LUKA | WEIRD DJ

The mixer had started smoking again.

Lucaniel didn’t seem to care. He was hunched over a mess of wires, dried lentils, two wine glasses filled with different levels of water, and an old plush duck with a contact mic taped to its belly. The sound coming through his headphones was grainy, wet, unsettling. He was trying to replicate the sound of something decaying underwater while also... sparkling?

“Too metal,” he muttered, twisting a knob until the tone warped into a soft gurgle. “Mm. Better.”

His phone buzzed across the floor where he’d tossed it an hour ago. Once. Twice. Three times.

“Persistent,” he said out loud, then leaned sideways and snagged it with his foot, dragging it toward him like a lazy cat. He flopped back into the cushions and answered with a drawl.

“¿Qué pasa, cielo mío?”

Ciel’s voice came through clipped and to the point. “Can you come to a party with me tonight?”

Luka blinked. “A party?”

“Yes.”

The sounds of decaying sparkle-water faded behind him as he sat up. “Okay, first of all, rude, you could at least say hello. Second of all: why?”

“I don’t want to go alone.”

Luka squinted, already suspicious. “So... you’re just trying to use me as a social meat-shield?”

“No! Well, sort of... Look, it’s Tess’ birthday.”

“...Tess?” Luka grinned. “Bookstore Tess? Lanky, nerdy, throws bedroom eyes at you even before you get in the store?”

“That’s the one.”

That Tess had a crush on Ciel the size of a fucking glacier. Luka could see it from outer space.

“Why are you going?”

Ciel hesitated. That alone made Luka grin harder.

“I didn’t plan to. He... he was just ringing my purchase up and his hand was on mine for too long and I panicked. I said yes before I could think.”

Luka let out a bark of laughter, dropping onto his back. “You got into gay panic over a hand touch?! Oh, Ciel. That’s adorable. You got seduced by a lingering palm.”

“It wasn’t seductive.”

“Mmhm. He touched you, and you short-circuited like an old PC. That’s classic queer anxiety right there. Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the dangerously flirty gay man at his own birthday party. We don't want you to suddenly discover you're bisexual, do we?”

“It’s not like that,” Ciel replied with a sigh, then immediately steamrolled over himself. “Besides, I’ve been into someone else lately.”

“Oh?”

“My neighbor.”

Luka went still.

“She’s so cute,” Ciel went on, voice shifting from annoyed to dreamy in seconds. “She has these cheeks that go round when she smiles, like... like mochi. And she wears this awful yellow bathrobe sometimes when she checks the mail, and somehow it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Luka stared at the ceiling. “Oh no.”

“And she’s soft, Luka. Like, I know that’s a weird thing to say, but she’s visually soft! Like you could sink into her. Like... like if you hugged her you'd forget your own name.”

“Stop. Please. Spare me.”

“She said hi yesterday and I said ‘you too’ like a complete idiot.”

Luka groaned, hand over his face as if that could help him tune Ciel’s rambling out.

“She also smells like cinnamon. And God, those thighs, I want her to sit on me and suffocate me, Luka, like—”

“Okay! Enough! I get it. Mochi angel neighbor. Sexiest bathrobe on Earth. I’ll see you at the party. Later.”

“You’re the one who asked!”

But Luka had already hung up.

He sat in the silence for a long moment, letting the echoes of Ciel’s voice fade into the static hum of his studio. There was something like pressure in his chest, but he didn’t name it. He just picked up his headphones again, hit record, and whispered into the mic:

“Sound of a heart flatlining, but make it... aesthetic.”

Some hours went by before Luka decided to stop recording. He stretched his muscular arms over his head, declared the experiment a success, slid his raccoon plushie Blorptavian into a beanbag throne, and got up. He dusted off his ripped black jeans and checked his cracked reflection in the mirror he’d bought from the thrift shop—and had broken immediately by slamming the door open on it. He’d glued all the pieces back together and kept it because “it’s poetic.”

He straightened up his white tank top. No food stains. Good. He put on a simple leather jacket hanging off the tall plastic giraffe’s head at the entrance of his studio and headed out.

When he reached the party, he immediately saw Ciel standing outside like a rejected prom date.

Luka approached with a grin. “So, you chose me because your soft lady couldn’t come keep you company?”

Ciel stared at him, blankly disappointed. The realization hit Luka late.

“You didn’t ask her,” Luka said, stunned. “Oh my God, you actual himbo.”

Luka barked a laugh and patted Ciel on the back, sinking his hands in his pockets as he headed inside.

The place pulsed with questionable music and sugary perfume. People were already half-drunk, yelling over whatever horrible playlist was echoing off the walls. Luka scanned the crowd, and there he was: Tess.

Red flaming hair, sharp jaw, dressed like he’d planned the look for two weeks and revised it three times. He was perched on the edge of the couch, laughing too loud, half-draped over some unfortunate guy, fingers twirling a lock of his hair. It was like watching a bad school play version of flirting. Disgusting.

Luka and Ciel moved closer and, of course, Tess spotted them immediately.

“Ciel,” he purred, all smiles. “You made it.”

“I said I would attend and here I am,” Ciel replied, polite, but Luka could already hear the faint edge of discomfort in his tone.

Tess didn’t seem to notice, but what was Luka expecting from someone who clearly couldn’t take a hint?

“I was just telling Marcus that you’ve been looking for a gym. He should know something, he might be able to help you out.” Tess’s hand slid down, making a show of squeezing the man’s muscular arm.

Luka did everything he could to disguise his disgust at Tess’s... whatever that was.

Instead, he chose war.

“Oh, if you wanna talk about fitness, I’m going to need a drink first,” he said, and then slid an arm around Ciel’s waist. He leaned in, voice smooth and low. “Be a darling and get me something refreshing, won’t you?”

Tess blinked before his face became the exact shade of his hair. Checkmate.

“I, uh... excuse me. We’ll have to resume the chat some other time, I have to say hi to some people!”

And just like that, Tess bolted like someone had pulled the fire alarm.

Luka let go of Ciel’s waist and snorted. “Sorry. Had to.”

Ciel just nodded, finally breathing again. “Thanks, man.”

They made it to the drinks table without further drama. Ciel poured something clear and mean into two cups and handed one to Luka.

Luka clinked his cup lazily against his. “To social suffering.”

Ciel grunted. “To leaving as soon as we can.”

They lingered a while near the drinks—neither of them could possibly say no to free things—long enough for Luka to refill once, then again, the second time with something so neon pink it looked like a chemical warning. He wasn’t sure what was in it, but it tasted like lollipop and battery acid.

Then, somewhere behind the music, Luka heard it. A string of discordant notes, like a badly tuned harp being strangled.

He blinked. “Hold this.”

Ciel didn’t even look surprised as Luka shoved the cup into his hand and veered off.

Inside the next room, it was chaos. A cat hissed from the kitchen counter. A blender screamed. A fridge door slammed, and Luka perked up like a bloodhound.

He replayed the sound in his head. Then, grinning, he grabbed his phone and gently kicked the fridge shut again. And again. The thump. The hum. The rattle. He recorded it all.

“Fridge thump... emotional reverb,” he slurred into his phone. “That’s a track name.”

Two and a half drinks in, Luka was swaying slightly, mesmerized by the strange acoustics of domestic appliances and distant bass.

Eventually, needing either air or a new vibration to chase, he found the garden door and stumbled outside.

He barely made it down the steps before the cat from earlier, silent as a ghost and twice as smug, darted across his path.

Luka startled. “¡Mierda!”

He jerked sideways to avoid it, foot catching the edge of the step. Momentum betrayed him and he went down hard.

But what he landed on was not cold ground. Not a patch of grass. A body. A soft one.

Warm. Pillowy. Absolutely not a rock or a lawn chair.

Luka blinked, nose pressed into someone’s shoulder, hair tickling his face. It smelled like dreams and memories.

His fingers moved before his brain did, carding through it with dreamy reverence.

“Mm... you feel like Panchito,” he whispered. “He was my dog. He died.”

He sighed, nuzzling closer. “Panchito? Is it you? You came back to me, Panchito!”

Then his hand slipped lower. Belly, thigh, chest. He made a pleased noise, like when he discovered a new sound he had never recorded.

“You’re comfy,” he mumbled.

“I’ll get up,” Luka added, voice muffled, “if you go out with me.”

He didn’t move. Instead, sprawled like a drunk, weird raccoon, he smiled into the stranger’s warmth.

“Deal?”