25. Play Nice
Play Nice
Natalia
While I’m busy pretending I’m not watching Kiri, Rafe and Rithy head down the runway that cuts into the crowd.
Rithy moves with the rhythm like the whole arena belongs to him, swaggering toward the end of the catwalk while his fingers fly over the guitar with effortless precision.
It irritates me to watch him be this good after his little comment at dinner, but even I can’t deny it.
He’s incredible. He isn't flashy for the sake of it, he doesn't need to beg to be noticed. He simply knows exactly what he’s doing, and the confidence of it pulls every eye toward him.
Rafe joins him at the end of the runway and leans over the barricade.
Hands shoot up immediately, reaching for his wrists, his shirt, any piece of him they can touch.
He brushes several palms, takes a phone from someone near the front, and turns to snap a backward selfie with the crowd exploding behind him.
The fan looks like they’ve just met Jesus.
Rafe has never been my type. He’s so completely Kasia’s that I’ve never really looked at him that way, but watching him command an arena, I understand it.
I see what she saw when she was a teenager, what made her plaster him across her bedroom and build an entire religion around his voice.
He has a way of drawing people toward him that feels almost unnatural, like a spell cast through a microphone.
His melodic voice roughens into a roar, and the floor erupts.
People jump to the beat, screaming the lyrics back at him while he and Rithy feed off it, waving their arms and encouraging the pit to open wider.
The crowd splits into a huge circle beneath them, and for a moment, it’s incredible to watch; hundreds of bodies moving with the same anticipation, waiting for the song to break.
Rafe and Rithy retreat toward the main stage as Ronan takes over, the drums doing the heavy lifting through this section of the track.
He pounds out the rhythm hard enough to shake the rail beneath my hands, and the pit crashes inward.
At first, it looks like the usual movement, bodies colliding, hands up, people shoving toward the open circle at the center.
The crowd is wild but happy, moving as one enormous creature beneath the lights.
Then something about the movement changes.
I can’t explain it, only feel it. That animal sense that danger is close even when you aren’t the one standing inside it.
The circle stops moving with the music. Bodies bunch together instead.
People begin shoving to make room, but others shove back, mistaking panic for aggression.
One man swings an arm, another turns on him.
Rafe breaks out of whatever trance the performance has him in and stares toward the center of the floor. He throws up one hand. The music stops so abruptly the final note crashes into silence.
“Hold up,” he says into the microphone.
Ronan stills behind the kit. Rithy steps forward, peering past the lights.
Kiri turns toward the crowd, bass hanging against him, his entire body suddenly alert.
House lights come up over the floor. Security is already moving along the barricade, pointing into the pit, but they’re fighting against a wall of bodies.
The crowd near the front is shouting and waving them over.
“There must be somebody down,” Kasia says beside me.
Security reaches the edge of the disturbance, but another shove goes through the crowd. A man near the center bends down, trying to shield whoever is on the floor, and a wave of bodies crash into his back.
Kiri pulls his bass strap over his head and one of the techs runs forward to take it.
“What's he doing?” I ask, even though I already know.
Kiri jumps from the stage and my heart launches into my throat. He lands in the narrow security lane, catches himself with one hand against the barricade, then climbs straight over it before anyone can stop him.
“Kurwa. Don't be stupid,” I breathe.
The crowd reacts in two completely opposite ways at once.
Half of them lift their phones, desperate to capture him, while the other half surge toward him before realizing he’s not there for them.
For a moment they close around him. He disappears beneath raised arms, screens, shoulders, people shouting his name and reaching for his clothes.
I lose sight of the black veil, the flash of his eyes, all of him swallowed by the same crush he just jumped into.
My stomach drops. Suddenly, the arena is gone and I’m seeing the jack slip, metal give, Piotr trapped under something too heavy to move.
My chest locks up so fast I almost choke on the breath.
I shake my head to myself. No, not here, not now.
I grip the rail hard enough to hurt and blink until the image clears, swallowing down the tears before anyone can see them.
I desperately search the crowd for any sign of him. Then the bodies shift.
Kiri breaks through the middle of them. He emerges with murder in his expression, eyes burning above the veil, one arm extended as he forces people back.
His broad shoulders clear a path security couldn’t make fast enough.I can’t hear the words clearly over the noise, but I see the command in his body.
One hand stays raised, palm out, while the other reaches down.
People listen. The pit opens around him.
A young man is on the floor, curled partly onto his side with one arm over his head.
Kiri crouches, says something to him, then hooks both hands beneath his arms and lifts him easily.
The crowd cheers, but Kiri barely reacts.
Security has finally forced a path through, and he turns, keeping one arm locked around the man’s chest until two guards take his weight.
Only when they have him securely does Kiri let go, giving the man a quick pat on the shoulder before turning back toward the rest of the pit.
Two men nearby in the pit are shoving each other, one jabbing a finger into the other’s chest while the second knocks his hand away and surges forward.
The first man pushes back harder, and suddenly they’re chest to chest, both yelling, both ready to swing.
Kiri steps between them before either one can.
He plants one hand against the angry man’s chest and says something close to his face.
The man’s expression changes, rage breaking apart into shock when he properly realizes who's touching him. Kiri pats him twice on the shoulder and the man laughs. As if the entire situation isn’t already insane, the man lifts his phone and gestures toward it.
Kiri stares at him, even from the side of the stage, I can see the disbelief on his face.
Then he leans in, throwing up horns with one hand, and the entire floor answers him.
Thousands of arms rise beneath the lights, the tension breaking into a roar of relieved, ecstatic noise.
The man takes the fastest selfie in human history before Kiri breaks off and security helps him back toward the barricade.
Crew members reach over to grab his forearms and haul him into the lane.
Kiri climbs back onto the stage, accepts his bass from the tech, and walks toward the microphone. He checks the pit one more time.
“Everyone good?” he calls.
The crowd screams.
“The guy who went down is okay?”
One of the security guards gives him a thumbs-up and Kiri nods.
“Okay.” He looks across the floor, eyes stern even though he’s breathing hard. “Play nice and we'll finish this fucking set.”
The arena explodes. Ronan counts them back in before the noise has even settled. Kiri returns to his place, and the next bass line hits like nothing happened. I stand frozen beside the rail, hands shaking.
“What the fuck,” I whisper.
Onstage, Kiri glances toward the wings. The crowd is still screaming for Bomos, but his eyes lock onto mine.
He gives the smallest shrug, like he didn’t just jump into a collapsing mosh pit.
As if my heart didn’t just stop for a full five minutes.
I should be furious. I am furious. I’m also so overwhelmed by him that it feels like my chest might split open.
He saw someone in danger and moved before anyone could tell him not to.
No hesitation or concern for himself or whether someone might grab him, hit him, drag him down.
He simply saw someone that needed carrying, and carried them.
The bus ride back to the hotel is the most awkward thing I've ever experienced in twenty-three years on earth. Kiri disappears into the bathroom before we’ve even pulled away from the venue and stays there long enough that I briefly wonder if he plans to live in it.
No one else seems especially concerned. Ronan talks over everyone, Rithy scrolls through videos from the show, and Kasia leans against Rafe while he squeezes her knee like the rest of us aren’t trapped in the same moving box.
I keep expecting the bathroom door to open but it never does.
I watched him hand off his bass and jump into a crowd without hesitating.
Watched him force a path through hundreds of people, pull someone off the floor, separate two men who were seconds from swinging, and somehow turn the whole thing into cheers instead of panic.
Kiri is reckless, infuriating, and probably missing whatever part of the brain is responsible for self-preservation.
But he isn’t a coward. I know that, I saw that. Except, it seems, when it comes to me.
The bus stops outside the hotel. The bathroom door flies open before the brakes finish sighing, and Kiri moves down the aisle so quickly he’s little more than black clothes and hair disappearing into the night. I stare after him through the window.
“Subtle,” Rithy mutters. I look at him while he pretends to be deeply interested in his phone.
When we reach our floor, everyone is tired enough to stop pretending we’re going anywhere for dinner. Kasia slides her keycard into her room door while Rafe stands behind her with both hands on her hips, his chin resting on her shoulder.
“We’re ordering room service,” she says.
“Making the most of the last night,” Rafe adds, far too pleased with himself.
I look between them. “I’m grateful for the rooms between us.”
Kasia rolls her eyes.
Rafe grins. “Goodnight, Nat.”
“Please don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you know I’m about to hear something traumatic.”
“You won’t hear anything,” Kasia says.
Rafe’s smile widens.
I point at him. “That face is exactly why I don’t believe her.”
Kasia pushes him through the doorway before he can make it worse. “Go order food.”
“Yes, doctor.”
She gives me a quick hug before following him inside. “Try to sleep. We have an early start.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”
Their door closes, and I stand alone in the corridor for a moment, looking toward the other end of the hall.
Kiri’s room is down there. Close enough to reach in less than a minute, yet still far enough that neither of us can manage it.
I go to my own room instead. The silence immediately makes everything worse.
I order dinner because I barely ate before the show and because chewing seems like a healthier activity than marching down the hall and kicking Kiri’s door until he answers.
When the food arrives, it looks beautiful.
Rice, grilled chicken, vegetables arranged with enough care to deserve appreciation.
It tastes like nothing. I sit cross-legged on the bed, take three bites, and give up.
My anger keeps colliding with the tight, ugly worry left over from the pit.
Every time I close my eyes, I see Kiri vanish into the crowd.
I see bodies close over him. I hear metal scream even though there was no metal tonight, only my brain dragging an old nightmare into a new place because it hates me.
Tomorrow I’ll be on a plane, and this is what he’s giving me? Nothing? He’s brave enough to jump into a fight but too scared to knock on my door.
I shower until the bathroom fills with steam, scrubbing venue smoke and sweat from my skin while I rehearse everything I would say if he were standing in front of me.
After, I pull on an oversized sweatshirt and pajama shorts, still rehearsing it all in my head.
In the space of one shower I’ve built an entire prosecution.
I climb into bed with my laptop and try to work.
Midnight passes, then one. I answer emails I don’t care about, adjust the brightness on photos that were already fine, and rearrange the same six clips three different ways.
At 1:46, I open our chat. His last message still sits there.
I’m sorry, Nat.
I type:
Are you planning to hide until I leave?
Delete.
Then:
You’re an asshole.
I leave that one for almost a full minute before deleting it too.
He should come to me. He should be the one unable to stand the silence.
He should fucking care that this is our last night on the same continent.
At 1:58, I realize I’m done waiting for him to become someone with basic communication skills and slide off the bed.
The hotel carpet feels cool beneath my bare feet.
I pause at the mirror, take in the sweatshirt hanging to mid-thigh, my clean face, hair still damp at the ends.
I’m not dressing up for him tonight; I’m just going to tell him exactly what I think of his behavior and then leave.
Probably.
I open the door carefully. The corridor is silent; lights dimmed for the night. I head toward his room full of a quiet fury. I glance at my watch, I know it's late, but I'm beyond caring about disturbing his annoying ass. At two in the morning, I stop outside Kiri’s door and raise my hand to knock.