Chapter Text
The same dream.
Angel keeps having the same dream, over and over again.
In the dream, he reaches out to her, and tries to scream her name, but nothing leaves his mouth. He’s frozen, watching her drown. She sinks to the bottom of the ocean, and that’s when he wakes up.
He gets out of bed and sees the sun just barely peeking out over the horizon, bathing his grey walls in an orange light. He puts his slippers on, his dog Tama circling around his feet in a ball of white fluff. He bends down to stroke his fluffy fur. He walks to the bathroom, Tama hot on his heels, and runs a comb through his unruly pink hair. He sighs as he stares at the bags under his eyes.
Over and over.
Aki Hayakawa rested his head on his desk, feeling a weight on his shoulders. Lately, he felt tired for no reason at all, and yet sleep evaded him.
“Akiiii!” He heard his friend Himeno’s abrasive voice scream from the door of his classroom. He sighed and rolled his head away from her towards the window, watching birds fly across the quad. It looked nice outside, with the sun shining through the window casting white streaks on the desks, but looks were deceiving - he knew it was actually frigid.
Despite his obvious efforts to ignore her, he felt Himeno’s hands slam against his desk.
“Aki! Come play basketball with us,” she exclaimed. He looked up to see a glint in Himeno’s eye and a basketball under her arm. She was dressed in the school's gym uniform, long black shorts and a white t-shirt, with a leather jacket thrown over the top that did not match the ensemble at all.
“Too tired,” Aki mumbled.
“Aw, cmon!” Himeno tried, putting the basketball on his desk like it was an enticing offer. Aki shrugged and suddenly felt the urge to remove himself from this conversation. He was just not in the mood to interact with people anymore. Lately, he felt like he was in that mood more often than not.
“I’m going to nap,” Aki declared, standing up from his desk. He heard Himeno call out after him, and he just waved a hand halfheartedly. He started the trek to his typical napping spot, eyes feeling traitorously heavy as he yawned. He walked up the tan staircase, sun shining in through the windows. He liked this spot because it kind of made him feel like a cat napping in the sunlight, plus not a lot of students used this staircase since it was on the opposite side of the school from all of the classrooms.
He continued to walk up the steps until he was forced to come to an abrupt stop. There, exactly positioned in his spot, was a pink haired man in a tan uniform cardigan (that was way too big for him) sleeping, arms wrapped around a red Gibson guitar. The sun hit the top of his pink hair, and it almost looked like it was glowing as it framed his face.
At first, Aki was pissed at the overt theft of his coveted napping spot. Then his eyes narrowed as he realized the awful state the Gibson was in. Aki felt his rage grow tenfold.
He stomped up the remaining steps, and the pink haired man woke up at the noise. For a moment, the two just stood staring at each other.
“Who are you?” The mystery man said. Aki felt a twinge of anger course through his body. The nerve of this man to question his identity after stealing his spot.
Despite Aki not answering, the man sat up, scooted over, and motioned for Aki to take a seat next to him. The sunlight shifted to cover half of the man’s face and he squinted like a cat.
Aki almost would have found it endearing if he wasn’t pissed as hell.
“Aki Hayakawa,” he offered. The man shrugged, arms still wrapped around the guitar.
This man is seriously weird. Who doesn’t introduce themselves back?
Instead, Aki continued the one-sided conversation. “Your strings are all rusted, and one of them is broken. You need to get it fixed. Why do you own a Gibson if you won’t take care of it?” Aki rambled, and it came out meaner than he intended. Weirdly, the man’s eyes lit up at Aki’s words.
He shifted until his face was very close to Aki’s face, and Aki suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable as a blush rose to his cheeks.
“You can fix this?” The man questioned softly, holding his guitar out slightly to Aki with both hands like it was a sacred object. Aki shrugged.
“I could if I had my tools with me. Also, back up,” Aki stated.
“Really?” The man replied, ignoring the first statement. He looked down at the broken string with a pitiful look in his eyes.
Aki rolled his eyes and wordlessly stomped down the stairs to the band room, collecting whatever tools he could work with. He had no idea why he suddenly cared about helping this man.
Aki came back to the stairs, and the pink haired man looked up, surprised that he came back.
“You looked like your entire world came crashing down because of one broken string,” Aki muttered as an excuse, throwing the tools down on the stairs. He got to work, twisting the metal of a new string back into place, and using a cleaner to polish the strings. The man watched him work with rapt attention.
When Aki was done working, he tuned the guitar to make sure everything was working properly. He strummed the strings and when he was satisfied with his work, he went to hand the guitar back to the man. He was shocked to see a sparkle in the man’s previously rather dull brown eyes and his mouth hanging open.
“Please… teach me how to play like that.” The pink haired man whispered.
Aki felt shocked to his core, and didn’t really know how to respond. He had long ago lost the true passion he had for playing, and didn’t think he could even begin to teach anyone to play right now. He just didn’t have the passion and energy required to be a teacher.
But he couldn’t explain that all to a man he had just met.
“Well, right now, I’m taking my nap,” Aki replied in lieu of this explanation, and handed the red guitar back to him.
He scooted up against the brick wall and closed his eyes but felt the man's nagging presence next to him.
He peeked one of his blue eyes open to see the man pouting again, still clutching onto that damn guitar like a lifeline. He had this look on his face that commercials use to get you to donate to sad orphans, and it was unfortunately working on Aki.
He couldn’t teach him guitar, he knew that, but he had to come up with something to cheer the sad man up.
“Come to my band’s practice session tonight,” Aki blurted out and immediately regretted it. The pink haired man’s eyes lit up.
“A band?” He said with hope in his voice. Aki rolled his eyes.
“I’m not explaining what a band is to you. Come see for yourself,” Aki said, waving his hand. The man nodded, and Aki closed his eyes again but lamented what he had just gotten himself into.
“So… who’s this?” Yoshida said as the two walked into the dingy studio. He sat behind the drums, obviously practicing before they had gotten there. He had a pierced eyebrow raised, but you could hardly see it as his unruly black hair fell in his face. Aki was always jealous of the uncaring aura that Yoshida emitted, like nothing bad had ever affected him.
“I picked up a stray,” Aki replied, faking nonchalance, because he realized he actually still did not know the man’s name.
“Man, I never have any clue what you’re talking about,” Yoshida muttered. “Stray, what’s your name?”
Thank god, Aki thought.
“Angel Devil,” the man replied. The room went silent for a beat, then Yoshida burst out in laughter.
“There’s no way,” he gasped for air, doubling over his drum set. Aki stood there in shock.
“That’s seriously your name?” He turned to him and asked.
“You didn’t know his name?” Yoshida screeched mid-laughter and started to laugh even harder. Aki blushed at being found out.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Denji said, running through the door at the most inopportune time, as usual. He stopped when he saw Angel. “Woah, who’s this?” He said, eyeing Angel up and down.
“Angel, this is Denji, our bassist and my brother.”
“Woah, you’re calling her angel? Aki, I didn’t know you had game,” Denji said while setting his bass down against the wall to unpack it. Aki sighed and pinched the space between his eyebrows.
“Angel’s a dude, and that’s his name,” Aki said through gritted teeth. He heard Yoshida mutter something along the lines of that you didn’t know until just now.
Denji put his hands up as a show of surrender.
“My bad, my bad,” he replied. Aki started to regret bringing Angel here. “Whatcha doing here, Angel?” Denji said with the pick for his bass in his mouth.
“I came to watch you guys play,” Angel said in his typical soft-spoken manner. Denji and Yoshida’s eyes lit up as they turned to each other, pick still in Denji’s mouth. The excitement of playing for someone suddenly triumphed over pestering Aki about his life.
“Well, I guess we’ll have to show you how awesome we are!” Denji said, pumping his fist. Aki rolled his eyes and swung his guitar off of his back.
“Please just be normal,” Aki muttered, grabbing his guitar out of his case. It was sleek, black, and kind of worn down; though it wasn’t exactly pristine in the first place. He felt envious of Angel’s expensive Gibson that he doesn’t even know how to use.
“Before being normal comes being cool,” Yoshida stated matter-of-factly, and Denji nodded back at him. Aki sighed and swung his guitar around his neck. He couldn’t believe he brought Angel to meet who he dubbed as ‘Dumb and Dumber’ a while ago.
Angel crept off and sat in the corner, simply observing their exchanges.
“Denji, start with something fun, then I’ll come in and back you up,” Yoshida said.
“What if we start it off, then Aki comes in absolutely shredding-”
“What do you want to hear, Angel?” Aki cut him off. He saw Yoshida and Denji exchange a look behind him, but promptly ignored them.
Angel looked at him like he forgot that he was not watching them on a television.
“Uh… something cool, I guess,” Angel said. Denji and Yoshida high fived.
“Well then, something cool, coming right up,” Aki said sarcastically. Except, he didn’t listen to his bandmates previous exchange, and instead immediately started playing his guitar.
The other two rolled their eyes at each other, but Denji soon joined in, followed by Yoshida.
They played a fast-paced, guitar-highlighted riff. Aki felt as if this was the best he had played in months, and he had no idea why.
Hell, he felt like he was actually enjoying himself again.
They stopped playing, and Angel started clapping vigorously.
Aki felt a smile involuntarily make its way onto his face for the first time in a while.
“You two are late,” Power sneered as Aki and Denji walked through the door. “I’m starvingggg,” Power dragged out.
She was sprawled out on their grey sofa, blonde hair splaying across the armrest and dragging on the floor. She wore a pink tank top with a pufferfish on it and tye-dye shorts.
“Yeah, yeah,” Aki muttered and walked to the kitchen. He threw a pizza into the oven and watched it cook.
He heard Denji and Power vaguely arguing in the background, but for some reason couldn’t get his mind off of pink hair and brown eyes long enough to focus on their conversation. He felt Denji walk up to his side.
“You’re making a weird face. Is this about the Angel dude?” Denji said, elbowing him in the ribs.
“Ooo angel dude?” Power said, leaning over the back of the couch so she could hear into the kitchen. Their apartment was small enough that the living room and kitchen were basically just one room.
“Aki brought some new dude named Angel to watch us play, and had this disgusting look on his face the entire time,” Denji said while leaning against their counter. Aki scowled as he got plates from their cabinet for them. “It almost looked like he was having fun. Gross,” Denji looked over at Aki, knowing he just won this battle. Aki froze, plates hanging midair.
“I knew it! Oh, I knew you’d get your awesomeness back one day! I didn’t know it would be from some dude, but whate-”
“That’s enough,” Aki cut him off. He had slammed the plates down on the counter, staring at the glaring white paper like it had offended him. He didn’t even know what exactly had set him off. Yes, he was happier when Angel watched him play - but they haven’t had anyone listen to them play in a while. It could just be the feeling of being in the spotlight again.
Yes, that must be it, Aki thought. Denji and Power were uncharacteristically silent, and Aki hated it.
The oven beeped, and suddenly the apartment began to move again.
“Fetch us our pizza!” Power screamed, waving her hand in the air. Aki responded with an ok, ok and grabbed it from the oven, glad that the previous conversation was over. They fell into a conversation about Power’s day at school.
However, he thought of red guitars and pink hair the rest of the night.