Work Text:
“Do you have the time
To listen to me whine
About nothing and everything all at
Once?
I’m one of those melodramatic
Fools
Neurotic to the bone no doubt
About it”
~~ Basket Case, Green Day ~~
***
“Kayama, I-I don’t think I’m entirely convinced of this. Let’s go back.”
The woman grabbed Toshinori by his wrist when he was about to turn on his heels.
“Toshi, don’t be such a scaredy-cat. Look at how excited Hizashi is. He’s brimming with vibes.”
Kayama’s face was wreathed in smiles, while she and Hizashi were humming a song rich in bass beats. Occasionally, they whipped their heads along to the heavy rhythm, so that Toshinori had to sincerely wonder about the upcoming concert.
Just after the last school classes of the day, had the both literally dragged him out of the classroom to this abandoned industrial site in the remote northeast of Musutafu. When Toshinori had asked where they were abducting him, the only response he had gotten, had been,
“You cannot to afford to miss this.”
So, here he was, at this not affordable to miss out on event.
As part of a huge crowd, they were following the flow towards a huge open space with a stand at its end, and Toshinori had to gather all his bearings not to panic over the number of people. He wasn’t usually the guy to attend mass gatherings, and although, Kayama was still cheerful about the upcoming event, she noticed Toshinori’s showing discomfort.
“Don’t worry, Toshi. We won’t lose you out of sight.”
Toshinori wasn’t exactly worried about getting lost. At the moment, he would manage being alone far better than being with the two them because then he would just have fled the scene. The actual point Toshinori had to wrap his head around was another. Namely, with his normal attire he was sticking out like a Christmas tree ball among the specimen allocating here.
Toshinori had rarely seen so much contrast so concentrated in one place. An admirable mass of colourful Iroquois was gathering in a corona around him and his companions. He felt like suffocating, even though, he was by far towering over these people. Torn jeans were wherever he looked at. Dark shirts roamed the area in galore and mingled with the whole palette of accessible neon colours, which threatened to overexert Toshinori’s unsuspecting eyes.
“I feel out of place,” Toshinori concluded from his brief study of the people here. He wondered how his friends could only begin to feel comfortable around here. Admittedly, he did not only feel out of place but beyond it. He did not want to stay here any longer than necessary; but from the looks of it, he’d get out of here later than sooner.
Laughing, Kayama patted Toshinori on the shoulder, and Hizashi shot him one of his iconic air guns.
“Did you guess where we are?” Kayama asked, grinning.
From the shrill posters hanging everywhere since they’d entered the industrial area, Toshinori had collected a pretty accurate grasp on where they were heading to. The punk band The Erasure was giving its first, bigger open air gig in Musutafu this Friday night.
Toshinori was not opposed to the prospect of a night outside in the chill of the late summer’s evening breeze. The weather was bordering on perfect, and hadn’t Toshinori been kidnapped by his dear friends, would he have spent his time taking an extended stroll. Instead of calm and relaxed, though, found Toshinori himself being on edge, surrounded by so much rambunctious energy. Unenthusiastic, he replied to Nemuri,
“Kind of.”
“Favourite Listener, what’s with THAT vibes?”
Hizashi exploded into a frantic swirl of different gestures and emotions. Toshinori couldn’t differentiate between all of them; the overarching emotion was being clear, though: outrage. Anything that didn’t exactly match Hizashi’s level of unrealistically high enthusiasm and hype on a topic was a sign of rejection to the blonde.
“Calm down, Mic,“ Kayama tried to pacify him.“We should already know Toshi prefers his electronics over his friends out of flesh, blood, and love.” She planted a brief kiss on the outraged man’s cheek before she turned to Toshinori again who was watching the scene, perplexed. To claim he had started to understand that woman after so many years of knowing each other was an understatement. He didn’t even feel like scratching at her surface. Toshinori said,
“Don’t be ridiculous, Kayama. I give my laptop its due appreciation just as I value and respect my friends out of flesh .”
“How many times now, call me Nem. Or Nemuri, if you’re more comfortable with that; but stop your ‘Kayama’. Makes me feel so old.”
Kayama burst out into an affected whine, throwing her palms against her face, apparently, placing the act over the worry of potentially ruining her intricate make-up. That was certainly another point Toshinori always found himself pondering bout. One time, his friend wouldn’t even so much as stir about the meanest thing in the world said to her; and at another time, she would be like that, shaken, devastated, the ground torn away from under her feet. Toshinori couldn’t even discriminate which words triggered what kind of result, or if Kayama wasn’t playing him the whole time.
Rubbing reddish lipstick from his face, Hizashi perked up and smirked. Toshinori already anticipated his friend’s next words. The blonde never left out on a chance.
“Exactly young aren’t you either.”
The reverberating echo of the slap against Hizashi’s other cheek was the only warning the both men got.
***
The audition had been just as unknown to Toshinori as the main event afterwards . With the first band, Toshinori had felt the remote attempt of an approach at his music taste. Though, with the subsequent The Erasure this feeling didn’t even exist.
To be honest, when the second band entered and started playing, Toshinori wasn’t exactly sure whom of the many artists on the stand was the lead singer. All of them managed to make a spectacle out of their existence. They were thrown into pitch-black, or dependably, colourful shreds of once intact clothing, wore weird hairstyles and generously applied eyeshadow making it hard to discern the eye itself.
Toshinori’s friends beside him were singing along to the chorus, or more accurately, shouting and whining it all at once. Toshinori already had trouble to even understand a word sung by the band over the noise level. The loud guitar play had an intensive way of reverberating in Toshinori’s rib cage, beating upwards until it was hammering inside his skull.
People around Toshinori were jumping frantically, cheering and applauding to the band’s wild movements on the tribune. Everybody seemed to know when one song had ended and the next one was about to start. To Toshinori it was a miracle that anyone could say the band was playing different songs. It all sounded the same to him, and didn’t seem to lose in volume anytime soon. He was just glad he hadn’t had to pay anything for this, that the concert was a free open air event for anyone to attend.
Toshinori was perplexed when the turmoil stopped within a moment’s notice. The headlights initially arranged to throw their poles of light onto the stand weren’t any longer highlighting their original target. Instead, glimmering hot light was directed at...him.
“W-What is going on?” Toshinori mumbled, blank space invading his thoughts, panic instincts kicking in.
His gaze searched for his friends who had together with other people around him taken a step away from him. When Toshinori saw Hizashi grinning like mad, signalling nothing terrible was about happen, Toshinori’s thundering heart shifted a gear down.
One of the artists on the stand had started speaking to Toshinori, but his hearing was still adjusting to the sudden lack of thrumming background noise.
“Young....man...come up...stand.” The voice talking to Toshinori was hoarse and sweaty, interrupted by occasional breathers.
“Toshi.”
Kayama’s voice sounded to Toshinori’s left. He turned around to her, confused more than ever. There was a growing awkwardness the longer Toshinori didn’t show any sign of reaction. The blankness in his head was still numbing any reasonable thoughts, while his body was running on auto-pilot. Then Hizashi came to his side, nudging him softly into the side. Toshinori’s blonde friend was foaming with excitement as he said,
“Aizawa wants you to come up to him.”
Toshinori pointed an unbelieving finger at himself.
“Me?”
“Look where the lights are headed, stupid.” Kayama jumped in to give her flabbergasted friend a well-meant push towards the stand. A small alley leading straight up to the front had already formed in the crowd. “Aizawa’s waiting.”
“I didn’t think he’d mean me with ‘young man’,” Toshinori stumbled, and processed another second before he started his slow procession onwards.
Upon reaching his destination beside Aizawa, Toshinori felt dazzled by the blinding headlights, which re-assumed their original position with him on the stand now. He noticed how small the man next to him was. His dark, curly pangs were damped with sweat and sticking to his glistening face after a full-blown hour of singing. When Toshinori looked down straight into the other man’s face, he saw that some of the eyeshadow had started to smear and run down high-boned cheeks, giving free sight onto the dark eyes hiding beneath it.
So, that was Aizawa. He was holding the microphone, which probably made him the lead singer of The Erasure ?
“What's your name, my friend?”
Aizawa sounded way more exhausted and raspy from up clause. There were deep circles beneath his dry eyes. So, not only his voice was being strained then.
Toshinori managed to stammer his name. Speaking in front of masses had never been his strong suit, whether in the professional environment, nor in environments like this, whatever this here was.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Toshinori. I’m Aizawa, Shouta Aizawa; but you can call me Shouta.” Shouta reached his hand out to the other man for a greeting, which Toshinori, more than irritated, accepted.
A wave of noises erupted from the observant crowd. The turmoil was bordering on a longing for wanting to switch places with Toshinori. For most of the viewers, being on first-name basis with Aizawa would probably have meant the world; but for Toshinori, it was a mere cause for wonder.
Shouta was remarkably open-minded towards strangers, and that was when Toshinori realized that he was still standing there, holding the other’s hand in a firm grab, having neither done nor said anything. Immediately, he yanked his hand away, and apologised, growing warm in the face.
“I’m sorry, Aizawa- san .”
Toshinori thought to hear Kayama swearing over his vehement sticking to surnames.
To Toshinori’s astonishment, Shouta was laughing after a silent moment. Toshinori hadn’t expected anything even with a remote semblance to a laughter coming out of that gloomy man. Not that the other’s laughter was exceptionally cheerful, but it was at least recognizable as such.
“ Geez . I feel so old around you, pal.” Shouta sighed, and Kayama was cheering and applauding her approval. “You’re not the easy one to be around with.” Shouta didn’t say it offendingly, that much amiability he let swing along with his words. And for anyone left with doubts, Shouta also nudged Toshinori playfully into his side. Kayama was being the most cheerful in the crowd at the moment.
“I can’t deny it.” Toshinor’s mind was slowly clearing up and accommodating to the unusual situation he was being in. “It just takes some time for me to get on a first-name basis.”
Another smile came from Shouta before he said, ”You’re not from here, out of this scene.” It wasn’t posed as a question, more of as a matter of fact, and so undeniable that Toshinori simply nodded. “I wonder what brings you to us. I’m upright honored to find such a proper man among our audience.”
Toshinori couldn’t decide whether Shouta was mocking him, and if Toshinori’s presence was indeed a reason for feeling honoured. Admittedly, Toshinori was still in his formal wear from school as his companions had left him with no time to change into a more appropriate attire. He tried to trust and act according to the audience, which was overflowing with acclamation.
“My friends dragged me over here to the end of the city.”
“You miss no bullet, don’t ya?”
Shouta slapped Toshinori amiably on the back, and though, there was much gentleness behind it, Toshinori was still caught off-guard by the force of it. He stumbled a bit, but regained balance just in time. Scratching at his back head, Toshinori gave a nervous laughter. Since his grave car accident, his physique wasn’t anymore what it once used to be. His former workout time had transformed into time he now spent on his laptop and IT stuff like programming.
“And you seem to forget to eat. Maybe I should treat you to dinner sometime.”
At that, Toshinori perked his head up. What was that? Did Shouta just invite him to...to a dinner? According to the crowd’s renewed accreditation, that was apparently an affirmative. Toshinori didn’t know how to react, but he also didn’t want to ruin the band’s show, so that he said,
“Sure. You have a point.”
After those words, the audience was a sheer mass of ecstatic yells and thunderous applause, and Toshinori didn’t know where to look at. He searched for a quick exit, when a hand took his, brought it upwards, and Aizawa asked him,
“Will you give me the honour, and let us sing this song together?”
***
Toshinori was high-end nervous when he entered the restaurant. One week ago, he would never have imagined himself to be out to have dinner with someone else. Sure, his occasional trips with Hizashi and Kayama to fast food restaurants after school fell under the exact same definition, but having dinner with another person still bore this hidden implication.
He hadn’t had any second thoughts about when Shouta had chosen and invited him onto the stand out of a mass of thousands; not even afterwards, when both his friends had tried to hammer the obviousness of the situation into his comprehension. Having dinner with Shouta in an air of privacy, however, let things came crashing down on Toshinori.
He was having a date.
Taken out off the concert context, Toshinori didn’t think he would ever relate Shouta to the music biz, especially not to the wild and rambunctious area of punk. The man sitting in front of Toshinori, was dressed in simple but still elegant clothes. Shouta’s curly pangs were tamed into a stylish man bun, revealing several ear piercings. Many silver studs were arranged along his outer ear lobes with cross-formed dangles at the end of the respective line. Although, Shouta had lost his rebellious attire, having replaced his torn tank top and the sweat with a suit jacket of a fashionable cut and pattern, he still had that overall gloomy presence about him.
The dinner itself passed mostly in silence, which didn’t make it any less enjoyable. On the contrary, Toshinori relished in the shared quietness, let the stress of the week drain away, and partly, also his nervousness about this meeting. Shouta would ask him how his day had been, and listen intently until they fell back into their silent routine of eating. To the outsider, they would have seemed antisocial, but being with Shouta anywhere than on a tribune let fairly quickly get clear that Shouta was anything but a talker. Shouta kept asking about things he had a feeling Toshinori was especially interested in, he talked about how he had come to be the lead singer of The Erasure , and he let shine through that he wasn’t always enjoying having to expose so much of his other wild side during concerts.
They left the restaurant after some hours, and strolled along an artificially constructed but gently flowing river which reflected the full-moon’s rays off its surface like headlights.
“Tell me, Toshinori,” Aizawa said, burying his hands deeper into the side-pockets of his jacket, although the evening breeze was still warm for a late summer. “How did this car accident you mentioned happen?”
A swirl of for a long time well-conserved emotions and thoughts threatened to resurface in Toshinori. He had spiraled down a dangerous path just after the accident, a dark time he avoided to remind himself if not necessary. Shouta had been asking for his questionable health condition, and Toshinori had mentioned the accident of his own volition, so, it was kind of his fault that Shouta was now keeping wondering about it.
Toshinori waited until a bench came into sight, and he took a seat wordlessly. The other man followed suit without questioning it. Toshinori’s gaze wandered over the river for a moment, creating another breather, another excuse for stalling. Shouta seemed to notice, and said,
“I’m sorry if I crossed a line. You don’t have to-”
“No...no, it’s alright. It’s just not a pleasant memory.”
Then Toshinori felt Shouta’s hand on his, and he raised his head.
“I want to show you something I haven’t shown anyone else before.” Shouta brought his hand up to Toshinori’s chin to gently guide Toshinori’s head to face him. With the other hand did Shouta rub at a spot just beneath his right eye socket. A thick layer of skin-coloured make-up vanished from there and lay bare the remainders of deeply scarred tissue. The exposed, horizontal scar went almost completely along his entire eye’s length. “That nasty thing always reminds me of the day my sister died in a robbery. Do you remember how I told you that I got to punk music due to my sister? At the day she died law enforcement wasn’t quick enough to take the robbers down. They had taken hostages, among which my sister and I were. One of the culprits had threatened her, and I punched that guy in the face. In return, he crashed my face against the wall, fracturing the orbital floor of my right eye socket. I had been in danger to go blind as a result of it, but the surgeons were quite good and managed to reduce the damage to minimal visual restrictions on the right side. However, for my sister, any help came too late. They had shot her in the stomach. As I learned later, she had rammed the man who had done this to me, an abandoned knife into the thigh. In the wake of her memorial, I founded The Erasure with the initial idea to fight with music against the bad in the world, to erase any malicious intent; but with the years, the band had to commercialize to survive, and I just couldn’t bring it over my heart to leave it yet.”
Shouta went into a brooding silence after he had told his story. Toshinori fell into a solemn quietness himself, and let the meaning behind the punk band sink into every fibre of his being. One week ago, when he had been standing among that crowd of wild, rebellious people, he would have never suspected any deeper intention behind the music. Their latest songs, as Shouta would later tell him, were indeed the mere product of today’s consumption-based society. Their older songs, however, were what The Erasure had truly been in its origins, an anthem to the people who had been done injustice and who would never experience the full term of justice again.
The reverberating implications kept Toshinori at a loss for words. Why was Shouta telling him all this? What was an appropriate way to react to it?
What were they actually doing out here? When Toshinori found his voice back, he was shocked how hard it was not to choke on the words,
“I-I underestimated the significance of your band, and I am sorry for it.”
“Don’t be. If I were to see me up on the stage today, I wouldn’t believe myself either. You have to go with the time, they say, but changing doesn’t always mean to the better.”
Shouta had already removed his hand from Toshinori a while ago, and was now propping himself up on his knees, losing his mind in the distance.
“Do you think often of her? Your sister, I mean.”
“Everyday if it hadn‘t been for the full time schedule as of lately; and at some days, I’m grateful for that.” After a moment, Shouta added, ”And you? Of whom do you have to think?”
The refusal to remember and the hesitation to talk about it were building up in Toshinori again. Even though, Shouta had shared a meaningful part of his life with him, Toshinori didn’t feel like that it made it any easier for him. The past was still written in stones, and neither the present nor the future would change anything of what has been and will forever be. Then, however, took Toshinori his heart into both his hands, and breathed in deeply.
“There was a little girl who died at the car accident I had been involved in. Her name was Nana. I still go visiting her grave once in awhile, although I’m no relative.” Toshinori took another breather, and let the moment loosen more of his tongue before he added, “It sounds odd, I know; but I feel like I owe it to her. Even if I wasn’t the cause of her death, I could have reacted better, and things would have gone way differently.”
“Could have. Would have. I’m no fan of those phrases,” Shouta mumbled, and Toshinori looked at him. An idea sparked in Toshinori.
“What would you have done, hadn’t my friends managed to drag me to your show? Would you have chosen another person from the audience?”
Would you have ever told someone about the reasons behind The Erasure ? The question was left lingering in between them, unspoken.
“To be honest, I don’t know. You were sticking out of the crowd like a-“
“Like a Christmas tree bell?”
Shouta chuckled lightly. ”Yes, exactly like a Christmas tree ball. And that reminded me of my younger self. You were just being yourself, and not hiding in the least that you’d rather be somewhere else; which was what made you stick out and made my eyes catch sight of you.”
“Your lot can be quite deep-going; just as your bass,” Toshinori observed in a mock study, which had Shouta go into the most sincere laughter Toshinori had ever heard him giving since their short acquaintance.
“I choose not to dodge that bullet,” Shouta smiled, and stood. “Let’s walk another meters. I’m getting cold sitting all the time and reminiscing about the past. Makes me feel-“
“So old?”
The lead singer looked down at Toshinori who was hunching in on himself in his place on the bench, not used to have another person's full attention. Granted, words were Toshinori’s most effective armory, but people would still not give a shit about him. In contrast to all his previous experience, was Shouta’s intense gaze almost burning his skin.
“As I said, each of your bullets lands.”
Shouta extended an arm and helped Toshinori up. In consensual silence they continued they stroll along the river until its end where they said goodbye to each other.
***
“NANIIII?!? You did not exchange phone numbers!” Hizashi’s unbelieving expression was a feast to the spectator, and Toshinori chuckled lightly, waving an adjuring hand.”Not...not even a kiss. Like a tiny winy goodbye kiss?”
Toshinori shook his head and felt kind of sorry that he couldn’t present his friend with a more romantic story. Apparently, the blonde had already been spinning shipping fiction about him and the lead singer, and Toshinori was simply crushing those aspirations, just the anticlimactic bore he was.
“Did you at least give him your address?” Hizashi cried out, swinging out his last thread of hope.
“What do you mean with at least ? That’s highly sensitive information.”
Disappointed, Hizashi crossed arms before his chest and went over to doing his typical pout he always made after losing an argument. Wherever they’ve had an argument in their short conversation, Toshinori could barely care less about his friend’s making a scene out if everything.
As Toshinori continued to correct his school tests, he felt how Hizashi started eagerly yanking at the back of Toshinori’s office chair like a neglected child. Toshinori put his red-ink marker down, not wanting the risk to slip up with it on any paper.
“What?” Toshinori had to work hard not to growl.
“Aizawa chose you out of a thousand of people, and you ask me what ?”
Toshinori buried his face in the palms of his face to take a short breath. His friend tested his patience for durability. In a smooth motion, Toshinori went over to massaging his temples with his thumbs.
“He explained me why. I wasn’t exactly fitting into the scene. Not a compliment if you ask me,” Toshinori said, and hoped this would cool Hizashi’s misplaced enthusiasm down. From afar, he could hear Kayama giggling. “And what’s with you?”
While Hizashi withdraw from the battlefield, defeated, Kayama was just loading her weapons. Toshinori’s female colleague had this coquettish tone in her words where you didn’t know if she flirted with you, when she said, “So, you’re the oblivious type of cliché.” She said it more of a statement than a question.
“Not that I know of. I sincerely start to wonder who’s being the oblivious one here.” Toshinori tried it with reason, hoping some of the seeds would bear fruits. What he didn’t tell them, though, was that he and Shouta had indeed exchanged their phone numbers last night.
***
Toshi: Hey Shouta, you’re free tonight?
The Erasure: You bet.