Chapter Text
—
Suna isn’t the biggest fan of large groups of people. Rowdy crowds. The shared body heat, the mingled breaths, the pushing and shoving, the unwarranted physical contact with a bunch of people he’s never seen before; the list goes on. What’s there to like?
Concerts, though—somehow, none of that matters much during concerts. Thousands of voices unite into a chorus that sings along to a well-loved song from beginning to end. The pushing and shoving turn into jumps of euphoria that shake the earth beneath his feet. Even the shared body heat and the physical closeness become a natural part of the experience—because he can jump and sing by himself at home, but nothing beats the feeling of doing it in a sea of strangers who are having just as much fun as he is.
But the experience of a concert goes beyond that—beyond the physicality of it all, beyond the many walls of a venue, there is still so much to look forward to. It starts with the moment he gets a ticket with his name on it and the rest follows easily. The exponential feeling of anticipation in the days that lead up to D-day. The hours preceding show time and the long minutes of standing in an increasingly packed crowd, expectation palpable, before the lights go out and the first cheers of the night echo across the venue. The first riffs of a guitar, the first flash of stage lights, the first breath against a mic, the synergy between fans and artists—everything. There’s everything to love about concerts.
Suna just so happens to be lucky enough to have experienced both sides of it—being part of the crowd, watching; and standing on the stage, performing.
Tonight, he’s the former. With his fellow band members by his side, they are the fans, not the performers. They’re the ones doing the cheering, the jumping, the shouting of the lyrics to their favourite songs, uncaring whether they’re in tune or not, because no one else around them gives a fuck either.
Standing in the middle of a packed concert hall, seeing one of their favourite bands live, Semi Eita, Ojiro Aran, and Suna Rintarou, members of hobby-band-gone-viral The Skulks, are having a damn good time.
It’s hot—almost too hot. Perspiration gathers on the back of Suna’s neck; he can feel it trickling down his back, making his shirt stick to his skin. His shoulders hurt from keeping his hands up in the air for so long, but it’s his cheeks and jaw that ache the most from all the fun he’s having showing on his face—the kind of strain it doesn’t experience most days. Strobe lights flash above the crowd’s raised hands and phones as the low thrumming bass vibrates across hearts and souls. Next to him, Eita joins the hollering crowd with little regard for his vocal chords despite being the main singer for their own band. Suna’s own voice isn’t faring much better, but it’s fine; they’ll recover, as they have so many other times in the past.
Caught in the middle of one of his personal favourite songs, Suna throws an arm around Eita’s shoulder and sings with him, jostling Aran on the opposite side of their little trio. It’s as much of a personal experience as it is a shared one for them, as fellow band members, as artists with common interests and influences, as longtime friends.
The song cuts off abruptly with an ear-splitting riff. The stage lights go out and the venue plunges into darkness, but it’s not the end of it—not yet. Suna knows, every worthy fan knows it too. It’s a pause, a mere silent prelude before it comes back louder, stronger. It’s only a few beats long in the studio version, but here, in the concert, they let it stretch. The crowd gets riled up as anticipation builds and the cheers increase in volume, until it feels like they’re standing at the edge of the abyss and the first strike of the drum will send them into delirium.
Suna brings his fingers to his mouth to whistle loudly, but his elbow hits something on the way down— someone . And it hits them hard. Pain shoots up and down his own arm, travels all the way to his neck and hand, and he grinds his teeth as his limb feels momentarily paralyzed with shock.
“Shit,” he hisses, clutching his elbow against himself. Next to him, barely discernible in the low light, the faint figure of his victim is hunched over himself with his face buried in his hands— his face , of all things. Please not the nose, please not the eye, please , Suna finds himself wishing.
“Hey,” he calls out, hand firmly clutched on the man’s shoulder to get his attention. Even the small motion is enough to trigger renewed sparks of pain around his aching elbow. “Are you okay? ”
Under the sudden touch, the man jolts and, for the briefest of moments, Suna comes to terms with the fact that he’s about to get an elbow to the face in return. Maybe a fist, too, if he’s really lucky. But a moment passes and no retaliating punches come his way. The man turns to face him with his face pinched with pain, one hand covering the left side of his face.
“I’m so sorry,” Suna tries, and asks him again if he’s okay.
Oblivious to their delicate predicament, the crowd keeps cheering around them, loud and rowdy, drowning out any chance of civil communication between them.
“Holy fuck, you got me good,” is what Suna thinks the man replies. His hand comes off his face and he checks it for blood, probably, finding none.
“Hey,” Suna tries again, harsher this time, because the man still hasn’t replied to his question and he could be half blind for all Suna knows, but his next words are swept away as the music crashes back down on them and the crowd goes delirious. If spoken communication had been difficult before, now it becomes impossible.
Having their interaction interrupted so violently throws Suna for a wild loop. In the seconds it takes him to switch gears, he’s jostled around by the crowd and his Converse are stepped on by at least three different pairs of combat boots. It’s a sudden arm over his shoulders and words being yelled straight into his ear that ground him in the end.
“You look like you just murdered someone. I’m okay!”
The stranger’s voice reverberates in his skull, above the bass that makes his heart rattle in his ribcage. The man is grinning like he didn’t nearly get his living lights knocked out of him just a few seconds ago and before Suna knows it, he’s being pulled back into the rhythm of the crowd until they’re jumping together and enjoying the last moments of the song as if they’re nothing less than a pair of well-acquainted friends.
They erupt into cheers when it ends and Suna dares to whistle again, successfully this time. The sharp sound brings the stranger’s attention back to him and they find themselves cheering not only at the band, but also between themselves, a shared euphoric, music-induced feeling that can only be described as you love this band, i love this band, that’s fucking awesome.
Suna wonders if the man is tipsy, or even drunk, as no one should look this chipper after taking an elbow to the face, but he quickly dismisses the thought because it’s unfair. He just looks really happy to be here. And, admittedly, so is Suna, no alcohol involved on his end—so why should it be on the other’s?
After the explosive run, both band members and fans alike take a few minutes to catch their breaths. The lead singer chugs an entire bottle of water followed by a generous serving of something that is definitely not water nor alcohol-free, which he shares with the keyboardist and the guitarist. The drummer checks something on his bass drum with a member of the crew while the bassist sits by the edge of the stage to interact with the fans closest to him.
At the lull in pace and now that they no longer need to yell into each other’s faces to make themselves heard, they break away from their embrace that had somehow lasted until the end of the song. In the brighter lights, Suna is able to take a good look at his newfound acquaintance—about his age, jet black hair, an easy smile that crinkles the corners of his big, round eyes. There are no discernible contusions from their little accident, but just like Suna still feels a ghost of pain along his arm, the other man is certainly still feeling it too.
As if reading into Suna’s once over across his face, he gently touches the tips of his fingers to his cheekbone.
“D’ya have maces for elbows? Hurt like hell, that one.”
“Shit. Sorry.”
“‘s fine, shit happens. I’ve had my nose broken before so you’re definitely not the worst thing that has happened to me at a concert.” He grins, as if this will be a good memory in comparison, but the mental image of a broken nose still makes Suna grimace. The stranger chuckles. “That’s an expressive face you got there, I’ll give you that.”
A lot of things are said about Suna’s face. That’s an expressive face you got there has very much never been one of them. Having it pointed out to him makes him oddly aware of every muscle in his face, but he finds it nearly impossible to school his lively expression back into its usual aloofness. He pins it on the high of the concert and the absurdity of his situation with this stranger.
“First time seeing ‘em?” the man asks when Suna’s focus lingers on the muscles of his face for a second too long, snapping him out of it.
“No, saw them the last time they were in Osaka, about six years ago.” On the day he’d turned nineteen, no less. “You?”
“Saw them a few years before that, in Tokyo. Fifteen year old, little pipsqueak I was. First time in Tokyo, first time at a rock concert. Looked at the pit from the stands and told myself I’d be there one day.” A low chuckle, a shake of his head. There’s a kind of subdued charm to him. Suna doesn’t think about it. “Fast forward a decade and here I am, loving them as much as I did back then.”
“Fifteen year old me would’ve fought you for those tickets. Couldn’t afford them at the time.”
Fifteen year old Suna Rintarou, a little scrawny rascal who carried his cheap drumsticks in his backpack anywhere he went, making use of any and all available surfaces to drum his little heart away, which got him into the principal’s office more times than he can recall. Too broke to afford a drum set, too broke to afford drumming classes, ultimately too broke to travel to Tokyo and see the band whose songs he’d try and drum along to for hours on end going by ear alone, locked up in the school’s music studio until his tender, inexperienced fingers bled, or until someone came to kick him out.
The day he’d come to terms with the fact he wouldn’t be able to see them live, he’d broken his pair of drumsticks while banging them against the edge of his bedroom’s desk. It’d taken him three months of saving up and a lot of broken replacement pencils until he had enough to buy new ones.
“But you made it a few years later. And you made it today,” the man notes, like it’s all that matters. He’s right. Suna had made it four years later, a dream come true at nineteen years old. He’s twenty five now, a lot better at drums, only slightly less broke, but still having as much fun as his teenager self. He finds that here I am, loving them as much as I did back them rings true for himself as well.
They look away from each other with matching smiles on their faces—just two strangers basking in the easy, unparalleled comradery that comes with sharing the same long-standing passion for the same music, all of it before they have even properly introduced themselves, all of it despite the rocky start.
“Hey, what’s your name,” Suna tries to ask, but he’s cut off by the lead singer who suddenly addresses the crowd, bringing everyone’s attention back to the stage.
The other man listens, though. Suna leans closer and lends him an ear when he feels him leaning closer to reply. Their proximity would feel uncomfortable had they been anywhere else but at a concert.
“Osamu. Yours?”
“Suna.”
“Talk to you after the show?”
Suna throws a thumbs up and pairs it with a wink, which is strange because he cannot recall the first and last time he’d ever winked in his life. Eita winks sometimes; Suna does not. He blinks to himself and briefly wonders why his face feels like it’s got a life of its own tonight.
Their attention then finally shifts to the band’s frontman, who speaks a few words, breathless declarations of love that make the crowd erupt into loud cheers.
Osaka, I fucking love you. Love your food, love your booze, he lifts his plastic glass into an imaginary toast with everyone in the crowd. Thank you for the energy you’ve given us tonight. We’re nearing the end, but we still got a few good ones left for you. Are you with us?
The crowd loudly voices their affirmation and soon another song echoes across the venue, kickstarting the final stretch of the concert. It goes in much the same way as the rest of it had, but down in the crowd where Suna stands, it feels different. Where there had previously been a sea of strangers, save for Eita and Aran to his right side, Suna has now become aware of the friendly presence to his left. They accommodate each other when the crowd tightens during the most beloved songs. Osamu’s rapture becomes Suna’s, which he in turn passes on to Eita, who passes it on to Aran, who sends it back the way it came from in a never ending loop—a Newton’s cradle of euphoric energy, exacerbated tenfold by the tens of thousands of people around them having just as much fun as them.
Eita, ever the attentive one, catches Suna’s eye when the crowd comes together during a ballad, arms linked together as everyone gently sways from side to side like rippling waves in the breeze.
Who’s that guy, he manages to communicate with only narrowed eyes and a single nod of his head towards Osamu. He’d most likely noticed Suna’s distraction with something, or someone, to his left.
I don’t fucking know, Suna mouths the words, shrugs, then feints bringing down his elbow on Eita’s face. He leans closer to him so he can explain, “I elbowed him in face. He was cool about it.”
Eita makes a pained face and tunes back into the concert, seemingly satisfied with the clarification for the moment.
Then comes the end—but not the real end. The wicked game between fans and performers after the latter step off the stage and leave everyone behind in the dark, on the pretense that it’s done, it’s finished; they’re not coming back. But only a few overhead lights come on. The single from their latest album hasn’t been played yet. No one dares to move, no one dares to stay quiet. Feet stomp on concrete floor, chants of the band’s name echo so loud they can be heard backstage—anything goes. Encore, the fans plead, and so do Eita, Aran, Suna, and Osamu next to him.
Suna hears him commenting on a song that hasn’t been played yet, and he shoots back with another he hopes to see being played before the concert’s end, initiating a back-and-forth that lasts until Eita pinches the back of his arm, most likely wanting in on the stranger fun.
With a roll of his eyes, Suna hooks his arms around the necks of both of his friends and presents them to Osamu.
“This is Eita and Aran. Long time friends, long time fans as well.”
“Hiya,” Eita greets with a curious smile while Aran’s expression shifts into a face-splitting smile that turns his eyes into crescents, ever the picture of warm politeness. Between the mischief dancing behind Eita’s eyes and Aran’s earnest sincerity, they’re a surprisingly balanced pair. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
Osamu gives Eita a once over and shakes his head. “I don’t think so, sorry. But you might be familiar with this vermin over here,” he says and, without any further explanation, reaches behind himself, plunging his arm into the sea of strangers behind him.
Out of the crowd, dragged by Osamu’s fist on the collar of their loose tank top, emerges a head of bleached blond hair. Brazen brown eyes brim with barely contained mayhem and—oh.
There’s two of them—two of Osamu. Twins.
“I offer you my brother, Atsumu,” Osamu says, deadpan.
The man in question visibly takes a second to center himself on the conversation, having been suddenly pulled from whatever antics he’d been up to behind his brother’s back. Only after he’s taken a good look at their trio does he slide into a more relaxed stance, grinning as he leans with one arm over his brother’s shoulders. His cool pose is short lived as Osamu shrugs him off almost instantly.
“Made some new friends, have ya, Samu? Greetings.”
Eita jolts upright and almost dislodges Suna’s shoulder joint out of its rightful place. Suna lets go of him with a wince.
“Atsumu?” Eita asks. “Miya Atsumu from The Black Jackals?”
Suna feels his eyebrows furrowing. The Black Jackals?
“That’s me. I’m surprised to be recognized all the way down here in Osaka. Always thought we were a Tokyo-only phenomenon.”
“I happened to be at one of your gigs last time I was there,” Eita explains. “You guys around for any shows in the area?”
The Black Jackals. Gigs. Suna exchanges a mildly confused look with Aran as he puts two and two together—Atsumu is most likely in a band.
“The Jackals and I went our separate ways a few months ago, actually.”
“Shit. So you’re free now?”
“Yeah, been ridin’ solo for a while. Picking up a few gigs here and there, browsing what Osaka has to offer.” He shrugs. “Nothing special has come along yet.”
“Come play with us.” Eita springs the offer and every pair of eyes in the group fall on him. He gestures at Suna and Aran, “We’re a band, the three of us. We got a bunch of gigs lined up but our lead guitarist jumped ship a couple of weeks ago.”
“Oi, Eita—” Aran starts warily, but Eita is quick to reassure him.
“He’s good, trust me.”
Atsumu crosses his arms with a chuckle that Suna dislikes the dismissive sound of. “But are you any good?” he asks.
“Good enough to get radio play,” Eita counters.
“Is that so? What’s the name?”
“The Skulks.”
Atsumu nudges Osamu as they exchange a quick wide-eyed look before focusing back on the trio.
“No shit?” Atsumu asks.
“No shit. Come to our gig next—” Eita replies but the conversation is cut off abruptly once again as the silhouettes of the artists are seen climbing up onto the stage again.
All of their attentions are drawn back to the main stage after an unspoken agreement to continue negotiations later and just seconds before the lights dim.
The encore flashes by too fast, never long enough. They play a few more fan favourites and leave everyone in high spirits. Roaring applause sees the band members off the stage until the overhead lights come on. The sudden brightness is sobering, like crashing back down from cloud nine. Suna squints under the harsh lights as he comes to terms with the fact that it’s over. Something he’d been looking forward to for weeks, months , like a light at the end of the tunnel, a fluttering feeling of anticipation that has now died, until the next one comes along and kickstarts the process all over again.
Nex to him, Eita and Aran switch their chatterboxes on right away as the crowd begins to shift towards the exit. Suna pinches the sleeve of Eita’s shirt so they don’t lose track of each other and wonders what is it that his friends eat for breakfast that makes them capable of diving right into such a heated discussion of the concert just mere seconds after the end of it. Suna’s own talking engine takes a bit longer to get started. Still processing the avalanche of sensorial input he’d just absorbed over the course of the past two hours, he feels barely capable of articulating little else than so, that was cool .
He means to initiate that particular conversation with his newfound concert buddy but when he turns his head to look for him, he realizes the twins are nowhere to be seen. He’s surrounded by a sea of strangers once again. He gets up on the tip of his toes and scans the people around him, hoping to catch sight of an identical pair of heads, but to no avail. Poof —gone, as if they’d been nothing more than a fever dream, a product of the music-induced state of ecstasy he’d just lived through.
“Oi, the twins are gone,” he tells the other two, interrupting their conversation. “Did you see where they went?”
“Wha— they were right there with us, how did they—” Aran wonders as he, too, scans the crowd. “They must have drifted away.”
Or maybe they just straight up left, Suna’s mind provides, which is, admittedly, a somewhat disappointing thought.
“Don’t see ‘em either,” Eita adds, eyes searching despite being the shortest of the three, which means that whatever he’s able to see, Suna and Aran are, too. It’s the thought that counts.
Being so suddenly separated like this feels—weird. Like a bandaid being ripped off too soon without his consent. But it’s not like he knew what else to say to Osamu. Maybe hey, thanks for putting up with my excessive whistling, or thanks for tolerating all the shoves I didn’t mean to give you and all the times I accidentally stepped on your foot, or even, and maybe most importantly, thanks for being so cool about me nearly knocking the living lights out of you, I hope it doesn’t bruise. Maybe just a simple that was fun, and ask him what he thought in return.
So—perhaps he did have a couple of things he might have wanted to say. Instead, he tells himself that some things are maybe better left in the dark of a concert hall, in the high of a concert, not meant to last once the lights come on.
He sighs to shrug the feeling off but the disappointment pulling at his features betrays him.
Eita notices it and nudges him with his elbow. “We might run into them outside, c’mon.”
The cool night air welcomes them outside when the crowd finally filters out of the venue. They cross the street and linger in front of a closed storefront, below a lit lamppost where the mass of people is less thick. Eita checks his phone and shoots a message with their location to Goshiki and Koganegawa, two of his guitar students and familiar faces at NORTH who had also attended the concert from the seated sections.
As they wait for them to show up, Aran steers the conversation back to the concert and this time Suna joins in. They get so into it that they all fail to notice the two men approaching them until they’re within hearing range and Suna recognizes Atsumu’s voice calling out for them. He barely has any time to process it when the twins come bounding into their space, the blond twin dragging his black-haired brother by the wrist.
“Oh. Hey,” Suna breathes his greeting, somewhat perplexed. With the thousands of people still lingering around the venue, he’d been forced to come to terms with the highly likely possibility that their paths wouldn’t cross again. And yet, by some odd quirk of fate—
“Hey, we thought we’d lost you two,” says Aran.
“So did we. Took our eyes off of you for two seconds and then, boom, you’re gone,” Atsumu explains with a flick of his fingers. “Anyway. I believe you and I had things to negotiate,” he continues, turning to face Eita and Aran, “while this one,” he adds, nudging Osamu in Suna’s general direction, “wanted your—”
“We just recently moved into the city,” Osamu pointedly interrupts his brother with a glare directed at him. Only then does he address Suna. “Three weeks ago, give or take. It’s been surprisingly hard to meet people. So I thought we could, uh— connect?”
He speaks in a level voice but stutters on the very last word. Behind him, Atsumu cackles, ugly and loud.
“Connect? Workin’ a corporate job is taking over your brain, ‘Samu.”
Suna fights back a grin. Whether it’s at the expense of Osamu’s choice of words, Atsumu’s stupid comment, or both, he doesn’t know. Osamu turns to Atsumu again and they bicker back and forth until Aran intervenes with a chuckle and his hands held up in a placating manner.
“We’re going out for a few drinks,” he says, “we’re just waiting for a couple of friends to join us. You’re welcome to come with us.”
“I could do that.” Atsumu says and, despite their borderline aggressive bickering not even five seconds ago, turns to Osamu for confirmation. “‘Samu?”
There’s a noticeable beat of hesitation from Osamu. Suna shoulders him lightly, letting the grin take over his face.
“A beer for the elbow you got from me,” he offers when Osamu’s attention shifts back to him. And for the bruise that’s beginning to bloom under your eye already, he adds in his mind. “Your first round is on me.”
And that seems to do the trick.
Their night ends almost the same way it started—Osamu’s arm thrown over Suna’s shoulders, heavy and close, while they sing along to one of their favourite songs.
But they’re not inside a concert venue anymore. Instead, it’s three in the morning and they’re walking down an emptying street, a lot drunker than they should be. Their voices are no longer echoed by tens of thousands of others, nor do they reverberate in the closed space of a venue. Instead, they bounce off brick walls and closed blinds, echoed by the voices of their friends, old and new, all five of them, who trail behind them, just as drunk. Koganegawa carries Goshiki on his back for no reason. Eita and Atsumu cling to a giggling Aran.
Suna has a new contact in his phone, Osamu is no longer a complete stranger, and there’s a folded napkin in the back pocket of his jeans scribbled with a mock-formal invitation to The Skulks’s next gig the following Friday, addressed to the Miya Twins, backstage access included.
Fun night.
—
Suna wakes the next day to a mild hangover, a soft ping from his phone, and a mighty urge to piss. He reaches for the phone first, only because it’s closer than the bathroom. A text from «Samu» greets him on the screen.
fucking hell, it reads simply, but it’s not like it needs any further explanation because attached follows a photo of a sleepy-eyed Osamu, lying in bed, a massive bruise blooming along his cheekbone. It’s red and swollen, fresh and angry-looking, raising his lower lid into an almost-wink. Suna winces. It had gotten much, much worse overnight.
A second text comes while he looks at the photo.
gives me some edge don’t you think
Suna exhales sharply through his nose, a phantom of a laugh. The way his abs contract reminds him of how badly he needs to piss, though, so he waddles to the bathroom while his sleep-addled brain mulls over what he should reply.
He gets under the blankets again, face washed and two glasses of water later, still too groggy to get his day started.
no, he types back. makes u look like u got ur ass handed to u. sorry.
probably should put some concealer on that so you don’t get fired on monday when you show up to work.
how exactly does one shop for concealer, comes the reply.
give me an hour and i can meet you at a convenience store of your choosing, Suna sends, figuring it’s the least he can do. or somewhere nicer, if you’re feeling fancy.
cool. let me take a shower and i’ll get back to you.
He opens the picture again with the intent of accessing just how much of it they can actually cover with concealer, but his eyes end up straying down the line of his jaw and neck and the hint of collarbone that peeks from below the loose collar of his pyjama shirt. The hand that isn’t holding his phone up for the picture is pushing his hair back from his face, fingers carding through wispy black locks mussed from sleep. All that paired with the sleepy eyes would be enough to push the picture into the mild thirst trap realm, were it not for the grotesque bruise on the side of his face—and were Suna’s mind not regrettably occupied by someone else.
Suna focuses on the cute fox face embroidered on the shirt’s breast pocket instead of letting his mind spiral down that particular dark road—not today, he tells himself. He wonders why a pyjama even needs a breast pocket.
cute pyjamas, he sends.
—