Chapter Text
It was like being inside a can of sardines.
There’s no good kind of sense here; not the wet and cozy kind, but the stench and being exposed among strangers, fighting for a space less than three feet wide. The lights flickered in colors like a kaleidoscope, acid green, dirty red, electric blue, shifting as the punk band’s vocalist alternately growled something into the microphone.
Angel hated crowded places (not that she was the typical messy-bun-and-Starbucks-cup girl; she liked having fun, just not in places that smelled like beer and men who didn’t wash their penises), and she knew it had been a terrible idea to ditch an episode of ANTM to follow her friends to an amateur punk show by the seaside. But Leon had insisted, calling it a welcome party for Angel in Corland Bay.
Now, proving Angel’s entire point, Leon and she pushed through the mass of bodies like swimmers against the tide. Shoulders collided, elbows, hands that didn’t ask permission… Angel couldn’t see her friend’s face, but she was sure he was boiling with anger.
Minutes earlier, a lanky guy with freckles all over his face had randomly slid his hand around Angel’s waist as if he’d known her for years. She reacted more out of reflex than courage: elbow, curse, shove. It was too loud and too packed to know what the guy actually did after being rejected, maybe he flashed a crooked, smug smile before disappearing back into a sea of hands.
— Let’s get out of here — Leon said through clenched teeth. Angel felt him squeezing her hand a little tighter as she stumbled, slightly drunk. Leon looked around for their other friends, but it was impossible to find anyone familiar at that point in the show.
— I’m fine, seriously.
She turned. Right, then turned again. Left.
The smell was a mix of warm beer, sweat, metal, and something chemical that reminded her of artificial smoke.
— Angel, don’t start, gir...
They turned together, trying to find an exit among flashes of light and heads moving to the same rhythm. That’s when Angel bumped into someone, sending dark beer spraying through the air like rain. Cold liquid hit her chest, sliding down her shirt, sticking to her skin. A few murmurs rose around them.
— Shit — Angel said clearly enough for the guy she’d collided with a guy with pitch-black hair and piercings, to hear. — Sorry!
Black Hair started to curse when, looking at Angel, he stopped like a deer caught in headlights.
His expression seemed so surprised that Angel wondered if she knew him from somewhere. The thought came and went as quickly as the change in his face, now calm, blank.
— No, it was my fault — the voice came from above, too low for that environment. — I didn’t know you were here.
He still held the empty cup tilted, foam running down his long, pale fingers. His body was motionless, detached from the chaos around him. The stage lights exploded behind him, cutting his silhouette in violent flashes.
Angel frowned.
— Sorry, I…
Leon grabbed her arm.
— We’re leaving — he said flatly, assessing the black-haired guy from head to toe with a refined look. Maybe Leon was still on edge from the earlier incident, and his way of getting even was making sure no man got close to Angel.
Not even intimidating cats.
The next song exploded louder, the vocalist let out a guttural scream, and the crowd went wild, forming two mosh pits near where the three of them stood. A shove from behind made Angel stumble again; Black Hair tried to reach for her arm to steady her, but Leon was already pulling her harder now, determined.
Angel nodded and gave the guy a small wave. She was already walking behind Leon when she felt a cold stare burning into the back of her neck, like two knives made of pure ice. She turned again, quick, just to confirm.
The black-haired guy was staring at her intensely, like someone who had finally found something he had been searching for a long time.
Angel felt a shiver crawl up her spine.
— Something wrong? — her friend pulled her back to reality.
Angel smiled, squeezing his hand just to confirm that everything was really fine. She tried to pretend she didn’t still feel the stranger’s gaze on her and that she wouldn’t dream of that pair of blue eyes that night.
— No, let’s go.
