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"Man, you still out here?"
Poe nods his head from where he's deeply focused on his guitar, watching his fingers on the strings as he plucks them to make a rhythm; it's lower, stretched out one. He wanted something higher, shaking his head and picking up his notebook, crossing out the previous marks he made on it. Afterward, he finally decides to acknowledge his sudden company with a lazy glance through his bangs, and it's Mark.
Mark rolls his eyes at him with a small smirk at Poe's plain expression to his arrival, entering the garage further and shutting the door behind him, grabbing a drink from the refrigerator and throwing himself into a dingy bean-bag chair against the wall.
"No need to gimmie that look, I'm only askin'."
"If my body is here," Poe starts, bringing his guitar closer to his chest again, lightly brushing up against the strings of his bass again, gaining lighter sounds in response and holds his finger there, "doesn't that mean I am here, too?"
Mark is quiet as he gulps down some of his drink, shooting back with a laugh that fades into his words. "I guess you're not so focused since you are still aware enough to answer me."
Poe lets his finger run over the note; it's higher but too high. He sighs in resignation and sets his instrument on his lap, picking up the notebook again. He stares at his slanted handwriting with dismay before tossing the pad over to the next cushion. "I'm not doing so well on this song," he confesses meekly.
"Are the lyrics the problem?" Mark curiously tilts his head at him, frowning some.
Poe shrugs his shoulders soundlessly, getting up from the couch to go and retrieve a soda, too. "It's both. I can't find a rhythm or proper words ."
Mark hums into his soda can, following him with his eyes until Poe falls into the bean-bag beside him. "You should ask for help. I know I'm not the best when it comes to finding a beat, but I'm a lyrical genius; I am the vocalist, after all."
"Yeah," Poe says off-handedly, eyeing the cap of his drink like it'll come off on its own when it gets quiet. Mark is waiting for him to speak up because he knows he has more to say. Poe pokes on the tap, looking up to stare at the garage door. "But this isn't a song for the band, it's my song. It's a song for—"
Mark beats him to it, Poe wasn't even sure if his mouth would complete the sentence. He might've snapped it shut and said nevermind because Mark already knows. But everything becomes true once you say it out loud.
"Akiko."
"Yeah… Akiko."
Or maybe that was what he wanted everyone to believe.
"Geez, yeah, I get it!" Mark says loudly, nudging Poe a bit rough in the ribcage and he coughs a little. Mark smiles wide and leans back as if in awe. "Akiko is a hard girl to please. Imagining writing a song for her just gives me an inferiority-complex!"
Poe moves his stare to the concrete of the garage, giving a grim expression, clutching his soda a little harder; he didn't even want it anymore. Mark took his lack of a response as a need to clap his back and that's a little rough, too.
"I didn't mean to scare you there, bud," Mark says, leaning back into the bean-bag and swigging up the rest of his soda. He twisted the cap back on and aimed the bottle at the trashcan against the wall across from there and made it. "It's your song, I understand. You want it to be special but even the best artist needed help to get their jumbled thoughts for a crush into coherent words. John and I are here if you ever need help."
Poe hands Mark his soda who looks at him puzzled as he gets up; he didn't even like Pineapple Fanta anyways.
"Yo, Edgar, where are you going?" Mark calls for him as he walks away, hands dug deep into his joggers while he makes in the direction of the door leading to the house.
"I'm tired, I'm going to my room," Poe called over his shoulder, giving a lazy wave before vanishing inside. He let out a deep breath when he closed the door behind him.
Even the best artist needed help to get their jumbled thoughts for a crush into coherent words.
Okay , Poe thought as he climbed the stairs, but what if your crush is your best friend, and thinks you like their step-sister. And is a guy. Even the best musical genius couldn't help you with that.
Poe makes it to his room and is already sitting on the edge of it when he realizes he left his guitar downstairs. Oh well, it's not like he could even strum out a few decent notes at this time, so he trust-falls into the mattress and opts to stare at the ceiling instead. But he couldn't even do that as Karl finds his way onto the bed, nudging his head underneath his arm resting on his stomach, nuzzling his nose into his stomach obviously touched-starved the past five hours Poe hasn't been in his room. Poe gives in instantly and lifts Karl into the air and stares at him for a moment.
"Karl, what should I do?"
Karl doesn't reply, just wiggles his nose and ears. Poe brings him back into his stomach and sits up again, deciding to just give him what he wants and not expect his already weird choice of a pet to talk back to him. It's so quiet he can't help but drift off into his thoughts and shiver at how he even got himself into this mess, to begin with.
All his bandmates are nosy. They have no sense of privacy and it's telling by how they sneak girls into their rooms with no regard to how loud they're being or how they like to hug-tackle and generally be touchy to the point Poe flinches when someone so much as holds their hand out for a handshake. He got used to it, of course, or he wouldn't be here. But then they started prying into his life. He panicked when they, during their stupid unprecedented rough-housing matches he doesn't even try and win, snatched his notebook. He shouldn't have decided to fight like it was life on the line, then.
Maybe he should have let them take it and reacted how he always did, then they would've laughed at him, told him to stop being so serious, and throw it back to him like they did his phone, textbooks, and even poor Karl. But he didn't, his heartbeat went into overdrive when his notebook was suddenly not in his hands anymore. And so he fought back, maybe a tad more seriously than the others. But one against two has never seen a victorious winner and next thing he knew John had him pinned and Mark opened his notebook to a random page.
"Yo, Edgar, what is this? " Mark exclaimed in disbelief but his eyes and the smirk playing on his face said otherwise. "It's like a really mushy poem!"
"It—it's the song for our next ep!" He tried to lie but of course, they could see right through him.
"No way, this is some elementary shit. Tell us who it is or I'm gonna read it out loud," Mark threatened, jumping back when Poe thrashed under John's weight.
"Wa—wait—"
"It seems you're so far away, like a dream you just can't grab from the mind and take to reality," Mark started to read like a love-sick puppy.
"STOP—STOP! It's—it's about," he went through all the people in his mind that he knew and there wasn't a lot. Pass that person twice before blurting, desperately, almost in tears. "It's about Akiko! I like Akiko, okay?!"
He thought it was over then when John finally let go of him and Mark gave him back his notebook. He blocked out their rejoices of Poe finally having a crush until he was able to go back to his room and cry about how his bandmates were such bullies even though they had a warp version of meaning well. But that wasn't all, because they told the rest of their friend group about his "crush" on Akiko, including her step-brother. His best friend. His crush, Ranpo. And now to make matters more complicated, he and his bandmates are going to be the opening act to a small, but a town-famous band that Akiko likes and what not a better way to confess your love than to sing to her at the concert. Please be aware that this was not Poe’s idea, it’s too stupid for him to come up with and he doesn’t like Akiko.
He’s starting to think he should have been honest from the start. Although John and Mark were rowdy, rough-housing, occasional bullies, Poe thinks they would have understood. Maybe they would have understood the pang in his chest at just a glance of Ranpo. The way his stomach twisted and turned with every sound of Ranpo’s voice and laughter. The need to look away when those green eyes look into your soul, almost like they’re reading you without ever having to flip a page. Not how it feels to be in like but how it feels to be in love . Helplessly, somberly, deeply in love. But then he immediately shakes his head at that because in the end it would always be scary and honesty sometimes makes you lose things in the process. And so can lies but he hasn’t lost anything but his energy and that wasn’t new so all and all, things were going okay on the flip side of things.
“One special delivery for Edgar Allan Poe!”
The voice trailed bright and chirpy from the threshold of his opened bedroom door, causing both he and Karl to stare in its direction. Instantly, Karl jumped from his lap and sprinted across the room and up onto the shoulders of the visitor at his door.
“Ranpo? What are you doing here?” Poe asked, already feeling his chest heavy at the sight of the man leaning slightly on his doorway. One hand was on the waist of his high-waisted mom-jeans, the ends rolled up to his above his ankles and his sweater drooped over his from where he tucked in it. He tipped his fedora to him before holding Poe’s bass up by the handle before carefully holding it to his chest, entering the room.
“I was in the neighborhood, Mark told me you left this in the garage,” Ranpo told him simply, leaning over to give it to him and Poe gingerly took it, setting it on his lap. “He also said you were having problems coming up with a song for Akiko.”
Poe feels his face grow warm at Ranpo’s body being so close to his, his face inches away from Poe’s own. When it felt Poe was about to grow flustered from it, Ranpo stepped away and smiled, placing his hands behind his back before sauntering onto the other edge of the bed, sitting down. Ranpo was always like this, somehow so close but inevitably so, so far away. It was like if Poe braved up enough and actually reached, his hands would go right through him like he was a ghost, or Ranpo would grab his wrist when it was inches from creasing his cheek and give him a cunning grin. To reach but not to touch.
Like a dream you just can't grab from the mind and take to reality.
“Yeah,” Poe let’s out in a breath, glancing over to find Ranpo taking Karl from off of his shoulders and into his lap to dote on. “It’s a bit--hard to figure out what to say. I don’t know if the instrumental should be quick and poppy, or slow and alternative…”
“Well,” Ranpo chimed in when he’s trailed off, finding his finger strumming faint notes of his bass again, as if in some sort of demonstration, “I’m no good with instruments. That’s your job. But I know my little sis better than anyone in this world, I’ll know what she’ll like in terms of sound!”
Poe felt his lips puckering in, his frame shaking in a sudden timidness, his fingers going slack on the string and his hand finding it hard to keep hold of the handle. “Do you guys happen to have the same taste in music?” Poe found himself asking and it was too late to snap his mouth shut because Ranpo was already looking into his soul with those green eyes.
And there was this thing, this thing about his eyes, they were never cold or hard when they bore into you. They were always crinkled around the edges and dancing around his subject, soft and thoughtful. Anyone would shift under that gaze like it was threatening you in somehow sweet manipulation to look his way. But Poe never does, instead, he keeps his eyes down on the plush dark rug of his bedroom until Ranpo looks away.
“No way!” Ranpo declared after what felt like ages of him patronizing him, daring him to look his way. “Akiko and I are so different when it comes to many things. I like poppy, rocky things and she likes punky, alternative-y things. I don’t know what she likes when it comes to lyrics but she’s always listening to songs about breakups and self-love. I think she’s going through it.”
Poe allows himself a shaky laugh at Ranpo’s words, lucky not to be seen through.
“Hey,” Ranpo said distantly, as if to himself but loud enough for Poe to hear. “What do you like about Akiko?”
“What?”
“I mean, you like her, right? So why do you?” Ranpo brought Karl closer into his chest, curling into himself a small fraction. “Everyone has their reasons for liking someone.”
Poe tilts his head in thought, not sure how to answer such a sudden and answerless question. He doesn’t actually like Akiko and never thought someone would ask him this. He feels Ranpo watching him again, waiting. This time, Poe sucks up his jitters and stares at him right back.
“For one, I think her eyes are--are enticing. Most often than not, they’re hard to look into,” he starts to say before he can stop, his only distractions being the urge to push on and Karl climbing up his back after wiggling from out of Ranpo’s grasps. “It’s almost like she’s staring into your soul, getting to know things you don’t even know about yourself. Maybe it’s because I’m just nervous around her, even though I knew her for a long while. But that feeling persists. And--and then it’s her-- it’s almost trivial-- but there’s the way she wears her hair. It’s endearing the way she always wears---” he catches himself, his hands stopping midway to his head, placing them back onto his lap.
“Just the way she wears it, you know? And many people think her strange or exhausting to be around, and even a bit conceited. But I--I don’t feel any of that about her. So what if she’s more energized than others and has these ideas and dreams a tad out of the box? And looking--looking like that, she has every right to think so highly of herself the way that she does. She’s just--”
Poe startled himself out of his rambling, it’s the most he’s ever felt he said about someone before. It was a desperate feeling, trying to explain this to someone, things you're afraid no one will understand but yourself. It’s even more frightening when he realized he said it out loud, and to the person he’s talking about, at that. He quickly shuts up.
“I see,” Ranpo said in a quiet mutter, playing thumb-war with himself as if he was nervous about something. “That must be a nice feeling. To feel that way about someone. Geez, Akiko doesn’t even know what’s going to hit her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Akiko has a guy writing a song for her! That’s like--like the most romantic thing I’ve heard! And I watch a lot of romance movies,” Ranpo said in a chirpy voice Poe could tell was wavering. “But she won’t realize this, because everyone likes her. She’s just so-- likable, and sometimes she’s so oblivious to it that it’s frustrating. For someone to like me how so many people like Akiko-- I don’t think I’ll let even the subtlest of gestures pass me by.”
It takes Poe a second to register all that he said even though Ranpo said it at a reasonable pace. But he can’t even focus on what Ranpo said because around that time he realizes he’s staring into his eyes. The green of them has never looked this bright before, or maybe they always were like this and only if he made frequent eye contact---
But it’s weird. Where’s the beckoning? Telling him to stare at him back? Is it because he’s already staring? Then Ranpo’s eyes crinkle with a lop-sided smile and Poe feels something new. It’s like he’s got what he wanted, but he isn’t satisfied. Or--Or is it--
“Well, I hope our little talk gave you some inspiration,” Ranpo says suddenly, pushing himself from off the bed and walking slowly past him, spinning around shooting him a smile, but it doesn’t feel real. Doesn’t feel like Ranpo. “I’m going to be there, at the concert on Saturday to cheer you on. So you better make something I can dance to!”
“Wait--you’re leaving so soon?” Poe asked, reaching behind his back to pluck Karl’s claws from out of his hoodie and set him on the bed so he could get up.
Ranpo fixed his fedora over his hair and shrugged. “As I said, I was just in the neighborhood and only came to give you your guitar. I have a final I really need to study for, so I better get home.”
Poe falters in his steps to lead Ranpo out of his room, but he already has his hand wrapped around the knob. Instead, he nods his head and gives a small smile of his own. “Oh, okay. Good luck. And text me later.”
“Will do, see ya,” Ranpo responded, waving him goodbye before he was out the door. Poe stands still, eventually turning back to his bed and picking up his guitar. He eyed it before stalking over to the chair in the corner and falling into it, placing his bass across his chest. He sat there for a few seconds and then his fingers were strumming notes.
“Ranpo,” he sang, purposefully strain and high, “I know your sister turns everyone on.”
When his voice fades out, Poe catches Karl’s ears perking up from where he left him on the bed. His ears twitching actively.
“You like it?” Poe asked him, bringing his bass closer and strumming it freely, pretty happy with the rhythm he was getting and started to sing from his head again. “But, oh, hold on! I have no doubt you’re the one that I want!”
Poe opened his eyes, found himself making eye-contact with his pet raccoon, and maybe he was just going crazy from all the pressure to keep up a facade, but he swears they had the same idea. Quickly, he jumped up from the chair, opening his nightstand drawer for one of the notebooks he keeps around, his headphones, and the aux that goes to his bass and got to work.
“I can’t believe Poe won’t let us hear the lyrics,” Mark says with a snark, sitting on a stool and tuning his electric guitar.
Poe didn’t bother to pay him much mind, focusing on tightening the strap of his guitar around his chest, thinking of the crinkled handwritten music sheets he slammed down in front of Mark and John around breakfast the morning after his sudden motivation hit. Then, he was running off of two hours of sleep, Karl having gotten bored when he kept playing the same strings, slept for the both of them. He never completed a song in one night, and originally decided on pretending to give up and play one of their more popular songs for the opening act. But that wasn’t the case anymore when Mark and John turned their gazes from their cereal to him in surprise.
“Yeah,” John piped up from behind him, spinning his drumsticks between his fingers. “What makes you think we want to be a part of this if the lyrics are, like, trash.”
Poe twisted around to properly glare at him. “They won’t be. They’re--good.”
John holds his hands up and gleams, “I’m only joking with ya! Boy, you don’t play when it comes to Akiko, hm?”
“What about me?” All the boys turn to stare up to the voice, and there's Akiko, staring at them skeptically. While everyone was looking at her, humming in favor of giving her an answer, Poe was staring right past her and to Ranpo.
“How’d you guys get back here? We’re about to go on,” Mark asked, jumping up from the stool and pulling his guitar strap over his head.
Akiko raised an eyebrow, seemingly letting go of her suspicions on their conversation. “I-- know someone who works here,” she says simply but her face flushed with her words but the facial expression made it less noticeable if seen even in the dimness of the backroom at all. “Anyways, we were able to come back here and wish you good luck, we’ll be cheering you on.”
“Yeah,” Ranpo piped from beside her, Poe but couldn’t help but notice the snapback he was wearing, pressing his usually fluffy hair down to his neck. “Good luck you guys, and we can’t wait to hear the new song.” Ranpo winks in his direction when he says this and causes Poe to look down at his boots, clinking to together; only if they were red and heels, then he’d be out of here.
Luckily, the announcer made it happen another way. “For Armed Agency, we have an up-and-coming band here to be their opening act! Everyone, please give it up for The Guild!”
Poe stands up at the call of their name, swinging his bass to his backside and gestures for the boys to follow after him and to the cheering crowding. “We’re off, you guys go and find your seats, so you don’t miss the show.”
What kind of show will it be? A shit-show?
Akiko was pulled by the sleeve and out the door by an eager Ranpo, off to find their seats. The boys did a quick band-chant and climbed the stairs from the backroom that led to the stage. The crowd managed to calm down during their quick set up of putting their instruments into the amplifiers. Usually, it was Mark at the front with the mic, blocking the flickering LED lights from burning Poe’s eyes. In the back, he was able to focus solely on the music, he never had to look up at the crowd and catch their feedback. He made music because he loved it, even if he had no fans or someone to hear, that would be okay. But for the first time in all the years he played as he stepped up to the mic, it dawns on him that people are actually watching him. But only one pair of eyes somewhere in that crowd actually mattered to him and made playing lead singer all the scarier.
Before Poe can process it, Mark is strumming in the first note of the song and before he knows it, his voice is coming out of his throat, deep and soulful.
“ Ranpo!” He screams into the mic, tapping on the surface of his bass, his instrument not coming in quite yet. “ I know your sister turns everyone on .” His fingers shake as his part begins and for a second it seems like everything is too quiet until someone in the crowd shouts and everyone joins in. “ But you're the one I want! But you’re the one I want!”
He backs away from the mic to the rhythm John’s drums start to make, closing in when it comes to singing again and suddenly everything is moving and untethered and he can barely hear himself through the crowd and anxiety.
Frontpage, magazine, everybody says that she’s the thing. But that’s you to me, and I just gotta let you know that.
Poe can’t bring himself to look up into the crowd or off to the side at his bandmates, he just moves in one spot, looking through his bangs at as much as he could, his heart picking up with the beat, pulsating through the air into his blood.
Stay close by my side, I just wanna chance to show that you’re the one I want. If only you could believe in yourself in the way that I believe in you, I, I do. If only you could see all the beautiful things that I see in you, it’s true!
The lights are so bright that it’s hot, and he can already feel beads of sweat dripping from his curls and his hair pressing into his neck. It’s so hot that Poe can’t keep his head down anymore and whips it up, sending his bang away from his face, and the breeze he got from it filled him with shivers. Biting his lips at the sight of the waving, excited crowd, he goes on.
You think she’s got it all but that don’t make her better! You got my heart and that’s the only thing that matters!
It wasn’t purposeful, but on his chance to take a breather, he swung his body to the side and made eye contact with John, his drumsticks pattering to the beat that if you weren’t looking, you’d think he was entirely focused on that thing and not looking at Poe like he grew a second head and couldn’t decide if he liked it or not. Ranpo turns away from him and to Mark just to see how much deep shit he’s got himself into but is surprised to see Mark is grinning at him and sends him a wink before spinning away to look off to the side of the crowd. Poe’s heart feels like it stops for a second after all that pounding for the past two minutes.
‘Cause I’m attracted to your passion, be yourself forget the fashion. Just keep that smile you’re--you’re flashing ‘cause you and I deserve to be forever everlasting.
John starts to harmonize with him and add adlibs that make the song more energized, Poe starts to feel less nervous, allowing himself to finally meet the crowd head-on, and his stomach drops when he sees a familiar snapback pushing through the crowd of a hundred-or-so people.
Oh, my Ranpo! They don’t show you love enough. Oh, my Ranpo! You should know that you’re my diamond in the rough.
Poe trails the snapback with his eyes until he can see a face and then a body, looking up at him. Those green eyes pierce into him, but this time they’re not reading him. They’re just gazing up at him fondly as if they got all they needed to know about him and more. He can’t break the eye-contact, it’s so intimate and something he could never bring himself to regularly do because they are enticing. So enticing that he’s long got lost in them and can only hope his fingers remember where to strum all on their own. Soon his hands stop on his guitar and all that’s left is John’s pattering on the drums in a rhythm until the lights leave them dim after the bang of the drum fades away. The crowd still shouts out even when Mark forces Poe to break eye-contact with Ranpo and drags him to the backroom in a playful headlock he’s too love-high to be angry about.
“The hell, Edgar?!” Mark exclaims when he pushes Poe onto a stool and he’s grateful for that because like he can barely move enough to continue standing. Poe braces himself for the disappointment, knowing he was going to have to get another lecture from John, too. But then--
“Who knew you could sing like that? Were you savin’ that voice for your lover boy this whole time?”
Poe pushes Mark's hand away from his face lazily in embarrassment. “Why are you so calm about this?”
John throws each one of them a water bottle and leans on one of the unused amps. “What? That we blindly trusted you give us a bop and you delivered or because you’re into Ranpo? The last of those things weren’t really a surprise.”
“Yeah,” Mark jumped in. “At first we thought you did actually like Akiko, but then we noticed you barely looked at her or even talked to her. We figured maybe you were just shy, but then we saw the way you were around Ranpo and we’ve been through that phase before.”
“What?” Poe chokes out, sputtering on his water.
“Dude,” John says with light annoyance traced into his voice,” we know what being in love looks like.”
And here he was thinking they wouldn’t understand. Before Poe could open his mouth to try and make his voice of something, the door leading to the hallway opened up and Akiko and Ranpo came walking in. Poe immediately looks off to the side, unsure if he could pull his eyes away from Ranpo’s emerald greens all on his own. The Armed Agency was already on stage, and their instruments seemed to play background music to their sudden drama.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Akiko says first, walking up to Poe and taking his hands in hers, making him flush because Akiko seemed like an anti-touchy person. “Poe, I’m so glad it’s not me you like! I mean, you’re a great person and all, but I’m not--- Into guys, you know? I would have hated to have to break your heart.”
Poe’s eyes waver all around her face before snapping his head to his bandmates who obviously turn away from him and whistle. Poe furrows his eyebrows at them, but before he could yell at them, Ranpo clears his throat, gaining everyone’s attention. Poe still can’t find the courage to look him in the eyes so he stares at his shoes instead. As if on cue by that, Akiko takes her hands from Poe’s and reaches up to ruffle up his hair, bringing his bangs back into his eyes.
“The staff has a buffet table for the musicians, if you boys are hungry, come along,” Akiko says and John and Mark follow her like lapdogs.
“So does that mean I don’t get a shot with you?” Mark asked.
“What? As if you’d have a shot even if I swung your way!”
“Ow, Akiko, ow.”
Soon after the door clicks shut behind them, Poe’s heart gets to racing. He keeps his head down at his shoes, the quiet creating an over-thinking void in his head. He’s so nervous and warm in the face, he didn’t hear Ranpo walk across the room and in front of him. He feels his warm hands on either side of his face before he even processes its Ranpo himself. Ranpo gently lifts his gaze from the floor and into his eyes, back into the softness of them and the contact swirls in Poe in bliss he could never describe. No one said a word, the only sounds were their breaths until Ranpo brought his face closer to his and connected their lips. Then the bliss Poe felt combusted within him, into stars and galaxies and milky waves, all these ethereal feelings one couldn’t describe with words in any language but the heart could pick it up and give it back fluently to his brain. Telling him it was requited love.
Poe falls into the kiss, wrapping his hands around Ranpo’s neck, bringing him closer almost needily until they pull away, their foreheads touching and Poe was no longer afraid of those eyes because now those eyes were his with questions solved and looking at Poe the way he looks at Ranpo.
As Poe would always trip up on what to say, Ranpo beats him to words: “So, are you hungry?”
Poe lets out a laugh, Ranpo backing up and interlocking their hands together instead, smiling teasingly.
“I could go for something,” Poe responds, allowing Ranpo to help him to his feet and their hands stay interlocked as Poe puts down his guitar before walking with Ranpo to catch up with the others.