His hands moved fast, crossing over each other reaching the toms and snares of his drumkits. Sometimes he would crash the cymbals hard, and the fire from pyrotechnique burst out behind him. Damn, he felt hot like he was in hell. He was getting used to it. These guys wanted the show to look big and impressive. So, fire was always the solution.

“On any given day, I’d take it all away, another thought I can’t control!”

He glanced at Matthew, his band leader who stood majestically on the small platform with his arm wide open.

“This means war!”

Matthew repeated that for another three or four times, before the song ended with riffs from both Zacky and Brian and finally a few rimshots from him.

“WOOOOOHHHHH!” the crowd screamed loudly and chanting their names altogether. This Means War was the last song from their list, and Birmingham was the last city on their Hail To The King tour this year.

“We love you Birmingham! You guys are fucking awesome!”

He got up from the stool and bowed, before making his way towards the front and threw his drumsticks to the crowd. He smiled at a fan that caught it and the fan went crazy. Brian swung an arm over his shoulders and they walked to the backstage together.

As soon as they were in the backstage he saw each and every member of his band went to their significant other first. Matthew went to Valary who had River snuggled in her arms, Brian went to Michelle, Johnny went to his wife Lacey and Zacky went to his girlfriend, Linda. He went to no one. He hated this concert aftermath. It made him realized how lonely and broken hearted he was. He reached for a bottle of Bud Light, which he hated anyway because it tasted bad but he didn’t have any choice since the event was sponsored by them.

“No, Arin. Don’t drink that. It tastes weird.”

Arin stopped midway, the bottle tip hung in front of his mouth. He glanced at Matthew who spoke those words earlier.

“Yeah, I know. It’s English beer.”

“No, no. You haven’t taste the real English beer yet. Let’s hit the bar. I’m famished anyway.”

Arin let out a cackle. “Famish? Wow, we’ve only been here for two days and you’re speaking British already.”

Matthew laughed and flung his arm on to Arin’s shoulder. “When in Rome, Arin.”

*****************************************************************************************************



Kimberly went into the bar and smiled at the first face she saw – her best friend Doug. He was always there for her, ever since the first day she landed a job here. All of her rants about Arin, she spilled them out to him. He didn’t know who Arin really is, that way she felt comfortable telling stories of her past to him.

“Kimmy!” Doug rose to his feet and greeted her with a tight hug. His long hair was tied to a messy ponytail and his jacket molded his lean, built body over. Kimberly accidentally brushed her fingers on his hard abs and quickly pulled away her hands.

“Why are we alone?”

“Terry and Gale are already on their way home, I begged them to stay but they just can’t keep their hands off each other.”

Kimberly chuckled and took her jacket off. She didn’t mind being alone with this guy because she knew, despite his good looks – he was actually gay. He had never shown an interest towards her in any way. That’s okay, she thought. She wasn’t over Arin anyways.

“I ordered you a dirty grey goose.”

“What? I’m gonna be jetlagged even before I touched the airport.”

“Oh relax. Just one dirty shot wouldn’t hurt.”

She sighed and shrugged at the same time. Her eyes swooned over to the dancefloor, which very few people danced on it. Adele’s Set Fire To The Rain was blasting through the jukebox and she felt like changing it to something else. Being in Britain for two years, she was shoved with British music, accent and food. Not to mention the weather. Don’t even start on the cold temperature here. She had to wear thick layers of clothes even to pick up a newspaper at her front porch.

“So, are you excited?”

Kimberly heard the British accent coming out of Doug’s mouth and she turned her view to him.

“Of going home? Of course I am. I missed my mom.”

“Did she say anything about you coming home?”

Kimberly crossed her arms, her gaze fell onto the bar promotion flyers on the table.

“She said I should just go back and find a job there. Maybe with American designers.”

“Oh Kimmy. You deserve your own line. Quit working for others. Bloddy hell, they treated you like arse anyway.”

Kimberly smiled and leaned in. “I want to, Doug. I want to establish my own line of design but I just don’t have the chance if I keep staying here.”

“I don’t doubt it. British designers are cruel, I’d rather you go back to the States and start anew.”

She grinned. “Really? You’d rather be alone here, without me?”

Doug leaned over too. “Darling, I can take care of myself.”

She laughed and leaned back to her seat. “How about you? How long are you gonna be a studio photographer? You ought to travel the world, Dougie. Your camera is your pen and the world is your paper.”

Doug laughed too, as he lit a cigarette in his mouth. “Touché. I’ll do that someday, when you’re ready to get over your ex-boyfriend.”

Her face fell as she pursed her lips, trembling from holding back emotions of going down memory lane earlier.

“Do you still love him, Kim?”

Kimberly gazed at him intently. Looking for the true answer to this. Does she? She wasn’t really over him, but does she still have that fluttery feelings, hearstrings pulled, adrenaline pumping and desire to kiss towards him?

“Yes, I do.” She simply answered. Doug blew out the smoke from his thin lips.

“I see.”

Kimberly looked away, without realizing that Doug was staring at her – his heart dropped hearing her reply. He didn’t make a move all this time because he wanted to be her friend, first and foremost. It had been two years and he still couldn’t find the right time to tell her – that he had loved her all along.

“Listen, Kim-”

“This fucking song! I hate it! I’m going to change the juke. Wait here.”

She got up casually, cutting his speech off and went over to the jukebox to change from FUN.’s Some Nights to something else. She flipped over the album quickly without thinking and stumbled across a really nostalgic song. Her memory roamed through her mind, peeling everything back to its pieces.


It was a cold Saturday night. It was winter, if she wasn’t mistaken. Arin and her had a movie date, which ended up they were making out on the couple seat because the movie was really lousy. Arin rested one hand on her jaw while the other snaked around her shoulders, pulling her closer. Kimberly wrapped her arms around his skinny body and they entangled in a slow sweet kiss. They didn’t care about the sound of guns firing and people screaming at the background because right then, they were in their own bubble.

“Ehm, ehm. Excuse me.”

The broke apart from the kiss and looked up. A sharp blinding light was torched over them, they had to squint their eyes to view properly.

“If you wanna make out, do it somewhere else. This is a sad war movie for God’s sake! Scoot!”

The security guard gestured for them to get out and everybody in the theatre just stared at them. They were embarrassed as hell, their face as red as Rudolph’s nose, so Arin took her hand and they ran out of there.

“Wow, I have never been humiliated like that ever in my life!”
“Yeah, and the movie sucks!”
“You can all go to hell, cinema whatever guy!”

They shouted from across the street, making sure they were far enough from the cinema to yell some nasty words at them. After done releasing their anger and dissatisfaction, they laughed. Laughed until their stomach hurt.

“What are we doing, Arin?”

Arin kept laughing and shook his head. “I don’t know. We were making out to a war movie.”

She burst out into big laughter. “Did you see all those people, their faces were like,” she made a serious facial expression. “and we were like – mmm, mmm, mmmm, baby come hold me..”

Arin laughed at her action. He ruffled her hair into a mess while she was still acting out their scene earlier.

“Stop, kiddo. Or I’m gonna have to do that to you again.”

Kimberly stopped acting and smiled silly at him with her light brown hair shambled into disarray.

“I don’t mind you doing that to me again, baby.”

Arin grinned widely and fixed her soft hair to its place. He tucked the strands of them behind her ear and kissed her on the lips softly. When he was about to beg for her access, a song blared through a speaker of nowhere – blasting out an intro from Keane, Somewhere Only We Know.
They winced - because the intro started quite strongly - and looked around. Apparently they were standing in the middle of the empty Wal-Mart parking lot and the song was from inside the store.

Oh simple thing, where have you gone?
I’m getting older and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you’re gonna let me in
I’m getting tired and I need somewhere to begin
Arin gazed into her eyes deeply. She stared at him back.
“May I have this dance, Ms Andrade?” Arin hold out his palm like a gentleman towards her.

She bit her lower lip and bowed. “You certainly may, Mr Ilejay.”

That night, they danced slowly like nobody was looking. Weird thing was, the originally short song seemed to be the longest she ever heard. Smiling to herself, she put in a quarter and picked the song. The pounding intro smeared through the speaker aloud and she nodded her head, immersed into it.

Suddenly she felt a pair of hands rested on her hips, making her immediately jumped and spun around. Doug was in front of her, smiling. She smiled back, nervously because he had never been this way towards her.

Doug leaned in and softly touched her lips with his own. Kimberly froze, she didn’t know what to think. Her mind was full of question and exclamation marks, together with the three uppercase alphabets of WTF.

She pushed away when Doug was starting to go deeper. Her hand blindly wiped her lips and her expression derived from utter disbelief to anger. She ran back to her seat, picked up her jacket and went for the exit door. Her eyes flooded with tears, she didn’t even know why.

BUMP! “Ouch!”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Without looking at the person she bumped into, Kimberly just ran out of the door and started crying.
“Hey are you okay?” the person shouted.
“What’s wrong, Chelle?”
The person – Michelle – glanced at her husband. “That girl, she was crying.”
Brian looked over at her direction. “Oh well, she’s gone anyway. Let’s go in. I’m fucking hungry.”
“Wait, where’s Val? Are we allowed to bring babies here?”
“I guess. They didn’t put up a sign of No Babies Allowed here.” He let out a soft chuckle. Michelle rolled her eyes.
“Common sense, Brian. Oh here they are.”

Strolling along from the corner – Matt, Zacky, Johnny, Arin and Linda. Valary and Lacey weren’t with them.

“Yo, sorry we’re late. Had to drop off Val and Lacey at the hotel. River’s a bit cranky when he’s not getting enough sleep.”
“Yeah, I wonder where he gets that from.” Brian casually replied, making Matt punched his shoulder playfully.
They went into the bar and the first thing Arin heard was that song. A song which brought him back to the same memory.

And if you have a minute why don’t we go
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything
So why don’t we go, somewhere only we know?

Notes

A/N: yeah. come on guys. feedbaackkkksss