Nagoya BLACK CAT


A narrative one-shot of Devil's Rain's oneman show at the (fictional) Nagoya BLACK CAT venue.



Friday Night.

22:00


Nagoya Black Cat.

Wild mismatched red and white eyes scanned the writhing, sweating, screaming mass in front of him. They were already 5 songs into the night, nearing the end of their set. The stage lights burned down on him, the sweat covering the vocalist's body glistening in their glare. It'd been two weeks since their last concert, Ryu had missed this far too much.

"Nagoyaaaaa!" the vocalist screamed into the mic as he hopped up on the platform in front of him, hanging onto the low scaffolded ceiling above him.

From this point of view, he felt like a god.

"I can't fucking hear you!" Louder. He always wanted to make the fans scream louder and louder, threatening to strain their voices just for him... and his band, of course.

A double tap of the kick drum from Reiji. "Louder!"

The girls screamed even louder, many extending their arms in a sign of affection for the band while screaming the band members' names.
"Reiji-sama!"
"Haru-kun!"
"Tooooya!"
"Masato-kun!"

And the loudest of all, "Ryu-sama!"

The vocalist's lips curled into a devillish grin; this was just how he liked it. Turning around and jumping off the platform, the vocalist stalked the stage for a bit giving the audience a moment to cool down. He took a moment to get a quick sip of water to refresh his throat before rushing back to the front, placing his foot on the platform, leaning forward towards the eager audience calling for more.

"All you mother fuckers know what time it is!"

More screams erupted as the crowd went crazy, all eyes on him. "Our next song..." the vocalist trailed off, extending a middle finger at the audience before bringing it back to his mouth, sliding the digit between the halves of his split tongue before letting it trail further down his body, stopping just before his groin. This was Ryu's favourite part of the night.

In unison, the black-haired vocalist and his enraptured audience screamed the title of the song, "FXXXしろ!(FUCK ME!)" Blast beats and heavy guitar riffs filled the air as the song started, the vocalist banging his head furiously while still leaning against the front platform.

Ryu had originally written this song as a drunk joke but somehow it had become one of their most popular songs to perform. Somehow. Ryu was kidding himself; he may have written the lyrics as a joke but he knew the song'd do well, exploiting the fangirls sexual interest and obsession with the band members themselves.

The audience lurched forward with the heavy beats of the song, girls in front falling half way over the railing as the girls behind them slammed up against their backs. The heat from all the packed bodies in the small venue was almost enough to rival the hottest summer day in Nagoya, perhaps in all of Japan.

Growls and shrieks came from the dark-haired pierced vocalist as the song went on, lyrics nothing more than a horny love letter from the band to those fans who so desperately hoped they'd be the lucky girl that night.

Mid song, Ryu jumped down off the stage and hopped onto the railing that had been the only thing holding a mass of horny young women back. Security rushed him, grabbing onto the belt of his jeans and legs to prevent the sea of hands from dragging him all the way in.

Still singing, the odd-eyed pierced vocalist reached out, touching as many sweaty hands as he could while he felt other curious hands exploring his body. Internally Ryu kind of did feel a little bad for the poor saizen girl that always ended up crushed against him as a surge of fans pushed forward, trying to reach him- just to try and touch him for a mere second.

Hopping off the railing finally, Ryu gave the poor girl that'd been crushed against him a quick ruffle of her hair, surely making the other girls jealous, before running off to a different part of the audience to repeat the same thing. He loved to draw this song out as long as he could, and he knew it kept the fans always coming back to their shows for more.

Once he felt like he'd given the audience enough of a tease, the vocalist hopped back up on stage to finish the song. Swaying his hips playfully, he sauntered over to their guitarist Haru, wrapping his arm around him as the guitarist played.

Offering the mic to his younger band-mate by holding it up to his face, Ryu laughed as Haru went wide-eyed for a moment before screaming some of the lyrics into it. Thankfully for Haru, the lyrics to this part of the song were simply "FUCK ME" over and over again.

Satisfied with pestering his band-mate, Ryu took off once again to the front of the stage as the song came to its climatic end. Fuck, he loved performing.

As the last note of the song rang out, the lights dimmed and gave the band a moment's reprieve to recollect themselves, re-hydrated, or anything else they needed to do before the final song. While refreshing his throat with some water at the back of the stage, Ryu looked up at their red-headed drummer Reiji.

"OI REIJI" he yelled, not really thinking the other would hear him over the noise of the mass of still screaming women behind them.

Although he couldn't hear him, the red-head saw Ryu looking at him and mouthing something. He put down his own water bottle and mouthed "WHAT?" back at him.

Ryu then playfully flipped the drummer the bird and laughed.

Reiji just rolled his eyes, chuckled, and returned the gesture. Having known Ryu since he was a kid, he expected nothing less from the vocalist. It was almost like flipping each other off was their way of greeting by now.

Next up, the final song of the night was "ワタシダケノモノ (Only Mine)."

The band always ended the night with this one- a song about an obsessed fan of a band stalking and hunting down her favourite member just to kill and dismember him so that he could only ever belong to her and no one else.

Ryu made sure he had the blood capsules ready, as well as a small cup of the same stuff easily within his reach. The capsules by themselves were never quite enough for the full effect he wanted, but they worked well enough early on in the song even though he hated the taste of them.

This song was all about theatrics.

Low droning bass notes resonated from Toya's bass as the stage lights came on, flooding the stage in a sea of red. Ryu kept his back to the audience as the song began, letting the rest of his band mates set the atmosphere. Utter silence fell upon the fans as they watched the song unfold; some seeing it for the 20th time, others for their very first.

Ryu's voice was low, almost droning along with the bass, as he sang about the girl's obsession and how it turned into stalking. He turned slowly, creeping towards the front of the stage as the dark lyrics came from him, his face serious and eyes wide as he slowly panned over the women in front of him, as if suspecting he could be singing about any one of them.

As the lyrics began to turn towards the girl's psychotic and violent jealousy, Ryu crushed some of the capsules in his mouth, letting the blood slowly seep out from the corners at first as he continued singing. Short painted nails raked down his throat and across his chest as he let the blood spill over, slipping down his chin and dripping onto the floor below. The tension in the song was really building now. He knew the audience couldn't tear their eyes away.

As the song broke down into the violent lyrics and heavy riffs, more fake blood sputtered from Ryu's mouth as he growled into the microphone. Red and white glared out into the sea of the audience, focusing on no one in particular, the vocalist scowling as if in a way to seem even more scary.

When it came to a break in the lyrics as the guitars hit the heaviest part of the song, Ryu slipped back to where the water bottles were and picked up that small cup of fake blood, filling his mouth with it. He headed back to the front of the stage as Masato, Haru and Toya headbanged furiously in unison.

Ryu knew the fans were waiting for this.

Arms stretched outward, he tilted head back and gurgled the mouthful of blood, letting some spill down the sides of his face.

In time with the music, the vocalist mimicked stabbing himself with his microphone, expelling spurts of blood from his mouth with each hit.

When he only had a bit of the liquid left in his mouth, he leveled his eyes to the audience, reached out towards them and let the last of it bubbled out of his mouth, down his neck and the front of his shirt.

One last growling, gurgling refrain and Ryu dropped his mic. He continued voicelessly hyping the already frenzied audience up even more as his band mates growled "korose" over and over into their own mics in time with the music.

With the last chant, gutairs, bass and drums finishing the song, Ryu dived into the audience sending the security scurrying after him once again. Floating on top of a sea of hands, Ryu was grinning from ear to ear like a wild devil. He didn't think he'd ever get tired of performing like this.

Writing © koutetsuhime, May 2022.