Itsuki solved my dilemma by heading to my dresser, pulling out a pair of sweats and a hoodie to pull on. As predicted, they were ginormous on him. The sleeves went well past his hands. He had to roll the waist of the sweats to keep them on his slim hips. He continued to riffle through my drawers until he produced another old sweater, another pair of sweats, throwing them to his friend.
At some point, I should have said something, told them if this was really okay or not, but somehow seeing Itsuki swamped in my sweater and Yasu trying to shove his wider frame into my clothes, that warm and fuzzy feeling came back. It was so fucking stupid because I shouldn’t be that attached to them so quickly. But things had been different from the beginning.
Even though Yasu had shown his obvious dislike of me, they were never as cruel as my last band. They didn’t haze me, make me do all sorts of dumb shit that could have gotten me into a lot of trouble. Or worse... killed.
I couldn’t help but think back to the time when we were all standing in the subway station. Hatchi thought it would be funny to hold the front of my shirt while I leaned out over the tracks. The train was getting closer and closer. I could see the lights, and no matter how many times I tried to push myself forward to get out of the way, Hatchi only tightened his hold. The horn blared louder and louder until I was certain that I was about to die when he suddenly pulled me back to safety.
There were so many red flags when it came to that band; it was a shame that I hadn’t seen any of them sooner.
Chapter 24
Itsuki
While everything had seemed fine the morning after our escapade at Ryosuke’s place, it wasn’t even a week later and we were back to the awkwardness from before. The only exception was that now Yasu wasn’t randomly snapping at Ryosuke, so there were some small victories associated with that.
Something still hung heavy in the air, even though we’d sort of talked about it, we still hadn’t established what it was that happened or if it was something that would happen again.
God, I desperately wanted it to happen again.
It wasn’t just about the sex, either. There was something about seeing these two broody men let down their walls, giving in to something so vulnerable. Especially to each other. The way Ryosuke commanded a situation, that was the hottest part of all.
My fingers slipped, messing up the chord I was trying to hit. Everyone stopped playing around me because it wasn’t like me to mess up a song.
“You okay, Itsu-chan?” Tatsuki asked.
My face heated as I readjusted my guitar strap while looking around the room. There were two sets of eyes that were staring at me a little more intently than the others. It was as if Yasu and Ryosuke had a direct line to my thoughts, knowing why I was so darn distracted.
“Great!” I lied. My voice didn’t even sound convincing to my own ears, but it didn’t seem to matter. Everyone went on as if nothing had happened. We picked right back up with the song, my fingers flew across the strings of my guitar like I’d been doing it my entire life.
The song we were rehearsing was one of my favorites. It was more upbeat and had such a positive message about overcoming things in life. Our music wasn’t depressing; most of it was optimistic, but every once in a while, you could tell when Yasu got in a mood and something a little more deep slipped in.
I got into the song, swaying to the melody, even mouthing the words along with Yasu. I didn’t get to do that during an actual performance. Tatsuki was usually our backup singer. I was great at playing guitar, and I loved to sing along, but I couldn't carry a tune to save my life..
As the lyrics broke into talking about finding your one true love, I was really getting into it. We didn’t normally practice our stage presence while rehearsing, but I didn’t care. Before I knew it, I was pressing my back against Yasu, swaying to the beat. He briefly cracked in his singing, laughing a little as he started to move with me.
That was all it seemed to take to break the tension in the studio. It was as if we were on stage in front of a screaming crowd, the fans dancing in front of us as we played.
When I looked over at Ryosuke, he was the only one who wasn’t really doing anything. Not that I could blame him. Itwould take time for him to adjust to the chemistry of the band. That didn’t mean I couldn’t have my fun with him.
I left my spot behind Yasu, dancing my way across the room until I stood directly in front of Ryosuke. The bass player raised an eyebrow at me as I leaned in close, making him lean back a little. It was enough to make me smirk. I wanted to make him follow me, so I copied him leaning away from him as well. And that was all I needed to do. Without words, Ryosuke got the message, following my lead, leaning toward me.
We shifted back and forth like that a few times, leaning just a little closer to each other each time. On the fifth pass, we were so close I could feel the moist heat of Ryosuke’s breath against my lips, it would be all too easy to kiss him. But not here.
The fans would eat that shit up, though.
I twirled away from Ryosuke as the song wrapped up, everyone started laughing because I never acted that way at practice.
“What was that?” Yasu asked as he set his mic back in the stand.
I was a little out of breath, but once I gathered myself, I laughed, shaking my head. “After the last few days? We needed to loosen up. You can’t tell me that wasn’t fun.”
Riku’s drumsticks clattered against the edges of his snare drum as he rested them there. “Honestly? I think this is one of the best practices we’ve had in a long time. There’s been some sort of funk over all of us ever since Mamarou announced that he was leaving.”
A collective sound of agreement made its way through the practice room. Change was always hard, it didn’t help when Ryosuke and Yasu hadn’t gotten along at first. They still weren’t close, but at least I hoped that I was getting them there.
We played through another few songs, all going just as smoothly. Instead of sticking to only playing the music, we had fun, just like we’d done when I’d started goofing around.
When Toshi walked in, we were wrapping up “Red Cherry Bomb,” which was one of our harder songs. Tatsuki and I were back to back, holding each other up with our weight, covered in sweat from the exertion, just as if we’d been performing a real concert.
