VOID [Katsuki Bakugo x OC]

Rule #3: Hope for the Best

♪

TV interviews were the worst.

The harsh lighting. The live, unpredictable audience. The cameras like hundreds of beady bug eyes. The stiff seats. The fake personalities. The uncomfortable outfits. The cookie-cutter hosts.

Cadence hated all of it equally. Not that she'd ever tell anyone that.

"On today's show we have the band elixir, about to head off on their first world tour," said the TV show hostess, her unsettlingly white, forced smile fixed on the camera. "Four siblings, huh? How does that go on stage? No fighting?"

Like they'd fight onstage. Cadence fought the urge to roll her eyes and forced her limelight persona to stay in control. Chord took the question, luckily, and answered with a flippant, "Not that the audience can tell. We have a kind of secret language so that the others know when we're mad or frustrated."

"Mind telling the viewers what that is?" the hostess asked.

He wouldn't have said it was a secret, then! Cadence screamed in her brain, smile still fixed and seamless. But it didn't matter anyway, because Chord made the whole thing up. Letting him take the reins, she picked at the hem of her black minidress and plucked at her fishnets, simultaneously sweltering in the packed studio and freezing without enough clothing.

"Oh, that's easy," Chord chuckled, his emerald-and-lime hair glinting in the studio lighting, "We just flip each other off behind our instruments."

The hostess laughed, and so did the studio audience. So far, so good. 

"Well, that certainly fits your vibe," the hostess smiled, "Which is an interesting mix of things. Tell me, what genre would you say you are?"

Aria piped up from the back row, where she sat beside Cadence on a stool, dressed in a similar black minidress, matched with towering combat boots rather than black Converses like Cade. "We like to say we're a soup of pop, punk, alternative, rock, and screamo... which is partially why the band is called elixir; we're a mixture that heals... with music."

They'd practiced that line enough times to say it in their sleep.

Mother had made sure of that.

"And you're all ready for your world tour? It kicks off the day after tomorrow, right here in Kyoto, right? No lingering nerves?"

Dorian nodded. "Yup, we start and end in Japan, which we thought was only fair, considering we're half-Japanese. The final tour date is in Tokyo. If we're not ready now, then we'll have to get there in the next twenty four hours."

The audience laughed at that. "Does that mean you'll be singing in Japanese and English?" the hostess asked.

"Yup," Cadence piped up, finally taking a question she felt she could handle. "We're fluent in both languages, and are prepared to perform in either one. Or at least Chord and I are, I don't know about Aria and Dorian. They just get to stand there and look pretty, basically."

A light chuckle came from the studio audience at Cade's jab, just as a blinking light came from the camera, warning the hostess of her imminent commercial break. "Well, with talent like that, it sounds like the tour of a lifetime! Our viewers should stick around for a sneak preview performance of elixir's song, 'Teenagers', and after, we'll ask some more personal questions to the band, including an exclusive interview about these leaked allegations of brainwashing." She winked at the camera, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

Well... fuck.

♪

Bakugo hadn't been given much time to pack.