writetomyheart | [Team Two] Two-Man Love Story

Congraaaaaats Taiga for releasing your album! :D In order to celebrate that, here's the beginning for a SixTONES goes visual kei!AU I've been planning heh.

Taiga & Juri | ~930 words

Lucky for Taiga and Juri, they were still blissfully unaware that their day was about to get much worse as they headed towards the front doors.

"Just one quick visit," Juri reminded Taiga one more time. "We’ll check the stage layout, confirm the lighting grid, go home, drink beer and order karaage. Does that sound good to you?"

Taiga nodded eagerly. After years of promotions and small-club gigs at more or less questionable venues, his hard work was finally paying off. He would have a concert at Zepp Haneda with his background band z red. He would have a concert in that place where all the legends he admired had once stood.

He had even planned out a new look for it already. He would dye his hair green-blue and wear fierce makeup with lots of eyeliner. He wanted to channel the kind of presence his visual kei idol hide used to have - without copying him too much, of course. It was going to be simply awesome, he knew it.

Juri grabbed the door handle and pushed it open. They walked through the lobby and into the empty concert hall.

"Oh! You’re the other band here to check the setup?" a staff person called out. He was standing on the top step of the ladder and fixing one of the spotlights with a screwdriver and didn't stop his task as he went on. "The others came by earlier and finished with everything already. I must say, they were a super friendly bunch, it must be fun for you all to work together!"

Both Juri and Taiga blinked.

"Other band?" Juri managed to pick the word.

The staffer nodded, continuing his multitasking with a screwdriver.

"Yeah, they were here about an hour ago. Their new manager came too. You guys met him yet? Super sharp fellow who seems like he’s done this a lot."

"…their manager," Juri repeated, unimpressed. His voice had dropped to the kind of quiet only extreme dread could summon.

Taiga couldn't believe his ears. The staff guy probably didn't understand what he was talking about.

"But this is supposed to be a one-man, right? I’m that one-man," he tried.

The staff shrugged. "Sorry, I don’t know about that. We’ve only been told it’s a concert with two lineups. So, I suppose you’re ready to deliver that to us."

Taiga turned to Juri.

"Juri. Explain. Now."

"I—there must have been—this has to be a mistake."

They quickly excused themselves from the staff person and walked to the other side of the hall.

Juri whipped out his phone, opened the email app, and started scrolling through his emails. Then he finally spotted one he was looking for and started reading it. His face slowly drained of all color as he went on.

"What?" Taiga asked impatiently, though he already had a very very bad feeling about it all and he wasn't sure if he was ready to hear the bad news.

"Okay okay, don’t freak out now," Juri said although he was the one sounding a little bit freaked out. "But this might not be a solo show after all."

Taiga felt like his soul was about to leave his body.

"It says 'one-night special'," Juri continued sheepishly. "One-night. Not one-man. Fuck, who even writes these contracts?"

Taiga needed to take a very deep breath.

"And?" he uttered Juri to continue.

"…and there’s going to be another band performing during the same evening. Right after you."

"What’s the name of the other band?" Taiga asked slowly.

Juri didn’t say a word.

"Fuck, don’t say it," Taiga groaned.

"Mizer GravE," Juri said gloomily. He sounded like he was naming a demon.

Taiga closed his eyes. No. No way.

"No. It can’t be," he managed to mutter aloud.

"Jesse's band," Juri stated like Taiga needed a reminder.

"Why is it them?" Taiga whined. "Of all the bands in Tokyo. Of all the cursed visual kei bands in this country. It has to be that band."

"And do you know who their current manager is?" Juri said, sounding even more defeated like he wasn't even trying to cheer Taiga up at that point. "Kochi Yugo."

"Who’s that?"

"That’s the new guy in the industry who used to work in scouting and business development. He thinks running a band is like managing a startup. The last time I saw him, he said something like 'Our brand synergy is peaking'. Brand synergy, Kyomo! I almost wanted to puke."

Taiga shook his head, thoroughly unimpressed. "Sounds like a nightmare. Do you remember the members? For example that bassist who never speaks. I saw him once backstage just standing in a corner reading like a psychopath. And that drummer who’s always smiling so suspiciously on stage. And then—"

Taiga couldn't finish his sentence because he couldn’t even put his frustration into words.

He didn’t even want to start with Jesse Lewis, who was the vocalist and lead guitarist of Mizer GravE. That guy was way too full of himself. He knew exactly how well he could sing, and even worse, he knew how good-looking he was. His movements on stage were like something straight out of a rated movie and he never hesitated to flaunt his long legs in leather pants. Taiga himself preferred a much more sophisticated approach. After all, it was about the music - not showing off and making fangirls wet their pants. He highly despised artists who saw it differently. Jesse Lewis was definitely one of those kind of artists. He was maybe the worst of the worst of them.

The more Taiga thought about it, the more he realized it.

It wasn't just bad.

It was about to become a real nightmare.

shinysylver, it's your turn!