Chapter Text
Euijoo has been acquainted with Taki for approximately 7 months, so he can say he knows the guy enough to declare that Taki is not a fan of anything. When it comes to music, especially idol music, he lurks in Spotify (or any other music platform really), he listens to “whatever he vibes with” and enjoys every and any music genre. Taki knows the lyrics to certain songs, he even recognizes some groups but doesn’t bother learning the names of the members —or even trying to recognize their faces, really. Taki enjoys being a passive listener more than just giving his soul away to pretty people that dance and sing. He’s a free soul, tied to nothing.
So, it’s a surprise for his friends, especially for Euijoo, that nowadays whenever the boy opens his mouth, all that comes out is ‘please listen to the album, I know you’ll like them if you do’ as if it was a pre-selected conversation starter Taki was programmed to follow.
The worst part of this newly discovered development is that, although Taki doesn’t know it yet, Euijoo doesn’t do stuff that people ask him to, ever. This doesn’t apply to his daily life, of course, he responsibly follows the law, thank you. He even received medals for being ‘Best Student’ two times in a row back in school. Euijoo’s issue is entertainment wise, mostly. Is it weird? Maybe! Jo thinks so. But you will have to find a way to tell that to his brain, since it’s the one that randomly shuts down when anyone gives him any recommendation, even if they’re well-meaning and harmless.
‘Hyung, I just finished this book, and I think you’d like it’ says Jo, and there goes another book Euijoo won’t be able to buy. ‘Have you watched that new show? It’s cool,’ Fuma casually says one day and, actually, he was about to watch it, but not anymore. Thanks, Fuma, super nice of you.
Hence, despite the fact that Taki may have the puppiest puppy-eyes ever known to man, ——lovely, truly— Euijoo’s brain is a hard cookie to crack if you don’t know how to work around the self-created barriers. A direct recommendation is just a no-no. What Euijoo didn’t expect was for the boy to catch on pretty quickly where the walls of his brain were and decide that exposure therapy was the best way to crack Euijoo’s protective shield.
Taki’s plan started in Euijoo’s car at 2:30 AM, an hour anyone would keep their defenses low.
Already half asleep, Euijoo questions how he got himself here, but then he remembers; this is what Taki wanted for his birthday. He remembers the boy saying something about how material gifts aren’t cool anymore, acts of service is what young people are doing. ‘What does that even mean?’ was Euijoo’sfirst thought. Did Taki want him to clean his dishes? Help him with homework? Well, not exactly what his friend had in mind.
Apparently, what his not-yet 20 year old friend considers a perfect act of service birthday gift is for Euijoo to wake up in the middle of the night, go to Taki’s house to pick him up and drive through the city for almost an hour to Korea University Hwajeong Tiger Dome, where the band fucking dreams, hyung, I really love them, will do a showcase for their new album. The catch? Tickets will be sold on-site only for the first 3.000 fans to arrive, and Byun Euijoo’s heart is not prepared to see Taki crying if they don’t make it.
Therefore, Taki had proclaimed himself as the copilot for their nightly adventure, helped by his birthday benefits and convenience– considering his apartment was the closest to Euijoo’s. Of course, immediately after fastening his belt Taki runs —as much as you can run in a car— to connect his phone to the speaker.
“Okay!” he says with enthusiasm as the opening notes of a song Euijoo doesn’t really know, but has listened to when being close to Taki, start to fill his old car. “Fuma hyung and Jo texted me already, they’ll be waiting downstairs with some coffee.They just finished their last Fortnite run, I think.”
“Perfect,” he answers calmly —if you think moaning at the sound of coffee counts as calmly.
Fuma and Jo are, in fact, waiting outside their building with two thermoses of coffee each, because they are saints. And after they get in with a simple ‘hello, we won’, the real trip starts.
They’re five songs into the last album of… whatever the name of the band is, when Euijoo notices that the guys sitting at the back are humming the melody and even dueting the choruses with Taki. Is he the only one that hasn’t gotten into Taki’s favorite band? He has tried! He swears! Euijoo had been searching for them on his music app, but the first song just didn’t do it for him, and he closed everything.
And it’s not that the two or three voices he has heard sing sound bad (especially the one he can already differentiate from the rest, don’t ask him how), but maybe those harsh-energetic sounds that are popular right now just don’t do it for him? He likes Colde and Justin Bieber at times. Maybe it’s the genre.
“Taki, can you play Beat The Odds while we cross the river?” Fuma says. “I’ll get out of the roof and experience youth.” Wait, did Fuma really say that? Was the match they won so life-changing? Or was it that people get new personalities at 3 AM when they’re about to be surrounded by hardcore fans?
“My car doesn’t even have a sunroof,” Euijoo ends up saying. He needs to keep them grounded because when things turn unpredictable, you just have to focus on the certainties.
No one else really cares about it though, since Taki has already changed the song, and Jo is laughing hysterically —without any sound, which means he really thinks this is funny—, and his hyung, his only hyung in his friend group, has the whole window down as he screams rock lyrics to the wind.
It's freezing —the temperature has just started getting warmer during the day but oh my god, it’s still the middle of the nightl. However, Euijoo looks through the rearview mirror and can’t help but smile as his passengers don’t seem to feel the cold.
Taki turns the volume up and well, he must admit it. While they go through the bridge that crosses the Han River, illuminated by the streetlights, the stars shining brightly despite the light pollution and the laugh of his most trusted friends in the background, he admits that the song is good. Or at least, it’s a perfectly nice song to listen to while driving. It does feel like youth.
🍓🍊
When they finally arrive at the venue, they go through the University gates with the rest of the fans that are hoping to get some tickets as well, and the line looks so long that—
“I mean! It could be longer, right? I can say we’re getting the tickets,” Taki pushes through some people standing around and rushes to line up. Euijoo then decides that he is going to ask for a big present for his birthday. “There are a lot of people but there can’t be already 3000, right? We’re getting them, I’m sure of it.”
Jo smiles and pats Taki on the back, his version of yelling ‘I’m sure of it!’. The conversation moves to other topics after that, with Jo and Fuma talking about their next match, with Taki hopping in about a new viral Tiktok dance he saw that will be added to Fortnite.
Euijoo doesn’t really add more to their conversation. He’s normally okay with waking up and functioning as an adult since early in the morning but right now, the darkness of the sky is clearly telling everyone that it’s late, maybe too late. No one can’t blame him for not being able to participate in any real conversations. He’s about to fall asleep while standing —maybe has even slept a few seconds every now and then—, and the hot coffee in his hands is doing nothing to wake him up.
“Did you see? Someone posted a picture of Nicholas yesterday after practice and he’s blond again! I can’t wait to see him up close!” A girl says in front of him, and that does wake him up. Not because he knows who they’re talking about, but because he is a born and raised nosy Nancy.
“What if they all changed hairstyles?” adds her friend. “Oh, my heart hurts already. I’m going to die if Yuma changed his hair, I love how it looks right now.”
How is Yuma’s hair? How good can it be if it makes you want to die? Euijoo gets hit with the sudden desire to look up a picture of Yuma, or maybe all of them. He could search some fun facts of the band in case the staff checks if you’re a real fan before letting you enter the venue. He knows he could ask Taki about the band, but he’s not about to embarrass himself in front of all the people around him who obviously know basic stuff like how many members there are. They would sniff like wolves that he’s a poser.
And then it hits him: he still doesn’t remember the name of the group. So even if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to look them up on his own either. Euijoo wishes he had all this curiosity yesterday, and not at 5 AM the day of the show. Also, what sort of rock band does a show at 9:00 o’clock?
The guilt of being a poser disappears as quickly as it came and he tells the guys he’ll go for a quick walk. He follows the line of people at first but quickly decides to go up the stairs so he can see the University’s stadium that’s right beside the venue. It’s crazy that he’s here again, because he remembers coming every year for the end of the first semester’s biggest event. He first came with Fuma, whom he met when they were both in their first year (Fuma having done two years of Korean language after finishing high school in Japan), and then also with Jo, after being introduced to him by Fuma.
Since finishing university, just last year, the good memories are starting to be more present instead of the horrors of exams and deadlines. Feeling the wind in his face, with sleepiness and nostalgia clouding over his mind, it’s no wonder that when a dark shadow runs behind him and softly pushes him, his first instinct is to scream bloody murder.
A gloved hand forcefully covers his mouth and they both fall to the ground. Great, thinks Euijoo, I won’t only be murdered, but first they’re going to kidnap me! And maybe torture me! And it’s five in the morning!
“Please, please, please, don’t scream,” pleads the figure, a phrase that surely works on people who are being kidnapped. “I’m already late and he’s going to kill me,” Euijoo may not be fluent in Japanese, but he definitely has heard the word kill before when Fuma was playing videogames. “If you don’t yell again, and you don’t tell anyone you saw me here, I can… uh… fuck, I know they gave me some” the stranger looks for something in his pockets frantically, one of his hands still in Euijoo’s mouth, “This! Here! Five tickets for the showcase. VIP. You’re a fan, right?”
“I omny meed fwoh,” he answers, all the fear suddenly gone. Euijoo’s not stupid, and dangerous people don’t carry around VIP tickets for a showcase at ass-o-clock in the morning. The man, who turned out not to be a murderer, stops and looks at him with a confused expression, so Euijoo has to point to his mouth before the guilty hand returns to its natural place besides the body of its owner. “I said, I only need four, please and thank you,” he says politely. “Truly, thank you, mystery masked man I have never seen before.”
Euijoo extends his hands and the man slowly places four tickets to it. “Thank you. Again.”
The man steps away slowly. “You’re super chill for a fan,” he comments under his breath. “Thank you though, I’ve got to run or else Kei will kill me, you understand.”
“Sure,” Euijoo says slowly, dragging the word. He has no idea who Kei is. “We don’t want that.”
“We don’t.”
Now that the stranger is under the venue lights and not in the dark, he can see him more clearly: He’s shorter than Euijoo, by a lot. He’s wearing a mask over his mouth, and huge dark clothes that seem to swallow him entirely. His hair is dyed blonde at the roots but the rest of it seems to be black, as if he couldn’t decide which hair color would be better. Overall, he’s like a cool dystopian ninja. “Nice hair,” says Euijoo.
“Thanks,” replies the ninja as he runs towards the backstage door. “Hope you enjoy the show!”
Euijoo looks down to the tickets in his hands and turns on the flash on his phone to inspect them. They seem legit. Four VIP tickets for the showcase of Nightball, no long queue needed. That’s the name of the group then, Nightball.
With a smile, Euijoo puts them in his pocket and turns back to his friends. He should be awarded Friend of The Year.
🍓🍊
“Be honest, did you have to do something unethical to get this?” whispers-yells Fuma to Euijoo, both still looking at Taki who’s staring dumbfounded at the tickets.
Euijoo hits him with his elbow. “Do I look like a groupie to you?”
“You look like someone who’d do stupid things for his friends,” retorts Fuma. “And you can’t say no to people.”
“No,” says Euijoo petulantly, just to prove a point. “A ninja gave them to me in exchange for my silence.”
He feels Fuma stare at him, the sound of screeching from Taki filling the place as he finally understands what he has in his hands. “So you did fuck someone for tickets.”
Euijoo ignores him, as he usually does when a conversation has run its course or he no longer wishes to participate in it. He walks towards Taki, who has now grabbed Jo’s hands and it’s making them both jump together. Jo, who is always easily infected by other’s happiness, has a big smile on his face and is tripping over his feet, clumsily hopping and gazing at Taki laughing way too loud for the early hours of the morning.
Taki then spots Euijoo again, and runs his way, almost tackling him down with a hug. “Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you.”
“Sure,” Euijoo says. “We have a few hours until it begins, we should go rest in the car for a while.”
Taki nods enthusiastically. “Whatever you want, Euijoo-nim, no… Euijoo-sama.”
Euijoo ruffles his hair and grabs his neck, pushing him towards Fuma. Jo starts following, traces of his happiness still in his face.
“What time did the concert start again, Taki?” asks Fuma, as they begin walking.
“Nine o’clock” replies the younger one. “But we should enter the venue at 8, so we have time to get ready.”
Euijoo sprints ahead, unlocking the car and reclining his seat slightly as soon as opens the driver’s door. Euijoo feels Jo and Taki get in the seats in the back, while Fuma gets cozy next to him, putting the car air conditioning on hot. Everything feels nice —his friends with him, the soft lull of the early morning, the car that is warming up and smells softly of lemons. Life is perfect.
“Taki, make sure to treat Euijoo to ice-cream later, he sold his body to make you happy.”
Euijoo screams.
🍓🍊
A few hours later, the four of them have taken their seats right in front of the barricade, the stage looming in the darkness while the crew works setting up the lights and instruments for the band to play. The crowd around Euijoo seems to be buzzing with energy. The chatter between friends, the self-made signs being waved around, filled with words of encouragement and love —though Euijoo totally saw a “BF GAVE ME A FREE PASS, HARUA” somewhere— it’s enough to get even the most non-fan a little excited. Beside him, Taki has a sign for Maki, asking him to sing a song called “Jyuugoya” as he keeps checking his hair to make sure it’s perfectly c-curled. Fuma and Jo have begun talking to fans in the row behind them, asking them who their oshi is, fully swept away by the mood.
Every time a crew member tests the mics, the crowd screams, getting everyone hyped up. Since it’s a showcase, there’s no opening act or presenter, Taki told him the group said in an interview they wanted their music to say everything for them and it’s enough, hyung, they’re so cool.
Suddenly the lights go off and the screams, which Euijoo already thought were loud, are enough to make his ears ring and the floor beneath him shake a little.
Where are you? I'm simply searching
One more time, one more time
Where are you? I wanna step out with you
One more time in this world
And the concert starts.
Euijoo wishes he could say he remained calm, since he didn’t know the band nor their music but the truth is, after hearing the drums hit the first note, he began screaming as if he was Nightball’s number one fan. He is jumping with everyone, not caring much about not knowing the lyrics but trying to follow the music either way.
Jo keeps looking at him with a crazy look in his eyes, his mouth opened from the sheer shock. Fuma is screeching beside him —a sound Euijoo is surprised to discover his friend could produce—. Taki, beside him, has gone so batshit crazy he immediately teared up and bawled a Maki loud enough he’s sure it was heard two cities away.
The first half concert appears to rush by in a flash thanks to all the fun energy, but Euijoo manages to catch some things, like how the main singer, name yet unknown to him, seems to use his voice as his primary instrument, adapting it to each song so good that Euijoo has to wonder if there’s a voice-changing modulator strapped somewhere to the mic.
The bassist, who turns out to be Maki, is sporting a bubblegum pink hair and a wild look in his eyes that matches Taki’s, he runs from left to right, jumping and joining in the singing as if one sole role wasn’t enough. Every time he does adlibs, Euijoo feels like he has ascended to the heavens.
In the keyboard there’s a blonde guy with fairy-like features that’s sporting a red and black crop top, he gives the crowd a wink every once in a while and it makes them all go a little faint-hearted.
The guitarist seems to have a decadent type of beauty, constantly licking his teeth and showing his neck to the public, as if daring them to go and bite him. He seems a bit familiar-looking but he’s not close enough for Euijoo to care about it.
As for the drummer, he’s too far behind to be properly seen, but he’s great at what he does. Euijoo is feeling every beat move through his body until it reaches his heart.
After about five songs, they take a breath and the main singer introduces himself as Kei, he’s so happy to be here in Korea! and he presents the rest of the band: Maki, Harua, Yuma and Nicholas, who each wave from their spot as the camera closes in on them.
Yuma indeed has cool hair, the staff member —or ninja— he saw before must have been a fan and copied it, or maybe it was a popular style and Euijoo just isn’t up to date with the trends.
Harua says the next song will have Maki and Nicholas going to the crowd to sing with them, which receives a huge cheer from the fans. Maki gives his bass to a crew member while a replacement bassist comes on stage. From behind, he can see Nicholas do the same, a replacement coming to take his place. As he walks by, Euijoo can tell he’s not as tall as Kei or maybe himself, just average.
The crowd gets crazier as Nicholas goes closer to the edge of the stage, he seems to have a lot of very passionate fans, though none as passionate as Taki is for Maki, screaming at the top of lungs for the bassist to see him.
Yuma, the guitarist, places his index finger on his lips and, as if it was a magic charm, everyone quiets, shushing each other to hear what Yuma has to say. “Now, Nico-kun and Maki will be interacting with a few of you but only if you scream the lyrics back at them,” he says as if he was talking to little kids, he brushes his bangs out of his face, eyes sparkling with mischievous intent. “Only the loudest will be chosen and the chosen ones will get a special prize!”
It’s right then that Euijoo recognizes him. It’s the ninja, same hair, same voice. He should’ve realized earlier when he heard about Kei or when he heard him singing but it’s not until he saw his eyes that he connected the dots. Euijoo turns to tell Taki that it was Yuma —the band member himself— that got them the tickets but Taki is jumping and begging to be chosen already, his entire self only focused on Nightball.
The band starts playing, instrumental only, and Maki does a silly act of looking at the crowd with binoculars, attempting to find the loudest fan, when he suddenly bursts into laughter and points directly at their section. Taki screams so much he can even be heard through the speakers when Maki jumps out of the stage, Nicholas and a few security guards following behind as he walks and lifts his microphone to sing right in front of Taki’s face.
No need for words, you & I
Overlapping groove
Surely synchronized breathing
Look, our breaths match
Taki grabs Euijoo’s hand, squishing it hard, as Maki positions the microphone in front of him. Taki looks at Euijoo for a moment before he exclaims in his loudest voice yet, “Really crazy!”
Maki and Nicholas scream back with mirth, as does the crowd and rest of Nightball on stage. “Great voice, cutie!” he hears Yuma say through the speakers. Taki’s whole face becomes red as the beaming smile taking over his features makes him look like a little cherub.
Maki speaks into the microphone again, so everyone can hear. “That was really crazy, seriously!”
From his peripheral view, he can see Jo and Fuma overjoyed expressions beside Taki. “So, what’s your name?”
“Taki! Taki!”
“Taki, for being the loudest voice you win a hug!”
Now, that’s the loudest cheer he’s heard. Taki looks like he’s going to pass out any moment, so Euijoo squeezes his hand again and nods at him enthusiastically when Taki glances at him, asking for reassurance. Euijoo tries to convey that it’s okay, that it’s real and it’s happening right now. Maki opens his arms and Taki, hand still firmly grasping Euijoo, goes to hug his favorite band member. Euijoo gets thrown into it slightly and pushes Maki a bit, prompting the security guards to get closer but Maki brushes them off.
“Two for the price of one!” jokes Nicholas as they separate. Euijoo takes a look at him while he frees his hand and wow. The screaming fans… He understands. He understands so much. “Now, what’s your name?”
Euijoo looks around, momentarily catching eyes with Yuma who sports a funny expression of recognition, looking interested in the answer. Besides him, Taki is hitting his arm over and over again with no regard for the bruises that will undoubtedly appear tomorrow. “Euijoo,” he says way too quickly into the microphone the blonde musician has placed in front of him.
“Oh Juju-nim!” exclaims Nicholas, not having heard properly. Euijoo itches to clarify that’s not his name but the nerves of being put on the jumbotron and the good looking person right in front of him has him freezing on the spot, all his petulance and smartness gone. Nicholas looks at him with a dazzling smile before starting to sing.
Tell me the truth
Only empathy with you
Maybe I'll say it 100 more times, baby
Euijoo is hearing this song for the first time, an hour ago he didn’t even know Nightball was called that and five minutes ago he didn’t know what Nicholas, the drummer, looked like. He feels dizzy with the adrenaline of suddenly being put in a situation he never wanted to be put in. He stopped screaming the moment they said to scream so he wouldn’t be picked, imagining his chances would be high by being in the front row. But now he’s here, with the drummer of the band putting a microphone in front of him, expecting him to know what to say next and there seems to be only one answer.
“... Really crazy.”
Nicholas laughs and Taki, once again getting ahold of his arm, has him bouncing up and down. “You're a shy one!”
“He gets a prize too. Right, Nico-chan?” Harua says from the stage.
“Of course, Harua-chan,” Nicholas said. “For Juju, a cheek kiss!”
The crowd is thunderous. The girls from the row behind who were previously talking with Jo and Fuma are screaming that they can’t believe it, oh my god, it’s so unfair and truly, it’s a surprise he still has his arm attached to his body with the way Taki is throwing him around.
Euijoo feels like he’s a spectator watching all of these things happen outside of his body. How can this be real life? Nicholas is peeking at him through his bangs, his lips curled in a smirk that makes him look a bit villainous. Fuma is whoo-ing at Euijoo from the sides, doing a strange little cheer dance with his arms, trying to force Jo to do the same.
Now? A cheek kiss in front of all these people? Everyone seems to be holding their breath and when Euijoo looks at the screen, his stomach drops as he realizes the amount of people who are zeroing their attention on Euijoo, cameras ready to catch the moment, and oh my god, he is about to pass out, for real. He will. Too much attention, too soon, too fast.
To get over it quickly, Euijoo extends his hands and before Nicholas, Maki or any of the security guards can realize, he grabs the drummer by his shirt and yanks him close enough to plant a clumsy kiss in his left cheek before releasing him and pushing him away, as if his lips were burning.
Trying to ignore the screams and disbelieving laughs coming from his side, Euijoo turns to look at Nicholas, who looks surprised and a bit dazed from the whiplash from being pushed by a ‘fan’. “...Juju-nim, I meant to give one to you but this is okay, too, I guess.”
Euijoo’s whole face is on fire. He should die. A piano should fall from the sky, directly into head and kill him instantly. That would save him and everyone else from this humiliating scene. Only death would be enough to make him forget the shame he’s currently feeling. Maki is still laughing and damn, Juju-nim!
Kei calms the crowd with a soft shush and tells the drummer and the bassist to look for the last fan so they can continue the showcase, prompting them both to continue their walk. Euijoo sees the blonde do a double take to stare at his assailant —Euijoo is sure they’ll arrest him after the concert— before focusing on the next fan, an 18 year old girl whose oshi is Kei and seems to even know a little dance for the song.
“Euijoo,” whispers Taki beside him, reverently. “Euijoo-sama.”
Euijoo should die. He must have gone really crazy to kiss an innocent guy who was just trying to do fan service.
At least it was over.
Once the concert ends, he will never see them again and people will forget everything. Nightball isn’t even that popular so nobody will really know. He will be fine.