Work Text:
timebomb😼: Ibushi-san! how are you?
GOLDENSTAR: I am well. Are you packed and ready for Forbidden Door?
timebomb😼: ヾ(⇀‸↼‶) ﾉﾞ no! i have a fever! they won’t let me go ｡ﾟ･ (>﹏<) ･ﾟ｡
timebomb😼: that’s why I’m texting you. My plane ticket is transferable. I want you to go see Kenny
GOLDENSTAR: That’s very generous but I can’t possibly accept.
timebomb😼: yes you can
Right now we are both very unhappy
But you take my ticket
You see Kenny
You will be happy
The world will be less unhappy
So I will be happy
GOLDENSTAR: You are very weird.
timebomb😼: so you will go?
GOLDENSTAR: I will go. Thank you, Takahashi-san.
timebomb😼: ＼(＾▽＾)／ ＼(＾▽＾)／ ＼(＾▽＾)／
Kota Ibushi has been back in America for less than three hours, and he’s already decided that he hates Chicago.
O’Hare was hell. Airports always are, now. He didn’t love them in the before-times, but they’ve become a special mix of paranoia and carelessness, capricious rules and security theatre and suspicious TSA agents who took naps during their mandatory sensitivity training. He’d been smart, and only brought a carry-on, allowing himself to flee the crowded airport as soon as he’s cleared customs, but then he’d faced the grueling ordeal of the Uber ride to the stadium, in traffic, with possibly the world’s most chatty cab driver. He longed to just stare out the window and zone out, but was overruled by the deeply-entrenched instinct to be polite. Instead, he had put on his brightest fake smile, and tried to follow along with her winding tangents, made even more confusing by her thick Minnesota accent.
He’d arrived at the United Centre exhausted, grumpy, and starving. He was too tired to care about nutrition, so he’d made a beeline to the nearest concession stand and ordered the first English words he recognized on the menu: cheese pizza. Instead of the familiar slice of greasy goodness he’d been expecting, he’d been handed a takeout container that contained what seemed like a thick tomato-and-cheese soup poured into a bread bowl.
“Cheese pizza?” he asked, frowning at the bored teenager behind the counter, sure there must be some mistake.
“Cheese pizza,” the teen repeated, giving him that judge-y, “are you stupid” look all customer service workers have perfected by week three.
Fans have begun to filter into the stadium, so Kota drops a dollar in the tip jar and decides to give pizza soup a try.
He’s realizing, as he tugs his baseball cap lower down his forehead and begins trying to find the locker room, that this was an absolutely terrible plan. He has no idea if Kenny will even be at this show. The Kenny he knew in Japan would be, but maybe he’d changed since he came back to America. Maybe Kenny is at home, having a fun evening playing video games instead of torturing himself lurking backstage at a show he should by all rights be starring in.
Kota’s found the entrance to backstage, now, a large “No Access Beyond This Point” sign adorning the door, and maybe if he throws his phone in Lake Michigan he can turn around right now and catch the next flight home and Hiromu won’t be able to ask him how his trip was.
“Well, are you going to go inside, or are you going to stand here blocking the door all night and be cursed?”
Kota jumps back from the door with a small shriek of surprise, which unfortunately means crashing right into the man who materialized behind him like some sort of vampire.
“Kuso!” Kota bites out, breathing deeply to steady himself and looking the stranger up and down. Once he’s sure he hasn’t caused any injuries, he can take a second to register just how deeply weird this person looks.
“No swearing!” barks Weird Man, crossing his arms with a glare.
“You speak Japanese?” Kota says, a note of hope creeping into his voice for the first time since he stepped off the plane.
“No. But Danhausen always knows swearing when he hears it.” Danhausen narrows his eyes, peering thoughtfully for a second, before snapping his fingers as his face lights up in a smile. “Aha! Danhausen knows who you are. You are the Golden Starboy, the other half of the Gold Star Boyfriends.”
“Golden Lovers,” Kota corrects, weakly.
“Why is the Golden Starboy here, in Chicago, blocking Danhausen’s way?”
Why is he here? He’s regretting it more with every second, this hair-brained idea of Hiromu’s that he should have never agreed to. But more importantly, how does this extremely weird demon man know who he is?
“Danhausen is not a demon-man,” Danhausen says, indignant.
Oh, kuso. He’d said all that out loud.
“Danhausen knows who you are because Danhausen works here. Danhausen has done his homework. He has watched all of The Rings of Honor, and all the matches of the Omega Man and the Chris Judas and the Moxley in the Next Japan Pure Wrestle. And he has watched AEW! Does no one else watch these shows? They are good shows. Not as good as The Simpsons, but still very good, very funny. Not enough Danhausen. But because Danhausen has watched the show, he already knows why you are here. And if Mr Star-Gold is nice, then maybe Danhausen can tell him where his boyfriend is, hrm?”
“Kenny is here?” Kota asks, relief surging through him as the knot of tension in his chest slowly begins to unclench.
“Of course the Omega Man is here! What else would he be doing? Come on, follow Danhausen.”
He beckons Kota to follow him before sauntering away. Kota, still reeling, hurries to catch up.
Kenny Omega is not, in fact, backstage.
Being backstage right now would feel a little too much like digging his fingers into… not quite an open wound, more like a fresh bruise. He’d stopped by the locker rooms during set-up, to wish all his friends good luck. He’d even said hello to Okada and Tanahashi, just to be polite, and was greeted with enthusiastic smiles and genuine concern for his recovery by both. Everyone was being so damn nice to him, and it was okay, in short bursts, but he knew if he stuck around during the actual show, he’d go mad.
So here he is, sprawled on a leather couch in a private box, Nintendo Switch in hand, watching as the fans begin to take their seats. A half-drunk San Pellegrino and an untouched poutine crowd the small table at his elbow. He’s trying to lose himself in his game, to push out the bitter jealousy that’s begun to crawl into his head, because it’s not fair, he should be down there, Forbidden Door was his idea, it was supposed to be them.
There’s a knock at the door, and a voice from outside calling “Hello? Omega Man?” and Kenny pulls himself up from his wallowing to answer.
“Go away, Danhausen.”
“Open up the door or be cursed!”
Kenny does not for one second believe Danhausen actually has supernatural powers. Kenny also does not like taking chances.
“What the fuck do you want, Danhausen?” he grumbles, opening the door.
“No swearing! Danhausen has been very nice and brought Mr. Omega Man a present, and here you are swearing at him. Very evil. Danhausen should curse you.”
Kenny sighs, and pulls out a dollar from the pocket of his sweatpants. “Will this cover it?”
Danhausen snatches the bill and holds it up to the light for a moment, peering at it suspiciously before letting out a pleased little hum. “Danhausen forgives you. You may have your present.” Danhausen bows with a flourish and begins ambling away.
“Wait, man, what are you talking about?” Kenny calls after him, but Danhausen just cackles and keeps walking.
“Weird fucking dude,” Kenny mutters under his breath.
“Very weird,” a familiar voice quietly agrees, as a lithe figure steps out of the shadows.
Kenny’s jaw drops and he just stares for a moment in disbelief. Because it can’t be him, right? He’s supposed to be in Japan.
“Hi, Kenny,” Kota says, shyly.
Kenny closes his mouth, and bursts into tears.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he sniffles, pulling Kota into a hug and burying his face into his boyfriend’s hair.
“Neither are you,” Kota reminds him with a soft laugh, rubbing soothing circles into his back as he gently guides him back into the box and shuts the door behind them. They collapse in a heap on the couch, narrowly avoiding knocking over the table and smearing cheese and gravy all over the expensive carpet.
“I couldn’t just stay at home,” Kenny huffs, and Kota laughs, louder this time, now that he’s sure the tears are happy ones.
“I knew that. Or, I hoped.”
“You flew all the way from Japan to surprise me and you weren’t even sure I’d be here?” Kenny stares at him in wonder at the idea that Kota would go to all that trouble for him, with no guarantee it would be worth the effort.
All the doubts, all the beating himself up about how stupid of an idea this was melts away because it worked, and he’s here, and he would stand in a thousand TSA lines and eat a thousand pizza soup bowls if it meant Kenny looking at him like this. Like he’s the most remarkable thing in the whole world.
“It wasn’t my idea,” Kota mumbles, burrowing into Kenny’s side as the lights begin to go down and an announcer starts giving the generic pre-show audience spiel about flash photography and emergency exits.
“Well, whoever’s idea it was, they’re crazy, and I owe them a fruit basket.”
Yeah, Kota thinks, that about sums up Hiromu.
“I missed you so much,” Kota whispers instead.
“Me to, Kota-chan. Me too.”
“Are you okay?” Kota asks, as music begins to pound through the speakers and the first wrestlers make their way into the ring, and Kenny knows he’s not asking about his shoulder.
“Not really,” Kenny admits, because how could he be, when he was supposed to be down there, fighting and bleeding and shining with the rest. Kenny Omega was born for the spotlight, not the sidelines.
“But I will be,” he adds, because how could he not be, when Kota is here and solid and real in his arms, where he belongs.
Forbidden Door was a good show. Perhaps one of AEW’s best. But if you asked Kota Ibushi to tell you about it, he wouldn’t remember a single match result.
Instead, he could tell you about the sunshine of Kenny Omega’s smile, or how that first, delicious kiss after so long apart felt like the first drops of rain hitting your face after an endless drought. He could tell you that Kenny popped louder than anyone when Claudio Castagnoli came out to fight ZSJ, because “that cagey fucker didn’t even tell me! How long have we been friends and he didn’t even tell me!”. He could tell you the way Kenny’s face came alive when he watched Mox and Tanahashi tear the house down, the last of the jealousy fading away as he lost himself in the art, reveling in the spectacle of a great match.
Most importantly, Kota could recall every little gasp and moan and pleading cry Kenny let out when they finally took each other apart piece by piece in a shitty hotel room afterwards. As they lie there together on scratchy sheets, basking in the afterglow, he decides maybe he doesn’t hate Chicago after all.