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Jimmy didn’t want to admit he had a headache. The disco lights were much too harsh for his eyes, there were too many people in the small space, and the air felt damp and cluttered, suffocating him.
He’d only gone along to karaoke to please his cousins, and to be fair, he’d been having a fun time for a bit. He could remember times in past years when they would all head out for karaoke together, singing their hearts out until their voices were hoarse and their visions were blurry from the lights. In fact, one of his most treasured memories in the world was of him and his cousins a few years ago at this very establishment, hanging out and having fun bowling in the alley beside the karaoke bar in a sort of combined bowling and karaoke business. Jimmy didn’t really know why he held it so highly in his mind, because it was nothing more than hanging out with his cousins and goofing around without anything too special, but it was one of his greatest memories which he treasured dearly.
The joint karaoke bar and bowling alley (the latter half of which was now closed for the night) held many good memories for Jimmy, which was why he never usually complained about going. He used to enjoy it a lot, and while he still liked it now, he wasn’t having the greatest time tonight.
It’d been fun for maybe twenty minutes tops, then it all got overwhelming and he mostly just wanted to go home. Grian and Pearl seemed to have an infinite amount of energy, because after the obligatory few songs the trio had all done together at the start of the night, they both individually and as a duo kept going up to the stage and singing whatever they felt like.
Jimmy thought it was good for them, and he was happy for them, but he didn’t really want to be there anymore. He was too much of a pushover to stand up to his cousins—though in his defence, the many years he’d known them had given him reason to be scared of disagreeing with them in case they yelled at him. It was always affectionate screaming, but even so, they were both capable of being terrifying—regardless of whether they were trying or not.
He listened absent-mindedly to their singing, Pearl’s slightly pitchy and off-key but incredibly confident voice, and Grian’s frankly impressive vocal range with barely a single wrong note in the whole song, and applauded with the rest of the room when the song was over. He watched his cousins walk away from the stage, talking to each other about something or other and laughing.
It was nice to watch, but it made him feel just a bit worse, and left out, increasing his desire to leave. He knew neither of his cousins were trying to make him feel that way on purpose, and that they’d both probably leave if they knew he wanted to, in order to make him feel better. He wouldn’t mention it to them, though, because he didn’t want to be the reason they left early if they wanted to stay. They all three usually had fun at these sorts of things, and Jimmy didn’t want to ruin it just because he had a headache. He could deal with it on his own, as much as his cousins loved to tease him consistently about being tiny and young though he was considerably taller than the both of them and only a few weeks younger than Grian.
He sighed, and decided to slip out of their booth to go get a drink. He wanted some water.
The air felt a bit cleaner over at the bar, less crowded, so Jimmy hovered, even after he got his thankfully cool water. He took a few sips to try mitigate his headache, and looked over in boredom to the next person on the stage to sing.
His eyes caught on a flash of blue, and he paused.
Jimmy watched as a man who looked to be about his age or maybe a little older climbed the steps onto the stage at the front of the room. He was really pretty, from what Jimmy could see across the room, with smooth pale skin, a fashionable denim jacket and styled cyan hair. Jimmy was by no means an expert on fashion or clothes or anything, but the man looked impressive with how his outfit worked really well even to an untrained eye.
Jimmy entertained himself for a minute to watch this random guy get set up, and admired from afar how stupidly hot he was even from a distance. He looked pretty smiley, confident for being on the stage all on his own, without any friends or anyone to accompany him. He held the microphone in a steady hand, and glanced to the side as he waited for the music to start, some cheesy pop song Jimmy vaguely knew.
Then he started singing.
Jimmy’s jaw dropped to the floor.
His voice… there was something ethereal about it. It was so clear, so precise, so beautiful and stunning and sweet and perfect. He didn’t understand why every person’s head in the room had snapped up to stare in shock. Yeah, there were a few more people looking up than usual, but not nearly enough for the pure jaw-dropping perfection to his voice. It was angelic.
He was so stuck on the sound of his voice, the tone, the cadence, the ringing syllables echoing delightfully through the speakers all around him to his ears, that Jimmy actually forgot to pay attention to the actual words he was saying. He was pretty sure the song was about something to do with romance and love at first sight, and it had a catchy tune he was unconsciously bopping his head to, but he couldn’t fully hear it.
The man’s voice was so perfect. His appearance was too perfect. He looked too amazing to be real.
Jimmy was… entranced. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the gorgeous man on stage with his silky voice, fluffy blue hair shining in the stage lights. He was perfect.
The song felt like it encapsulated every fibre of his being. Jimmy felt entranced by it, wrapped in the song, the harmony and melody swirling around him and sinking into his skin, the lyrics burrowing themselves into his brain though he could barely hear them, the beat and the notes and his voice filling him up to the brim. He didn’t know how to describe it—he just felt so filled by it, like something clicking into place he had never known was missing.
It was difficult to make out details from a distance, but Jimmy watched as his eyes swept across the room and all the people in it.
Then, his eyes landed on Jimmy. The two locked gazes from across the room, and Jimmy felt his face flush a bright red at being caught staring.
But then the other man grinned as he kept singing, and, much to his surprise—he winked.
Jimmy blinked in shock, and felt his jaw drop open just a little as the gorgeous man on stage went a step further, and pointed at him to emphasise some part of the chorus and the love song. That made Jimmy flush even harder, because now there was no doubt if he was winking at someone else or it was a coincidence, and this lovely man’s attention was on him—which Jimmy didn’t really know how to feel about.
The man was obviously very confident on stage, strutting across it like it was nobody’s business and not even needing to look at the lyrics to sing perfectly—though Jimmy suspected that part was because it was a very popular song, even if he couldn’t quite place it. He was a little too distracted.
The time blurred in a haze as Jimmy watched him, the rest of the world fuzzy and the only clear thing was the man in the centre of his vision. Bright blue and a bright smile and bright bright bright.
The man’s gaze landed on him again. He gave Jimmy a smile as he pointed at him and sung the last line of the song.
Jimmy was surprised at the silence when it ended, too caught up in the song to notice it was over. Then it clicked, and he put his drink down to start clapping wildly. There was a lot of deserved applause from the rest of the room, and the blue-haired man grinned and took a bow as he put the microphone down and walked off stage.
When the man left his sight, Jimmy turned back to the bar. His body felt weirdly buzzing, like he was floating on some high he couldn’t quite place. His brain was vaguely distant, like it was returning from some far-off, magical place.
He brushed the feeling aside as best he could, but still felt a little weird. He took another sip from his water to try focus back on the real world. He hadn’t even noticed he’d left it.
Someone approached from the corner of his eye, and he shifted a little to the side in case they wanted to grab a cup he was half blocking.
A hand did reach out to grab a glass, pale with a denim jacket folded up to just under the elbow. Then a person followed the hand, and a smooth voice asked, “Did you like the show?”
Jimmy turned around and felt all the air leave his lungs at once, causing him to cough into his elbow before he looked at the person beside him. He felt his face start to burn immediately.
The pretty blue-haired man was standing next to him. And he was even prettier up close, much to the dismay of Jimmy not wanting to be the flustered mess he currently was. His blue hair was a perfect cyan tone, and it perfectly matched his shining aqua eyes. Those pretty shimmering eyes were looking at Jimmy with intent, circled by light gold eyeshadow and a light dusting of make up all around his face.
He was unfairly pretty up close. Jimmy was already embarrassed enough at being caught staring at him during his singing, and now he was flustered enough from his beauty he couldn’t even get a sentence out. It was completely unfair.
“Uh—I—um, y—yeah. Yeah, I—it—it was cool,” Jimmy said lamely, cheeks burning. “You, uh—you’re good at singing.”
“Thanks,” the other replied, a small pretty smile on his pretty lips on his pretty face. Why was he so pretty?
“I saw you watching, I appreciate it,” he said casually, so calm and collected compared to Jimmy’s floundering mess of a mental state. “You seemed to enjoy it, so I guess that’s good.”
“Uh—yeah,” Jimmy replied, clutching his condensation-covered glass a lot harder than necessary, knuckles white. The air felt a lot hotter all of a sudden. Had someone turned the heater up? “You, uh—you’re really good at it. I did like it. You—yeah. It was nice.”
Had his drink been freaking spiked? Jimmy could barely breathe, let alone sort his scrambled mind for a second to have a semi intelligent conversation. What was wrong with him? He was too pretty. Apparently that was a thing, as Jimmy was rapidly discovering. What was happening?
The other man smiled. Then he extended a hand. “Scott,” he said, in that silky smooth voice Jimmy was helpless over.
Jimmy blinked for a moment, before his brain started working and he grabbed the other’s hand quickly in embarrassment. “Uh—Jimmy,” he replied with a stammer he tried to force away. “Nice to meet you.” They shook hands, and Scott’s hand was soft and silky like he rarely did outside labour and was liberal with hand creams and other beauty stuff.
Scott smiled, and tilted his head a little. The motion drew attention to his earrings, multiple piercings in each ear with stunning white gems. His ears were a little pointy, like an elf or something. God, when Jimmy thought he couldn’t get hotter. “Nice to meet you too, Jimmy,” he replied. “I’m glad someone liked the performance. What brings you here tonight? Watching random people sing karaoke?” he asked, though his voice turned teasing at the end.
Jimmy flushed—like he wasn’t already bright red. “No, no,” he answered, and brought a hand up to rub at the back of his neck. He was making such a fool of himself in front of this pretty, confident guy. Get a grip. “I was, uh—I came here with my cousins,” he explained. “They were on before you. They’ll be—somewhere over there, I think. Grian and Pearl. He’s like, dark blond with a red jumper, she has long light brown hair and a purple jacket.”
Scott looked over in the direction he was pointing in, blue eyes scanning the room for a moment. Something about those eyes reminded Jimmy of diamonds. Bright blue and sparkling and incredibly beautiful, and a ridiculously rare sight. Maybe it was Scott as a whole that reminded him of diamonds. Strond and beautiful and impossibly rare.
Scott made a hum of understanding when he saw them, and leaned back. “Nice,” he said. “You hang out with them often?”
Jimmy nodded, a smile replacing his blush, though he was still lightly pink. “Yeah. We come here every couple weeks or so, it’s a nice little tradition. They’re basically my siblings at this point. I was never super into the whole singing in front of people thing, especially because I can’t sing, but I like doing this with them.”
“Glad to see a guy who actually cares about his family,” Scott said, swirling his finger around the top of his glass. “It’s sweet.”
Jimmy flushed a little again from the compliment from the pretty guy. “I, uh—thanks,” he stammered, back to a flustered mess. “Do you, uh—are you close with your family at all?”
Scott faltered for a moment, his smile slipping from his face. His confident aura dimmed for a moment, and his gaze dipped to his hands. “I… not anymore,” he answered quietly. “Not for… a long time.”
The lack of a smile or confident quip from him made Jimmy a little concerned. He opened his mouth to ask more, but then Scott put on a forced-seeming smile and changed the topic. “So, uh, what do you do for work?”
Jimmy blinked, unprepared for the sudden conversation change. He hesitated for a second, half wanting to ask what he meant by that, but there was a slight edge to Scott’s gaze. Something in his shining blue eyes grew dim, and he seemed like he didn’t want to talk about it.
Jimmy nodded slowly, and took a moment to remember what the question was. “Oh, uh, nothing special, really, just office stuff…” he started, and Scott leaned forward, leaning his chin in his hand.
The two talked for ages, and Jimmy felt stupidly happy just to be around him. Scott made him stammer and blush and laughed at him when he did so, but he was also incredibly kind and sweet, had a great sense of humour that left Jimmy in stitches half the time, and loved to talk about himself but didn’t hog the spotlight, and gave it to Jimmy when he had something to add. He never interrupted, and when Jimmy rambled about stupid little things Scott listened to him with an almost eager expression, like he cared deeply for everything he said, or just liked hearing his voice.
Jimmy liked it. He felt cared for, and that was a nice feeling.
Scott seemed so… so perfect, as he brushed a strand of his blue hair out of his equally bright eyes and talked about something or other with his silky sweet and irresistible voice. Jimmy felt himself melt a little as he observed the other, with his flawless skin, his enticing voice, his pointed ears shining with white gem earrings, his nails painted a beautiful cyan, his undeniable beauty…
Jimmy listened to Scott speak for ages, and felt like he could sit there for years listening to him talk and he’d never grow tired of it. Jimmy looked at Scott, this flawless being in front of him who’d somehow decided Jimmy was worthy of his attention, and had a single, distinct thought.
He’s too perfect to be human…