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Their concert in Lumiose was a surprisingly big hit. Then again, to Black, every successful concert as part of the emo band Monochrome was a surprise. He’d hang around in the background, drumming, hoping he wouldn’t sweat enough to mess up his thick rings of eyeliner, while White screamed herself hoarse, Bianca sang backup and Cheren played bass. Everybody always focused on White; she was the real emo powerhouse of the band. As Black didn’t want to be emo at all, it suited him fine.
Cheren, on the other hand, would anguish over it.
“The band was my idea,” he’d whine. “All the best lines and chords are mine. I’m so under appreciated by our fans.”
Black would point out Cheren’s fan clubs, Cheren’d point out White’s and how much bigger they were. There was no winning with emos.
Backstage, in their dressing room, Cheren fixed his eyeliner while grumbling about how loudly their fans had cheered White’s name.
“Why’re they like that, huh?” he growled “Anybody can sing like that!”
Black started wiping off his own eyeliner with relief. It made his eyes feel incredibly heavy. “So do it.”
“But then what would White do?! You can’t play a bass line on a piano! That’s so not emo!”
Black fought the urge to groan. “Yeah. Right. Sorry.”
Cheren huffed. “Sometimes I question your commitment to the emo way of life.”
“I changed my name to Black for it, didn’t I?” he pointed out.
Cheren paused, nodding thoughtfully. “I guess having been given Hilbert as a name would drive anybody to accept the darkness within the heart of all men.”
Holy shit.
There was a knock at the door. After a quick glance at Cheren (he was occupied by staring broodily at his reflection), Black got up and opened it. A nervous stage manager peered down at him.
“Sorry to disturb you Black,” she said. “The owner just informed me that he wants to meet with you.”
“Uh, our manager —”
“I should clarify, it’s for personal reasons.”
“Oh.” Black couldn’t imagine anybody who was old enough to own a concert hall would actually like their music, so he figured it was probably a courtesy thing. Or getting signatures for their emo kid. “Um, that should be fine…? D’ya want me to get White and Bianca…?”
She shrugged. “Leave it to me, you just wait here.”
And with that, she walked away.
“Did I hear that right?” Cheren asked. “Does the owner want to meet me but not White?”
“I think you’re misinterpreting what you heard.”
But then the owner turned up, in all his ridiculous orange hair and overpriced custom Armani glory, introduced himself pompously as Lysandre and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet such a genius lyricist as yourself, Cheren.”
Cheren gazed up at him with such adoration it was frankly embarrassing.
“Thanks,” he managed to say. “W-well, White helps, but…”
Lysandre smiled. “Ah, but the song ‘In the End’ was written by you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was,” Black said, because Cheren was clearly beyond speech.
“Yeah… yeah… that was me,” Cheren confirmed.
Lysandre met Cheren’s eyes significantly and softly said, “It’s my all-time favourite song.”
That was all it took for Cheren to decide he had a crush on Lysandre. Because they were on tour, said crush amounted to a lot of Black sitting next to Cheren on the tour bus, rolling his eyes as Cheren frantically Googled Lysandre and reported his findings. Black always tried to point out how stupid Cheren was being, but Cheren ignored everything he said.
“He’s thirty-five.”
“Wow, that’s only nineteen years older than you.”
“He’s dating some pokémon professor… Oh, we met him, he gave us that café tour. Augustine Sycamore.”
“Wow, so you’d only be stealing someone’s boyfriend. Who is nineteen years older than you.”
“He owns a company, Lysandre Labs, the ones that invented those holographic phones.”
“You mean the ones people say get data-mined all the time? Wow.”
“His favourite movie is Donnie Darko. That’s so emo.”
“Wow, a thirty-five-year-old emo. Who’s nineteen years older than you. How wonderful.”
That got a reaction, a withering look and a condescending, “I know you’re saying things you don’t mean because you’re jealous, and I know you’re also aware that emo is a way of life.”
The only reason Black didn’t call Cheren’s parents and tell them ‘Your son is crushing on some ancient billionaire who’s already in a relationship because he said he likes one of our song’ was that he was such a good friend. He hoped someday when Cheren outgrew emo, he’d understand that.
Cheren kept expecting Lysandre to turn up at every single one of their concerts in Kalos. And, horrifically, he did. If there was a balcony seat easily visible from any point on the stage, Black’d glance up and see Lysandre there, usually accompanied by a bored-looking Sycamore. Black was used to seeing bored-looking adults at their concerts, considering their demographic. Seeing adults sitting there with intense looks of ‘bruh I know that feel, hurts me deep bruh’ was pretty limited to Lysandre, and raised every alarm-bell Black’s mind could conjure. Luckily, Lysandre never bothered them backstage again, though Cheren would quickly primp while muttering nervously about seeing the potential love of his life again. In the end though, it didn’t even matter.
It was kind of tragic, in a super hilarious way.
On the day they left Kalos for Kanto, Cheren wore his biggest, baggiest black hoodie (the Gloomy bear one, complete with printed blood splatters) and tightest, skinniest jeans, doubled the usual amount of eyeliner, pulled his hair over his eyes and said in a hollow voice, “Love is not real.”
The only thing that kept Black from exploding with laughter was what a good friend he was.
For the rest of the tour, Cheren kept Googling Lysandre and Black kept handing him mugs of hot chocolate. He didn’t say anything about how ridiculously upset Cheren was getting over someone who showed absolutely no romantic attraction to him in the one conversation they’d had, or how generally ridiculous Cheren’s existence was whenever he played up the emo. After the first week, things were looking up: Cheren was capable of making cutting comments again. He didn’t Googling Lysandre for three whole days, but on the fourth, on a day off they all collectively agreed to spent in their hotel suite, his resolve crumbled.
“C’mon Cheren, he’s a creepy old man,” Black sighed, grabbing at Cheren’s phone. “You deserve better! Don’t date creepy old men!”
“Don’t tell me how to live my life! You sound like my father!”
“When has your father ever told you how to live your life?! Your parents are the easiest-going —”
“They’re oppressive in how much they don’t care!”
“They care so much they bought you three bookshelves, Cheren! C’mon!”
“I don’t care! I need to know what he’s doing! He’s the only one who’s ever appreciated the darkness of my soul!”
“Your fans do weekly tributes to the darkness of your soul!”
“It’s not the same! You don’t understand my pain, Black!”
Black stopped wrestling to stare steadily into Cheren’s eyes and say in the most serious tone he could muster, “I am darkness, Cheren. My name is Black.”
Cheren faltered. “I… I guess…”
Black made the mistake of letting his arms go. Cheren immediately shoved him off, jumping to his feet and shouting, “You soul will never be darker than mine, loser!” as he grabbed his phone and bolted.
“You two should fuck,” White remarked as Black ran after Cheren. “It’ll make both of you calm down for a change!” she shouted after them.
Black wrenched Cheren’s door open before he could lock it, slamming it behind him. Cheren had thrown himself on the bed, holding his phone up with a sickening emo grin.
He was too late.
“You can’t stop love, Black,” Cheren remarked. “You can’t stop —” His grin fell. So did his jaw.
“What?” Black asked.
“He… he… he…”
“Are you laughing or —?”
Cheren sat up. “Lysandre’s missing. Presumed dead. He… he tried to destroy the world… to recreate it as perfect…”
Black didn’t know what to say. He settled on a pathetic. “Oh. That’s fucked up.”
Cheren nodded, staring intently at his phone. “Black…”
“Yeah?”
“I’m now absolutely positive that Lysandre’s my soul mate.”
Black stared.
Cheren’s face was set with absolute certainty as he passionately said, “I love him.”
Black banged his head against the door.