Prompt: 052 ~ Fire                                                                                                                                                                            May 2011©
Fandom: the GazettE
Focus: Reita x Kitty
Word Count: 1,807

            “Oh sweet Shisus.”

            Kitty’s grip on Reita’s arm was squeezing off any imaginings of the circulation of blood though his hand, and her hold was only getting tighter.

           “Was that a kpop reference?” the bassist asked with disdain, trying in vain to flex the fingers he’d lost feeling in. He’d shoved his hand into his pocket, but couldn’t tell if his efforts to rub the seam of his pocket were bearing fruit, by now his entire hand was nearly numb.

            Kitty meanwhile didn’t answer, she wasn’t paying him any attention. She hadn’t even heard his question. Instead, her attention was fully focused on the small square of steal that was raised above the stage, a platform that she would be standing on in just a few short hours. The very small square of steal that was currently engulfed in a raging inferno of pyrotechnics.

            There wasn’t a single gap in the wall of flame. If something went wrong, it could only go horrifically wrong. With even just a half formed thought of the catastrophic possibilities drifting into her head, Kitty pressed herself firmly into Reita’s side, her grip on his arm as tight as physically possible.

            When his entire left side began to tingle, Reita called it quits. He yanked his arm away from Kitty’s vice grip and shook it out, trying to get some feeling back into it. “Come on,” he grumbled. “It’s not that bad.”

            “You’re not the one that has to stand there,” she retorted cattily.

            Kitty was really quite scared at this point. She’d done a lot of crazy things with the GazettE, particularly for their “Filth in the Beauty” performances. But this was taking things to a new level, a bit more than a bit further than their other shows. It was Tokyo Dome, however, with a live internet broadcast included, and it certainly warranted a big show. And this stunt would look absolutely fantastic, but for it to work, Kitty actually had to stand inside the box of flame with no way out and no way to call for help if something happened.

            It was a daunting thought.

           The dangers weren’t being exaggerated as they were explained to her, and they were certainly not being ignored. Every precaution was being put in place. Kitty stylist was using a gel to make her hair into an elegant arrangement, one that was flame retardant as opposed to the fire trap that was hair spray. She was going to be kept well away from the boys, whose entire bodies usually ended up coated in hairspray. And the performance of “Filth in the Beauty” was slotted to be early in the set-list, so that Kitty’s fanservice wouldn’t have time to get her exposure to the highly flammable substance before she stepped into the hazardous region of the platform. Even her dress was streamlined into the safeguards, the fabric of her costume covered 95% of her skin and it was made out of fire-retardant fabric. All the usual ruffles and bows that could get blown about had been removed and the skirts slimmed down to hang much closer to her figure.


            Kitty’s current observations of the pyrotechnics were also part of the precautions. It was the last of many rehearsals, the one where Kitty’s dance routine and the fire part of the show were combined with emergency personal standing by. It was to get Kitty used to standing in the box of fire, to let her get to knowing the parameters she needed to work with for the real deal. It was also to make the final adjustments to the calibrations for the streams of fire themselves. There was no way to fully anticipate how much flame would be needed to make the effect look right without having Kitty be sitting inside the screen for the effects people to see.

            After this, the rig would be locked in its final position to remain guarded and untouched until the actual pre-performance warm up and then the performance itself.

            “Neko-sama, we’re all ready for you,” one of the tech crew’s staff members said, giving Kitty an encouraging smile. He held out his hand to help Kitty clamber onto the platform, his support hiding the fact that she most definitely wobbled. Between the obvious tension in her hand and her timidly wide-eyed smile, it wasn’t hard for him to tell that she was absolutely terrified. Comfortingly, he mentioned, “There’s more than enough room for two on the platform. One of us can go up with you, if you’re worried about it.”

            Reita may have been distracted by the fact that he could still barely feel his left arm at all, but the mention of someone standing so intimately with Kitty, as would be the needed situation if another person joined her on the platform, caught his attention immediately. Quickly hobbling over to climb up beside her, Reita found himself considering the fact that Ruki and Uruha had been hogging the dressing room to the point of preventing him from getting ready as a good thing for once. If they hadn’t been in his way, and he’d managed to get to the hairspray, there was no way he would have been allowed to stand with Kitty as the crew prepared the final test run. And he could hardly have stood by while Kitty clung to someone aside from him like this.

            Wrapping Kitty up in his arms, Reita glared down the techie that had offered to join her. The ReiKitty pair may have been newly official, but there was nothing about it that was truly ‘new,’ and nothing about it that was in question. If anyone was going to stand this close to Kitty, for any reason, it was going to be Reita.

            And then they turned the fire on.

            The moment the wall of flames burst into being, Reita realized the sensation of his left side had returned at last; the fire was so close, Reita felt like his entire body was melting. This little test of the inferno seemed as it very well might be lethal if it went on for half as long as it would need to for the final show. As Reita hugged Kitty close, the fire was raging around them, screaming in a constant wave of deafening sound that would even rival the pounding of the amps around the platform during the concert itself. It was more than a bit intimidating, even to Reita.

            The thought of leaving Kitty here, unaided and unattended, in the midst of such danger clicked uncomfortably into Reita’s mind. He pulled her slightly closer to him as the fire raged on.

            Kitty, meanwhile, was beginning to relax. While locked safely in Reita’s arms, with the techies and emergency personnel looking on closely, she was able to stare into the glow as it flickered violently around her with a less than mortal fear of peril. The terror she’d been gripped with earlier began to fade, receding into awe as she stared at the wall of fire.

            Reaching out with caution towards the flames, Kitty tried to get a feel for its limits. The platform had more than enough room for the both of them to stand safely, alone Kitty would have room for significant movement. The heat of the flames was easily bearable, and it remained so until the flames were close enough to lap at the very skin of her fingers. Her choreography for ‘Filth in the Beauty’ could go completely unaltered, even inside the box of fire. Sure, it was uncomfortable to say the least, but she was a professional.

            And as cool as it would be for the fans, seeing her image dramatically distorted through the fire as the cameras circled around and above her, it would be even cooler for Kitty. The way she would only be able to see the shadows of her friends and her fans would add to the drama and the intensity of the song; hearing the boom of the instruments and Ruki’s screams as she complimented them with her own would be spectacular.

            Every bit of terror Kitty had been feeling flowed out of her in less than five minutes.

            It seemed to filter into Reita behind her.

            He wouldn’t be able to even see Kitty for more than five minutes while she was in the center of a raging fire; he wouldn’t be able to see if anything went wrong, he wouldn’t be able to fix it if something did. The realization of just how alone Kitty would when she was surrounded by flames settled into Reita as they dissipated with the end of the test.

            Kitty hopped immediately off the platform, ducking out from under Reita’s arms with a chipper squeak. “That was brilliant! It’ll be perfect,” Kitty purred, giving the techie a bright smile.

            Clambering down heavily after her, Reita marched over to the techie as he gave Kitty a clap on the shoulder and waved her off as she trotted back to the GazettE’s room backstage. Nonchalantly latching on roughly to the techie’s collar, Reita snarled, “If something goes wrong, if she gets hurt, if anything is even the slightest bit off; it will be the last mistake you ever make in Japan.”

            “Chill out, man,” the techie responded. “I know what I’m doing, and I’ve worked with Neko-sama in similar situations before.”

            Reita just huffed and shoved the techie out of his way to storm moodily downstairs where the rest of the Gazette was gathered, watching as Kitty tried to talk Ruki out of wearing a fez he’d covered in glitter. As Reita joined the scene, Kitty gave up on the talking thing and simply jumped the singer. The tussle ended up with the fez in Kitty’s hands as she dashed away with Ruki hot on her heels. She skidded in stockinged-feet around behind Reita, slipping her hand skillfully into his pocket to snatch his lighter.

            With the compact butane sparker in her hand, Kitty was charging over to the far side of the room, using Aoi’s stomach for a leg up to shortcut over the table. The hat was already being lit up as Kitty slid onto the counter for a stop in front of the sink, long before anyone could get near her to prevent it. She was cackling away as Ruki managed to catch her around the waist, his attack only causing her to drop the quickly burning material into the sink to smolder away to ash.

            He wailed incoherently as he watched the glitter burn and Kitty continued to howl with laughter like a maniacal fairy-princess. Kai came rushing over to turn the water on, putting out the remainder of the flames and washing the ashes down the drain.

            “You shouldn’t play with fire,” Kai chided, once the last of the exceptionally flammable hat had been swept away. His tone had the sentiment playing out in as unmotherly a way as it could possibly get. Kai was allowed to be motherly though, and for once Reita agreed with him.

            Kitty, though, kept grinning. She shrugged and replied, “Why not? It’s just fire.”


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