Nishinoya’s POV

  The underground grindcore gig at The Abyss hit me like a goddamn war drum to the chest.

  Graffiti screamed from the walls in jagged, neon strokes.

  The floor stuck to my boots with layers of spilled beer and soda.

  The air clung hot and sour, vibrating with tension, sweat, and static.

  Fonfobia, Alonzo’s band, was headlining tonight.

  Backed by a stacked lineup of chaos merchants.

  The crowd was already moving like one furious organism by the time the first riff tore through the haze.

  I lingered on the edge of the pit, laces double-knotted, jaw tight.

  Karklins’ voice was still bouncing around my skull.

  “Nishinoya, listen up. Elbows out, stand firm. If you get sucked into the fogo, don’t fight it. Let it carry you till the end of the song. We’ll fish you out.”

  She’d said it like she was prepping me for war.

  Hashmi, with his corpse paint already cracking at the edges, had just grinned and clapped my shoulder:

  “Grindcore baptism, baby. Let’s see if you ascend.”

  And then Fonfobia hit it.

  A wall of guitars like shrieking machinery, drums like cannon fire, vocals that could strip paint.

  The pit detonated.

  Karklins and Hashmi stood on either side of me, teeth bared like wolves.

  “Elbows out, rookie!” Karklins shouted over the blast.

  “Don’t embarrass us!” Hashmi added, gleeful.

  “Copy that,” I said… then immediately panicked.

  I stuck my elbows out like I was doing some kind of awkward chicken pose.

  And then Hashmi launched himself into the crowd, laughing like a maniac.

  Karklins turned to me, eyes wild. “Ready?”

  I wasn’t.

  Not even close.

  But I nodded anyway. “Screw it. Let’s go.”

  And the pit swallowed me whole.

  It was instant sensory overload.

  Shoulders slamming, limbs flying, some guy with a bloody nose screaming like it was a religious experience.

  The music wasn’t even sound anymore…

  It was force, and it ripped through me like a live wire.

  A hand slammed into my ribs.

  I stumbled sideways.

  Sweat hit my face and I prayed it was just sweat.

  My arms went up. Elbows out.

  I was flailing. Grinning. Dying. Ascending.

  And… Shoved hard from behind.

  I spun.

  Karklins vanished. Gone. Just gone.

  I froze.

  ‘I’m lost in the fogo. I’m gonna die in here. They’ll find my shoes and that’s it.’

  But then her voice echoed in my brain again:

  “Go with the flow.”

  I clenched my jaw and leaned in.

  Let the tide take me.

  And just as the song ended, the pit spat me out like a chewed-up pinball.

  Karklins was waiting at the edge, hair sticking up in five directions, laughing.

  “Not bad, ‘Noya! You didn’t drown!”

  I wiped sweat from my eyes and grinned, pulse still doing double kick pedal. “That was nuts.”

  Hashmi burst out a moment later, wheezing and euphoric. “Dude! You lived! MA-MAN!”

  We crashed around the venue like pinballs for the rest of the set.

  Surfing from pit to edge and back again, shouting every lyric like it owed us money.

  At one point a crowd surfer’s boot clipped me in the ear and I went down, hard.

  My head throbbed, vision spun.

  Hands.

  Karklins and Hashmi yanking me up like pros.

  “You good?” Karklins’ voice, sharp and steady.

  “Yeah,” I lied, half-laughing, half-dying.

  Hashmi clapped me hard on the back.

  “Pit certified, bro!”

  The air outside hit like baptism #2: cold, sharp, and quiet.

  My ears were ringing.

  My shirt was soaked.

  But I felt high.

  Alive-high.

  Karklins ran a hand through her sweaty hair, making it stick up worse.

  “That was unreal,” she said, still breathless.

  Hashmi, his corpse paint now smeared to hell, threw an arm around me.

  “Noya, you held your ground!”

  I blinked. “Noya?”

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  It took a second to click. They’d started yelling it during the second set.

  Karklins had shouted it mid-pit, Hashmi echoed it, and suddenly it was just… mine.

  I looked at them.

  Karklins grinning with blood on her lip.

  Hashmi bouncing on his toes.

  And for the first time in… a while?

  I didn’t feel like the quiet kid from school.

  I felt like I’d been named.

  “Noya,” Nickie repeated, playful. “Not bad for a rookie.”

  “Y’all kept me from getting trampled,” I said, still dizzy with endorphins.

  “Duh,” Hashmi said. “You’re one of us now.”

  That hit harder than any pit slam.

  “Hey,” I said, laughing. “Remember that dude who tried to crowd surf and face-planted?”

  Karklins cackled. “He landed on me. Elbow to the ribs. Felt like communion.”

  “And when Hashmi went for a wall of death-” I added.

  “And hugged some poor guy mid-charge!” Karklins snorted. “Best thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “It’s all love in the pit,” Hashmi shrugged. “Chaos and cuddles.”

  “Except Karklins came out holding someone’s shoe,” I said.

  She frowned. “It was in my pocket. How’d it get there?”

  “Pit magic,” Hashmi grinned. “The universe just knows you collect weird crap.”

  We laughed so hard my ribs hurt again.

  We were just starting to say our goodbyes when Hashmi threw up his hands.

  “WAIT. KARKLINS. HOLD UP.”

  Karklins turned, squinting like she expected another mosh pit to come flying at her.

  “What?”

  “Group chat,” Hashmi declared. “We’re making one. Non-negotiable.”

  Karklins blinked. “A group chat?”

  She tried to play it cool, but she fumbled her phone.

  Twice.

  Her ears were redder than her cheeks.

  I bit back a grin.

  She recovered, cleared her throat. “Yeah… sure. Whatever. Let’s do it.”

  “Name ideas?” I asked.

  “‘Pit Kids’?” Hashmi offered.

  “‘Sweat and Elbows’,” I shot back.

  “‘Fogo Squad’,” Karklins deadpanned.

  We all paused.

  Hashmi raised his hand. “It’s Fogo Squad. That’s the one.”

  We exchanged numbers.

  Hashmi typed like he was launching a missile.

  Group Created: Fogo Squad ????

  “You’re stuck with us now,” he said, beaming.

  Karklins tucked her phone into her hoodie pocket, turning to leave.

  “See you guys Monday.”

  She turned away too fast.

  Hashmi leaned in.

  “She’s totally blushing.”

  “Shut up,” I muttered, but couldn’t stop smiling.

  But I didn’t care.

  All I could think about was the music, the madness…

  And the name they called me.

  Not Masato. Not Nishinoya or “That kid from class.”

  Noya.

  And that meant something.

  Because it meant I belonged.

  After the Show | Nickie’s POV

  I was home.

  Lying in bed.

  Couldn’t sleep.

  Was still buzzing from the show and… something else.

  My overthinking brain kept replaying Hashmi’s story.

  “Yo listen, so this about Schwarz and Alonzo, bruh. This ain’t just some petty beef… it’s a full-on saga, straight outta a movie.”

  I didn’t react at the time.

  Not outwardly.

  But inside?

  His name hit like a heartbeat I wasn’t expecting.

  Not because it shocked me.

  Adam’s always orbiting the edge of some kind of disaster.

  But because I never get used to the way his name makes me feel.

  Like I want to flinch and reach for him at the same time.

  “‘Yo, check out turtleneck boy in this heat. What’s he hidin’ under there?’”

  My stomach twisted.

  Not because the line was cruel… though it was.

  But because I know now what he was hiding.

  A flash.

  Sitting on the studio’s couch with the battered first-aid tin between us,

  Adam’s hand steady but his jaw tight as I cleaned a fresh tear in one of his fingers.

  The way he never flinched when I pressed the antiseptic to skin, but his eyes went distant when my thumb brushed the inked-over stump of a nail that would never grow back.

  Black polish gleaming over the crooked ones like a shield.

  Tattoos curling over knuckles and fingertips like they could hide the hurt still burning there.

  The raised lines.

  The scarred truth.

  He doesn’t cover up like Hashmi said he did before.

  No turtlenecks. No gloves. Not since I’ve known him.

  I kept listening, even as something clenched behind my ribs.

  I saw it too clearly:

  Not just a fight.

  A trigger.

  Too much caged up inside, tearing loose when the wrong thread was yanked without warning.

  “Alonzo didn’t spill. Just told people to shut up. Covered for him.”

  That part made me stop breathing for a second.

  I didn’t know Alonzo and Adam’s origin story.

  And suddenly, it clicked.

  Why Adam still keeps Alonzo around, even when they look two seconds away from throwing punches at each other half the time.

  Alonzo earned something that day.

  By not asking.

  By not telling.

  By holding the line when it mattered.

  I felt my opinion of him shift.

  Not just respect.

  A kind of quiet gratitude.

  Because that’s the sort of thing you don’t forget.

  And maybe that’s why Adam trusts him in ways he doesn’t trust most people.

  And maybe…

  I want that, too.

  Not just to be close to him onstage or in the middle of some joke.

  But to be the person he can hand the silence to and know I won’t break it.

  I sighed and my vision started blurring.

  Just before I fell asleep, I thought about my new friend group, Hashmi and Noya.

  David and Adam feel like family, but those two?

  They’re different.

  Not family, not strangers.

  Something I’ve never had before.

  A crew.

  A circle I actually want to stand inside.

  I want to find out everything friendship is about…

  What it’s supposed to feel like.

  What it’s supposed to mean.

  And how to keep it without breaking it.