Chapter Text
It is a beautiful, magical, horrible night in Hollywood, and Shinsou Hitoshi’s fingers are bleeding.
There are no less than five pairs of underwear on stage, and the faces in the crowd have muddled into spoons with eyes, featureless and reflecting his exhausted, distorted visage back at him. Three screens border the stage, their glitch and flicker pulling at the corners of his being, the curve of his mouth and the sneer of his lip.
The sounds that pour from his mouth are vast and ugly, ugly and beautiful, beautiful and damned lyrics that have, through cycles and seasons, lost every shade of meaning which once made them sacred.
Now they are just ugly, and the masses swallow that ugliness.
There is sweat on his brow, sweat in his eye, his voice scratches and for love of the rasp, three people faint. They are all looking at him, around him, their gaze sits in the middle distance and they hear but don’t listen.
The song ends. His fingers sting, and he’s sure the cameras pick up flashes of red when he raises his hand in brief farewell before trotting backstage. A million years ago, people would have been waiting to wipe his face, to touch up his makeup, to run across the next half of the setlist and talktalktalk .
They know better now. A lone table sits apart from the finger foods and refreshments meant to keep the staff through these long performances. It’s old and wooden, scratched across the top, but nobody bothers with a cloth or the veneer of civilization.
Jack Daniels and a glass, already filled. Shinsou pulls off his guitar, hands it away, and drinks. One persistent draught, until every nerve and vessel in his chest burns so brightly that you’d swear there was a red hot tree of life visible just underneath his skin.
The last song plays looped and broken in his mind, bashing on the edges of his skull and goddammit, he’s getting a headache, isn’t he?
He pours himself another glass just as Midoriya sidles up beside him.
“Okay, one half down, another to go—”
His eyes fall to the glass, to the way Shinsou’s rings press against it and press indents into his bleeding fingers. His brows are fine from a shade too much plucking in their youth, back when it was the style and Midoriya thought he’d take a crack at being fashionable. Shinsou can still see clear as day when they draw together.
“Shin, come on.”
He stares Midoriya in the face as he knocks back the rest of the drink. The music on stage is picking up again, and he doesn’t know how long he’s been back here. He makes out to look at his watch, realizes he isn’t wearing one, and shrugs.
“Last one for the night, I swear.” He sets down the glass, holds up pacifying hands with splayed fingers.
Bad decision. Midoriya takes one look at his fingertips, and gets That Look. That look when he meddles, that look when he cares. It’s impossible to look him in the eye when he looks like that, the bastard.
“You—” He pinches his lips together. “Will you please use a pick?”
His guitar is handed back to him, and slinging the strap across his back is second nature. “Must’ve lost it. Next show, I swear.”
“You need to fucking relax,” says Midoriya, and Shinsou nearly barks a laugh. “I’m serious!”
“Not disagreeing with you.” He’s walking away now, back to the stage, back to the spoons and their love of ugliness. Midoriya calls out from behind him.
“I mean it. Sero’s gonna be in town in a few days and I’m making you go out with him! You need a break!”
Sero. That fucker hasn’t been around in months, not since Shinsou’s birthday when they’d gotten so trashed, Midoriya had to pay the strip club owners a metric fuckton of hush money to keep the paps off their trail.
He snickers. He could use a night like that again.
He ambles out, back across the stage and the voice of legion shakes his brain down to the stem.
Two hours down. Two more to go. He stands in front of the mic, peels off another quick riff and smiles for the cameras and the music elicits a cheer. Behind him, the drummer is picking up a beat, and the crowd rocks in recognition.
For the people, for the eyes, for the him he sees reflected back in their eyes, he puts his lips to the mic.
“This next one is dedicated to all you revolutionaries. You overworked, you underpaid, you who stand in limbo and at the crossroads, malcontent but stuck. May you find your motion.”
He shreds the guitar, and the heat in his fingers blooms anew. Through the sting, he finds his focus and sinks into the music.
The sidewalks hold fast under the trodding feet of morning commuters. Bags pulled up on shoulders, scents of coffee, sandwiches, energy bars and cigarettes tainting the morning air and making up an indelible part of the city. Nobody looks at the other, nobody responds. It is 8 AM on a Wednesday, and people have places to be.
“Sorry, ‘scuse me!”
Most of them are on time.
“Sorry, move, sorry!”
A splash of coffee hits the ground; a disgruntled, “Hey, watch it!” follows close behind.
I didn’t know there was a tower
“Fuck— move, ‘scuse me!”
Where they look out to the land to see the people quickly passing by
Denki looks at his watch and breaks into a run, hiking his backpack up as far as it’ll go and making a break for the underground. The sun, fresh and bright, bounces off the mirrored windows of buildings in the financial district.
This is for their own desire- as they spit down to the earth and feel the power boiling in their veins
It’s his only shortcut on a morning like this, crowded with important people in suits with briefcases and shined shoes that scuff if you breathe at them wrong.
The entrance to the train station looms, and he pushes the rest of the way to make it.
It’s crowded and chattery, high school students in their uniforms, grandmothers, mothers and more businesspeople, more lives, more cogs.
Oh oh oh oh oh oh yeah, yeah
The ride goes fast and he runs faster, ducking into the backdoor of Seb’s Diner with a minute to spare and sweat on his brow. The line cook spares him a glance before going back to flipping eggs. “Nice of you to fucking join us!”
“Yeah,” he says, shoving his bag in his locker, and pulling on his apron. “I slept in and-”
“Don’t care.”
Oh oh oh oh oh oh yeah
“Go on, get to work!”
Yeah!
“Hi, I’m Denki, I’ll be your server today! How are you this morning?”
“Yeah, can I get a stack of pancakes and eggs?”
“Sure thing!”
And the black smoke rises! From the fires we’ve been told
He stares at half eaten breakfasts and the money left on the table amidst unstacked plates, glasses and silverware and thinks ‘I fucking hate it here.’
It’s the new age crisis, and we will stand up in the cold, stand up in the cold
He blows out a breath, cheeks puffed, and begins stacking. His hands brush cold syrup. A disgusted chill skiitters up his back. He wipes it off on his apron, and counts the seconds until this shift is over.
Many people are dividing
It’s 2 pm and he hasn’t had lunch yet, stomach growling around half of an energy bar that one of his coworkers had been able to spare.
And a world apart with just one heart is bound to keel and fade away
“Are you sure you all don’t have this in a small?” the old woman asks for the third time. He suppresses a sigh, shifting the stack of clothes which need to be put back on the racks because some people think it’s cool to just leave them lying around the store.
None of us will be deciding
“I’m sure, Ma’am, I’m so sorry.”
“Could you look in the back?”
He breathes in. Deep inhale, Denki.
“Sure!”
His ‘checking the back’ amounts to standing between racks for two minutes, scrolling Twitter and picking errant pieces of granola out of his teeth.
A headline crosses his feed, some garish thing from a pop culture website: “Shinsou Hitoshi’s next stop on tour!”
“Hmm.”
And the fate of man is in the hands of he who stands and heeds the call
“I’m so sorry, ma’am, I couldn’t find any smalls.”
She curls her lip and turns away, a scoff and a quick “lazy retail workers” on her lips.
Denki slaps on his finest customer service grin. “Have a wonderful day!”
‘I don’t believe in God,’ he thinks, ‘but there’s a special place in hell for you.’
The last job of the day has him clocking in at 6, when the supermarket is full of people trudging around for a quick and dirty dinner. His manager is a burly old man with an unforgiving disposition.
Oh oh oh oh oh oh yeah
“Late again, Kaminari!”
“I was—”
“Don’t wanna hear it! You’re on soup display tonight!” He points to several heavy cases of canned soup and the empty table that will inevitably hold the stacked display. A part of his soul dies then and there.
Oh oh oh oh oh oh yeah
“Seriously?!”
Yeah!
“Fuck.”
And the black smoke rises! From the fires we’ve been told
He’s balanced on two crates, a can of chicken noodle in each hand when a woman asks him where the cereal is.
“Aisle five!” he says, balancing the cans with as much precision as he can manage. She says nothing, and heads in that direction. The display shakes and so does his confidence. He doesn’t dare breathe until all is still again, and goes back to stacking.
It’s the new age crisis, and we will stand up in the cold
He stacks shelves when he’s finally finished, eyes darting to his watch again and again as he counts down the seconds until the end of his shift. He lugs produce, throws away garbage, cashes out and smilessmilessmiles until 10 pm.
Stand up in the cold
“See you tomorrow!” he calls, and doesn’t wait for a response after he gathers his shit and darts out into the brisk night.
“I’m gonna be fucking late ,” he mutters, praying he hasn’t missed the last bus.
Oh, oh
It’s 11 PM in a hole in the wall bar, and patrons are getting antsy. The ones that aren’t so deep yet in their drinks bristle at the lack of music, and the band backstage is quick to berate Denki when he slips in.
We won’t stand alone, we will stand up in the cold
“Dude, we thought you’d fucked off on us!”
“I was about to come find you my fucking self, Pikachu!”
“Get a move on, Kami!”
We won’t stand alone, we will stand up in the cold
He pulls off his work polo, replaces it with a well loved Led Zepplin cutoff and trades his work safe slide ons for a pair of boots that Jirou’s kept safe for him. The bar smells of baked in tobacco and old leather, the walls crammed with records and posters and old, shitty t-shirts and leather jackets.
The stage lights are low, and do not judge him when he twists the mic cord around his finger. At his back, Bakugo wields his drumsticks like a pro and Jirou pulls her pick over guitar strings with finesse. Kiri minds the keyboard with his immovable shark smile, and the patrons finally perk up.
He thinks of the cold syrup, the old woman and his manager, of his shifts and energy bars and spilled coffee. Lips and teeth part, his back bows and every frustration fights its way out of his throat.
“Yeah! And the black smoke rises! From the fires, we’ve been told. It’s the new age crisis, and we won’t stand up in the cold!”
Jirou lends her voice to the second chorus, smiles at him as he stomps and shakes his head, grins and flaunts in his own cheap imitation of Freddy and pulls an amused chuckle from one patron or two. Bakugo gets the last word with a discordant bang of his drums, and the scattered applause is a balm to his soul while they launch into the next one.
Later, after, when their voices are raw and their fingers are sore but in a good, better, best kind of way, they crowd in the cool air behind the bar. Bakugo buries himself in Kiri’s side, and they watch Jirou and Denki light cigarettes.
“You had us worried earlier, Denks,” she says around a mouthful of smoke, thick enough to obscure her face when it mixes with the air around them. “Bakugo was ready to march over to the supermarket and drag you here.”
He takes a long pull of his own, lets it light him up from the inside out and fill the area where his tonsils would be with biting heat. “Work. You know how it is.”
He nudges her then, and winks at Bakugo. The other blonde grumbles and throws him two middle fingers. Kiri kisses his temple, and like a scruffed kitten he calms down.
“You work too much, man,” Kiri chimes in. “It’s just you in that apartment, what do you need three jobs for?”
He looks down at the gravel, at a stray napkin that's blown in and now rests between his feet. Smoke billows from his nose. It’s the same conversation every time. They all know it, and still persist.
He shrugs, looking up at the sky. It’s washed by the city lights, hardly a star in sight. ‘The ones that do blink through the glare are the prettiest’, he thinks. Bright and beautiful, so big that they defeat the collective glare of earth’s own creation.
“When are you guys performing next?” He skirts the question. They all know the drill, and Jirou goes with it.
“Mina got us a gig at the drag bar on Saturday.”
Denki perks instantly. “Ooh?”
She waterfalls her next pull, showing off the one trick she’s mastered by making the smoke flow upwards from her lips and into her nose. When her breath runs out, when she coughs a little and expels the rest through the gaps in her teeth, she says, “Yup. 10 PM.”
He deflates. “Fuck.”
“Denki, don’t fuck around—”
He cuts her off, eyes wide and apologetic. “I can’t! My shift doesn’t end until 10:30!”
“This one time, man?” pleads Kiri. He’s making That Face, the one with the eyes and the lip. Denki groans, looking away.
Jirou finishes her cigarette, drops it to the gravel and mashes the embers out with her foot. “Sero’s gonna be there,” she says, and he shifts.
Sero was the kind of friend that everybody focused on when he was around and nobody remembered when he left. He’d made it , rubbing elbows with big wigs, going to parties and living it up in a new point on the map every week. He was great, wild, a good time, and Denki had loved him like a brother ever since they were just two high school punks with a dream.
A dream Sero was living, while Denki was...not.
“Thought he was in Cabo,” he mumbles around a mouthful of smoke. It was acrid all of a sudden, too hot for the pink insides of his cheeks. He mashes it beneath his heel, and leans heavily on the wall.
“He was, and then he wasn’t. Now he’s here, and he’s gonna be there on Saturday. He asked about you.”
“Right.”
“He did!”
From under Kiri’s arm, Bakugo says, “Told him you were capitalism’s bitch.”
“Fuck you!” says Denki, sticking out his tongue. He hikes up his backpack, thoughts already drifting to his trek home. He takes a half step back, one shoulder higher than the other. “Anyway, look. Tell him I said hi. If he’s here longer than eight hours, maybe we can catch up some other time. I gotta go.”
“Bye, Denks.”
“Later, man!”
“Hmm.”
He gives all of them a wave and starts walking. It’s just past 1 AM, and the streets are empty. Sensible people, clockwork people, put together people with lives and regularities and attainable dreams are comfortable in their beds while he stares down the devil at the crossroads and hums in perpetual indecision.
He hums and hums, hums until he sings, sings while he walks with a lazy skip to his step right down the middle of the street.
“Da da de da da, Eleanor Rigby, died in the church and was bu-ried along with her na-ame.” He flings out his arms, spins on his heel and trips, nearly faceplanting. “Fuck! Nobody came!” He sings with his head tipped towards the few tenacious stars.
From one side of the street, an apartment window cracked to let in the night air delivers a disgruntled, “Ayo, shut the fuck up!”
“Your mother should’ve swallowed!” he shoots back, and books it before he can get a reply. He runs until the cold air burns his lungs like cigarette smoke, until the street’s quiet again and one or two street lamps blink in the middle distance.
Again, he throws out his arms, swishes his hips, and walks like that, all the way home while he sings, “Oh! Look at all the lonely people!”
Oh! Look at all the lonely people.