what Mina meant.
Their black hair is smooth and their lips are somewhere normal, somewhere in between rough and soft and Kaminari wonders if Sero sees what he is seeing with his eyes closed shut tight and his heart beating and a deep tempo and he wonders. Wonders. How in the fuck Mina could have been so, so right and yet so wrong at once.
Sero slips away between his fingers and a camera flashes right in his face.
He winces, curses, hears laughter and sees spots as he tries to blink it away. But then there's a hand out in front of him, and Kaminari frowns, lips a thin line, looks up as sees stars in Sero’s black eyes.
“Hey, sorry about that!” They laugh, “it’s just, you know, I’m really lacking on having some sexy people in my camera and, well, now your in-- no, now you’re definitely the sexiest person in there.”
Sero is kind enough to let Kaminari snort, throw his head back and bellow his laughter to the sky. But then he’s wrestling to shut himself up as they start prattling on and on again. “So, anyways, my name is Sero Hanta and I know you’re name is Kaminari Denki because I’ve been unable to do anything but stare at you all night. So, the question is, should we go to my place to binge watch some crummy but lovely black and white movies while eating out of one tub of cookie dough ice cream, or yours?”
Kaminari grins, and smiles and giggles and silently decrees that wow, he is going to call Mina tomorrow and leave some horribly long, gushing voicemail that will do nothing but besides annoy the crap out of her tomorrow morning.
But he finds the time in between that thought to wink, smirk, getting something that might be a blush out of them. “You know I can’t wait to get into your apartment, baby.”