9A/N: I don't know why I'm on a one-shot kick right now. Maybe because my main story project is digesting my brain like acid. I need a break from it. Aghh. So, in light of my writer's block for one story, I give you another.
In all honesty, this could be continued if I wanted it to be, but I have no intentions of taking this story any further. I know, such a tease I am.
Thank you for reading!
xXx
- Head Wounds -
xXx
It started with a shout and an item hurled at the stage. She watched as the disaster unfolded: the churlish cry of "You suck!" followed by the clashing twang! of interrupted guitar strings and the mass of people swallowing her moving like a stampede. The jeers escalated as more trash was thrown overhead in wide arcs.
"Get off the stage, you fuckin' shit-excuse of a musician!"
The crowd rallied alongside the anonymous provoker. They shook their fists in the air, shouted profanities at the performer, who looked naked on stage—not because he wasn't wearing clothes, but because he stood dumbly, vulnerably, in the center of the abuse, his guitar held limply by its neck in his hand, his voice drowned out by the beastly echo of a displeased audience.
Even as he strained to fight the discourtesy, summoning up the courage to command them to stop, a coin hit him smack on the forehead. The small object was flung with such velocity that even in the riotous din, she swore she heard metal clang against bone.
The sight of him bending over, covering half his face with a hand, mouth uttering expletives, arrested her entirely. Her heart slowed, her breath caught short, her fingers pressed themselves to her quivering lips.
The mob of people roared with triumph as he stumbled off stage, red dripping from his hands.
For a moment, she stood there, brown eyes glaring at the vacated platform, every other sense of hers ignoring the push and shove of the surrounding concert-goers as they celebrated their crass victory.
The hand covering her mouth was withdrawn, and the fingers curled into tight fists. Spinning on her heel, she elbowed her way out of the mad throng, sickened by their redundant company and their complete lack of respect.
She began to wonder why she had even attended the concert to begin with, and the reason hit her as she fought against the current of people, her small, but athletic body effectively resisting their physical drive to push her in the opposite direction.
Her roommate, Mimi, had suggested going, and the proposal was only made to get her to do something with her weekend social life aside from staying in and watching a romantic comedy in her pajamas or volunteering at the local soup kitchen.
"Honestly, Sora," Mimi had said. "You're twenty-five and you have no boyfriend. You won't even touch the online dating option with a ten-foot-pole. So tell me how you are not going to end up a spinster for the rest of your life?"
It was easy for Mimi to say. The fashionable girl's beauty made guys' heads snap off their shoulders as she strutted by. Even if Sora didn't agree, Mimi still had a valid point. Sora hadn't had a steady boyfriend since high school, and even then, it was her best friend, and it had felt more like playing house with a few sexual innuendos thrown in rather than an actual, loving relationship.
When Mimi had spread the concert flyer out on the dining room table in the flat they shared, Sora had stared at it with such uncertainty that she nearly looked queasy.
"I don't even listen to or know of that band, Meem," she had said.
Mimi reached over and tapped a hot-pink fingernail against a name in smaller print.
"You know that one, I'm sure," she said. "Hell, even I know that one because of you even though his music is positively yawn-inducing."
She was referring to Yamato Ishida, formerly of the rock boy band The Teenage Wolves, which itself was an adolescent male ensemble whose success peaked when she was in high school and afterwards fell off the face of the earth.
It was true that Sora had followed the band when she was in her teens. Nearly every girl she knew had done the same. Even Mimi. But when the band announced that it was breaking up and that Yamato Ishida, its lead singer, would be pursuing a solo career, every girl that had swooned and crooned to their faces and music abandoned them.
Except for her.
Sora's only guilty pleasure (aside from watching daytime talkshows), was listening to Yamato Ishida's music. She had purchased all of his albums, his EPs. She was on his mailing list. She supported him every chance she got through social media. Sometimes, and this she was especially embarrassed of, she even daydreamed about meeting him in person.
Whenever she caught herself fantasizing, she'd slap sense into her brain and remind herself that she was not fifteen anymore. She was ten years older, and Yamato Ishida was not the teen heartthrob he used to be.
He had, she contended, only grown more handsome over time.
On days when she came home feeling especially crappy, she would lock herself in her room, lie down on her bed and listen to Yamato's music until her negative feelings vanished. If it took hours to get rid of her anger, despair, or irritation, then she would listen for hours. Belting her heart and soul out along with the melodies and lyrics was also a significant help, though Mimi thought otherwise.
Reviews of his music (and, occasionally, himself) painted him as listless, apathetic, with dry, nonsensical lyrics melded with poor acoustic accompaniment. Sora wasn't entirely brainwashed, and she knew that his words were sometimes lacking, songs of his filled with monosyllabic sounds instead of actual words ("La la la… Oh, whoa, whoa… Hmm, mmm, mmm…"). Still, she believed there was life in his music, and so, despite having had a tough week at work, she decided to attend the concert to see him open for the main act.
It was too much of a fight to leave through the main exits. With Yamato booed and shooed off stage, the swarm of people closed in around the platform, anxiously awaiting the reason they all were present. Once she found an opening, she broke off to her right, blindly, hoping to find another way out without having to swim against the sea of bodies.
She found one, a door that was clearly labeled "STAFF ONLY." She didn't care. Planting her forearm against the door, she pushed.
The hem of her skirt rippled slightly as she stepped out into the refreshing night air. Sora glanced around her and saw that she was in what looked like an alleyway. She doubted her judgment only for the fact that the alley was littered with stage and audio equipment. Chrome boxes and cases, amps, speakers, microphone stands, discarded lights. They were all strewn over the concrete, covered in the shadowy film of evening.
"Is that you, Akira?" she heard a voice say. Her ears twitched as she recognized the signature mellowness, the subtle rasp, the low tenor. "Get me some ice, won't you? This motherfucker motherfucking hurts."
Sora turned her head slowly to the right, brown eyes stretching wider with each second that passed as she took in the image of Yamato Ishida himself perched on the black box of an extra speaker, his palm still pressed to his eye.
"Um…" she began. "I'm not… I'm not Akira." She scolded herself for stammering. Now he would think she was some bumbling, idiot fangirl.
Yamato lifted his head, one blue eye peeking at her under his spiky, blond fringe.
"What are you doing here, then?" he asked.
She struggled to find an excuse.
"Just… uh…getting some fresh air."
"Really? You're not upset that you're missing out on Jimmie and the Ice Cream Cones?"
The main act's famed name sounded queer coming from his lips, as if it were the title of a sixties B-movie or a really bad gay porno. She laughed.
"I actually don't listen to them," she said, when her giggles had been controlled. "I… uh… I came to listen to, well, you."
Her face heated as the confession passed her lips. She was certain that her cheeks were as crimson as the color of her hair. Perspiration seeped into her palms, making them clammy.
"You don't have to do that," he muttered, returning his gaze to the floor.
"Do what?"
"Patronize me."
Sora brought a fist to her heart, unsure whether or not to feel insulted or ashamed. She pressed her lips together as she debated whether or not to leave at that moment or to make a stand and justify herself. As much as she wanted to flee, her feet remained glued to the ground. Her body had already made the decision for her.
"I wasn't," she defended, stiffly. "I really do listen to your music, and you don't even want to know how frequently or how intensely I do."
He chuckled, his lithe body shaking from his laughter. He lifted his head again and looked back at her, the subtlest grin on his lips.
"So, what?" he said, a glimmer in his visible blue eye. "You going to tell me you make love to my music? Or that you…?" His stare shifted south, directing itself at her legs, or perhaps, on a spot slightly higher.
Sora clasped her knees together, gasping as blush surged under her skin.
"That's… That's not what I meant when… when I said that!" she sputtered.
Yamato raised a hand in surrender—or acknowledgement. She wasn't sure which.
"Whatever you say, uh…" He frowned somewhat. "…Miss?"
"Sora," she said. She never quite remembered when she had said her name so declaratively, asserted her place in the world with a fiercely spoken two-syllables. "Sora Takenouchi."
"Well, Sora," Yamato said. He eased off the speaker box and stood on the concrete, lean legs taking him toward her. Her heart palpitated. "It was nice talking to you." Without thinking, he removed his right hand from his face wound, forgetting that it was covered in blood, and extended it before her.
She stared at it as if he were missing three fingers.
"Shit," he murmured, looking down at his outstretched palm and hiding it behind his back. "Sorry."
Sora smiled minutely as he offered her his left hand, even though her right hand was already extended. The handshake that followed was physically twisted, mentally awkward, but emotionally satisfying.
"I could, you know, take a look at… that," she said, pointing at the bloody mess on his forehead.
"Are you a doctor?" he questioned, avoiding giving her an answer. "Akira gave me a kit to treat the wound, but for something like this, it'd help if I could fucking see what I was treating." He pointed at a little plastic box on the speaker he had been sitting on.
"No," replied Sora, "but I work in PT. I'm trained in First-Aid."
"Part…Time?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
She shook her head, giggling.
"No." She nudged him back to the speaker box, gesturing for him to set his bottom back on it before she bent over somewhat to inspect the wound. "Physical Therapy," she corrected. She deftly rummaged through the first aid kit, fingers flicking aside items that were of no use while selecting those that she would need.
"Mainly for athletes," she continued, ripping open a packet of gauze. There was a small bottle of rubbing alcohol in the kit. She poured the liquid onto the square of cotton. "But I guess I can add musician to that list, too."
She felt his cheek muscles bend into a smile as her hand rested on his face, meticulously working to wipe the dried blood away. Though, the smirk quickly shifted into a frown as the open gash met the burn of alcohol.
"You forgot to mention that this would fucking sting," he grumbled, wincing.
Sora took his crankiness in stride, even biting her nether lip to keep herself from laughing.
Within the silent minute that followed, Sora dressed the cut and finished it with some protective gauze taped to his forehead. She didn't know why she did it, but she leaned in and kissed a bit of exposed skin by the injury.
Yamato backed away, both blue eyes now staring up at her in disbelief.
"Sorry," she said, looking down and scratching a nonexistent itch behind her ear. "I hope that one didn't sting, at least."
"It didn't, but it's something else you forgot to mention," he replied.
"I'm sorry," she repeated. She closed the first aid kit and took a step back. "I should get going."
She turned to leave, prepared to sprint off in any direction simply for the sake of avoiding any further embarrassment.
"Hey."
Her feet froze. Why did that voice render her nonfunctional every time she heard it? It was musical even in speech, and he wasn't even singing. Cautiously, she turned back to face him.
"I… uh…" He stuffed his fidgeting hands into his pants' pockets. "This thing is going to have to come off some day, won't it?" he said, more articulately. He pointed to his wound.
"You can take it off tomorrow," she said. "Or maybe even tonight, so long as the bleeding's stopped."
"Well, yeah, but I'm not a doctor. Maybe I should… uh… get your number…" Sora's eyes widened so greatly that she thought they would pop out of her skull. "… In case I have complications," he reasoned.
Her eyes gradually narrowed when she thought she saw him blushing, but it was difficult to discern in the dim light of the alleyway.
"Um, sure," she agreed. He came to her, pulling the sleeve of his shirt up over his elbow as he offered her his bare forearm.
She shuddered to look at it, the full-blooded veins protruding, the sinew defined under the pale skin, the ink of a few tattoos extending from somewhere under the wrinkled sleeve. To hold it in her hands as he slipped her a pen made her lightheaded. When she looked at her handwriting on his arm, it looked like a kindergartener had scribbled her name and number.
"There," she teased. "Your temporary new tattoo."
Yamato smirked.
"Hopefully not temporary," he said, reading her mortification at the insinuation. "It was nice meeting you, Sora." The way he said her name, doing his best to enunciate it, to familiarize his tongue with the sounds made her weak in the knees. Her mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out, leaving her looking and feeling like a fish out of water.
"I… uh… I have to go," she stuttered, jerking a shaking thumb over her shoulder.
Yamato gave her a nod, and she hastily made her retreat, her heartbeat so pounding and feverish that her body tingled with warmth. When she reached her apartment, she was still trembling from what had just happened. Yamato Ishida had asked for her number. Her number.
She bypassed the dining room, flew through the living room where Mimi sat asking her how the concert went, and shut herself in her bedroom before leaping onto her bed.
As much as she knew how childish she was being, getting all flighty from meeting her longtime musical crush, she couldn't help it. She felt ten years younger in that instant, mentally became her fifteen year old self with no worries about the future and no qualms about the past.
Her beaming face pressed itself into a pillow, and she shrieked with delight into it, legs kicking madly with glee.