Chapter one.
Come On Eileen.
December 3, 1983.
Kakyoin sighs and adjusts the name tag on his uniform shirt. He starts leafing and thumbing through the many, many records in section N-O-P, fingers touching and flipping the covers to the tune of the Kajagoogoo single drawling through the tinny store speakers. He tuts when his fingertips touch Sting, who's found himself in the wrong section of the alphabet, and moves to Q-R-S, a little to the right of him.
A slow day, he thinks, just as he likes them.
It's only been a couple of months since Kakyoin applied and was hired to be the face of the newest addition to the town's many record stores, and truly, he quite likes his job. It's mostly quiet; a small rush around three, when distant school bells announce small packs of teenagers flooding the Punk and New Wave corners, hairs in all shapes and colours and jackets with more metal than flashes from Kakyoin's teeth, but otherwise, he hears nothing except for the music he's assigned and contractually obligated to play at any and all hours of his work schedule.
It pays nicely, decently enough, considering he's only here in the hours he's not suffering through classes that seem too long and piles of homework his parents encourage him to begin working on as soon as he hangs his coat and many scarves and dumps his uniform in the washer, entirely without words but with many looks.
He sighs again.
Too Shy finishes its last beats and he turns around to move behind the counter, bending and kneeling to retrieve the latest album added to the store's impressive Pet Shop Boys collection.
He hardly hears the ding of the door past the wild synth of Young Offender, and doesn't notice his slow day interrupted until a shadow colours his red locks auburn. He looks up from his temporary spot on the floor and opens his mouth to speak and greet like he was taught, when he realises he's not speaking to a customer, but a giant in search of magic beans.
After a good ten seconds of staring he figures a good afternoon would have to come out of either of them, and pulls his manners back from the hole they crawled into. He smiles. "Good afternoon, sir. Can I help you with anything?"
The giant looks down at him from underneath the rim of his cap and Kakyoin realises he's still on the floor. He hastily pushes himself up and brushes the dust he imagines being there even after his thorough sweeping earlier that day off his knees. "Excuse me, sorry." He smiles again, but the stranger seems to gain not only four extra wrinkles in between his eyebrows, but twenty whole years as well. He slams his palms down on the counter, making Kakyoin jump and the cash register give a faint metal ding. The stranger makes a noise, or several noises that might have been words, but seems to forget his mouth is covered by the layers of a scarf wrapped around his neck and the collar of his jacket several times. He moves a hand to tug at it and it's then Kakyoin notices there's papers under the man's shovel palms.
The stranger finishes tugging his scarf down sufficiently to reveal lips Kakyoin would have thought handsome if he were attracted to brooding angry giant men (he is), and looks from the papers to Kakyoin without speaking the words he tugged his scarf down for in the first place. Kakyoin tries to read the strangers face but gathers nothing from a twitchy heavy eyebrow and the bulging vein on his forehead, but does notice his nice eyes. "You, uh... do you..." He notices the papers crinkling slightly when the man's hand twitches suddenly and takes a closer look at them. "Ah! Do you need me to hang these for you? In the window, I mean?"
A quick, short nod, and two pamphlets are shoved in his outstretched hands, crinkling slightly. The guy leaves in a hurry and flurry of coattails and Kakyoin is left blinking at the door long after the hollow sound of the bell is dead and gone and the dust on the windowsil the owner insists gives the place a good feel has settled.
Kakyoin's made it routine to stare at the advert on the store window every day before opening up.
WANTED. Keyboardist suitable for best band on earth. Must be able to play a mean synth solo. Able to deal with assholes would be plus, not required.
A couple of people took one of the offered telephone number strips at the bottom, but the stranger hasn't come back to ask him to remove the flyer, so he assumes, he feels he's allowed to assume, the keyboardist suitable for the best band on this earth has yet to be found.
He walks over to the counter and taps his pen against his chin thoughtfully, before writing down how many copies of Rio are left. He remembers his synthesizer at home, fondly, turns around and walks over to the racks of records, starting with A-B-C, to begin his daily routine of alphabetizing the singles and albums yesterday's teen storm misplaced. He could play the synth, he thinks. He's pretty decent, even if he has to say so himself, and though his stage persona might need some work (he blows feebly at the red lock dangling in front of his face), he thinks he might fancy himself half decent with solos, even. But...
He places his hands on the rims of the rack on either side of section G-H-I and hums, His parents would murder him, truly, and he has a job. A nice, steady, relaxing job in a small dusty record shop and he really doesn't need any more than this, or any excitement, because he likes the quiet, and his steady, relaxing job with steady pay. Really, thinking about it, his boyhood dream of being famous in the Pete Townshend way seems so far away, and it's a bad idea, frankly.
He laughs softly to himself and grabs the T-Rex album to take it far away from John Lee Hooker's place in the rack. The idea of himself in a rock band or God knows whatever kind of music the best band on this earth would play makes his fingers twitch, and he has no illusions of grandeur, doesn't exactly think of himself as band-worthy, though he doesn't exactly know what would be, either. It's silly. Terrible. A terrible idea. And yet.
It couldn't hurt to try, the back of his mind supplies. Maybe, maybe, he should call, just to see if the mysterious giant in black's found his perfect legendary keyboardist and if he hadn't, he could try. He could try and maybe they wouldn't like him at all, or his solos or his playing in general and he wouldn't get hired and that would be fine, just fine. Oh, his parents would kill him though.
He glances at the window. One phone call, that's it. A single phone call and he'll see what happens and nothing would, nothing probably would. He thinks up creative scenarios in which his mother would most certainly end his life to pass the time he spends walking to the counter to pick up the horn of the black company phone and dials the number he's tried not to memorize.
He thinks he's dialled the wrong number until the sing-song French accent on the other line asks him if he's seen the flyers, and supplies him with an address. Now, standing in front of a tall blue door in front of a house Kakyoin can really only describe as quite massive and clutching his case in his sweating palm after having rung the doorbell, he feels a lot less confident as he did when he told the voice he'd like to apply.
The door opens and Kakyoin has to look down a little, something he's not used to, to see a small, blonde lady with a kind smile crinkling the corners of her eyes and hands clasped in front of her apron. "Oh, no, uh," he stutters and takes a step back. "Sorry, I must be at the wrong place, I think."
"Are you here for the band?" She takes a step back and moves aside to motion him in. "They're in the garage, but feel free to step in for a bit! I'll take you there, don't worry hon."
He hesitates a little before thanking the woman, pulling his case off the ground and following her through several doors before she opens a door leading to a concrete floor, bare walls and what seems to be a couple of comfortable sofas and chairs. He hurries in when she smiles at him encouragingly and looks around. He hears a low whistle from the corner of the room and whips around to look at a man with substantial hair sitting behind a substantial drumset. "Wow, damn, you're built like... like that Italian tower. The one that's famous for being all crooked and shit."
Kakyoin recognises him as the French voice from the phone and straightens his back subconsciously. A tsk tsk from the vague direction of the sofas pulls him out of thoughts of battle with his admittedly crooked back. A man stands up from where he was hidden deep inside the bean bag in the corner, brushing off his long robes. "Polnareff, be nice."
Polnareff tuts and lays his drumsticks down in front of him. "What, I am. I love that piece of shit tower."
"We can't all look like a nuclear experiment gone wrong, Polnareff."
Polnareff looks at the space behind Kakyoin, insult clearly written on every feature of his face. Kakyoin quickly turns around to see the giant man from the store, cap still obscuring his eyes.
"Wow Jotaro, what the Hell man! You can't go for a guy's looks like that!" Polnareff sits down on his stool again and pouts. Kakyoin's mind is whirling slightly and he figures he must look the part because the mysterious man in the corner decides to put him out of his misery. "Are you here for the synth job?"
He hastily pulls the pamphlet from his butt pocket. "Ah, yes, I called earlier! I'm Kakyoin, I-"
Jotaro cuts him off. "Alright, cool. You have your own synth?"
He blinks and turns around. "Uh, yes. Yes I. I do."
Ten seconds of silence fall, with Jotaro eventually throwing a look at the case on the floor next to his feet. Kakyoin startles. "Oh! Oh yeah, let me..." He bends over to open his case and nearly drops his synth in his haste to set it up on the stand he set on the garage floor. Jotaro grunts. "It's green."
Kakyoin smiles. "It's emerald."
"Emerald is green, by God." Jotaro's tongue clicks against his teeth and Kakyoin is a little distracted for the several seconds it takes Jotaro to speak. "Are those... are those letters. You named your synth."
Kakyoin blushes and looks at the golden lettering on the front of his instrument. Polnareff pipes up from the corner wall. "What the fuck Jotaro, you named your guitar, you nerdlord." The man in robes has moved to stand next to the drum set and tsk's. "You named your drums, man, none of us are safe."
Polnareff whines, a truly heartfelt sound from the back of his throat. "Avdol, don't bag on me like this, dude! Silver Chariot is a cool name and I won't stand for being lumped in with these losers."
Jotaro ignores them and nods at the synthesizer. "Play us something, then." Kakyoin glows red and stutters, Polnareff and Avdol stop bickering and Polnareff yells. "Yeah, man, show us your magic!"
Kakyoin hesitates for all of ten seconds as he debates on what to play (he didn't really think this far ahead), before settling on Queen, and starts playing. Halfway his song he looks up to see Jotaro muttering along the words and giving him no indication to stop, and after several minutes he plays the last notes and looks up. He absolutely can't read Jotaro's face and is about to go through several minutes of stuttered excuses before Avdol laughs deeply. "Man, didn't expect to hear Bycicle Races come out of that thing."
Polnareff looks up. "Dude, uh, that song is classic and I won't hear a bad word." He looks at Kakyoin. "That was ace, man. Really solid, like you were some kind of Nick Rhodes or some shit."
Kakyoin smiles a little at the praise and the wink Polnareff throws him. Jotaro, standing in front of him still, is completely silent and three pairs of eyes stare the man down for what seems like hours, Kakyoin's heart beating in the sides of his head and in his chest. If Polnareff notices the ground swallowing Kakyoin up whole, he mentions nothing of it, but does decide to pour his little heart out.
"Jotaro, buddy, give the boy a break. That was magic, the first good thing we've heard all week. He's got those long ass elegant pianist's fingers, yeah? All long and thin and shit. Dude. This is it." He looks at Kakyoin briefly, "and dude. I'm diggin' that hair. He didn't even have to dye it or anything, and shit, I take four hours just to get half of it to look like it does and by then Avdol's banging on the door and I can't even finish it right."
Jotaro gives him a look. "Bag it, man." He walks up to Kakyoin until the tips of his strangely polished shoes are quite near Kakyoin's green ones. "Didn't you have a job? Record store? Might be hard to squish in practice, what with your schedule and all."
Kakyoin swallows and has to crane his neck to stare at Jotaro's face instead of his massive chest. "Yeah, I did. Do, I mean, but I..."
Jotaro sighs. "But what?"
"But I like playing."
Jotaro sighs and stares at something on Kakyoin's forehead very intently for several seconds. "Alright, you're in."
Polnareff looks pleased, Avdol nods, but Kakyoin is entirely unprepared for his own wide smile, making his cheeks hurt and his braces shine slightly in the dim garage ceiling lights. Jotaro coughs and looks away. "Stop smiling like that, Jesus Christ, I'll go blind."
Kakyoin doesn't.
It's an hour of practice and bickering later that the kind woman from earlier, introduced as Jotaro's mother (he sees the resemblance only in cheekbones and blue eyes), opens the door to bring them snacks, and Kakyoin, nibbling on freshly baked goods, remembers to ask something. "I was wondering," he speaks up at nobody in particular, "what do you guys want out of this? The band, I mean." He lets it hang awkwardly in the air before Polnareff stands up and strikes a pose. "Uh, to be a world fuckin' famous rock band of misfits, no big deal."
Avdol chuckles, a rich, deep chuckle. "Yeah, that sounds right."
Jotaro nods, standing a couple feet away, right next to a perfectly comfortable armchair.
Kakyoin watches them for a bit, while they're all quiet and munching on treats, and thinks this has got to be one of the strangest groups of people he's ever met, but is perfectly comfortable being apart of.
"That's alright then," he says. "Sounds perfect."
