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Cyno stares into his own reflection, razor at his jaw, and then suddenly he’s acutely aware that he could now use the equipment without the clawing urge to pry out the blade and bite his lip while he lowered it to his arm. He sighs in resignation and continues to shave off his stubble, the realization unmonumental to him at this point in his life. Maybe it should be– his old freshman high school counselor would’ve teared up and given him one of those odd strawberry candies she kept in this big round jar, told him something waxing poetic on what a gift it is he’s still here, but really he still wishes he’d had enough guts to do it back then and maybe he wouldn’t be so void these days.
He would live now just to spite himself, despite how increasingly dull it had become. He is off-putting, this is a fact he knows to his core. Less so than he was in high school, maybe, but now he’s a junior in college and people just care less about how weird you are, like you a little more for it sometimes. He’s quiet, plays the guitar in a local band that is probably pretty dreadful, is told he’s intimidating, scary, just odd– all the best things, naturally.
Oftentimes, he finds himself terribly uncomfortable in his own skin and just plain annoying; like the same way he felt about the fellow in the TCG club who kept trying to trade him his nugatory low-grade card that he thought was good because it was twenty years old. “Vintage,” he’d say, waving it in Cyno’s face between his pointer and middle fingers. He scrunches his face in disgust at the thought. In another sense he felt like a stranger, playing a role to the general public to seem as approachable as possible because he’d figured out a long time ago that the way he is just isn’t… correct.
Despite his qualms, he has managed a group of people who tolerate him well enough, though he’s still unsure if they really consider him a friend or not. Sethos and Dehya make up a majority of this population, who also happen to be in the aforementioned dreadful band. They’d met in freshman year in a music theory class, and ever since then they’ve been in Temple of Silence together. Cyno thinks the name is kind of corny, but Sethos insisted it was ‘hard’ and he and Dehya just let him go with it. The two of them wouldn’t have thought of anything better.
He’d crossed paths with Kaveh a few times too, who always entertained a conversation whenever they saw each other, though sometimes Kaveh would send him some stupid instagram reel out of the blue that typically followed the pattern of a fifty year old woman who had unfortunately gotten stuck with a filter on her face, couldn’t figure out how to get it off, posted it online from an android with a frame rate of 5 per second, and the video only had about 3 likes. He wonders how he even finds that kind of stuff. He never responds to it.
Cyno nearly nicks himself with the razor as his phone starts vibrating so intensely on the lip of the bathroom sink it crashes onto the ground, sending it flying across the tiled floor and getting stopped by the wall.
“Fucking shit,” he curses, face still covered in shaving cream, bending over to grab the damned device and answering the facetime when he sees Sethos’s contact on the top of the screen.
Sethos’s stupid face pops up.“Yo–” he pauses and brings his face closer to the screen as Cyno props it up against the mirror while he continues shaving, furrowing his brows. “What the hell? Start hustling man, you’ve got like half an hour to get your butt over here before we’re fucked! We start at 9, remember?”
“Yeah yeah, I know. I almost skinned my face off cause you called me,” Cyno mumbles, his lip pulled off to the side to get a better angle on the side of his cheek.
“You poor princess,” Sethos says, rolling his eyes. Cyno glances at the screen, noticing the overhead lights and unfamiliar ceiling behind his huge head of curly hair and realizing he must already be at the venue.
“Okay, can you shut up and go so I can actually get there on time? You could’ve just texted me.” He ignores Sethos’s teasing, moving to the other side of his jaw and carefully guiding it down against the grain.
“Whatever, just don’t forget your literal guitar pick this time, alright?” Sethos says, pointing at him through the screen. It was one time, like a year ago.
“I’m gonna beat your ass when I get there.”
“Oh Cyno, please come beat the shit out of my tight little a–” Cyno aggressively presses the big red button to hang up on him before he can finish one of his signature sarcastically, disgustingly lewd sentences.
He finishes his surprisingly clean shave after surveying the lower half of his face for a few moments, proud of his handiwork despite his less-than-favorable modes of expression (a rusting razor and dollar store shave cream). He tousles his long hair briefly before clicking his tongue in frustration and surrenders to tying it up at the back of his head, shifting his bangs so they don’t catch on his eyelashes. He wouldn’t usually put such effort into his appearance like this, but Sethos had implored him to not look homeless tonight because he “really, really, really did not want to get kicked out this time.” He finally decides he looks objectively presentable and rounds up his few possessions that are scattered across rooms of his apartment, stepping out the door with his guitar strapped in its case to his back, various pieces of luggage containing his amp and pedals stuffed miraculously into the death grip of his hands, and a nearly decaying messenger bag carrying his cell phone and notebooks of music hanging from his shoulder. He makes it down the hallway of the upperclassman apartments with a bit of struggle all while trying to be quiet enough as not to disturb other students, and quickly shoves his elbow into the button of the shoddy elevator, doors covered in rust spots around the edges. He taps his foot impatiently.
At last the doors open and he hurries in, struggling to hold everything up to avoid having to pick it back up again within a few seconds. His stomach lurches as the elevator plunges down, the rattling noises a bit worrying no matter how many times he rode the thing, but at last he is released and pushing through the main doors of the building, rushing to his 2011 Toyota Camry in the parking lot out front.
The ride there is somber as ever, with the looming dread that always precedes a gig causing Cyno to gnaw at his fingernails as he drives absentmindedly through the suburban stoplights and streets that make up the town just outside of Sumeru city, which is where most upperclassmen students at the Akademiya lived off-campus. The radio in his car broke last month so he’s been left to his own deafening thoughts in near silence except the hum of his engine. The judgement that comes with quiet feels like another presence in itself, and he warily glances in the rearview mirror to make sure there’s not some ghastly shadow staring at him from the back seat, only seeing the top of his guitar case. By the time he parks in the only open spot close by a few buildings down from where his phone’s GPS is saying the tavern is, his neck is sweating and he curses both himself and the Sumeru heat for it.
He hauls each bag from his car again, and it takes great effort not to stumble on the sidewalk as he makes his treacherous journey, squinting his eyes against the various lit signs of the endless shops and restaurants to decipher which one he was supposed to be inside of. He comes upon a dimly lit place with a ridiculously gaudy, neon green sign reading “Lambad’s Tavern,” in ostentatious cursive, and huffs out a breath of exasperation seeing their own promotional poster pasted on the glass of the front along with a few other bands. He walks out to the dubious looking backside as he was instructed in a text from Sethos and pushes through the already propped open door with a beat looking sneaker shoved under the gap. He emerges right onto a small stage where Sethos and Dehya are already setting up.
Dehya swirls in her stool from where she’s fiddling with the bolts of her drumset to look at him. “You’re kind of late,” she says dully, turning back to continue her work. He dumps his things on the floor in the front-right corner of the stage.
Cyno begins unclasping the case around his pedals. “I am not. This doesn’t start until nine, and it’s…”
“Eight fifty. You’d better hurry,” Sethos says across from him, tapping the microphone with the tip of his painted finger and sending screeching feedback through the speakers.
“Still not nine,” Cyno refutes, rummaging through his messenger bag to retrieve the notebook with the setlist scrawled somewhere in it, hoping he’s picked the correct one.
“You still look homeless, by the way,” Sethos adds, surveying Cyno’s worn out, loose jeans, utterly destroyed chuck taylors, and a t-shirt depicting a band that was lost to time a few decades ago, of which he seemed to have a surplus. He thought it one of his more presentable looks.
Cyno only shrugs. “It’s the best you’ll get.” He flips and scans through the pages of an obnoxiously bright pink notebook, running his fingers over his barely legible writing to find whatever they’d planned for this gig. He finds the page at last, and starts arranging his pedalboard accordingly.
“Next time you’ve got to let me style you before the show. I’ve gotta get you in like… fuckin’ eyeliner or something. Like kohl. You’d look sexy, bro, we can get some fan service going. Get better gigs,” Sethos rambles on, and Cyno just pulls a face at him without responding.
“Hey, remind me what the hell we’re playing tonight?” Dehya interrupts from the drumset, giving the snare a few flicks before grumbling and returning to adjusting the bolts.
“Uhhh…” Cyno tears his focus from the pedalboard, leaning over the notebook. “Starting off with that demo we wrote last month.. Umm… then we wanted to try a Ragnvindr cover– I think? Some other originals…” Cyno squints at his detestable handwriting, trying to make out whatever it was he wrote on the last few lines. He shrugs, turning to look at Dehya. “Take a good guess.”
“Great. This is why that kid with the huge hat called us shit,” She mumbles, rolling her eyes in vexation.
“Hey now, we aren’t actually shit. Don’t be so pessimistic,” Sethos chides from up front, playing with the soundboard that controlled the speakers set up around the stage. “He was just pissed his hat was ugly.”
“Oh really?” Dehya drags out sarcastically, “I wouldn’t be saying all that when I have photo proof of you two swapping spit after like half a white claw.”
“Oh don’t even fucking start with me, you–” Cyno is glad to tune out their ensuing bickering as he sets himself to taking out his guitar– it’s a beautiful thing, a black Duesenberg Falken with a white pickguard and other tastefully placed white accents, which cost him a painful amount of savings that could’ve gone towards tuition, but he never regretted it. Well… not too much at least. He takes the amp cord between his fingers and fumbles a bit for the jack socket before eventually shoving the thing in quite ungracefully and takes to adjusting the volume and tuning his instrument.
The group’s ministrations (and quarrels) are complete just before a short, black haired young man with striking teal dyed in streaks pops out from a back room. He introduces himself as Xiao, a member of one of the other bands playing with them tonight. 4nemo. Alt-rock, if Cyno recalls correctly?
“Time check. It’s 8:59. People should be getting here in a few minutes,” he says curtly, eyeing their equipment with sharp amber eyes to presumably make sure they’d be ready.
Sethos thanks him cheerily with a grin. “We’re excited to hear you guys tonight!" he says, looking up from tuning his bass. Xiao only nods awkwardly and turns to go back to the room whence he came. Odd guy.
“You two would get along,” Sethos says with a snort, directed at Cyno.
“What does that mean?”
The band tests their sound for quite a few minutes until people finally start to arrive. Sethos shoots Cyno a rather weak glance at their sparse company, but they begin sound check with the help of Xiao, and all goes relatively smooth as more guests surely trickle in. By 9:10, the small venue is surprisingly quite busy, and Sethos seems to feel placated by it, which means he was less likely to fuck up.
It’s more intimidating, being on a designated stage area like this rather than a floor show where they were practically part of the crowd itself, but it makes Cyno feel more professional and overall important. There is a small confidence in this, at least. He observes the people before him curiously, seeing some familiar faces from earlier shows and around campus, though there seems to be a lot of new ones tonight. The perks of being at an actual venue, he supposes.
By 9:15, the old tavern is essentially packed, and Sethos turns to nod at both him and Dehya to confirm they’re good to start. He nods back, managing what he hopes is an encouraging expression and takes a breath to steady the energy thrumming beneath his skin. Shows like this were always palpitating with it.
Cyno looks down at the more legible setlist Dehya had managed to draw up on paper ripped from his notebook, and strums the first quieter notes of their first song. The room seems to come alive.
“We’re Temple of Silence,” Sethos begins into the microphone with a miraculous lack of feedback, taking the first few tame seconds of their song to kick them off. “Thank you Lambad’s for having us tonight! We’ll start off with a new one.” Sethos grins, and the end of his introduction is timed perfectly with Cyno stomping the high-gain distortion pedal and strumming a single, vibrating power chord that seems to shake the walls themselves. He relishes in the way the venue shifts.
The crowd is at rapt attention now, the noise lingering in the air and mingling with shouts before Cyno resumes the simpler notes again to the buildup. He quite enjoys the melody he wrote for this one. Dehya begins her pickup bar, and then the room rips in half.
If he’s lacking in all other aspects of his life, then there is at least music. It’s in each chord and strum that he could truly express his worth, his passion, something that proved he was human. He’s intimidating, and outwardly stoic, he knew this, but he pours the entirety of himself into his guitar each time he plays like this, and it shows. Cyno is fully aware of how far he outscaled both Dehya and Sethos in terms of skill, but neither of them were bothered much by it. It just means that a lot of the energy during shows and songwriting relied on him, and he is glad to provide– to devote himself to it, even.
They’ve never fully played this one through in practices, so it was even more satisfying to be able to play it at full capacity, in front of at least 100 people no less. The song isn’t particularly challenging, but it requires quick chord switching in a way that’s already making Cyno sweat, though he suspects that’s also from all the moving around he’s already done on stage. He gets glances of the room, and he feels a surge of excitement seeing a pit already forming. He never, never gets sick of this.
The first song ends in a final power chord from Cyno, and while the distortion plays on he runs a hand through his slicked bangs, pushing them back from his forehead and bending over to take a large swig from his plastic water bottle. He drops it back down haphazardly and looks to Dehya and Sethos, who seem equally as fired up as he is, both sporting wide grins as the crowd cheers.
He shifts his attention and watches the crowd more closely now as they prepare the next song. He manages to spot– what was it– Xiao?– among the pulsating group, leaning into the ear of another guy with long, blonde hair tied into a braid to say something to him over the noise. His gaze wanders to the other side of the venue, seeing a dance performance major he recognizes, Nilou, clapping energetically with another girl he doesn’t know jumping at her side.
Closer to the stage, directly in Cyno’s line of sight, there’s another student he’s sure he’s seen around campus with blonde hair talking furiously into the ear of a man who looks like he’d rather be shot point-blank than be here, or maybe it’s because the blonde one seems angry about something. Well, unfortunately not everyone would enjoy this type of environment.
Cyno’s attention is suddenly captured by the white flash of a camera coming from a short man beside the two quarrelers, his black hair cropped above his shoulders with a distinct streak of bright green in it, now lowering the camera from his face as he realizes his subject is looking at him. He gets an odd surge of excitement at the concept of someone being interested enough in Temple to actually take photos for them at a show, so he shoots a sort of odd grin– almost a grimace?– to the photographer unintentionally before setting his focus back onto the setlist.
The next song jumps into full swing, faster, heavier than their first one, and from that point on Cyno loses himself in his playing. He muses in the back of his mind that Sethos’s vocal distortion has gotten a lot better, too. The rest of their short set is more familiar to him, and it’s easier to allow himself to take a backseat in his own mind, jumping freely to the climaxes and dips of the songs, his hair tie long lost to the crowd after whipping his head particularly violently during the heavier Ragnvindr cover.
When Cyno hops off stage after Temple as the opening act ends, he feels like a celebrity. Someone even slaps his back harshly and says “hell yeah!” He smiles and turns to Sethos next to him in the crowd as they wait for the next set.
“Did you see the photographer?” He asks, pointing through the crowd up to the front row in the vague direction of the man he spotted earlier.
“Yeah! Fucking awesome, right? You better get his info somehow, I wanna see those,” Sethos says, craning his neck to the stage as the 4nemo starts setting up.
“Why me?” Cyno questions, annoyed. “You’re the frontman…” His annoyance goes unheard as Sethos starts cheering when a chord is played, and he’s left to roll his eyes as he turns his gaze back up. It turns out the man who was talking with Xiao earlier is the vocalist, swinging his long braid behind his back and doing vocal tests into the microphone to get the volume right.
Cyno grumbles and begins pushing through the crowd towards the front, keeping his eyes on the taller man who stood beside the photographer to locate him easily. It proves quite a struggle to get through such a dense crowd. He squeezes between a man with a large stomach and some other person, which leaves his back damp with sweat that was definitely not his own. He leaned between the shoulders of two people he likely wasn’t going to get through, close enough to catch the photographer’s attention, his head bobbing as he talked to the man beside him.
“Hey!” Cyno shouts over the noise, managing to reach his arm through to tap the man on the shoulder. He turns, bright eyes wide with curiosity and delicate brows raised, the tall blonde man beside him turning too. He has the vague sensation of the wind being knocked out of him. Did someone bump into him?
“You took photos of us, right? Can I get like… your email or something so you can send them to me?” he yells, the venue gradually getting louder as 4nemo begins their sound check. The blonde man stifles a laugh with the back of his hand, turning around politely to look at the stage. What the hell is so funny? The photographer smacks him on the arm. And why is his heart pounding when he quirks the edge of his lip up like that?
“Uh… Email? Sure,” The photographer says, this odd, half-smile expression still lingering on his face as if nobody has ever asked for his contact information before. Seriously, what are these guys’ problems? Was Cyno stupid or something and he was the only one that didn’t know? He fumbles around in his camera bag hanging from his neck, fishing out a scrap of lined paper and a pen. With a shaky hand he scribbles down his information on the paper, reaching over to hand it to Cyno who takes it with equal struggle, stretching through the two people he was between. “My name’s Tighnari, by the way. Cyno, right?”
Cyno nods quickly, noting the silver rings on the man’s fingers as he brushes against them, pocketing the paper without looking at it to make sure he doesn’t drop it in the crowd somewhere. “Nice to meet you, Tighnari. Thanks for the photos,” he shouts, being pulled back into the crowd inevitably as 4nemo ramps up their song, getting one short glimpse of Tighnari raising his hand to wave before being swallowed up.
Cyno miraculously finds Sethos at the outskirts of the crowd, red solo cup in hand and talking to… that fucking guy with the ridiculous hat that called them ‘shit?’ Seriously? This backstabber. He massages the bridge of his nose, opting to find Dehya instead, who typically stayed out of the crowd during shows. Sure enough, he finds her at one of the standing tables towards the back of the venue, conversing with the red-haired student he recognized from campus. More approachable than Sethos and that twat.
Dehya catches sight of him, smiling and waving him over. “Yo!”
Cyno nods, approaching the table, taking Dehya’s cup in his hand and taking a sip of it. Immediately he scrunches his nose up. “You can’t just take my drink, dude,” she says flatly, snatching it back from him as he focuses on not spitting out whatever hard liquor she had in her cup. “If you’re gonna do that, at least handle it.”
“Whatever,” Cyno dismisses with a wave of his hand, wiping his mouth and shaking his head.
“This is my friend, Nilou. She’s Akademiya too,” Dehya gestures to the woman beside her, who waves sheepishly and tucks her hair behind her ear.
“You were in my econ lecture last year,” She says, and Cyno nods, but grimaces after a moment of thought.
“Oh that’s… unfortunate,” he says, scratching his wrist awkwardly. In econ, Cyno set the entire room into silence because his headphones had a leak, and he happened to be listening to screamo. Not a great impression of him.
Nilou giggles politely, her bracelets jingling as she covers her mouth. “I can’t believe you didn’t notice 140 people staring at you for like, a solid minute.”
“Listen,” Cyno begins weakly, an exasperated chuckle of his own escaping past his lips, placing the expanse of his palm over his eyes as if to physically wipe the memory away.
“She already told me about this,” Dehya adds unhelpfully, automatically amused by any sort of misfortune that came Cyno’s way. Her eyes suddenly go wide as if remembering something terribly important, and she turns to Nilou excitedly. He groans. “Oh, but let me run you a better one. There was this one time where I found Sethos and Cyno–”
“Goodnight,” Cyno says, completely unwilling to be present while Dehya tells this tale, turning around and raising his hand in farewell. He just found himself in… compromising situations whenever alcohol was involved, is all.
“Yeah yeah, run away!” Dehya teases after him, and he throws up a blind finger in response.
With effectively all of his friends occupied, Cyno figures he might as well enjoy himself with the music, pushing his way back into the crowd, quickly finding the beat and bobbing his head in time. 4nemo was great. The vocalist’s melodic voice pairs well with Xiao’s gritty harmonizing in some songs, and they have a really solid set. There isn’t anything special about the instrumentals, but there’s nothing bad to say about them either. They had such a starkly different sound to Temple, but good music was good music.
After 4nemo, two more bands play, and although he spends the evening largely alone and listening to the music, he is quite accustomed to this outcome. It’s typical for Sethos and Dehya to end up hanging around with other people they spotted at the show, and it’s typical for Cyno to end up a stranger in the crowd, those few minutes of attention he got long forgotten in the midst of other music. This doesn’t mean it ever got less disappointing, but he doesn’t take it personally. It was just an unfortunate truth that Dehya and Sethos had several people closer to them than Cyno, while they were probably the two closest people to him.
Unwilling to put in the effort it would take to find the two of them to say goodbye, he pushes his way through the now less-dense crowd to the side of the venue where the utility closet turned music equipment room is located. Opening the poster-plastered door into the dark, musky room, he immediately stumbles over a warm, breathing pile of someone who yelps unceremoniously at the interruption.
“Fuck!” Cyno curses, falling over their back and head-first into the equipment in the room, amps and cords and instruments and all. An out of tune chord from a guitar rings out as his limbs go every direction, a snare raps, the person he tripped over captured beneath one of his legs.
“What the hell are you doing in a dark closet, dude?” Cyno grumbles in displeasure, his words strained as he struggles to turn himself in a proper direction, though that’s hardly possible in the miniscule, already packed closet. He tries pushing his foot against any surface to get up, but all he does is slam the door shut with all his might, effectively making it completely pitch black.
“Sorry, I couldn’t find the light in here–” says the other person, evidently struggling too by the way Cyno was being pushed around as they situated themselves. The two have ended up essentially sitting between each other’s feet, the bottoms of Cyno’s sneakers pressed against whatever surface the other guy is leaning against with his legs on top of his own, his arms sort of sprawled amongst a guitar and an amp. Abruptly the room is illuminated by the flashlight of a phone, and Cyno squints his eyes as it shines directly into his face.
“Christ,” he mumbles, shielding his eyes as the flashlight was placed onto the floor to face the ceiling, which bounces off everything and creates enough light for the two to see each other. He is surprised to find himself face to face with a gaze that mirrors his own otherness— Tighnari, the photographer he had spoken to earlier. Cyno registers that feeling of being punched in the stomach again, wind knocked from him expertly right at the solar plexus. His features were a lot more delicate up close.
Tighnari looks at the ceiling with darting, quick eyes, where the dainty string that would have turned on the lightbulb was hanging. “There it is,” he says lightly, sighing and gathering up various square black bags that have been strewn about– similar to the one he was wearing around earlier– presumably carrying more camera equipment. “Sorry. I didn’t really expect anyone to come in here until later anyway,” he apologizes, his voice so clear in this close silence. It’s melodic, simple.
“It’s alright. You’d think they would allow us a bigger space for storing our things, but I guess they can’t be bothered,” Cyno shakes his head, attempting to wriggle his legs free from under Tighnari's, though the endeavor is only successful in jostling the other man around. He gives him an apologetic look.
“Sorry– let me just–” Tighnari plants his hands on the ground on either side of Cyno’s ankles, unhooks his legs, swinging them into the space created by Cyno’s outstretched legs, and hoists himself up unsteadily. He offers his hand out to Cyno, still standing between his legs, and he takes it firmly, noting the surprisingly strong grip of the other. With their combined efforts, they now stand upright in the closet, awkwardly looking at each other for a moment before turning carefully to pack up as per the original plan.
It goes as well as anyone would expect. They immediately start bumping into each other as they bend down.
“Sorry,” Cyno says awkwardly. “I’ll just…” he points to the door stiffly and opens it back up to the noise, and Tighnari sets his mouth into a line.
“Right,” he says, nodding curtly, then turns back to his various bags. Cyno shuffles out of the stuffy closet and leans against the wall outside, sweaty and his heart beating too fast. He wondered distantly if it was possible for him to have a single interaction with a human without feeling like he’d be eaten alive by embarrassment for not even doing anything embarrassing. It was awfully exhausting. He ignored the warmth on his cheeks, schooled his face.
These were the only two things he was good at– guitar, and his outward expression betraying absolutely nothing about what he was thinking. Dehya always told him it was creepy, how flat he was, as she’d called it. He doesn’t really know why he’s like that, it’s just so much easier to not react, to just let his voice go still and even, without all of the extra inflections and rises and falls everyone else seems to love doing. Aren’t they so tired of it by now?
Tighnari practically stumbles out of the closet, and pauses awkwardly when Cyno looks over, adjusting the strap of his bag firmly.
“It’s all yours,” he says, looking as though he were making a concentrated effort to keep his chin high. Cyno finds it amusing.
“Thanks,” he says instead of smiling— nods and walks past into the little room where Tighnari moves aside to give him space. He smells like mint toothpaste and citrus rain on grass when he walks by. Another hit to the gut.
Cyno collects his equipment half conscious, his guitar getting into its case and music into its folder purely on muscle memory and the leftover adrenaline from the show. Or is that buzzing less so the remnants of guitar feedback but a result of his interaction with Tighnari? It doesn’t matter. The other half of his mind is occupied with thinking about the particular-ness the other man seemed to have about him— it both startled and fascinated him to see the same look he had in his own eyes whenever he glanced in a mirror, except on somebody else this time. What was that? Why was he so inexplicably familiar? No, Cyno had never met the guy before tonight, but there is an eerie kinship that waited almost unseen behind his pupils. Understanding?
When he exits the closet with his bags in tow, he doesn’t expect to find Tighnari leaning on the wall outside, his head turned to watch the crowd of people now waning as the show began to end. Cyno hesitates in the doorway.
“Room for one more on the ride home?” he says, only turning his head back to look at Cyno as if he were magnetized to the sea of people before him. Against his typical nature, Cyno meets Tighnari’s eyes directly instead of focusing on the bridge of his nose, as he does with mostly everyone he has a sustained conversation with. It’s difficult, definitely, but Tighnari’s eyes seem to widen a fraction as if he hadn’t realized until just now Cyno hadn’t really been looking at him. Nobody ever really notices those things. He doesn’t say anything about it if he does really notice, though.
Cyno hoists his shoulder up awkwardly to make his backpack strap sit steadier. Against everything his brain is telling him to do, he says, “Alright.”
He trudges through groups of people in the venue towards the back entrance, turning his head back a moment to make sure Tighnari is close in tow behind him. He is, and already staring. Cyno whips back around and continues through, holding his guitar case and amp close at his sides to avoid whacking anybody.
Eventually they’re spit back out into the dim alley, still sketchy as ever and made Cyno feel like he was in a slasher film. He turns to glance at Tighnari and wonders if he thinks he’s gonna kill him. A lot of people thought that about him, for some reason. Instead, Tighnari just looks at him curiously at the lapse in movement. He sets back on his course to his car with his mouth in a line, and Tighnari quickens his pace to walk somewhere at his side rather than trailing behind. He can feel the fabric of his coat rustle when he gets too close for a brief instant.
“So, do you not have a phone?” Tighnari asks when they emerge onto the street, everything a bit quieter at this time of night. A pause in life.
“What? Of course I do,” Cyno says, almost compelled to laugh. “What makes you think I don’t?” He gets an inkling too late that maybe he’s coming off as rude, or arrogant or something else. Tighnari doesn’t seem to take offense to it, seeing as he just laughs breathily into the open air. The sidewalk is awash in an amber color from the old lightbulbs on the streetlights.
“You just don’t seem like someone who would,” he says easily, though the lingering smile on his face tells Cyno there might be some other reason that he probably doesn’t want to tell him. He won’t ask.
“Any idea how the photos came out?” Cyno asks instead, hesitantly almost as he watches his own feet pass over the tan pavement. He wasn’t great at the typical conventions of conversation in the modern world, as observed by his lack of a social circle.
“Hmm…. probably good. I peeked at the previews some, but the lcd screen isn’t a great rep. Once I download them I can see better and edit them,” Tighnari explains, moving his hands into rectangle shapes and whatnot. He’s so there, so alive it almost scares Cyno. Like he could reach out and touch him and his hand would stop to warm flesh, rather than floating through and finding purchase on nothing except air as things typically go. Nobody talks to him like this.
“And then you’ll email them to me?” Cyno inquires, adjusting the grip on his guitar case, even daring to spare a glance, emboldened.
Tighnari mumbles something under his breath but he’s smiling while saying it, so Cyno thinks it’s probably fine. “Yeah, I’ll email them, Grandpa,” He says, his tone indicating sarcasm.
“I’m 20,” He responds, deadpan, and Tighnari does the same exasperated laugh again, all breath and something else Cyno doesn’t know how to interpret, doesn’t want to. He likes not understanding, sometimes.
Before anything else has the chance to be said Cyno slows down as they approach his sad little black Toyota, and he props his guitar against the bumper carefully to fish out his keys and his pack of cigarettes from his bag. He unlocks the car with a click and leans against the front hood, all the cars that were parked around him long driven home.
“Mind waiting a minute? You can hop in if you want, throw your stuff in the back seat,” He says, popping out a cigarette and holding out the box to Tighnari in offer. He politely shakes his head to decline. He takes it back and pockets it, putting the paper wrapped stick of tobacco in his mouth and digging for a lighter in his jacket.
Tighnari opens the back door and arranges his things on the floor behind the passenger seat, then closes it with a metallic slam and comes around the front to sit on the hood of the car next to where Cyno leans.
He cups a hand around his mouth while he lights his cigarette, his face alight with warmth for a brief moment before it goes again. He takes a long drag, the taste bitter and burnt on his tongue, still disgusting since the first one he smoked in junior year of high school because he wanted to try and get addicted to something out of boredom since nothing really seemed to stick for long in his life. He still doesn’t really know if it worked because he has to manually remind himself when it seems like a socially acceptable time to smoke a cigarette, and more often than not forgets to smoke them altogether. Even so, they remain a constant.
He blows out the smoke, turning his head away from Tighnari mindfully as he does so, burning when it comes back up his throat.
“I really hate the smell of cigarettes, but I also don’t,” Tighnari says, and Cyno turns back with a raised eyebrow to meet his gaze, already looking as he always seemed to be. Like he was always just one skip ahead, stones on the water. “It’s gross, but nostalgic, so I can’t help but feel a certain way when I smell them, like a knee-jerk sort of thing.”
Cyno hums thoughtfully, tapping the cigarette against his middle finger to ash it on the ground.
“What way’s that?” He asks, curious, taking another slow drag. Tighnari looks somewhere down near where the cigarette’s in his mouth and back up again, raising his hand up to gesture for it. Cyno transfers it carefully to his pointer and thumb with shaky hands, brushing together briefly all the while.
He brings it to his lips, inhales it with his nose scrunched, taking his time to think it seems. He blows it back out quickly, handing off the cigarette back to Cyno to cough twice. He watches with mild concern, a strange urge to pat his back or something washing down his arms.
“Disgusting,” he says, his eyebrows all furrowed making him look thoroughly disgruntled.
Cyno laughs dryly. “Isn’t it?” Tighnari nods in agreement.
“I don’t know. It reminds me of… old friends… bad parties. Family,” he responds after the intermission, vague tendrils of smoke still coming out with his first few words, kicking his feet against the bumper lightly. Cyno didn’t really mind, stupid old ugly car it was already. “Just familiar.”
He hums again, contemplating the sentiment. What did cigarettes remind him of? He keeps his mouth shut in a wise moment of realizing it’s things he can’t really tell a stranger without making them severely uncomfortable.
“I don’t really know why I still smoke them,” he says as an afterthought instead, though the way Tighnari’s eyes linger on him for a moment makes him feel like he just read his mind. Cyno keeps his gaze down the dark street, not knowing what exactly would be showing in his eyes if he turned.
He feels like there should be something that comes after that sentence in the natural world, but he doesn’t care to say anything else. Whatever came next wouldn’t have been honest enough, that was simply the end of his thought. Doesn’t know why he smokes them, is all.
“Why don’t you quit?” Tighnari asks, filling the space left behind by his lack of elaboration, leaning forward on his palms to look over the edge of his legs, down at the pavement. He’s wearing these old vintage looking brown loafers that look almost as beat up as Cyno’s converse. Wearing that sort of thing to a DIY college show is definitely a choice, but he doesn’t comment on it.
Cyno shrugs. “Wanted to try my hand at addiction for fun. Gives me something to do when it’s too quiet,” he says honestly, expecting a laugh at the stupidity of that admission, inhaling. He watches down the slope of his nose the way the ash turns red for that moment he breathes in.
“ ‘For fun,’ he says. ‘Addiction for fun,’ he says. You're unreal,” Tighnari says, snorting and shaking his head, his black hair falling down in curtains around his face at the movement.
“Unreal, that’s a new one,” Cyno responds through whirling smoke, putting out the cigarette on the metal of his car near Tighnari’s hand, who watches the action absentmindedly. He jerks his head back at the car and pushes himself from the hood with his palms, Tighnari’s feet hitting the pavement with a slap from his loafers.
“What, you have a list of all the compliments people have given you?” Tighnari jests and meets his eyes over the top of the car before dipping down into his seat. Cyno follows quickly after shoving his equipment in the backseat, shutting his door and uncomfortably writhing in the seat to get his keys out of his pocket.
“That was a compliment?” He asks earnestly, pushing the keys into the ignition and turning, the engine hacking to life in response. It sounded even worse with a passenger, somehow. “Sorry, radio’s not working,” Cyno adds, buckling his seatbelt and adjusting his feet on the pedals.
“It’s whatever you think it is,” Tighnari says with a shrug, strangely cryptic and once again unwilling to explain himself. “A musician without a radio is ironic.”
Cyno easily pulls out into the street and checks the rear view to make sure the backseat is still void of any shadows, and continues at a steady pace down the dim road.
“You know how to fix it?” he tries, glancing at Tighnari whose face is periodically lit with streetlights as they pass under them, the shadows of glass and electrical wires moving smoothly over him. His eyes are trained on the road, though he looks at him from the side of his eyes when he notices.
“Nope,” he answers, popping the p for emphasis. “More awkwardly quiet rides for you and your passengers.”
Cyno chuckles at the thought. “It’s only more quiet for me, fortunately. I think you’re one of maybe three passengers I’ve had in this car since getting it. Which was in high school, by the way,” he says, not knowing why he is so willing to say these things to Tighnari. He doesn’t think he’s even talked this long to Sethos or Dehya without purposely cutting it short.
“That’s lonely,” Tighnari muses honestly, his brows seeming to furrow while he turns slightly to look out of the side window in brief contemplation. “I’m a lucky rider, then.”
“Lucky is pushing it,” Cyno says dryly, choosing to ignore that bit about loneliness because that was something he probably didn’t want to talk to Tighnari about. He makes a turn that gets on the highway to his neighborhood, then realizes he never found out where Tighnari even lives. “Shit, sorry— where are you going?”
Tighnari hums, raising a hand to tap the windowsill absently. The lights of the city blur as they pass the urban line, collections of lives in each pointed star.
“Wherever you’re going,” he says simply, boldly, and Cyno looks over at him, surprised.
“My apartment isn’t exactly an exciting destination. I also don’t really feel like getting back in the car to take you home,” he says bluntly, anxious over the idea of letting someone peer into his space like that. He might as well be stripped naked and cut open at the stomach like the frog he dissected in 9th grade.
Tighnari shrugs. “You don’t have to take me home,” and Cyno’s officially Worried.
“I don’t know if I have the space to let you stay over,” his palms sweat, but for some reason he doesn’t really want to say no. Part of him is almost curious to run this experiment, to see what happens when he invites someone into this untouched part of his life. What does it mean, to bare your soul like this? To let him see the linen sheets on his bed and the ugliness that comes out being alone?
Tighnari must know about that part of him somehow, because he just hums again and doesn’t say anything. Tighnari seems to know a lot of things about Cyno that he doesn’t really sense in himself, and he’s only known him for all of 2 hours. Maybe he already did peer into his soul and he just didn’t realize because he’s still a skip behind. Maybe Cyno does actually want a guest for once, but his nature refuses it.
Cyno really wishes the radio was working. The rest of the drive is mostly silent, probably not uncomfortable in retrospect but in his own brain it feels awkward. Like something is waiting inside of the quiet that’s been charged and buzzed up with firing chemicals and syllables that can’t be contained by the metal box of the Toyota Camry. He wants to grab it between his fists and squeeze it half to death, tell it to shut up and then throw it out the window to finish it off and make it stop tickling him like that.
Before he makes himself look schizophrenic they’re arriving in the old residential town Cyno’s apartment building is in, and he drives slowly down the pleasantly tree-lined street with the old abomination of a brick box that is home, but the victorian qualities to the trimming and iron fire escapes make it a little bit more charming. He pulls into the lot out front, the spot he always took right under the jujube tree that sat in the thin strip of grass around the sidewalk.
Cyno spares Tighnari a quick glance and nods once, then gets out of the car stiffly into the warm September night. He wishes Sumeru got colder like Mondstadt this time of year, but he’d be stuck with warm weather until November.
He opens the back door to lug his equipment back up the elevator, and Tighnari takes hold of his amp without prompting, his black camera bags on the other arm. He smiles at Cyno through the other door while they’re both bent into the car, a shy thing almost. His fig lips smooth out across his teeth, and Cyno has to get his guitar and stand up before he does something embarrassing, like smile back.
Tighnari follows Cyno to the door and then the elevator and then the third floor hallway, and then finally the door to his apartment. He sets down his guitar to get his keyring from his pocket and stumbles over the lock a bit, Tighnari standing at his side and watching the ordeal in polite silence. It clicks open and he unceremoniously shoves the heavy door open and pushes through with all his luggage in tow. He tries not to feel too observed as they walk into the warmly lit space, lamps everywhere they could fit; on stacked books or side tables, all varying in size and shape. His couch is low to the ground and probably meant for outdoors, but he got it at a yard sale for $30, so he wasn’t going to pass that deal up. The nicest thing in the apartment is probably a huge persian rug that covers almost the entire area of the living room, something he inherited from Cyrus years ago.
He walks to the corner of the room and piles his things into it without much care, Tighnari doing the same with the amp albeit much more cautiously. Cyno doesn’t know what to do. He awkwardly ambles over to the kitchen while shrugging off his jacket, throwing it on the back of one of two chairs at the small dining table. There’s a lamp on top of that, too.
“Do you want water or… anything else?” Cyno asks, turning around to see Tighnari leaning on the table, looking out at the living room and all of the posters on the walls. He feels like a child again, where everyone knows what’s going on except him.
“Sure. Do you have tea?” He asks, all quiet and mindful, fitting too easily into Cyno’s apartment. He’s framed by the yellow lamplight behind him and it makes his chest hurt.
“Tea, yeah. I only have green tea, though. I’ve never used it, I just thought tea is the sort of thing people like to keep in their kitchens,” he explains, maybe over-explains, moving over to a cabinet to pull out a store brand box of green tea, unopened. He sort of stares at it on the counter for a moment, at a loss with what to do, and then there is breath on his shoulder and Tighnari is behind him, reaching for the box. Cyno turns his head quickly and Tighnari just looks at him while he reaches past for the green tea, shrugging.
“I figured you wouldn’t know how to make it,” and then the space he occupied is cold again.
He watches Tighnari easily find a suitable mug in Cyno’s cabinets and he distantly wonders if maybe he really has been here before, even all along. He leans back against the opposite countertop while Tighnari fills his mug with tap water and puts it in the microwave with a few beeps. The only sound after that is the droning hum of the microwave while the plain mug circles around, and Cyno watches it blankly, trying to figure out what day Tighnari could have snuck in his house while he was away.
“I like your apartment,” Tighnari says, the ‘don’t be embarrassed about it’ part left unsaid but heard while he looks out wistfully into the room, like he is reading Cyno’s mind always. What a strange sensation.
“Thank you,” Cyno responds, and tries to see everything for the first time again. The lamps, rug, the abundance of posters on the walls– bands, movies. What does he look like here, in his own kitchen, unable to hide the constant wonderment on his face? In the midst of warmth and this undeniable openness, what is his expression, his stance? What does he appear as, meeting someone who has yet to question why he is the way he is? Tighnari hums lightly and the sound of it takes Cyno to his face, outlined by the light behind him. The edge of his nose is highlighted yellow.
The microwave beeps loudly and Tighari rubs at his face, pushing himself off the counter to turn around and grab the mug. He fumbles with the thin cardboard of the box and delicately lowers a teabag into the steaming water. Cyno watches his fingers astutely.
“Do you ever go out there?” Tighnari asks, gesturing to the window, letting his ministrations with the tea pause as he waits for it to steep.
“Outside?” Cyno says, making a face. Did he really think he was that much of a loser?
“No, the fire escape,” Tighnari says, laughing a bit. “Is it safe?”
“Oh. No, I don’t really go out there. I guess I haven’t thought of it,” Cyno contemplates, looking out the dark window save for the yellow streetlight. “It’s probably safe.”
Without another word, Tighnari pushes himself off the counter and makes his way over to the window in the living room, opening it up to the warm August night and shoving the screen up with it. He turns around before going out. “You coming?” He says while Cyno just sort of watches.
“I guess so,” he sighs, not really having a choice in the matter. It was probably time to explore the building a little bit anyway.
Tighnari maneuvers himself through by swinging a leg over the windowsill and then his head, sort of hopping on the iron bars while his second leg follows. Cyno tries the same technique but isn’t as graceful, and sort of shoves himself right into Tighnari who has to grab his shoulders so they both don’t go careening off the edge. It’s a really tight space.
Tighnari hesitantly lets his hands slip from Cyno’s shoulders with a strange look on his face, lingering, eyes tracing along the slope of his nose and then stop there abruptly, instead turning to lean on the railing to look out over the skyline and tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. There’s a small silver ring hugging the lobe, he notices.
“Did you know that in capri figs, a wasp will fertilize eggs and die inside of it without ever leaving the fruit?” Tighnari asked, watching the lights flicker in the city nearby.
“Hm… No, I didn’t,” Cyno contemplates the question, wondering how many dead wasps he’s eaten. “Have you ever found a wasp in your figs?”
Tighnari laughs, tinkling and bright. “No. Caprifigs are inedible– though, in some farming practices they trick the wasps by making them pollinate Smyrna figs. I suppose if you’ve ever found one of those and opened it before it was ripe you might find a wasp, but usually the fig just digests it,” he says, tracing a finger along the decorative indents in the iron railing.
Cyno hums and imagines what his life would be as a fig wasp. To live in such wet darkness, his only purpose to die– was the sweetness of the juice even worth it if he couldn’t see light? Did the wasp ever know there was anything except the fig, or did he accept his fate and carry out his duty because it was his only instinct? He thinks it's quite a sad fate, but probably only if he were cursed to turn into a wasp from a human. He thinks he’d fall into misery if he were destined to be shut away in darkness until he di– ah.
He grips the railing a bit tighter, shoulder to shoulder with Tighnari and looks up to find the moon somewhere in the sky and finds it to be almost full. There’s a sliver of incompleteness in the perfect circle, just one bit of shadow left before tomorrow would illuminate it. He can feel Tighnari’s eyes float over to him, watching nonintrusively for the sake of just looking.
“What is it?” he asks perceptively, and Cyno glances over, surprised. Tighnari leans on his elbows and has tilted his head to look up at him lazily.
“Just realized something,” he answers noncommittally, waving off the importance of his revelation with his hand. It was for him alone.
Tighnari hums and lingers on him for a bit longer before rising from the railing, a breeze rustling his short hair. “My tea is probably cool,” he announces, though makes no further move to climb back through the window.
Cyno, too, pushes up from the wrought iron and they’re quite a bit closer than he anticipated, though it’s as far apart as the space allows. The strand of hair Tighnari had tucked behind his ear is blown loose by the wind, and without faltering Cyno reaches his hand up, right to his face, and retucks the piece neatly. The tips of his fingers brush the side of Tighnari’s neck as they fall back to his side and he swears he sees him twitch a bit. His lips subtly part in surprise and Cyno does not feel the regret that would usually consume him after doing something so openly bold. His heart is beating so fast, but he feels quite nice about it, actually. Like it’s the first time he’s done something right.
He ducks down back into the warm light spilling from the open window more out of embarrassment than anything else, Tighnari left staring at the place Cyno’s face was for a moment before following him back inside in a stupor, a mess of limbs and stumbles. He walks over to the counter where Tighnari’s mug was left and gingerly palms the side, finding it pleasantly warm. He picks it up and turns to give it to him, watching it carefully so as not to spill it. “I think it’s ready.”
Cyno stops in his tracks when there’s suddenly a hand on his shoulder and a face in his own, and then there are lips and he’s kissing Tighnari. He instinctively holds his arm out with the mug to prevent it from spilling all over the both of them and is lost on what to do, but starts with closing his eyes and steadying himself by putting his other hand on Tighnari’s waist.
Tighnari pulls his face away and looks at Cyno, almost expectantly, nervously. “Was that okay?” He looks like he wants to die. Cyno feels bad.
“I– Um… If– I just– Yeah?” Cyno says, confused, looking down at Tighnari’s mouth with an almost affronted expression as though it had offended him, though it was largely because he never thought he would be this okay with that sort of thing. In fact, he wished Tighnari had never pulled away. He looks back up at Tighnari’s eyes with furrowed brows and decides he’s going to figure that out right now.
He holds Tighnari firmly by where his hand is on his side, pulling him back towards the counter and reaches back to place the mug back down. He spends a moment analyzing Tighnari’s face, who looks increasingly more embarrassed with each moment, hand faltering at his shoulder and tan skin smattered in a redness much like that of the figs they were discussing earlier.
“I’m sorry, I should have asked– I just– I thought–”
Cyno interrupts him by bringing his other hand to the back of Tighnari’s neck, his hair pleasantly soft, and pulling him back in. He kisses him softly, though messily, completely unsure of what to do with his mouth, though he figures neither of them mind much. Tighnari seems out of it for a moment before Cyno feels a hand on the side of his jaw, warm and encapsulating. Tighnari pushes him forward until his back stops against the counter, and Cyno moves his lips more fervently, though still hesitantly.
He feels lightheaded, though he’s not sure if it’s because he forgot to breathe or because he’s never imagined kissing someone was all that it was chalked up to be. He pulls away reluctantly, breaths heavy, lips wet with proof that Tighnari had just been there. He felt giddy, like he could start jumping off the walls of his apartment and land somewhere in that dark sliver of the moon. He imagines he has a dumb expression on his face, and Tighnari seems to confirm this with a matching one of his own– a half grin and looking up to him with heavy lids.
“Thanks,” Cyno says dumbly, his breath coming staggered and words airy and dizzy, trying to find his footing on the wood planks of his apartment and not somewhere high above this, orbiting the moon and eating a fig sensually on the tip of the crescent.
“That’s how you respond to a kiss?” Tighnari says, though softly, his smile light and easy and beautiful, and Cyno realizes this is what has been causing that pushing sensation on his chest all night. Tighnari is beautiful in a quiet way that does not stun or change your life when seeing it, but makes you stare at him a little longer with your lips parted and leaves you wondering why you can’t stop wanting to be closer to him each time you take a glance.
“I’ve only ever kissed my bandmate hammered in a closet, so…. I guess not? Not a good frame of reference,” Cyno provides, and looks up as he remembers, or remembers the story Dehya told him of it. To be honest, he doesn’t actually know what kissing Sethos is really like after all.
“Don’t talk about the other people you’ve kissed when we’re still crotch to crotch, Cyno,” Tighnari teases, though he kisses the corner of his mouth after saying it and Cyno smiles down at him when he pulls his head away, and then pushes him further by the shoulders so he can turn and get the long forgotten tea from behind him on the counter.
“This is definitely cold now,” he says, and Tighnari just shakes his head and chuckles, moving forward to rest his forehead on Cyno’s shoulder, hiding his grin, and pushing the tea away with a loose arm, snaking the other one around Cyno’s waist. He puts his arm on Tighnari’s back, tracing a circle on his shirt with his finger.
“I don’t even want it anymore.”
“Why?”
“Because I like tea in the same way you like cigarettes.”
“I see.”
A beat of silence.
“Can we get figs tomorrow at the grocery store for breakfast?”
A laugh, tinkling and bright, tinged with the promise of a morning.
“Sure, Cyno.”