Chapter Text
The smell of rich coffee lingers throughout the café. It’s all so refreshing. Being able to relax in the Street Sekai and drink as much coffee as he wants, Toya feels comfortable. Maybe even more so here than his own home. However, this weirdness in his stomach tells him otherwise. He’s felt like this for days now, and this feeling only seems to happen during school and practice. Toya feels uneasy, but why? He takes a sip of his black coffee and sighs. Suddenly, the café bell jingles, and footsteps can be heard from behind.
“Yo, Toya, you’re here early.” Akito waves and takes a seat next to him.
“Good morning, Akito.” Toya replies and takes another sip. He can feel his body ache a little more after acknowledging his partner's arrival. Akito plants his face on his palm and slouches, watching Toya in silence. The two wake up early on the weekends to get some practice in before An and Kohane join them. Ken’s place hasn’t opened for the day, so they meet up at Meiko’s instead.
“Hey Akito, can I get you the usual?” Meiko asks, walking out from the backroom to grab some more ingredients.
“Sounds good to me.” Akito wipes his eyes, adjusting to the early hours.
“I’m thinking about writing another song.” Toya cups his drink in hands, looking over at the various bottles containing different ingredients. Meiko always labels and organizes everything she uses, which adds a homey feel to the café. Akito’s eyes light up a bit.
“Seriously? That’s awesome, dude.” He smiles, patting Toya’s shoulder. “Got anything in mind?”
“Not really…I think I might need to search for something.”
“Like looking for some kind of inspiration?”
“Yeah.” Toya looks down at his empty cup. He taps the side of it slightly, thinking of something to say. “But where do you even find that?”
Akito crosses his arms and huffs.
“When I get lost, I usually head downtown to the shopping district to see if anything stands out.” Meiko hands him his coffee and he takes a big swig. Toya asks for a refill, and the two drink for a moment. The bickering from earlier gets even louder, and Rin and Len can be heard yelling at each other for eating each other's snacks.
"You're no far, Rin!" Len exclaims, pointing at Rin's cheeky face. She curls her mouth into a mischievous smile, tiny bits of pudding covering her lips. She grabs Len's face and starts playing with his cheeks, making him even more frustrated. "HEY!" He tries fighting back by lightly slapping at her arms to remove her hands off his face.
"Calm down you two, we've got customers..." Meiko laughs, pouring juice for both. Their ears perk up, and they simultaneously tilt their heads in the direction of the boys.
"Hey, hey, it's Akito and Toya!!" The twins stop and run over excitedly to greet the pair. "Whatcha doin'?"
"I'm working on a song." Toya replies, and the blondes gasp in unison. "—but I need to find inspiration first."
"I get inspired by doing stuff I like!" Rin exclaims, clasping her hands. She begins counting off things she likes to do. "I like singing, dancing, and eating yummy food..."
"I like reading manga!" Len interrupts, holding his hand up. "What about you Toya?"
"Manga?" Toya shakes his head. "I wasn't ever allowed to do much other than practice classical music when I was young." He looks over at Akito, and then quickly shifts his gaze. He looks down, trying to shake off this uneasy feeling once again.
Later that day, Toya walks down the shopping district after taking everyone's advice. He looks around for any stores that might sell something of interest, but nothing really sticks out. His stomach seems to be fine for now, but he can't quite understand why it's only been happening during practice. He fidgets with the bottom of his hoodie and pulls out his phone.
"I should get home soon, but I don't want to face Father for now." He thinks to himself, walking along when he notices a manga store to the left of him. He stops and contemplates, before making his way inside. Toya was always fond of arcades, so he wasn't sure how to feel when he saw rows and rows full of manga and other anime related items. He walks around, scanning through the many aisles of the store, searching for something that might stand out. He looks at the genres and feels even more confused.
Toya is a bookworm by all means. He's a member of the library committee at Kamiyama High, but his experience with manga and graphic novels is very limited. Sure, the school has a dedicated area to find these types of literature, but in Toya's eyes they never quite intrigued him as much as a typical mystery novel does. Finishing a long novel compared to a volume of a manga is without a doubt more fulfilling, and he liked to imagine the scenarios in his head. So, thinking of Len's words, he wasn't sure if he could even find something of interest. His eyes gaze at the endless amount of books in every aisle, occasionally grabbing a book and looking at the back cover. Once he's finished searching, he makes his way to the back, where he sees a familiar face reading all by her lonesome.
"Kusanagi, good evening." Toya says before a startled Nene jumps up and slams the manga she was reading tightly. She slowly turns her head to Toya, with a noticeable red face.
"W-What are y-you doing h-here...?" She stutters, trying to hide the book from her friend. Toya looks at the aisle they're in, and notices many boys hugging and kissing.
"What's this aisle supposed to be?" He casually asks, causing Nene to react erratically once more. She looks at the ground and mumbles a few words to herself, and Toya waits patiently. "I'm sorry if this was a surprise. I've never been to a manga shop before, so I'm new to this."
She looks up.
"We're in the Boy's Love section..." She responds in a lower voice than usual. Toya nods and looks around. He grabs the first manga he can find and opens it up. Nene loosens up a bit. "You're...oddly calm about this."
"Should I not be?" He asks, flipping through the pages. He notices how nice the artwork looks, but the story doesn't seem too appealing. Toya places it back after he's done skimming through. Nene watches him silently browse the section, oddly fascinated by his relaxed atmosphere in a section about a genre he just learned. He looks over at her and stares for a second. "Do you know if any of these are about music?"
"As in bands or groups?"
"Yeah."
"Hm, let me think." She walks over next to him and looks through the section. After a couple moments, she picks out a book and hands it over to Toya. "This one's unfortunately been canceled, but I'm sure you can find similar series online. I can send you a link to a popular site if you'd like."
Toya nods, and the two add each other on Nightcord. After they part ways, Toya walks home empty handed but feels slightly better after browsing manga with Nene. He knows it's much better if he reads it online, so his father doesn't bother him about it. When he gets home, he goes straight to his room and locks the door. It's late, but he boots up his computer and types in the link Nene sent. He shuts his blinds and dims his lights, so the only light is coming from his monitor. Toya scrolls through the site and looks at the list of genres once more. He ends up clicking on the BL genre since it's the only one he knows and searches for music. He believes that if he can find something close to being a part of a music group, it’ll help him find some kind of idea for a song.
He searches for a while, filtering out anything he doesn't like and tries to find something close to what he wants. Most of the popular works seemed to be irrelevant to what he was interested in. After about half an hour of browsing, Toya seems ready to give up when he notices the "Newly Updated" section of the site and sees the cover of a new manga posted just a couple minutes ago. He reads the synopsis—a story about two bandmates who fall in love with each other and perform music. Finally, something related to music. Toya clicks on the first chapter and takes his time to read it.
He finishes the first chapter. Then he reads the next chapter. Then the next and continues doing this until he runs out of chapters. Once he realizes he can't read any more, he goes back and reads the chapters again. He keeps doing this, thinking more chapters are going to appear if he keeps reading the same ones over and over. After the third time, he sits there for a moment. He clicks on the author's profile and reads the about section.
"My name is FA. This manga contains a lot of my own feelings. Thanks for reading."
Then, Toya clicks on their links. They have an active Twitter account, with sketches and illustrations of the boys in the manga. Toya spends what seems like an eternity browsing through the author's content, just taking in everything they post. He becomes so fixated on it he doesn't realize it's 11:00 p.m., and he forgot to eat dinner. Toya rubs his eyes, trying to discard his tiredness. He ends up making a Twitter account and makes sure to make his username something different from his real name. He goes with something similar: KI.
He follows FA and comments under their latest post. Toya types out a heartwarming compliment about the manga but hesitates to post it. He then scrolls through FA's art once again. He's not used to using social media or really any online activities other than looking at his scheduled performances for Vivid BAD SQUAD and BAD DOGS. He goes back to commenting once again, this time hitting the reply button. He sits there for a moment, taking in the fact that he’d never written a message on social media before. But he knew he had to do it, because he saw no one else praise FA's work. It was still only about an hour old at this point, but Toya didn't care.
He felt that familiar feeling from earlier during the manga, but kind of enjoyed it. In fact, he yearned for this feeling to never go away. There was something about the way the two boys in the manga interacted with each other. They were not only bandmates, but also best friends. They spent time together, they had fun together, they laughed together. It made Toya feel happy, and nervous. He thought of how he acts with Akito. Both knew each other since middle school, and performed many concerts as a duo, and always had fun. He felt a warmth from the story, just as he felt a warmth whenever he was with Akito. Toya felt his face flush, and he felt that fluttery sensation in his stomach once again. What is this feeling?
He turned off his computer afterwards and got something to eat. Toya knew eating right before bed wasn't good for him, but he was starving. All of that scrolling really worked up an appetite, since it was the most he had ever used a computer in a day. Once he tuckered into bed, his mind kept wandering back to that story. He craved for more chapters, and the way it made him feel happiness inside. It played in his mind over and over to the point that if he kept thinking about it he'd never fall asleep. So he tries to ignore the butterflies in his tummy and slowly drifts off to sleep.
"Akito, did you steal my drawing tablet again?" A sudden Ena asks, barging into her younger brother's room. The boy looks up at her intruding sister and scowls.
"No, so go away." He replies, trying to focus on knotted up shoelaces. He tied them too tightly for soccer practice, and now they're too knotted to undo. She watches him struggle and leans on the door.
"Okay, well you mind telling me why you've been borrowing them?"
"I'd rather not, good night." He instantly replies, eyes remaining on the shoes. Ena sighs and crosses her arms.
"That's a shame then." She says in a sarcastic tone. "I'll just look at the tablet's drawing history and see what you drew." Akito's head jolts up 90 degrees, and he begins to sweat. She knows there's more to just borrowing her tablet just because he can. Akito never openly admits it, but he's decent at drawing. Maybe not as good as Ena, but better than most people.
"Don't you dare, Ena." He looks at her with a slightly nervous expression, which only pushes Ena further.
"Why not, are you using it to draw inappropriate stuff?" She smirks, and Akito closes his eyes. He sighs and walks over to her.
"Only an idiot would draw something like that." He crosses his arms and looks to the side like a little kid trying to dodge an adult's glare. “But it’s none of your business.”
"I trust you." Ena flicks his head and walks out. "I can't even see what you do since we use different computers, dummy." She shuts his door, and Akito is left fuming all by himself. Plus, his shoelace is still messed up. He curses to himself before hearing his phone go off. He picks it up and sees he received one Twitter notification. Curiously, he opens it up and reads out a comment from a follower.
"Thank you very much for making this. I’ll be there for the next chapter." A basic yet touching compliment made Akito smile, even just for a bit. He types out and sends a reply and looks through the user's account. They made theirs just moments ago, which surprises Akito. What if they made their account just to post that? He thinks and follows them back. Akito sits down again, basking in the thought that someone liked his "dumb little comic", and works on untying his laces once again.