Chapter 10 #3
“I love you, too,” Sage replied easily. “Now go take a shower and a nap, you stink.”
“Oh.” Reno blinked a few times and apologized, bowing his head slightly. “Gomen nasai2, I didn't mean to stink up your car.”
“I’ve smelled you worse. Here’s your key. Get out.” She handed him his home key and pushed him teasingly, and Reno stumbled out of the car. He collected all his belongings, including the new bag of coffee, then unlocked the front door to his building.
It was a three-story brick building with wrought iron carvings on the corners. There used to be ivy growing up the side, but the property manager for the downstairs flat had removed it last fall. Reno understood it was bad for the brick, but he still hoped it would grow back over the year.
He lugged his things up the narrow staircase, the wood creaking under his feet in a way that was so familiar it pushed everything out of his mind.
He was home.
Even if it was only for a night before they left for Leeds, then beyond on the next leg of the tour, Reno was so happy to be here. His door was made from heavy wood, and the mat in front of it was printed with little jumping foxes.
He pushed the door open, flicked on the lights, and was relieved to find everything how he’d left it.
Toeing out of his shoes and dumping his bags on the living room floor, he checked all his plants and found them healthy, thanks to Sage caring for them while he was away.
He peeled open the coffee bag and set about using the press in the kitchen, the smell comforting him almost as much as the sight of his home.
His plush gray couch, draped with the pink blanket Sebastian had made him.
The art he’d collected on the walls. His guitars.
His violin and music stand with the last piece he’d been learning still open.
His oversized TV and his fluffy white rug under the coffee table.
Out of the windows, the neighborhood sprawled below; the sun was setting, painting everything a sweet, dusky orange through the sheer curtains.
He filled his favorite mug, one Kandi had gifted him years ago—a yellow one that matched nothing else in his baby blue kitchen—and brought it with him into the bedroom.
He flipped the lamp on and set his mug on the table, then threw himself into his soft king-sized bed. He inhaled, enjoying returning to his own scent instead of hotel room blandness, then stretched until his back popped in several places.
His room was littered with posters from the first few years of tours he did, before he stopped hanging them up and started keeping them in a storage container in the closet.
Between them were polaroids of Reno and his friends over the years and all around the world.
He had several of Angel and Christoph from the last few weeks to hang up once he had rested.
On his desk, there was a stack of novels, the last one he’d been reading still lying out between several loose papers—lyrics, poetry, and other writings scrawled in multi-colored ink.
A dried rose was tucked into a vase on the desk.
Someone had handed it to him from the audience at their first show as Voltage here in London.
He had tucked it into his shirt and kept it safe, then hung it up to dry once he’d come home.
He remembered his fingers buzzing from the endorphins so much that it took several tries to loop the knot securely around the stem.
He took in a long, deep breath and fumbled for the remote to the fan in the corner, turning it on for ambient noise before rolling back out of bed, draining half his mug of coffee, and getting into the shower.
After, he shot a quick text to his mom and another to Luka, saying he was home and falling asleep. Then, he did exactly that, and didn’t move once through the whole night, the rest of his coffee forgotten on the table.
In the morning, Reno dragged himself away from his comfortable bed with a groan, wishing he could just lie around the entire day.
He checked his phone while brushing his teeth and only found a few messages.
One from Kandi, reminding him when to arrive at the studio; one from Jaewon, a photo of Maxine’s cat, which Reno had to shake his head at even if her cat was adorable; and one from Luka wishing him goodnight.
He looked it up on his phone and rubbed sleep out of his eyes—Central American time was six hours behind him.
It was only ten here, so Luka would definitely not be awake if it was four am there.
Reno put his phone face down on the bedside table and eyed the coffee he’d left out before deciding to make a fresh cup instead of being disgusting first thing in the morning.
He didn’t know how he was going to work around the time difference between them, and not even a fresh cup of coffee answered his question of how he’d manage.
He prayed Luka’s phone was on silent when he texted back saying good morning, then took the time to stretch, eat, and tune his violin.
He flipped the sheet music back to the first page, and soon the rusty feeling from not playing the last few months of the tour fell away.
The violin was his first love. He’d been playing, at his mother’s prompting, since he was little.
As a baby, Reno had always liked watching videos of symphonies; his mother still insisted it had been the only way to stop his crying on difficult days.
He started asking how to play at five years old, and the conversation his parents shared had been brief before his father had left the house in search of a music store that carried a violin small enough for Reno to hold.
It was one of his first real memories, his father bringing it home to him and showing him how to string it, how to tune it, and how to hold the bow.
He’d been obsessed with it ever since.
It was his classmate, Sato Daisuke’s, fault for getting him hooked on the guitar.
They were in orchestra together in grade school, Daisuke in percussion and Reno first chair violin, when Daisuke had asked him if he’d ever thought about playing anything else.
He showed Reno all the music he’d been missing—Black Sabbath, Prince, Metallica, Plastic Tree, The Sex Pistols, and so many more from all over the world—then asked him to make a band with him.
They were attached at the hip and by the wired earbuds for years, roping whoever they could into playing music with them.
By the time graduation was approaching, they were playing a breakneck amount of local shows and were gaining a cult-like following both in Japan and online.
But, within the same week, Daisuke was accepted into the university he wanted for music in China, and Arnaud found Reno’s email.
When Reno accepted Arnaud’s invitation to join him under Sterling, he promised his mom that even if he made the guitar his career, he would practice the violin too. He had to swear to her that he would match, hour by hour, how much he played violin to how much he played guitar.
He set up his phone on the tripod stand and pressed record.
“Hi, Mom.” He waved at the camera. “I am home for the day, we leave again tonight for Leeds, then the rest of Europe tomorrow.
I talked to Arnaud, and he said I could bring my violin with me on this part of the tour.
He says ‘hi,’ too, and he loves you. I will try to get him on camera for you sometime.
He's been learning guitar and can sing some of those old rock songs you secretly listen to.” Reno gave the camera a cheeky smile, knowing it would make his mother laugh.
“Things are going well for me. I will tell you all about it next time we talk.”
He backed away from the camera and picked up his violin, turning his sheet music to the front and playing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major: op35 as promised.
He managed to only fumble once, and even though it was unlikely, he still hoped that his mother wouldn’t catch it.
When he finished, he tucked the violin under his arm and bowed before laughing and rushing back to the camera.
“I’ll talk to you soon,” he said before turning the phone around and ending the recording. He sent the video to his mom right away, then duplicated it and trimmed away the greeting he’d recorded for her. The second video he sent off to Luka.
After putting the violin into its travel case safely, he checked the time, found it was almost noon already, and hurried to get ready to head to the studio.
A text from Sebastian asking if he was on the way rolled in right when he was turning off his lights and locking the door, his duffle bag, guitar, violin, and suitcase in tow.
It took him two trips to get it all downstairs, but by the time he got the second round of luggage down, the driver from the label was pulling up and barreling out of the car to help Reno pack his things into the trunk.
He was grateful to have someone else lift the suitcases into the car after carrying them downstairs.
The label’s London headquarters was a short drive away, setting Reno as the closest to the recording studios.
Sterling had put him up in the flat as a bonus in his fifth year of being signed with them, saying it was convenient for everyone to have Reno so close by.
He should have read between the lines a little harder, since it really meant that Reno suddenly became the go-to whenever something needed to be done at the studio, which could be a huge pain for him if he was absorbed in writing or playing music.