Work Text:
Side B
When those eyes met yours, in the split second a flashy stage and flowing audience against total darkness could give any pair, you realise why they likened Kaoru to a raccoon:
Stealthy, solitary, nocturnal, and aggravatingly almost non-territorial.
That little sprout of pink hair in the middle of his otherwise bald head, the blackened parts of his face, those cheekbones especially hold a liminal space of sort that you find yourself wishing him the best possible outcome for the lame mental ghosting you have imposed on him since many years ago, because clearly it haunts him still.
Thirty years stood behind the five of you now. There was enough privacy where plenty of words should've been said, yet not. You've convinced yourself you were kids stumbling upon each other like cutleries (out of a thousand of them) guarding a bowl of something closer to bile than warm porridge; although the kisses were an entire course on its own, there wasn't enough footing for any of you to say he was or is in love with you.
Ironically, there were never enough people to make it an annoying crowd, but each time Kaoru preferred his friends over your warmly lit apartment, you were throwing flowers (among other things) to the women at your feet, and what good does it do? This oppressive normalcy was never part of keeping DIR EN GREY a cool band; in fact, all the hints of sexual ambiguity was almost an advertisement.
Now it's the end of the encore like so many before, and you could practically see him holding over your own grudge (like a dangling sword above your head, waiting to be put down) like always.
He knew how much you disliked him, he knew just how scared you are of the fact that you yourself had known that he will recognise any sign of himself irking you before any strange anecdotes between you could lead you back to him.
"Don't let me stop you," Kaoru warned, right into your ear, after discovering a pretty stranger with yet again purplish black hair, who awkwardly waited for you across empty equipment boxes in the hall leading to your dressing room.
Anyone could smell the expensive cologne on Kaoru's nape from such proximity, and the fucking audacity for him to say that, of all people. Wow. It’s like he chose to forget the only time (precisely a month ago) you had poured every possible worst scenario that there are in a single sentence:
“You know the fights wouldn't be worth it.”
“It's not like I will put it in a book.”
“Good for you; I won’t be able to shut up about it.”
Kaoru, shaking his head, scoffed his defeat. “Suit yourself, Toshiya. Suit yourself.”
Months later, the five of you scattered among the staff celebrating your birthday.
While recording the whole thing, Die whispered something that rooted you onto the plain floor. Then Kyo scooted closer just to do the same thing. “He isn’t over you.” Such playful tone, but what kind of a band member would Kyo be if he cannot be brutally honest with you?
Shinya reliably kept his mouth shut, but anyone in this room can recognise his look of sympathy:
Riko, the woman with tearful smile to Kaoru's left, looked too much like Toshiya's own younger skinny black-lipsticked girly neck-licking self.
Side A
The last to join the band, the sculpture, the next most fun-loving member after Die, Toshiya can be seen as the broody cool guy if you're not careful, because he is also the bubbly cutie patootie who made strange noises each time he laughed hard and would sometimes divulge stories about the other members (and even the staff) like he's not famous and should've known better, but all the loyal shimote torikos love that about him.
Really, no one understood his early days better than Dir en grey' first demographic (especially the type to follow them around) since Kaoru, Die, Kyo, Shinya were adamant on "kidnapping" Toshiya until the roles flipped around rather quickly and
what a feat it was keeping the jealousy and/or nosiness subdued. So much so that it was the sole reasoning behind him confidently comparing being a band-man to being a husband:
he often kept the confusion from some inside jokes about the bassist of that pre-Dir en grey band (La:Sadie) to himself and rewarded his four mysterious, ingrate new colleagues a wholesome snowy retreat at Nagano (which his mother still keeps in his childhood home) as if he's not a wife constantly hearing about the destructive ex everyone reminisce still.
Yet he brought a girlfriend on an overseas tour, once.
By then Toshiya was on the belief that everyone else were caring less if one of them were to kill the other(s) in what method of torture, and Nana, his girlfriend, managed to keep things civil even though fans could hear her laughing behind the cameras.
Best was how she spotted one far camera that Toshiya himself had led them both to it, how she prevented him from touching her in front of it when they climb the stairs to the tour bus that Kaoru was finally okay with it, that everyone thought Toshiya will not deprave the quintet their off-day-friendships by marriage because… how else should he claim normalcy? Toshiya was just being creepy: Nana is a shorter version of his own stage persona.
~***~
The one he disliked was either Kyo or Kaoru; only thing Toshiya doesn't forget is getting caught flush-faced when that member verbally implied he had somehow felt himself 'getting on Toshiya's nerves lately.' The time coincided with Toshiya wanting to stuff all three cheating members into a bag to keep them from their other bands. He'd constantly chant 'It's only the early days, differently,' to himself after the shining music-engorging monster of a leader broke their no-speaking rule:
‘stop telling on us to the senpais, Toshiya!'