Abetton wrote:The lights dimmed a little...
The lights had dimmed, and Kaz smiled. "Seems our host is making her grand entrance." He adjusted his tuxedo, pulled the coat taut over him. Only, that wasn't who he was expecting, but had he really expected for his princess to come out first? Next to him, he heard Eiko snickering.
"Ah... Kaz, that's what you're—"
"You think I knew, Eiko? Hm." The Idol tilted his head. "I'd have thought you could make a better insult than that."
"If you break a princess's heart," Eiko said, "that'll be all the insult you need."
Kaz shifted his weight and shoved his hands into his pocket, looking up at the speaking princess.
"Please, Eiko, when have I ever broken someone's heart? You know me. I've only ever been happiness for so many people — more people than you and your melodrama, I'll bet." He stopped himself, then glanced at Kasem, who stared back. They were thinking of an incident from a while back.
And when Eiko turned to see Kasem, the actor felt Kagutsuchi's fire bubble and boil, and his fist clenched around his cup.
Not good. Lyosha glanced at the pairs, Ibrahim and Kasem rolled their eyes, and the two boys pulled apart the rivals. "Can the two of you please just keep your distance from now on?" their chaperone said. "The last thing I want to do is explain to the Mascots why—"
"Maybe it'd be better if he learned to stop criticizing me," Kaz said. "Wouldn't be too hard for someone like him to shut up."
"God... Kaz." Ibrahim yanked the Idol's arm, spinning him away from Eiko, with Ibrahim's red swirl of hair on the front of his head spinning alongside them. "Look man, can you cool it?" Ibrahim said. "The last thing I want is for us to get kicked out. If he bothers you that much—"
"Please, it's his own remarks this time. I'm not the villain here."
Ibrahim shook his head. "Sure, sure." He glanced away. "Villain, huh?"
"Are you thinking," Kaz said, smiling, "of that time on the beach?" Silence. His friend shoved his hands into his pocket, and Kaz took a step closer, one shoe touching Ibrahim's and the other shoe pointed on the ground. The Idol's voice sank to a sleepy whisper. "As I said, I'm not the villain here, Ibrahim." His words unraveled from his mouth like a snaking ribbon of faint incense. "You should know this. You should know better than this."
Ibrahim nodded.
"Good." It was faintly a breath, a breath of intimacy that no fourteen-year-old should know of, but the other could hear it and knew what it was and felt a shiver wrack his whole body. Kaz's voice never rose when he was angry or emotional, unless it was the song's requirement. To him, shouting drew too much attention too easily, but his faintest whispers still carried his power like the poisoned tips of a spider's bite, like a dose of poison in a drip-fed cake. Ibrahim had heard it many times before, that whisper, whether when recording or just when Kaz was speaking, but he had only ever been able to resist the romantic one.
The angry whispers reminded him of what their families had fled from all those years ago, an oral tradition carried on his boorish grandfather whose voice, soaked in rakı — Harikunin alcohol like wine, with a sweet anise aroma — bubbled and boomed to hide the trembling memories. Other times, it was his father who muttered rumors and paranoias, his own voice dry as Sessenan's desert and heat-fractured rocks, like his broken scar from ear to ear.
It was all for their service for Kaz's family, that service that let them live so long ago, that threatened them, that let them live again. It was a fear long dead, but a fear of mortality that still lingered in Ibrahim. Maybe that was why he helped preserve Kaz's voice, beautiful and wispy, forever to be heard...
"Have faith in me, Ibrahim," Kaz said. "Have faith." He turned away, stepped away, turned head half-back, so that Ibrahim could see the corner-gleam of his amber eye. "Now then, why don't we meet our princess? Call me..."
"A hero?" He chuckled. "That'd be hilarious. I'll give that moniker to Eiko. It's stupid and moralistic and responsible enough for him, wouldn't you agree?"
His retainer nodded, and followed his lord to the princess. Once there, both boys bowed, Ibrahim behind him. He spoke quietly to some staff nearby, then handed off a boxed headset to them.
"Good day, Princess Peri," Kaz said, his voice mellow and gentle. "I'm Kaz. Kaz Mansur. It is a great honor to meet you." He pulled out his album and handed it to her; it depicted him, in his usual outfit of a loose white jacket and mummy-bandage scarf surveying a pure-white cityscape. "And this, dear princess, is my gift." He looked behind himself. "I do hope that I'm not holding up the line, much? We can always talk later if I am."