Chapter Text
Kyouko dreads middle school. She hates it, she loathes it, with all her might, and she hasn't even been there yet. But she knows. She can feel it, she can feel it's going to be horrible. Middle school is when stuff gets real. There's backstabbing and drama and Kyouko doesn't want any of it, doesn't even like school in the first place, and for the whole summer she can't think of a fate worse than the dark clouds of Middle School looming on the horizon.
"You're going to have so much fun," Byakuren, her foster mom, keeps saying, pressing kisses to the top of Kyouko's head. "Middle school isn't bad." But Kyouko can't believe her, and she's trying desperately to mask how scared she is under a thick layer of apathy. When the first day of class rolls around, black nail polish and the lyrics she's scribbled on her notebooks are the only weapons she has to defend herself. Flimsy as they are, she feels a little safer knowing that, at the very least, they set her apart from everyone else. For better or for worse.
Needless to say, she's surprised beyond belief that there is another girl in the class who shares them. Lorelei, Mystia sits behind Kasodani, Kyouko in every class with alphabetized assigned seating, and her nails are just as black, her notebooks just as defaced. She wears a lot of jewelry with blunt spikes, that's the first thing Kyouko notices, and she's always grumpy and half asleep. But they are the only two outcasts in the class, and Kyouko will turn around and tell Mystia good morning with a smile in homeroom every day, until the time Mystia lifts her sleepy head from her desk and says good morning back like they're old friends.
Mystia likes loud music and nighttime and grilled lamprey. Kyouko thinks she is the most interesting person in the world. It isn't long before they're inseparable, walking down the halls to their classes together, laughing at their own inside jokes, visiting each other's houses on the weekends, sitting together at every opportunity. Just being together.
There are other weird kids in the school too, of course. Kyouko talks to them a few times, but they aren't the same kind of weird. She has to explain this to Byakuren a million times over—yeah, she doesn't exactly fit in, but she does with Mystia, and with the other misfits it's like just it is with everyone else. "We click," she says one day, and she finds it's true. They do click. Mystia fits better than anyone else ever has with Kyouko. For the first time, she realizes, she has a best friend.
At Byakuren's gentle insistence, Kyouko auditions for the school chorus early on in the year, and is easily accepted. But, like most after school activities, it's no fun without friends. Kyouko, unable to bond with the other choir girls, is left with only one other option: convince Mystia to join too.
"You like to sing, right? You should join chorus with me!" Kyouko exclaims one day, remembering Mystia's love of singing, just one of the many secrets they've entrusted each other with.
"Yeah, but, I can't sing nice," Mystia says, looking down. "I can only sing loud."
"You don't have to sing nice to get in. I mean, I got in just fine!"
"Kyouko," Mystia says, soft but firm. "You sing really nice. They want you. They don't want me. My singing gives people headaches. The only place for singers like me is in punk bands."
Kyouko tries to think of a counterargument, but she can't. As harsh as it sounds, Mystia is right.
"I'm not upset," Mystia adds. "I kinda wanted to make my own band someday anyway. Like, girl punk."
"I always wanted to start a band!" Kyouko squeals. "I want to learn how to play bass."
"Then let's do it!" Mystia says, just as excited, suddenly throwing her arms around Kyouko. "I'll learn guitar. And we can both sing."
"This is gonna be awesome," Kyouko says, grinning into Mystia's shoulder.
Being a choir girl is not very interesting to Kyouko, but it does give her an opportunity to hone her singing abilities. When she comes home after rehearsals, she'll sing for Byakuren, and Byakuren will smile and fluff Kyouko's hair. "You have such a lovely voice," she always says, and it makes Kyouko beam.
Then, whenever she goes to Mystia's house, Mystia plays three-chord songs on her acoustic guitar, and Kyouko sings along happily, sitting by Mystia's side. They make a good pair. Kyouko can't wait until they can be a band for real. There couldn't be anything more wonderful than that, probably—being in a girl punk band with her best friend, playing their own songs loud and fast, without a care in the world.
They grow. The summer after they graduate junior high, Mystia dyes her hair cotton candy pink, and Kyouko does her own in teal. Kyouko saves up for her bass, learns to play on her own from books and internet searches. It's late in their freshman year of high school when they write their first real song together, short and fast and loud like all the best punk songs. They practice together in Kyouko's garage, which is not very big to begin with and contains quite the assortment of various lawn tools, old furniture, and boxes of clothes and appliances that Byakuren hasn't gotten around to doing something about yet. But it quickly becomes their space, a little hangout just for Mystia and Kyouko, where they can make as much noise as they want as long as Byakuren isn't sleeping.
The way their music reverberates off the walls and surrounds them quickly becomes Kyouko's favorite thing ever. The music feels cozy, in a way; it's something she and Mystia are creating together and it's in the air and it's impossible to ignore. Kyouko loves it, will scream in delight while playing her bass. The exhilaration is like nothing else she's ever felt, bright and happy and strong. When she's playing her bass, with Mystia on guitar, and both of them singing and yelling in harmony and time—there's nothing Kyouko couldn't do.