A/N: Don't play the song till later please!
Third Person POV:
Chi slowly opens her eyes to the dim walls of her apartment. There was some early morning light streaming through the slight cracks in the blinds. The light was slightly illuminating the dark plum walls, scattered with various band, anime, and TV shows posters.
She slowly shakes her head to gain a bit more consciousness. She turns her head to check the time, only to find its seven in the morning, a couple hours later than when she would normally have to wake up for school.
'Why so early?' She groans internally.
Slowly, she pushes her covers off her still groggy form and begins to make her way to the bathroom.
As she goes about her morning business, she can't help but feel something is weird. At first this came as a shower thought, the type like how dogs see us and have the same reaction, only this thought was, at the very least, startling for the poor girl.
'For my own room and house, I feel like I shouldn't be here.' That thought wasn't the same as when a depressed person thinks it, this was more of a thought you get late at night when you think someone is following you.
She tried to shake the thought off and the feelings that came with it as she finished her shower and morning routine.
'It's okay Chi, how about making some waffles for breakfast to lighten my mood' She nodded her head and began to walk to the kitchen to grab the ingredients.
'What am I so happy about? It's not like I can eat them,' Some deep part of her, maybe it was even someone else, whispered to her.
She stopped, nearly dropping the container of flour. 'Why wouldn't I be able to eat them?' She questioned already knowing there would be no answer. 'I mean, what was that? There's no reason for me to not be able to eat, and there's no reason for me to be worried, I probably just watched too many horror movies last night...' All her previous actions halted. She even forgot to breathe for a second when she realized she didn't remember last night or the night before, or any of the previous days either. All she can remember is vague memories of her life and friends.
'Calm down Chiyo, I'm sure there is an explanation. Just stay calm and try to list all the things you remember.' She takes a deep breath as she begins to resume her baking while listing her memories.
'Okay, well... I remember Touka, she's my best friend, practically my sister, and she works at the cute coffee shop called Anteiku. I work there too, along with Nishiki who is like my brother, and Yoshimura the owner and father like figure for all of us at the cafe. Then there's Hinami, who needs us to be there for her after her mom was killed in a crossfire situation. It was a wrong time and place thing. School is chill, Touka has a few classes with me and so does Nishiki. Oh, and there are two rival gangs near our district. I live in Suginami right between Shibuya, where I go to school, and Nerima, where Anteiku is. The two mafia gangs are the Suits and the Bandannas.
'The Suits are more of a formal gang, always seen in clean cut suits. They are more of the assassins you would call to exterminate the target quickly. The Bandannas are less formal but still very good, and are always found wearing various colored bandannas, signifying their status. They leave no traces of their presence but still manage to make a mess, so as slang people call them untouchables because no member has ever been caught .
'Anteiku is more of Bandannas' turf, Suginami is pretty neutral, and Shibuya houses one of the Suits' main buildings.'
Chi sits her small stack of waffles on her small kitchen table and returns to the kitchen to grab some strawberries and a cup of water. She makes her way back to the table and begins to eat, scrolling through her phone to take her mind off of things.
'Today is Saturday so I would have my shift at Anteiku begin at nine and end around one, and I need groceries. I'll have time to hop by the bookstore too then meet up with Touka for some coffee at Anteiku around three.' She plans.
The time was 8:15, so Chi began to get ready, choosing a nice pair of mesh fabric leggings and a comfy white over-sized hoodie. She pulls some of her hair into a half bun, slips on her shoes and makes her way towards the train station.
While Chi does live in a fairly neutral area, that doesn't mean that it's exactly 'safe' to be out without protection, so she does have a small pocket knife and some pepper spray with her in her small purse.
As she walks to the train station she finds herself lost in thought, because in what felt like a few seconds, she was on the platform waiting for her train. As a few of the trains pass, on the platform across her, there was suddenly a person standing there.
The girl had a similar hair style and coloring to Chiyo. She looked about the same height as well. The mystery girl had a white and gold mask on and a horrifying reddish purple tail-type thing coming from behind her, moving and twitching ever so slightly.
Horrified, Chi takes a few steps back and looks at the people around her to see how they were reacting. No one noticed, at least Chi couldn't see anyone who did. They were all too busy looking on their phones or talking to care, but there were some people she expected to notice, yet no one did.
Another train passes and through the passing windows Chi sees the girl, stance unwavering and staring at Chi like she is waiting for Chi to join her, but as the train passed Chi found herself looking at an empty space.
She quickly looks around for the girl, but has to cut her search short as her train arrived. She quickly boards the train, constantly looking around her car for the masked girl.
Before she realized it, it was her stop, and her body was moving on it's own. Once off the platform the noirette begins to make her way to Anteiku.
Still slightly put off by what just occurred she gets into the employees room to put her stuff down and get her uniform on. The uniform was the basic white long sleeved button up with a black button up vest and a black tie. She had also had her black pencil skirt on with the white stockings and the regular black shoes.
She begins walking towards the aprons and order books as her boss catches her to exchange their normal morning greetings.
"Ah, Chi! How are you this morning?" Yoshimura inquires with his deep and warm tone.
"Um, okay I guess," She replies.
"Oh dear, what happened? Are you in any danger?" He worriedly asks, naturally assuming the worst with the current tensions between the two gangs.
"Ah, oh no sir. It was just a weird encounter at the train station, and before you ask the person didn't have any bandannas on or a suit," She quickly explains.
He sighs in relief. "That's good, I love and care for you all too much to see you caught up in anything bad..." He trails off. His daughter went through a rebellious phase and thought joining the bandannas would be a good idea to piss off her old man. She later found out that joining a gang wasn't like dyeing your hair, once you're in you can't get back out.
"I know, we all miss her too," Chi says as she moves to hug him.
He sniffles a bit, "Ahem, well I guess we shouldn't dwell on the past."
Suddenly Chi saw herself in another vision.
There was a girl with dark brown hair that went a bit past her shoulders and she had these gruesome black and red eyes. The black sclera seeped into the skin around her eyes. She had a similar red and purple protuberance as the girl from the train station.
She was pointing one of her red and purple tail like thing at Chi while the other was wrapped around her and began speaking to her, all of it was muffled.
Right as the red tail pulled back something came crashing from the sky and crushed the two girls, snapping Chi out of her vision.
"Uh, yeah. I'm gonna get to work now. Um if you need to talk you know where to find me," Chiyo tells Yoshimura .
He nods as the girl quickly moves towards the order books. Worried the weird morning occurrences would effect her work ethic, she quickly shakes her head to clear her mind, maybe she could talk to Touka about it after their shift.
She grabs her order book and begins her search for a pen.
"Hey Kid!" Nishiki jokes as he walks in to start an order.
"Yeah, hey to you too old man." Chi shoots back, quickly moving around to find a pen.
"Whoa, kid something wrong? You seem off," Nishiki inquires.
"Ah um, it's nothing big," She avoids the question as she tries to find a pen.
"You sure? You know you can talk to me, right?" He good-naturedly asks.
"Yeah totally," She dismisses, struggling to find a working pen.
"Seriously Chi. Whats wrong?" Nishiki moves to block her path, arms crossed as he looks down at her with a pointed stare.
"I'm fine, honestly," She insists, rolling her eyes. "Listen, it's really nothing," to this Nishiki rolls his eyes, "...but you clearly won't let it drop so I'll tell you after our shift, okay?" She insisted. He nods in response as Chi quickly moves away to finally grab a pen and start taking orders.
After taking the order of a this sweet regular couple, Chi makes her way to the back to grab their orders, still lost in thought about the days earlier occurrence. Touka starts to walk over to her.
"Hey," She says.
"AH!" Chi jumps and drops the utensils she was holding, snapping out of her thoughts abruptly. "Oh, hey Touka," She bends down to pick up the utensils.
"Whoa, are you okay?" Touka asks as she picks up a fork and hands it to her.
"Thanks," she mumbles, "Yeah, I'm fine, just a little jumpy today." She pauses. "Wait, did Nishiki put you up to this? Because I told him I would-"
Touka cuts her off, "No, Nishiki didn't put me up to anything- Are you sure you're alright?"
"Well" Chi drawls out, looking anywhere but her friends face.
"Well?" Touka responds impatiently.
Chi looks around the small kitchen, deciding it was a good idea to only bring up the girl from the train, she quickly, and quietly, responds, "Okay so this is gonna sound crazy,"
"Probably." Touka interjects.
"Quiet! As I was saying, this might sound crazy, but have you ever seen something no one else saw?" Chi slowly begins grabbing the things she needs for the order. Touka nods her head in agreement. "Okay that's what happened to me, but I also have been having these weird thoughts, but they are things like 'For my own room and house, I feel like I shouldn't be here.'"
Touka stays silent for a few moments, slightly worrying Chi. "Well?"
"Well," Touka drawls out, "You were right about the whole sounding crazy." Touka laughs as Chi groans. "Dude, you need to take a chill pill, like I don't know what's got your panties in a twist but you clearly need a break,"
"No that's not what-" Chi tries to interrupt.
"No! No if, ands, or buts, I have two front row tickets to the 8 Seconds to Fall concert and you're coming with me!"
"Who in the world is 8 Seconds to Fall?" Chi exasperates.
"You haven't heard of them?"Chi shakes her head, "Dude! You really are out of it! They're this boy band from some small town called 'Academy Crossings.' They're about our age too, and all of them are pretty hot!" Chi rolls her eyes at this, "They just dropped their album after their first song took off a few months ago, and they came here for their first concert!"
"And you got these tickets how?" Chi incredulously asks.
"Nothing bad, don't worry. There was a contest on the radio and I had some free time so I called in and surprise, I won!" She excitedly explains.
Chi shakes her head as she grabs the order, walking towards the door. "We'll talk about this after our shift!"
After that, the rest of their four hour shift went pretty normal, no angry customers, no broken plates or cups, and Chi didn't see any weird people or visions again so she started to relax a bit.
"Finally," Chi breathes out, dropping her last tray of dirty dishes into the sink, "It feels like I haven't worked in months."
"Man, you really are out of it aren't you," Chi just shrugs as her and Touka change into their regular clothes.
"We're heading out Yoshimura! See ya Monday!" Chi calls out as the two make their way out.
"See you girls Monday, and stay safe!" He hollers back.
"Wait! Chi!" She hears someone call out. She turned around to see Nishiki running towards her, still in his full work uniform.
"You told me you were gonna tell me what was up earlier," He slightly pants. "Well?"
"Oh, yeah sorry about that." He motions for her to continue. "Well, I thought I saw something on the way here today, but I guess it was nothing. I must've been really tired," She laughs.
"Wait, what did you think you saw?" He asks. At this point Touka, who was mindlessly scrolling on her phone, tuned into their conversation, curious on what had her so messed up.
"Aha, well um, it was nothing really," She tries to evade the question.
Touka puts her phone down, "Nothing? If it was nothing then why did it have you so paranoid?"
"Paranoid? When was she paranoid?" Nishiki asks Touka worriedly.
"Earlier I walked up behind her to say hi and she freaked out-" Chi cuts her off.
"I'm still here guys." They both turn back to her, and she quickly decides to only bring up the train incident. "Since you are both so worried about it, on the platform across from me in the train station this morning, I thought I saw a person with some weird tail like thing coming from her back, but I couldn't see her face because she had on a mask."
"Good lord Chi, you had me thinking you accidentally walked in on one of the gangs doing something, but you're just crazy so its okay!" Chi glares at Nishiki.
"I'm not crazy!" She shouts.
"Yeah, sure you're not. Now lets go I need to go get more ice cream," Touka begins to drag a fuming Chi away from Nishiki, "See ya!"
"I'm not crazy, I did see her!" Chi grumbles as the two walk to the local market. Touka just rolls her eyes and kept walking, choosing not to deal with that at the moment.
The girls arrive at the store and split up, both going to where their needed items were located. Chi pulls out her small grocery list as she grabs a basket. Walking up and down the isles, Chi finds herself almost homesick for this little store.
She went to the store just last week and yet she feels like she hadn't been in quite a while. She decides this is just life's way of reminding her to cherish what you have.
Walking down the seasons isle she picks up one of the small mirrors hanging on the isle shelves. Looking in it to check for any scratches on the mirror, she suddenly sees the same girl from the train station.
Trying not to cause a commotion, she slowly puts the mirror back and cautiously turns around, keeping her eyes closed. She braced herself for the monstrosity of a human that was waiting behind her, but as she slowly opened her eyes she only found a cute boy, with light blond hair, looking at all the spice packets for tacos.
She lets out a breath of relief only to be hit with the realization that there is a very cute guy a few feet from her. 'What should I do?! I could go over and talk to him- No! No! Are you mad Chiyo? You don't know him! What would you even say? "Hey there hot stuff, you look like you could use some company!" Are you crazy? No no, just No! How about- AHHH Oh My GOODNESS HE'S WALKING OVER HERE BE CALMMMMM'
"Um, excuse me?" He calls to her, suddenly next to her.
"Ah, ahem. Yes?"
"Sorry, but do you know any good Mexican restaurants around here? I'm new here and I'm supposed to be in charge of dinner tonight and everyone wants Mexican but I don't know how to make any." He explains, nervously rubbing the nape of his neck.
"Oh, yeah. So just down the road is this smaller restaurant called 'Dama de Fuego' it may look like a 'middle of no where' type place but it's got really good food!" Chi explains. "Its about three blocks down and to the right from here!"
"Thanks! And um I'm Ikki," He kinda pauses like he was waiting for her to recognize him. "Huh, well I'm in this band called 8 Seconds to Fall, and we came here for a tour. So as a thanks, would you like some backstage tickets to tonight's show? I've got a few extra." He asks.
"Oh wow, what a coincidence!" He gives her a confused glance, "You see, my friend was gonna take me to you guy's show tonight to help me loosen up." Chi laughs.
"Well, in that case, I am totally gonna introduce you to all my band members!" Ikki laughs.
"Alright, its a deal!" She laughs. He hands her the passes.
"See you around ummm?" He trails off, realizing he doesn't know her name.
"Chiyo Morri, but my friends call me Chi," She explains.
"See you around Chi." He smirks, walking out of the isle and away from her line of sight.
"Touka will not believe this," She mumbles to herself as she walks to checkout.
The two girls met up outside of the store.
"Touka, you know how we were gonna go to the library after this?"
"Yeah, why?" Touka questions.
"Well, we're gonna have to go home to get ready for the concert because I just got us two backstage passes!" She exclaims.
"No. Freaking. Way! How did you get these?!" She beamed.
"Well there was this cute guy in the spices isle and he came up to me asking for a good Mexican restaurant and after that, he introduced himself as Ikki from the band and as thanks he gave me the tickets!" She sang.
"What a coincidence!"
"That's what I said!" They both laugh.
After they got over their disbelief, they decided to meet up at the Dama de Fuego, just for the humor of it, around five, then get to the stadium near six, since the show starts at seven fifteen. It was three o'clock so the two girls parted ways to start getting ready.
Chi began making her way back to her small abode, pondering her run-in with Ikki. Before she knew it, she was at her small apartment. She unlocks it and goes straight to her wardrobe.
'What should I wear? Should I go a little more formal, like a dress, or chill and relaxed with a skirt and a crop top? Ughhh! Maybe I should call Touka to see what she's wearing. Wait, why am I so worried about how I look, I mean, I'm probably not gonna see him after this, but... what if I do? I'll just go ahead and call Touka just to be safe.'
She grabs her phone and dials her friend.
"Hello?" Touka answers.
"Hey Touka, what are you gonna wear tonight?" She questions.
"Oh I was gonna go with some ripped jeans, my dragon crop top and my leather jacket. What are you gonna wear?"
"I was thinking about wearing my white crop top with my yellow plaid skirt," Chi describes.
"Oh, nice." Chi hums in response. "Ya know, we are like polar opposites. I'm over here in leather and you're showing up in soft girl shit." Touka chuckles.
"Yea but I guess opposites attract." Chi shrugs.
"True," She laughs. "Hey I gotta go, I just messed up my eyeliner."
"See ya!" Chi chirped.
"Byeee," Touka sang as she ended the call.
"Guess I'd better get ready then," Chi mumbles to herself.
She walks into her closet while looking up the band to get a feel for what they'd be playing tonight. Grabbing her skirt and shirt, she opens a picture of the band.
There were eight of them, all very good looking, and around her age. She immediately found Ikki, he had his arms slung around a guy with shaggy black hair and another guy with shorter silver hair. He had drum sticks in his hands and was wearing a baggy tank top and some black ripped jeans.
The two he was next to were wearing practically the same thing, jeans of some color and either a t-shirt or a sweatshirt. The silver haired dude had what looked to be some skulls on his shirt and the black haired guy had some cute puppy designs on his shirt.
The rest of the band members had relatively the same theme, jeans (possibly ripped) and either a tank top to show off or a baggy t-shirt. Chi couldn't deny that she felt that she had seen all these guys before, like she knew them.
Putting that feeling aside, she started getting ready. Once fully clothed and in some light makeup, Chi headed out the door and towards the small restaurant.
Chi didn't think of herself as a particularly paranoid person, but after today's events, she found herself constantly checking over her shoulder. Now, she's been to way shadier parts of town before but today was different.
Like once, she walked into her friend Uta's tattoo shop while he was talking with who she assumed to be someone from the Bandannas, because as soon as the mysterious guy realized she was there she had a gun to her head. After Uta quickly explained that she was okay and not a threat, he put the gun away and murmured something to Uta before he left without a trace.
After that Uta walked her home and gave her a pocket knife, saying 'he didn't want her to be caught up in the things he was,' and 'it was for her own protection.'
Now, she is keeping a firm grip on the pocket knife, hidden in her purse as she finally arrives at her destination.
She walks into the homely restaurant and is suddenly enveloped into the familiar warmth. She quickly scans the area for Touka and quickly makes her way to the small booth in the back corner.
"Hey Touka! You look good!" Chi says taking her seat.
"Hey thanks Chi! You do too, are those new shoes?" She asks looking at her white and brown sandals.
"Yeah, I just got them from this cute boutique down near our school."
The two girls took one look at the menu and knew what they wanted, they were regulars.
Maisie, a sweet red haired girl who works there, quickly came over and took their order. She really didn't need to write down too much since she knew what the girls wanted by heart.
Their food came out fairly quickly but there was still this nagging feeling in the back of her mind that told Chi that the food would just go to waste. She looks up to Touka to ask her if she ever has had thoughts like those before but as she looked at Touka, for a split second Chi thought she saw some person in a plain bunny mask with red and purple flaming wings in front of her instead of Touka.
"Umm? You okay Chi?" Touka asks, snapping her out of whatever vision she saw.
"Ah! Oh, umm, yeah,"
"Okay," Touka says suspicious of the noirette in front of her.
The two continue eating in silence before they finally finish up and pay for their meal. Walking out of the restaurant Touka decides to break the silence.
"So, have you actually listened to any of their songs?"
"Ah, haha. No," Chi replies, sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck.
Touka rolls her eyes at her. "I can't believe that you you thought 'Oh well I've got all this time to get ready for the concert tonight, for a band I've never heard of, but, nah I don't need to listen to their music or anything,'" She mocks, making her voice slightly higher.
"Hey!" She laughs. "I was busy with what I should wear and all that stuff! And for your information I did look up a picture of them!" She defends.
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say," Touka jokingly pushes her.
She gasps. "I so did! I'm not joking!"
"Uh huh, I'm sure. You're lucky were already here." Touka says as they reach the steps of the large stadium.
The girls enter and are greeted with a sea of people, mostly girls. They try to get a look at what the commotion is, Chi is suddenly hit a random memory of a place she's never been, with people she doesn't remember.
Masses of girls, screaming, running over each other. They're crowding over some rickety railing and Chi feels herself talking to someone. Their face is blurry but she sees a black uniform with white stripes and a red armband. She thinks he has grey hair but she's not sure.
"Tch you can do that," The blurry guy's gruff voice grunts.
She feels herself walk over the the mob of girls, feeling very sick, and began weaving her way to the front.
"Move away from the railing, it could break at any point!" She feels herself yell.
Then all the girls silence and take a few steps back. In her memory, her vision suddenly got really dizzy and she had to stabilize herself by leaning on the railing but as she did so the railing fell into the water below.
Chi snapped out of the vision as soon as her body hit the water. Gulping in air, still convinced she was submerged. She frantically looks around trying to find the mysterious silverette and to figure out where she is.
She spots Touka a little bit ahead of her and quickly remembers where she is and whats going on. 'It was just a dream' She tells herself.
The large crowd of girls ended up just being the line through security and ticket redemption. So after the girls got their red wrist bands on, with the cute band logo of a rose surrounded by what looks like thorns.
The walk to their seat was filled with crazed fangirls, all of whom were screaming and squealing to each other. They finally found their seat, and Touka wasn't lying when she said front row. The girls were sitting in the very first row and right in the center of the stadium, giving them a perfect view of the stage.
"Hey, I'm gonna go check out the merch, you wanna come with?" Touka asks.
"Umm, yeah." Chi responds standing up.
The two girls make their way back up to the concourse while making small talk about what they wanted from the merch stand.
Once up there, they find that there is a long line for the merch.
Bored from waiting in the line, Chi turns to Touka. "Hey if you wanna look around a bit while I wait, go ahead," She says.
"Dude, thanks! I'll be back in a bit, then you can walk around." Touka responses while walking away to other booths.
The line wasn't all that exciting. Just the usual excited chatter of the fans and the occasional squeal from some group of girls.
After close to fifteen minutes Touka reappeared.
"Hey, you can go walk around now," She says.
"Alright thanks!" Chi began walking away, careful of the girls running all around her.
The concourse was full of brightly colored booths and fluorescent lights. Sometimes the lights were so bright she had to squint to see.
There were quite a few food stands, offering various fair-like food such as funnel cakes or cotton candy.
The other booths were numerous handmade crafts and products. The merchant booths mainly displayed jewelry or art, but there were a few booths advertising big name companies.
Having not found anything that peaked her interest, Chi continued walking and before she realized it she had walked to the end of the concourse. Well, it wasn't really the end of the concourse because there was small wall and door separating the concourse from the back stage area, along with a couple of brooding body guards.
Yet poor Chi didn't realize where she was till a deep and gruff voice snaps her out of her thoughts. "Excuse me Miss, but you can't be back here."
"Ah!" She jumps, startled. "Oh, um, sorry I wasn't paying attention to where I was going," She explains.
"Yeah, like we haven't hear that before," The slightly shorter, brunet one said.
"Um, I seriously wasn't paying attention, sorry,"
"Uh-huh sure, that's what they all say, now scram!" The shorter one slightly yells.
"Uh, yes, sorry," She mumbles as she quickly turns around.
As she began to walk away she heard a door open but she didn't turn around, afraid the scary guy would yell at her.
"What's going on out here?" She hears a familiar bubbly voice ask lightly.
"It was nothing, just some girl saying she wasn't paying attention again," She hears the shorter one say.
"Oh, well." There is a pause as the mystery guy looks at Chi's retreating figure. "Hey, wait a sec! I know her!" He starts to jog up to her "Chi! Hey, Wait up!"
Upon hearing her name, Chi turns around to be greeted by Ikki running towards her.
"Hey! Sorry about the bodyguards, they're just doing their jobs," He explains once he reached her.
"Um, it's okay." She trails off. "Hey wait, shouldn't you like, I don't know, maybe be back there getting mic checks or something?"
"Um," He drawls out, suddenly not able to form sentences.
"Hello?" She snaps in front of his face. "Mic check? Performance? Anybody home?"
"Ah, yeah. Sorry I just got lost in thought for a second. But yeah I've got mic checks in like ten minutes so I can slip away for a bit."
"Okay." There is a few moments of silence. "So, do you really need two bodyguards though? I thought your band was just getting traction?" She asks, trying to keep the conversation going.
"I mean, yeah we're just getting traction, but we're also a boy-band so we can get a lot of crazy girls. I mean, we constantly get fan letters and stuff like that," Ikki explains.
She laughs a bit, "Yeah I could only imagine," He shoots her a look of confusion. "The entrance to just getting our tickets vouched was insane with girls constantly screaming," She explains, laughing a little at the silly idea.
"Aha, yeah our fans can get a bit insane." They both nod as they begin walking back to the guarded door. "So are you excited for the show tonight?"
Chi eagerly nods her head. "Yeah, I mean I haven't even listened to one of your songs, but I know they're gonna be great!"
"Aww, thanks! Ya know, I brought up how we met to the guys and they're all really excited to meet you since you saved them from my cooking," He laughs out.
"That's sweet but are you really that bad?" Chi asks, laughing as well.
"Let's just say, if there was a way to burn water, I would've done it by now," They both start laughing at this. "Hey, since I see you everywhere, would you mind if I got your number?"
"Yea sure... but only if I get yours" She responds,
"Ah you got me there," They both laugh as they grab the phones and enter their numbers.
"Sorry to interrupt this moment, but you're needed backstage Ikki," Another familiar voice calls out.
The two slowly stop laughing and wipe their eyes as they look up to the young man. Chi was shocked to see her classmate Kaneki Ken in a headset and holding a thick clipboard.
"Ah, I'm coming Kaneki!" Ikki shouts. "Well, I guess I'll see you after the show then! See ya!" He shouts as he runs towards the door.
"Good luck!" Chi yells. She could barely hear the muffled 'thank you,' but she took what she could get. "Kaneki, I didn't know you worked at this stadium?"
"Huh? Oh, well I took a smaller job here over the summer but I slowly worked the ranks till I got promoted to the stage manager!" He proudly beams.
"Well good for you! I hope everything goes well tonight, later!" She exclaims.
"Thank you! See ya later!" He yells back.
Chi begins to make her way back to Touka. While walking and avoiding all the energetic fans. She checked the time and saw there is about thirty minutes before the show starts, so she quickened her pace.
"Dude what took you so long? We're almost to the front of the line!" Touka barked.
"I know, but I ran into Kaneki because apparently he works here as stage manager and I also spent some time with Ikki again," Chi explains.
"I can't believe Kaneki works here for starters, but I also can't believe your luck! Talking to Ikki twice in one day!" She exclaims.
"OMG! Ikki? I love him! He's my favorite!" Some random girl shouts.
"No girl no. You should go for my mans Akatsuki!" Another yells.
"Umm? You're both crazy because Keizo is the best!" A third calls out.
"Ahaha, let's move up now," Touka says as the two quickly move away from the new forming mob.
The merch booth had quite the variety of things; stickers, journals, shirts, blankets, and a lot more. Touka chose the dark blue t-shirt with a picture of the band and a few stickers. Chi chose the blanket with band logo.
Once they both payed the ridiculous amount of money for the merchandise, they stopped by the snack bar for a soda and some candy before finally going back to their seats.
Back at their seats, the girls finally got situated with all the things they bought before looking at the time. It was fifteen minutes before the start time so the two spent some time on their phones, occasionally talking to each other.
The lights suddenly went down and some fog came out onto the stage. The stadium silenced in an instant. Then, out ran a tallish man with long blond hair pulled into a pony-tail.
"Hello Tokyo!" He shouts into the mic as the crowd erupts in cheers. "I am 8 Seconds To Fall's manager and let me just say we are so grateful for such amazing fans!" The crowd once again cheers. "Now, it's my pleasure to introduce.... 8 Seconds To Fall!!!" He shouts running off stage.
Out runs one guy, he had longish brown hair and purplish brown eyes. He held a mic in his hand and starts singing the opening lyric. "We'll never get free, lamb to the slaughter. What you gon' do when there's blood in the water?"
The next guy runs out. He had short blond hair and forest green eyes. "The price of your greed is your son and your daughter. What you gon' do when there's blood in the water?"
"Look me in my eyes. Tell me everything's not fine." A guy with orange-y blond hair and fiery orange-ish eyes came out singing, he had no shirt which made the crowd go wild.
"Or the people ain't happy and the river has run dry." The silver haired guy from the picture began singing.
"You thought you could go free. But the system is done for." The ravenette from the picture follows. Once their lyrics were over they did a flip behind the other three before joining them dancing.
"If you listen real closely there's a knock at your front door" A blond with icy blue eyes struts onstage, knocking on an imaginary door before blowing a kiss to the rabid crowd.
Another guy came out, he had brownish red hair and silvery blue eyes. "We'll never get free, lamb to the slaughter. What you gon' do when there's blood in the water?"
"The price of your greed is your son and your daughter. What you gon' do when there's blood in the water?" Ikki finally comes out, doing a back flip. Chi and Touka shouted and waved their arms when he came close to their area of the audience.
"When there's blood in the," All the boys sang in sync as they performed a few flips and synchronized dance moves. "When there's blood in the!"
Suddenly Chi finds her surroundings changing and the music is fading slightly.
In front of her is a girl with brown hair, a the same blurry guy from before and, who looks to be, the announcer from the band. The girl has the same uniform as the guy. But the announcer looks like he doesn't know how to properly dress himself with a little bit of everything in his outfit.
"Miss Morri," The blond announcer look-a-like begins, "These two are my darling children, my beloved son and daughter..." As he began to say their names the scenery changed to a guy with a white uniform in a fighting stance in front of Chi.
The blurry guy suddenly expels fire from his hands right at Chi, only she can't move and gets hit face on. It was excruciating as she felt the blow flowing from her.
It all began to fade back to the concert. She looked around and quickly touched her face, feeling for any injuries. There was none. Startled, the girl looked around to the others to see if anyone went through the same thing, or even noticed. No one spared her a glance, so she took a deep breath and tried to listen to the music.
"Beg me for mercy, admit you were toxic,"
Even as the band was playing, the lyrics feel too close to what the girl just saw, giving her chills.
"You poisoned me just for another dollar in your pocket,"
She continued taking deep breaths to calm down. A thousand questions raced through her head. She couldn't help but feel all the people she 'saw' were very familiar. Another thing she pondered was why she didn't feel just the imaginary physical pain from the flame, but also some form of emotional pain.
She finally pulled herself from the rabbit hole of thoughts and forced herself to focus on the concert. She decided she would watch Ikki, as he was the only one she knew, yet she felt her eyes drifting to the other guys as well.
It was something about all of them, something that felt slightly off, especially the guy with long brown hair. Chi felt like their personalities should've been different or something of the sort. She didn't even know their names, and yet things felt off with them.
As the song ended the crowd went wild and the eight guys started moving towards the center to fully look at the audience. Of course Ikki made sure he was close to the two girls and snuck a quick wave while his band members weren't looking, of course this made the crowd go wild but Chi and Touka knew it was for them.
"Hey guys! How we feelin?" The brunet asks. There was an uproar of cheers. "I'll take that as good!" He laughs. "So as you know we're 8 Seconds To Fall and I'm the lead singer Kaname!" He waves.
"I'm Takuma, the guitarist!" The green eyed blond introduces with a friendly smile and wave.
"I'm Akatsuki the bassist," The shirtless orangy blond laughs.
A beat of silence occurs before Akatsuki elbows the sliver haired guy. "Tch, I'm Zero and I'm also a bassist." He kinda waves.
"Heyyyy I'm Keizo and I'm a singer." The ravenette from the picture sings.
"I am Hanabusa, the other wonderful guitarist!" The flamboyant blue eyed blonde beamed while throwing kisses.
"Uh, I'm Senri and I sing also," The reddish brunet shyly remarked.
"And last but not least, moi!" The rest of the band rolls their eyes at his antics. "I'm Ikki and I play the drums!"
The two girls cheer loudly for the sliver man as the band waves and starts walking to where their instruments were being carried to. They quickly got situated and started their next set with each member playing their instrument this time.
After that the rest of the concert went by in an flash. With various stunning dances and beautiful light shows. They even had a few songs where they would have one or two members perform some cool talent they possessed, like how Zero, Ikki, and Keizo all did a bunch of cool flips and things of that sort.
(You can begin the song at the top)
"So this is gonna be a new song, and you all are gonna be the first to hear it. It's called 'Backstage'" Kaname said. They started playing the final song of the night and Chi felt so light for some reason.
Everything that had happened in the past day bothered her, but after such an energetic performance, she couldn't help but feel upbeat and happy.
As the song came to a close the band members all ran to the front of the stage to say a collective goodnight.
"Thank you so much for being the best first concert we could ask for! We're 8 Seconds to Fall and we'll see you on the other side" They announce, bowing at then end before blowing a few kisses and running off stage.
'We'll see you on the other side.' Those words left Chi slightly unsettled. It wasn't said with any bad undertone, it was just their catchphrase, so why did it have Chi so bothered?
"Dude, that was awesome!" Touka exclaims, drawling Chi back from her thoughts.
"Yu-yeah! They were super awesome!" Chi halfheartedly agrees. It wasn't because she didn't like the band, but she was so in her head she barely heard Touka.
"I still can't believe we'll get to go backstage with them after we get out of here!" Touka said jubilantly.
"Honestly today just feels unreal," Chi says.
"I know, like what are the odds?" Touka laughs out.
The two girls slowly make their way out of the packed stadium and towards the backstage area where they will get to meet the band members.
The line wasn't was as long as the entrance one or even the merch booth line. This one was literally only Chi and Touka. Worried that they got the wrong place, the two share a silent conversation before carefully approaching the designated area and thoroughly looking around.
The only signs the two girls found were signs confirming they were in the right place. Shrugging Touka begins walking up towards the two bodyguards from before.
"Hey, we've got backstage passes, so do we just like go through here or?" She casually asks.
"Lets see the passes," The mean one grunted out.
The two girls quickly take out the passes given to them so the mean bouncer could verify. He takes a good look at them before nodding to the other man who opens the door for the two girls to go through.
"First door on your left, have fun," The second one tells the girls kindly as he holds the door for them.
The girls nod and thank him before looking for said door. The hallway they were walking down curved slightly and the dark grey walls held various signed posters for bands or shows that performed here. They finally reach a door labeled 'green room.'
Touka didn't think twice of the labeling but Chi knew a green room was like the performer's chilling area.
"I don't know if this is right Touka," Chi muttered.
"Nah this is what the bouncers said, so this must be it!" She smirked before opening the door with no warning.
All the boys inside were startled at the sudden noise, stopping what they were doing to look at who interrupted their post-show celebration. Perplexed, some of the members shifted uncomfortably as they now realized the two girls were strangers.
Poor Chi looked like a deer caught in the headlights behind Touka, taking a few steps back as to not be seen. The awkward silence made her uncomfortable so she nervously looked out from behind Touka's shoulders to try to spot Ikki.
"Oh!" Ikki drawls out as he spotted Chi, "Don't worry guys, this is the girl I told you about!" He explains as he grabs Chi from behind Touka as he ushers them further inside the lounge.
"Uh, I'm Chiyo and this is my friend Touka. Sorry if we scared you!" Chi apologized.
"Nah they're fine, besides it was pretty boring just waiting around for you two!" He shrugged. "Oh, where are my manners?" He jokes. "Let's introduce ourselves!"
"If they were at the concert then shouldn't they already know us?" Zero sneered lowly.
"Well yea, but I thought it would be nice to personally introduce ourselves to our first and only backstage fans!" Ikki beamed.
Kaname took charge first, making his way to where the two girls stood awkwardly. He greeted Touka first, "Hey, I'm Kaname!" When his hand touched Chi's she was sucked into another vision.
She hears this girl's echoing voice over the visions, "The dorm president for the Night Class is Kaname,"
There are flashes of him in the same white uniform from her previous visions. He seemed to be leading a group of seven others. There was two girls who had slightly visible faces. Like Kaname, they all looked ethereal, but the four other guys were still blurry.
"He is the tall one with the permanently stoic face, and he favors Y-" The rest of what the girl said was cut off.
Chi sees flashes of Kaname talking to, who looks to be, the brunette girl from her vision during the concert. He seemed pretty close with her, and happy around her. Then it shifts to him introducing her to the other members of the uniformed group in some classroom followed by flashes of him with a fake smile on his face, talking to her or the blurry guy in the black uniform.
"Nice to meet you," she replies as if that didn't happen. Perhaps that was just a fluke meeting and vision without any meaning.
"Hey I'm Takuma," The blue eyed blond warmly greets.
Chi shook his hand, expecting a vision, but it didn't happen. However, when she looked into his eyes to offer a warm smile in return, she was sucked into another vision.
She sees herself bracing for impact as he walks a steady line towards her on the narrow train walkway. After he politely apologizes and goes on his way she gets a strong whiff of iron and citrus.
Then it changes to the vision of Kaname leading the group, this time she could clearly see Takuma behind him and to his right, looking very dignified. It changes once more to him and another blurry white uniformed male. Chi was talking to them and getting along quite well.
"Ch-Chiyo, I'm Chiyo and its nice to meet you!" She fumbles out.
The next boy comes over snaps in front of her face to get her attention on him.
Chi sees Zero in the black uniform and suddenly all the previous visions of the blurry man with the black uniform is a clear picture of Zero.
She sees Zero in some class talking to the girl from the office. 'That Chi girl gives me weird vibes, she doesn't talk until the day after the Night Class gets messed with and she suddenly takes action after Kaname went-' The rest of his sentence was jumbled up.
The next few flashes were of a tattoo on his neck and a gun in his blazer. It flashes to her holding the same gun to Kaname and some staff at Zero's neck.
"I'm Zero, in case you forgot" He sneered.
"Uh, yeah I remember," Chi trails off, slightly off-put by her vision and how he acts.
"Uh sorry about him, but I'm Senri" He smiled offering his hand.
Chi is pulled into yet another vision. She sees flashes of Senri behind Kaname and the rest of the white uniformed group. He is close to one of the girls, walking next to her under her parasol.
It flashes to him sitting in a nicely furnished room eating pocky with the same girl before, then it changes to him standing behind a the other white uniformed people. Chi was frozen to the floor in front of an angry Kaname slowly approaching. Senri was on the stairs not making eye contact due to the tension of the room.
"Super nice to meet you, I'm Chiyo," She responds as normally as she could after another one of her visions.
"Hey sweet-cheeks! I'm Hanabusa, but you can call me da-" He gets cut off by a sharp slap upside the head from Akatsuki.
"Sorry about him, he's special. I'm Akatsuki," They both smile and go to shake her hands.
Once again in a vision she sees Hanabusa standing next to Takuma in some forest, both getting along very well, and occasionally talking to her as they tell her a distorted story Chi can't understand.
Then it switches to the vision of the guy shooting fire at her, but instead of a blurry face, it's Akatsuki. He has a focused and almost angry look on his face, intent on hitting his target, her.
It shifts to the group again, and all the boys of the ethereal group were now visible, the girls were still slightly blurry but each guy was someone from the band.
"Aha, it's nice to meet you both too!" Chi nervously laughs as she retracts her hands from the two. Hanabusa especially, since he was kissing her hand.
"Heyy - whoa!" Keizo energetically runs over to the girls, hand extended, but he couldn't stop in time and ended up falling over the couch. "Ahaha, um... Sorry!" He rubs the nape of his neck. "I'm Keizo!"
Into another vision our poor Chi is pulled into. This one appears to be in a clock tower, and Keizo is leaning against the guarder looking at Chi with such admiration and devotion, it almost shocked her.
It would've, yet there was some part of her that felt it was normal and endearing.
She laughs a bit at his odd behavior. "I'm Chiyo! Nice to meet you!"
"Alright now that every one is acquainted... How do you like our show?" Ikki beams.
"How'd I like it? No, I loved it! I loved all the cool flips you did, and I loved that new song.. oh what was it? In stage? Or up stage or something like that! It was so cool!" Touka cheers.
"Aww thanks! We just added the acro-bit pretty recently because we just found out me, Keizo and Zero can do these cool flips!" Ikki explains.
"How 'bout you little mouse?" Hanabusa slyly asks.
"I really liked it, I mean I didn't know who you were this morning, but you guys really blew me away!" Chi responds.
They all laugh and say their thanks before they continued talking about whatever came to mind. They spent the next few hours having fun and getting to know each other. At some point in their fun, Kaneki came in to tell the guys something but ended up staying to hang out.
Hours on hours passed and everyone was getting pretty close, especially Touka and Kaneki as he leaned in to whisper some... fun ideas in her ear. Touka giggled slightly before clearing her throat to gather everyone's attention.
"Damn, it's 3 in the morning! I need to get back now. You know, early shift tomorrow." Touka explained, standing up and gathering her things. Chi knew she didn't have work the next day, but she saw the not so subtle looks her and Kaneki had been exchanging.
"I'll walk you!" Kaneki exclaims. "You know, with all the.. uh, gang issues recently." He quickly adds.
The band all nodded, only aware of the gangs that resided in the area and not how they had been particularly calm recently.
"See you later Chi! Nice meeting you and I hope your tour goes awesome!" She said walking out with Kaneki.
After the duo left, it was silent before the boys heard a soft giggle coming from the quiet girl. They all shoot her confused looks.
"What? Are we missing something?" Hanabusa asks, whining slightly.
"No, it's nothing." She checks her phone for the time. "I should probably head out too." She slowly stands and grabs her things.
"I could walk you back," Ikki calls out.
"I can!"
"No I can!"
"Wait so could I!" They all begin shouting that they could walk her out. Well, almost everyone. Zero looked like he wanted to say something but never did.
"Hey guys!" She calls, grabbing their attention. "I'll be fine, I live here. Besides I've got a pocket knife and pepper spray, so I'm covered."
They all stop, going silent.
"Well, it was nice meeting you guys! I'm super glad I got to see you guys perform and I hope you'll remember your first backstage fan too! Anyways, goodnight!" She starts to walk out.
"Hey you can't go anywhere without a goodbye hug! That's the rule!" Ikki beamed. The other guys nod and begin to walk up to her.
She hugged everyone goodbye before finally exiting the green room. As soon as the door was closed all the boys looked at each other and said; "She's gonna be mine."
"I got her number!" Ikki brags.
From there all hell breaks loose as the rest of the members try to snatch his phone from him.
Unknowing of the new tensions in room she just left, Chi began walking out of the building. She was greeted with the cold night air of Tokyo.
She looks around at the silent city. Most of the large skyscrapers near the large stadium were lit up, with large electronic billboards on the lower levels displaying pretty colored ads. Even with the streets empty she still feels as though something bad will soon happen.
She breathes out, watching as it forms a small misty cloud and pushes the feeling aside as she had done all day. Thinking 'if she felt this all day and nothing happened, why would it suddenly happen now?'
She began making her way back to her apartment, taking the scenic route. She didn't have an early shift at Anteiku the next morning.
She reached a bridge and saw someone sitting on the railing looking down. The were hunched over looking at what they held in their hands.
As Chi got closer she saw it was a girl holding an old picture. She had shoulder length brown hair and mahogany red eyes. Although the eye color was slightly off-putting, Chi didn't want her to do anything rash.
"Excuse me. Sorry if I'm intruding, but do you want to talk? Are you okay?" She carefully asked.
"Oh, haha. Yeah, I'm fine. I just come here to think." She gestures to the bridge.
"Oh, well may I ask why you're here tonight?" Chi asks, adjusting her purse.
"Well I have this crush- Oh please have a seat! I'm Yuki also!" She exclaims and Chi complies.
"I'm Chi, nice to meet you,"
"Nice to meet you too, but anyways, you see I have this crush on the most amazing guy but he never notices me more than a friend. He is super smart and collected. We-" She laughs a bit, "We used to live in the same neighborhood and he would lead his friends on fun adventures through the town and he always took me even if I was a younger than all of them."
"He sounds lovely. What happened?" Chi asks
"Well I moved away when I was eight and he was eleven. I don't remember the town name but recently there was this band that popped up, 8 Seconds To Fall if you've heard of them, and he was their lead singer. I tried to get backstage passes but I couldn't. So now I'm trying to get tickets for their next show, but their getting really popular so tickets are super hard to get." She explains, looking out over the river below.
"Oh man, well I might have a solution for you." Yuki perks up and turns towards Chi. "I just came from 8 Seconds To Fall's backstage lounge thing since I had the tickets from a friend. And I got one of the member's number, so I can shoot him a text for Kaname's number for you. I mean, only if you want!" Chi explains.
"Oh. My. Yes of course I want you to do that!" She shouts. "I mean, you'd do that for me? A literal stranger?"
"Of course! If I can help, I will." Chi answered, looking for her phone.
"You're so sweet!"
"Found it! And thanks. Now, let me text him real quick!" Chi begins rapidly typing as Yuki looks over her shoulder.
'Hey Ikki can you ask Kaname for his number?
There's a girl who was his long-lost childhood friend trying to get in touch again'
After the text was sent the girls waited impatiently for a response. He finally answered five minutes later,
'Yea its (***) ***-****
Sorry it took so long
The other guys were trying to take my phone'
"Yuki look! He got the number!" Chi beams.
"This is amazing! Let me see!" Yuki cheers. Chi quickly responds before handing Yuki the phone.
'lol it's no problem
tell them I said hi lol'
Yuki quickly pulls out her phone to enter the new number. She had to start over several times because she was so excited that she would hit the wrong button.
"Thank you so much! You have no idea how much this means to me!" Yuki beams as she stands up, jumping around in glee.
"I'm so happy for you! He seemed like a really great guy," Chi says as she pulls Yuki in for a hug.
"Yeah.." Yuki, almost darkly says to her while hugging.
"Whoa, are you okay? Is something else wrong?" Chi pulls away, looking at her.
"Yes. Yes there is something else," She responds. She looks at where the two were standing, taking a mental note she was on the road side of the railing, while Chi was on the side facing the rushing water.
"Well what is it? Can I help?" Chi confusedly asks, not noticing where she was standing.
"No you- Well..." She pauses. "Actually, you might be able to help."
"That's awesome! How?" Chi asked, genuinely wanting to help.
"Well you can start, by dying!" She then pushed Chi, expecting her to just fall back into the rapids below, however Chi grabbed her hands and pulling Yuki to where she was leaning on the railing.
"Why did you do that?!" Chi yells.
"Why? You want to know why? It's because you like him!" She grabs both Chi's arms and tries to pull them off.
"No I don't!" Chi frantically yells as she feels herself loosing her grip.
"Yes you do! I heard you, and Kaname is mine! So you need to leave! Bye!" With one final tug at Chi's hands, she is sent plummeting towards the rushing water.
The current was too rough for Chi to even resurface. Soon enough the water had thrown Chi around so much she didn't know which way was up or down. Deeper into the cold water she went, and like in her vision, her head hit a rock and she went unconscious.
So as Chi lost the last of her breath, Yuki walked away contently texting Kaname.
~*-------------------------------*~
"Lord Kaname can you see anything?!" A worried Hanabusa asks frantically. He was with the rest of the Night Class and the Disciplinary Committee looking over Chi's unconscious body in the medical wing as Kaname tried to see what she was thinking of, or dreaming of.
There was a moment of silence as they waited for him to respond. Finally he removes his hand from her head and turns to look at them. "She's in some form of a mild coma and experienceing some dream."
"Well whats the damn dream about bloodsucker?" Zero demands roughly. Yuki puts a hand on his arm to pull him back and calm him down.
"Tokyo."
-----------------------------------------------
Author's Note:
Okay y'all.
I know this was long awaited and I apologized deeply for my absence but school has been beating me up, man.
I'v also been thinking of making a Haikyuu Mafia AU fic, so comment if y'all would want to see that!
But I'm super proud of this chapter!
Anyways I hope you've enjoyed this super long chapter!
Comment any theories or ideas you may have because talking with y'all make me want to write more!
Word count: 10,254
~ AWA