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featherandferns · 2 years ago

Text

fascinating new thing (fic)

jj maybank x fem!kook!shy!reader | the music the band plays in this are songs by beach bunny (that's the music style i envisioned for the reader) - check them out!

content warning: drinking & drug use; anxiety & anxiety attacks

word count: 18k. (the definition of a slow-burn, so just hang in there, okay?)

blurb: after your band plays a show at kiara's parents' restaurant, you find yourself face to face with jj maybank. shy and socially awkward, you fumble through, knowing that a guy like jj would never want a thing to do with you, right?

“I don’t understand you,” Kiara says. She’s perched atop one of the speakers.

“What’d you mean?” you ask from where you kneel on the floor. You’re detangling wires.

“When you met my parents, I could barely get your name out of you. But now I find out you enjoy singing to a crowd of strangers in your spare time?”

You laugh, shrugging.

“I mean, if I was shy, I think my worst fear would be singing to a group of anybody – let alone strangers,” Kie tells you with a chuckle.

“I guess it’s cause I’m in my element when I’m singing and stuff. I feel calm,” you think aloud.

You’d never really thought of it that much. Performing music always came easy to you. Talking to people, not so much.

The wires finally unknot and you go about plugging them into the correct amps. Kiara had offered to help you and your band set up before your gig. It was at The Wreck – her parents gracious enough to let you guys play – and Kie, being your friend for just over a year, was all for it.

You’d met at school when she transferred to (what she proclaimed as) Kook Academy. Kie felt as if she didn’t fit in, away from the Pogues and amongst the snobs. You felt like an outsider too. Making friends never came easy to you. Your shyness got in the way and made you clam up. The good first half of your years at school were spent having panic attacks during breaktime and hiding behind the sheds to eat lunch alone. One day you made your usual journey there to find Kiara, sat crying. You’d struck up your best attempt at conversation, sympathising immediately. She confided in you about missing her old school, and how this ‘bitch’ Sarah Cameron had started a rumour and ditched her. You nodded through it and offered up eating lunch together, which soon turned into hanging out after school, and overtime Kie pulled you out of your shell. That was when you told her about your band.

The only reason you’d managed to find your band was from the school counsellor’s insistence that you join an extra-circular. When you meekly confessed that you liked playing music and writing songs, she’d thrust you into band practice. Seriously: she literally escorted you there. Benny, who played drums, and Pansy, who played guitar, were your first friends. Pansy had an effervescent charm to her; naturally outgoing but not intimidating. Strangely, she was easy to talk to. Non-judgemental and non-pushy. Never asked you the age-old question ‘how come you’re so quiet?’ Benny was a little like you and it was as if the two of you clocked each other and decided to stick it out. Over time, you both opened up, with Pansy’s assistance of course. The bassist was someone Pansy met (and probably cornered) at a kegger, named Mike. Aloof and mysterious, you spent a great deal of your time wondering if he liked you and a greater deal wondering who he was. Finally, with you on vocals, the band was formed. Pansy lovingly named it The Wallflowers, in your honour.

As soon as Kie found out, she insisted on having you play at The Wreck. All of that led up to today, with the show due to start in two hours.

“I’m so excited to hear you guys play,” she grins. “I can’t believe it took you so long to tell me you were in a band.”

“Just never came up,” you chuckle, standing up. “How many people do you think’ll come?”

“Maybe fifty or so? Dad posted about it on the Facebook page and I put up some posters.”

Your stomach drops. “Posters?”

Kie jumps off the speaker. “Only around the cut! None at Kook Academy, don’t worry.”

The panic eases somewhat with her clarification. You weren’t exactly enthused to have some of your classmates, who seemed to find pleasure in teasing your quietness, coming to see you play. Your band was like your safe spot: where you could express yourself. Pansy practically had to prise the songs you’d written out of your hands at the first practice.

As if summoning her by thought, the afro haired girl waltzes into the restaurant, guitar case slung over her shoulders. “I can’t believe I haven’t been here before! This place is hella cute, Kie!”

“Thanks,” Kiara smiles.

Pansy hops onto the small make-shift stage you’d borrowed from the school’s music department, looking around the room as if she’d conquered the land.

“Yeah, yeah. This’ll do nicely.”

“This your lots’ first gig?” Kiara wonders as she gets up to get you all drinks.

“Nah. We’ve done a couple at my uncle’s bar,” Pansy replies. “Benny managed to get us this thing at a fundraiser too, last month.”

“It’s nice trying somewhere new though,” you say. Pansy nods enthusiastically.

“Especially somewhere this cute!”

Kiara laughs, walking back over with three cups balanced in her hands. You and Pansy take one each and have a sip. Fresh lemonade; perfect for the April weather warmth.

“When’s Benny and Mike getting here?”

“Mike’s hitching a lift with Benny. Said they’ll be about ten minutes or so,” Pansy replies.

She puts down her cup and shrugs off her guitar case. Unzipping it, she retrieves her ‘baby’. You’re surprised she doesn’t start gushing over how beautiful she is. You and Kie keep chatting about how schools nearly finished for the year as Pansy sorts out the cables and amps for her electric guitar. She then props it on the stand.

Just as she said they would, Benny and Mike walk into The Wreck just under ten minutes later. They’re both wheeling in drum pieces. Mike dashes out to grab his bass from the van. You move to help Benny set up his drums.

“You borrow your dad’s van again?” you ask him.

He nods. “Surprised he isn’t making me pay for gas.”

As you sit back on your haunches, screwing in one of the bolts for the kick drum, Benny looks at you. “You look nice, by the way.”

“Thanks,” you smile, not looking away from your handy work.

“New shorts?”

“Nah. Had them a while.”

“Oh. Well, they look nice.”

Benny lingers a moment longer, as if he might say something else, but then must think better of it and goes back to fixing the hi-hat.

“You nervous for tonight?”

“Not more than usual. I know I’ll be fine once we start playing,” you reply.

As the two of you finish setting up the drumkit, you glance off to see that Pansy has trapped Kie in some intense discussion about crystals. You knew it was risky introducing the two of them: two astrology girlies are a deadly combination. Mike sits off to the side, tuning his bass. The speaker’s on and it echoes around the room.

“Sounding groovy,” Kiara’s dad calls from the doorway of the kitchen.

Kie groans. “Dad, nobody says groovy.”

“Well, I do,” he says, winking at her. She rolls her eyes lovingly. “Think it should be a good crowd tonight, guys. Excited to hear you play.”

Pansy beams at him. “Thanks! We’ve been practising like mad for it!”

“Yeah. Pansy didn’t give us much of a choice,” Mike sardonically grins, making everyone laugh.

“Oh! I forgot to tell you!” Kiara says your name to catch your attention. “You remember me telling you about my friends, John B and all that? They’re coming too.”

“They are?” you ask, nervousness spiking.

She nods. “They’re super excited to meet you.”

There must be clear panic on your face because her enthusiasm evens out into a calming smile. “Hey! Don’t worry. They’re super chill.”

“Kie, no offense, but from some of the stories you’ve told me, they don’t sound super chill,” you mumble, going back to fixing another part of the drum into place.

“I mean they’re non-judgemental. Especially Pope. He’s a little weird too. Uh, no offence.”

“Offence,” you reply, though you smile when you do.

Kie calling you weird doesn’t bother you. Any other Kook at school doing it though, and you’d probably burst into tears.

“It’s alright. I’ll just sneak you out after the gig in a suitcase like they do with Taylor Swift,” Benny whispers to you. You laugh, rolling your eyes.

“Great plan. Not obvious at all.”

The rest of the set-up goes to plan. After an hour, the instruments are plugged in and tuned up. Mike and Pansy have practised the bridge to one of the songs about twenty times, making your head begin to pound. Kiara’s dad has elicited Kie’s help in the kitchen with making the buffet-style meal. Their working was to do a pay-for-it-all sort of method: a set price of ten dollars per plate, loaded up as full as you want. Seconds and thirds were another five dollars. It seemed the best way to take orders without interrupting the gig. Kie’s mum comes to prepare the drinks. Bowls of punch for the kids and teens, and beers and cans for the adults.

By the time it comes close for you guys to play, the room is beginning to pack. You sit on the side of the stage, mostly hidden by one of the amps, with Pansy acting as an unofficial barrier for anybody who tries to talk to you. She’s glad to answer any questions, quickly diving into stories about the band name and the songs and whatever else comes to mind. Mike chimes in too, also rather extraverted, and you and Benny cower in the back like lost children in a shopping mall searching for their parents.

There’re the nerves before you play – like always – but the calmness of knowing that as soon as the first chord is strummed, it’ll fade out. You seem to slip into a corner of your brain when you guys play your songs. Like nobody can touch you or judge you. You’re almost able to fully let go.

“You guys ready?” Kiara’s dad asks, walking over to your foursome.

Nope. Nerves are back and in full force. Maybe you’ll throw up right here right now, and they’ll have to call the whole thing off.

“Hell yeah!” Pansy exclaims. She probably thinks she’s talking for all of you.

Kiara’s dad steps onto the stage and goes to the microphone, flicking it on. It buzzes to life, the noise catching people’s attention, and when he taps on it to make sure it’s working, the conversations naturally die down.

“Alright, folks! You guys are in for a treat tonight! The grooviest band from Kildare County is here to perform!”

You see Kie groan and shake her head from the back of the room, making you laugh. It helps ease your nerves. You don’t have time to check if her friends have arrived because you’re being ushered up by Pansy.

“Let’s here it for The Wallflowers!”

The applause from the small crowd that’s gathered feels like a stadium cheering you on. Pansy jumps on stage first, grabbing her guitar, waving happily to the crowd as if she knew each of them personally and had been banking on them to come. Mike gives a casual nod as he steps up and pulls on his bass. Benny slinks behind the drum kit, flashing the briefest of smiles to the crowd.

You focus on the floor and take a quick breath in. Here we go. Then you’re stepping onto the stage, forcing your head up, plastering on a smile, and waving.

Pansy always introduces the band. You can’t bring yourself to form words at the start of the show.

“How we all doing tonight?” She loudly asks, her voice echoing through the speakers.

The crowd give another whoop and cheer. It’s mostly teenagers and young adults, with some older couples and families intermixed. You catch Kiara’s eye and feel your shoulder’s relax a little when she gives a grin and thumbs-up. There’s not enough confidence in you to look at her friends.

Pansy introduces herself then names each one of you, pointing as she goes. Finally, she declares, “We’re The Wallflowers and we’ve got some songs to play for you tonight. You guys ready?”

You don’t take in the response from the crowd. Just close your eyes and wrap your hands around the microphone, searching for the tap of Benny’s drumsticks to count you in. Wait for it. Wait for it…

Two, three, four—

The moment Pansy strums her first chord, and Mike hits his first note, your mouth opens and the words fly out, second nature, without a thought.

“Sometimes I think I see your ghost…”

The anxiety gets shoved down, suppressed by something akin to confidence, and you manage to open your eyes. Your body naturally sways to the music, hands not leaving the microphone until you reach the first chorus.

“If you’re gonna love me, make sure that you do it right. I’ll be under your window in the moonlight.”

Fingers pushing through your hair, sweeping it off your shoulders, you dance a little to the beat. Benny’s hitting, keeping you all in rhythm, and Mike’s bass thrums lowly to keep you in tune. Pansy’s grinning – you see it from the corner of your eye – as she plays her guitar. It makes you smile. Your band; a mismatched group of teens from the sweeter side of Kook Academy. You have no idea how you managed to find them, but there’s no complaints to be heard. As if sinking into the cosiest of beds after a tiresome day, you relax into the music, relax in yourself.

After the first song, it becomes easy. You feel in your element, like a bird returning from migration, and start to engage with the crowd some more. Start having them clap along to the beat when the bridge starts up for the third song. Have them jumping a little to the chorus of the fifth.

“Ain’t she great?” Pansy encourages from them after the sixth song.

The strangers who’ve accumulated to see you, now a little buzzed, applaud and whistle. You feel your face flush hot. At the back, Kiara cheers the loudest, accompanied by several guys’ voices who holler. You look over and it’s then that you meet his eyes. JJ Maybank.

The nerves hit you full force.

Oh God.

How the hell are you supposed to sing another song knowing that he’s watching you? That someone who looks like that is listening to you sing your stupid little love-sick, fantasy-formed songs? You knew he was friends with Kie, but you didn’t think he’d actually show up.

You consider pretending to faint, but that’ll probably be more humiliating than just powering through. To distract yourself, you duck down to take a sip of water from your bottle.

“Come on,” you whisper, closing your eyes. Just one song left, and then you’re home free and can hide under your sheets for a week. Maybe two.

“This next one is mostly me and my girl,” Pansy announces, nodding to you as you rise back to stand. “We’re gonna bring it down a minute, alright? I wanna see lots of loved up couples slow dancing, you hear?”

There’re some chuckles. You’re always in awe of how easily she interacts with the crowd. Pansy begins to pick out the melody on her strings, turning to face you. She smiles reassuringly, nodding to count you in. The anxiety melts away as the words line up ready in your head. Taking a breath, you turn back to the microphone.

“I wither within when I’m without. Baptised in sin and blessed with doubt.”

From the corner of your eyes, you see a phone torch lift into the air. Then you see more and more people do the same, until there’s a powerful white glow shining on yourself and Pansy. You let out a small, bashful giggle. Through the phones, you spot Kiara again, nodding along to the beat and swaying. She’s got an easy smile on her face. You can’t help but glance your eyes to JJ, who’s at her side. His arms are crossed over his chest, face nearly stoic, but he’s swaying too. Looks almost deep in thought. Before he can clock that you’re looking at him, you flit your eyes back to the wall.

“There’s always someone, I’m tryna live up to. I can never get to you. You always seem closer, in the rear view…”

As the song goes on and your voice sings out, your eyes slip shut again. You sink into the words and let your mind drift into thoughts of romance and love. It had never been all that present in your life. Talking to strangers in the chance that they might be your friend was terrifying enough; if you find them attractive, then it’s game over. You practically become mute from nerves. That left you pretty lonely, romantically and otherwise. Besides, guys didn’t tend to go for girls who could barely spit out a sentence in a group project and are as often seen at a kegger or house party as a dodo bird. At least, not the type of guys you liked.

The ending of the song starts to build; Mike picks out a steady beat on his bass. You slowly begin to clap on every other beat. Gradually, the crowd joins in as the melody from Mike continues. Once enough people have joined, you decide to pick up the lyrics.

“You love me. I love you. You don’t love me anymore, I still do. I’m sorry. I’m trying. I hate it when you catch me crying.”

One the final lyric, Benny’s joining in, Pansy in tow. The big finish arrives, the crowd stopping their clapping to whoop and bash their heads to the heavy beat. You repeat the lyrics again, finding your grin once more at the sight of everyone having fun (save for some dwellers and shoe-watchers on the outskirts).

“I hate it when you catch me crying.”

The song comes to an abrupt end. Pansy lets her last note ring out. When the crowd cheers and applauds, you laugh bashfully into the microphone, your face so hot that you worry it might explode.

“Thank you,” you manage out with a smile.

“We’ve been The Wallflowers! Follow us on Spotify and Instagram! Good night!” Pansy shamelessly promotes, waving with both hands in farewell.

You take an awkward bow, Benny waving nervously from behind the drum kit, and then Kiara’s dad is flicking on the main lights. The chatter of the crowd soon kicks up now that you guys are done playing, and Kie’s dad switches back on the usual playlist that buzzes through the restaurant to fill the background’s quiet. You turn to Pansy to find her beaming, practically vibrating on the spot with excitement. She ambushes you and Mike in a group hug.

“You guys did amazing! We fucking rocked! Holy shit! We’re playing here all the time!”

You laugh at her ways, hugging her back tentatively. You’d never been the best with physical affection, which was a perfect match for Pansy, who didn’t seem capable of doing anything without a bear hug.

“It was pretty rad,” Mike agrees, nodding. Cool and calm as ever.

Benny emerges from behind the drums, shaking his head of ginger hair out of his eyes. “I think we sounded alright, yeah,” he says, smiling at you.

“Alright? We sounded fucking amazing!” Pansy screeches.

You flush with embarrassment. “I could’ve hit the note a bit better on—”

“Oh, would you guys stop it and just enjoy the moment!” Pansy berates, pulling back to mirthfully roll her eyes. “The truth is we sounded great, and you know it.”

“She’s right!” Kiara calls from below.

You turn your head and smile at her. Pansy nods in approval, pulling Mike and Benny into a conversation, as you climb down to talk to Kiara.

“You liked it?” you ask.

“Are you kidding? You guys are awesome!”

“Thanks,” you laugh, reluctant to accept the compliment.

The place is starting to fill out now that the gig and serving is done. A few people linger to chat and discuss the show, but most filter out the front and back doors. Gradually, it gets easier to hear the reggae music through the speakers.

“You’ve gotta meet the gang before we leave! Come on,” Kiara says as your chatter about music dies down.

Before you can register her words, she’s grabbing at your wrist and guiding you outside to where the boys are loitering. Your meek protests fall on deaf ears and soon you’re face to face with the trio. Kiara announces your name proudly, as if presenting an award, and you awkwardly wave, barely making eye contact with any of them. Least of all JJ.

“Hey,” John B smiles. He has a nice smile. Friendly and warm. “I’m John B. This is Pope-”

“-You guys sounded great, by the way,” Pope says to you. You feel overwhelmed by the praise and vaguely nod in thanks, hopefully smiling as you do.

“-And JJ.”

At his name, you find yourself looking up at him. He’s taking a hit of his vape and offers you a smile, then he holds out his fist to bump yours. It takes you too long to clock what he means. By the time your fist hits his, he’s halfway retracted his own. It’s already a mess. Oh God. Maybe that spilt-beer puddle on the table is deep enough to drown yourself in.

“I liked that last song.”

You blink out of your panic-filled haze and into his eyes. “The last one?”

“Yeah. The slower one that goes all loud at the end? What’s it called?”

“Rear view.”

He bobs his head, the silence stretching out. Say something else. When you wrote it, maybe. Before your brain can catch up to formulate anything else outside of your blunt response, JJ’s taking another hit of his vape.

“Well…It’s a good song.”

“Thanks,” you cloddishly say.

Oh God. It’s terrible. It’s painful. It’s…

“You wanna come back to the chateau and hang out?” John B wonders.

“The chateau?”

“It’s just this dumb nickname for John B’s house,” Kiara says.

“Hey!”

“You wanna?” she asks, ignoring him.

“Oh, um…”

You glance back inside The Wreck, through the window, seeing you friends chatting animatedly. Benny’s smiling, which is always a good sign. Then you look back to Kiara and her friends. The Pogues, as she often called them. Your eyes fall on JJ last. He isn’t looking at you, instead out to the distance, as if waiting to leave. Yep – you blew it. Good job.

“I’ll pass,” you say, tone apologetic. “Need to talk with my band.”

“Oh. Well, let us know if you change your mind,” Kie smiles, recovering easily.

You nod and accept her offer of a hug. Then you’re walking back into the restaurant, ungainly waving goodbye to her friends. John B and Pope wave back, and JJ nods his head at you in farewell.

As soon as you’re out of ear shot, you look down at the floor and sigh.

Whispering to yourself, you can’t help but say, “good job, me.”

~*~*~*~*~*

The fishing supply shop you’d stumbled upon was more like a shack. There was a mom-and-pops feel to it; a hand painted sign that creaked when it swung in the breeze (the lingering presence of spring, fighting to stay before summer would cast it out). You push through the door, hearing the chime of the bell, and look down at the list your dad had given you. Looking back up to the rows of goods, you feel as if everything is spelt in Spanish. Sighing, you go to start searching for the things on his list. It doesn’t help that he’s been wonderfully vague: lures, hooks, bait. You look at some of the boxes and take one down to inspect the label better. You’re pretty sure these are hooks…

“Hey, you’re Kie’s friend, right? That chick in the band?”

Assuming somebody’s talking to you, you look up, to the right, and come eye to eye with JJ. Your mouth instantly goes dry like the Sahara.

“Yeah,” you say. You’re trying to smile but it’s like the muscles in your face have gone lax. Why are you so Goddamn inept sometimes?

“I’m JJ,” he says, fixing his cap. “We met at The Wreck?”

“No, I know,” you tell him. You don’t mean for it to sound rude – merely stating a fact that of course you know who he is – but through your nerves, it sounds clipped. Like he’s bothering you.

JJ nods, a little awkward himself now. “No, yeah, of course.”

Just as you’re willing up the guts to apologise for your hopeless social skills, JJ’s filling the silence once more.

“You fish?”

“What?”

“Do you like fishing?”

What a weird question. “No.”

“Oh,” he says. He glances around. “Then…Why are you in a fishing shop?”

Oh. Yeah, duh.

“Oh, my dad does,” you say, lifting the list to show him. JJ’s eyes skim it briefly and he nods, quietly letting out an ‘ah’. “Asked me to pick some stuff up for him.”

Oh God, shut up.

“Well, this place is a pretty good spot to go for your gear,” he tells you.

“Do you fish?”

And, good job, you’ve managed to ask a normal question.

JJ smiles and it seems as if he’s relaxing into himself again. It makes you feel easier too; it’s always painful when your awkwardness rubs off on others, like the spreading of a disease.

“Yeah, I do. My whole family were fishermen and stuff. Can’t remember a time when I wasn’t fishing,” JJ says.

Whilst you prepare yourself to ask more about his family, and what sort of fishing he does, JJ’s flashing you a friendly grin and nodding down to your list.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to it. Hope you find everything.”

“Oh. Yeah, thanks. Um, you too,” you reply.

You final have enough control of yourself to smile at him. It might be your delusions contorting your perception, but you’re sure JJ’s smile grows a bit brighter when you do.

Turning away, you go back to staring hopelessly at the box in your hand. The front is raving about the benefits of this style of hook, reeling of jargon as if trying to impress a university professor. It’s useless. Not only are your thoughts now hijacked by overthinking everything you said in that conversation, and the fact that JJ Maybank spoke to you on his own agenda; you still haven’t learnt anything about fishing in the last five minutes. You’ll just get a receipt and your dad can come back and fix whatever mess you make of this seemingly easy errand.

“You gonna buy those?”

JJ’s still there, stood at your side. He’s looking at the box from over your shoulder. You look up to him.

“Yeah?”

“Those ones are pure crap. No, no, you want the good stuff,” JJ tells you, shaking his head.

He takes the box from your hand and replaces it with another, from a higher shelf. Tapping on the cover, he begins to read off some of the hooks’ perks (who knew there could be so many?).

“I mean, they’re a little more expensive but you get more bang for your buck, you know? Those other ones’ll snap after like four days on the water.”

When he looks back into your eyes, he must see the blank look behind them. He laughs. “Just trust me on this.”

“Okay,” you say, finding a laugh.

“Here, what else’s on your list?” JJ asks, taking the scrap of paper from you.

You don’t complain. Being in his orbit feels like you’re seeing the earth from space; even if it’s just him helping you buy fishing gear, there’s no way you’re going to pass up this opportunity.

JJ keeps talking, jovial in tone, casually dropping reams of information and tips about fishing. As he starts moving around the store in search of items, you blindly follow, nodding along, though only half understanding what he’s saying. It just feels nice to hear him talk. He has a nice voice; one that easily brings a smile. There’s the strong, Carolina accent that shines through, intermixed with slang that’s robust on the cut.

“So, what band are you guys a tribute for?” JJ wonders as he inspects different wires.

“What’d you mean?”

“You know, like who’s music are you playing? I haven’t heard it before.”

“They’re originals,” you say. His head whips around, eyes wide.

“No way.”

“Yeah. I, uh, wrote the songs myself,” you admit, modest.

“You wrote them? That’s insane!”

“Well, they’re not Fleetwood Mac or anything—”

“—Well, nobody’s Fleetwood Mac, for starters,” JJ interrupts, turning back to the wires. “And not anybody can write songs. I sure as hell can’t. Fucking hopeless with words.”

“I find that hard to believe,” you laugh. You feel as if you’re inching out of your shell, the longer you talk to him.

His shoulders, strong and built, shrug under the cotton of his tee shirt. On the back, there’s an emblem: Kildare County Boating Supplies. “Born with my foot in my mouth. Never know when to shut the hell up, half the time.”

“Oh, same here.”

JJ laughs. He glances over his shoulder at you. The crinkles on his cheeks from his smile give him a boyish look of innocence. “Oh, you’re funny, huh?”

“Not usually,” you reply.

“Nah, I doubt Kie could be friends with someone who didn’t have a sense of humour,” JJ lightly argues.

He seems to have decided on a wire and picks up a box, handing it to your building pile stacked up in your arms.

“I think we got it all,” he says, checking over the list. It’s fickle how the term ‘we’ makes your heart stutter.

The two of you head to the counter, gently dumping all the items. You request two bags, knowing you’ll need as much help as you can get to lug it all home. JJ’s still lingering by you. The cashier begins to scan through the items.

“Oh, shit,” JJ mumbles, grinning. He’s looking at a pocketknife on the counter; picks it up to inspect it.

Confused, you ask, “what is it?”

“It’s the latest model,” JJ says.

“There’s different models of pocketknife?” you hear yourself ask.

JJ chuckles, still inspecting it. You notice how the cashier is eyeing him up, like he might just slip it into his pocket, then and there. He probably doesn’t catch the glare you shoot at him.

“These guys make the best ones. My dad gave me his old one and it lasted for like ten years. Damn.”

Your eyes glance down to the box he took it from, checking the price. It’s more than what you’d pay for a pocketknife, but apparently it seems to be worth the money. JJ eventually puts it back.

“That everything for you, dear?” the cashier checks.

JJ seems to take it as his cue to leave. Shoving his hands in his short pockets, he flashes you a smile and a nod.

“Well, I’ll see you around, Kie’s friend.”

“Thanks for your help.”

“Course,” JJ shrugs. He nods to the cashier in farewell, too, then heads out the door.

Looking to the cashier, who’s still waiting for a reply, then down to the box of pocketknives, you smile, overcome with an idea. After you’ve paid up and packed your bags as quickly as you can, you thank the cashier before darting out the store, glancing around for JJ. He hasn’t gone very far, walking towards the docks. You remember Kie telling you about Pope’s dad Hayward, and how he lived on the waterside, and you put two-and-two together. Before the small bout of adrenaline can leave, along with your confidence, you jog over to him, calling his name.

JJ turns around and smiles, a little confused. “You good?”

“Here,” you say, digging about in your short pocket to retrieve the knife. You hold out the pocketknife to him, hands shaking a bit. “As a thank you.”

He looks down at it. Then, he begins to frown. “Why’d you do that?”

“As a thanks,” you repeat. You’re still holding it out. Heart pounding in your ears. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea after all. You overstepped. He was just being helpful and you made it weird, like always.

JJ scoffs, shifting his weight. He glances off to the water. Looking down at you, jaw somewhat tense, he says, “I don’t need your charity, you know?”

Frowning, you reply, “it’s not charity. It’s…A sign of gratitude, I guess?”

He eyes the knife like it might be laced with Anthrax. Okay, this is getting slightly ridiculous.

“Look, will you just take it? I’ve got no use for it, so it’ll just go to waste if you don’t,” you say impatiently.

JJ’s eyes flash up to yours. There’s a twitch in his cheek, threatening a smirk. Chuckling quietly, he reluctantly accepts the gift.

“Okay, I will. Uh, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” you say, nodding. Good. That was good. The only problem is that now that you’ve done that, the interaction has come to a natural end, and you have nothing else to say to fill the gaps. “Well…Have a good day.”

Chuckling, he nods, waving you off. “You too.”

The moment your back’s turned to him; you exhale out the lingering nerves. Your smile doesn’t fade, turning almost giddy from the fleeting conversations you’d shared. It’s brought you too much joy that JJ just accepted a pocketknife off you; it’s practically pathetic. Nonetheless, you don’t berate yourself too much. Instead, you walk home, replaying the way JJ chuckled and smiled down at you when you let your patience slip.

~*~*~*~*~*

As an introvert, you’ve managed to find your way out of plenty of social gatherings. Award ceremonies? Stomach bug. Presentations? Stomach bug. House parties? You guessed it – stomach bug. Keggers? Any ideas…?

One gathering that you’ve never been able to get out of - nor have ever been able to say no to, out of guilt - are birthdays. Any sort of birthday celebration, no matter how big or how small, and you feel have to go. You almost feel like it’s your duty to. Friends were a rarity in your life, like finding emeralds and gold, and you didn’t want to risk it by making it seem like you didn’t care about someone’s special day. Even if parties made your stomach feel like it was filled with led and you barely opened your mouth in fear that you might puke with anxiety, you force yourself to any that you’re invited to.

For Pansy, it was always a house party. Some big, ridiculous do that her rich parents would throw. Streamers and themes and a hired DJ. A huge, ridiculous cake that barely got eaten and party favours that were practically insulting in price. She didn’t care all that much about it, but she was an only child and boy do rich parents like to spoil their only off-spring. It was sort of sweet though. Her parents weren’t trying to buy her affection: they genuinely did care for her, and just wanted her to have a good time. So, when Pansy’s birthday rolled around, at the beginning of June – just after school finished up for summer – you get the dreaded text:

Birthday bash on Friday night: be there or else.

A knife emoji, and then…

Love ya!

You groan and toss your head back, flopping onto the pile of pillows on Kiara’s bed. Her phone chimes a moment later and, after reading the text, she flashes you a pitiful smile.

“Pansy’s birthday party?”

“Mhm,” you hum.

“It’ll be fun!”

Unconvinced. “Mhm.”

“Come on. We can get ready together and pre-drink together and get drunk together. It’ll be great.”

Easing yourself up reluctantly, you cock a brow at her. “Really?”

“Yes! It’ll be great,” she repeats, firmer as if in promise. The ding of her phone prompts her to read the second message. You watch as her eyebrows shoot up. “Oh! She invited the Pogues, too.”

“Like the band?” you ask tiredly, rubbing your forehead.

You wouldn’t be all that surprised. One year her parents managed to bag ‘The 1975’ for a birthday-shoutout-video-call. Don’t ask.

Kiara rolls her eyes. “Like JJ, John B and Pope: The Pogues. Dumbass.”

Your eyes shoot open.

JJ.

Hoping to sound nonchalant, you watch Kie type away on her phone as you ask, “well, you don’t think they’ll wanna go though, right? I mean, didn’t you say they hate Kooks?”

There’s the telling whoosh noise that a text has been sent. She looks up at you and shrugs. “They probably will. They might hate Kooks but they love open bars.”

Great. No, yeah, that’s great. You’ll run into JJ again and the conversation will be doubly as awkward and you’ll make a fool of yourself, like you always do, and you’ll go drown in the pool that’s overflowing with your tears of embarrassment. No, great. That’s just—

“Great.”

The theme for Pansy’s seventeenth turns out to be 2000s. She’s dressed up as Regina George from Mean girls – the scene where she has circles cut out of her white vest top, showing through her pink bra. She sends you a picture of her costume on the night, whilst you’re at Kiara’s getting ready.

“Woah. She looks amazing,” you grin, showing the phone to Kie.

She’s sat on the bed, working on her eye make-up. Momentarily glancing away from the mirror to check your phone, she smiles and gives her mark of approval. You text Pansy back, gushing over her costume, and then follow it up with a blatant lie: so excited for tonight! Tossing your phone to the side, you look in the mirror and get back to working on your hair, portioning it in two to style it into pigtails. You’ve dressed up as one of the Powerpuff Girls. Namely, Bubbles: the sweet, quiet, innocent one. In many ways, you feel as though you are Bubbles. The costume’s fun and reminds you of childhood.

“John B just text me,” she tells you, glancing down at her phone that’s pinging away. “Says they’re still at the chateau and will probably show up later. I reckon we’ll be ready to leave for Pansy’s in ten.”

“Are all of them going?” you ask. You’re not sure what you want her answer to be.

“Yep. Even Pope,” she says.

You look back into the mirror and swallow your nerves. It’ll be fine. It’ll be great, just as Kiara promised. Reaching for your bottle of cider, you down the rest and finish getting ready.

It takes about fifteen minutes to walk to Pansy’s house from Kiara’s. The two of you start up the path towards the house. It’s impressive. Modern and ageless, with contemporary finishes and floor-to-ceiling windows on nearly every wall. Painted exuberant white, the place stands as a monument to money. There’s a fountain in the front garden and an electronically powered front gate that’s been left open for the night. The two of you head up the stairs to the front door. Music is pulsing, sneaking out the house and into the night, and you take a breath in preparation. Kie seems to notice and takes your hand, smiling and giving it a squeeze of reassurance. With that, you remind yourself why you’re putting yourself through this hell. Pansy’s birthday.

It's rammed and loud and overstimulating in every way. There’re couples making out on the coach and friends dancing near a speaker and two guys arguing loudly by the window. Empty cups and bottles, an abandoned bong on the coffee table (another perk of having rich parents: they let you do whatever you want). Somebody’s already passed out on the stairs, with other party goers narrowly dodging them as they rush off to the bathroom or in search of a quiet room. Kiara guides you through the house, through the kitchen, in search for Pansy. Your hand never leaves hers. The pounding of the bass is so loud that it’s hard to tell what’s your heartbeat and what isn’t.

You spot Mike first. He’s lent on the counter of the island, chatting to a girl you don’t recognise.

“Hey, Mike,” you say, finding your smile from the familiar face. He looks to you and grins.

“Hey!” his low voice booms. He wraps you in a quick hug. “Wasn’t sure if you were gonna come?”

“You know me,” you smile, queasy. “Anything for Pansy.”

“Amen,” he nods, tipping his beer in approval. He greets Kie, having met her at The Wreck the other week.

“You know where Pansy is?”

“Out back, last time I checked,” he replies, nodding to the backdoor.

You thank him and drag yourself and Kie out the patio doors and into the garden. Scanning the area, you try and spot your friend. There’s people swimming in the pool, cannonballing in, and others dancing to the music. Someone throwing up. A bong being passed around. Beer pong and drinking Jenga and…It’s chaos. Keep it together.

Then, you spot Pansy. She’s lent against the shed, chatting away to a half-arsed Juno. Walking over, the moment she clocks you and Kiara, the other conversation is ditched. Throwing her arms out – already drunk and probably high – she gives a cheer of your names.

“You made it!”

“Better late than never,” Kiara grins.

You let her hug you; almost have the life squeezed out of you in the process. “Happy birthday, Pansy.”

“Damn right, it’s a happy birthday,” she grins. “Look at this rager!”

Kiara nods in approval, taking it all in. “Having fun?”

“I am now!” Pansy exclaims. “Maybe now that you’re here, Benny’ll finally show up.”

“Benny’s here?” you ask.

“Mhm. I lost him about five minutes in, though. He’s probably hiding under the stairs, poor thing,” she says, shaking her head. Looking to Kie, she asks, “did the Pogues come along?”

“They should show up at some point,” Kie nods, smiling.

“Oh, yes! Finally, my plan can come into action!” Pansy says. She then gives a laugh that borders on psychotic.

You frown, befuddled. “Your plan?”

“My set-you-up-with-JJ plan? Only been waiting since the fifth grade,” she buzzes.

Your face drops. Your stomach plummets. All your internal organs flop out of your body and land on the floor, with your heart last.

One too many drinks in Pansy, and she casually lets slip of your biggest, most pathetic secret on earth, to none other than one of JJ’s best friends.

“What?” Kiara practically shouts. She gapes at you.

Pansy’s face quickly switches from excitement to dread, as her brain seems to catch up. “Wait…Shit, I wasn’t supposed to say that, was I?”

“Nope,” you say, through gritted teeth.

Hold it together. Hold it together.

“JJ?” Kiara checks. She’s staring at you as if you’ve just done an Irish jig.

You don’t reply. Not sure you can. You swallow thickly and stare down at the floor.

Then, scarily calm, you say, “I think I’m gonna go get another drink.”

Neither of them stops you – Pansy already distracted and Kiara practically in shell-shock – and you slink back into the house. You grab the first thing you find (another bottle of beer) and frantically search for a bottle opener, cracking it open. Downing half of it, you look around for Mike. He’s not where he was stood before. You have no idea where the hell to even start looking for Benny. You finish the bottle and then look for another. In the process, you decide that having a shot of vodka might be alright and take a swig or two right from the bottle. Okay, maybe a little more than a shot.

There’s a hand on your arm, tugging, and it catches your attention.

“There you are!” Kiara sighs in relief. “Look, it’s okay that you have a crush on JJ. If anything, it’s better than okay! It’s kinda sweet! I just wish you’d told me—”

“Kie, please, stop,” you say, shaking your head. “I really don’t want to talk about this right now, alright? Pansy didn’t mean to say that. I don’t…It’s not even true!”

She pulls a face as if to say ‘yeah, right’ but doesn’t argue. “Well…If you ever wanna talk about it—”

“--I really don’t—”

“--But if you ever do! You can, alright?”

She means it. You can hear it in her voice and see it on her face. Sighing, you nod. She smiles at that.

“Look, I’m not gonna tell him, okay? I would never do that,” she assures you. You smile, nodding once more. Your stomach feels like a mosh-pit.

“Good. Now, come on! I promised you a great night and I meant it.”

Kiara ropes you into a game of drinking Jenga. At some point, Pansy joins, then Mike. After three rounds – and two shots to get out of doing dares – you begin to feel weird. It’s then that you realise, as the world becomes fuzzy and your thoughts start to mush, that all the alcohol you’ve been necking is hitting at once.

Oh no.

You excuse yourself to go find the bathroom, hoping to have a moment to pull yourself together, and despite Kiara’s instance you tell her not to follow. You just need a moment alone to calm down your heartrate. Why does it suddenly feel like it’s going to beat out of your chest now? You’ve been to Pansy’s house plenty of times before, but you suddenly feel lost. People are crammed into every room like sardines, all of them strangers, and you can’t grasp your bearings. The alcohol isn’t helping, nor the panic, and the longer your search for a bathroom or an empty space, the more you feel like the walls are closing in. At some point, you end up in a corridor of the house. It’s a little quieter than in the main rooms, a few bodies lining the walls, some girls sat on the floor chatting. The only light is a single bulb hanging above. At the sight of you stumbling down the hall, one of the girls must think you look as bad as you feel.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asks.

You nod, trying to smile, but you’re honestly not sure what expression is on your face anymore. The bathroom door is locked. No. The girl is coming up to you, maybe thinking she’s being helpful, but you hate strangers and you hate conversations and you hate parties and

Why did you come?

You’ve spoken about five words to Pansy all night! She’d understand if you didn’t; probably wouldn’t even miss you. Great. Something about that thought has tears stinging your eyes, and the random girl who’s made it her new mission in life to help you is only spurred on. She’s shushing you and it makes it all worse: you’re so embarrassed. If there’s anything you dread more than talking to strangers, it’s crying in front of them. Is this a nightmare?

The sound of your name reflexively has you turning your head. It’s JJ.

“Jesus, you don’t look too good,” he says.

Great.

His eyes flit to the girl uselessly trying to calm you down from your panic attack. He ushers her off you, half-arsedly thanking her, and then he’s guiding you from the hallway and through a door. It’s a bathroom. Maybe the door you’d been trying earlier wasn’t a bathroom? It’s all so confusing. You didn’t even know JJ was here; just assumed the Pogues hadn’t bothered showing up. You suddenly realise that you’re still hyperventilating, in front of your crush of all people, and then you remember that Pansy let slip to Kiara that you have a crush on JJ and…

“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” JJ’s saying. He’s frowning at you, concerned.

You’re shaking your head, waving him off. “I’m fine. It’s fine. Sorry. I’m sorry! You can go back to the party!”

That would all be believable if you weren’t gasping out the words. JJ doesn’t listen. He doesn’t even acknowledge that you’ve spoken. You don’t bother to try again. The ground seems a good place to go. Solid and unmoving. You slide down the bathroom wall and gasp in air. It won’t seem to stay in your lungs, as if fighting to escape, and you start to cry.

JJ’s saying your name in a soothing voice. He’s squatting in front of you, watching as you pull your knees up to your chest. God, this is humiliating.

“We’re gonna play a game, okay?”

A game?

“Yeah, yeah. It’s called the ‘five things’ game, alright?”

“I don’t…I don’t understand…” you cry, shutting your eyes.

Playing a game is the last thing you need right now. You just need to breathe. Why can’t you breathe?

“I’ll go first, alright? I have to name five things beginning with…Gimme a letter,” he says.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You write songs, for Christ’s sake,” he laughs, tone gentle. “Come on. One letter. That’s all I’m asking.”

You sort of want him to shut up, so you scramble through your thoughts. “T.”

“Okay, alright. I have to name five things beginning with ‘T’,” JJ says.

All you can hear is your panting for a while. You feel lightheaded.

“Um…Toothbrush. That’s one. How about…”

You crack open your eyes. He’s looking around the room. You notice his cap’s abandoned on the floor. Move your eyes to his legs, mostly bare save for his shorts, and to his chest.

“Tee shirt,” you offer, breathless. JJ’s head whips around to look at you. He smiles encouragingly.

“Yeah, tee shirt. Okay, three more.”

You begin to glance around the room. Stomach still rising and falling, you try and search for something beginning with ‘T’. It’s suddenly become the most important thing in the world.

“Toilet,” you say as your eyes drift over to it. “And toilet brush.”

“Damn, you’re on a roll,” JJ chuckles. You barely manage a laugh. Your head doesn’t feel as fuzzy anymore. “Just one more.”

It’s then that you realise he’s had a hand on your knee the whole time. Rubbing slow, concentric circles on the skin. You start to focus on the feeling of it, looking down as he does it. He’s gone back to searching the room, as if he’s forgotten he’s doing it.

“Touch.”

JJ frowns, looking back to you, then following your gaze to his hand. His smile is almost shy. “Yeah, that counts. Touch.”

The panic attack has eased off. Your lungs are finally doing their job, filling with air and holding it for longer than a millisecond. Exhaling slowly, closing your eyes, you tilt your head back against the wall.

“Better?” JJ wonders.

“A little. Thank you, for helping I mean,” you say.

“Don’t mention it. I know how shit it feels. I’ve had my fair share of panic attacks,” JJ tells you.

There’s a shuffle as he moves to sit on the floor. He retracts his hand from your knee and you immediately miss the feel. Opening your eyes, you look at him with a frown.

“You have?”

“Mhm,” he nods. “John B had to calm me down almost everyday at one point. It sucked.”

“Is that where you learnt that trick?”

“Yeah,” JJ says, offering a small smile. “It’s a good distraction.”

You nod. You’ve never tried it before. Always found that you could ground yourself with your breathing, but everything out there was too much, too crazy, for you to focus. Correcting how you sit, crossing your legs (the skater skirt smoothing out over your thighs), you sigh and hang your head.

“I hate parties.”

JJ chuckles. “No kidding.”

You snort, shaking your head.

“But hey, least you look pretty though.”

You look up. There’s very little energy left in you to overthink what he’s just said. No room left to panic.

“I do?”

“Yeah,” he smiles. “I like your costume.”

“Thanks,” you mumble. Your fingers move down to mess with the hem of your skirt.

“Who’re you meant to be?”

You can’t help but bark out a laugh. “How can you like my costume when you don’t even know who I am?”

JJ laughs, after seemingly being taken aback by your outburst. “I dunno. I like that skirt on you.”

“I’m Bubbles. From the Powerpuff Girls,” you tell him as your laughter dies down.

Realisation flashes across his face as quick as a comet darting through the sky. “Oh! Oh shit, of course!”

“You’ve seen it?”

“Hell yeah!” JJ grins. “Mojo Jojo was my favourite character as a kid!”

“Ugh, he’s iconic,” you groan happily, tossing your head back.

“That one episode, when he gets told off by the professor,” JJ reminisces excitedly.

“I loved that one!”

The two of you laugh.

“Who’re you meant to be?”

“Um…Well, I didn’t get the memo it’s a costume party,” he admits with a wince, smiling.

“You could say you’re from…The Hangover?” you offer after a moment’s thought.

JJ cringes. “That might be worse than just saying I forgot to wear a costume.”

You laugh, nodding. “True.”

There’s a brief moment where the two of you just look at one another, smiling contently. You always knew JJ was pretty (as Pansy so graciously revealed to Kie earlier), but up close, under the white light of the bathroom, he’s gorgeous. A cute smile, shining eyes. The most perfect jawline that you could write reams of songs about just on its own.

“Think this is the most you’ve ever spoken to me,” JJ points out.

Your smile turns solemn, nodding. When you reply, you talk quietly, as if revealing a secret.

“I’m not very good at talking to people.”

“Can I ask you a question, then?”

“Mhm.”

“Why’d you come to this house party? Doesn’t really seem to be your scene,” JJ asks.

Nodding, affirming his theory, you shrug and look down at his feet. He’s wearing black boots, shiny and heavy.

“It’s Pansy’s birthday, and she’s always been a big birthday fan. She’s one of my closest friends and she’s always there for me; always has my back. So, I figure, I can hack one night of the year at a stupid, over-the-top party for her. And usually I can…But I guess, I just couldn’t tonight.”

As you finish talking, you lift your head to take in JJ’s reaction. He’s nodding, a small smile still on his face.

“You’re a good friend.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“You are,” he affirms. Your face goes warm and you shrug. Laughing, he adds, “you’re also shit at accepting compliments. I noticed that when we first met after your gig.”

You chuckle. Looking up to the ceiling, you feel your confession bubbling out of you, likely driven by the alcohol. “Yeah, well, all what I remember after the gig is thinking that you didn’t like me.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” you say, chuckling in self-deprecation. You meet JJ’s eyes, see the confusion shining in them. “You sorta seemed uninterested to talk to me. Which is fine, I figured you would be. But after the fishing shop - and now tonight - I’m starting to think I was wrong?”

“Yeah, you’re wrong,” JJ laughs. He’s not laughing at you, though. It’s almost as if he’s laughing at himself.

He rocks his head back and nods at the ceiling, pursing his lips in thought.

“I’m sorry if I made you feel like that, at The Wreck. It’s just…Kiara told me you were kinda quiet, before we met, and I’m kind of…not. I didn’t wanna freak you out or anything, so I tried to be more chill. Guess it had the opposite effect though.”

There’s a selcouth feeling in your body when JJ speaks. It’s like something in your chest lurches. In your stomach, there’s a feeling like the butterflies you get before a show, but they’re sweeter and gentler, as if calming down in preparation to cocoon. As if the nerves are fading and you’re desensitised.

He looks back down at you, right into your eyes, and you wonder if he can see into your thoughts. If he can see how much you like him.

“Well, I think we’re friends now, so, no hard feelings,” you tentatively say. JJ cracks a smile, nodding.

“Yeah. We’re friends,” he assures you.

Strange, how something that you thought would bring you so much joy only makes you feel a little bit worse than before.

~*~*~*~*~*

It’s dark in the chateau, the kitchen counter only illuminated by a single orange-hued lamp. You’re halfway measuring out some sugar when you think you hear a noise. The creak of a floorboard. Frowning, you hesitantly start towards the corridor, where the sound’s coming from. Maybe something got in the house? A raccoon?

JJ rounds the corner the same time you do, almost bumping into you. He lets out a yelp and grabs at his heart, the same time you jump back about ten feet.

“Jesus Christ,” he gasps, laughing. “You scared the shit outta me.”

“Sorry,” you smile in apology (as if he hadn’t made you almost crap yourself too).

“Thought you were Big John’s ghost or something,” JJ mumbles, rubbing at his face tiredly.

You frown, walking back to the counter where you’d previously been. “Are you saying I look like John B’s dad?”

“No you- That’s not – You look very womanly-”

He cuts off his rambles with a sigh, shaking his head as he laughs at himself. Running his fingers through his bedhead, he seems to come to a realisation that you’re not usually at the chateau.

“Wait? What are you even doing here? It’s late.”

“Went surfing with Kie. Got tired, took a nap on the pull-out, woke up about ten minutes ago,” you explain, keeping your voice soft as to not wake-up John B.

“Can’t fall back asleep?” JJ asks.

“Wide awake.”

“Damn. Hate when that happens. How come you’re in the kitchen?”

“Thought I’d make brownies,” you shrug. You pick up the box of cocoa powder and the bag of flour, showing them to JJ. “You guys have all the ingredients.”

“God, brownies sound so good right now,” JJ moans, tossing his head back.

Laughing, you go back to measuring out flour with a cup. JJ goes to the fridge. The white light shines bright on his face. There’s the indent of the pillow on his cheek. His eyes are squinting against the light, a little bleary from sleep.

“Come to think, the last time I had brownies, they were these amazing edibles,” he says as he searches for something to take.

“Oh? Were they good?”

“So good,” he says. JJ grabs a carton of juice and hops onto the far counter to sit, taking swigs.

“I probably have enough stuff to bake a batch of edibles too, to be honest,” you offer after a moment’s thought. Looking to him, hands dusted with flour, you ask, “you got enough to spare?”

“Hell yeah!” JJ grins.

Ever since you and JJ bonded at the party, you feel as though there’s been a barrier removed. He isn’t as scary as you thought he would be. Easier to talk to than you imagined.

“I’ve always kinda wanted to try them,” you admit.

“Wait, have you ever smoked before?”

You chuckle down at the bowl, then sarcastically ask, “What do you think?”

“Really?” JJ gapes. “I thought you’d be all for it. It’d probably help you relax and stuff…”

He almost cuts himself off, as if trying to reel in his words. “I…I mean…”

You can’t help but glance to him, face serious as you deadpan, “what do you mean? I’m like the most laid-back person ever.”

JJ’s crystal-clear panic that he’s genuinely offended you has you breaking your façade with a quiet laugh.

“I’m joking. I’m probably the most high-strung person ever. Feel like weed was kinda made for me.”

JJ laughs too, giving a small sigh of relief.

“I’m kinda curious to see what you’re like high,” he tells you.

“Me too. Hopefully it doesn’t have me bouncing off the walls,” you say.

“Nah. That’s coke that’ll do that to you. Hard to imagine you on coke.”

“You tried it?” You wonder, non-judgemental as you ask.

JJ shrugs. He has another swig of juice. The muscle tee he’s wearing hangs lose on his built frame.

“Once or twice. My dad’s sorta a junkie though. Put me off, you know?”

“Shit. I’m sorry,” you softly reply.

JJ hadn’t mentioned his family a lot, but neither had you and neither does anybody. You’d heard the passing news of JJ’s dad being involved in some sort of pharmacy robbery in the county for Oxytocin, but never dug about. It wasn’t any of your business, and the malicious world of medicine and addiction wasn’t some black and white picture like the Kooks at school liked to paint it out to be.

Shrugging it off, clearly not in the mood to get into it, JJ asks, “was that fishing stuff you got for your dad useful?”

“Yeah,” you say. You’ve started on the wet ingredients now: cracking eggs into a measuring jug. “His exact words were, ‘I never knew you had such a gift for fishing’. I think I’m gonna become his fish-fetching-bitch now.”

JJ barks out a laugh. “You know, I never expected you to be funny.”

You roll your eyes as you begin to fold the wet ingredients into the dry. “I’m not.”

“You are. You’re also cute when you bake.”

“Can you not compliment me?” you nervously chuckle. “It makes me uncomfortable. Not cause of you, it’s just…I’m not good with the complimenting thing.”

“Too late. It’s my life’s mission to get you to actually accept a compliment without going all-”

You catch him do an overemphasised impression of you becoming flustered. You scrunch your nose in light-hearted disapproval. He grins at you as he snaps out of the character.

“-You know?”

“Well, I hope you’ve got a long life,” is all you say. “Wanna grab the goods?”

JJ hops off the counter with newfound fever, making you laugh. When he returns, he stands beside you, juice carton ditched to the side. He smells like soap and weed and smoke from the bonfire. You go to grab the plastic bag from him but he pulls it out of reach, looking down at you in disapproval.

“What?”

“This is Kildare’s finest bud,” JJ scorns. He gently places it in your hand. Cupping your fingers around it, he envelopes your hand with his. His touch is warm. “You gotta treat it with care. It’s the meaning of life itself.”

“I thought the meaning of life was enlightenment,” you mumble, distracted. You’re pretty sure your heart might beat out of your chest.

“Meh. Depends who you ask.”

He takes his hand off yours and let’s you open the bag. The smell of marijuana hits, full force. Before you go to mix it in, you need to check the brownie base is up to scratch. You’ve been perfecting your recipe for years. Dipping in a finger, you suck it clean, debating the flavour. Unsure, you grab for the spatula and scoop some batter up, holding it out to JJ without thinking. You’re a little surprised to catch him staring at you.

“Wanna try?”

For once, JJ doesn’t say anything. Just takes the spatula and has a lick. His eyes widen. “Oh my god. That’s so good.”

“It’s alright.”

“It’s amazing.”

“I’ve made better,” you find yourself saying, and maybe he has a point about the whole compliments’ thing…

You tip in some of the bud as JJ finishes licking the spatula clean.

“You’re like a triple thread, aren’t you?” JJ says.

As you mix, moving to prop the bowl against your waist, cradled in your arm, you frown.

“A triple thread?”

Listing with the spatula, he says, “She can bake, she can sing—”

“—she’s socially inept,” you sarcastically finish.

“You’re not socially inept,” JJ says. When he dips the spatula back in for a second taste, you don’t bother fighting back. “Just a little quiet, is all.”

“No, no, I’m like a lost cause,” you chuckle. “I’m fine with it, for the most part. I just don’t like not knowing what people are gonna ask me. I get all nervous, thinking I’m gonna make a fool of myself or something. It all just snowballs until it’s easier to just…not try.”

JJ nods, listening, licking the plastic utensil clean.

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s good that you’re a quiet person. Helps balance out the world,” he offers.

“How’d you mean?”

“Like, I’m one end of the spectrum, yeah?” He gestures wildly to one side of the kitchen. “And then you’re the other.”

His theatrics create an imaginary continuum. He lists his friends, labelling them on this make-believe spectrum, doing it in such a way that has you laughing at his antics.

“Think people sometimes forget being quiet isn’t the same as being boring,” JJ thinks aloud.

You smile. It’s a nice way to summarise it. You’re not a rock: you enjoy spending time with friends and you have hobbies and interests. When you feel in control of the situation, you can even tolerate crowds. But when you don’t speak a lot, loiter around at parties or keggers, and get nervous to read in front of a class, people make an assumption that you’re dull. There’s not much coming out of your mouth so there can’t be much going on in your head. It’s almost a relief to hear from JJ, of all people, that not everybody thinks that way. Makes your heart do funny things, as if he didn’t already have enough power over your emotions.

JJ leans in to take one more scoop from the bowl. As he does, his shirt slips forward enough for you to catch a glimpse of a hickey on his collarbone. Fresh purple, not yet bruising. It hurts more than you expect it to. A clear-cut reminder of who he is, and who you’re not, and who you never will be. That JJ sees you nothing more than a friend – Kie’s friend – and that he’d never look your way because…Well, because why would he?

You distract yourself by looking back down into the bowl, continuing to mix.

The two of you finish preparing the brownies and set them to cook in the oven. As you wait, you sit on the opposite counter to him, falling into a conversation about surfing and snacks. He’s fighting for justice for peanut-butter jelly sandwiches whilst you’re battling for the recognition of Nutella sandwiches. It’s easy and comfortable, and as the sun slips into view through the window – its rays chasing up the floorboards – the brownies cook and cool, and you do your best to enjoy the moment and not think about the hickey on his chest.

~*~*~*~*~*

Now that summer had begun and school had ended, it felt the days stretched on for miles. Light mornings and lighter nights. Good weather near daily. The odd hurricane warning and occasional storm to give the water a drink, and then back to beauty. You decided not to waste a minute of it. Most days were spent with you band, writing songs and practising for gigs. Pansy was constantly on the search for new shows and venues that would let you play. Kiara’s parents were already talking about letting you guys do another gig at The Wreck. Benny had taken it on to try and teach you how to play the drums, even though it was halfway hopeless. It meant that you’d been hanging out at his house a lot more. You didn’t mind; liked his company.

Kiara had you hanging out with the Pogues near daily too. You’d become a regular at the chateau, with Pansy sometimes tagging along, and had felt more and more comfortable around all the guys. Especially JJ. Whatever awkwardness that used to linger between the two of you had mostly vanished. He didn’t seem to hold back anymore; being his usual, effervescent self. ‘Young, dumb and broke’, Kie dubbed him.

“Hey, are you listening?” Benny asks you from behind the drum kit.

You look up from your phone, having read a text from Kie. We’ll be at Benny’s in five minutes.

“Just replying to Kie,” you tell him. “I’m going surfing with the Pogues.”

“Surfing? Since when did you like surfing?”

“Since this summer,” you shrug, pocketing your phone. You get up from your spot on the floor and walk around the drum kit, standing by his side.

Benny practised in his garage. His dad had soundproofed the place. Today was a hot one, leaving you no choice but to open the front shutter. The picture-book street he lived on was mostly empty, asides from the odd couples walking their dog or a kid flashing by on their bicycle.

You glance down at him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Play it again?”

He smiles up at you and begins to play a beat, lips flattening in concentration. You smile as you watch him play. Some people are born musicians. They have a gift to find rhythm, can escape within it. Benny was one of those people. For someone so quiet, you found it funny how he settled on choosing the loudest instrument.

You nod your head to the beat. Shouting over the kick-drum, you say, “it sounds good! Think Pansy’ll find a good riff for it?”

“I’m more excited to hear your lyrics,” he loudly returns.

Coming up with lyrics hadn’t been any problem as of late. Your inspiration had never been more fruitful, for good and for bad, all thanks to a certain blonde haired boy.

He finished the repetitive rhythm, ending with the hi-hat. As he looks up at you, shaking his ginger hair off his damp forehead, he smiles.

“Your hair looks pretty today,” he tells you.

You take your hand from off his shoulder to touch at it, as if on reflex. “It does?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Thanks,” you say, smiling. “You don’t look to bad yourself, for it being like one-hundred degrees outside.”

Benny’s cheeks shine pink. He looks down at the drum kit in thought. “You wanna give it a try?”

“The drums?”

“Mhm.”

“I thought we’d learnt by now that me and drums don’t mix,” you laugh, shaking your head.

Benny won’t seem to take no for an answer, shoving the sticks into your hands. “Just, give it a try. You’re good at everything.”

“Not true,” you sing-song, but oblige in taking his seat.

Joking around, you tap a beat above your head on the sticks, counting yourself in like a rockstar. Then, you’re stumbling through a simple beat, laughing at your frequent mistakes. Benny’s smiling at you – you can see it in your peripheral – and nodding along as if you’re playing like a pro.

“Yo! Didn’t know Travis Barker lives here?”

At the sound of JJ’s shout, you stop and look up, laughing.

“Yeah. The Kardashian’s are just across the street,” you joke along. Benny comes to stand behind you as the rest of the Pogues walk into the garage.

“I’d believe it. Anything’s possible in Kook land,” John B shrugs.

Pope’s sauntering behind. “You ready to go surfing?”

“Yeah. Just need to grab my bag from the kitchen,” you say.

There’s the sudden feel of Benny’s hands on your shoulders, squeezing gently. He brushes some of your hair off one of them as he replies. “I’ll go grab it for you.”

Blinking away the surprise, you turn to catch a glimpse of the boy’s back as he darts into the house. That was weird.

Kiara starts talking about the waves they’ve already spotted. You move to stand, looking back to the Pogues to see that JJ’s staring at the door that Benny just went through. His hands are in his short pockets, jaw locked tight, as if he’s annoyed. That makes two weird things.

Walking over to your friends, laughing under breath at a joke John B makes, you nudge your shoulder against JJ’s bicep, hoping to lighten his mood. He looks down at you and smiles, tension somewhat fading. Benny returns with your bag, handing it to you, and you give him a wave farewell. Then, yourself and the Pogues are heading out the garage and into the banged-up Twinkie.

By the time you get to the beach, it’s late afternoon. Sunset is beginning to creep, teasing at the earth by patterning the sky with pink and orange. That doesn’t put the five of you off surfing. Instead, it’s like it spurs you on. Paddling out deeper into the waves, you hear Kiara give a small ‘whoop’ as you all turn to watch John B ride on the water. The rest of you are quick to join. You know how to surf; learnt when you were a kid. Having never had many friends, you didn’t surf all that often. But after meeting Kie – an avid surfer – and now hanging out with the Pogues, you found yourself out on the water more and more.

After an hour or so of surfing, the sky nearing dusk, you and JJ take a moment. JJ sits on his board, floating near you. You look down at your legs, kicking back and forth leisurely in the water.

“You have fun at Benny’s?” JJ asks.

You glance over to him. He’s watching the Pogues surf.

“I guess,” you shrug. “We’re working on some new stuff.”

JJ nods. His wet hair makes the highlights of blonde darker, curling slightly at the ends from the sea salt. It hangs shaggy over his face. Bare back, muscles taught, freckle-kissed from being out all day.

“Why are you acting all weird?” you can’t help but ask.

He looks to you. “I’m not acting weird.”

“Yes, you kinda are.”

“I’m not.”

“JJ, things haven’t been weird with us since the party. I don’t want them to go back to how they were before.”

“It’s not weird!”

“Look, if I did something—”

“You didn’t do anything, alright? It’s all good,” JJ insists. He nods at you, affirmingly, but you can’t shake the feeling that he’s lying.

You sigh and lay on your back on the board. Closing your eyes, you bask in the remnants of sunlight. If he doesn’t want to talk, you won’t force it. You know more than anyone how awful it feels to have words forced out of you.

The moment of bliss is interrupted by the feeling of cold, seawater splashing over you. You gasp, sitting up in shock. JJ’s laughing his ass off, hands on his chest. You glare through a smile and shake your head.

“Oh, you’re in for it, Maybank.”

His laughter doesn’t cease. He’s looking to you again, quirking a brow. “Oh, am I?”

“Uh huh,” you grin. You kick a splash at him, barely making enough to cover his legs.

“That was pitiful.”

“Shut up,” you chide.

“You Kooks can’t do anything right.”

With that, you’re jumping off your board and swimming over to his. He doesn’t have time to paddle away. You come to a stop by the side of his board and splash at him from up close, getting him perfectly in the face. He winces, laughing, spluttering out some water that seeps into his mouth.

“That’s cheating!”

You roll your eyes and grin, hoisting yourself onto his board. He starts to protest through his laughs, moving to wrestle you off, and in the process, you end up pulling him into the water with you. The two of you emerge, laughing, drenched like drowned rats. You brush your hair out of your face and wipe the water out of your eyes. When you open them, blinking past the sting of the salt, JJ’s watching you. There’s a strange look on his face, one that you think you might’ve seen before. The longer you look at him, the shadow of a smile resting comfortably on your sun-kissed cheeks, the easier you find to place it. From the gig, during the last song, when he seemed almost absent in thought.

Before you can dwell much longer, JJ seems to snap himself out of his haze. He shakes his hair of the water and pulls himself back onto his board.

“We should probably start heading back to shore,” he says.

That was weird.

You frown but don’t argue. Returning to your board, you listen as JJ hollers that the two of you are heading back to land, and then you both start to paddle. The gang soon follows. Wading out the water, carrying your board, the five of you head to where you’d dumped your stuff. JJ makes quick work of building a fire. Pope and Kiara dip into the snacks and drinks you’d brought, passing them around. You dig about in one of the bags for some water, instead coming out with a Uke. The stickers on it hint at it being Kie’s. Hanging onto it, you look around and decide to take the empty spot on the sand next to JJ. The water from your wet hair dribbles down your back. In the embers, you feel yourself beginning to dry.

JJ hands you a cider, taking the cap off using the pocketknife you bought him. You have a sip.

“That was a pretty good surf,” Kie says, leaning back on her forearms.

Pope’s taken out his book, using his hoodie as a makeshift pillow to sit against as he reads.

“Just think tomorrow, we get to do it all again,” John B grins.

Kie clinks the neck of her bottle with his. “Here’s to that.”

Sand working as a makeshift bottle holder, you’ve taken to picking out random notes on the uke, absentmindedly tuning it.

“What you up to tomorrow?” JJ asks.

You look up at him. He’s put his cap back on; a green one, worn around the edges of the beak.

“Chilling out at home and practising, I think. Pansy managed to get us a gig at the June-Jam.”

“Wait, isn’t that kinda a big deal?” Kiara says. She must’ve been eavesdropping.

You shrug. “It’s only a fifteen-minute slot.”

“But the June-Jam Fair?”

“Yeah, folks from all over the county come out for that,” John B agrees, smiling.

“My dad’s setting up a shop there,” Pope tells you, looking up from his book. “If you guys need a snack, he’ll hook you up for free.”

“Thanks,” you smile, grateful.

“When is it?”

“Couple weeks’ time.”

“We’re coming,” Kiara declares. You chuckle, flustered and flattered at once.

“You don’t have to.”

“Well, we are, so…”

“You gonna play any of the new stuff you’ve been working on?” JJ wonders.

“Maybe,” you say. Fingers still chipping away at the strings, you shrug. “Got a few ideas that’re coming together.”

“Gonna play my favourite?”

“Of course,” you say. Rear view. He’d mentioned several times since hanging out with you how much he liked that song.

JJ sighs and moves to rest his head on your thighs. You don’t complain. Feel your heart stammer at having him so near, so comfortable in your presence. He takes his pocketknife out and begins to mess with it. The campfire light reflects off the blade as it zips in and out of sight.

John B and Kie have fallen into a conversation of their own and Pope is lost to the world of fiction.

“Why’d you like that song so much? I’ve written better ones,” you ask JJ.

He shrugs. Tips his cap over his face, as if taking a nap. “Just makes me think of things. I like the lyrics.”

“What kinda things?”

“Family things, maybe? Maybe not,” JJ vaguely replies. You hum, nodding.

You stare at the crackling fire. Small sheds of burnt up wood spit off into the air, fading away like dust, hiding into the smoke. There’s the cosy smell it churns up, tinted with the sea water that’s coated your skin. The rustle of movement has you looking back down to JJ, watching him retrieve a blunt and his lighter. He sighs. Balancing the joint between his lips, he flicks the lighter to life. On the metal of it is his carved initials. JJ. As you watch him take a drag, overcome with the smell of weed, you wonder how your life lined up in a way to end up here. Fifth grade you would have a fit if she knew you were hanging out with JJ Maybank. Hell, current you isn’t far off doing the same.

He's so effortlessly pretty. Maybe it’s because he has an aura about him that he doesn’t care what people think. Self-assured and light – all that you envy. There’s the faded colouring of a bruise on the apple of his cheek from a scruff he got into at a kegger the other night. The thought of the kegger that you didn’t attend makes your head stammer.

It seems whenever you let yourself fade into the fantasies of wondering what it might be like to have JJ as more than a friend (if he were to ever lean that way towards you), reality always finds a way to sink in. The reality that JJ is the loudest example of an extrovert, and you the spitting image of an introvert. He can pull chicks any time he wants, practically just has to look at them to have them swoon. Lies as if it’s second nature and strikes up conversations with strangers as though they’re lifelong friends. Crowds don’t make him uneasy and he can glide through a house party without needing to hide in the bathroom during a meltdown. He’s funny and charming and likeable.

But you? You spend your evenings sat in your room or on the porch, song writing, living in the safety of a daydream. Baking into the early hours of the morning and socialising with a select few individuals who had the patience to get to know you. Quiet and simple and boring. What the hell would JJ want with that?

Sighing, you hear yourself strumming out a melody. It seems to have naturally emerged from trial and error of messing with notes. You look down to watch your fingers work. There’s a melancholic undertone to the tune you’ve found, different to the one Pansy had shown you on the guitar, when the song had started to form.

Kiara and John B’s conversation momentarily dwindles at the sound of your playing. You try not to be discouraged, knowing they don’t mind the disturbance. JJ takes another hit of the bud, blowing it out and up into the air. After the chorus, you let the music fade away; the song’s only half-finished.

“That new?”

“Mhm,” you say, nodding. You’re looking at the stickers: Animal Rights in a pink, cartoon love heart…

“You’ve got the prettiest voice,” JJ quietly tells you. So quiet, you’re not entirely sure he did say it, or if you’ve contorted the murmurs of John B and Kie’s conversation, and the crackles of the fire, and the slosh of the waves, into something of a fantasy.

But, when you look down to him, he’s got this vacant smile on his face. “I’m real glad Kie introduced us.”

“Me too,” you smile.

Under his gaze, you feel how you imagine flowers do when the sun allows them to bloom. It’s a blissful rarity, to be affected by someone in such a way. Overwhelming, even. You force yourself to look away, towards the fire.

It hurts too much to stare at something you can’t have.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

The June-Jam Fair comes around faster than you expect. It’s like being caught off guard like a lorry switching lanes without indicating. You only feel half prepared when you and the band are loading up Benny’s dad’s van.

“Who packed the back-up wires?” Pansy worries.

“I did,” Mike grunts, lifting one of the amps into the hold.

“Microphone stand?”

“Got it,” you say, sliding in a box of electronics.

“Okay, then, I think that’s everything,” she mumbles.

She’s spent the last ten minutes running through a mental list of every piece of musical equipment to ever exist. You wouldn’t be surprised if on the way to the fair, she starts listing off all the ways the show could go wrong (though that does seem more Benny’s style): guitar string breaking; microphone stops working; nuclear strike…

It’s hard to believe that the gig at The Wreck was three months ago, now. You’d spent the majority of the previous months hanging out with the Pogues, finding it hard to fathom how you killed the hours before knowing them.

As the four of you load into the van, with you and Benny in the front, Mike takes control of the aux. As him and Pansy sing along, venting out their pre-show nerves, you strike up conversation with the ginger haired boy. He’s been quiet – quieter than usual – with his fingers tapping on the steering wheel, a drummer’s habit.

“I feel like I haven’t spoken to you in ages,” you half-laugh, somewhat awkward. “Summer’s going so fast.”

“Well, you dip at the end of nearly every band practise to hang out with your new friends, so,” Benny grumbles.

He seems mad about it, more than you expected him to be.

“I don’t ‘dip’, I just head-out,” you say.

“Yeah. All the time,” Benny mumbles.

Frowning, you say sincerely, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise it was bothering you guys so much. I just like hanging out with the Pogues. They’re fun.”

Benny sighs, shaking his head. “No, it’s cool. It’s just…I just missing having you around, is all.”

“But, I am around. I still come to band practise. Hell, we all got breakfast the other day.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he says, shaking his head once more. “It doesn’t matter.”

“If it’s messing with our friendship then it does matter, Benny,” you say.

You see him debate whether to expand or not. In the end, he does. As he speaks, he looks at you.

“I miss me and you hanging out, is what I mean.”

Your lips part. Oh. “Well, we can still do that.”

“We can?”

“Yeah, of course,” you smile. “How about tomorrow we go for food or something?”

“Yeah?”

“Sure.”

“Why not tonight?” he wonders, looking back to the road.

“I’m hanging out with the Pogues tonight,” you say, apologetically. “JJ and Kie and everyone.”

“JJ,” Benny repeats. He says it under breath, in a scoff, like he didn’t mean to let it slip.

You frown. “What? Don’t you like him?”

“No, yeah, he’s…He’s a character,” Benny settles on, giving you the briefest of looks as he replies. “I just don’t see why he’d wanna hang around with you so much.”

You try and ignore the sting of his words, digging into your chest like the horn of a thistle. “What’d you mean?”

“You two barely have anything in common. I just find it kinda weird how you get along so well,” Benny explains. His voice is always gentle, soft and non-demanding, but somehow it doesn’t lessen the blow. “You talk about him all the time. All the dumb shit you get up to. Not to mention how much weed you’ve been smoking with him. Just find it weird how you’re suddenly the type of person who gets along with JJ Maybank.”

“Well, I just…am,” you say, shrugging. Off put from the conversation, you look out the passenger window.

“I know you like him.”

Crap. Your stomach flips. “No, I don’t.”

“Of course you do,” Benny says, laughing. “Who doesn’t? He’s an attractive guy, I’m not stupid. He’s an adrenaline junky and a bad-boy, and everybody loves a bad-boy, don’t they?”

“He’s not a ‘bad-boy’, Benny. Sides, who actually says that, outside of the movies?” you add, hoping to recover the exchange into something light.

“He’s trouble, is what he is,” Benny tells you. His voice is firm and definitive. The way he says it makes you think back to the fishing shop, and how the cashier was watching JJ like a hawk.

“He’s not trouble,” you reply, trying not to keep your tone softer. “He’s nice.”

“Nice,” Benny scoffs. Licking his teeth, he nods, staring ahead at the road. “Sure. Whatever you need to tell yourself.”

The foul taste from the conversation with Benny doesn’t ease up for the rest of the journey. It lingers in your throat as you set-up on stage and comes back, full force, when the Pogues come over to greet you. Wish you luck for the show. The rough feeling of JJ’s knuckles, and the cold press of his rings, when you fist bump him. How he knows that you don’t like to hug before shows, with your anxiety sky-high. As you sing through the songs, talk to the crowd, work through the nerves that never fully fade, you find yourself looking to JJ more and more. Whenever you do, there’s Benny’s voice in the back of your head, almost judgemental as he repeats the mantra: ‘I just don’t see why he’d wanna hang around with you so much.’

Was he right? Does JJ just like seeing how he can make you nervous? Enjoys watching you squirm and fumble through social interactions, wade through his compliments as gracefully as a paralysed ballet dancer?

No, he’s not mean. He’s kind and he’s soft with you, but not in a way that makes you feel like you’re made of glass. He knows how to joke with you, how to get a laugh from you. Knows how far to push and when to pull back. JJ knows you. He’s your friend. He wants to be your friend. Doesn’t he?

Or did Kie talk to him, after all? He’d said how she’d told him you were quiet before the gig at The Wreck, as if warning him off. After the party, how do you know that she didn’t hunt him down before he bumped into you in the bathroom? That she told him about your pathetic school-girl crush, and it bolstered his ego, and he found himself trapped in this awkward thing of having to be friends with the weird, quiet girl who has an unattainable crush on him…

As your overthinking goes to hell quicker than a penny falling from the Empire State Building, you manage to keep up with the songs and belt out the lyrics. You can’t bring yourself to look at JJ when you conclude on Rear View. Have to close your eyes. The lyrics sting a bit too much. More than they usually do.

The Pogues are waiting at the end of the show.

“That was dope, you guys! Everyone loved it!” Kiara buzzes, high-fiving Pansy.

“Might be our best show yet,” Mike agrees, nodding. He’s packing away his bass.

“We’re gonna head off in about ten minutes or so,” Kie says.

“Pope’s meeting us at the Chateau later. His dad roped him into helping out,” John B tells you.

“You guys are coming right?” Kie asks the four of you.

Mike looks up from his spot near the amp, unplugging wires. “I’m gonna pass. Got a date.”

“You’ve got a date?” Pansy gapes.

“Yeah?”

“With who?”

“This chick I met at your birthday party,” he shrugs. You have a vague memory of seeing him talking to a girl, before you went up to him that night.

“Why are you so secretive, Mike? What other second-lives are you leading?” Pansy teases.

Mike rolls his eyes, giving a covert smiling. “They die with me. I’ll see y’all later.”

As he waves farewell and walks away, Pansy shakes her head, almost impressed. “God bless that weird, strange man.”

“So that leaves three?” John B checks, pointing to you three.

You still haven’t looked at JJ. Pansy answers on your behalf. “Well, us two definitely are. Benny?”

“I’ll pass. I’ve got a curfew,” Benny says.

“Most Kook thing I’ve ever heard,” JJ sniggers.

“Yeah? Well, I’m sure it’s nice having parents who don’t give a shit,” Benny replies sharply.

You frown. Looking to Benny, your eyes are narrowed in confusion.

JJ frowns too, only for different reasons. Staring him down, he stands a head higher.

“What’d you say, princess?”

“Look, man, I’m sorry your dad’s a criminal but I don’t see what that’s gotta do with me.”

JJ’s jaw goes rigid. His body tenses. Anger comes over him suddenly like a hurricane. He takes a step forward, gladly getting in Benny’s face. JJ’s taller, broader, stronger. Benny’s hours spent playing the drums don’t stand a chance in a round with him.

“You wanna say that again, Kook?”

“Guys, come on,” Kie says, trying to step between them.

“You like messing with her, huh? You having fun with it? Like having her gawking after you?” Benny bites back.

His eyes flit to you as he talks. Your heart fractures.

JJ shoves him on the chest. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, man.”

“I know who you are, JJ. Everybody does. You don’t fool me, with this whole good-guy act you’ve got going on with her. You’re messing her up. Getting her to do drugs with you and shit? You’re gonna end up hurting her, like you hurt everybody else. Just what you Pogues do.”

“Benny, what the hell?” you whisper.

JJ isn’t as silent in his anger. He swings a punch, knocking Benny straight in the cheek, sending him backwards against the stage. Some stranger from the fair exclaims when they catch sight. John B immediately steps in between. JJ is reluctant to backdown, standing over Benny, urging him to fight back. When Benny goes to do retaliate, you come to your senses and step up. You grab for his wrist before he can throw his punch.

“Don’t be an idiot, Benny,” you snap.

His eyes flash to you. Something behind them seems to break. He hides it with anger. “You’re taking his side?”

“I’m not taking anybody’s side,” you say, annoyed. “This is pathetic. Both of you.”

As you talk, you let your eyes glance to JJ. He’s breathing heavy, still pissed, but takes a step back at your disapproval.

“We’re at a Goddamn family fair. Both of you need to get your shit together,” you tell them sharply.

You let go of Benny’s wrist and walk off, heart beating out your chest. You hate confrontation. Hate when people fight.

Kiara and Pansy come after you, both of them bitching about how useless boys are. You fold your arms across your chest and blink back tears. No matter what emotion you experience, it always seems to resolve with waterworks. It’s then, as you think back to the altercation, that you hardly recognise the memory of Benny in that moment. It’s so disappointing when you see who people for who they truly are, beneath all the personas, only for them to end up being fickle and fake.

Your feet carry you to the back-ends of the fair, lit up by the remnants of daylight. It’s nothing but storage containers, vans and trucks, the odd horse and animal box from the farm-show. You take perch on the step of one of the empty caravans. Pansy and Kiara sit beside you, the former coiling her arms around you in a hug. You place your head in your hands and let out a few tears. There’s no point fighting them off.

“JJ is so stupid sometimes,” Kie mutters.

“No kidding. And Benny? Pushing at him like that?”

“Asking for a fight.”

“Guys are so dumb,” Pansy concludes with a sigh, shaking her head.

You sit up and wipe your cheeks.

“Where’s your head at, hun?” she asks you, softly.

Shaking your head, you scoff. “I have no idea. I don’t understand why Benny would say things like that. Why he’d lash out at JJ like that, about me.”

“Well, it’s cause he likes you,” Pansy says plainly.

You shoot her a look of pure bewilderment. “What?”

“Girl, it’s so obvious,” she chuckles, sympathy in her gaze. “The guy practically follows after you like a love-sick puppy.”

“She’s right, you know? Even I can see it,” Kie confirms.

You look between the two of them. Benny? Seriously?

You’ve spent so much of your life alone, out of the minds of boys and girls, void of compliments, that you find it hard to believe anybody might have a thing for you. Least of all, Benny. Sweet, quiet, unassuming Benny. Well, until tonight, that is.

But come to think…The last few months, he’s been weird. The random compliments he’s been dropping, when he never used to before. That time in the garage, when he messed with your hair and put his hands on your shoulders. The car ride today, disapproving of JJ.

“I know you like him.”

The penny drops.

“He’s…jealous?” you whisper.

“No duh, dumbass,” Kiara mutters.

“But- Wait, of what?”

Your life feels as though it has suddenly become a teenage rom-com after being nothing but years of a podcast of white-noise a person could fall asleep.

“Of JJ,” Kie answers, as if it’s obvious.

“Why in the hell would he be jealous of JJ?”

A look gets shared between Pansy and Kiara.

“Because JJ has a thing for you too…”

“JJ does not have a thing for me,” you snort. “He doesn’t have a thing for me, alright? You guys are way off.”

“Hun—”

“No, he doesn’t, alright?” you can’t help but snap at Kie. The emotions of the last few months are bubbling inside of you. More tears well up. “Why would he? I’m awkward, and I’m useless, and I’m desperate, and I’ve been in love with him since I was a kid and have never done anything about it! I’m pathetic! And he’s…Well, he’s him. He’s funny and charming and fucking gorgeous and…And I’m just me.”

Pansy and Kiara are staring at you with eyes full of pity. They don’t speak, but Kiara grabs at your hand and squeezes it tight.

"Don’t ever talk about yourself like that,” she tells you in a voice that’s firm but sweet, like cookie dough.

“I’ll slap you if you say anything like that again,” Pansy not-so-delicately doubles.

You laugh through your tears at that. Wiping your face, sighing, you look down at the ground.

“I…I think you should really talk to JJ,” Kiara offers. “You can say whatever you want, but I see how he is around you. He’s never like that, with anyone. You bring out a different side of him, and I mean that in the best way.”

“She’s right,” Pansy nods, nudging your shoulder. “I was looking at him through the set, and he had his eyes glued on you.”

“I’m the singer,” you sigh in disagreement.

“Yeah, but I’m the most talented one up there,” Pansy replies, as if it’s obvious. You laugh at her antics. “Everyone should be looking at me.”

Looking to your two friends, you can’t help but feel a swell of gratefulness for having them stick by you. Nodding, you sniff away the last few tears.

“I wanna talk to JJ,” you tell them.

“Perfect,” Kiara says. “He’ll probably be at the chateau. I’ll give you a lift.”

Doing as she says she will, Kie drops you off at the Chateau on her drive home. As you climb out the car, Pansy sticks her head out the back window.

“You sure you wanna go on your own?” she double-checks.

You smile at her. She’s a good friend.

“Yeah, I’m good,” you nod.

She smiles back. “Alright. Now, remember: you’re hot, you’re talented, and you’re a catch-twenty-two.”

“Got it,” you say with a laugh, rolling your eyes.

“Good,” Pansy nods. Mission accomplished. “Go get ‘em.”

You wave farewell to Kie as she pulls back out the driveway and onto the road. The moment the car’s gone, you’re abandoned in darkness. A few birds are giving their final caws of the day, settling down for the night. Crickets and night critters merge with the distant lapping of the water of the marsh. Sighing, you wrap your jumper tighter around yourself in a hug and walk towards the back garden. You’re hoping JJ’s here. Kiara said he should be.

As you round the side of the house, you make out the hammock. It’s swaying lightly. There’s a foot extended out of it, heel of a boot dug into the ground, causing it to rock. The faint puff of smoke that blows up makes you certain it’s him.

“JJ?”

The rocking stops.

You walk a bit closer until you’re in his line of sight. He’s looking down at his hands, one of which is messing with his pocketknife as the other cradles a joint.

“Hey,” you quietly say.

“Hey,” he mumbles. His cap is tilted down, concealing his face slightly.

“How’s your hand?” you ask.

He glances to it. Nods. “It’s fine.”

Nodding, you shift your weight from one foot to the other. “Can I join you?”

He stops fiddling with the knife. There’s an awkward pause before he nods, shifting so you can climb onto the hammock. You take a spot by his feet. He uses his foot as an anchor to steady the sway.

“Did you like the set?”

“Mhm.”

“I played one of the new ones,” you say. He nods, feigning disinterest.

“It was nice,” he says. “Benny help you write it?”

You sigh. “Seriously, JJ?”

He looks up at that. Eyes dazzling in the moonlight. “What?”

“Did you have to hit him?”

“The guy was asking for it, alright? You heard what he said to me, didn’t you?” JJ defends, sitting up.

“Of course, I did. But you can’t just hit anybody who pisses you off.”

“You don’t get it, alright?”

“Sure I don’t,” you reply, sarcastic.

“No, you don’t,” he repeats, firmer. He pushes his cap back as he goes on, blunt momentarily abandoned. “You live in your little Kook world, ignorantly bliss to the shitshow that goes on around you.”

His words set off something inside of you.

“I’m not some stuck-up snob, JJ. Don’t treat me like I am. That’s not fair. Being a Kook and a Pogue has nothing to do with you picking a fight with Benny at the fair.”

JJ laughs, tossing his head back. He wipes a hand down his face. “Oh, you’re so stupid sometimes, you know that? It has everything to do with it!”

“How!? How does that make any sense?” you gape, sitting upright. You wave your arms around. “In what Pogue-Kook universe do you have to pick a fight with Benny? We’re just friends!”

“For someone so quiet, you sure don’t pay attention,” JJ insults, staring you in the eyes.

Your resolve slackens. “Don’t be mean, JJ.”

“According to your little boyfriend, that’s all I can be,” he mutters, looking back down to his pocketknife.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you sigh, exhausted. You rub at your forehead. “I don’t know where all that stuff came from, okay? He’s never acted like that before. I’m so embarrassed, and I’m so sorry he said all that to you, and he was way out of line. I don’t know why he did it.”

“I do! Everyone does! It’s obvious! The guy’s in love with you. He thought he was defending your honour or some shit,” JJ spits.

“He’s not in love with me,” you deny. Maybe he might have a crush on you, but in love? Come on now.

“Seriously? You seriously don’t see it?” JJ says, voice rising again.

You shrug, making a face as if to say ‘no, I really don’t’.

It seems to make him angry again.

“He follows you around all the time! He’s always watching you, alright? Always. He’s looking at you all the time. Complimenting you. Making little jokes, hoping that you’ll laugh. Finding any excuse to spend time with you. Like with that teaching-you-the-drums bullshit? What the hell was that? And don’t get me started on that little display he did in the garage that day! With the hands on the shoulders and stuff and grabbing your bag for you like a little pussy-whipped simp. Helping you out without you even asking for him too--”

“That’s your definition of love?” you practically shout, cutting him off with a scoff. “You do all of that!”

“Exactly!” JJ yells.

Silence.

JJ’s breathing heavy. You see the moment the words catch up. See his face drop into panic, then glaze over as if uninterested. Your mind’s racing, scrambling for purchase and muddling through interpretations…

But…there’s only one though. Right?

JJ looks out to the water. He takes a hit from his joint, almost desperate.

“JJ,” you whisper.

He shakes his head. Looks down at his joint as if it’s something to inspect. As if it’s the most interesting thing in the world. “Doesn’t matter, alright?”

“Yes, it does.”

“No-” his clipped tone is cut off with a sigh. You see him close his eyes. Collects himself. There’s a lingering quiet. A mosquito nips at your ankle but you can’t bring yourself to waft it away.

“You don’t know the effect you have on people, do you?” He asks you quietly. He opens his eyes to look out to the water. You’re not sure if you’re meant to answer. Before you can, he’s talking once more.

“Benny’s got almost everything in common with you, okay? He’s rich, he’s got a nice house, nice family. Goes to a good school. I bet he gets good grades, too. Talented. And he’s not the worst looking asshole, alright? So, yeah. It is a Kook-Pogue thing, alright?”

His eyes flit to you for a moment but he doesn’t let them linger. He looks back down to the pocketknife. His thumb dances over the wood of it.

“It was always gonna be a Kook-Pogue thing. The moment that I realised I liked you; I knew there was no chance. I mean, what the hell would you want with a guy like me?”

Oh.

There’s a strange, euphoric feeling that comes after JJ talks. You suddenly feel like you understand why you’ve always gotten along with JJ. It’s like you’ve been staring in a mirror this whole time. It’s then that that you realise that you’re not nervous anymore. That you haven’t been nervous in a while, whenever JJ’s around. That if you ever do feel anxious or unsure, finding his face, meeting his eyes, searching for his smile; it always brings you back. Suddenly, you don’t care about the differences; the small, insignificant things that really don’t matter, when you think about it, because as long as you’ve got JJ, you don’t care what happens.

He says Benny’s got more in common with you, but Benny doesn’t know about the panic attacks or how to ease you back from them. He doesn’t know how to make you laugh; not to the point where you feel your stomach might collapse and your ribs might break. His compliments don’t make you feel like there’s a shot of electricity running through you, quick and painless. With Benny, they’re just nice words, like when a cashier tells you to have a good day. Maybe he’s book smart and plays the drums well, but JJ could tell you anything you want to know about fishing: how, where, when. Mechanics and boats and handy-man tricks. Intelligence wasn’t one thing; it wasn’t just about being able to dissect a Shakespeare quote. And you could sit and listen to him talk all day. The cadence of his voice rising and falling like the tide of the water.

You’ve liked JJ since you were a kid. Since that stupid day on the marsh, when you were frog hunting, and you saw him on the rope swing. He was so funny. So bubbly and lively. Everything you wished you could be. And when he looked at you, through the bushes of the marsh, and smiled…that smile became every inspiration for every song you wrote. The thought in the back of your mind when you conjured up the lyrics. As he got older, he became more beautiful, twisting into the definition of an American heartthrob. Your lives stretched differently and you came to accept that liking him would be a pipedream. Something you could live in your fictional songs. But then came Kiara, and The Wreck, and everything else, and it all lined up so nicely. It was as if an invisible string was tied around your wrist the first day you saw him, guiding you to now.

Right now.

You shift onto your knees and move up the hammock until you’re face to face with JJ. Before either of you has time to think, you’re cupping his jaw and guiding his lips to yours. Under the unsteady purchase of the hammock, you move your free hand to his chest for balance. It’s hard and sturdy. Once the shock slips away, JJ’s kissing you back. One of his hands comes to your face, swiping across your cheek and pushing back some of your hair that’s fallen into your face. His other comes to sit on your waist. Squeezes your skin softly, as if checking that you’re real: joint and pocketknife abandoned. A feeling zips through your body, right down to your toes. It’s indescribable. It’s sweet and mercurial and…it’s JJ. It’s all JJ.

When you pull back, you’re smiling.

JJ’s eyes open slowly. A smile is blooming on his face too, cheeks pink, lips still parted, damp from your touch.

“Okay,” he whispers.

You giggle, biting your lower lip. “Okay?”

“Not what I was expecting,” he admits with a small laugh.

You can’t help but kiss him again, wanting to taste his laughs. He gladly pulls you closer, shifting you so you’re straddling his waist. The more you kiss, the more he eases into touching you, the more you relax into kissing him. Finding a rhythm and a pattern that has the two of you short of breath.

Breaking apart once more, JJ stares at you as if in a trance. The same look from The Wreck and from the ocean. You recognise what it is now.

He strokes a finger across your cheek and you lean into the touch of his palm. Makes him smile brighter.

“You gonna write a song about me now?” he quietly jokes. His eyes flick down to your lips.

You smile, laugh almost silently as you shake your head. Before leaning down to kiss him again, you confess your only remaining secret to him in a whisper.

“They’re already about you. Every single one of them.”

1K notes · View notes

silentscrying · 10 days ago

Text

🎸 out of my mind ! 💿 track one : the hell happened in shibuya?

guitarist!ino x drummer!reader

summary: it's the annual battle of the bands at the fix, your college campus's iconic live music bar, and this year you're taking the stage as the drummer for indie rock group cursed technique. you know the competition is strong, but no part of you is ready for lead singer and guitarist takuma ino. you lock eyes at the edge of the stage, and something starts—something that might make you feel alive even more than the beat of the drums.

warnings: language, alcohol, he was a skater boi, she did NOT say see you l8r boi, unhinged toge, absurd amount of worldbuilding for what this is, penguins of madagascar. || sfw. 10.1k words.

IT’S A PULSE. That’s the only way you can describe it, the rush of living energy that comes with drumming a live set on the stage of a shitty campus bar, the bass shooting through your blood in time with the adrenaline. Soles of your shoes to the tips of your fingers, the ache in your arms from 120 bpm, amp-deaf ears and stage-blind eyes. You’re alive, and you’re addicted to this feeling. You think you’ll chase it forever.

“Guess it could be a blessing in disguise,” Nobara sings, dropping to one knee at the edge of the stage and gripping the mic in one hand and the wire in the other. She leans out over the crowd, grinning as they match her energy. You switch to a steady buildup on the floor tom, adding snare halfway through your crescendo, and build to a sudden, jarring stop as Nobara belts, “But like hell I’m gonna wait for hindsight!”

You’re back in with a dramatic cymbal stinger, and Nobara whoops and jumps back to her feet, dancing across the stage toward Maki and throwing out her arms to emphasize the bass solo. “One last round for Maki Zenin, everybody!” she shouts.

The crowd obliges, hooting and hollering as Nobara launches back into the final chorus. The lights on the low stage flash, making Toge’s white-blond hair look purple where he stands at the keyboard.

“Give it up for Yuta Okkotsu on guitar!” Yuta does his little riff without looking at the audience—the attention always gets him a little shy. “Toge Inumaki on keys!” Nobara spins around to look at you, winking as the last long, held chord starts rising. “And on kit, you know her, you love her, your drummer, Skip!”

You smirk at the nickname as you hit triplets down the toms and pound the bass, rolling every cymbal in sight to create a barrage of sound as the rest of the band looks to Nobara for the final cue.

“Thank you!” Nobara shouts, throwing a hand up in the air. “I’m Nobara Kugisaki, we’re Cursed Technique, and that’s our set for Friday at The Fix.” She lets the crowd holler for just a moment longer, then throws her hand down.

With a final bass hit, the music comes to a stop. You toss your sticks into the bag hanging from the floor tom and stand, pushing back sweaty hair and waving. The crowd is all indistinguishable shadow with the stage lights in your eyes, but you love it anyway.

This is your favorite place on campus, favorite place in the city—tonight, maybe it’s your favorite place in the world. As you file off the stage, the next band moves out to set up.

Tonight is preliminary performances for the annual Battle of the Bands at The Fix, and Cursed Technique is entering for the first time. You don’t know all the bands (or solo artists, because apparently they’re eligible this year too), but this next one you’re very familiar with. Because—

Maki pauses in front of Mai, taking that stance she only ever takes with her twin sister, cocky and ready to provoke. “Don’t fuck up,” she says.

“Like you did? I heard that bridge. G minor my ass.”

“Aw, you pay attention,” Maki grins. They roll their eyes in tandem and knock shoulders as they pass each other. You genuinely can never tell how serious they’re being. Is it a twin thing, a sister thing? Do they actually hate each other?

Aoi Todo goes after Mai, saying something along the lines of “are you ready to fucking boogie, Zenin?” and Maki snorts as the two of you fall in behind Toge and Yuta, Nobara on your right.

You were the first performance of the night, and there’ll be three more after you and four performances next Friday to wrap up round one. The two lowest-ranked bands or artists will be eliminated. You’re praying that’s not you.

The audience has taken the intermission in stride, the bathroom line curling around the far wall and the bar line even longer. The wait’s not worth it, you figure. Then you turn around and realize Nobara’s disappeared.

“Where did she—”

“Bow down to your savior,” her voice says from your other side, and you spin to see her and Toge holding three drinks.

“You are literally the only two of us who can’t drink,” you say, accepting the drink from Toge and nodding to the stamps on the back of their hands, marking them as underage.

Toge grins. “Yeah, but we’re super trustworthy and shit.”

You blink at them and look back over to the bar. Gojo’s working, his white hair the brightest thing in the dark corner behind the counter. Ah.

“You and your nepo baby privileges,” Maki says, grabbing a drink from Nobara’s hands with a huff of laughter.

“I’m not the nepo baby. I’m just friends with the nepo baby.”

“Oh, hey, c’mon.” Yuta nudges you, turned toward the stage. “They’re starting.”

Sure enough, Kasumi Miwa and her shock of blue hair are standing center stage, electric guitar in hand. Maki rolls her eyes when Mai starts tuning behind her.

“How’re we feelin’ tonight, guys?” Kasumi asks, and the gathered students let out a rampant cheer as half the bathroom line abandons their quest and makes their way back to the crowd. “That’s what we like to hear! Alright.”

She looks back at each of her band members in turn, making sure they’re ready. Todo nods and punctuates his agreement with a double kick hit. “We’re Black Flash, and this one should sound a little familiar.”

Momo kicks off with a jazzy intro on the keyboard, Toge already nodding along beside you, and then they’re off in an upbeat, syncopated number you genuinely can’t help but dance to. Sounds like they won last year for a reason.

“Should I learn sax?” Toge shouts over the music, and you glance up to see that Momo has abandoned the keys for a gleaming golden alto. You shake your head at him, taking a drink of whatever it was he and Nobara brought you—it’s sweet, fruity with a kick of vodka.

“Please don’t!” you shout back. “You’ll just play Careless Whisper all the time!” Toge sticks his tongue out at you, which means you’re right. You cheer as the opening song comes to a close with Kasumi hanging onto a long, high note as Todo goes crazy behind her, and then they segue smoothly into a new chart, the bassist walking a steady line up and down before the drums join back in.

You can’t quite remember his name, but you’re pretty sure he’s Kasumi’s boyfriend. His eyes stay trained on her for the majority of their set, watching as she dances around the stage, does an impromptu riff-off with Mai, throws her blue hair around like a natural born rockstar.

“She’s so fucking cool,” you tell Maki, who nods, pointedly looking at everyone on the stage except Mai.

“Thank you!” Kasumi shouts when the band is finally wrapping up. “We’re Black Flash!” You throw back the rest of your drink and cheer with the rest of the hyped-up students.

You don’t feel great about your chances of beating that, but hey, you’re having a good time.

Panda, the senior from the campus radio station, walks out on stage and does some crowd work while the stage techs move things around. You’re pretty sure you knew his name at some point—you wonder idly if he’d even answer to it. You’ve never heard anyone refer to him by anything other than Panda.

“Alright, your penultimate performance of the night, folks,” he says, drawing another cheer from the rowdy front of the crowd. “Let’s give it up for last year’s runner-ups, Shibuya Incident!”

“Shibuya Incident?” you murmur, and Maki snorts. “The hell happened in Shibuya?”

“They’re like, basement emo or something? I don’t know. Nobara said they’re actually good.”

Right. As the band files onstage, you remember that you know about these guys, at least the two sophomores on stage. The kid on drums with the pink hair is Yuji, and the broody bass player is Megumi. They live down the street. Nobara’s over there sometimes. You’ve been meaning to meet her sophomore friends, but the start of school was so busy you haven’t gotten the chance.

“Isn’t he your cousin?” You nod to the bassist and Maki smirks.

“Yeah, he doesn’t tell me anything. I think Nobara might know him better than I do.”

The band launches into a song with no introduction, and you’re captivated.

You don’t recognize the girl, gripping a sleek black and red electric, her dark hair in a combination of knots and braids, studded belt and piercings catching the stage lights.

And you definitely don’t know the frontman.

He’s got a black beanie tugged crookedly over a mess of brown hair, and something about him is strangely mesmerizing. You’re pretty sure you’ve seen him around campus before, maybe even around The Fix—but you’ve never heard him sing.

You’d remember.

He closes his eyes, lips almost touching the microphone, fingers moving up and down the frets of his electric as he croons, “And my hopes climbed up, tried to tear ‘em down, but they went so fast and it’s too late now.”

And then he opens his eyes, lets the dark-haired girl handle the guitar as he pulls the mic off the stand, still singing. The lights outline his figure in red as he crosses to the front of the stage, the audience surging to meet him. And he looks right at you.

“Dark eyes, the charcoal aftertaste, your mind, you make me wanna waste my life, so promise it’s a lie, a lie, I try, I lie.”And then he circles back to the mic and jams it into the stand, fingers finding the frets of the electric once again. “I guess it’s too late now.”

You chose journalism because you’re a realist—you want the gritty underside of the story, not the fluff piece. Half the time your class readings are about crime and war and all the bad things going on in the world. Love at first sight doesn’t make the front page.

Point being, you’re not a romantic. But when this guy looks at you, you kind of want to be.

What are you thinking right now? You don’t even know him. He’s attractive, yes. He’s talented. You have no way to gauge whether he’s a good person, whether you’re even remotely compatible, whether he’s single, based on listening to a few songs.

But the energy in the room is intoxicating, somehow. The vocals cling to the back end of the beat, relaxed but in a way that demands you hang on. The bass reverb is cranked, creating a kind of wave over the whole of the bar, low and static.

In a high school psych class, you did a project on hypnotism, all the science of it, whether it was effective or even real. You’d tried to do it to yourself, and you’d had a classmate try too, to no avail. Now you think maybe the process of hypnosis isn’t all that complicated after all. It’s just… this.

When the song ends, something in you hollows out, like you need the music to be whole again. But then the lead singer grabs the mic and starts talking. And you think maybe, actually, his voice is just alluring whether he’s singing or not.

“Hey,” he says simply, hanging onto the mic with both hands, letting the guitar hang from its strap. “We’re Shibuya Incident. Hope you’re having a good time tonight.” His eyes scan the crowd, attentive, and you might be delusional, but you think they linger on you for just a second.

“This next one’s new,” he says, glancing back at Megumi with a smile. “It’s called Strike First. Kirara, kick us off.”

The girl on guitar—Kirara—obliges, busting out a descending riff so fast you can’t fathom how her fingers are moving. On the drums, Yuji puts four on the floor and then starts with a laid back hi-hat, and you lose yourself in the music again.

At some point, Yuta waves a hand in front of your face and you realize abruptly that he’s been trying to talk to you. “You good?” he says in your ear, and you nod, grinning. He gives you a strange look but takes you at your word.

After Shibuya Incident walks off stage, you pretty much lose interest. The last performer of the night goes by Angel, and you can’t deny she’s got some lungs on her, but you’ve heard her before. She has a pretty big online following, so her songs are old news to you, recognizable from Reels or TikTok.

“Is her name actually Angel?” Toge asks, and Nobara shakes her head with a dramatic eye-roll.

“Hana,” she says. “It’s a stage name.”

Toge wiggles his brows in a way that means okay, but she’s hot, and Nobara elbows him in the ribs.

When the night is over and the crowd has started to disperse, you find yourself scanning the area beside the stage. It doesn’t take you long to spot Shibuya Incident clustered together near a wall, mostly because of Yuji’s bright pink hair.

Nobara seems to have spotted them as well. She drags you over to the three boys, the girl already disappearing with the blond stage tech—Hakari, you’re pretty sure his name is.

“Oi,” she calls. “Fushiguro, the new song fucked. I’m mad about it.”

“Why—”

“Because we’re supposed to win,” Nobara says with a hand on her hip, and they devolve into arguing, Yuji fruitlessly trying to mediate. You’re left standing awkwardly to the side, and your gaze drifts to the remaining member of their band—the singer, the lead guitarist.

On stage, he’d seemed untouchable, confident and flirty and at ease. Now, he can’t seem to decide whether to stuff his hands in his pockets or wring them in front of him or tug self-consciously at the crooked beanie on his head.

It’s endearing, honestly.

You stick a hand out, suddenly self-conscious. “Hey,” you say. “Uh, I’m not sure we’ve met officially. I’m—well, they usually call me Skip, but—”

“Where are my manners?!” Nobara screeches, turning away from Megumi and Yuji and finally realizing the situation she’s put you in. “Oh my god! Skipper, this is Ino—Ino, Skip. Drummer, singer. Singer, drummer. Blah, blah, blah. You’re both juniors, right? Ino, are you a senior? I dunno anymore. Anyway!” She claps her hands together once, grinning. “Now we’re all friends. And opponents. Go on, converse with the enemy.” She flaps her hands at the both of you and turns back to the boys, apparently not done arguing with Megumi, though it sounds like it’s shifted from any band-related business to something he said about her shopping addiction last weekend.

You know Nobara’s hung out with the entirety of this band before, since she pretty much forcibly adopted Megumi and Yuji in their shared gen. ed. classes, but Ino is apparently nowhere near as used to her chaos as you are. He stares at her back for a second, trying to process the rambling she just threw at you, and then nods slowly.

“She’s—sorry,” you say sheepishly. “Ah. Yeah. She means well.”

“Right. Uh, you’re really—you’re really good,” he says with a nervous smile your way. “Talented, I mean. I haven’t seen someone drum like that in…”

“Hey!” Yuji squawks, and Megumi grabs him by the elbow and pulls him away, Nobara on his other side.

“Thanks,” you say softly, trying to put Ino at ease with a warm smile. “You’re really good, too. I mean it.”

“Thanks,” he says, heat rising to his cheeks.

“D’you write? Those were some good bars.”

“Oh, yeah, uh. I do. Do—do you?”

“Homegirl’s our drummer and our lyricist,” Maki announces, draping herself across your shoulders. You don’t know where she even came from. “She is a woman of many talents.”

“I believe it,” Ino says with a shy smile. “You didn’t compete last year, right? I feel like I’d remember.”

The implications make you flush a little, and you’re grateful for the bar’s bad lighting. “No, yeah, this is our first year. I wasn’t even around for the competition last year. Or I’d probably remember you, too.”

Yuta spent some time abroad last fall, and you were just getting to know Nobara. It was probably a good thing you didn’t enter, because you were so caught up in work for the campus paper that you would’ve been stretched thin. Things this year have settled down with the strangely large wave of younger staffers. So this is your year—your time.

It’s Ino’s turn to be a little sheepish, and he reaches up and scratches the back of his neck, averting his gaze with a small smile. “You live with Fushiguro’s cousin, then?”

You nod. “You live with your bandmates? We’re right down the street.” Now that you think about it, you might’ve seen him skateboarding past your place a time or two.

He nods. “I thought I’d maybe seen you around. So—Skipper? Or Skip?”

“Either,” you laugh. “Uh, freshman year, we gave ourselves penguins of Madagascar names. That was before Nobara. Guess it just stuck.”

Ino laughs, bright. “That’s really good.” He seems to be easing into the conversation now, relaxing. “Which one was Rico? He’s my favorite.”

“Offensive,” you grin. “Toge, over there.” You point to him where he’s animatedly talking to Yuta, who looks about ready to go to sleep.

Ino nods. “Feels right.” He looks at you like he’s searching for something. “You can call me Takuma. If you want.”

“Takuma,” you echo. You like the way it sounds. “Cool.” You glance up at the stage, cleared out now. You’ll have to check on your drums in the back room at some point before you go home.

“Do you guys have music out?” Ino—Takuma—asks, and you turn, surprised.

“Uh, no. We’ve thought about it, but none of us are really the techy types. Do you?”

“Hell yeah!” Yuji blurts, apparently having escaped Megumi and Nobara. “First EP available now on all the usual streaming services.” He grins, then offers you a hand.

You shake it. He even shakes people’s hands like an overly excited dog. It’s infectious. “I think we’ve met in passing? Unofficially. But you sounded great up there. What’s your cymbal brand? Your hat is crisp.”

“Zildjian,” you say, laughing at his enthusiasm. The only right answer, you think, but don’t say. “You sounded great too. You have a brand?”

Yuji wrinkles his nose. “Uh, half of them are Meinl but the other half are Sabian? I kind of need to streamline them at some point. Zildjian seems like the move, honestly.”

Maki waves you over from the door to backstage, and you glance at Yuji and Takuma in turn, offering them a small wave. “I should run. It was good to meet you both. I’ll, uh—see you next Friday? Or around, I guess.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Yuji says with a mock salute, and Takuma chuckles, meeting your eyes.

“Sure thing,” he says. “Or around.”

When you’ve locked up the drums and hitched a ride back to the house with the girls, Maki turns herself around in the passenger seat to look at you.

“What?” You shift under her gaze, unrelenting and knowing.

“So, Shibuya Incident singer.” She raises a brow, and you know you’re blushing, but there’s not much you can do about it. At least it’s dark.

“What… about him?”

Maki just snorts and turns back around, evidently deciding teasing you once was enough. Nobara, though, has no such qualms.

“Oh my god!” she squeals, and Maki gently reminds her to pay attention to the road. “Do you want me to set you up? I can ask Itadori! Or Fushiguro! Or we can—”

You groan loudly, cutting her off as you dramatically flop back in the seat. “Nobara, please, please don’t.”

She sighs, long and drawn-out. “Puh-lease, Skipper, someone in this house has to get some.”

“Drop it and I won’t tell Toge you said that.”

This successfully diverts Nobara’s attention, and she spends the rest of the short drive wondering aloud if Toge actually thinks Hana Kurusu is hot or if he was just trying to annoy her. Nobara has some baseless grudge against Hana that you’re pretty sure is just because Nobara wants to be Hana.

At the house, she immediately starts bugging Toge about it, and eventually he runs into your room and slams the door for cover. Sometimes you’re very grateful your room has a lock. This is not one of those times.

“Toge,” you whine, pressing your forehead against the door. Nobara is crouched beside you, ready to catch him. “I wanna go to bed. Bro. Open the door.”

“Are you conspiring with the enemy?” he shouts from inside.

“No, but I’m about to be!”

He opens the door and Nobara launches herself at him, and amid the accusations of betrayal you manage to herd them out and close the door behind you, beelining for your bed and your headphones. There’s something you’re curious about.

Shibuya Incident, you type into Spotify, and there it is, their first EP. It’s called Over Duress, and on it is the first song they sang tonight plus a few you haven’t heard before.

You don’t intend to listen to the whole thing, really—you just can’t get that song out of your head, and usually listening to an earworm helps. But when you settle in, lights out and headphones on, you can’t stop.

All night his voice is in your ear, eyes boring into yours, singing too late now.

They’re—he’s—good. Really, really good.

You think it might be too late for you, too.

—

You’ve got your headphones on again, listening to Arctic Monkeys as you make your way down the sidewalk. Mondays will be the death of you. Your hour-and-a-half lecture ran late, and you have night class later. You need caffeine.

So caught up in 505, you almost don’t catch the guy in your periphery zooming down the path behind you on a skateboard. You move to the side to let him pass, but he slows down as he nears you, and you look up and realize it’s Takuma. Grinning, you tug your headphones down around your neck. He kicks the skateboard up and catches it in one hand, a messenger bag with a laptop sticking out underneath his other arm.

“Well, hey,” he says. “Look at us. Around.”

It’s odd to see him in this setting, broad daylight and an autumn chill in the air, so different from the dim bar, the artificially-lit stage.

“Hey.” He starts walking alongside you. “Coming from class?”

“Yeah, thank god that’s over. You?”

You hum in agreement. “Composition lecture.”

Takuma makes a tch sound with a click of his tongue. “Ah. Algorithms, for me.” He glances at you, then straight ahead, like you caught him doing something. “Uh, I was gonna grab coffee on the way back. You wanna come? If you’re not busy, I mean.”

You grin. “I was on my way there.”

Your favorite coffee shop is directly across the street from The Fix, and Takuma walks the rest of the way with you, his board in one hand.

“Algorithms,” you say. What a horrible-sounding class. “So are you—what, math? Computer science?”

“Comp sci,” he confirms, “and media production.”

“That’s sick. What do you wanna do?”

Takuma shrugs, but says, “I’m kinda gunning for something in music or audio production, but the comp sci’s more of a safeguard. Easier to get a software dev job than break into the music scene.”

The door to the coffee shop chimes as you push it open. “What about you? What’s your major?”

“Journalism.”

“Oh, that’s cool. You work for the paper or anything?”

“Yessir.”

“Write a story on me.”

If it meant learning more about Takuma, you’d honestly like to.

You pause to order your coffee, and while Takuma orders his you find yourself looking out at the bar across the street.

It looks so different during the day. People call it a shitty campus bar, you included, but honestly, it’s a nice establishment. The grunge is intentional, for the aesthetic appeal.

When you and Takuma both have drinks in your hand, you check the time on your phone and figure you can spare a few minutes. “Wanna sit for a sec?” You nod toward the high-top counter along the wall of windows facing the street.

“My honor,” he says, leading the way. You hop up on the green backed barstool, spinning it a little, and take a sip of your latte as Takuma settles in beside you. “How long you been drumming?”

You hum, tapping your fingers on your knee while you think. “The summer before I started middle school, I think?” That sounds right. You’d started taking lessons so you could join jazz band.

“Damn,” Takuma whistles. “That’s a while. No wonder you’re so good.” You laugh despite yourself, feeling the heat creep up to your cheeks the way it always does when someone compliments you.

“What about you? Been playing guitar for a while?”

He leans forward, wholly engaged in the conversation. “Yeah. My dad played, and I learned on his acoustic, and I spent all of middle school saving up for my own electric.”

“The one you have now?”

“Ah, no, I’ve got two, but I still have that one back at my place. I love that thing.”

Talking about music, it seems the hesitant, bashful side of Takuma slips away, replaced with this sunny boy who just wants to talk about what he loves. You find yourself wanting to feed into it.

“So, I listened to your EP.”

His entire posture seems to brighten, coffee forgotten on the countertop as he stares at you. “For real?”

“It’s really good. Seriously. I’m—when did that come out?”

“Uh, end of last semester. So like May?” He shrugs.

“Do you rent out a place in the city?”

“Actually, I can book out the campus studio spaces because I’m a production major,” he says, making a paper airplane out of his napkin. “We recorded our EP in there.”

“Techy.”

He smiles. “Yeah, comes with the major.” Turned to face you with the light from the window illuminating half of his face, you find yourself really looking at him—his mess of brown hair, deep but somehow bright eyes, the curve of his mouth, the line of his jaw. There’s an energy about him that just draws you in.

His phone lights up and he jumps a little. “Oh, crap! I forgot I was gonna take Itadori to the skate park. He wants me to teach him to kick flip before the snow comes.”

You doubt it’ll take him that long to figure it out—he’s a natural athlete. You’ve had to last-minute cover a track meet before, and his name took up half the damn page with all the records he set.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” you say, downing the rest of your coffee. As much as you don’t want to leave, you’ve got a lot to get done before your night class. You push back your stool and sling your backpack over one shoulder.

Takuma seems to consider something, eyes bouncing from you to his phone to the street outside. “Actually, we’re recording again on Wednesday, for the new single. You should drop by. I can show you the ropes.”

You’re not sure what excites you more: the prospect of watching a live recording or having an excuse to see Takuma again.

“That’d be cool,” you say. “The new song? From Friday?”

“Yeah, Strike First,” he says. “Fushiguro wrote a lot of it—shit, actually, I’m not s’posed to say that.”

You laugh. “What? Why?”

He grins, a little conspiratorial. “Sometimes he shows up in my room and just shoves lyrics at me, and they’re always really good and deep and shit, and he says if I tell anyone he’ll kill me in my sleep. So. Secret poet.”

“Secret’s safe with me,” you promise. “So, Wednesday night.”

“Six thirty,” he nods, standing up and grabbing his skateboard from where he leaned it against the wall. You walk out into the bright mid-afternoon air side by side, starting to drift opposite directions on the sidewalk. You’re going to get some work done in the newsroom before your night class. The skate park is down the block from your place. And his.

You nod at his board. “Don’t die.” You’ve longboarded on campus several times, and the intersections are unforgiving.

He grins, standing on the board and starting to skate backward. “Me? Nah.” You roll your eyes but can’t keep the smile off your face, even as you turn away, his laughter bouncing down the path behind you.

—

That night in class, you get a series of messages from a number you don’t recognize, but you know who it is. They’ve sent you a gif of Skipper from Penguins of Madagascar.

unknown number: hey it’s ino! unknown number: or takuma. or whatever hahah unknown number: fushiguro got your number from maki i hope that’s not weird? i just wanted to send you the recording location in case you want to swing by wednesday unknown number: [Shared 1 Location Pin] unknown number: literally no pressure though unknown number: obviously

You turn down the brightness on your laptop, tucking your messages into the corner while the pitch document for class takes up the rest of your screen. Adding the number to your contacts, you glance surreptitiously up at your professor, who’s still doing something on the computer in the front of the room.

takuma: wait okay fushiguro just said what if maki gave him the wrong number as a joke takuma: idk if she would do that but now i’m paranoid takuma: if this isn’t skipper i’m SO sorry

Toge leans over and reads your messages, wiggling his brows at you when you shove him out of the way. He’s only in this class because you are—he took it as one of his writing electives for his comm major, and he spends most of it bothering you while you’re trying to work.

“Put the guy out of his misery, Jesus,” he whispers.

“Put me out of my misery, Jesus,” you say back. “Get me a new seat partner.” Toge gapes at you, affronted, and you smirk and go to text Takuma back.

you: oh my god no don’t worry it’s me LMAO you: yes i’ll swing by! that sounds so fun

The typing bubble pops up, disappears, pops up again. You try to hold in the laughter as your professor kicks off the next part of class, which he essentially runs like a newsroom in collaboration with the campus paper, since your editor is his TA. You’re in the middle of a features pitch session.

takuma: oh thank god takuma: cool!! takuma: hey thanks for coffee today. it was nice talking to you

Once again, Toge’s got his chin on your shoulder, reading the screen. His eyes widen and he moves so that he’s blocking your line of sight. Coffee? he mouths. You shove him out of the way with a hand on his face.

you: i had a good time :) you: okay i’m in class rn so just know i’m not ignoring you, i’m suffering at the whims of postsecondary education takuma: I’M SO SORRY takuma: thoughts and prayers takuma: ew why do you have class at 7 pm that’s cruel

It is kind of inconvenient. But a lot of your journalism classes wind up being nights, and you actually don’t mind it—you love your prof and the other juniors in your major. And you love your editor. You want to be her.

“Alright,” Kusakabe says. He’s got a doctorate, but he hates going by Dr. Kusakabe. “Back to the board. I want your bestmonth-long project pitches. Fushiguro here will put the best ones in print, so don’t mess around here. You want a spot at the paper next year? Impress her.” He nods at Tsumiki, who’s sitting in the back corner with a pen tucked behind her ear and her laptop and notepad ready.

“There are no horrible ideas,” she says.

Kusakabe points at her. “Not strictly true. She’s nicer than me.”

You already work for the paper, as does half of this advanced journalism class, but you’re gunning for Tsumiki’s job next year. So you need to impress.

“The Fix,” you say. Kusakabe points a whiteboard marker at you, then turns and scribbles it on the board in his horrible handwriting. He doesn’t let you raise your hands in class. Newsrooms work fast, he says. Better get used to it.

“Why?” Kusakabe asks. You’ve got your pitch ready. This isn’t your first rodeo. You hold up a hand, counting off on your fingers as you talk.

“One, it’s the most popular place on campus. Two, it has the lowest crime rate of any bar in the city. It’s run entirely by Jujutsu alumni. It’s time-relevant, because Battle of the Bands is going on right now, which also means good photo ops. We’ve been needing to cover it for years.”

Toge starts typing on his own laptop, and you know he’s not doing anything class-related. Sure enough, you get his message a second later.

freak no. 1: OKAY SHE’S A JOURNALIST freak no. 1: let me be your partner plsplsplsls freak no. 1: PLEASE i don’t wanna do a whole project story by myself i’ll do anything

He stares at your screen and glares at you when you don’t respond.

freak no. 1: why is that still my name. this is bullying. harassment even freak no. 1: freak no. 1 implies the existence of freak no. 2 freak no. 1: who is it freak no. 1: is it yuta freak no. 1: tell me it’s yuta

“Yes,” Kusakabe says. He’s not smiling—he rarely ever does—but you can tell he’s pleased. “That’s what I’m talking about. I want to know why a bunch of qualified alumni decided to dedicate their postgrad careers to running a college bar. Give me the backstory, give me the details. This is the kind of thing I’d put Fushiguro on if it wasn’t a conflict of interest.”

You twist around in your seat, craning to catch Tsumiki’s eye. She’s smiling, typing rapidly without looking at her keyboard.

“Yep,” she affirms. “But I can get you phone numbers. Good stuff, Skip.”

“Conflict of interest if I’m in a band?” you ask. She thinks for a moment, then shakes her head.

“Just don’t make it the story’s central focus and you should be fine. I’ve got some underclassmen covering the battle for event coverage practice, anyway.”

You flash her a thumbs-up and Kusakabe turns back to the board, half-dead marker hovering beneath his scrawled THE FIX: BAR, SAFE, ALUMNI

“Throw it at me,” he calls to the rest of the class. “What else you got?”

You click back into your thread with Takuma and send him another message.

you: freshie reporters are covering battle of the bands you: watch out for the novice press, mr frontman takuma: oh man takuma: i would not be focusing on me if i was them tbh

Toge kicks you under the table.

freak no. 1: cant believe youre getting a boyfriend before me freak no. 1: im leaving the country freak no. 1: god save the queen

—

It’s dead silent down here.

You’ve only been to the comm and media department a few times, mostly for electives or to drag Toge to lunch with you after one of his classes. But you’ve never had reason to venture all the way down, deep into the bowels of the huge building, to the production areas. Most of the studio spaces down here are padded with soundboards, making your trek down the hall an odd, isolated thing.

But then, after you’ve walked a while, you hear laughter, the idle plucking of guitar strings. Ah. You follow the noise to Studio C, where the door is cracked open, and sure enough, the band is there in full force, tuning and talking and warming up. Kirara is sitting in the spinning chair behind the soundboard while the blond from the bar plays with some dials, and the others are behind the window in the recording room.

“Hey,” you say, and Kirara looks up at you, offers you a nod.

“Girl drummer! What’s up?”

“Spying,” you reply. “Thought I’d get behind enemy lines.”

Kirara snorts approvingly and nods toward the man working on the sound dials, and he turns to glance at you. “You guys met?”

He sticks a huge hand out and you shake it. “I know you,” he says. “Or of you. I do stage stuff at The Fix. Name’s Hakari.”

“He does ‘stage stuff’ at the bar ‘cause he wants to follow me around,” Kirara says.

Takuma glances up through the recording space window, and when he sees you he grins and tugs off the headset. “You came!” he says as he drops his guitar into its stand and comes to stand in the open doorway between the two rooms. “Oh, you can shut that, it was open for you.” He nods to the door you came in, and you lean back on it, closing it.

“I’ve never been down here,” you admit. “It’s cool. And empty.”

“Yeah, it’s never busy Wednesdays,” Kirara says, shrugging. “All the sound and screen people are out working megachurch youth groups or whatever.” She kicks her clunky boots up on the table. “Kinji, did the backups sound good last time or should we rerecord them?”

“Skipper!” Yuji shouts. He waves and nearly smacks himself in the face with a drumstick. “Look! Zildjian!” He points to a crash cymbal that must be a new addition and you give him two thumbs-up, beaming.

Beside him, Megumi looks up from his bass and gives you a nod. Sometimes you forget he and Tsumiki are related—they look alike, but they carry themselves so differently. Your editor is all witty questions and chasing the news and juggling a thousand things at once, knowing everyone, always throwing out compliments like candy. Megumi keeps to himself, that quiet, broody bass player in dark colors. Writing secret song lyrics, apparently.

“So we recorded backup vocals last week,” Takuma explains, leading you over to the soundboard. You slide into Kirara’s spot as she hops up and grabs her guitar, plugging in in the next room. “Hakari handles the board while we’re recording, and then I mix it in post.”

“Cool,” you say, lost in all the switches and dials and colored lights.

“It’s less complicated than it looks,” Hakari offers, gesturing to the expanse of controls. “You really only use a third of ‘em.”

Yuji abruptly does a buzz roll, and you look up in time to see Megumi roll his eyes.

“That’s the hey Ino, we’re waiting on you, you fucking slacker drum roll,” Kirara drawls without looking up.

“I feel loved.” Takuma smiles at you and darts into the other room, closing the door behind him, and you lean back in the spinning chair. Hakari hands you an extra headset and you slip it over your ears with a grateful nod.

“Alright,” he says, leaning to speak into a mic that must carry through to the band. “Give me a chorus or somethin’ so I can test these levels out.”

They play part of the first song on the EP, and then Hakari goes through one by one and makes some minor adjustments until he deems them ready to go.

“Okay,” he says, glancing at Kirara. “Strike First, take one, in three, two…” He trails off and presses a button, and Kirara starts riffing like it’s nothing.

“Catch feels real quick,” Ino half-sings, half-says, picking up his own guitar. “And they go real deep. Try to burn ‘em out.” He looks up at you through the window. “But I’m half asleep.” Megumi is laying down a steady, bouncing bassline. “With her face in my head, and her voice in my ear, and her warmth in my bed, but she’s not really here, oh!”

Megumi and Kirara have indeed already recorded the backup vocals, and Hakari scales them up as they play. Intoxicating, in-intoxicating, oh she’s…

Yuji’s crash does sound better, and you find yourself nodding your head along to the beat, watching Hakari run the soundboard, watching the band in their element in the recording space.

The first time they stop just before the bridge, and they talk among themselves and mess around with some adjustments before starting again.

“We’re all cursed, so I, I strike first.” The track finishes with a single, hard kick. You wait until Hakari switches off the recording and clap. Takuma smiles brightly behind the window.

“What’d you think?” he asks, his voice crackling in your ear. “Any tips?”

You hum, leaning into the mic Hakari offers. “You sound great!” you say. “Yuji, save that sick fill for the prechorus leading up to the bridge. The syncopated one. The buildup will pay off.”

Half the art of drumming is knowing when to lay back and when to bring the energy. It’s one thing to go crazy drumming covers for a YouTube channel, which you’re pretty sure Yuji does, but it’s another to play in a band setting, trying to bring out the best in everyone else’s parts. You’ve seen so many drummers get so excited about playing fast and loud that they give too much too soon, and it makes the peak of the song less gratifying. It took you a long time to learn that.

“Oooh,” Yuji says, clicking his sticks together. “You’re right.”

Kirara jumps off her stool, spinning to face him. “What did I say? That exact thing. Three times before.” She points at you, then turns to face you, smiling good-naturedly. “He’s like one of those kids whose parents have been telling them the same thing for years, and then their favorite teacher says it and they act like they’re hearing it for the first time.”

“What? When did you say that? Kirara—”

But everyone’s laughing, and Yuji eventually gives into it too, grinning and tapping out a swing beat on the rims just to do something with his hands.

“Okay, run it again,” Kirara says, settling herself on her stool again. “Kinji?”

Hakari nods, and they launch back into the song. They do three more full runs before they agree they’ve got it. “Cool,” Hakari says. “Ino, you want the drive?”

“Please,” he says, and then takes off the headset and starts putting away the guitar.

“Hey,” Yuji says brightly, after he’s packed up the kit. “You should come over, invite Kugisaki and your bandmates. I need to fight someone who isn’t Ino in Super Smash Bros.”

It sounds fun, and it’s right down the street—Nobara would kill you for saying no. You got most of your class work done while Kusakabe was on another one of his journalism ethics rants that you can quote in your sleep, and your only major project now is The Fix. Not much you can do about that on a Wednesday night.

“Sure,” you say, and Takuma appears beside you, guitar case on his back.

“Sure what?”

Yuji bounces on the balls of his feet. “She’s coming over! And inviting her friends!”

“Like, the whole band?” you clarify. “Is that—”

“YES!” Yuji exclaims. “Pleeease, Skipper? I love new friends. We’re basically neighbors anyway.” You glance at Takuma, trying to gauge his reaction. He looks excited about the idea, so you figure it’ll be fine.

“Okay,” you relent, and Yuji basically tackles you in a hug. “Woah, okay! I’m gonna swing by the house first. I’ll see who’s around and drag them down the street.”

“Tell Kugisaki I have to decimate her in Smash. I want to see her face when she loses.”

“You park in the side lot?” Takuma asks, adjusting the strap of his guitar case. You shake your head, pointing to your longboard in the far corner of the room. You don’t have a car on campus, but it’s usually not an issue since three of your housemates do. “No way. You skate?”

“Just longboard. Never really mastered the skateboarding thing.”

“Oh, I can teach you!” His grin is infectious. You could’ve had one of the girls drop you off tonight, or Yuta, but honestly, you were kind of hoping for a reaction like this. Was it practical to board halfway across campus alone in the dark? Maybe not. Not like you haven’t done it before. But looks like it’s paying off.

“I’ve got the truck out back,” Hakari says. “Anyone want a lift?”

Yuji shakes his head. “Brought my car for the drums. And Fushiguro.” You politely decline, and Takuma holds up his board in answer.

Hakari nods as he shuts down the soundboard. “Sounds good.”

You open the door and Takuma follows you out, the hallway feeling largely different with someone else filling the space.

“So, what’d you think?”

“That was awesome,” you say honestly. “I don’t know how you guys do the technical side of things, but it’s cool.”

Outside, the two of you drop your boards to the ground and push off, careening down the long campus sidewalks.

“I can’t believe I didn’t know you had a longboard,” Takuma says as you round a corner, you shifting your weight to your heels as he charges ahead of you with hands in his pockets like he’s not balancing on a board with a guitar strapped to his back. “How come you’re never at the skate park?”

You shrug, putting a foot to the pavement again to give yourself some more momentum. Truthfully, the skate park has always just felt daunting to you—not because you know about the drugs getting exchanged under the ramps, but because all you can do is board. No tricks, no half-pipes, nothing crazy, and everyone there is always so off the walls you’d feel like an idiot trying to teach yourself.

“You should come with sometime,” he says. “I took Itadori today. He already learned how to kick flip. He’s stupid athletic.”

You grin, theory proven correct, and turn onto the side street your house is on. Takuma slows down when you kick your board up, and you start up the small sidewalk leading to the green front door. “See you in a minute?”

He grins, skating backward again down the street toward his place. “Yes, ma’am.”

The house is small, but you chose it for the basement space with rehearsals in mind. It’s small, but you’ve made it your own. Yuta’s rapidly growing collection of plants sits in a line along the kitchen windowsill. Nobara’s put Polaroids up all over the place, which Toge regularly replaces with printed memes and then times how long it takes her to notice. Your record player sits in the corner of the living room, the stand beneath it overflowing with vinyls the five of you have amassed.

This is all there when you open the door. But unexpectedly, so is Maki, standing in the kitchen with her arms crossed, looking at you expectantly. Nobara shouts, “Is she home? Skipper!”

It takes you a second to clock that Yuta and Toge are also waiting for you, Toge hanging upside down on the couch through the doorway and Yuta leaning against the wall.

“Uh, hi?”

“Howwasyourdate?” Nobara gushes, and you feel your face go flaming.

“Date? Nobara, his whole band—”

“Nooo!” she groans, raking a hand through her hair. She plants a hand on each of your shoulders, staring at you pleadingly. “I am so bored. This is the most exciting thing to happen since Muta asked Miwa out. Have mercy.”

Muta—that’s the Black Flash bassists’s name. You vaguely remember Nobara being over the moon when he got together with Miwa last year.

“How did you even know where I was?”

All four of them answer in unison, “Google calendar.”

You laugh and pry Nobara’s hands off your shoulders, feeling warm all over. God. You forgot having a crush was this fucking embarrassing. Over Nobara’s shoulder, you look helplessly at Maki, who has decided to be of no help.

“Okay, take a breath.” You make your way into the living space, Maki’s gaze following you from the counter and Nobara quite literally following you. “Don’t any of you have homework?”

Toge pulls himself up dizzily, evidently done with the blood rush of hanging upside down. He points at Yuta and says, “That man has never procrastinated anything in his life. You know she has it done.” Here, he points to Maki. “And Nobara and I have priorities. Like your love life.”

You groan, rolling your eyes. Toge already filled them all in on the texts he read in your night class, and they’ve all been teasing you ever since. Well, mostly him and Nobara. But you see the little smirks and glances Maki and Yuta exchange whenever Takuma’s name is brought up.

Nobara, to put it lightly, loves love. She texts your group chat any time she makes eye contact with a potential suitor, and whenever she catches wind of a possible relationship, she wants every detail. You don’t really care to inform the whole house of every interaction you’ve had with Takuma. Not because it doesn’t excite you—part of you just, weirdly, wants this to yourself.

And part of you is trying not to get your hopes up.

“Yeah, I’m gonna need you all to calm down. You’ll scare him off, if you keep up like this.”

“And you definitely don’t want us to scare him off?” Maki confirms, sounding almost bummed. “I am really good at that.” Yuta nods solemnly.

You glance at Nobara, who’s staring at you knowingly. “No,” you admit, sheepish. “I would rather you not.”

Lovers, Nobara mouths, and you push her away.

“Well, if you’re not busy, I’m going to his place,” you say, and put your hand over Nobara’s mouth before she can scream, “and you’re coming with.” You glance around at the rest of your friends. “All of you.” Nobara glares until you pull your hand away from your mouth.

“Yuji wants to beat your ass in Smash,” you tell her, and she smirks.

“Uh-huh. He’d like that, wouldn’t he?” She practically yanks your backpack off your shoulders and pushes you toward the front door.

“Okay, everybody out, let’s go! Operation Get Skipper—”

“I will drag you back into that house.”

“I said nothing,” Nobara smiles sweetly. And the five of you make your way down the street.

—

Yuji’s car is in the driveway, a bright red Hyundai. You can tell it’s his partially because it’s bright red and partially because you can see a few cymbal stands sticking up in the rear windshield. A truck is parked on the curb, and you figure it’s probably Hakari’s.

Nobara leads the way up to the front door, the only one of you who’s been here before. Unless Maki was visiting her cousin for something, but you don’t think so.

“Itadori!” Nobara shouts, and the door swings open to reveal Yuji, tousled hair and eager grin and all. “I’m here to beat your ass. Get on the Wii.”

“Yes!” Yuji shouts triumphantly, two fists pumping the air.

The house the band is renting out is functionally the same as yours, but it couldn’t look more different. There are mismatched string lights everywhere, dark tapestries on the walls that scream Kirara. Old band posters are plastered to half the available wall space, and a JBL speaker is blasting a song you’ve never heard.

“Hey,” Kirara calls from her place on the couch, leaning into Hakari. Yuji and Nobara are already planted on the floor, preparing for Smash Bros, Toge settled in between in an already futile effort to prevent violence.

“Hey, Okkotsu.” Megumi nods. “Maki. You haven’t been here before, right?”

“It’s not a college boy dump,” she responds. “So proud of you.”

“Mostly his doing, honestly,” Kirara says. “He’s a neat freak.”

You wave at her and Hakari. “You both live here?”

“Nah,” Hakari says. “I’m with Panda on the other side of campus.” Kirara’s the sole girl in the house, then. Brave woman.

“Skip!”

You turn to find Takuma leaning in the entryway to the living space. “Hey,” you grin. His gaze moves to where Yuji and Nobara have selected their characters.

“Oh, this’ll be good.” He moves to the open space on the couch and glances at you, and you follow. There’s plenty of room, since Kirara is basically on Hakari’s lap.

There’s a papasan chair in the corner that Yuta tries to insist Maki take, but in the end he winds up sitting in it with his legs tucked up under him and Maki sprawls out on the floor in front of him. You nearly jump out of your skin when Yuji screeches, and you blink and realize Nobara has already decimated him.

“Jesus,” you say.

“How did you—what was that? How did you do that?” Yuji demands. Toge, evidently having decided his mediation effort is fruitless, scoots back. You grin. Nobody can ever beat Nobara in Smash Bros. You would know.

“That’s what you get for picking Sonic, you freak.” Nobara turns up her nose. She picks Link every time.

“Do not slander the good name of Sonic in this house.”

“Okay, give it to me,” Toge says, grabbing the remote from Yuji. He levels Nobara with a serious look, chooses Daisy, and says, “Prepare to die.”

Takuma laughs beside you, and you’re suddenly aware that your thighs are almost touching, his warmth emanating off him. You try to focus on the game as Link proceeds to destroy Daisy within an inch of her life, but it’s hard now that you’re hyper-aware of your proximity.

“I like your place,” you tell him, and he smiles.

“Yeah? I do too. All the tapestries are Kirara’s.”

You fist bump her. “Good taste.”

“I know,” she says.

“What?” Toge shrieks. He groans, dramatically falling forward and burying his face in the carpet. “No. You cheated. Again.”

“You’re an idiot,” Nobara says, and they play again. “You’re not gonna win.”

Toge scoffs. “I would if you’d play Just Dance with me, coward.”

“Hey.” Takuma nudges you with a knee. “You wanna see how I mix the tracks?”

You glance at Nobara, entirely engaged in her game, and figure if you’re going to safely escape the room with Takuma, the time is now. “Sure.” He stands and you follow, ignoring Maki’s knowing gaze boring into your back as you go. The laughter and shouts and music follow you up the narrow stairs, and you hope this can be a new kind of normal, this mishmash of people who seem to get along so well.

Takuma’s room is at the end of the hall, and there’s no doubting how insanely Takuma it is. A skateboard—covered in faded stickers, different from the one he used today—hangs on the wall, there’s an acoustic in the corner, and the lights are all LED and green and red and purple. He leads you over to his monitor setup along the wall, where something is just finishing uploading—the drive Hakari gave him from the recording session.

He pulls over a stool and pats the desk chair for you, and you’d argue but he’s already opening up Logic, throwing in the tracks.

And then you lose time.

It’s already dark out, and you have no measure of the hours passing as Takuma locks in, nodding his head along to the beat, walking you through every setting and adjustment he makes as he mixes the new single, his own voice echoing back at you on the vocal track. You ask questions that are probably stupid and he answers like you’ve asked the smartest thing in the world.

His face is aglow in the colored lights of his room, and he’s animated as he walks you through the process. You point to the backup vocals track and ask a question, and he wraps his hand around yours and guides it to point at the corresponding change he makes, and before you know it the track is done and he’s sliding a pair of headphones over your ears, looking at you hopefully as the song comes through.

It sounds amazing. Something about listening with headphones on is all-consuming, and there’s something intimate about the way you’re sat facing one another, one of your knees between both of his, not breaking eye contact as you listen.

Kirara and Yuji’s backups flow so seamlessly into the rest of the recording, loud enough to hear but quiet enough not to pull away from Takuma’s voice as he sings, “Preemptively intoxicating, I can hear the heartbreak saying, ooh, I’m on my way.”

He smiles at you, soft, excited, his knee bouncing to the beat of the song even though you’re the one with the headphones on. “So you strike first, strike first ‘cause she’s not gonna stay.”

You tug the headphones down around your neck, the melody still bouncing around in your ears. The curtains flutter above the rickety AC unit in the corner, casting flickering shadows over the monitor, over the wall, over Takuma. There’s no more music, but it is far from silent. The sounds of your friends drift up the stairs and through the cracked door, the computer��s kicking up a fuss with its fan, your breathing seems louder than normal.

“Damn,” you say softly, like speaking any louder will break this—whatever this is.

“Yeah?”

Your faces are very close.

“Yeah.”

A scream from downstairs makes you jump, knocking your knees with Takuma’s, and you feel the heat rush to your cheeks.

“Yuta, control your child!” Nobara screeches, and you presume that by that she means Toge. “Maki? Skipper, where did you go? AGH!”

You laugh, pushing to your feet. “We should probably…”

“Yeah,” Takuma says quickly, too quickly, standing and setting the headphones back on the desk. “Yeah, totally.”

The rest of the night passes in a wash of laughter and Smash Bros and half-eaten bags of chips and yes, eventually, Just Dance, which Toge does win by a significant margin. Yuta, Maki, and Megumi spend a lot of time catching up in the corner, and Kirara and Nobara get along great. You realize far too late that putting Toge and Yuji in the same room was a horrible decision. They feed off each other’s chaos, a pair of little speed demons. You fear they’ve just become best friends.

At some point Kirara and Hakari disappear, and when you’re all finally making your way out, dreading your morning classes, you turn to Takuma, hovering in his doorway.

“Thanks,” you say. “For showing me the mixing. And recording. And—yeah.” You flush. God, you’re usually so good at talking to people. When did you become this socially inept?

“Anytime,” he says, and you know he means it. “Hey, if you guys are ever interested in putting some music out… Hakari and I could help.” He scratches the back of his neck a little self-consciously.

“Wait, for real?”

“Yeah! I mean, Hakari goes wherever Kirara goes. And she likes you. You’re really good, I think you’d really take off on streaming services.”

Kirara likes you? That weirdly means more to you than any of the other bandmates’ approval. Something warm blooms in your chest.

“Skip, c’mon,” Maki calls over her shoulder, and you jump and realize the rest of your housemates are already down the drive.

“Ah, yeah! I’ll talk to them about it. Thanks, Takuma.” You beam and turn to catch up to your friends, feeling like a stupid high schooler with a crush.

You’ve been rehearsing at your place every day this week, even though you don’t know where you’ve landed in the battle bracket yet—not until this Friday. You’re trying to nail down the perfect set, and Maki and Yuta have come up with this great instrumental, but you keep coming up short—you’ve been a useless lyricist lately, all up in your own head about pointless, trivial things.

Now, though—you feel like you have some words to get out. Feelings to get out, if you can just figure out how to articulate them.

In your tiny room, you find yourself thinking about him—getting coffee with him, skateboarding, the lighting in his bedroom, the bar—The Fix, you think.

And you pull out your notebook and start to write.

jjk taglist open: just send me a message!

@shutuppeter @mikikkoo @reactwithjan @theclassbookworm @lilactaro @bisforbuse @risararelywrites

a/n: no, these are not real songs. yes, they are from the notes app archives. oops. ANYWAY SORRY IT’S 10K WORDS I’M HYPERFIXATING LMK WHAT YOU THINK

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lifelaughloveharrystyles · 7 months ago

Text

Ross Lynch: givemewhatuwant

*on tour with the driver era 2024*

“Y/N do you know where we are at?” Garrison calls from the back of the bus with all the boys.

The Driver Era has been on tour for about a month now, traveling all over the east coast showcasing their phenomenal songs that they made from scratch. I had the amazing opportunity to come on the tour as one of the equipment managers. This has been my biggest dream in my career, working at “The Doors Rock Shop”. It’s a well known instrument company in Atlanta Georgia where people would go to get a guitar and a crystal at the same time. I got this amazing job with touring The Driver Era with my cousin Poppy who is with us on tour as one of the tour photographers.

“Y/N!” Ryland shouts from the back. I look outside to see we are about to arrive to the venue in Asheville North Carolina. “we are about to pull up to the venue guys!” I said looking to the back of the bus and I see Ross in the hall with just pajamas pants on. “Word! i’m ready to stretch my legs and get out and move.” Ross said stretching his arms looking like he just woke up from a nap.

Ross and I have gotten really close on this tour. i’m normally not on their bus, i travel in a large van behind the bus with the crew. We haven’t stopped talking to each other whether it’s in person while im helping carry his beautiful gibson to him when he goes in for his solos or text. We make these jokes everytime I have to give his guitar to him in a show and I always make a bet with him about how many girls will scream “take your shirt off!”. Secretly I was jealous I couldn’t be those beautiful girls making him smile and shake his hips like that and pleading to take his shirt off for me. Having him as a friend is the best, I just know he could never like me that way. I’m his equipment manager, I lift speakers and drums for a living and he’s a fucking rockstar sex god. I mean look at his recent ex. like how can I compare to Jaz Sinclair. I have to be just a friend to protect myself from that energy.

Everyone ends up scattering across the venue to start their projects for the day. The show starts at 8 so I scramble around to the strings van to transfer the instruments to their spots on the stage so the boys can start soundchecking and tuning their guitars to the songs.

“Y/N why is it you’re always the one carrying the most stuff in the building when Greg is suppose to do that because of your knee.” Riker says from the green room where I walked in with a coffee for myself and him. “Riker i’m telling you Greg is so fucking slow I can’t bear watching him take 45 minutes to set up a guitar stand. I gotta get the shit done so I can actually enjoy myself for the day.” I express to him and i’m frazzled pinging from one corner of the stage to the other figuring out all the wires and amps so they can start their sound check.

“Y/N take a deep breath or a certain someone is going to come in here and see this and raise hell.” Riker laughed as he secretly points in the direction of Ross and Rocky’s green room. I roll my eyes and wave him off not believing a word he said.

Riker thinks he’s slick with trying to hook me up with Ross ever since we started the tour. i’ve seen the small hints of asking ross to come to me when he can’t find the setlist or where his extra picks are. Riker is basically our tour mom, he is making everyone smoothies and making sure everyone is hydrated before every show. Besides Ross, me and Riker have been attached to the hip.

“Shut up Riker before I grab a pair of scissors and cut your bass strings” I jokingly threaten him with a huge smile on my face.

“Oh God Riker what did you do to piss Y/N off again?” Ross said coming out of the side stage with a vintage baseball cap that says “i’m a local celebrity” with a white tee and baggy light washed denim pants. he slings his arm over my shoulder making us sway to the random song playing on the speakers. I look up to see him already looking down at me with that infamous smile he wears. “Nice Hat pretty boy.” i laughed and flicked the bill of the hat. “So which songs are we playing tonight? any newbies?” I smile back at him really hoping he’ll play one of my favorite songs at the show tonight. “Yes Y/N we are playing givemewhatuwant and Natural if that’s what you’re asking.” he chuckles and pulls away from me to pick up his guitar to start sound checking. I squeal and jump off the stage and start jogging to the doors to get the rest of the equipment “YES ROSS YOURE THE BEST” I scream at him and blow him a friendly kiss as I run out the door.

*Ross’ POV*

Y/N is the most precious and loving human I have ever met. she just brightens the room when she walks in. Whether it’s her bubbly personality or just her energy she radiates, it’s one of the reasons why I love having her close by. She makes me feel like life is worth living again. Heartbreak after heartbreak, I felt like love isn’t an option for me anymore. I have thousands of people falling at my feet but it never fills the void of feeling unloved. Hookups and one night stands can only do so much to the point even sex isn’t appealing to you anymore. Ever since Y/N walked into my life, it’s has taken a complete 180. I feel lighter. happier. I wake up excited for the day knowing I get to see and talk to the most beautiful woman I have ever met. She doesn’t compare to any girl I have ever been with or even seen. Befriending her was my first hit in the game and i’m ready for the home run. I want her to be mine. I need her to be my girl. I feel like I can’t live life without her by my side. she completes me in a way I have never felt before. I’m worried i’ll scare her away if I confess what i’ve been feeling inside. I just need to rip the bandaid and just go for it, be a man and express this to this wonderful girl.

*10 minutes before showtime*

*Y/N POV*

“what’s our bet tonight Ross?” I ask him walking up to the band. I just finished helping set up the stage for The Driver Era after Valé’s performance. She did amazing as she does every night. Tonight however the energy feels a bit off. Ross looks like he’s in his head about something and I just don’t know what. Everything went smoothly today and the crowd already has such a good vibe for the night, there’s nothing else to worry about. “Ross? You good?” I asked while rubbing his arm while he looks off in the distance.

“Yeah i’m good, just in my head a bit. Nothing to worry about, probably stage fright.” he has a fake smile plastered on his face to try and not worry me. I know him better than anyone that he is in his head about something and it’s definitely not stage fright.

“Do you need to talk before you go on? you are not good. you can try and fake smile at me but you know it’s not going to work. What’s going on in that head of yours?” I step forward to see his full face instead of the side and look up in those beautiful hazel brown eyes he adorns on his face. he sighs loudly and closes his eyes before opening them he says. “Y/N there’s been a lot of shit going on in my life and ever since I met you, it seems like everything disappeared when you walked in the room. You make me so happy and giddy to the point I get antsy when I don’t see you first thing in the morning. You light up my life and I know we only have known each other for a month but I feel it. My God I hope you feel it too so I don’t feel like the biggest idiot before this sold out show. I like you Y/N, I don’t want to wake up without you by my side. Please tell me you feel the same.” he pleads and grabs

my face in his hands and put his forehead to mine.

“Just shut up and kiss me Ross. I’ve been waiting way too long for you to say those words. I just need your lips on mine before you-“ he slams his lips on mine before I could sentence my sentence. I wrap my arms around his neck melting in his arms loving every second of this moment.

“Ross let’s go! you’ll have plenty of time to make out with Y/N after the show, come on!” Rocky shouts from the side stage making us break away from our heavy kiss. I smile and push him towards his brother. “Lucky for you i’m going to be in the pit with Poppy helping her take photos. I promise to get the best angles, I might sneak a couple just for my entertainment.” I smirk and he laughs and kisses my cheek and runs on stage right on his cue.

The boys are rocking out and came out full throttle. I’ve been helping poppy this show because one of the extra photographers called out and couldn’t make it. I can already feel the energy in this knowing it’s gonna be a great night. “ Y/N why has Ross been staring and smirking at you all night? Did he finally have the balls to do it?” She smirks at me side glancing to the stage. I look up and sure enough he’s staring at me with hooded eyes with his hair clinging to his sweaty forehead. He squats down to my level and curls his finger for me to come closer. I take a step towards him and he whispers “you are making it incredibly hard for me to stop this show and take you backstage to have my girl strip that skirt off so I can fuck that beautiful pussy.” he kisses my earlobe and pulls away before I could even react. my jaw drops and I step back and look at poppy and she’s busting out laughing at my reactions and hugs me and squeals in excitement. She always said from day one that Ross will end up falling over me. I brushed it out because of stupidity and insecurities. Now i’m like ‘fuck she’s right…. again’.

“That man is already planning the wedding in his brain and he hasn’t even gotten in your pants yet. I saw the kiss when I was setting up. “ She says while snapping pictures of the band while they play “Natural”. I get excited and dance and sing along. I decide to tease ross a bit, i shake my hips to the beat and drag my palms up my stomach making my shirt ride up a bit. He notices and bites his lip and tilts his hat down and looks at me with sultry eyes. I wink at him and flick him off. he smirks and proceeds to perform the rest of the song.

The show finally ended and the boys are celebrating in the green room with a couple of drinks. I finished my job for the night when I start searching for Ross to actually start my night. I feel hands wrap around my middle and I instantly melt when I smell fresh body wash and sandalwood. “Let’s go to the bus, I promise to keep my hands to myself” Ross mumbles kissing my neck with his hands roaming my hips pulling me closer to his warmth. I chuckle and turn my head to see his face and tease his lips with mine before I dart towards the direction of the bus. I hear his laughs behind me when I get up to the door to the bus.

he meets me inside and starts teasing my neck again guiding me to the back of the bus. He closes the sliding door and locks it in place. I arch my neck towards him in a way to let him know I want his lips on me. He starts sucking on my neck behind my ear. he kisses all the way to my lips and he slams his lips on mine. I moan and run my fingers through his hair and tug at the ends. He groans in my mouth and starts unzipping my corset like top. I gasp when I feel the cold air on my bare back. The shirts comes loose from my body and falls at our feet. “Beautiful” He whispers to himself when he see my breasts in full exposure. He starts peppering kisses all over my breasts and he cups his lips around my nipple and start sucking to drive me wild. I moan a sound that has never escaped from me before and I tug his face up to mine “Just fuck me already Ross. I need you so bad. Feel how wet I am” I whimper grabbing his hand and pressing it to my core. he rubs his fingertips against the sensitive nub and I moan loudly biting my lip. He shrugs his pants off and throws his shirt somewhere while I undress myself as fast as I can. “I wanted this to be slow and make this moment last as long as possible but I can’t bear anything anymore. I need to be inside you baby.” Ross said as he slips on a condom with a groan. He pushes the tip towards my entrance and I close my eyes waiting for the first push. “Look at me Y/N. I need to see your face” he pleads. I open my eyes the same time he enters me and I gasp at the size of him. He slowly thrusts in and out letting me get used to his size.

“Faster Baby. Fuck you feel so good” I scream as his pace picks up. he grabs my leg and throws it over his left shoulder slamming his hips into the back of my thighs. He presses a hand against my stomach and I moan feeling him deeper inside of me. “Fuck baby I can feel it. My god your pussy is perfect. You’re so tight, you were made for me” He groans fucking me harder making me slam a hand on the window beside me. “Ross i’m so close. please let me cum. fuck baby” I moan in his ear and drag my nails down his back. “Yes baby. Let go for me. Cum all over my cock. Make a mess of me. “ he slams his hips into mine as we both hit our climax at the same time. he thrusts slowly while we come from our highs. I breathe heavily and rest my head on the armrest of couch. Ross slowly lays his head on my breast letting some of his weight fall on me. I run my hand through his hair and just smile wanting this moment to never end.

“Whatcha thinking about beautiful?” he asked slowly pulling out making me wince. “Just realizing how did I get this lucky? I don’t deserve you.” my eyes start tearing up looking at his eyes and studying all of his features. “You don’t deserve me? You got it all wrong baby. You are the most beautiful human I have ever laid my eyes on. We are meant to be here in this moment for a reason and I know down the road we will look back at this time and just laugh and smile about all these memories we have made together. I want to make memories with you forever Y/N. l- I love you so fucking much I can’t hold it in anymore.” He rambles sitting up on the L shaped couch and pulling me to his chest. I breathe in his scent and close my eyes. “Ross, I love you so much it makes it hard for me to breathe. I’ll love you to the day I die.” I look up at him and he slams his lips on mine putting a hand over my heart to feel the thumps of my rapid heartbeat. Our lips move and he slips his tongue in and our tongues dance along together lazily.

We finally had the energy to get up after 30 minutes of lazy kisses and just appreciating the moment we just shared. Everyone comes back to the bus after the celebratory shots.

“So where did both of you guys run off too earlier?” Garrison asked slipping on a hoodie and a crochet bucket hat I made for him in Wisconsin. “I don’t kiss and tell but it was definitely fun for sure.” Ross winks and pulls me to sit on his lap.

“They fucked in the back of the bus. there’s a hand print on the window to prove it.” Ryland said smirking into his tequila soda. I roll my eyes and tap the bottom of his cup to make it spill all over his neck and shirt. “Y/N what the fuck dude!” he shouts snatching napkins from Riker. I laugh so hard I snort and then that makes everyone in the bus have a laughing fit. I lean my head back on ross’ shoulder and he kisses the top of my head whispering “I love you” in my ear. my eyes start drooping and I fall asleep on the love of my life and already can’t wait to wake up to experience this life with him.

#ross lynch #ross lynch imagines #ross lynch x reader #the driver era #x reader #rocky lynch #imagine #oneshot #ross lynch oneshot #fanfic #rosslynchxreader #concert one shot #ross lynch fanfic

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foxtriestobiteandmaimandkilland · 7 months ago

Text

piece based on the idea that Dakota might've started learning guitar to play along with Ashe's drums ^_^ Ambigiously timed but was originally gonna be post s2 (tho their designs here look more s1)

Extras under the cut, as usual :3 AND a VERY detailed ID since this piece is a big one

Detailed ID: a drawing of Dakota Cole and Ashe Winters from Just Roll With It: Prime Defenders, sitting in Ashe’s dorm room.

Ashe is sitting on the bed, with one arm behind her head and the other rested on her stomach, while Dakota is lying on his back on the floor holding an electric guitar, legs kicked up on the bed next to Ashe.

Ashe has white skin, long curly white hair, a few freckles, and is looking down at Dakota with an open mouthed smile. She is wearing a dark purple beanie with pins of Madeline from Celeste, the Welcome to Nightvale logo, and the knight from Hollow Knight partially covered by her hair.

She is also wearing a shirt with the album cover of I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning by Bright Eyes. Over the shirt is Dakota's red flannel. She's wearing black jeans, one black and green sock, and one purple and black sock with cat ears at the top and cat paws at the toes.

Dakota has mid-brown skin with a few moles, and medium lengthed, curly, bright red hair thats splayed out across the floor. his eyes are shut tight and his eyebrows are furrowed, whilst hes smiling widely.

He has a black bandana around his forehead. On his neck is a chain, and attached to that is a purple heart with the letter 'A' on it. He's wearing a white tank top, that exposes his shoulder which features a temporary Ms G tattoo of her face accompanied with the words 'Ms G' in a galaxy pattern.

Dakota's wearing beige shorts, and has another temporary tattoo on his thigh which reads 'Teaching Moment' in galaxy text. his socks are white.

The blue and white electric guitar he's holding has a sticker that says 'Prime defenders' in black and white, and another sticker that says 'Just Roll With It' in gold and purple. At the top of the guitar near the tuning pegs, it reads 'Prime'.

They are in Ashe's dorm room. Her bed has a blue mattress and a green blanket that's pushed against the pillow away from Ashe, and draping off the side of the bed onto the floor. On the part of the blanket that's on the bed, there is a plush of Morgana from Persona 5, and another plush of Bacon Man. On the part of the blanket that's on the floor, there is a Nintendo DS, except with the word 'Primtendo' written on it. On the side of the bed there are 3 stickers; one of Hatsune Miku, one of Mae Borowski from Night In The Woods, and one of Tony's Pizza.

On the purple carpeted floor underneath the bed, theres a cardboard box labelled 'Secrets'. There is also an oval rug that Dakota is lying on that has a green, yellow, blue, and red circular design. ontop of this is a pair of headphones with the wire spiralling across the floor, and an amp that Dakota's guitar is plugged into. the front of the amp has the word Prime where the brand name of an amp would be usually

Next to Ashe's bed is a set of shelves. On the flat side facing the bed, there is a My Chemical Romance poster of the album cover of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. Under this poster are 3 photos, of Ashe and Dakota ice skating, Ashe and William walking on traintracks, and Ashe and William taking a selfie in bed. Next to these three photos are two school schedules, labelled 'Ashe Winters' Schedule' and 'Vyncent Sol's Schedule'.

On the shelves, the top shelf has a lit candle next to a box of matches. Next to these are 4 books titled 'The Carnival Of Souls', 'Planetary Problems', 'The Purps' and 'Overlord'. The shelf below this has a plant with small white flowers, in a ceramic pot with a blue heart, a red heart, and a purple heart on it. Next to this is a bottle of ibuprofen, and a turned on purple lava lamp. Behind these are more books titled 'The New Generation', 'Island Of Amal- [cut off]', 'Ultraviolent Light', '[cut off] -Don't R- [cut off],' and 'Good Cop, Ghos- [cut off]'

Underneath that shelf is an open drawer with two fairylight chains trailing out. One is in RGB colours and the other is golden. On the closed drawer below that, there is a Welcome to Nightvale sticker.

On the white wall behind Ashe, there is a window to her left. outside the light is golden, and there is a street. Behind Ashe's head is a Thank You Scientist poster of the album Maps Of Non-Existent Places, a Car Seat Headrest poster of the album Twin Fantasy, and a trans flag. There are also messages in smudged ink reading: '[cut off] -ncent was here !!!', 'Ashe. W [cut off] -s here :3', 'DC wus here <3', 'wiwi waz here [ghost doodle]' and 'love u man'

End ID.

#night thoughts #art thoughts #jrwi #jrwi prime defenders #prime defenders #jrwi pd #ashe winters #dakota cole #demonkicks #this shit took me like. almost a month to make #i am surprised the file hasnt corrupted even once <3

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unknownperson246 · 3 months ago

Note

Can you do a smut of Axl Rose? Maybe it could be angry sex and it's after that concert where that idea gets water in the electrical cables so they have to stop to show?

hii im so very sorry its late but I hope you enjoy it ❤️

Water On Wires

Words: 463

Warnings: *smut* *p in v* *angry sex* *rough sex* *reader is used as a sex toy* *cussing*

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

You were Axls girlfriend and you were standing on the side of the backstage where no one could see you. Everyone was cheering GNR on. You were excited to see your boyfriend's band perform in front of a lot of people. Axl was in front of the stage in all-black clothes singing happily. Izzy was with him shredding his guitar. Slash was in the middle while Duff and Steven were in the back playing the drums and bass. Suddenly all the electrical equipment broke down and stopped. All the mics went down. The guitar amps went silent. All people could hear was crackling. Izzy pointed out the people who threw water on the cables. Axl went on about a rant. “Because of the people who threw water. The concert is off. In other words, the concert is over fuckers. Go home dick suckers.” He scoffs and yells at the people in the front row.

“And you, fuck you.” Was the last thing you heard Axl yelling When Axl came running off stage He was so angry. You watched the fiery redhead's anger grow more and more.

You knew when he was angry he loved to fuck you. You were getting ready and turned on the way you watched him come towards you. You heard his heavy breathing. It was menacing but you loved it. He suddenly grabbed your arm. He pulled you further backstage. He ripped your clothes off. “Get on all fours” He snarled at you.

You followed his directions and you got on the floor hoping you were enough to please him. He took his belt off and his hand dug into your hips. He made swift moves over and over again. His hips moved heavily while fucking you. His tip kept hitting your soft spot over and over again.

“Oh, Axl” You moaned as he kept slamming into you.

His hands went down to your thighs. All you heard was his small grunts and moans coming from his mouth. He was too angry to speak. He loved to degrade you with his actions instead of his words. He used you as a sex toy.

“Axl” You sigh as he takes his last thrusts in you. His eyes roll into his head and his head goes back. He grunts and moans. He finally let out a small moan of your name.

“Y/N,” You hear him moan loudly.

Your nails dig into the floor. You feel him stop pounding you. You feel him leaving you. You crawled to get your clothes that were on the floor. You watched Axl go back on stage seeing no one out there. It was just you and the band because everyone went home. The rest of the band was mad at what Axl had done.

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dickinson-devotee · 4 months ago

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Kevin Shirley's Studio Diary — The Final Frontier — 2010

January 6, 2010 Los Angeles - Nassau Been working flat-out at home in Malibu. I'm pretty burnt out. I've just remixed the classic Deep Purple album, Come Taste The Band over the New Year, and just recorded six new tracks with a brand new band this last weekend. Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham and keyboard wiz Derek Sherinian (tentatively calling themselves Black Country). So, I am pretty wiped out. The next adventure on my horizon is producing the new Iron Maiden album - this one to be recorded in the Bahamas.

Left the family, sadly, in the early hours of today, and met Jared Kvitka at LAX. He is to be my assistant and the engineer on the new Iron Maiden album. We fly together to Nassau in the Bahamas, where we'll cut the new album at Compass Point Studios. Maiden have made three of their huge albums of the 80's there. Piece of Mind, Powerslave and Somewhere In Time, I believe. It's cold in Nassau when we land -- highly unusual, but all of the States is mired in a "Deep Freeze" and the Bahamas are experiencing the runoff. Studio manager Sherrie Manning meets us at customs and immigration, and once the work permit thing is ironed out, she shows us to our accommodations. In the early evening I see Steve, Adrian and Janick at the local pub for a beer and walk back home. A cold night.

January 7, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Bump into Steve in the apartment complex parking lot - I have opted not to have a rental car so Steve kindly takes me to the supermarket and we push trolleys around like two old queens, doing their weekly shopping. Quite a sight! Nassau is expensive -- half a trolley of basics is just shy of $300!

Off to the studio, and the gear has just arrived - mine from L.A. and the band's from England. The crew, Sean, Charlie and Michael begin unloading the equipment. Not much for Jared and I to do at this stage as drums, amps, guitars, etc start escaping their packing cases.

January 8, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Drums are up, Guitar cabs are up -- the day is spent wiring, plugging things in, putting microphones up and doing line checks by studio owner and tech-wiz Terry Manning and Jared. It's a very complex setup -- the studio is basically one big room, and there are not any isolation booths in which to put guitar amps to avoid the leakage into the other instruments as we do record the basic tracks with the whole band playing together live. So 'Arrys bass speaker goes in an adjacent office -- the three guitar cabinets go into a second studio, with about 100 feet of high quality speaker cable running from the amp heads, while Nicko's huge drumkit is in the corner of the main studio, so they can all play together and interact with one another. The little tiki-hut vocal booth, originally made for Mick Jagger in the eighties, is where Bruce will sing to get a little separation, but it's still in the main room and there's just no escaping Nicko's booming bombast! The old Neve V series console at Compass Point isn't on it's last legs, but it's definitely seen better days. We don't use any of the console channels for anything other than monitoring -- every microphone has it's own preamp and feeds the Pro Tools recording system. Most channels won't be recorded with EQ. The exceptions are the kick and snare drums, which have copycat Neve 1073 EQs across them. Nothing much, a little top on the snare and a little scoop on the kick -- as Nicko has no padding and the drum sound very resonant. January 9, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Final touches are made to the guitar rigs -- the crew string the guitars and the studio is made ready. We get sounds on everything and the road crew play AC/DC's Highway To Hell to test the systems. Ironic, as the iconic Back in Black album was cut in this very room! We finish up about 6pm, and Jared and I head to Compass Point Resort across the road, and have a drink as we watch American NFL football and the Eagles lose their wildcard game. Jared is from Philly. Michael Kenney drives back from the apartment complex in the rain to pick me up and get me back home. I have hiccups...

January 10, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Day off today -- the weather is miserable. Rainy and windy. I'll stay home and watch football, and work on the "Black Country" Hughes/Bonamassa recordings. I have Pro Tools on my laptop, and quite enjoy the zen of working at my own pace, on headphones. Enjoyed watching an NFL playoff game in my apartment and then Steve Gadd, Maiden's Road manager called, saying Bruce and Davey were getting in and wanted to meet me. So off to the bar and dinner and a chat with the lads, then it's off home.

January 11, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Started tracking today -- was very funny seeing all the band assemble at Compass Point, and they all share a similar headspace, all exclaiming "holy fuck, remember when we were here 25 years ago -- it's still the same!!!!" First we worked on getting everyone's headphones sorted etc. Cut the basics for the ballad Coming Home by 2.30pm, then went on to track called El Dorado. Got 2 takes done, when technical gremlins jumped in -- Adrian's headphones became intermittent, Janick's guitar kept cutting out, then Bruce's vocal microphone fried, then the vocal compressor fried -- but despite all these, we still managed to get 7 takes done -- one of which I'm sure will be quite good enough to begin with. Then at Nicko's bidding, it was off to the Travellers Rest for all of us and a dinner of banana daiquiris and minced crawfish -- apparently band staples 25 years ago.

Haiti just had an earthquake this evening which looks to be devastating... and as we are on a tsunami warning for the Bahamas, we headed back to the studio and retrieved the hard drive for storage on higher ground for the night.

January 12, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Cut an awesome track called Isle Of Avalon today. There were no high waves overnight, and no tsunami here, but we hear reports that Haitian capital Port-Au-Prince is in ruins. I donated to Red Cross this morning as they'll need all the help they can get. My family are home in L.A. and are off to Disneyland today. I miss them...

Wednesday January 13, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Up early and swam across the bay in front of the apartments. Glenn Hughes rang just as I was leaving, to discuss Black Country, (his new band) -- and then I drove to the studio with Steve, Janick and Charlie (Nicko's tech). I had to stop for a cup of Starbucks en route. Once at the studio, I reviewed the track Isle Of Avalon and overdubbed new guitars with all the guitarists - the Three Amigos - playing together. They have a unique chemistry playing together and the signature gallop in the guitars is a result of their individual rhythms combined. After that was wrapped up, it was everyone back in the room and we cut a new song - Mother of Mercy...

Banana Daiquiris have started something -- Bruce came in this morning with a brown paper bag filled with alcoholic ingredients to brew disaster -- 63 proof rum, etc., and after they had cut the track, Nicko and Bruce proceeded to "experiment" with making the perfect banana daiquiri -- blowing up the blender in a stinky electric puff of smoke in the process! Really......

Finished the new track at about 6.30pm, then Nicko, Bruce and I went in search of more daiquiris, Nicko was on a mission and wanted to take in a bit of adult entertainment and do some gambling, and he wanted me to tag along and be his foil -- so I said I was up for a little fun, but that I needed to get back home by midnight - after all I do have a job to do! A determined Nicko went off and I ended up having a beer with Jan at the end of the night, who's about the most normal of the lot I suppose!! Charlie appeared later after putting Nicko to bed about 10ish, after Nicko had cleared the casino at the Sheraton on Cable Beach and lost a bit of money! That's our Nick......... we do love him so!

Thursday January 14, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Not everybody was up to cutting a track today so the band had the day off, and I went to work alone, to go through all the takes and compile a great performance of Mother Of Mercy.

Friday January 15, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Today we cut a Janick song: The Talisman. It really came out great and after the session, Adrian, Dave, Adrian's wife Nathalie and I went to dinner at Nobu in Atlantis. Chocolate martinis and wine started the evening, and then it was off to a late night rock 'n roll bar called Crazy Johnny's where the night turned into morning... I lost my driver's license and credit card and we got home in the very early hours - all the worse for wear. I'm getting too old for these shenanigans!

Saturday January 16, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Woke with a teensy hangover -- to the wrath of my wife back in the States, as she says she doesn't want to be a widow just yet, and I headed in to work nonetheless, after a swim in the ocean, to sort thru the track The Talisman. Sounds amazing, even if I do feel like Death warmed up! Home to recuperate and watch the NFL playoffs... Saints and Arizona...

Sunday January 17, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Woke feeling almost normal! Crazy Johnny, proprietor of his eponymous club -- scene of Friday night's debauched shenanigans - took a bunch of us out to Rose Island with his kid, Dylan, where he has a house on the hill overlooking an absolutely perfect gorgeous white beach -- a great day out. His 400HP Yamaha engines zipped us across the ocean in his boat at "a strong 50" knots, and it was very enjoyable. Janick was the only one from the band to come along; the rest either busy or perhaps even still suffering -- so tech Sean from the crew and his girl Sarah, Tour Road Manager Steve Gadd, and engineer Jared Kvitka made up the rest of the pirate crew. Back in time to watch the New York JETS make it to the conference championship! After living on the U.S. East Coast for 16 years, I'm a declared supporter

Monday Jan 18, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Up at 7am, a great way to start this beautiful day with a visit to the Dentist this morning (I chipped one tooth and a crown fell off another over the weekend). Seems I'm just falling apart! A pretty Bahamian dentist Dr Coverly worked on my teeth in her high heels and a nicely coiffed do. A first for me!

Nicko flew back from Florida today so we didn't start until 1pm. Cut a great proggy tune of Adrian's called Starblind -- which came out very strongly, I think....

Tuesday Jan 19, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Having trouble sleeping -- seemed to be up all night long last night. Late-night text chats with Joe Bonamassa seem to be the case most nights these days, as he sleeps weird hours, planning and scheming... and chatting with his girlfriend in a far off land. I'm the therapist... Recorded another new Maiden song once we finally got going today. It was a late start at the studio as there was no power at all -- Bahamian Electricity was off until 1.30pm, but the song was quite straight forward - even quite simple for Maiden but very powerful: The Final Frontier -- almost more like a rollicking Mellencamp or Tom Petty type song than a Maiden song, but it looks like being the anchor tune for the new album. We kept it pretty raw!

Wed Jan 20, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Didn't sleep last night. Cut a highly complex song today, one of Davey's I believe, The Man Who Would Be King -- one which the band hadn't managed to rehearse beforehand as Janick had cut his hand very badly just as they were starting to learn it and run through it at the pre-recording rehearsals in France -- so he had been rushed to hospital and had surgery on his hand and fingers - the upshot being that the song was cut in sections and pieced together today. It was very difficult. Bruce has decided he didn't want to stay in the fairly boring accommodations we're in, that are a residential complex, so has moved to the Sheraton which is probably a lot more fun and goes on much later than we do, and consequently was a little tired today, which didn't really help. Well, he's at least not flying anywhere…….

Thurs Jan 21, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas I've been having trouble sleeping at night, so Maiden Road manager Steve Gadd gave me a sleeping tab, and I finally slept great all night. Got up, went to the gym and worked out with a trainer (first time in years), and really enjoyed it. Cut a great Deep Purple-ish tune today -- tentatively titled House of Dr. D! I'm pretty sure that title won't stick as it's pretty uniformly sneered at. (It was renamed The Alchemist. KS) Nicko, normally loves the way his drums come out on all the albums, and asked respectfully if I minded if he watched while I edited the takes, and he promised to not say anything -- I of course said I didn't mind, but once I began working, he couldn't stop talking and admonishing me the whole while, about his mistakes, which he calls "Nickoisms", and which I was attempting to repair, so I had to stop the session. Update tomorrow, when we cut the last song, which Steve is still working on tonight and it promises to be an epic... ahhh, the Mighty Maiden!!!

Friday January 22, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas We cut a very intricate piece today. Where The Wild Wind Blows. Nobody had heard it at all and Steve had all these ideas, so we cut about 10 totally different melodic pieces -- he'd show the band then we'd cut a few takes. He shows everyone the song and whistles the melodies to everyone. Nicko was unusually reserved today, but played very solidly and well. We ended up with over two hours of recorded music, which I attempted to start editing as the evening closed in on us, but Steve was totally wiped out - he'd forgotten to eat and drink all day, such was his concentration -- and I don't even know how the song pieces fit together yet, so it will have to wait 'til we get together on Monday! Steve won't come in over the weekend normally, as his weekends are mostly chock-full with his kids activities, and he is first and foremost a dedicated father.

Saturday Jan 23rd, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Went to workout at the gym early then on to the studio, and spent the entire day editing some tracks recorded for Black Country in Malibu -- Black Country is the group I put together with Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian. Met Nicko, Davey and Steve Gadd in the Poop Deck bar in the evening, and we drove to the big Atlantis resort where we had dinner at the fancy sushi restaurant Nobu, and then went to see Jerry Seinfeld doing standup. Davey is a big fan and really wanted to go, but it was just OK - nothing special actually. We had a little to drink over the evening... and invariably ended up at the Daiquiri shack chatting to some Irish wedding guests.

Sunday Jan 24, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Woke late -- a little tired still. Relaxed around the condo, made coffee and watched some Gridiron football. Adrian dropped by around noon and borrowed my iPod to listen to the rough mixes of the tracking recordings we have done thus far.

Monday Jan 25, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas The lads took the day off and 'Arry and I went to work about 11 o'clock and began the big job of editing the multiple takes of Where The Wild Wind Blows together. Nobody but he has any idea how it ultimately goes, and the structure altered a little from his original idea in the assembly, but it fits together and flows very nicely. An ironic epic about a suicide pact in the face of a nuclear explosion. And very Maiden!

Tuesday January 26, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Workout with a trainer again at 8am - he kicked my butt! All the band - bar Bruce, who's gone back to London - meet at the studio to listen to all the tracks we've recorded and get a good overview of the album. All the guys seem excited after the playback, and we start work embellishing the rough recordings of Coming Home with some overdubs. Adrian puts an acoustic guitar picking through the verses and choruses, which we double track for stereo imaging. Then Davey plays the first of the guitar solos on his Les Paul guitar, which ironically sounds like a Strat! it's a very Hendrixy Little Wing-ish solo, and he's happy with the result. He's always happy! Then Adrian added the second solo. We assemble a different monitoring system for him in the studio, so he balances his own mix and listen on Genelecs. He's uncomfortable initially, but after a while we get a great solo from him. The raw sound bothers him, so i add a little Pitch Shift, and he's happy. End of the day. Off to the local bar called The Poop Deck for burgers and beer. And coffee tequila. And a last cleansing beer. Nicko and his chef mate, Frankie, visiting from new York, leave first. I leave Jan and Davey chatting at the bar.

Wednesday January 27, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Start the recording day by having Janick add an upper octave to his guitar line in the choruses of Coming Home. This is the end of guitar overdubs on this song.

Then we move onto the song El Dorado. Adrian does a guitar solo, quite a few takes - which I then compile. He's happy. Steve doesn't stay around for things like the guitar solos necessarily, but he likes to hear everything at some point. Next Janick has a go at the guitar overdubs, adding an octave to a prechorus line, then doing his solo. Davey comes in for a late start having had a little beach time and does the middle solo. We listen back quite loud and everyone seems very happy with it. They all leave and I stay to sort through some takes of Mother Of Mercy, so it's ready to be overdubbed. Dinner of fresh fish and a beer at the bar, and I'm home just after 7.30pm. Early night in....... speak to my babies on Skype.

Thursday January 28, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas A very full day in the studio today - Davey starts the day with a bunch of overdubs on The Man Who Would Be King - Harmony guitars on the outro and on the chorus - we try a few on the intro, but they don't really work. Then we do a quick solo, which I reverse a-la-hendrix, and he loves it! We do some other weird noises - divebombs, etc., which go alongside the backwards solo, then Janick does a little tag, after which we do a 3 part guitar harmony with all the guitarists on the second part of the solo. It was originally going to be an Adrian solo, but the track felt so out of control after Davey's musical madness, that we introduce the harmony melody guitars which brings some order into the chaos. This song is now done for the day, and we move to the overdubs on The Final Frontier. Adrian does a big strumming acoustic guitar on the choruses, and then adds a tenor guitar line which echoes Steve's bass line on the chorus - and last he does the solo on his trusty Strat...... and that's it for the day, and the week!

Friday January 29, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas My family are arriving at 1pm from Los Angeles, and we all take the day off work. No one complains! Well, Delta screws up my family's flight, and leaves them with an enforced long layover in Atlanta - so I take the opportunity to go grocery shopping. I need everything at our condo - toilet paper, water... you get the picture, so it's a godsend to have time to prepare for them. The lifestyle of a bachelor doesn't necessarily meet all the needs of a young family, and once I've sorted out the house I head to the airport with Steve Gadd and Mike Kenney, who've come to give us a hand with the luggage and kids. (They offered and are very gracious and friendly - it's no Producer control-freak thing!). They finally arrive at 5pm and as they come through the Arrivals and I see them, I get a little misty as my 2 year-old Talon yells, "My daddy, my daddy, my daddy" .... sweet!! Weekend off playing with my kids in the pool and on the beach!!!!!

February 1 and 2, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas More recording on some of the other songs - it gets a bit "Groundhog Day" in the telling and diarizing of it all, as it's a very similar process every day for all the songs and overdubs. We do various guitar overdubs, solos, harmonies, acoustic guitars...... the Three Amigos take turns and occasionally we record all three together to get that great rolling, galloping rhythm that only Maiden can really create - there's nothing mathematical about it, it's all feel. If you sort it out in Pro Tools, all that feel goes, so we don't!!!

February 3, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas It's my wife's birthday today, so we take the day off and I spend the entire day at the Atlantis resort with my family. A great day, playing on the beaches, sliding down the water slides, floating on rafts on the artificial rapids and rivers, and viewing the absolutely amazing aquarium they've built there! In the evening, we leave the babies with my mother-in-law and go out for an intimate adult evening, but we're so shattered by the day's activities that we end up crashing at about 9.30pm!

February 4 and 5, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Same agenda as Feb 1 and 2. We've almost finished the overdubs on the last song, guitar-wise. Just a last guitar solo of Adrian's to do on When The Wild Wind Blows on Monday, then we'll all gather for a final collective listen, and that's all the guitars on this new Iron Maiden album. We'll add keys for the rest of the week, then it's home for me next Saturday, and Steve and Bruce arrive the following week to finish up the vocals and mix...... February 6, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Windy and stormy today. No studio. Wife and kids are all packed as they leave Nassau for Los Angeles tomorrow - so we had an early dinner of fresh fish from the Poop Deck, then my wife, Dev, and I joined Steve Gadd and his better half, Jen; Janick and Adrian Smith and his wife Nathalie, for a late evening drink. A very nice time and it was fun socialising with just adults for a change.

February 7 - Superbowl Sunday. Gaddsy and Michael Kenney took me and my family to the airport as they left for L.A. today. Janick went off for his first scuba dive ever, with the crew from the Aga Khan's yacht, Shergar, and he really loved it. Gadd and I joined them on the boat about 4pm-ish, had a couple of beers onboard and got the royal yacht tour. Amazing! $100million worth of boat - each tank of gas costs $75,000!! It has two jet turbines, and at 100 ft long reaches about 50 knots! That's flying!! Then off to Crazy Johnny's we all went, to watch the Superbowl, and perhaps a few drinks.......

February 8 Not everyone looked like they were ready to run a marathon this morning, after a long night of Superbowl revelry. Our engineer Jared arrives a little puffy, and As 'Arry said of his eyes, "they look like two piss holes in the snow!" Well, as Jared has a vague connection to New Orleans, he was forgiven! We need to do a few updates to the last song and so Adrian started off the day recording a solo on When The Wild Wind Blows, after which we did some melodic lines on the same song with Davey, some guitar jangle chords in the verses, and that is the band tracks for the new album complete! I let everyone go for the day, and spent the rest of it getting the complex tracks in order so when we do some keyboards over the next few days, we hear everything as it's meant to be heard, and nothing clashes musically or sonically. Had a very English dinner of Bangers 'n Mash and a pint of stout at the Nassau Cricket Club, and home earlyish to watch a movie.

February 9, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Slept great, but woke feeling very stiff. Off to the gym for a gentle workout and then set off to the studio at the normal time of 10.45am, with an obligatory stop at Starbucks en route. Finally we got stuck into keyboards today. Michael Kenney set up the keys and Steve poked away at them, hunting for the melodies running around his head like a chicken pecking the ground. Simple lines, but effective and we accomplished a lot of work. We finished keyboard overdubs on seven tunes today then headed to Poop Deck for a quick drink with Steve before heading home to make dinner.... for myself.

February 10, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Today we finished the few keyboards overdubs left to do on the album. Janick's family arrived from England today, so he asked me to send him an MP3 of the solo he did on The Alchemist, which I did, and he called me later asking if he could redo it, so we'll have another crack at it on Friday. Adrian listened to all the tracks and has a few things he wants to add as well. We all went to dinner at The Poop Deck but as the weather had been a little rough, there was no fresh fish on the menu, so we had burgers while sitting at the bar. Nicko sent us his love from sunny Florida, where he's working on the official opening of his restaurant, Rock 'n Roll Ribs, in Boca Raton or somewhere in the vicinity, this weekend.

February 11, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Up early and I swam across the bay - didn't feel like the gym today. Headed to the studio about 10.30am after a quick stop for a "grande-four-shot-non-fat-wet-cappuccino" at Starbucks and once we got up and rockin', Adrian replayed the verse on Mother Of Mercy and added a harmony guitar to the pre-chorus. 'Arry didn't make it in to the studio today, and while waiting for some computer thing to be done, I was noodling around some blues scales on one of Janick's acoustic guitars, which prompted Terry Manning to show me an old National that used to be blues icon Robert Johnson's dobro! It was very humbling and awe-inspiring to hold it and slide a little on it, and I felt more moved even than when I met Jimmy Page or B.B. King. Its serial # is T968. Back to work, and we listened through a few things and I did a couple of edits that needed doing and we were done by 7pm, off to .........yep you guessed it, the Poop Deck again. It's the only place around, as you've probably gathered, that doesn't require getting a taxi. At least they had fresh fish today, and I ordered one to go and had it at my house while watching the news - boring but very tasty!

February 12, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas Adrian and Nathalie, his wife, left early for a week at Parrot Key. It's the last day in the studio today. Janick came in and redid the solo on The Alchemist. He was much happier than before - the first solo had been much more "in the meter", but this one crossed the rhythms, and he liked the fact that it sounded like he wasn't going to make it, and then did. He felt it sounded more "incendiary!". His phrase. Looked over the tracksheet of Where The Wild Wind Blows and sorted through the multiple parts, and made a cohesive tracklist - then made 2 safety copies of the Master drive, and said our goodbyes to the Mannings in the studio, took Steve two masters - one to leave behind, and one to bring with him. I have one to carry back to L.A. tomorrow, and that's all three master drives. We have a big art canvas in the studio, which has all the album titles and plots the progress of the recording session as we go. So I dropped the big canvas at 'Arry's house, and then went with Steve Gadd and his best gal to the Cricket Club, for bangers 'n mash. Again. Yummy!

February 13, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas The wind howled all night and the rain bucketed down. I woke at 3am and couldn't get back to sleep. Packed, and checked the flight details. Atlanta is covered in snow and is a frigid 25 degrees. All good, it appears. Left for the airport to find my flight cancelled. Managed to get a coach flight (all Business was booked) back home - it adds another six hours to my flight!!! which means 13 hours from check-in til landing, if all goes to schedule. I'm in Nassau airport now.......

February 15, 2010 Malibu, California Finally got home late last night. My luggage didn't. Lots of scrambling and frantic running between gates, but I finally had a good flight back and it is great to be home in Malibu on the beach. I had a very chilled Sunday with my family and now it's back to work in my studio today, going over all the tracks. They're not really ready for my studio, so had to spend the day preparing them to suit a different console, etc. Also, the big storms in California recently have knocked my studio about - all the lightbulbs downstairs had blown, as well as my Summit TLA- compressor, so the day was spent in repair mode, as well as getting the studio bedroom ready, where Steve Harris will stay for the month ahead - he arrives tonight.

February 16, 2010 Malibu, California I'm in the studio early today. I FedExed my blown compressor out for repair - Brent Spear, my tech, is coming in for the day from Las Vegas to make sure everything is working perfectly, the Cable TV repairman is coming today to make sure Steve's English Premier League soccer is available on the telly, so it's all systems go around here. Bruce will be in from London tonight to sing ......

February 17, 2010 Malibu, California Vocal day - Bruce arrived, with stories, as usual. Tales from flights around the world - Russia, Iceland, Niger..... Today he sang Coming Home and El Dorado, then we had a break for lunch, after which he nailed the lead vocal for Mother of Mercy! It's very, very high...

February 19, 2010 Malibu, California Bruce sang again today, then left to fly back to London tonight and on to Africa as Capt. Dickinson tomorrow - I compiled the lead vocal on El Dorado, and then I mixed it. Went to the store to pick up dinner on the way home and my car got wrecked in the parking lot by some Bonehead. Exhausted!

February 20, 2010 Malibu, California Knackered - feel brutally tired today.

February 21, 2010 Malibu, California Had to go with the family to a kids birthday party - I realize I have to do these things, but I really hate doing them. Went for a bicycle ride when we got back, and decided while riding, that I'm going to cycle to San Francisco to do my next job - which is producing Journey's new studio album in April.

February 22, 2010 Malibu, California Compiled the lead vocal track from three or four vocal performances which Bruce has sang for Coming Home and then I set about mixing the song.

February 23, 2010 Malibu, California Compiled the lead vocal track for The Final Frontier today - then mixed it - Steve came in at the end of the day and thought it sounded a bit roomy, so I'll do a drier mix tomorrow.

February 24, 2010 Malibu, California Did a dry mix then some updates on ..The Final Frontier. In the end we went with yesterday's mix - my original mix. After that I began comping the vocal on Mother of Mercy - Steve has a very particular vocal melody in his mind, which Bruce didn't really get 100% correct. It's close tho..... but needs a few tweaks. Left the comp about half way through - it was mind jumbling. Got home to find two sick babies....

February 25, 2010 Malibu, California Last night was a rough night with our poor little sick kids - so not too much sleep at all for any of us last night. Got to my studio just after 11am to find Steve doing the crosswords - he loves them! I had to dig back into Mother of Mercy and complete the vocal compiling!

Adrian came by The Cave for a listen - he thought the tracks sounded good but "a little too much like the band in the studio". He thought more reverb to make them sound more "majestic" and "epic". Steve disagreed strongly. Honestly, they are both right. The thing I personally like about the dry, honest mixes, is that it sets them apart from any other Classic Rock or Metal band. They're not really metal anyway, in the present day sense of the genre, but they're more of a hard progressive rock band. I promised to run some mixes each way and decisions can be made down the road, if necessary.

February 26, 2010 Malibu, California I started the day with an early 30 mile bike ride along the coast and went in to the studio at normal start time of 11 and finished the mix of Mother Of Mercy. Bruce came in from London this morning and very kindly brought me a stack of Formula 1 magazines - it's my passion and the States only sees them about 6 weeks after their appearance in England, so I was particularly thrilled! He listened to a few things we'd been working on - had some issues with a couple of vocal lines he'd sung, and disliked a particular guitar solo we'd recorded at Compass Point, but said "whatever!", and then dug into the work and sang Isle Of Avalon and Starblind. Both are very high - I suggested a lower vocal line in the Isle Of Avalon chorus, which he tried, so perhaps we'll have a harmony - we'll see.

February 27, 2010 Malibu, California A massive 8.8 earthquake hit Chile early this morning. We were on a tsunami advisory again, and as we live on the ocean, we left for higher ground over the lunch hours. The waves were only about 2 feet higher, which didn't really affect things too much up here in Malibu. I'm sure this will prove to be catastrophic again.....

It's Adrian's birthday today! His wife, Nathalie, threw a great party for him. Gorgeous food, great ambience - Steve and his beautiful daughters Kerry and Faye attended, as did Bruce and a host of people. A lot of fun - she had been quite explicit about overstaying our welcome with "Carriages at 11" on the invitation, but by the time it came to go, Adrian wanted everyone to stay longer. Nathalie said, "but it's what you wanted!" We had sickish babies at home, and couldn't stay in any case.........

February 28, 2010 Malibu, California Last day of the month - relax!

March 1, 2010 Malibu, California Bruce came in from Marina Del Ray and sang two songs today - Satellite 15 and When the Wild Wind Blows. Started working on the Wild Wind mix.

March 2, 2010 Malibu, California Compiled the vocal for When The Wild Wind Blows and mixed it! Steve's daughters, Faye and Kerry, came by and listened to all the music completed thus far, and they went with Steve to the local Italian restaurant, The Sage Room, for dinner.

March 3, 2010 Malibu, California Bruce came by today to hear the five mixes that were done. Did a little touch up on When the Wild Wind Blows mix, compiled the lead vocals on The Alchemist and mixed it as well.

March 4, 2010 Malibu, California Started compiling a lead vocal on The Talisman. It was a nightmare to compile! Adrian dropped in late afternoon to pick up a CD of the mixes thus far.

March 5, 2010 Malibu, California. I mixed The Talisman, the second bit. Not the quiet intro bit that sounds like a haunting kids sea shanty. I think fans are going to love this song! March 6, 7, 2010 Malibu, California Weekend - happy to have a break! March 8, 2010 Malibu, California Finished mixing Talisman (the acoustic intro) and compiled the vocal on The Man Who Would Be King. March 9, 2010 Malibu, California Mixed The Man Who Would Be King. Adrian came in and said it all sounded good - and said he was 95% happy with the album mixes and we should look at them and tweak them slightly - I am perfectly happy to reassess any of the mixes, as daunting as the prospect of revisiting everything is, changing sonics etc., but Steve and I are quite happy with it and neither of us can really afford the extra time it would take to remix, so Steve jumped in and basically said we're going to be done this weekend and we are not remixing the entire album. Adrian ultimately understood but wasn't thrilled about it! March 10, 2010 Malibu, California Compiled the vocal for Starblind, and began the mix of it - it is proving to be a complicated mix and quite difficult.

March 11, 2010 Malibu, California Mixed Starblind today. Adrian came by to hear it - and was desirous of more reverb on some things - it's a little bit of a continuous internal battle, and is essentially just a different way to hear things. Def Leppard on one hand, something garagey on the other. Extra reverb was not added to anything. Adrian left happy and understanding, I thought!!! March 12, 2010 Malibu, California It's Steve's birthday today! I've just finished mixing the entire album - mixed The Isle of Avalon and Satellite 15 today. The mixes went very well then I assembled the album in order - putting all the master mixes in sequences and adjusting the gaps or segues between the songs. Steve is packing to leave and I'm planning on having a glass of wine with Adrian at 9pm - both lads appear ecstatic! We're all off for dinner...... Friday May 7th, Oakland, CA Well, it's almost two months later. I've completed the Black Country Communion album and am in midst of producing a new Journey album since we wrapped up the Iron Maiden album. I'm sitting in Oakland airport (I'm producing Journey album in San Francisco) - waiting for a one hour flight to Los Angeles where I'm going to play the folks from Universal Music the new Maiden album later today. We've had the album mastered three times, and have ultimately decided to go with my flat mixes over any of the mastering versions. I think the mastering place did a great job, but Steve, while liking these versions, feels that the integrity of the original mixes has been compromised somewhat and so it's coming out flat. No equalization, no compression, just as it was when Steve heard the MP3s of the mixes and just as it left my studio. Tuesday June 8th, Malibu CA Home after recording the Journey album - in the studio mixing a South African band called Panic Circle today. The first Maiden single, El Dorado, was released yesterday as a free download on the ironmaiden.com website and immediately clogged up the server, but I woke to about a hundred emails from people that have loved it - so, THANK YOU!!! And that is how I spent the early part of 2010 - producing The Final Frontier. Hope you enjoyed that....... - Kevin Shirley

#iron maiden #bruce dickinson #steve harris #adrian smith #nicko mcbrain #dave murray #janick gers #Kevin Shirley #the final frontier #behind the music #behind the scenes

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