Of Love and Music
"I'll be honest with you, Shoji-san... your songs suck." Shoji was playing a tone after another, his fingers hitting every beat perfectly. Yet his mind was elsewhere, his body an empty shell that was simply doing what it was trained to do. In his mind, he could hear his manager's scorn, the edge of sadism in the man's voice as he'd slowly and painstakingly destroyed every hope of their future the band had once had.
"I don't know what drugs I was taking when I took you guys under my wing in the first place. You're just beyond pathetic, and I have no reason of keeping you on." The manager had smiled, a cold, mocking smile. "But no hard feelings, eh? I've gotten you a gig, one last gig, as the warm-up band for the Moon's Angels. A chance to play at a big concert, isn't that what you've always wanted?"
Shoji swore, the disappointment bitter in his mouth. Had he not acted so indecent towards the manager's wife while drunk, they'd still be playing after this. They were talented; the manager knew that. But the man was even pettier than he was greedy, couldn't tolerate anybody poaching on what he regarded as his. One night of drunken stupidity and he'd destroyed the band as revenge.
If only Shoji hadn't had so much to drink. If only Taro-kun had been closer to stop him before it was too late. If only the manager hadn't taken his wife to the party.
If only.
The rest of the hall was empty, every single sound they made incessantly echoing in the vast space before eventually fading away. It felt fitting, somehow - they were just a small voice in the middle of a vastness of millions of people. Right now their voices were echoing, but soon the sounds would fade away and they'd sink back into obscurity.
They'd had their chance to rise above the masses. But what hope could they have now, now that their manager had denounced them as failures? What company would ever even bother glancing at them again, now that they'd been branded as outcasts?
No-one. That was the answer. No-one would want to listen to them, ever again. They'd get to play just one more time, and that was it. After the concert, they'd be finished as a band.
Well. If they were only going to get one more chance to play, let that be the best performance the audience would ever get. To hell with the fact that they were just the warm-up band - after hearing them play, nobody would be able to say that they didn't have talent.
Nobody.
Terao relaxed on the couch as he waited for Keri to return from the shower. It'd been a long day, and Terao had welcomed the opportunity to visit his best friend and lover. The hard-soft cushioning of the couch felt like heaven for his work-weary body.
He smiled as he heard Keri returning from the shower, opening his eyes to look up at the man. To his surprise and puzzlement, Keri only sat on the chair opposite from him, not answering his stare.
"Terao-chan..." Keri cautiously started. "There's something we need to talk about."
And in that instant, Terao knew. The thought of it chilled every vein in his body, but he knew. It was with complete and utter certainty that he knew.
"What is it?” Terao asked, trying to keep the dread from showing in his voice. Maybe he was mistaken. He had to be mistaken.
Apparently Keri had heard something in his voice, for he shook his head and sighed. "Sounds like you've guessed what I'm going to say... but I'll say it anyway, just to get things clear. Terao-chan... this isn't going to work out. You know it won't."
"No!", Terao protested. "We could make it work out! We could..."
"Could we? Could we really?" Keri asked quietly, looking up. Their gazes met, and Tera saw the truth in Keri's eyes. Things would just get too complicated, for both of them. They never could make it work out, not really.
Terao didn't answer, only looking down at the floor. He could feel the tears forming in his eyes, and jumped slightly when he felt Keri's touch on his arm.
"Oh, Terao-chan..." Keri whispered quietly as he wrapped his arms around the younger man and pulled him down on the couch. "I'm so sorry."
The world seemed to move in nearly slow motion as they caressed each other, kissing and making love for the one, last time. It was unlike anything Terao had experienced before - slow, sensual, loving. Both of them wanted it to last for as long as possible, to express all of the emotion they felt for each other while they still could.
There was the slow, loving way Keri's hand caressed his spine, the sweet, soft kiss Terao placed on Keri's lips. There was the playful tug Terao gave Keri's nipple, the sweet scent of Keri's body. There was the way Keri licked at Terao's ear, the way Terao held on to Keri like a small child clinging on to his parent. It felt more than just lovemaking; it felt like a union between their very beings.
It seemed to last forever, growing nearly painful in its blessed ecstasy; they kept on until neither of them could possibly have gone on longer, until their bodies were screaming for release.
Once they were done, they got up and dressed in silence. Neither of them said anything - there was nothing that could be said anymore. Any words spoken now would only break them both.
Was it raining outside or was it just his tears that made it feel like it, Terao could not tell. He held his arm against the wall and buried eyes in it, weeping like an infant.
He couldn’t say how long he’d been like that, just standing there and crying. It was only when his throat grew sore and his eyes smarting that he became aware of the passage of time again – he must’ve been standing there for hours, just standing and crying.
Suddenly Terao felt hopelessly overwhelmed by it all. Overwhelmed by the constant failures, of his latest relationship crumbling away as they all had. He wanted to get away from it all, wanted to get somewhere where his thoughts of despair would stop plaguing him, even for just a minute.
Somewhere in the distance, somebody was playing the first beats of a song.
“Here we go,” Taro whispered. Shoji just nodded.
This was it, their final gig. The second warm-up band before the evening’s big performance. If everything went as expected, they’d be forgotten as soon as the stars would step on the stage. Nobody would remember them the next morning.
Well, things weren’t going to go as expected.
There’d been little of the usual chatter before the performance. Shuicihi’s grim determination seemed to have spread to the rest of the band – if this was the final gig, they’d make it the best one they’d ever play.
Shoji scanned the audience as he took hold of his guitar. Most of them seemed indifferent, barely paying attention to the warm-ups. Many were talking with each other, ignoring the people on the stage. Shoji felt his spirits dampen – would anybody even listen to their last performance?
As he was nervously studying the audience, Shoji suddenly realized that he didn't care if they'd like the performance or not. They were just the usual concert-goers, here for the main event. Could they even be expected to appreciate anything else than what they'd come here to hear?
They couldn't, Shoji realized. It made no difference how well they played now. Even if they'd play the most beautiful song in the world, the audience wouldn't truly hear it. He could feel their anticipation; almost taste their excitement and impatience. The ones they were here to hear were big stars. That was going to be the high point of the evening, and anything before it would just serve to feed their impatience. The only thing Shoji's band was here for was to make it even sweeter for the audience when the Big Stars finally showed up.
Well then. Shoji almost smiled, for the realization felt liberating, almost as liberating as the feeling of determination that followed. They'd give their best anyway. Not to impress the audience, but for themselves. To once and for all prove for themselves they weren't the losers the manager had painted them out to be.
As Shoji hit the first beats of the song, he barely even heard the rest of the band following him into it. As his fingers danced on the guitar, it felt like they were rapidly pulling his very soul into the performance. Suddenly the only things that seemed to exist in the world were he and his performance, every tune coming out perfectly, every nerve and muscle in his body working in harmony.
Theirs was a song of friendship, of friendship and of hope. It was a tale of how two strangers could meet and fall in love at first sight, a tale of how nothing could bring you down as far as you had friends around you. The words that had felt clichéd and trite before suddenly gained a new meaning, the song's ancient theme touching all the way to the bottoms of Shoji's soul. He felt like the song was taking him over, as if the song itself was alive and just using him to make itself heard. He could hear his own words becoming heavy with emotion, his own words that seemed to come somewhere far, far away.
The emotions the song invoked made his blood tingle, and a small part of him feared the energy of the song would make him explode. The fear grew as what felt like the vibrations of his body grew stronger and stronger, until finally his eyelids burst open in an attempt to quell the fear.
He did not notice the audience that had suddenly grown completely silent, did not notice the effect his song was having on the people. Instead, he saw only the eyes that'd been staring right at him when he'd opened his own.
They were deep green eyes, staring at him as if entranced by the song. He answered the stare, and suddenly the nearly violent, pulsing energy of the song transformed into something else as he sank into the eyes, sank into those deep green eyes and explored the mysteries of the soul behind them. Somehow, he knew all that the soul had gone through – how it had searched for love and how each time it had been hurt, every time worse than before. He could feel the strong, nearly overwhelming emotions that were fighting in the soul – memories of another man, memories of one last bout of lovemaking. He felt how it threatened to tear the soul apart, and he felt the pain as acutely as if it’d been his own.
Then Shoji felt dragged back to the world around him as he felt himself playing the finale of the song, falling on his knees in the classical rock star's finish. As the audience exploded in applause, he was left staring at the beholder of those beautiful eyes, still dazed and unsure of just what had happened.
Shoji didn't know what exactly had happened, but there was one thing he was certain of: in that one moment, he'd seen through the man's eyes and seen what his soul was like. In that one moment, he'd seen his soul mate and found his true love. One way or the other, he’d take the pain that man had gone through and make it go away.
Shoji smiled at Terao, and Terao smiled back.
Around them, the concert hall was filled with raging applause and demands of an encore, but neither of the two paid any attention to it.
This work is by Kaj Sotala and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.