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| - Summary: A story of music, magic and wonder. Notes: (See the end of the work for notes.) Chapter 1: First Show Chapter Text The night was warm but a cool breeze blew in over the rainbow-hued waters of the Adriatic as sunset broke across the sky. There was a motion to the entire landscape that made the world look as alive as a Van Gogh painting, and I absorbed it with every particle of my spirit. I felt united with the energy around me, with the sky, sea and ground, despite the sounds I was hearing.I wish I could say that the music being performed in front of me deserved the crystal brilliance that it was surrounded by, but I couldn’t. Somehow the four musicians onstage just didn’t have that star quality I’d come to expect. I couldn’t remember their name; for me, they weren’t worth remembering after the first number. Don’t get me wrong, their voices were good, they just weren’t great. All they needed was the right song, the right audience, and they would gain enough of a following to advance their careers. They didn't have the right anything yet.I did my best to ignore them, to focus my attention to the beauty around me. There was something here that I had only found in one other place on Earth, and that was a sense of magic. The land seemed full with it and that gave my mind freedom to transcend my physical existence, freedom to meld with the universe.Eventually the group wrapped up and the audience's applause, which was wild and indicated that they enjoyed the sound more than I did, tore me from my tranquility. There was a good span of time before the headliners were scheduled, so most seats vacated to the nearby merchandise vendors and restrooms. My own seat was right up front, stage right, not far from center, VIP. This usually made it hard to get out but I could afford to wait, because I knew of a restroom that the rest of the audience didn’t. It wasn't a perk, necessarily, but more of a happy accident that I'd stumbled across it earlier in the day.My attention turned to the stage. Not long now. My body hummed with anticipation; I would finally see him in person. All the lights were up and the crew was packing at a rapid pace. Drums were dismantled, amp cords were untangled, microphones got collected, all in a hurry to clear space for the angels that would soon astonish us all.A motion behind by the curtain on the far side of the stage caught my attention and I noticed it was one of the musicians. What the hell, I could give them some honorable mention in my review. I got up and approached him. A security guard stopped me, but I motioned to the musician, who waved me through.I stood at the edge of the stage and gave him my name with a polite smile. He smiled back and crouched down so he could hear me over the noise surrounding us. “I didn’t catch your name,” I told him.“You can call me Riki,” he said with a flirtatious wink.I looked down at what I was wearing; it didn’t suggest that I was the groupie type, did it? I sure hoped he didn’t think that. He was attractive, sure, and I’d always wondered what dating Japanese men was like, but I wasn’t interested because there was somebody on the property that I was ‘in love with’, in my own way. Yes, that's who I was finally going to see in person. I wasn't sure he would like me in the same way, but just being near him this one time was enough to sustain me for life.“You guys were great,” I lied. “What is your group name? I want to mention you in my blog.”He said something that sounded like Daikon; I’d have to look it up later to know for sure. He started to wrap a power cord around his arm, back to work I assumed, so I turned to go. “You’re a very pretty girl,” he informed me.I turned back to him. “Oh. Thanks.” I never knew how to react to men giving me attention. It could be polite or direct, but it was no different to me, I just…couldn’t understand why they wanted to focus on that part of me. I tried to change the subject. “How long have you guys been singing together?”“Two years. You’re not here to see us?”“I’m actually a fan of 2CELLOS. I’m a cellogirl.”He laughed. “They’re no good. You should be my fan. I treat my fangirls good.”I laughed and shook my head as I walked away. It was full dark now, their crew was finishing up the tear-down, and I knew the cello crew just had a few things to set up, so I made my way into the dark between here and there. As I walked, that same feeling came to my body that I got whenever I meditated for a good, long time. It was like I was walking on air, hovering above the ground, but at the same time it felt like I was connected to the soul of the planet. I dawdled until I reached the building they used for offices, then went through the unlocked door that led me to a brightly lit corridor with several unoccupied spaces.When I finished using the restroom and had made sure I was in pristine condition for the real show, I wandered outside and looked towards the stage. The crew was still occupied with setup so I pulled off my shoes and wandered through the grass. The little blades tickled my toes and I smiled as I turned my face towards the heavens. There had been a million nights like this before I could walk and there would be a million more after my legs stop working, but they would never cease to amaze. This one, I was blessed to experience.A shooting-star flew across the sky and though it was thousands of miles away, it looked as glorious as the sun. I closed my eyes, afraid to say the one wish I kept in my heart, afraid that it wouldn’t come true, but even more afraid that it would. When I opened my eyes the stars were blurred by moisture that collected on my lashes. Thankfully I was wearing waterproof mascara.Sound traveled through the air and found its way into my ears. It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard in my life: the cello. A single bow pulled across her strings and female voices screamed in unison. I turned towards the stage and watched as Stjepan gave his love to the ladies of the audience in the slowest, most romantic way possible.Near the entrance from backstage was a figure in the dark who was almost indistinguishable from the shadows. Whoever it was, they were staring up at the stars as well; the magic of this place had captured us all. A gentle breeze blew across my almost bare back and left in the direction of the figure. As my hair flew around me the person tore their eyes from the cosmos and looked my way. We watched each other in complete stillness. Was I more than a shadow to them? Would I ever be more than a shadow to him? I had no way of knowing about either. They turned and disappeared in a crowd of other shadows. I sighed with a melancholy smile; it was time to face the music.I got back to my seat as Luka walked out on the stage. For a moment I couldn’t breathe. He was as tall as a statue and as beautiful as a deity. He waved and smiled at the audience then sat down and began to play. I wasn’t obsessed enough to know the name of the movement but the chords, from the first draw of his bow, sent me somewhere else. I had no notion of time or space. All I could do was listen as he guided me through this experience, this undulating trapeze between total senselessness and complete immersion in brilliance.And then the music stopped and I was left gasping for air. My chest was heaving while Stjepan joined him onstage. The women in the audience once again screamed for their cellogods as Luka’s eyes glanced my way. I was so shy, so embarrassed, that I couldn't bring myself to hold eye contact with him. What I had seen, in that brief moment, was the look on his face; one that made me wonder if he didn’t know what his talent was capable of doing to people.Stjepan riled up the crowd further and they began their joint show. I wasn’t struck as before, not like Luka’s solo cello had done to me, but I was definitely carried away with the rest of the audience. Then Stjepan spoke again, words that held no meaning for me since I was one of probably a dozen fans in attendance whom only spoke English, but his pitch and resonation struck me as completely as it did the rest. He was a man who knew how to use his voice as well as he could use his body (for music, I don’t know how he uses it for anything else), something he’d undoubtedly learned from Oscar.Luka grabbed the microphone from him and the velvety warmth of his voice encased me like a lovers hug. I closed my eyes and trembled under the weight of it. This would be the feeling I would return to when I felt alone, when I felt the world was too much for me to handle; this was the safest place I would ever be.I kept my eyes closed as they picked up their pace, played some of their rock hits. I opened them and watched Stjepan play for the women, watched as his temperament went from docile to ferocious. He knew how to work a crowd and I instinctively knew he employed the same tactics in other aspects of his life. However, the more important curiosity was, did Luka? I glanced his way. He was letting the music carry him to another place. I smiled. I knew that place.They paused for a moment to drink water and I noticed their shirts were beginning to show evidence of how much work they actually had to put in to their performance. So much work and they weren’t even into the truly wild music yet.And then, as if on cue, Dusan emerged. The fans went crazy again. Dule, the Drumking. Things were going to kick up some serious notches now. I looked at Luka, who was looking at me. He shouldn’t be able to recognize me. I made sure I was an anonymous member of the CELLOGirl community with the exception of a few photos I shared. His eyes filled me with a heat unrivaled by anything in existence and I unintentionally cracked a half smile and looked down with a blush. My default, my defense, is to smile when I’m nervous, and boy oh boy did he make me nervous.The temperature of the night air shot up several dozen degrees the moment the three of them began. First Dule with the beat, then Stjepan with the percussion and finally Luka with the melody. I could feel my body warm up with theirs, my breath echoed their own, and then he struck a chord that sent me away again. I felt my eyes flutter closed as something almost spiritual filled my body and influenced me towards every artistic endeavor I had ever dreamed of pursuing.I came back into being and felt my eyes open. He was smiling and was it just a trick of the light or did he actually perk his brow at me? He had to have known what was happening. If I could only ask him one question after the show it would be about that, whatever that was.He watched Stjepan for a bit, watched the crowd, maybe he looked at me (I couldn’t be sure anymore), and then went to his ‘place’. His face turned towards the sky and my lip quivered. Had it been him? I looked down the length of his body, at the recently unveiled bulge of his arms and chest that practically erupted from his wet, black shirt, at the tatters and holes in his jeans, at his shoes, at every inch of his miraculous frame. I bit my lip to keep it from quivering further as I gazed longingly at the most perfect man I would ever lay eyes on. I couldn't be sure that we were as much the same as I imagined. I could, however, be sure that something about me held his gaze as he came back from his place.I stopped breathing and kept my eyes on him. It was the most frightening thing I had ever done, letting him know that he was so deeply embedded in my heart, but I did. I met him in the space between the stars, danced with his spirit high in the night sky and created something almost tangible to those around us. When we broke contact, he set to work with his bow again, but the feeling didn’t dissolve for me.It was tempting to leave then, to walk away from the show and allow what had happened to be one of the untainted things in my life. If I met him, asked him about it, would he scoff? Would he laugh me out of the country? Would I hate him then as much as I love him now? Would he say he felt it, too? Would he love me? Would he show me that he was who I believed him to be? I’d always ran away from men without regret and because of it I had a pocket full of lovely memories, but none that could ever evolve into anything more. I wanted it to be different with Luka; I needed to know the reality.I tried to keep my eyes on him, to steel my resolve towards what I was determined to do by noting a thousand different things to appreciate in these moments and not dwell on the negative possibilities, but Stjepan effectively drove all attention towards himself. Even Luka’s gravitated towards him eventually. He was the type of showman that crowds became untethered for. I turned and looked at the crowd; they moved as though the ocean’s current covered them. The energy they gave off was addictive even to me. I turned back to the stage and gave myself over to the music and the smorgasbord of pulsating life.I went somewhere, somewhere new, on the bridge they provided. I walked amidst the music. I ran across quarter notes and bounced on crescendo’s and when I reached the end of the bridge, I jumped. I fell with full faith that I would be carried on the wings of love back to wherever it was I belonged. I smiled fully but didn’t open my eyes. My body still waved with the others, still belonged to the rhythm. My eyes cracked open and through the almost intoxicating haze I saw my experience reflected in Luka’s face.The call for people to go up front was put out but I didn’t move. I wanted to be surrounded by their fans, by the endless connection of one to the other. The group touched everybody differently, filled each spirit with something unique and personal. I could feel a trickle of that life leak into me, and smaller, almost unnoticed, I could feel a thread connect me to him. He might not have been my destiny, but I would always find a connection to him in this. They slowed down and I thought it was over, thought I’d gotten my fill from the bodies around me, but it was then that Dule wow’d the crowd further with his incredible drum skills. He beat the skins with such intensity that his rhythm was echoed in the heart of every patron in the building and their essence overflowed within me. I was one with everybody and no longer a singular speck floating in the void. They did me in.The rush ended, the guys went offstage, and I felt his absence well within me. I screamed with the fans for them to return. After a minute they did. They returned to lull us all into a calm like nothing we’d felt beyond childhood. For those precious minutes we were all safe and warm in their loving embrace, and it was that feeling that most people were walking away with when the show finally did find its end. They would walk the city streets with the remnants of 2CELLOS’ intoxication riding through their systems. They would sing, they would whisper, they would try to hold on to their taste of rapture for as long as they could. Some would chase it with a bottle, most would funnel it into lovemaking.I almost envied them, those who would end their night in the arms of somebody they loved. Mine would not. I did have one more adventure to conquer before my night was over, and that was to meet the legends. My ticket included the brief meet and greet after the show. The process of getting there was easy enough, out and to the left. I found a crowd of people waiting anxiously. Nobody would get much time to talk, but that was probably best for the stars, who didn’t have to double their show time with fan obligations.My group was second to go in. We filed through the door in an orderly manner even though we were all secretly desperate to pounce on the guys and cover them in kisses. I’d say we showed exemplary behavior. The guys greeted us all with smiles and warm welcomes from their varied positions around the room. Honestly it looked like a private after-party was forming instead of a meet and greet.I was near the back of the group when I entered, and took a moment to appreciate all the gaiety that was taking place around me. So much nervous laughter and so many wide smiles, all that positive energy was just a pleasant chaser to the evening’s brew, and everybody felt it.I approached Dusan when his crowd had cleared and was met with the most boyish grin I had ever seen on a man’s face. I had never thought of him as more than a drummer because thinking of him otherwise was a surefire path to a broken heart. He had found the love of his life and we all knew it was serious with them. Nobody could compete with her, so nobody sane tried.I gave him my name and he nodded politely. “You’re one hell of a drummer, Dule.”He smiled wider. “Thank you. Did you enjoy the show?”I wasn’t sure how to answer so I gave him a polite one. “It was the best one I’ve ever been to.”We spoke politely for a minute longer before I shook his hand and moved aside for the squealing girls behind me to have their moment with him. I wasn’t ready to face Luka yet, so I turned to Stjepan, who was wrapping up a conversation.With Stjepan, he was more familiar to me than almost any other guy, because his personality traits were almost identical to my sister’s, so I knew what to say and how to say it to get him to open up. I even had full expectations for him to flirt with me, because that was how he related to women. What I didn’t expect was for him to drape his arm over my shoulder, look me squarely in the eyes and say, “When it’s over, it’s really just beginning.” I’d looked at him for a full minute as I tried to figure out what he meant, but then he smiled as though I were a confused child and told me goodnight with a kiss on my hair.I walked away from him in a near haze. He affected people like nobody I’d known before and I wasn’t really sure why. I’d thought I was an expert on understanding people but he was a conundrum when it suited him to be. I wanted to get to know him better, to analyze him, beyond his tweets and shenanigans to his true self. He had seemed shallow once, when I’d taken somebody’s opinion of him as concrete fact, but now he seemed to be more mysterious than I would have ever given him credit for had I not seen it with my own eyes. Who was he, underneath it all?I was so lost in my curiosities about Stjepan that I didn’t realize I’d wandered towards Luka. He broke through my thoughts with a simple, “Hi.”I looked up into his face as all the air slowly drained from my lungs. “You’re…real.” It was lame, yes. I wanted to run in horror. I wasn’t that kind of person. I’d known he was real, known that he was just a person, same as me, but in that moment just being next to him was enough to steal away all rational thought.“Yes, and so are you.” He smiled at me. “We haven’t met before, right?”I shook my head, ‘No,’ and we would probably never meet again. He continued talking and I missed whatever it was that he’d talked about for several seconds as I studied the contours of his face, the swell oh his lips and the animated way his eyebrows further conveyed what he wanted you to feel. He knew how to use every part of his body to reach out to people and… How was I going to say anything I had wanted to say to him? How was I going to live with myself after wasting this opportunity?He paused and held his smile as I took a breath and looked into his eyes. There was a touch of that magic deep within them, within him, and I smiled. I couldn’t bring myself to ask about his methods or his talent, but I felt deep within that we understood each other implicitly. “Are the stars always so beautiful here,” I managed to ask before the event began to wrap up.“Not as beautiful as your smile,” I heard Stjepan comment with that flirtatiousness he was known for. Luka winked at me and I blushed furiously.Somebody offered to take our photo and I handed over my phone as Stjepan put his arm around me again, but this time he rested his hand on my hip. Luka turned and put his arm around my shoulders and Dusan joined us with that inner humor he seemed to always convey.I smiled with the warmth of his body next to mine and the tangy-sweet scent that was uniquely his wrapped inside my heart. The night had been amazing and this, being tucked under the arm of somebody more miraculous than words could convey, was the culmination of my first ever trip overseas. There were still people to befriend, food to taste for the first time, trails to hike and views to take my breath away, but no matter what I experienced from this point on, it would be nothing to the magic of tonight.I retrieved my phone and shook their hands one last time before I moved aside for the others. As I waited in the back of the room, my eyes were all for Luka. He was sweet and personable with every person there regardless of their situation; everybody was his friend. I smiled with the warmth of all the emotion in the room, from Luka, to goofy but flirtatious Stjepan, to happy-go-lucky Dusan, to all the people who were silently thanking their personal deities for bringing them into this moment. It was indeed a night to be thankful for. Notes: Stay tuned, there is much more still to come.
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