[New J-Rock FanFiction] Ride With The Rockers
Chapter One: Perhaps it’s Fate.
The young man looked into the sky, his hand reaching out to touch the stars. When you are down, when you feel low, the stars will listen to you. They will always be your friends. “Onee-chan, it seems like waiting for you for all these years did pay off eventually,” he smiled and lowered his hands thinking about the fan who wrote her messages differently from the others. Yes, everyone was unique and he had no intention of contacting her for the sake of fairness, but still, there were times when he wanted to because she was exactly like his cousin, his role model... until she moved on, that is. He felt lucky that he wasn’t too popular at the time yet; lucky that he had just started gaining a name or he might not have been able to appreciate her mails. It’s as if his sister was speaking to him.
He smiled. After her, he had learned to appreciate fans even more. He actually had a fan living pretty close to him. The problem was; until now, she still didn’t know who he was.
“Take-san!” a girl called, pouting, “Please don’t doze off. I can’t handle all the dishes myself.” He glanced around, catching the eyes of the whispering Harajuku girls sitting around the table beside him. “That must be his new hairdo,” one of the girl was saying to her friend who nudged her on the side, mouthing “He’s looking this way.”
Smiling again, he press a singer finger to his lips, “Onegai, don’t tell anyone, ne?” he paused and grinned, “This is my secret identity,” he said acting as cool as he always was. The girls nodded in excitement as he smoothly slipped them his band’s new album and winked.
“Take-san,” the girl from before groaned peering at him from behind the counter, her head slumped in her hands, “if you’re done flirting with the girls, the whole next shift is yours.”
His eyes widened, “EHHH?”
Mari rolled her heavily lined eyes and blew an estranged strand of black hair away from her eyes, “Who was the one who served all the customers today? Me. You didn’t do anything! I am exhausted.”
“I understand, baka Mari” he said lightly, smiling to himself as he felt her scowl at him.
He didn’t know what was more entertaining; the fact that the two fans were staring curiously at her wondering who she was and why the look in her eyes obviously showed that she thought of him as a mere university boy flirt or the fact that she, despite being a big fan of his band, can’t seem to recognize who he was. Of course she was a foreign Asian, but he would expect her to be faster than that especially when he had been dropping her hints for months.
He shook his head, amused; it wasn’t that Mari wasn’t smart; from her way of taking and acting it was obvious that she was a pretty smart girl when she wanted to be. No, that was probably the problem, she was too smart of believe in her luck. Too smart to believe that her co-worker was actually the lead singer of SuG wearing a black wig and no make-up. It seemed unlikely for a fan, but Mari was that kind of girl. Yet at that moment, Takeru was too absorbed in his own world to realize that the look in Mari’s eyes had changed into an unreadable expression; perhaps it was sadness, perhaps it was loneliness, perhaps guilt but if Takeru had just noticed it even the slightest bit, it would have changed everything. That was probably the starting point of everything; where the rumors would initiate, where the friendship would clash, where everything would just become out of his grasp.
But, in the end, perhaps it was fate.
********
“Uruha-san,” the cameraman’s young assistant said, “please go stand in front of Aoi-san with your back facing us and your head titled so that you’re looking at the camera from the corner of your eye.” The assistant was pretty, dashing actually, but Aoi couldn’t care less, not with Uruha around him. He felt a rush of excitement fill him as Uruha stepped in front, their bodies touching slightly, and though direct skin contact was impossible through the thick layers of clothing and the small distance, Aoi’s heart was still racing rapidly. He could feel the blood rushing to his face as he felt the younger man’s warm arm wrapped around his neck as he fixed his eyes on the camera, resisting the urge to gaze at the exposed skin from Uruha’s unbuttoned shirt.
Neither the angelic golden light that reflected off from Uruha’s soft hair nor did the soft wind that carried the younger man’s scent to him help his rising desire. Standing there with Uruha could have been heaven if he had his way with the younger guy, but standing there and resisting the screams of his heart and body only tortured him more and more with each passing second.
He gulped and, as always, tried his best to fight down the increasing need for Uruha, feeling strands of sweat forming on his forehead as his cheeks grew hotter by the minute. It was only lucky that the room temperature wasn’t exactly at a comfortable temperature, yet was it this hot in reality? He wasn’t so sure.
“Aoi-san? Aoi-san?” the voice pulled him back to reality, “Are you feeling well? Do you need anything?”
Uruha removed his arm and looked at him, “Hey, you alright, man? We could take a break.”
He closed eyes and felt a towel wiping on his forehead gently, feelings the tips of the assistant’s fingers through the thin garment. Soft, polite, pretty, appealing, yet, at the same time, he didn’t want her. He patted her head softly and smiled, “Ne, can I go out and have some fresh air?”
She nodded, her lips curling up into a shy smile.
He nodded his thanks and said, “I’ll be back soon,” before taking the packet of cigarette out from his pocket and treating himself with one.
Aoi leaned against the wall, gazing at the fountain in front of him as he went through the series of problems that he had been going over in his head for the past few weeks. No, his feelings for Uruha didn’t form recently; he had always had them. He closed his eyes and took a drag, remembering the start of everything; from the forming of the band to the recruiting of Kai. The band had been through a lot, standing strong for year after year, and there Uruha always was a friend, a co-worker, a consultant... everything but that one forbidden word. Perhaps he and Uruha hadn’t been able to be as close as they should have been, still he was always there. But seeing how close he was to loosing Uruha had opened his eyes; he still didn’t want to admit it because it was wrong, everything was wrong. How could he, now of all times, be falling for his co-worker of the same sex knowing that it would jeopardize their relationship that is already hanging on by the last strand of thread? Not to mention the fact that the whole band was already on the edge.
“This photo shoot will definitely make the fangirls go crazy,” the voice of manager Sakai could be heard from the entrance of the hallway. Instinctively, Aoi hid himself behind the fountain, not really sure why he should, but he hid anyways.
“Sakai-kun,” a fresh, deep feminine voice replied, “are you trying to change the subject?”
He paused, his voice caught in his throat as he gave a shaky laughter, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“As I have said many times, Juliett is out best photographer. Not only is she fast, but she’s accurate, and we both know that her theory is right.”
Sakai raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms, “You actually believe an armature? That’s new.”
The woman rolled her eyes, “We both know that this girl has hit a bull’s eye. There’s something the GazettE is hiding from the public.”
Aoi watched as Sakai looked away uneasily, his fingers tapping the sides of his arms subconsciously, “What do you want?”
She sighed, “We’ve been… acquaintances for a long time, I want to start up my own magazine and if I get the juicy news for my first issue, it’ll be an instant boom.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you get anything out of us then.”
“Oh, trust me, Juliett is capable of getting everything. As someone who knew you before, I’ll ask you to be careful, but I won’t stop until I get what I want,” she looked up and smiled, “Ja mata ne,” and with that, the woman walked away.
Aoi put out his cigarette and stood up; this was already a problem, his internal fight wouldn’t make anything better, it’ll make it worse.
He smirked; he had fallen in love with a co-worker of the same sex… pathetic. The battle in his head was over for now, it seemed like the cons had won over again. Fate will now lead the way for him and Uruha, but for the band, he won’t go down without a fight.
Author note: Next chapter has a ViViD/SuG moment (seme/uke). Yes, yaoi and smut ;3...