Let’s Not [Obliterate]

 

“Gaah!” Dema roared into a pillow for likely the third time that day. “I can’t believe her!”

“You’re still upset,” Theora observed, placing a cup of green tea on the cupboard next to the sofa to help Dema relax.

“How can you not be?” Dema asked, pulling the pillow from her face and looking up with big puppy eyes. “She just hung up on us!”

“After saying she’d meet us ‘at earliest convenience’,” Theora added, and patted Dema’s head, who responded with pouty mumbles. Invent One had even said she was going to aid in their ‘investigation’. Theora resisted the urge to nudge Dema’s horn, and went back to tidying up the apartment. Recent events had given her a burst of energy. Not only that she didn’t have a shift this evening — she was also a little step closer to solving the mystery of Amanda Dupont.

That little step was knowledge: Invent One did not operate on DNA. It sounded like Invent One could not have a twin in the common sense of the word, because apparently, she was not human. In the picture, she had looked human, though; admittedly that didn’t say too much, because Theora also looked human and had still observed some characteristics about herself throughout her life that were not usually associated with humanhood.

But, did that mean Amanda Dupont and Invent One were the same person? And why had Invent One recently visited Theora’s home in the first place? The answer to these questions was patience — all they could do was wait for Invent One to decide to grace them with her presence; it wasn’t like they had any way to locate her in the first place.

With that, another day went by and Theora welcomed their next rehearsal; it helped Dema put her mind off this puzzling chain of events, because Dema apparently had a much harder time dealing with curiosity. She was being a little antsy, so to speak.

This time, they’d decided to practise in Serim’s basement, and Dema had stared at each part of the building with an open mouth all the way in. “Are you sure we can play here?” she asked. “Other people live here too, right?”

“Yeah, but they’re out today.”

They moved down the stairs, with Dema going last, and letting out a soft “damn” as she saw the room. The basement’s walls were cracked and threatening to cave in, and the floor was littered with Serim’s projects; from disembowelled microwaves to breadboards to car batteries. As much as it looked like total chaos, Theora knew from her past visits that Serim had in fact tidied up considerably for them.

In the past few days, Dema had already half-baked a new song. For now, it consisted of a few ideas she and Serim tossed back and forth, and they occasionally asked Theora to play something to accompany a motif or a rhythm, then argued about what should be the title. From what Theora gathered, Dema kept trying to make the song more complicated, while Serim offered ideas on how to keep the balance through that. 

“For example, if you want it to sound like ‘more’, as you phrase it, you could add syncopation, instead of breaking your fingers.”

“I just gotta practise more!” Dema protested, but apparently ended up doing what Serim suggested anyway.

After about two hours, they decided to take a break and went up to the living room. Theora quickly sat down next to the window, on her favourite chair at the massive dining table. It’d been pushed back against the wall. Serim must have had seriously exerted herself doing that; she’d asked for help with that a while earlier but unfortunately Theora had missed that message while hanging out with her new crush.

Dema — the crush in question — flopped herself directly onto the table after pushing another chair out of the way, and reached out to fetch a snack from the bowl in its centre. She then just kept lying there on her back while eating. Her legs were dangling down its edge, so Theora shifted to sitting sideways so their bodies could graze each other.

“I really like it here,” Dema murmured. When she noticed Theora’s leg in the way of her own, she stopped swinging and locked her foot under Theora’s knee. “I think I love it, actually. You two got time to go to my other spot to fetch all the equipment from yesterday?”

“Well…” Serim scratched the side of her head. “If you’re sure. I didn’t initially offer this place, because… It’s kind of dangerous, to be honest. Maybe I need to move all my stuff elsewhere after all…”

Dema waved off. “Don’t worry, I’m gonna be fine!”

Serim sighed. “That doesn’t reassure me.” Her gaze flicked over. “Well, Theora being here does reassure me, but still. You are prone to getting into accidents…”

Dema was prone to getting into accidents?

“True, I feel kinda safe around her.” She pushed herself up and shot Theora a toothy grin, clasping Theora’s leg with her other foot now too. “My hero!”

“You are prone to getting into accidents?” Theora echoed her thoughts.

Serim looked incredulous. “Didn’t you meet her after she literally fell into a well?”

Well yes, Theora had. But Dema had appeared fine back then. So, that was a common occurrence?

“I’ve had a few close calls,” Dema admitted with a shrug, still holding herself up by her arms. “I’m kinda clumsy. I nearly slipped off a roof once… cars don’t always see me at night, and all.”

“There’s also that time when you fell into that big river.”

Dema pulled a grimace. “That one was my own fault! I jumped in, thought the water was deeper.” She sat up and pulled the sleeve of her blouse to reveal a mark on the outer side of her upper arm. “At least I got a scar to show for that one.” She seemed a little proud of it despite how serious it looked. Then, she waved her hands. “But anyway! Enough of that when there’s still some band stuff we gotta figure out. Most importantly, we should talk goals!”

Serim finally sat down at the table too. “Goals?”

Dema shot her a glance, eyebrows raised, with a cunning smile on her lips. “Why, we’re not doing this for fun, of course. Need a goal.”

“Really?” Theora frowned, her legs tensing gently around Dema’s. “Can’t we just keep going like this forever?”

The question caused Dema’s legs to tense too. She eyed Theora for a few seconds. “Forever, huh?” She finally sat up fully and leaned over, her face suddenly getting a lot closer. Her upper body wavered a little until she found support with her arms. “You mean that?”

Theora swallowed. “Well, perhaps not literally forever, but—”

“Right,” Dema interjected. “Exactly! So, how about we set a time frame? That sounds like a good goal to me. Let’s try to become the best band we can be, in that time, and then call it quits.”

Was Dema being antagonistic here? Why? Theora frowned. “I’m not sure I like that.”

“But don’t things become more meaningful that way?” Dema’s voice was a low, dangerous rasp. “How about… ninety days? Or maybe eighty-six, I like that number. Eighty-six days, then we quit.”

Theora reached for Dema’s hand. Dema squeezed back gently, but her words still lay heavy like boulders. If Theora had done something wrong, she didn’t know what it was. Still, “This sounds a little unfair. I would prefer it if we kept going, I think.” Her eyes flicked over to Serim, who was avoiding their gazes.

Dema pulled on Theora’s hand, bringing them both yet a little closer. “Fine, then,” she said, still with a dangerous edge. “You decide, then. Once the time’s up, you decide if we keep going or not. How about that?”

Theora managed a nod — this offer was difficult to argue with. No matter what happened, she could just say ‘yes’. At the same time, Theora felt herself getting red. Strict Dema didn’t come out often. It had to be savoured even when it felt prickly.

Dema broke away. “You good with that Zappie?”

Serim sighed, tearing her gaze away from a bookshelf she’d busied herself staring at. “Fine by me. Honestly, I’m surprised, I thought your goal would have something to do with your channel or whatever.”

Dema’s face flushed of all her previous emotion, filling with surprise. “I completely forgot about that! Yeah, how about we set the goal of finally uploading something to my channel that gets like five billion views? Or like, one that doesn’t get hate comments!”

Serim cleared her throat. “How about we settle on something realis—”

“Hey!”

“Dee, I keep telling you, if you want people’s attention, you need to write what they want to hear.”

Dema grumbled something unintelligible in response.

“No, you can’t ‘prove them wrong’,” Serim responded, and Theora was sure she hadn’t actually heard what Dema said, but may have known anyway from previous interactions. “Music is communication. If you want people to listen to you, you need to say something that’s meaningful to them.”

Dema unlocked her hand and feet from Theora’s grasp to stand up on the table. She jolted when her horn poked the ceiling, so she had to lean down a little while touching the wall with her hand as she approached Serim. “So you think music’s only valuable when it’s a hit?”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all. First of all, you are the one who wants the attention.”

Dema grumbled, but took a step back.

“And second,” Serim added, now looking straight up at her, “I’m not saying you need to reach as many people as you can — hell, I love your music, it connects to me, and I understand that that’s not enough, but I’m telling you that if you want it to connect to more people, you need to keep those very people in mind while writing, whoever they are.”

Dema slumped back down onto the table, landing in a cross-sit. “Wait, you love my music?”

Serim shrugged, as if it was obvious.

“I do—” Theora let out suddenly, jumping at the conclusion to share this, then cleared her throat. “I do too.”

Dema turned her head with the widest smile. “Really? Well, if you both like it, other people are gonna like it too! You’re both popular!”

Before Theora could protest, Serim said, “I’m a contrarian. I like it specifically because nobody else will. That’s like, the entire appeal of it.”

“Gah!” Dema snapped around in mock fury, half gotten up again. “You little…!”

Serim shot her an amused ‘bring it on’ glance. “Just so we’re clear, though. Just because not a lot of people like it, doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

Dema’s playful anger dissipated. “Yeah, I agree. Just have to find the few who think it’s good. And I already have two!” 

Serim snorted. “Honestly, I’m really tempted to go in front of a crowd just to weed out all the people who hate it.”

Dema looked a little surprised. “You’re kinda mean for someone who says I should write for my audience!”

“I’m saying you should write songs for the audience you care about having. And whom that includes is up to you.” She took a deep breath. “That said, I read enough comments on your channel to have developed a certain kind of dismay at people who dislike what you make. So I’m tempted to just go and annoy ’em. And who knows, maybe we do find other outliers who like it too.”

“So…” Dema scratched her head. “You’re saying we should play for a crowd?”

Serim nodded. “We need plausible deniability though, to even be put on, so let’s play a few cover songs at the start?”

Dema excitedly murmured something about the meaning of ‘going under cover’.

Meanwhile, Theora hummed thoughtfully. “Since not all of Dema’s songs are compatible with standard tuning, it would take a minute to fix that between a cover song and one of Dema’s originals.”

“Oh, right.” Serim tapped her thigh. “Huh. I don’t think I have money lying around for a second set of instruments. I guess we’ll have to prep some in-between program to buy you time to tune… Maybe just let Dema ramble?”

“I can do that!” Dema let out. She smiled, swinging her body side-to-side, perhaps already thinking about what she might say. “You know, this kinda reminds me of that one time when I was stuck in a waiting room for like, hours, and there were kids there too who were really bored so I started telling them a story about when I befriended a wasp queen I’d found in my bathroom in winter.”

“Yeah, like that,” Serim said.

“I put her in the fridge! So she could sleep until spring. And then I let her out to build a nest in the roof of the apartment. There were like, hundreds of wasps flying around in my flat during summer!” She made a buzzing sound and pretended her fingertips were flying bees. “I kept the window open most of the time so they could get out, and my neighbours complained a lot so I got kicked out a year later.”

“That’s awful,” Theora said.

“Yeah… really was. ’Cause I knew this lady in the building who kept coming over to make amends for that one time she hit me with her car when I was out skating.” She scratched her head. “Right, it does keep happening… But anyway, I never saw her again after getting kicked out. Big bummer ’cause like, she kept reading books to me on days when I was too lazy to get up from bed.” She shrugged. “Didn’t understand the books ’cause she was reading them in her native language that I didn’t know but it was still cosy. She wanted to practise reading for her nieces who, like, were gonna come over for the first time ever, that autumn.”

Theora pulled on Dema’s arm to drag her down into a hug. “For what it’s worth, I imagine I could tune a guitar in that time.”

“I’m sure I can come up with stories that are less of a downer too,” Dema said, a little self-consciously, and broke from the hug to look at Serim. “Or maybe one of you can come up with something?”

“I’ll pick my brain,” Serim offered. “Either way, it means we have to find a venue. Or make one.”

Dema raised her brows. “Make one?”

“Yeah. Decide on a place to perform, tell people we’ll be there. Unofficially.”

“A venue would still be nice,” Dema murmured. “Like, makes it more official, kinda. And for that, it would make sense to visit a few live shows as listeners first, so we can learn from them. Or maybe a festival.”

“I’ll see if I can find something,” Serim murmured, already on her phone. 

“Just so I can understand this properly,” Theora eventually said, “Your plan is to hold one big performance where we make everyone angry, and then we never play again?”

Serim said, “Sounds about right?” while Dema shrugged and nodded.

Theora couldn’t quite bring herself to tell them how bad this plan was. They both were so excited, Theora just couldn’t ruin it. She was still holding Dema’s slightly cold hand as the two were continuing to brainstorm.

Both Serim and Dema were immaculate players — and, granted, the kind of music Dema wrote was… unconventional… but the way she sang, the way she held herself while playing, was… captivating. To say the least. Dema was communicating all the time, perhaps just not in a way that would translate to video uploads. Her sincerity would flood from the stage and take everyone by storm. How could they be angry? No, they would love it, and they’d want to hear it again and again. This plan was doomed to fail.

And Theora certainly wasn’t thinking that simply because she happened to have fallen in love with her — in fact, it was the other way around. After all, few things in the world were as easy as falling in love with Dema.