Work Text:
“What are you doing?”
Shiho jerked her head up, her expression changing from annoyance to a deer-in-headlights stare.
Minori took another step forward, her gaze lingering on the still-burning cigarette dangling dangerously out of the space between Shiho’s index and middle fingers.
“W-what are you doing here?” Shiho asked, desperately trying to hide the burnt orange glow behind her, but she knew it was too late.
“Airi mentioned a show that we should check out tonight for musical inspiration… Do you work here?”
“Uh, yeah, but I’m on break right now,”
“I knew you worked at a live house but I didn’t think it would be…” She trailed off. Minori smiled pitifully, looking around at her dingy surroundings. From the background, she could hear the heavy beating of a bass drum overtaking the screeches of an electric guitar as the singer (screamer?) tore their throat apart in a delightfully distasteful display of heavy metal. Not only that, but Shiho’s appearance bore a drastic resemblance to that of a punk model; Her jeans hung heavy over her hips and her shirt, if you could even call it that, sagged deep beyond the hem of her pants. It was covered in rips and tears, leaving parts of her shoulder blades and stomach completely vulnerable to the biting autumn air. Despite all this, she barely seemed to register the cold as she leaned against the dirty brick wall of the venue.
“Yeah, I had a feeling it wouldn’t be your scene.” Shiho sighed, taking a slow, heavy drag off her cigarette's end. “Seriously, an idol group is taking inspiration from a punk show? What type of song are you composing?”
Minori stammered, “Well, we’re not composing it… I mean, we are, but not a heavy metal song, but also not not a metal song…” She took a deep breath, regaining her composure. “Since when do you smoke?”
Shiho blinked, taken aback by the young idol’s bluntness. “Um, I don’t. Well, not usually. This isn’t normal, I swear,”
“They’re really bad for you, you know,”
“Thanks, I know.” Her voice fell flat, startling Minori. The pounding music from inside the club came to a stop, eliciting wild cheers from the audience. Shiho sighed once more, taking one final drag from her cigarette before tapping off the remaining ash. Minori watched as the orange glow lit up as she inhaled, the dark ash falling off in flakes as she gently tapped a surprisingly well-manicured finger against it.
“W-well, I should go inside, now, right? For the show?”
“If it’s starting, then yeah,” Shiho pushed herself off of the wall she was leaning against and dropped the cigarette butt on the ground before stomping it out. “I’ll come with you. My break ended, like, 10 minutes ago, anyways.”
“R-right,” Minori faltered, surprised by her classmate’s rebellious attitude. She knew Shiho wasn’t one to follow trends, but this was a whole new level of lone wolfism. She glanced at the bassist’s ear, which was studded with black, spiky piercings that seemed to dwarf the pale skin underneath. More to herself than anyone else, Minori let out a quiet “Woah,”
Noticing her gaze, Shiho quickly dragged a hand through her hair, covering it up with spiky silver strands.
“I didn’t know you had your ear pierced,”
“I take them out for school and put them back in when it’s over. Don’t tell anyone, ‘kay? My parents would kill me if they knew,”
“They don’t notice when they see you around your house? Over dinnertime, or something?”
Shiho grimaced but didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled the thick metal door to the club open as the sound inside increased tenfold. A new band had taken the stage, this time with a pop-punk attitude rather than a metal one.
“Wait, that’s the band I’m supposed to see!” Minori exclaimed, before looking back at the line stretching around the corner to the main entrance of the venue. “Nooo, I’m not going to get tickets on time!”
Before she could react, Shiho grabbed her hand and pulled her into the backstage of the venue. Holding a finger to her lips, Shiho guided her deeper into the darkness behind the curtains as the noise from the band covered up their clumsy movements. The two of them stumbled as they tripped over a stray light on the ground. Shiho swore under her breath as the noise was caught on the amps, reverberating through the venue. She pulled Minori deeper into the darkness until they found themselves in a corner, lined only with amps, old mics, and other random things. She could see the exit, could see their salvation out of the dark until-
“Shit, that’s my boss. Neither of us is supposed to be back here, so shh!” Shiho hurriedly whispered before pushing Minori between a tall pile of amps and the tiny free corner. Following suit, Shiho climbed over and wedged herself between the other girl and the wall.
Minori could feel Shiho’s chest beat beneath her, her ribs moving up and down as they both pressed against each other with only the wall and the amps to support them. She could feel Shiho’s breath curl its way across her senses, the stench of cigarettes involuntarily making her nose twinge. Shiho glanced inquisitively at her, and though she couldn’t tell for sure, Minori was sure that Shiho’s chest had stopped moving as they waited.
Surely enough, an old, wrinkled man came stumbling through the cluttered area, swearing every time he bumped into a stray piece of equipment littered on the ground. At one point, he bumped directly into the stack of amps, forcing Minori deeper into Shiho’s space. They were barely a couple of centimeters from each other at this point, and Shiho closed her eyes in a quiet prayer that they wouldn’t be caught. With nowhere else to look, Minori focused her attention on Shiho’s face. Her nose was also pierced, a thin, silver hoop hanging off the side of one nostril. Eventually, the man and his multitude of curses left, leaving the two girls shaking.
Hurriedly, Minori climbed out of the corner and waited, internally thanking the gods that they weren’t caught (and that the darkness shadowed her red-hot cheeks). Peeking back over her shoulder, Minori made eye contact as Shiho clambered over the amps sealing them in. She tapped her cheek, prompting Minori to mirror. She found a sticky, almost honey-like substance and when she examined it closer, she realized it was… red? Shiho silently giggled at her confusion before pointing back to her own lips.
Realizing what it was, Minori wiped the lip gloss on the amp next to them, much to Shiho’s chagrin. She mimed a slap to her head, eliciting a real, loud giggle from Minori. Her eyes widened, realizing her mistake as Shiho grabbed her hand once more and pulled her out of the backstage, into the employees-only tech studio that was, miraculously, empty. At this point, despite her annoyance about potentially losing her job, Shiho couldn’t stop herself from laughing at their predicament.
Teasingly, Shiho leaned over into Minori’s ear and whispered, “That’s a lip stain, by the way,”
“What!? Shiho, you’re evil!” Minori playfully pushed Shiho back into the couch in the room, eliciting yet another round of laughs from the girl. “So, is it not coming off? Am I stuck with your lip gloss on my face forever?!”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,”
“It is! I was supposed to meet Airi, in like, 80 million hours ago! What am I supposed to say to her when I show up with a dark red lip stain on my cheek?!”
“Tell her you got trapped backstage with your classmate and you had to be shoved into a tiny little corner together and you were so close that she happened to get some gloss on your cheek,”
“No!” Minori interrupted. “That sounds like a romantic fanfic trope! I can never tell her that,”
“Then here,” Shiho said, pulling Minori onto the couch beside her. She stuck a hand down her shirt, evoking an embarrassed gasp from Minori. Shiho fished out a small tube of dark red lipstick and handed it to the blushing girl next to her. “What?” She asked, noticing her red cheeks.
“It was in… you know…”
“Oh! Oh, um. It’s what you do if you’re on stage. Like, it’s easier to keep things on you than to leave them someplace random, so…” Her voice dwindled.
As much as she was loathe to admit it, Minori was weirdly happy to be holding Shiho’s still-warm tube of lip gloss. Knowing that her dear friend trusted her enough to let her see this side of her warmed her to her core, more than some tube of boob-lipstick. “You really are like a professional,” Minori awed.
Now it was Shiho’s turn to blush. “No, not really… no. I just picked it up from the other people playing. They’re the professionals,” She turned to meet Minori’s sparkling eyes.
“No, but really! You even look the part!” She gestured to Shiho’s various piercings and dark makeup.
“Most of these are fake, honestly,” She mumbled, toying with the ring on her nose before gently yanking it off, revealing that it was just a twisted piece of metal. “I wish I could get a real one, but I think it would kill Shizuku. With an actual nose ring, I wouldn’t be able to take it out for a while, and that means I’d get caught,”
“But what about your other ones? How come you aren’t caught with those?”
Shiho tucked her hair behind her ear, pointing at her various piercings. “I did all of these myself, and when I couldn’t take them out, I’d just wear a beanie so my hair wouldn’t move from covering them.”
On closer inspection, Minori could tell that they were done by an amateur. The placements were uneven and some of the skin around them looked jagged, like it used to be infected- but she would never say that out loud. “Did it hurt?”
“My piercings?” She pointed to the one on the upper part of her ear, a thick, black metal hoop hanging off of the cartilage.“Uh, my first one did, but that’s because I did it in middle school when I wasn’t… um, in my right mind.” Minori cocked her head curiously, but Shiho didn’t elaborate. “And then these ones,” she said, gesturing to a row of three studs on her earlobe, “These I did in the summer before my first year of high school, before I made up with Ichika, Saki, and Honami. These ones didn’t really hurt, but I was sober when I did them so I didn’t fuck them up so much.”
Noticing the slip of her tongue, Shiho bit the inside of her cheek. She looked up at Minori, expecting some sort of reaction but was met with kind, gentle understanding.
“You don’t have to say anything more if you don’t want to, but I’m curious,” She asked, her smile lighting up the deepest reaches of Shiho’s heart. “Is that why you were smoking outside, earlier?”
Warily, Shiho met her quiet gaze. “Um… kind of? Not really, but, also, yeah. Does that make sense?” She scoffed. “Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t even make sense to me.”
“I can try to make sense of it, if you want,”
“You’re too kind for this world, Minori.” Shiho took a deep breath and tilted her head back, staring at the dark lightbulbs above them. “I don’t mind sharing, I guess. You caught me in the act anyway, so what’s there to lose?” She took another deep breath and held her hands together, rubbing small circles into the callused skin of her palm before returning to meet Minori’s curious glances.
“Um, middle school was… hard. It was hard for everyone because it was fucking middle school, right, but I didn’t handle it the way you’re supposed to. Like, if you’re sad or upset, you talk to friends, right? Or you cry it out and move on with your life. But I… I was kind of stupid, and I didn’t do that. I didn’t have friends to talk to, and I couldn’t cry, so I found other things. It started really small, like just sips from my dad’s supply of beer, but it became so much so fast and I was only 14, so I didn’t know what I was getting into. And then alcohol turned into more and I was so fucked up, Minori, so fucked up.”
Shiho had begun wringing her hands together furiously now, the skin turning red under the friction. Minori grabbed them and pulled them apart, placing her hands between the two and squeezing, just gently enough to pull at Shiho’s attention but not distract her. She smiled, a calm, empathetic ray of sunshine that seemed to tug at the shadowed corners of the room and pull away the darkness.
“Do you want to continue?” She asked, her voice still cheery despite it all.
“There’s not much more to say, honestly,” Shiho murmured, returning Minori’s gentle squeezes on her hands. “I was mentally fucked up so I self-medicated. And I got myself so low and I didn’t see a way back up. But I didn’t want to be that person, that awful, hateful person who couldn’t live with themselves, so I changed. I don’t do anything now, obviously. I haven’t drunk since my third year, but cigarettes stuck with me. I don’t know, I always keep a pack on me in case I need it. But I swear, no more than 1 a day, if that! I’m trying to quit, really. It’s just… I’d rather have a cigarette than feel the need to do something else. Pros and cons, I guess.”
“If it helps you, it helps you. I’m sorry if it seemed like I was judging you earlier,”
“No, no, don’t worry about that! Honestly, it’s good if you judge, it makes me put it away. I don’t want you to think any differently of me,” Shiho bit at her lip, looking away at the wall.
“I would never think differently of you. I don’t care about you back then, I care about you now. And I like this Shiho, all of this Shiho even with her cigarettes and piercings and weird heavy-metal job.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why wouldn’t I? You haven’t changed at all! You’re still just as caring, as mature, and as loyal as ever before. Shiho, you’re amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as amazing as you.”
“I don’t know what to say…” Shiho mumbled, still staring at the wall. She knew that if she looked at Minori, she would burst out crying, and she really didn’t want to do that. “Do you want to… join me, then?”
“Join you?”
Shiho gestured to the lipstick still lying in Minori’s lap. “First step towards becoming heavy-metal Minori, hmm?”
“Oh, I don’t know if I want to go as far as ‘heavy-metal Minori’ but… would it make you happy?
Shiho smiled. “I would love it.”
Hesitantly, Minori raised the tube of gloss to her lips, scared to apply such a dark, rich color that she knew would stain. She dabbed some on, pursing her lips together to spread it out.
“There’s no mirror in here. Let me help you,” Shiho stated, gently cupping Minori’s chin with a hand and wiping off some stray gloss with her thumb. “There.”
Minori sat, dumbfounded, that this was the same Shiho who was too nervous to talk in school without being nagged at by her and Kohane. This Shiho, this professional, mature, confident, and cool Shiho could not be the same person as the stoic, anti-social one she knew before. Before she could stop herself, Minori asked, “Is this real?”
Taken aback, Shiho pulled her hand away from Minori. “W-what?”
“No, oh gosh, sorry! I don’t mean it in a weird way, it’s just that you’re so cool ! And so mature and strong and I never would’ve guessed this was you! Like, I knew you were cool, but not this cool! Oh my god, Shiho, you’re like the coolest person ever! It’s not like I don’t think this is real, because I know this is real, but you’re so cool that it’s unreal! You’re like, totally like a star!!” Minori gushed, her expression beaming with admiration.
Shiho sat in awe. She had never had anyone, let alone someone so cheerful and bright as Minori, describe her in such a way. She knew she was cool, but cool in the sense that she was cold-hearted, cool to the touch, mysterious-loner-cool. Not “you’re like a star” cool. If anything, that was Ichika, or Haruka, or Shizuku, or Kohane– not her. Anyone but Shiho. “Do you… do you really think that?” She tentatively asked, a slow pink creeping its way up her cheeks and tips of her ears.
“Of course! I’ve never met anyone like you, Shiho!” Her face grew closer, prompting Shiho’s cheeks to heat up more. Shiho could feel her walls breaking, her emotions growing closer and closer to the surface under such an incessant barrage of pure sunshine. She had never met anyone like Minori, so close to unadulterated light that she wasn’t sure if her heart could take it. The two of them leaned in, sunlight meeting moonlight as Shiho began to feel the heat of Minori’s cheeks on her own.
She leaned in, closer, just enough for Minori’s lips to graze her own before a sudden bang caused her to jump, smearing Minori’s still-wet lip stain across both of their faces.
“Hinomori! Get your ass out here!” Her boss yelled, his fist white-knuckled and slammed into the now wide-open door.
Fuck.
Shiho’s head whipped around to find her boss glaring at her from the door frame, his face wrinkled and bright red. If steam could pour from someone’s ears like in comics, he could power a steamboat. She tentatively got up, mouthing a hasty “I’m sorry!” to Minori. Following her boss out the door, Minori could hear his lecturings up until the door slammed with a thud.
She blinked, hesitating for a minute and then panicking as she wasn’t quite sure what to do. She raised a tentative hand to her lips, feeling the lip gloss crackled under the movement. It was dried now, and in her luck, it was dried in a smudge across her lips. She pursed her lips, feeling as the gloss cracked over her skin– but she didn’t mind it at all.
I n all the chaos, she supposed that Shiho’s boss had forgotten that she was there too— that is until he came flying back in a fury to yell at her to get out. She grabbed her things and rushed out the door, passing a stony-faced Shiho standing rigid in the hallway. They made eye contact for a brief second, and Minori could swear she saw Shiho’s face lighten for a moment before she was ushered away by the boss.
Minori stumbled outside, blinking as the harsh light of the streetlamps ripped into her eyes. How long had she spent in the dark? She swore it hadn’t been longer than 10 minutes, but when she clambered for her phone, she found that it had been over an hour. The band’s set had long since ended, and she could hear that a new heavy metal band had once again taken the stage. She saw that she had multiple missed texts and calls from Airi, which trumped all other worries she had at the moment.
Minori stood outside the venue, leaning in the exact same place that Shiho had been before to shelter herself from the frigid wind. She hadn’t exactly been waiting outside for long earlier, so she hadn’t felt the cold until now– and her little skirt and thin sweater combo weren’t doing the job. Sending her location, Minori anxiously waited for Airi to answer or at least respond to show that she was, indeed, alive and well. She didn’t have to wait long, however, because barely a minute later Airi rounded the corner and barrelled into her.
Between hugs, Airi scolded, “How dare you! I knew this wasn’t a good place for you! You’re not meant for mosh pits! Did someone punch you? I’ll punch them, really, I will!”
“Airi, Airi!” Minori cried, her lungs squished in the older girl’s embrace. “I’m fine! I didn’t even go to the mosh pit, honest!” She patted her on the back weakly, and Airi seemed to get the hint and let go.
Grabbing her chin and twisting it around like a grandma, Airi exclaimed, “You didn’t? But you’re lipstick’s all smeared! What were you doing?”
As if summoned, Shiho frustratedly opened the side door a few meters away and walked out, hair hanging over her face.
“Ah, Shiho! Is everything all right?” Minori pulled herself away from Airi, running to the bassist’s side.
“I didn’t lose my job,” Shiho said, dejectedly throwing a weak fist into the air. “But you’re not allowed back, and I’ve lost upper-level employee privileges. But at least I’m not fired, I guess,” At this, Shiho looked up and noticed Airi, staring at the two girls. More accurately, staring at the two girls’ lips. A sly smile crept up her face before she coughed and pretended to be fascinated with the buttons on her coat.
“Sooo… do you have to finish out your shift?”
“Nah, my boss told me to get lost for the night. It’s like, 11 pm already anyways, so I wouldn’t be on for much longer even if I did still have to work.” Shiho ran a hand along her scalp, exposing her pierced ear to the cold.
“Do you want to hit up a karaoke place, then? They’re open until, like, 3 am on weekends!”
“Minori, we gotta get going. It’s late, and I promised your parents I wouldn’t let you get into any trouble here,” Airi teasingly chimed in. “I leave you alone for all of 2 minutes and you get kicked out?! Your dad’s gonna kill me.”
“Noo, you’re right! Sorry Shiho, we’ll go out another time, kay?” She put her hands together in a mock prayer. “Don’t go to karaoke with anyone else, promise me!”
“I promise, I promise. Go home! Don’t let your dad kill Momoi.”
Airi tugged at Minori’s wrist, practically dragging her away from the club. “Goodnight, Shiho! Sleep well!”
“Night, Minori. Get home safe, okay?”
“I always do!”
---
“So, rocker chicks your type?”
“Huh? No! No, no.” Minori stammered. “... Maybe.”