Kai had the same easy, awkward charm on stage as face-to-face. He sat on a tall stool, holding an acoustic guitar, his legs so long that his toes brushed the floor of the stage. He gave his guitar a strum, checked its tuning, the way guitarists always did, even if they knew they had just tuned their instruments. Then he took a deep breath in.

“I’m going to play some cover songs tonight,” he said. His deep voice sounded almost shy in the microphone, a bit uncomfortable, self-conscious, but the sound of it descended on the crowd and scattered remaining chattering instantly went silent. “The first one is just something I was messing around with, but I decided just now that I’ll play it because there’s someone here who I hope will like it.”

He strummed a chord, and then began. Bard recognized it instantly and so did a few kids in the crowd, who jumped and clapped in excitement.

It was “Five Years”—by David Bowie.

For me? Bard thought. No, that’s—but—did he notice? 

He looked down at his shirt, and there was David Bowie, quite clearly showing under his jacket—his unmistakable Aladdin Sane visage. Kai saw him look and then caught his eye, smiling. A few heads turned toward Bard as they followed the direction of Kai’s gaze—Bard momentarily part of the performance, part of him under the stage lights.

Kai sung the song slow and strong and earnest, his hand around the neck of the guitar almost delicate as it formed each chord. Bard found himself wishing he was closer to the stage so he could see the muscles in Kai’s forearm flex as he strummed. The crowd joined in at the chorus, but Kai’s deep voice hung over all of theirs, and the song’s tragedy—the Earth having five years left before it was destroyed—seemed somehow possible, even imminent.

If there were only five years left for Earth, Bard thought, that would be only five years he’d have to know this miraculous boy he’d just met.

Kai played three more songs—first “The Passenger” by Iggy Pop and “All Tomorrow’s Parties” by The Velvet Underground, which he sang in a breathy voice that made some girls standing near Bard exchange ecstatic expressions; the last song he said was his own. Bard listened attentively to this one. It had a sound all Kai’s own—a jangling in the guitar strumming and a lilting to the melody that was vaguely folk-like, but Kai’s vocals were almost a growl. The words were dark, disjointed—like Ian Curtis’ words in Joy Division songs, the ones that filled Bard with an unaccountably sweet sense of dread.

“And the feeling that runs through us is what binds me to you,” Kai sung, and Bard wondered what he meant, whom he meant. Perhaps it was no one in particular, but Bard had a certain longing—for that person to be him. Perhaps.

After his set, Kai strode over to Bard at the bar, and without a word took his hand. Kai’s was warm, damp. There was that tug again, pulling him along. He stood and let Kai lead him out the door into the cold, wet night. Kai turned back once to meet his eyes, smiling that smile that seemed just for him.