Hey hey, so this is my first fic, on this platform anyways, um enjoy and hopefully it's good.
Chapter 1: Mirrors
Looking at herself in the mirror takes her back, even if the mirror always displays her current self, she is still reminded of from how far she'd come.
A broken childhood is usually never where a music star starts unless they're singing or rapping about it hardcore, but alas, a drunken father always dozing and wallowing off in his regrets, plus a mother she only remembers from pictures and carefully selected memories is all she has to offer her fans when it came to family. She tells them stories about her father who still lives in their childhood home in Nevada and about a mother so distant and mysterious that only god could possibly know her current location.
Of course she adores her fans. Every music star says it, but honestly. None of them would be where they are without a fan-base.
Still, they like to become so attached to her and her life that they want to know everything about it. She remains secret on the full story, only mentions that she's an only child, her mother left them at a young age, and that her father is who she counts as family to return to constantly. After all, he raised her as well as he could for a depressed and alcoholic man. It satisfies enough, and they get hints of how her mother was from small approved comments and song lyrics. Maka might just be scarred from the trauma it all brought her though, yet she refuses to share such sensitive information to the public. They'll only crave more. She doesn't think it's a good plan to share more, both for the medias reasons and her privacy.
She left it all behind, no further pondering into the memories needed, thank you very much. The experience allowed her to grow and everything borne from it is in her past.
Her father who made the mistake of cheating on her mother while drunk. Her mother leaving because she couldn't be the mom that Maka needed or the wife that Spirit loved. Quite possibly her soulmate leaving her at a time of need. The list can go on with her exaggerated teenager angst.
The change was good. Needed. Forgive and forget. As Marie (Her mother figure aunt) liked to say. Maka is not a person who can easily forgive, not anymore at least, but she will try very hard to forget and move on. These traumas are weights. They're unhealthy.
She used to curse her father and wanted to think that he would've cheated without the alcohol based off of how much of a womanizer he had a reputation of being in high school and shortly after. For the long part of her teen years she rebelled and shamed her father because he "chased Mama away." She didn't realize that her mother wanted to leave them much sooner than that event though.
Maka was a mistake. A product of one of those nights where a young women drinks and ends up in somebody else's bed for the night. She doesn't blame her father anymore, she knows the feeling of just wanting someone to love that deeply, that desperately, when the one you thought you could trust leaves. However at the time of his crime, Mama was only physically present. Not emotionally enough to love him, while her mind was constantly thinking of other, more important things that she could be doing sans a husband and daughter.
By the time that Maka understood her mother enough for who she really was, she thought it was too late to sew these wounds she dug so deep. The short years she has of college plus the relationships she developed while attending it taught her that it's best to forgive and move on in the end, and it doesn't always mean that you need to forget or give up. It's a skill she is still practicing.
So she reconnected with her roots to both seek and give forgiveness. She forgave her mother, who admitted herself to Maka in person that she never wanted a child or marriage. Mama threw in things about how raising Maka changed her mind on how much she could love and care for her child whilst crying her eyes out for forgiveness back when Maka graduated with her psychology degree at twenty two, but mentioned that the love was not enough for her spirit which craved to run freely, nor the husband who adored her. It was suffocating, she had planned to leave, all she needed was a valid enough reason, "and when Spirit 'cheated', I took that chance. I'm sorry but I couldn't look back."
She finally had learned the true story, and instead of trying to form a mediocre bond, they got matching tattoos as a sort of makeshift bond. Maka has the word angel in between her index and middle finger with the left wing before the words whilst her mother has the word 'wings' with the right wing at the end. It meant that Maka was her Mama's angel and that Mama roamed freely on her wings. It left her heartbroken, she cried and cried but that day it felt more like cries of relief than all else. Communication is still not her mothers forte. A postcard here and there is what she manages with though.
She's got daddy issues, she's got mommy issues, whatever press want to call it. But, she's over her parents mistakes, or that's what she likes to say and convince herself of anyway. She can't possibly hate them, but the trauma remains laced into who she is. She won't acknowledge it though. She's dedicated enough of her lyrics to them as a whole, and the problems she developed from them including her mother's fear of commitment and her father's "genetic" depression spells.
She likes to say that she's happy now, and that much like her father she only feels sad some days because of genes, because when she looks at herself in the mirror she sees Maka Cassiopeia 'Kama' Albarn, (code name Grigori,) front woman for the band Spartoi and in no possible place to be sad, after all, others have worse. Who could complain when sweet memories inspire her? The band's name and her stage name for crying out loud! Spartoi, the name of her clique of childhood friends, and the only sweet memory she has left of her childhood. Grigori, angel in Japanese, a nickname so simply in her mother's native tongue but also the name she holds dearest to her heart because it's how her mother addressed her when she still cared.
The name Kama from her solo career is an anagram of her real name that her father pointed out to her when she was twelve and thinking of a stage name, but back then this life was just a fantasy fueled by compliments of her voice from the boy next door. However it also resonated with her long period of teenage angst upon realizing that it meant "scythe" in Japanese. She always laughs when she recalls how "edgy" it seemed. Her teen self is raging again.
She can say now after a long time of chasing some ghost women who might as well have been an imagination (her mother), that she trusts and is connected more to her recovering father -well in the little ways that Maka can show trust and bond nowadays. He's found love with a women she still believes is too, explicit for him. But he claims that Blair makes him happy and after meeting her on countless events she's agreed that her father admires her in a way he can't verbally explain. His sea glass eyes- identical to her own- tell the story for her though. It's strange what the years can hold for you. She is a victim of that statement.
A knock on her stage door interrupts her thinking and then she is faced with her best friend, ex boyfriend, and basically someone she considers a brother, Blake Barrett Hoshi, better known by his stage name Black Star.
"You ready pigtails?" He mocks her, she grins and takes his hand as he helps her out of the spin chair. After a quick hug she nods.
"As I'll ever be," she messes with her freshly styled hair as they walk out of the room and towards the stage set, an action practiced whenever she's anxious and Blake fully aware of the quirk notices it too.
"Lying to me now? I'm hurt." He creates a faux crying face. His commentary earns a punch in his buff bicep, but for all the martial arts training it still pays off with a small wince from Blake because Maka has her own years of martial arts practice to make her punch bite. Afterall it's where they met at age seven.
"I'm not lying." She defends, "I always get nervous before a show, but it doesn't mean I'm not ready to face that screaming crowd." The crowd above them is indeed stomping their feet and screaming her name, the bands name and its members as the timer for the concert turns down to ten minutes. This means that she has to meet the rest of her band at the lower stage platforms now. This is probably why Blake came for her, she did lose track of time, and Blake always seems to annoy her back into schedule. It's usually flawless and like clockwork, it doesn't need constant check in to know that it's working correctly, but when her mind lies elsewhere, she loses her iron thought train. Often left stuck in a mood like one of the clocks hands.
Blake leads her there with small comments about their newest single and talk of his obnoxious shows where he'll stage dive whilst inside a giant hamster ball or do a back-flip off the sound systems. Based on how close their relationship is, you can just assume that they work and put out great music together. The newest is to drop next week, at midnight on Friday, unannounced. However, according to friends and betas, it's their best duet yet. Blake's intricate beats just go perfectly with her amazing voice.
However, he is not in her band, nor are any of her immediate and closest friends. She wanted them to pursue their own musical talents, it's paid off for Kid, and Blake. Camellia is doing fine as an award winning actor. Liz and Patty were better off as part time designers and models, so really, most of her friends are living good and comfortably like herself. Maybe, she always hopes anyway because he still comes into play. She looks down and messes with her hair more, black dots clouding her vision until the memory flashes in front of her. Unwanted like always.
"Tell me the truth! Where is he?" Maka questions him for the third time that week, still unwilling to accept that Sullivan James Evans, or Soul to her, had ran from home on his own accord and his father's detective friends had yet to find him. Two weeks into the case and the farthest they got was a purchased train ticket to Los Angeles. Then in such a big city, the trail gets lost.
"I told you that I don't know! He left sometime in the middle of the night." Fury shoots through Wes's eyes.
"Don't play coy.You can't possibly tell me that he didn't at least visit you before he left either! I wanna know where he is and you're the only other one that he trusted enough to have mention details to." She clenches her fist to her sides. Anger rushing in her veins because she knows he's right. Soul trusted her, but clearly not enough. She's heard nothing, it's both annoying and painful. Especially after what had happened between them nights before.
Instead of making it obvious to Wesley, she gives a death glare whilst trying to read Wes's pale worried expression before finally her vision turned away and she regained some trust in the young adult. Yelling at Wes won't bring Soul back to ease the pain. His eyes still scan for an answer, like he wants to pry it from her and she hates how his eyes just read her like that, such a pretty wine color turned cold and harsh as he scowled it out of her. His once gentle eyes burn her alive.
"I don't know either Wes!" She cries, tears long ago streaming from her face as intimidation strikes her. She shakes. Wes has always been the more diplomatic of the two, so instead of yelling at her in return, his face softens into a frown and he hugs her. She melts into him, sobbing because Soul wouldn't leave her all alone like this, he promised. He wouldn't and she knows it. He'll be back soon, she reassures herself.
"He'll come back." She states, but it sounds more like a question that an argument.
"I don't know, I just hope wherever he is, it's safe…." Wes mutters into her hair, he still stands over a foot taller than her, so he's hunched pretty bad. She stands on her tippie toes to try and help him out a little.
"We all do." James Evans, Soul's father adds, startling them. Maka nods at the man whom she has no respect for at all but surely he's hurt by this news too and needs the empathy.
Their conversation ended when James borrowed Wes for a talk that was most certainly not about Soul. Anger bubbles at the thought of such a conceited man to date. She hated him. His name disgusted her but she remembers her longest depression spells coming from Soul's disappearance and even more so when the time passed and he didn't return. Did James ever care? Maybe she'll never know.
Maka shook her head at the sudden memory and took deep breaths to recompose herself. She long ago decided that wherever Sullivan is, he's safe and well. She got over it, she claims. Even if deep down she knows that he made that choice to run even after promising to stay by her side always, after agreeing that they'd get through all obstacles together. After claiming that he loved her.
He's alive, that much was confirmed to her from him, it was the last words she had heard from him—err, read—a small message on a postcard sent to her weeks after running held her answer, but he never gave any other information nor did he come back in days, a week, or a month, much less ever. Miserably months turned to their entire senior year. She graduated alongside Blake and Kid. The postcard was never turned in to the police, she kept it to herself because sometimes, it served as a reminder of how shocking it was to see how his family seems so unfazed by Soul leaving, like he never meant anything. Wes told her that he got one too, but for them it said. "I'm done. I've had enough of this. You might not hear from me again. Bye." Maka still wonders why he sugar coated her letter when the damage was already done, mentioning his love for her and teasing at a return. It doesn't matter anymore. She escaped their her hell and promised to herself that he made his choice, and that she no longer cared.
Hands on her shoulders bring her back to the present.
"Something the matter?" Kid asks as he reaches to fix her hair that's in a wavy style. She shakes her head and smiles before hugging him tightly and kissing his cheek as greeting. She only now realizes that the timer has reached five minutes and that she needs to go meet with Kim, Kilik, and Harvar. Now. They'll be waiting for her, worried.
"I need to take off, thanks Kiddo." She waves her boyfriend goodbye before running to the stage room. Feeling his and Blake's worried eyes on her back. When she reaches and pushed the door open she's greeted by a tall man always in the weirdest hairstyles and the rest of her band's smiles of relief.
"Finally the princess arrives," Ox Ford sarcastically teases. She glares at Kim's annoyance of a boyfriend and finds her place in between Harvar and Kim. It takes a minute to adjust the height slightly since she decided against the heels.
"Why's he still in here?" She finally asks, receiving a pout from Ox as he kisses Kim goodbye and heads off the rising platform. Their fans scream and cheer as the timer counts from sixty seconds.
"Let's rock n' roll." Kilik says as he sits himself on the drum kit, Kim with her hands placed accordingly on her bass and Harvar already fingering out the pattern to 'Ain't It Fun' from their third album. She nods in agreement, the adrenaline rushing through her veins.
She's here, she made it all on her own, even when the people she cared for, loved, and trusted the most disappeared. She got through it and now this is her life. Singing her emotions out and dancing with her fans to songs full of lyrics that once made her cry.
And she no longer must ponder or need to check a mirror to recall and appreciate that much of her life.
Kim tosses her her signature leather jacket with pins and patches of their albums, the bands logo, gold stars representing awards they win and her name on the bicep of her sleeve, 'Grigori'. Much like an athlete's Letterman jacket, every member in the band has one. All of them have different colors to match their aesthetics. Kim's is pastel pink and mint with zippers in different nonuniform places. Kilik has a light olive jacket with dark green flames surrounding the mouths of his sleeves, around the whole thing are subtle yellow and orange highlights that'll glow neon just like the flames in UV light.. Harvar has a white jacket with a high neck. Maka's has black sleeves with a crimson red body. She remembers spending an entire day driving around to find them when Harv came up with the idea.
When they're all in place seconds later she gives a thumbs up to the director and the platform rises.
The platform begins to rise slowly. The lights inside the stadium shut off like a power outage, the crowd goes silent. Kim and Harvar scurry to connect their stringed instruments to the amps.
Maka can feel her pulse in her ears, her hearts beating but she still speaks into her microphone, smile wide on her face. Continuing the cut off countdown.
"5-4-3-2-1," on cue the light powers on so that the stage is lit. The screen behind them zooms onto Maka's face as she introduces herself to the crowd. A normal smile and "Hi!" However though she adds.
"I'm sure most of you know that when we're in Nevada we add something special to the list because this is our home. So Las Vegas. Are you ready to cry hard dance harder!?" She lets them cheer before asking for their attention.
"We're gonna play a song off of next year's new album. How's that sound?" The crowd is wild. She smiles into her mic. The news finally being out there and their reaction, it lights her up.
"Usually I don't appreciate phones at my shows, but please. Record. Share. I don't want the word to spread among this room. No. I want it around the world. So let's kick tonight off upbeat!" She jumps to hype the crowd. The beat starts, she points her microphone towards the crowd so that they can sing the first line.
Voices shout back at her, "I don't mind!"
She sings through her smile, "Letting it down easy, but just give it time." She dances around the stage, "if it don't hurt now, but just wait, just wait a while. You're not the big fish in the pond no more." She raises her hands as they sing back, "You are what they're feeding on!"
She does her signature dance moves as she continues, "So what are you gonna do when the world don't orbit around you?" a faux frown face takes her face, "So what are you gonna do when the world don't orbit around you?" She shakes her hips, "Sing it with me now!"
"Ain't it fun,"
"Living in the real world!"
"Ain't it good!"
"Being all alone!"
She takes a small second to smile and look at them all dancing, smiling, cheering their names.
This sense of absolute timeless nostalgia with a rush of fresh changes almost every time she stands on this exact stage. The way that these people began supporting her when she was a broke college kid singing at bars. How she grew and formed Spartoi after her one solo album. These people so in love with her voice, she was idolized by many of them. They adored her and she did them without letting the fame get to her head. She was a better person because of them. They helped her grow.
"Where you're from. You might be the one who's running things. Well you can ring anybody's bell and get what you want." She rings a fake bell.
"See it's easy to ignore trouble. When you're living in a bubble,"
The song continues with them clapping on command, dancing and cheering when Kim plays an awesome base solo. She points the mic towards them when they reach the bridge.
Together they sing lyrics she remembers writing in Harv's basement years ago,
"Don't go crying, to your Mama! 'Cause you're on your own in the real world. Don't go crying, to your Mama! 'Cause you're on your own in the real world."
They are all here, charming her over and over again each night. The song ends, the riff to the next starting as the cycle renews. She jumps to hype, shakes her hair around and begins with them singing first again.
"No sir, well I don't wanna be blame."
"No not anymore. It's your turn! Take a seat. We're settling the final score and,"
"Why do we like to hurt so much?" She whips her hair up and down while they sing.
"I can't decide. You have made it harder to just go on. And why? All the possibilities. Well I was wrong. Sing with me now!"
"Well that's what you get when you let your heart win! Whoa." She walks to the other side of the stage and points her mic towards the crowd.
"That's what you get when you let your heart win, oh." She dances.
"I drowned out all my sense with the sound of it's beating. And that's what you get when you let your heart win. Oh" She shakes her hair and hips to Harv's guitar riff. Encouraging her fans to start dancing themselves before encouraging them to jump.
Hearing them sing and watching the dance rushes her with probably unhealthy levels of dopamine. Professor Stein is somewhere disappointed, he'd probably revoke her degree. Nonetheless she continues. The night continues in cycles of people loving her that much.
Actual people obsessed with them, loyal people. Fans hold signs with some of their favorite lyrics, they thrive when Hard Times is introduced.
And It's the best feeling in the world.