It was a hit. Not the kind they’d been able to manage when they were younger, but still there, still in that region, still fire and music and love, and the screaming, chanting crowd beyond. Xi sang his heart out, forgetting and remembering and forgetting again, his gaze sometimes passing over that knot of slightly stiff, staring pro gamers, but really not taking anything in in particular.

Four songs burned by, and Janey was right, her leg was probably not quite okay, she really was a hair slow on the complex turns and twists, but it didn’t matter. Janey was still Janey, the show stealer, the foil to Xi’s bright, powerful voice, and he wasn’t sure how he’d, how they’d all got used to doing without her for so long.

When they settled into the final, crammed-together pose of their fourth song, Bertram’s eyes were glittering with what could be unshed tears, or just pure, feverish excitement. Ursula’s hand was too tight around Xi’s, and Yuri’s hand was as sweaty as it only got when she was super emotional, and Janey was starting to smile like she was going to die of joy any minute now, and it made Xi’s heart break, because she’d said, she’d said she’d been able to get the same feeling from her then-new group, back when she was even in a group, but now he knew it was a lie.

Now, he knew she’d missed them just as much as they’d missed her, and for a moment, he just couldn’t stand it, so instead of peeling into the next song, he signalled the others for a break.

“Why?” Bertram demanded, twisting around a bit to try and look directly in Xi’s face, only for everyone, group and audience both, to break into laughter. “Oh, oh fuck you all, this stuff is difficult, all right, you try dancing your liver out and keeping track of when and when not to fucking talk.”

“Oh, I’m sure I could do better,” someone said, someone who definitely wasn’t Eric, and just like that, the vague shape of Xi’s agenda for the night went to the dogs. Not-Eric turned out to be Phink, whose real name Xi had long since forgotten, and whose bright gaze and rhythmic knocking of his foot against the base of the stage revealed his eagerness to be on it.

“Alright, alright, let’s take a fucking look, then,” Yuri said, eagerly, the first one to break away from the formation and go forward to half drag, half pull Phink onto the stage. “I see someone grew up all right…”

“Keep your hands to yourself, you dirty bint,” Phink retorted, slapping weakly at her when she made as if to pat him down all over. “God, Xi, help!”

Bertram merely rolled his eyes. “Show-off,” he muttered. “You think it’s the first time we’ve seen your silly fucking flirty bullshit?”

Phink, his full screenname ‘Elephink’ coming from his hideous, trademark purplish, uber-realistic elephant mask, though indeed engaged in a flirty, ‘touch me I touch you’ situation with the grinning Yuri, took the time to throw a swift, snide glance in Bertram’s direction. “So it’s B for bastard, still?”

“Yeah,” Bertram said, smiling brightly. “And ‘p’ for prick, right?”

Back in the day, Phink and Bertram had fought viciously over girls, accused each other of copying dance moves and lyric styles and song choices, and poked and prodded at each other and done virtually everything other than engage in the kind of enthusiastic hatesex that had been common between certain kinds of rivals. Though the only reason that hadn’t happened was, in Xi’s opinion, not because Phink was (mostly) as straight as a fucking pillar, but because Phink would never, ever, ever give Bertram the satisfaction of having been the one to turn him gay.

Never mind the fact that, of all the people in their circle, Bertram had long been known for talking a good game with regard to his many flirtations with the same sex, but never managing to really follow up. Never mind the fact that Phink had long since been ‘turned’ or suborned in whatever way he feared that Bertram might trick out of him, or the fact that he could probably take the driving seat with Bertram in that sort of situation if he went at it in just the right way.

“I’ll show you who’s the prick,” Phink said, narrowing his eyes at Bertram. “Anyone care to help me out?”

“Me, me, me, me, me!!” Yuri was the first to betray Bertram’s trust, followed by a smirking Janey, and then a couple more daring girls from the crowd, girls whose masks Xi was only half-familiar with. Then Ursula was dragging both him and Bertram offstage, and there was nothing more to be done.

Music blared into being, a strong, sassy beat the group onstage exploited to the max, half led by Janey and by the grinning, self-satisfied Phink. They didn’t cooperate as smoothly as they probably should have—it was an old, well-known song, with an equally well-known standard routine—but they certainly had fun up there.

Xi, half annoyed at the interruption yet half resigned to it happening, just shook his head and chose to smile, glad that it at least wasn’t affecting the ratings too much. When Bertram hurried onstage to try his hand at hitting back, Xi went on with him, Eric, Ursula and Hailey, a once-rival rapper from a defunct group, and though their performance wasn’t the best, it satisfied Bertram’s competitive instincts enough that he didn’t choose to push the issue further.

Instead, what ended up happening could only be attributed to Xi’s bad luck in allowing Eric to clamber onto the stage with them: the beginning of another chapter in the never-ending argument of who was sexier onstage, men or women. Eric, god knew why, was idiot enough during their performance to crowd out Hailey by muscling his way to the front row, and wouldn’t apologize when called out on it after the song. Things escalated from there because they always bloody did, and the whole thing ended up cramming on three or four songs onto the much-revised song list.

Xi, enamoured by the chance to take the lead on one of his favourite old songs, kept a guilty eye on the ratings as the battle between the sexes raged back and forth. Thankfully, said battle fizzled out soon enough, overtaken by everyone’s sudden urge to belt through a couple large ensemble songs just because they could.

Somehow, that turned into things getting back on schedule, Xi’s old group performing their next two songs with the extravagant assistance of a rowdy bunch of karaoke diehards. Only then were they left alone, at the mercy of the now ravenous fans who competed to fill sacred pool after pool, challenges and new song tryouts mixing in freely with old, well-worn choices.

By the time the stream wrapped up, Xi was having to pace himself, and Ursula’s hoarse voice was on its last legs. Somehow, they managed to end on a high note, with a peppy rendition of a new song that had been featured in FOV’s big advertising push for the current season, something they’d picked to cheer on Claire in a moderately subtle way.

Not long afterwards, Xi would regret that last song, but at the moment he half-stepped, half-stumbled off of the stage he felt just fine. More than fine, since he was still high on the buzz of performing to an eager audience. The net of cameras floating above the stage went silent and dim; the stage itself began to sink back to the level of the rest of the room, prompted by the inputs of either Eric or Hailey, both of whom had already been waxing enthusiastic about the idea of spending the room reservation’s last few hours on partying their hearts out.

As the stream went offline, the crowd that had served as both audience and extra, unnecessary performers broke up into various clumps. Janey held forth near the hastily assembled catering carts; Phink and Yuri were catching up (flirting) near the back of the sunken stage. Ursula was busy being petted and made much of by her long-term girlfriend, Devi, so no need for Xi to butt in there, and Bertram…

Bertram was laughing in the midst of Jiong and his gamer friends, and Xi had no fucking clue how the hell that had happened. Immediately, Xi’s original plan to casually make his way over there to test the waters and get a feel for Jiong’s reaction to how tonight had gone was thrown to the dogs; fuck casual, fuck unaffected, he had to be over there right now, if only to make sure that whatever Bertram was laughing so fucking merrily about wouldn’t ruin everything.

“…and there he is,” Bertram said, just as Xi broke out of the nearest clump of friends-slash-well-wishers. “Right on time. Didn’t I just say he was definitely the jealous type?”

“Hi everyone,” Xi said loudly, choosing to pretend he hadn’t heard anything. “Sorry I couldn’t meet you all earlier, and—”

“Oh, my god,” someone said, in the shrill, unmistakably excited voice of a die-hard fan. “Oh my god!! Xi, hi!”

“She’s over here,” Jiong said, his tone amused. So instead of perhaps getting to walk up to him and snuggle under the weight of that familiar arm, Xi was forced to step forward and shake hands with the bright-eyed woman hovering nervously by Jiong’s side, her tall, wiry frame and slightly hunched shoulders very nearly giving Xi the impression that she was shorter than him. “This is Eddie, we used to be on the same team.”

“Oh, yeah? FOV, or Hallows?”

“Well yeah, but we go way back before that, we met playing this shit fighting game no one remembers, and oh my god, I’m really talking about it with you, I still can’t believe it!!!” That was Eddie, her voice still shaky, her hand carefully light around Xi’s, as if she was worried her admittedly large, slightly calloused hands might break his. “That was such a good live, it was amazing!”

“Oh, you’re flattering us—”

“Oh, no way, I’d never! I’ve seen GanC live, they didn’t have a tenth of the energy you guys do.”

“Now you’re really being flattering,” Bertram said, grinning at the animated Eddie. “Weren’t GanC runner up this year, at the concours?”

“Yeah, they were totally robbed,” Eddie said, nodding, and then ducked her head, as if only just realizing the implications of what she’d just said. “I mean, I mean, just, just considering the rest of the field…”

“You don’t have to slag off GanC just to give us a compliment,” Xi couldn’t help but say. “God, as far as I’m concerned, just putting us on the same level is compliment enough, we were never any more than second runner up back in the day.”

“But that’s obviously because, I mean, think of who you were up against! Drain 85, Clover, TangTrip, Sun Winding Down, Bled Velvet, SM-UNI…”

“Hailey told me the rest of SM’s going to show up in a bit,” Bertram said, sidling a step closer to Eddie. “Want to meet them?”

“Hailey? You mean—oh my god, I knew that woman sounded just like her, I just didn’t—the whole of SM?”

“The whole of SM,” Bertram repeated, nodding sagely. “In fact, if you just come this way with me, I see Hailey’s on her own, maybe you want to have a quick chat?”

“Can I? Oh my god. Um, Mike…?”

Jiong, smiling, waved at her already retreating form, and that was that. “So. Introductions?”

Xi couldn’t help but crack up for a moment. “Yes, yes, definitely.” And then a set of slightly stilted, but otherwise normal introductions proceeded, Xi smiling and nodding prettily as he met Celine, Hakon and Min-joon. Celine, the only other woman in the group, was the one to do the introducing, and thereafter most of the talking, though she also looked to be the youngest one of the bunch.

“…and yeah, we’re really not on Eddie’s level with this stuff,” Celine was saying, “but I had fun, I think it was, it was interesting.”

“Didn’t think there’d be so many people,” Min-joon muttered, eyeing the loud, laughing influx of another group of retired or ageing idols. “Jiong said it was going to be pretty casual, but…”

“Oh, I know, it’s, the thing is, Janey’s retiring, and she hasn’t had a real send-off yet—”

“Isn’t the big do next week?” Hakon interjected. “The concert?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s for the fans, and this is more, well this and the after-concert thing next week, this is all more for Janey,” Xi explained. “Though—the concert’s not been announced yet, how’d you know there was going to be one?”

“Well that’s simple,” Jiong said, before Hakon could so much as open his mouth again. “I’m here for you, Eddie’s here for your old group—”

“And anyone else she can get her claws into,” Celine added, with an almost apologetic grin. “That’s not going to be a problem, is it?”

“I’m here for moral support,” Hakon said, hastily. “Same as Min and Cee, here to meet the new boyfriend.”

“No, he’s here for your pop-star friend,” Min-joon countered. “We could have all met for dinner or something, afterwards, but he said—”

“And Eddie begged,” Hakon interjected. “Don’t forget, I just mentioned, while she begged.”

“Oh come on, we were never going to miss this,” Celine said, still grinning. “I mean, you can count on one hand the amount of people Mike’s ever tried to introduce us to. And frankly, I wanted to see the show because I’d never have thought he’d be into an entertainer, so I was curious what you’d be like.”

“I’m hardly an ‘entertainer’,” Xi managed to say, around the sudden surge of joy he’d felt on hearing that meeting Jiong’s friends made him special. “I stream, sure, and I used to be trending in about the most marginal way you can imagine…”

“You’re friends with a lot of famous people, though,” Min-joon said, still craning his neck to look at the constantly opening room door. “That has to count for—what the fuck, is that DJ Wreck?”

“Oh my god, she actually made it?” Xi said, turning to double check. “Shit, I have to—sorry babe, got to run over and bow down, her being here at all is a massive favour, kiss?”

Somehow, the brief goodbye, no, see-you-in-a-bit kiss Xi had meant to accept from Jiong turned into a three-minute scorcher that left Xi dazed. “Um,” he said, flushing, because he could see Celine and Min-joon and Hakon exchanging knowing smiles, “I’ll be back, I just…”

“Hurry up,” Jiong murmured, his breath hot on Xi’s ear, which was absolutely not helpful, and yet something Xi could really bear to frown at him or pinch him for. “Go on.”

Greeting DJ Wreck, a.k.a. Sylina from the most successful incarnation of TangTrip, was something of a trial after escaping Jiong’s clutches, especially since she immediately set about teasing Xi to death while her bodyguards cased the room. “Fuck, I’ve gotta get streaming again, if that’s the kind of fish you can hook in chat,” Sylina said, draping her thin, muscled arm about Xi’s shoulders. “Michael fucking Star, huh? Who’s he with?”

“Gamers, Sy,” Xi said, hastily. “Poor, dull, boring pro-gamers.” Fuck, he’d totally forgot Jiong might be recognizable to people who moved in richer circles, especially with the stream down and everyone having ditched masks. Now, how to change the subject… “Do you need any gear?”

“Do you want the whole fucking party to dance till they drop? Fuck, I don’t need gear, vanilla sound’s good, it’ll be just like old times…”

And for two, sweaty hours, it was indeed just like old times. Music so loud you could barely hear yourself, hits and random songs and golden oldies merging into one unceasing stream, the song choices partly steered by Sylina, and partly by the common vote of those determined to dance to something that would put them in the best light, the best mood.

Xi drifted for a bit, but ended up back in Jiong’s arms, half dancing, half writhing with him to the beat. Jiong was not the best dancer, but he knew how to more or less move along to a tune, and that was more than enough, enough that the both of them could get deliciously keyed up on the dance floor.

“Come home with me,” Jiong finally said, and Xi couldn’t help but consider it, paying little to no attention to anything else as they began to struggle toward the exit of the crowded room. Could he really leave right now? He’d prepaid the room reservation and the caterers, obviously, and he’d tipped the caterers when they delivered the carts, he was pretty sure that was one of the caterers back to pick the carts up, only she was merrily humping to the beat with a shit-faced Eric… “Come on, did you not just see Ursula saying she’d handle it?”

“That’s just, that doesn’t count,” Xi said, loudly. “She’s got a cold, so I can’t—”

“What?”

[XiErXi]: her girlfriend’ll probably drag her home in a bit, she’s got a cold and a sore throat and it got worse because she performed

[XiErXi]: Ursula, I mean

[MrJiong]: fuck, hotel then?

[MrJiong]: really need to do you

[XiErXi]: there’s a so-so one upstairs

[XiErXi]: hourly room, one quick round to tide us over, then a drink or two?

[XiErXi]: things here will have wound down a bit by then

[MrJiong]: ( ✧Д✧) YES!! sold!!

But they were too impatient to make it to a room, not when they emerged on the main level of the karaoke club and found a winding queue in front of the reservations kiosk, which was the only way to get an hourly room here. Annoyed, Xi started to tow them in the direction of the street exit, thinking to try one of the nearby hotels, only for Jiong to sharply steer him into the hallway that led to the bathroom on this floor. “No,” Xi protested, pulling against Jiong’s tightened grip. “No, I’d rather not, not in public.”

“They have stalls in there,” was the low, determined answer. “I checked.”

“But…” Xi slowed, but just for a moment; Jiong’s heavy hand landed on his shoulder, half shoving, half dragging him along. “I don’t want to.”

He knew, even as he said the words, that he didn’t mean them.