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Chapter Text

In his bedroom, Sean Diaz opens his eyes and finds himself awake, lying flat on his small but comfortable twin-sized bed. Despite a good night’s rest, Sean can’t help but still feel drowsy as he attempts to safely get off his bed and onto the ground in one piece. As he does this, his mind flies elsewhere- he remembers studying for the math test the night before- or was it the science test? No way I studied science, that shit’s next week, he thinks to himself. Plenty of time, still. Math is like… today? Tomorrow? In either case, Sean grudgingly gets ready for the morning.

Sean doesn’t remember waking up to the sound of his alarm. A bit worried, he widens his eyes and scans his wooden nightstand for his phone. He spots its bulky exterior buried amongst a pile of half-read magazines on the nightstand’s wooden surface. 

Reaching out for the phone, Sean’s chest shudders- he really doesn’t want to deal with the stress of oversleeping today. In the past, he had been lucky if his dad hadn’t left for work and could still drive him to school, though he would then be forced to endure a long, gruelling lecture on discipline and responsibility for the whole ride. Most of the time however, his dad would already be at the workshop, meaning that Sean would have to somehow brush his teeth, get dressed, make breakfast, eat breakfast and cycle to school within half an hour. 

The task at hand isn’t impossible, but it certainly is a long chain of events with chaotic individual parts where anything could happen. There was one time where Sean overslept and he accidentally burnt the fingertip of his index finger when rushing some fried eggs. Sean doesn’t typically mind skipping school either, but he has always been more afraid of letting his Dad find out and subsequently disappointing the man.

With a light tap, Sean’s phone screen lit up. 7:28 … looks like I actually woke up slightly earlier, he says in his head. He turns off his alarm and notices his stomach growling. It’s a good thing he doesn’t need to rush some scuffed breakfast today.

But now that Sean is more awake than before, he realizes that something is off. For starters, where are all of his posters? His The Failure poster is missing too, from its usual spot above his bed. 

The view outside Sean’s window seems to have a different shade to it as well; it looks as though someone had painted white all over the outside surroundings. Sean takes a curious look outside. Instead of the usual asphalt road right outside his window, he sees- some hastily hung colored flags? And most of all- snow, not to mention piles of it outside?

“Sean? Sean, you there?” A striking and vaguely familiar voice yells out.

Sean is more than shocked. Karen? What’s she doing here? He tries responding, but his lips are sealed shut. Slightly panicking, he looks around his room once more- except that it isn’t his room. Sure, the room feels familiar- there’s the twin-sized bed in the corner of the room-

“Sean? Sean, I’m coming up-”

-the nightstand to its right and the window roughly dividing his room- except he knows that he also has a large desk right under the window in his room, which is now conspicuously missing where he is. The wall to the left of his bed isn’t supposed to be just wooden, either…

A figure suddenly enters the room Sean is in, shocking Sean beyond belief. He finds himself turning over to greet the figure in involuntary fashion. Why can’t I… move? Do anything? Sean thinks, frustrated.

But Sean realizes who the figure is. It’s just Karen. She seems… happy to see Sean. She gives out a small smile before asking: “Honey, I won’t be mad- was that you who broke the vase?”

Sean opens his mouth, but the words that come out aren’t his. “Um… no. Uh, I mean, what vase? What vase, Mom?” He sounds so young. 

It takes Karen kneeling down on one knee for Sean to realize that only now is he looking at her at equal level, eye-to-eye. Is he really short now? But as Karen lightly pats her right hand on Sean’s left shoulder, he finds himself staring into Karen’s impossibly big eyes, her pupils suddenly becoming an alluring void.

Karen chuckles warmly. “It’s not good to lie, my son.” There is a slight pause as she takes her right hand off Sean’s shoulder and gently rubs Sean’s cheeks. “But your face, it’s just- it’s so cute when you lie and it turns red.”

Sean fights hard to break through his inexplicable immobility. Now that he’s seeing his mother in the flesh, he wants to say all kinds of things- ask all kinds of questions. Ask her why she left behind their happy family, why she broke everyone’s heart. Maybe even shout and yell curse words at her, but Dad raised him better than that.

Finally, after what must have felt like five minutes, Sean does manage to muster one brief question. He asks out loud why she left. Weirdly, Sean doesn’t hear himself asking the question, but he does catch Karen’s wide grin faltering ever so slightly.

Karen’s expression shifts to a grayer tone. “Honey, I… it’s nothing to do with you or Daniel, or even Esteban. I just needed to break free.”

This time, Sean does hear himself respond to Karen. “But… why? We were one big happy family. Why would you want to run away from… having something like that?”

For some strange reason, Karen smiles yet again, her imperfect teeth slightly showing. She mouths something, but..

—

Sean recoils in cold sweat. That… was a dream? He thinks to himself, inspecting his right hand just to make sure he’s back in reality. The whole experience had felt so real, after all. 

Some level of comfort returns to his state of mind after he realizes he can freely rotate his hand and inspect it just as freely. But Sean is still kind of fucked-up from the whole experience- just what the hell was that dream all about? He forgets most of the details, unfortunately. He knows Karen makes an appearance but doesn’t recall what she said, or what his interaction with her was exactly about. 

Strangely enough however, Sean latches onto the objects of the room in the dream- yeah, the missing desk, the strange brown wall, the phone on his nightstand, the twin-sized bed… a faint, distant memory suddenly relapses. Could it be … grandma and grandpa’s place down in Oregon? He asks himself. When was the last time-

Wait . Sean realizes. The phone on his nightstand. The phone on his nightstand.

In a frenzy, Sean leaps out of bed and snatches his phone off the nightstand using pure muscle memory. The time: 10:11.

A meek voice calls out: “Yo bro, you still here?” Sean turns around to see his little brother Daniel yawning and stretching his arms right outside his door, which is wide open. “I thought you had school.”

I do, Sean groans internally.

 —

The morning becomes even worse as Sean correctly remembers that his math test is today- and it’s starting in less than half an hour. Well, maybe half an hour is a bit too generous- he has around fifteen minutes to get ready, cycle to school and be in his seat for the test. It’s not that his teacher wouldn’t let him sit the test if he is to come late, but rather it’s Sean knowing that there’s no way he could come at least 10 minutes late and still get a good grade on the 40 minute long test. He has to make it in time. Plus, he already feels somewhat guilty for skipping most of his morning classes.

Everything is on autopilot. Sean doesn’t remember brushing his teeth or getting changed, but he is at least conscious of running out the front door. His stomach growls, and he supposes that he had skipped breakfast as well. 

Okay , Sean tells himself. Got my backpack, water bottle, bike lock and everything . It’s still gonna be tight, but if I speed I can reach school and have 5 minutes to get to class.

Sean practically leaps onto his bike. He notices that his bike conveniently faces the direction he’s going in- also, isn’t his bike usually parked inside the garage? What’s it doing resting against the mailbox? These questions are swiftly swept away as Sean rapidly pedals away from his house. 

Just before leaving his street, he hears Daniel yell at him, but Sean can’t afford to turn back. Oh shit, maybe he hasn’t eaten breakfast yet, Sean realizes. He’ll apologize when he gets back home for the day.

Sean twists and turns down the winding neighborhood streets and races for the main road to school. Fortunately, his journey on the main road could be traversed with mostly bike lanes, but there’s still a short stretch of road nearing school where the bike lanes end and converge into where the cars are driving. However, he could still cycle on the sidewalk, at full speed even granted that there aren’t that many joggers or walkers.

Sean turns smoothly onto the main road, his pedalling becoming even faster as he eases into the straight bike lane. Despite the circumstance, he lets himself enjoy the breeze of the cool autumn wind. Somehow, the calm fluttering of orange leaves in his peripheral does calm his nerves down ever so slightly. The vibrancy of it all reminds him of a sketch he was working on last week. Oh fuck, I completely forgot to finish it, Sean realizes. The deadline for the art contest was… coming close? Next week maybe? However, another lingering thought finds itself looming in the back of his mind:

Why did I dream of Karen, of all people?

Sean doesn’t remember the last time he had a dream- well, more accurately, a dream that wasn’t just a wet dream (though in his defence, that was easily more than a year ago). He’s not really much of a dreamer, unlike his brother who often went on fantastical journeys in his sleep. When he did dream, it often concerned trivial or insignificant matters; the kind of dream you forget about the moment you wake up or the kind where you’re half aware of it being a dream or reality. But he’s never had such a vivid, visceral dream like the one he just experienced. More importantly, the dream felt important- like he was supposed to obtain some “moral of the story” or whatever. What was Mo- Karen even trying to say in the last few moments of the dream? 

The worst part about when Karen left them was that no one saw it coming- Sean had a feeling that Dad didn’t, either. Was she always unhappy deep down? How long had she been bottling up her feelings for it to all blow up eventually? Sean never really understood it, since she left when he was still so young. Even the happy times, when she took Sean camping in Vancouver seem muddled and distorted, almost as if they weren’t genuine, even if they felt like they were. In some twisted way, Sean sometimes envies Daniel- he doesn’t have to grapple with these conflicting feelings since he never really got to know Karen. Daniel gets to find comfort in the fact that one of his parents won’t just walk out of the door one day without explanation.

Sean’s getting teary-eyed, which is problematic because it’s not good to cycle this fast under blurry vision. Usually, he tried to shut the thought of Karen off from his mind as a means of dealing with his feelings. But now that the thought of her was practically burrowed into his mind just this morning- he starts realizing just how fucked up it the whole situation kind of is.

A hiccup gets forced out. Sean panics as it unexpectedly throws his body upwards, causing him to almost lose control of the bike. Okay, calm down Sean. You can have your breakdown later- after the math test , he tells himself. Just gotta focus on -

Sean sneezes from all the sniffling and the cold wind. It’s a big one, so he takes a few seconds to register the aftermath. However, he didn't realize- he had just run a red light and was now on the open road for any car to mow him down at any time.

He looks frantically to his left. Okay… no cars! I got lucky . What about -

A loud car horn blares from Sean’s right. Oh shit.

Sean brakes hard, but it wasn’t enough- his front wheel impacts the left side door at the front of the car. Sean closes his eyes, expecting to be flung like a ragdoll in the air like that movie scene where Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a NYC bike messenger… or something. But none of that happened- Sean’s body kind of just recoils forward violently, but he’s still mostly held in place due to his strong grip on the bike handles. The bike, alongside his body, falls back onto the ground- albeit in an abrupt fashion, but he still manages to land upright, by some stroke of luck.

Maybe the car had slowed down because it was about to make a turn into the main road? In fact, Sean thinks that the car actually came to an almost complete stop milliseconds before his bike crashed into it. In utter disbelief, Sean briefly inspects his own body for any bleeding or scratches, but there’s nothing. Nothing .

There’s no way, Sean tells himself, still shocked. He can’t believe his luck- a laugh nearly comes out. However, reality quickly comes crashing back in. He had just t-boned a car with his bike… from the looks of it, the car wasn’t completely cooked, but there was a surprisingly large inward dent on the left side door at the front as a result of the crash. It dawns on him that he was probably in the wrong too, since he was the one who ran a red light. No, he was in the wrong. In this moment of panic, he briefly locks into the glare of the driver, who is still seated inside the car.

It’s a young white woman- probably in university. Sean notes to himself internally that she doesn’t seem particularly upset, which is surprising given the circumstances, but the expression she’s wearing isn’t exactly all sunshine and rainbows either. She lets out a muffled groan from inside the car as she turns her body to roll down the driver window. “Hey man, you alright?”

Sean doesn’t realize it's his turn to speak before the woman clears her throat, exasperated. He still can’t believe it- he had really just crashed into a car and somehow got out unscathed. As a biker, even! “Uh, yeah. You?” He asks while avoiding eye contact.

The woman sighs. “Um, of course I’m alright. I’m the one in the car.” She bends over, slightly popping her head outside the open window to inspect the state of the side door. “Oh, crap. Um- look man, do you have like a parent? A guardian or someone that I can call?”

Sean feels like his entire body just collapsed. Dad’s gonna be so pissed. I overslept and rammed into a car? Alarm bells go off in his head. Then, it hits him like a truck- the math test! He’s screwed up this much already, he can’t possibly afford to fuck that up as well. Briefly taking his phone out to look at the time, he breathes a sigh of relief- he can probably still make it, but it was now or never. He needs to go now.

“Um, hello? You sure you’re okay, man?” The woman waves her right hand in front of Sean, who now looks like he might as well have gotten physically injured. 

Sean nervously begins: “Uh, look, I- I’m sorry for ramming into your car. Maybe-” He frantically reaches into his bag and tears out a page from the sketchbook he always has. With absolutely no regard for his handwriting, he scribbles down his own number with ol’ reliable and gives the torn page to the woman. “Just- I’m in a rush, just call me back at this number and we’ll settle everything later today. I promise-” He doesn’t even finish his sentence properly before reversing his bike away from the car, preparing to flee the scene. For a fleeting moment, Sean realizes how quiet it is around him- no one was around to witness the accident. Not a single living soul. 

Swerving around the car, Sean cycles away and continues along the bike lane. His heart feels stabbed with pangs of guilt as he hears the distant shouting of the woman, fading away in the distance. 

Sean realizes that he didn’t really think this through- the woman’s probably right on his tail, any moment now. But he’s in too much of a state of shock to even entertain the idea of turning back to check- what if he rammed into another car for not looking? Fuck, fuck, I’m so fucked , he keeps thinking as he speeds for school. Fuck, fuck, fuck .

But by some twisted sense of humor, nothing is chasing Sean. Three minutes pass, and Sean barges the school’s front doors open, sprints down the brown, depressingly lit school hallways, finds the room of his test and practically dives into his seat, just in time for his math test to begin in under a minute.

Sean may be on the track team, but he’s completely out of breath. The morning he had just endured was batshit insane. From the corner of his vision, he sees his best friend Lyla nudge him from the left of his seat. The two exchange nods, and Lyla faintly utters to her exhausted friend: “Didn’t think you’d make it.”

Chapter Text

Sean bites his lips as he leaves the test room. The math test went unexpectedly horrible, even though Sean had actually bothered to set aside a decent chunk of his week to prepare for it. Sure, he’s not the worst at math, but the test questions begged to differ. What infuriated him the most was that it wouldn’t have mattered whether he had come a whole hour earlier or twenty minutes late; the trigonometry test questions were unlike anything he had ever seen in his fucking life. Now he would have to deal with the car situation as well as a bad test score on the horizon.

Sean walks defeatedly to his locker for next period, biting his lips as he avoids everyone out of shame. Right when he swings the locker door wide, however, he feels a light poke on his upper back. In his mind, he deduces who it is and says: “Yo.” without turning away.

“How was the test?” a girl’s voice asks. Who else, Sean remarks internally as he puts the last book he needs into his backpack and turns around to confront Lyla’s question.

“Well… I don’t wanna talk about it.” Sean says, trying to appear as neutral as possible.

“Damn. That bad?” Lyla asks. “I finished like, ten minutes early.” 

Sean deliberates for a one or two seconds- does he let Lyla know the truth of the matter? He then makes up his mind and settles with: “Well, I didn’t say it went bad. How bold of you to assume that I bombed it.”

Lyla lets out a light chuckle. “Fair enough.” She paces around and looks at the fiberglass ceiling. “Didn’t you study together with Jenn though?”

The question hits Sean like a truck. Sure, he did study together with Jenn, and she did help break down a lot of the confusing math problems, but he wasn’t sure that he was solely focusing on math that day. He opts for an unsuspecting response: “Yeah, but I guess it didn’t really stick to me anyways.”

Lyla seems unsatisfied by the answer, but doesn’t press further. “Wanna grab lunch?”

Sean looks confused. “What are you talking about? Lunch isn’t-” Oh, right . Sean realizes. Skipping most of his morning classes had made him forget that the test actually finished right before lunch. “-oh never mind. Yeah, you’re right.”

Lyla tilts her head slightly, her face wearing an expression of concern. “Oh yeah, you alright dude? Didn’t see you in chemistry this morning. Plus you looked like you just ran a mile when you barged into the test room.”

Sean groans. He shuts the locker door and starts walking in the direction of the cafeteria, which automatically prompts Lyla to walk beside him. Sean raises his right hand in front of him with his palm open and slightly curled fingers, intending to make a point: “Okay, first of all- I can definitely hold a mile, alright? I’m on the fucking track team.” This earns a snicker from Lyla, who isn’t even trying to hide it. In response, Sean starts smiling and continues: “Okay, fuck you! Honestly.” 

Lyla laughs dryly. “Hey man, it’s just a saying. Relax.” Maintaining her smile, she pushes and looks loosely in Sean’s direction as the duo keep walking. “You trying to avoid the question, though?”

Sean sighs- there’s too many people crowded around the school hallways to hear it, though. “I mean, I just overslept. I woke up at like 10 something and had to speedrun here for the test.” He leaves out the minor event that he had also survived a traffic accident where most people would have perished.

The duo end their conversation abruptly as they notice the heaps of people pouring into the cafeteria entrance. This is nothing unusual- the cafeteria tends to be absolutely packed at the start of lunch period. Both Sean and Lyla patiently squeeze themselves through the wave of people that always seem to crowd the area near the entrance and eventually make it out.

Sean scans the cafeteria tables, looking for any presence of their friend group. “You see them?”

His question briefly catches Lyla off guard, but she is quick to recover after Sean repeats his question. “No. Uh, not even sure if they’re coming, actually,” she replies. “They did say they were coming later though.”

Sean bites his lips. “Well, it’s gonna be fun trying to find a seat when it’s this packed. I swear it’s usually not this full.”

Lyla responds: “Unlucky.” However, her eyes light up as she points somewhere in front of her, which gets Sean to follow her fingertip. “Look! I see them.” Lyla walks to the table she was pointing at as Sean follows behind.

Sean tries to confirm for himself by squinting his eyes- yeah, that’s them alright . Adam and Ellery . 

They eventually make it to the table. Lyla makes their presence known by slapping both her hands on the shoulders of an unsuspecting Ellery, which understandably shocks the poor boy, knocking his juicebox out of his hand and onto the lunch table; on the table, lone bursts of orange juice squirt out from the box into small puddles. 

Adam laughs, unaffected by Lyla’s scare since he was sitting across Ellery. He asks Sean and Lyla: “You two joining us?”

Sean steps in from behind Lyla. “Yeah. Just finished math.”

Ellery wipes down the juice stain that he accidentally spilled from getting scared. “Oh yeah, you guys had a test right?”

Lyla looks mischievously at Sean- Sean avoids eye contact with the girl. “Yeah, it went alright.” He nods, with the awkward realization that from behind Ellery couldn’t possibly see it.

“Yeah, it was okay. Nothing crazy.” Lyla says, “I thought you guys were coming later? What changed?”

“Tryouts got cancelled today. Well, I shouldn’t say cancelled, they were technically just delayed to tomorrow.” Adam says.

Ellery interjects: “Club president got sick or something.” A brief pause. “Probably from the set she was doing yesterday in the rain- you guys know you can sit, right?”

Right, Sean thinks. Still kind of out of it . He sits besides Ellery while Lyla crawls under the table to wind up on Adam’s side of the table. “Woah girl, chill!” Adam chuckles lightly. Lyla bumps her head coming up, but she seems relatively unscathed as she finally seats herself besides Adam.

The table settles into comfortable silence, bar the loud chatter of their surroundings and Ellery’s furiously loud munching sounds. Sean had known him for, what- since they were little kids? And the boy always seemed to eat as if he was an in-session foley artist in a recording booth.

Adam is the one to break the silence. “Y’all not getting lunch?”

Sean answers on behalf of him and Lyla. “Well, maybe when the lines get shorter.”

Ellery interrupts with a full mouth. “Mmph, ris is soe hood.” Eventually, he swallows his food whole and exclaims: “Can’t go wrong with this chicken, man.”

The table goes back into comfortable silence mode, but Lyla, seeming a bit bored at the moment, attempts to spice things up- at least this is what Sean guesses as he observes a mild flicker in her eyes. “You guys wanna hear something cool?”

The three boys stare at her. Sean, now slightly intrigued, decides to press on since he’s fairly certain that Lyla’s not just trolling him and the others. “Yeah, what?”

“Guess who’s doing a fucking suprise-”

Ellery abruptly cuts in, pointing his left hand at Sean: “Wait yo, Sean I just remembered. Word is that Jenn’s gonna be at tryouts too!”

Lyla turns to Ellery with a cold glare and exclaims: “Yo, quit interrupting!” Sean wants to giggle at her adorable reaction, but past experience seals his lips up like a clam. In fact, he almost completely overlooks what Ellery just said.

But before Sean can drill in about Jenn, Ellery suddenly becomes self-aware and recognizes his mistake: “Oh, my bad. Didn’t hear you talk. Well, not my fault. They say your hearing is half as good when you’re chewing on something.” After sharing his brief scientific trivia, Elllery continues hammering the living hell out of his grilled chicken breast.

Adam enters the conversation, a bit lost for words. “What?”

Ellery clarifies with a half-full mouth: “Y’rho, his a sinegrifif fe. Wehn yurh eaten, oh shooing ohn ekneeing-”

“Okay, j- just finish your fucking food. I have no idea what the fuck- you just said.” Adam says as he breaks into laughter at the last part of his sentence, which also sets Sean and Lyla into laughter. 

Ellery, unable to resist his own laughter, just barely avoids making a mess on the table. Sean tries to be as alert as possible because he isn’t sure if Ellery will puke out everything in his mouth. The danger recedes when Ellery opens his mouth and talks normally again: “Yeah, but Sean, like I was saying before, Jenn’s gonna be at the music room. Tomorrow.”

Sean can only laugh nervously in response. “Yeah, I heard you,” He puts up a defensive front. “What’s that got to do with me?”  Sean thought that the conversation topic was going to return to whatever Lyla was about to announce.

Practically everyone around the table groaned in unison. “Dude, c’mon. You gotta make a move. It’s literally the perfect opportunity.” Adam begins.

“Okay, slow down there. Relax,” Lyla argues, her voice impassioned for some reason. “It’s definitely a good chance, but uh? Perfect? I mean, she’s probably more focused on trying to get the part than-”

“I mean, have you seen the amount of people trying to audition? Bro, she’s gonna have to wait like half an hour before she even gets near the club room door, if it was anything like last year’s tryouts.” Adam interjects. 

Lyla shrugs- a sign of acknowledgement. “Okay, fair, fair- maybe our boy Sean makes a move in this short time window. But uh, how does it even work? He’s just gonna, like, pull up to her in the hallway and… do the deed?”

“Okay, I will say that last year I saw someone do this. Uh, I think it was Brad. Or Carter. Actually now that I think about it I’m not sure.” Ellery adds.

Sean widens his eyes in confusion. “Uh, do what?”

“Bro, like, get a girl’s number.” Ellery replies, but then he pauses momentarily. “Actually, come to think of it, I don’t thi-”

It’s time for Lyla to cut Ellery off instead this time. “Wait, wait. Guys, we’re thinking about this all wrong,” she points at Sean, “what if you just- you go to the tryouts and impress her that way?”

Everyone on the table turns to look at her. Sean gets ever so slightly flustered. Perform?? Sure, he’s a horny sixteen year old, but he’s not sure that he’s that desperate. What would I even perform? I’m no good at anything music-related, not really, Sean thinks to himself. Well, except..

Sean tries to break the unexpectedly infused tension with a light chuckle. “Hah, I mean, what would I even try out for? Isn’t the Dazzlers kind of an alt-rock thing?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. Maybe um, one of us sneaks in and blasts some rap instrumental in the background to work your magic.” Lyla suggests. She turns and looks at Ellery: “Ellery, you still have that JBL speaker right? This could be like a whole stealth operation.”

Ellery smiles uncomfortably. “Well… I could, theoretically… but I don’t want to piss off… y’know.”

Adam breaks into uncontrollable laughter. “Talk about inaction. Bro, you haven’t done shit to get her attention-”

“Hey..! Adam, I-” Ellery shouts. His face reddens. 

Lyla tilts her head ever so slightly as her teeth shines through a devious grin. “Oh my goodness. You have a thing for the music club president? Since when?”

Sean is in disbelief too. “Yeah, you kept this from us?”

“To be fair, I found out pretty recently too.” Adam clarifies nonchalantly as he munches on a carrot. Sean, to this day, still doesn’t understand the appeal of the vegetable. He looks at Adam with silent contempt.

Ellery sighs. “I was gonna tell y’all after tryouts, but I guess… I mean, hopefully I can steal her heart with some ditties on my acoustic.”

Adam chuckles in response. “Hey, I wouldn’t count on it. Singers get all the adoration.”

“Fuck you, Adam. I can sing too, but not while playing some of the songs I want to play. At- at the audition.” Ellery says, slightly tripping around his words.

“No offense, but in my opinion, Adam’s a much better singer. He kinda got robbed last year when you made it but he didn’t.” Sean adds. 

Ellery’s face grows red- he’s almost fuming, it seems? But he seizes the chance to quickly change topics. “So Sean, what song are you gonna rap?”

Sean laughs. “I mean, are we for real? Like, we’re doing this?” He points at himself for dramatic effect, but after glancing at everyone's stoic expressions the truth quickly dawns on him.

Ellery avoids Sean’s glance. “Hypothetically.” What was that supposed to mean? Sean thinks. These things… they kinda happen or they don’t, right?

Lyla punches Ellery’s shoulder. “Stop being such a bitch. All we- you gotta do is plant the speaker behind something. Tuck it under a sofa or something. I don’t fucking care. They won’t care about you being around since you were in the band last year, right? Even though you’re technically still trying out for them.”

Ellery’s eyes flash. Knowing Ellery, Sean figures that the boy probably just realized something- something he can take advantage of.

“Do it for Sean,” Lyla says slyly, seemingly unaware that Ellery’s probably going to agree, provided some conditions.

“Okay, I’ll do it.” Ellery pauses, seemingly for dramatic effect. “But y’all have to get me Overwatch.”

The three other members of the table ponder over the “trade deal”. Well, to be frank, Adam and Lyla were doing more of the pondering, because Sean was really unsure about the plan. Was Jenn even into rap? Sean rapping could have the reverse effect. Also, the last time Sean even did any rapping in front of a crowd was months ago- what if he completely bombs? He doesn’t want to make a fool of himself in front of everyone there. What if-

“Deal,” Lyla says, offering a handshake. Ellery accepts and shakes Lyla’s hand graciously- Sean notes that he looks so happy it’s as though they already bought him the game.

“Yeah, sure. But to be honest I just want to see more of Sean’s rapping.” Adam says, “Like seriously, you were awesome last year, Sean, when you were rapping the Streets.”

Sean looks down on the table. He’s never been too comfortable receiving praise from others. “Uh, thanks. That means a lot.”

“Alright, let’s stop with the goopiness,” Lyla says with a plastic smile. “Wanna go grab something now, Sean?”

—

The rest of the day moves on like a blur. After lunch period ends, Sean makes his way to his history class and says goodbye to his friends. It doesn’t take long for him to then settle into his all too familiar Monday routine. After history, he would have English and Spanish- not a terrible sequence of classes, but history is going to be a drag.

Sean spins his pen in boredom as he struggles to pay attention in history class. Everytime he tries his hardest to zero in on what his teacher’s even talking about, he eventually hears some phrase he doesn’t quite understand- followed by another supposedly important historical event that he has no knowledge of- and his mind drifts elsewhere. 

Unfortunately, it’s not like Sean can just doodle away on his sketchbook- he got told off once by the history teacher. Even if the history teacher didn’t care, Sean still wouldn’t be able to draw since he can’t focus with the teacher’s constant lecturing. So Sean’s thoughts circle around a few things in his immediate mental proximity, such as being done for the day.

Spanish is usually pretty free-for-all because Sean doesn’t need to pay attention in that class. As for English- well, Sean’s pretty certain that his English teacher hates his guts for some reason, but the worst part is that he has no idea what he even did for that to happen.

After that, he’s good for the day. No track practice today, so he could just take the bus home. Then he can just chill for the rest of the day, or go hang out with Lyla depending on if she-

Oh shit, I almost forgot about the lady from earlier today , Sean realizes. He’s going to have to face the music- there’s no escaping it. Actually, did she even call yet…? Sean reaches into his right pocket for his phone, but stops himself when he remembers that he’s still in class. “Shit,” he mutters before realizing he didn’t mean to utter his reaction out loud.

It’s too late. His history teacher, who’s sitting and kind of leaning on top of his table, stops talking and looks up from the textbook. Despite holding a thick textbook spanning at least a thousand pages, he impressively lowers his textbook-holding hand in a uniform, arc-like fashion. “Do you have something to add, Mr. Diaz?” He says sternly.

“Uh, n- no, Mr. Ashburn.” Sean replies, a little terrified. He catches some lone giggles from the corner of his vision. This is pretty embarrassing.

“Well, continue from the part we left off from anyways.” The teacher says nonchalantly. “Since you’ve been listening.”

Sean gulps. This fucking guy .. he thinks to himself. Just as he is about to concede, he hears someone faintly calling out his name. It’s Brett, who’s a few seats away from him, who flashes a crafty grin at him. “Yo, it’s page 42.” 

Sean doesn’t fall for it- Brett’s been known to be his public enemy no. 1, for whatever reason. Plus, Brett gave him the wrong page number last time he got caught like this, so he decides to come clean, reasoning that Dad would have wanted him to- even though he knows he’s really just coping. “Uh, sorry, where exactly did we stop?” he asks, trying to hide how flustered he feels.

“Page 42, the start of the first paragraph. Mr. Diaz, see me after class.”

—

Things went about as well as Sean expected. His teacher sternly told him off and subjected him to an unpleasant lecture on respect and good behaviour. The typical “I know that you’re not giving it your all” speech- no, monologue, given that Sean stayed silent the whole time. A wave of relief did wash over him when he realized the teacher wasn’t going to send him to detention- so he apologized quickly as a sign of fake remorse and made haste for Spanish class.

Which is when he catches sight of Brett in the hallways. Sean seethes with anger as he sees him cracking jokes together with his idiot friend group, all of whom are actually borderline racist, at least from his experience. A bitter memory floats into mind, where one of them actually mouthed a racial slur behind Sean’s back, not knowing that he had heard it.

Sean’s gonna have to walk past them to get to Spanish. He tucks both hands in his jean pockets and looks down onto the white tiled floor. The raucous laughter from the group comes to an abrupt stop as all of them look over at Sean. Sean doesn’t look back as he walks past the group, anxiety mounting as he isn’t sure whether they would walk up and try to do something from behind him.

Instead however, he hears the faintest sound of someone talking, before the whole group erupts into laughter once again.

Before Sean can react, he feels a vibration in one of his pockets. He takes out his phone- it’s Dad. Uh oh , Sean thinks. Does he already know about the thing from earlier? No way.  

He scans the chat log briefly, which to his relief contains no evidence that his dad knows about the car accident.

Dad: Hi son come over today to the garage

Dad: Need some help since Sam’s oof today

Dad: off

Chapter Text

Sean really only started helping around his dad’s garage a few years back, even though he’s never really shared the same love for cars as his old man. He was mostly delegated to the inventory and customer service side of the business. Sometimes he also helped to clean the place. He usually only comes in to help if one of his Dad’s employees calls in sick or whatever; today is going to be one of those uncommon occasions.

Sean strides into the shop through the front and waves to his dad, who is about to go underneath a car on his squeaky creeper- it’s probably as old as Sean himself. He has a faint memory of using it to skate around the shop before his dad caught him. He briefly catches sight of several of his dad’s employees, who are busy fixing up a different car. One of them is outside, standing near the wired fence, and it looks like she’s.. on a smoke break? Her face seems new.

Settling behind the counter on an old wooden chair, Sean idles on his phone and checks Facebook. He realizes that he still needs to check his missed calls, in case the woman from earlier had called him. But apparently not yet.

Sighing relief, Sean leans back and tips his chair. That’s one thing to worry about for later , he figures. Still, he can’t shake the feeling that with his luck, her car would end up right here in Diaz Auto Master. Not that it mattered, of course- he was gonna have to tell his dad by the end of the day. Maybe even right now in the shop, but that depends on his dad’s mood. 

He glances at his dad, who’s hard at work. He shudders as he recalls a distant, unpleasant memory; just two years ago, his dad had tried to show him some basic car repair stuff such as oil changes, but he kept messing up the steps when performing the same procedure on a customer’s car- it got to the point that his dad had to intervene and pull away Sean’s hands before he could wreak more irrevocable damage to the car’s engine. To this day, Sean still shivers when imagining the customer’s furious yelling at the time. He was (justifiably) shouting and demanding compensation for the car’s ruined state while his dad apologized profusely. 

But the great thing about his dad was that even after all of that, the whole family still had their usual Friday gaming session in the living room later that day- as if nothing even happened. Nowadays, even if Sean thinks he’s too cool to play games together with his family, he can’t deny that a small part of him still misses those old late night, carefree gaming sessions. 

Wow , Sean realizes. I really, really don’t want to disappoint Dad, but maybe he’ll be understanding about-

“Yo, Sa- Sean?”

Oops. Sean snaps back to reality as one of his dad’s employees calls him. She’s sporting medium-length greenish hair, a modestly toned beanie- she was the one smoking outside. “Oh! Sorry, uh- hi. What’s up, um..” he looks for the employee’s name tag, but it doesn’t seem like she wears one. Sean has to look up to her- she’s surprisingly tall. “... yeah, what do you need?”

“You know if we got any harmonic dampers back there?” She asks, signalling the storage space behind Sean by nodding up.

Sean thinks. “There should be. I can check-” He gets up and makes his way over to the storage space. There’s one right by the entrance of the space, so he grabs it and makes his way back to the counter. 

“Here you go,” he hands the tool over to the employee. “This should be it.”

The employee inspects the tool, not seeming entirely satisfied. “Uh, where’s the bolts?”

“Bolts? That come together with it?” Sean asks as the employee nods her head. “Not gonna lie, I didn’t see any back there. Maybe-”

“Okay, don’t sweat it kid. There’s probably some bolts lying around. Thanks though,” She holds up the harmonic damper as a gesture of thanks and flashes a smile. “Oh yea, kinda forgot that I’m totally new here. Name’s Chloe.”

Sean awkwardly initiates a handshake, which Chloe also awkwardly reciprocates. Her expression is unreadable. “Hi, Chloe, name’s.. wait, how do you already kno-”

“Yea, your dad’s been buzzing about you non stop the whole two weeks I’ve been here. Well, whenever he’s not busy shouting at me whenever I fuck up.” Chloe says blankly. “Nice guy all around though.”

Sean is curious. “What’d he say about me?”

“Err, well.. ” Chloe turns around and glances at her hard-at-work boss, who is currently under some car. “I probably shouldn’t say. Boss-employee privilege or whatever it’s called.”

“Pretty sure you just made that up, but fair enough.” Sean forcibly laughs.

Chloe puts on a faint smile. “I should get back to it. Nice to-” Some punk music plays abruptly, startling both her and Sean. She frantically reaches for her phone and seems to pick up a call. “Yo, Max? What happened, I’ve been trying to..” Her voice fades out as she walks away from the counter. 

Sean’s a little taken aback- he’s used to burly, middle-aged workers at the garage, not slender green-haired girls. Also, she- Chloe seemed really young- well, maybe not as young as him, but she’s definitely in her twenties. He tries throwing a few glances at her from behind the counter. They didn’t talk for long, but her face was just so beautiful and-

Goddammit, Sean, stop being so horny. Plus, Jenn’s the one you’re into, right? He briefly pauses his thoughts. Well, that’s if the freestyle tomorrow doesn’t freak her out .

As of now, Sean’s not exactly busy- usually his dad would tell him what to do once he came into the garage, but sometimes Sean would have to wait awhile if he happened to be preoccupied with customers or repairs. Seeing that his dad is still busy, and that he’s still dreading the thought of bringing up what happened this morning, Sean decides to whip out ol’ reliable together with his trusty sketch book. He flips through various pages, each filled with a jumble of drawings ranging from highly stylized ones to five-minute quickies. He’s trying to find the one that he’s likely going to submit to that art contest that he just remembered about earlier this morning.

Eventually, Sean does find it. It’s basically a drawing of his room from his perspective of sitting on his bed. Structurally, the whole thing was done- his room window forming a nice backdrop in the right half, the personality and vibrance of the various posters on his walls in the middle and left, and the various other intricate details of his room. He forgot what the contest’s exact theme was, but to be honest he couldn’t care less- sure, he’s passionate about drawing, but it was his dad who pushed for him to submit something. Apparently he found out about the contest a few weeks ago, though Sean’s not sure how he knew. Maybe-

His phone rings.

Nervously, Sean reaches for his phone and dreadfully clicks the power on button. It’s just the home phone- phew. He exhales out of relief and answers- it’s probably just Daniel. “Hello?” He begins.

“Yo bro?” A high pitched voice rings out. 

“Yeah, what’s up?” Sean answers. He suddenly becomes self conscious about his voice, but the intrusive thought quickly dissipates.

Daniel sounds like he’s almost pleading. “I need help with my math homework. Are you coming home soon?” 

“Sorry bro, I’m helping Dad at the garage,” Sean shivers as he recalls the catastrophic math test that he had earlier today. “Maybe later?”

“Okay.” Daniel replies. The two sink into silence; they usually never spoke more than they had to anyways. 

But something else flickers in Daniel’s young mind. “Wait, bro, what happened today?”

Sean is taken aback, but he decides to play dumb- he doesn’t really want to get into the whole Karen dream right now, especially not with Daniel. “What do you mean what happened today?”

“I mean, this morning. You were acting kinda weird.” Daniel treads.

Sean scoffs, a lone bead of sweat trickling down his face. “Well, maybe because I was running late. For a test.”

You can almost hear Daniel’s disbelief from the other end. “Nah, I can tell it wasn’t that. You seemed kinda spooked out the whole time.”

Sean twitches around in his chair, unsure of exactly what to say. A change of topic might suffice. “Um, speaking of getting spooked out, have you picked out your costume for Halloween yet?”

The topic change works like a charm as Daniel’s excited squeals abruptly shatter Sean’s eardrums. Well, close to shattering them at most. “Dude! Dude! I- Wait, no. Guess who I’m going as.” 

Sean fakes some enthusiasm. “Who?”

“A Minecraft skeleton! Or a zombie. Or a zombie skeleton!” Daniel answers. “I’m gonna get Dad to help me make a see-through Minecraft skeleton head. Maybe some fake blood too! Or a diamond sword!”

“Cool,” Sean says indifferently. Truth be told, he’s kinda at the age where he’s very much over Halloween- though he’s praying that his dad won’t make him dress up to accompany Daniel this year. “Have you started? Halloween’s one week away, right?”

Daniel eagerly replies: “Yeah. I spent today gathering supplies like cardboard. I also used some of the painting stuff from your room to colour the skeleton head. It’s so big, I had to use up-”

Sean’s heart sinks as he abruptly leans forward in his seat. “Wait. Use up? The acrylic paint? In my room?” He had bought it recently with some of the money left over from getting Misty Mice concert tickets for himself and Lyla. It was pretty expensive, and Sean was saving it for special occasions. He’s praying that Daniel happened to use his old paint set.

Daniel replies, his voice slightly quivering. “Yeah, they were in a red box. Was I..”

Sean nearly rips into his brother, but given that he’s out in public he instead opts to furiously pinch his nose and look downwards; though he’s barely able to restrain himself from going all out. “Daniel, what the fu- shit, I thought I told you not to touch anything in my room!”

You can hear Daniel wince on the other end. “S- sorry, bro. I thought I could use it.”

“What do you mean you thought you could-” Sean’s too upset to speak properly, but he eventually manages to form a confrontation out loud. “Dude, how many times do I have to tell you? Don’t touch my shit!”

“I just-”

Sean hangs up. He tries to man up and hold the tears back, but it's hard. Today has just been such a lousy fucking day. That Karen shit, bombing the math test, getting roped into some dumbass freestyle performance tomorrow that might embarrass himself in front of the whole school- and now he finds out that his asshole brother used his expensive acrylic paint? Used up his acrylic paint? 

And of course the incident with the lady.

Nope, I’m just gonna close my eyes , Sean tells himself, and he proceeds to bury his face in his hands. Shitty fucking day , he curses. 

“Hijo? You okay there?” 

Sean uncovers his face in shock, perhaps a little embarrassed of being so exposed in his despair. It’s his dad, who’s standing in front of the counter and looking at him a bit worriedly. “Oh hey, Dad. Yeah, I’m good.”

His dad is not convinced. “Sean, you don’t look good. Bad day?”

Sean is partially relieved by his dad’s spot-on read of him. “..I guess you could say that.” He focuses on his dad’s face. He’s never really paid much attention to it in terms of facial features, but it’s starting to dawn on him that his dad’s starting to get old- he catches some newly formed wrinkles on the forehead and some patches of crow’s feet. He shudders as a mental image of his dad with full-on white hair enters his mind.

“Uh, Earth to Sean?” Sean’s dad waves his hand in front of a dazed Sean, now looking more perplexed than worried. He lets out a chuckle. “Before this I was worried, but now I’m honestly relieved to see that you’re sound enough to daydream at least.”

Sean chuckles nervously as he scratches the back of his head. Okay, he’s in a good mood. Probably time to tell him. Thousands of thoughts fly through his mind, but at some point he decides to stop overthinking everything and to just go for it. “Dad, can I tell you something?”

“Of course.” Sean’s dad replies immediately.

“So just earlier today..” Sean begins, but the words don’t come out as smoothly as he hopes. As a matter of fact, they don’t seem to be coming out at all . He’s completely frozen up. Okay, maybe he’ll just tell him later. “..never mind. But Daniel, he just used up all my expensive paint.”

His dad seems to empathize. “That must blow. Why’d he do it?”

“I don’t know..” Sean begins, but he realizes he does actually know. “.. He wanted to work on his stupid Halloween costume.”

His dad walks forward to sit on the counter, turning his body to the left to look at Sean. “I’m sure your brother didn’t mean to use your stuff.”

“But.. He literally did!” Sean exclaims. “He- it doesn’t matter how many times I tell him, he never listens! When is he gonna grow up?”

Sean’s dad lets out a heavy sigh and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Sean, he’s only nine. Este es tu hermano y solo tienes uno, you know,” He then pats Sean’s back twice. “You know he loves you, right? You got to show that love back too by forgiving him sometimes. As his big brother, he looks up to you.”

Sean sulks: “But it’s so not fair! Why does he get away with stuff like this all the time?”

“Hey, no one said that being the big brother is going to be easy,” His dad raises both his hands in the air whilst looking at Sean. “But since you’re such a good big brother, I’m willing to make some financial reimbursements for your loss.”

Sean lights up. “Aw, really? You’ll pay me back for the paint?”

Sean’s dad crosses his arms and looks to the side. “Well, not for free.” Seeing Sean completely deflated once more, he retracts his words: “Hey, I’m kidding! I know how hard you’ve been working that Z-Mart job, so I’ll pay you back for it.. this time.” 

Sean’s dad uttering the word “job” reminds Sean of something. “Right, Dad, didn’t you say that you needed my help or something? Since Sam wasn’t here.”

Something seems to click for Sean’s dad. “Oh, right. We did need help, but I forgot that the new hire can help around instead. She’ll be doing inventory when we close up.” He bites his lips, perhaps out of guilt. “Sorry about that, son. But hey, I’m getting you that paint set..!”

Sean’s on the verge of hopping up and down like a happy little bunny, but his sense of dignity prevents him. Instead, he settles for a sincere, full-teeth glowing smile. “Thanks soo much, Dad. I think I’ll need it for the contest.”

“Oh yea, how’s that coming along?” his dad inquires. 

“Eh, it’s okay,” Sean says. “I have something in the works, and all that’s left is the colouring.”

“That sounds hard,” his dad scratches his chin. “Then again, I wouldn’t really know.. was never too good at art when I was a kid.”

Sean chuckles, which also delights his dad. “Wait, I thought I got my drawing skills from you.” 

“Oh, if that were the case, you probably would have peaked in elementary school in terms of artistic ability.” Esteban jokes. 

Sean fails at pretending to be unamused at his dad’s genuinely funny statement and gives a good laugh. In fact, he laughs so hard he fails to see his dad turn away to look at something in the distance. No, it’s not something- it’s someone, who just called out for his dad. The girl in the beanie- Chloe, from earlier. Unlike her composed cool from earlier, she seems a bit flustered. She’s sprinting up to them.

“Boss, uh, I know that my shift isn’t over, plus I’m new here and all, but I really gotta go. I’m so sorry.” Chloe anxiously says. 

Sean’s dad seems more concerned than upset. “Everything okay, Chloe? Where are you going?”

Chloe lets out a groan in frustration. “Apparently- uh, my girlfriend. She got hit-and-run by some kid on a bike, and her car door’s totalled. I gotta go check on her.”

Chapter Text

Sean doesn’t really register what was said afterwards. Physically, he’s still in the garage, but his mind’s racing a thousand miles per hour in the clouds. His ears feel like they’ve shut themselves off from all external noise. He had actually just jinxed himself so bad; by some twisted sense of humour, the car he rammed into belonged to..

Well, most likely belonged to Chloe’s girlfriend. There isn’t any concrete evidence as of now for a definitive answer, though Sean realizes how unlikely it is for there to be another accident involving a bike and a car on the same day- much less one where the guy on the bike got off easy.

Sooner or later, Sean stops being in a daze and is able to hear his dad talk out loud again. “-sure she’s fine. But if you really gotta go, I understand.” His dad reassures Chloe. 

Chloe bites her lips firmly, her expression anguished. “Yeah, I know, but..” She seems to think carefully about what she says next. “She- I guess I’m slightly overreacting. It happened earlier this morning, so she really should be okay if she’s calling now. Physically okay, at least.” Sean’s heart sinks when he hears the last part of Chloe’s sentence. The timeline of events is beginning to match up.

Sean’s dad looks relieved, but mostly understanding. “I’m sure she’s fine. Hopefully she’s not in too much shock, though.”

Chloe seems frustrated. “I just wish she called me sooner! She wasn’t picking up any of my calls today, but I thought she was just hard at work.”

“She get a picture of the damage?” Sean’s dad asks.

“Yea, yea,” Chloe affirms. “Actually, she took a few more-” She takes out her phone from her pocket, unlocking it to show Sean and his dad a picture. “-she took this one right before the jackass ran off.”

Sean doesn’t even have to look at it, but his curiosity gets the better of him. Getting a closer look, he comes in from behind his dad to see the picture and holds his breath.

However, Sean’s caught off guard- it’s a selfie of a young woman, who isn’t smiling or making any effort to appear photogenic. Her brown, slightly frazzled neck-length hair slightly obscures her face. The odd angle of the shot makes her chin comically prominent, and she seems to be looking off into the distance. 

Oh, and it’s the woman he rammed into.

Sean isn’t able to get a better look at the picture as Chloe quickly realizes something’s off with what she’s showing and turns the screen away. “Oh sh- my bad, wrong picture. I think she took that one by accident,” Chloe says as she furiously glides her finger across her phone screen.  “Uh… okay, this should be it.” 

The picture shows a cyclist (Sean) fleeing the scene of the crime, though the picture quality itself is abhorrent to the point that it’s practically impossible to make out his face or any significant detail if you weren’t there in person. Even the make of his bike was reduced to a flurry of blurry trails. Sean’s dad tries to get a better look by slightly bending forward, squinting his eyes as hard as he can.

Sean shudders. This is irrefutable, without-a-shadow-of-doubt confirmation of the worst possible scenario. He considers saying something, or asking a question to lessen his guilt, but nothing’s coming out.

Chloe interrupts Sean’s frantic stream of thoughts as she says to his dad: “Yeah, I know, can’t see shit in the picture.. so much for being a professional photographer .” She sighs heavily and mutters the last part under her breath.

Sean’s dad nods as he returns to an upright position, trying to make sense of it all. “I mean- it’s unbelievable. The whole thing is. He didn’t just fly into the air after crashing into her car? And actually, it is a he, right?”

Chloe presses her lips tightly and nods. “Yep, and yep. Got off unscathed too. Ma- she said his bike wasn’t even damaged, and that he just sped off after leaving him his phone number. Which apparently isn’t even a real phone number, so now we’re just left with a broken car door.” 

Fuck, Sean thinks. I wrote down the wrong phone number? I was waiting for a call that could never arrive in the first place? He felt so fucking terrible. In the brief moment that they met, Chloe’s girlfriend seemed like a genuinely nice person- especially for someone whose car door had just gotten absolutely decimated. He feels like he should come clean, but..

“Maybe he was trying to pull a hit-and-run scam but things went south.. has she filed a police report yet?” Sean’s dad suggests in a warm voice.

This stumps Chloe, strangely enough. “.. yeah, we’re probably not gonna be doing that.” She moves her head to look at Sean’s dad but almost instantly locks her eyes onto the floor the moment he makes eye contact with her. 

Sean’s dad is confused by Chloe’s response, but he picks up her body language and doesn’t pursue any further. “Okay.. um, how are you gonna find this guy then? ‘Cause if you don’t have his information, you’re gonna be paying the deductible too, which..”

“I don’t know,” she snaps as she clenches one of her fists, “But if I find him, I’ll rip the fucker a new one.”

Welp, Sean thinks. Maybe I can come clean.. later .

–

“ Sometimes, sometimes... ” Sean hears singing alongside a loud, nasty backing track being blasted from inside the club room. It’s time for tryouts at the music club, and Plan Rap-to-Impress-Jenn is supposedly happening soon. 

Briefly looking inside, Sean’s surprised at the size of the room. He had always known that the music club had access to a pretty sizable room, but he didn’t know that it was big enough to house a full on stage , which is what he sees towards the back of the room. There’s even enough space for a few rows of seats, along with a separate long table covered by an equally long black tablecloth.

Outside the club room door, Sean's equally surprised by the long, steady influx of people lining up despite tryouts starting merely five minutes ago. There must be at least twenty people trying to get into the club- he wonders how many are trying to get into the Dazzlers. More than a few brought their own instruments, while Sean presumes that those who came empty-handed are simply going to be using the club’s existing music equipment.

A quick, hasty glance reveals to Sean that he doesn’t really know anyone here- though in his defence he’s not really one to have a lot of friends outside of his immediate friend group of Lyla, Ellery and Adam. Speaking of which, they’re supposed to have come by now, but he doesn’t see them in the line at all. Great, Sean thinks to himself. 

Lyla not being here isn’t necessarily problematic, given that only Ellery needs to plant the speaker. But her absence is surprising, as she would definitely be one to enjoy Sean’s rap performance. In fact, she’d probably still enjoy it if he were to bomb- Sean tries to not think about that last word.

Adam not being here.. isn’t really the end of the world for the plan, but it is certainly strange- he had seemed so eager to witness Sean’s rapping on full display again. More alarming however is the fact that he’s supposed to be trying out for the club with Ellery, so he’s supposed to be here anyways. But he’s nowhere to be seen.

Speaking of Ellery, Sean now gets a bit anxious as he realizes that the guy with the fucking speaker upon which the whole plan rests on is also absent. Oh well , he thinks to himself. So much for trying to temporarily escape from reality . However, something within him subsides when he catches sight of a certain somebody in the crowd.

Jenn. She’s wearing a pretty crop fleece hoodie and a pair of slightly torn blue jeans. Usually she has her hair in a bun, but it looks like she decided to wear it down for today. It’s a good look , Sean silently opines to himself. The way that her brown eyes direct themselves on a piece of paper she’s idly holding, the way that the ends of her fluffy red hair rest on her shoulders- 

Sean stops himself from staring. Fortunately, he does this right before Jenn looks up from her piece of paper and notices him. He’s not exactly right in front of her, so she flashes Sean a small smile. He reciprocates by awkwardly smiling back and giving her a friendly wave. 

Uh, guess I should walk over and say.. Something? Anything? Sean realizes. He’s not sure what to talk to her about, but he walks up to her anyway. 

Lucky for him, it’s Jenn who initiates the conversation. “What’re you doing here?” Her jovial smile makes the question less blunt than it sounds out loud. 

Sean gulps. He’s not sure what the best play is here: should he be direct or lie about giving a surprise performance later? Or do neither? 

Pressured to fill the silence with something, Sean goes with the lie. “Well, I just thought I’d check out some people perform.”

“Done with studying?” Jenn asks. 

“Well, I don’t do much of that usually. Unless the test’s like, a week away,” Sean replies. “..thanks for helping me with math though. The other day.” 

“Oh yea, don’t mention it. Just hit me up whenever you need help.” Jenn says as she resumes looking down at her piece of paper, not speaking any further as her smile fades into a more neutral expression.

Sean’s kind of left awkwardly standing right in front of a preoccupied Jenn for a brutally long five seconds before he snaps back into his senses. God, say something, anything- he thinks as he drills himself. “What are you auditioning for?” Sean rushes out, despite the question being one he absolutely knows the answer to.

“Singer,” Jenn answers without lifting up her head. “I’m trying to memorize the lyrics.” Sean wishes he could kick himself- of course she’s there to audition for singer, she’s got one of the best voices in the whole school!

“What song are you singing?”

“Everlong.” she says quickly, then proceeding to softly vocalize parts of the song to herself. Sean’s not familiar with the song, and he doesn't ask about it either.

Silence quickly makes a return. Welp, at least I tried , Sean thinks to himself. He wishes Jenn good luck before retreating to someplace where he can’t be seen. He feels how red his face is and silently cringes. Jenn seemed so uninterested- Sean tells himself she was probably just focused on her audition, which is probably true, but his deeper insecurities tell him otherwise. His thoughts go darker as the live music and chatter gradually fade into white noise. Idly, he sets his eyes on the line of people auditioning whilst avoiding Jenn at all costs. 

He sees some familiar faces- like Brett, who Sean recalls plays lead guitar and even does vocals for his band, Blue Box. As much as he dislikes Brett, he will concede that he’s a pretty good guitar player, even if he’s the archetypical annoying guitar guy at a party.

Then some others from his various classes, some from the track team and even some guy from work. All of them eagerly, anxiously waiting in line for a chance to prove themselves. To show off their talent and skills; to unleash their rarely exposed potential. 

And what was he there to do? To impress his high school crush? Sean scoffs. Seeing the people in line, he’s reminded of his lack of passion- sure, he’s certainly into a lot of different things- he’s an athlete on the school’s track team, a decently strong artist, someone who’s occasionally good at freestyling, but he’s sort of spread himself thin in a sense. He’s never felt particularly passionate for any of those avenues, or really anything. He’s never had the feeling of being gravitated, or pulled towards a specific interest.

Maybe that’s why his dad’s trying to get him to join that art contest. The two of them had a candid conversation about Sean’s future a few weeks ago. He doesn’t remember everything from the conversation, but he faintly remembers his dad telling him to find something. To find his passion, his reason for being. 

Sean sighs. He hasn’t been able to find the time to work on his submission- he’s not counting the miniscule effort he put in at the car shop yesterday. To be frank, he’s not sure he would have even signed up for the art contest in the first place if it weren’t for his dad. He scratches the back of his head and looks intently at the floor, as if there’s anything there to see.

What am I doing with my life?

Someone pokes Sean from behind, which catches him unexpectedly. He doesn’t need to turn around because he finds the person eventually standing right in front of him. It’s Lyla- a very excited Lyla. 

“Okay, Sean, here’s the plan,” she begins, her hands sticking out like she’s about to reveal the meaning of life. “You know how Adam and Ellery are performing, right?” 

Sean nods, which prompts Lyla to continue: “And you know that Adam’s on vocals.”

He tilts his head in confusion. “Um.. where are you going with this?”

Lyla smirks. “He’s gonna be MIA. Gone. But then Ellery’s gonna get you to be his ‘volunteer singer’-” -she makes air quotes with one hand- “-and that’s when I’ll play the speaker and let you.. um, do your thing? For lack of a better word.”

Sean’s harbouring some mixed feelings towards this plan. “This sounds so unnecessarily insane. Why the fuck can’t I just go up with them and like, perform then?” He adds an additional question: “Also, where are they?”

“‘Cause you’re not on the registration list, genius,” Lyla bites back. “There’s no other way to get you on that stage. Well, save for hiding your ass under the stage. Also, I have no idea where those two are.”

“So Adam’s just.. ditching tryouts? For me?” Sean asks. He would be owing Adam big time, given that tryouts for the club happen annually. Within the friend group, he’s not really as close with Adam compared to Lyla and Ellery.

Lyla laughs in response, which confuses Sean. “Okay, hold onto your horses. We don’t love you that much,” she winks playfully. “He’ll come back. He’s just gonna creep into the club room when you’re rapping to avoid attention and finish up his audition with Ellery. ‘Cause you know, it might be weird if he just shows up right after you finish. Club execs’ might just kick him out.”

“So.. the speaker’s gonna be loud enough? I don’t wanna jinx things, but I’m not sure I sound good with no beat.” Sean asks. 

“Well, yeah. Probably,” Lyla answers, which doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence in Sean. “Look, it’ll be fine! How are you feeling?”

The plan seems pretty solid, but Sean begins to realize that the mere thought of going up on stage to rap is way less daunting than actually doing it. It isn’t exactly stage fright, but the feeling’s there and it’s suffocating. “Look, Lyla, now that.. I’m here, Idon’tknowifIcandothis.” he blurts out the last part quickly.

He’s expecting Lyla to aggressively pressure him, but instead something softens in her eyes. Maybe she’s sensing that he’s genuinely having second thoughts. “Sean,” she says firmly. “You got this. We all saw you perform at that party- I have no doubt that you’re gonna go up there and kick some ass.” she pauses briefly. “And uh, impress Jenn.”

The pep talk’s- unexpectedly reassuring for Sean. Well, maybe it stems from not wanting to let Lyla down, but it might be coming from a small flame within him. An unwavering, sudden impulse to get out there and finally be passionate for something; to not just mindlessly go through the motions like he always does. He can’t deny feeling slightly on edge, but simultaneously he doesn’t think that there’s anything in the world that could sway him from going up on stage.

“Thanks,” he murmurs. “I did some practice this morning in front of the mirror.. hopefully I still have it in me.” Lyla grins in response, right before she waves to an incoming Ellery.

Sean also smiles. The funny thing is that this whole thing is meant to impress Jenn, but Sean isn’t really focusing on that part anymore. 

He’s gonna go up there on stage, and prove himself.

–

Despite being a bundle of nerves, Sean somehow eases into the other performances. He gets to see Jenn sing as well; it gives him goosebumps to see her pour her entire soul into the delivery of some of those lines. Lyla, who’s sitting next to him teases him as he gawks at Jenn the whole time, which.. is a little annoying, but a part of him is still glad that he’s not brooding in his thoughts alone. As they wait for Ellery’s turn to go up, she also gives him a more detailed breakdown of the plan.

A standing ovation follows as Jenn’s performance ends- as expected. Sean wonders whether she’ll get in the Dazzlers this time around. Honestly, Sean thinks she deserves to at this point; they low-key robbed her last year. After concluding, she takes a seat on the other side of the club room, probably intending to watch the other performances.

“Okay, next up- Barnes and Winchell?” The club president calls out from the panel of judges. It’s time, Sean tells himself. The plan’s basically starting- Ellery will now go on stage with guitar in hand while Adam pretends to be absent, hiding in- well, Sean’s not sure on that part of the plan. Then, at some point, Lyla will activate the speaker hidden underneath the stage and Sean can launch into full rap mode. Lyla says excitedly: “Okay, okay, this is it.”

“Just to be sure, the cue is.. is what?” Sean asks, his voice a little restless.

“Trust me, you’ll know what it is.” Lyla reassures.

“Um, if you say so?” 

Ellery steps onto stage, his right hand tightly wielding the neck of his acoustic guitar. He takes a seat and adjusts one of the standing microphones down to sitting level. 

The club president chuckles. “Uh, I see ‘Winchell’ alright, but where’s Barnes?”

Ellery tries to act distraught, and Sean barely contains his laughter. Lyla has to bend down and cover her mouth. “Uh, I d-don’t know where he is. Will that be an issue-”

“So you’re performing solo?” the club president snaps sternly. Perhaps she’s feeling somewhat grumpy after going through dozens of performances by this point. 

“Well, actually.. I was hoping that someone could volunteer to sing,” Ellery says slowly enough to avert any suspicion.

The club president leans back into her chair in exasperation, but it doesn’t seem like she’s objecting to the work-around. “Fine, whatever-” she stands up and turns around to focus on the crowd in front of the stage, as well as the people lining outside the club room door- “-okay everyone, raise your hand if you want to come up and sing on behalf of Barnes and Winchell! It’s an uh, additional opportunity for us to evaluate your skills!” She shouts, obviously wanting to get things over with as quickly as possible.

That’s Sean’s cue. He raises his hand up high. Looking around, he’s astonished to see that tons of other people actually have their hands up- in fact, he’s a bit worried that Ellery’ll miss him. He laughs when he notices Ellery smugly scratching his chin, pretending to deliberate on who to pick.

So maybe that’s why neither he nor Ellery realize when Brett walks up to the stage without a care in the world.

Things quickly set into motion before Ellery can even react fast enough. “Okay, great! We’ll give you guys a minute to discuss what to perform.” the club president announces. 

Sean gulps nervously. The plan definitely didn’t account for someone just walking up and assuming the role of volunteer singer, especially if that someone is a person who Ellery passionately dislikes. As Brett walks to an unoccupied standing microphone, an upset Ellery gets up from his seat and confronts him, not even bothering to put his guitar aside.

“Hey, what the fuck,” Ellery whispers to Brett, which gets caught up by the microphone- but he isn’t aware of it. However, the club president, as well as the panel of judges seemingly.. let it slide? Maybe because the microphone chatter can only be heard by the first two rows in the relatively rowdy atmosphere? “I don’t remember picking you.”

“You wanna tell that to her?” Oh boy. It’s picking up Brett’s voice too. “Be my guest. She’s already impatient after having to judge so many performances. You’re stuck with me, in the meanti-”

“Ekm,” the club president clears her throat. “We can hear you. Now get on with it before we skip you.” Stunning both Ellery and Brett, she also adds: “Your choice.”

Both boys look slightly flushed as they back away from the microphone, but it doesn’t look like either of them are done arguing. 

Ellery teases: “I- I didn’t even know you sang. What do you know, like Yellow Submarine?” His voice is much less audible this time around.

“Shut the fuck up,” Brett hisses back. “You know Creep?”

Ellery snorts. “You wanna play Creep? I-”

“Well, it’s the only song you know worth playing, right? Other than the terrible hippie, folk shit you usually play,” Brett cuts him off. Even the typically level-headed Ellery seems pissed off now, but being on stage means that he can’t do much to deal with Brett’s disrespect. Sean’s kind of pissed too. Is he really this big of an asshole with everyone? 

“Starting on your count.” Brett murmurs as Ellery walks to his seat, his face red with anger.

Things look dire from Sean’s perspective. Some influx of raging teenage hormones in his veins urge him to simply run up and seize control of the mic from Brett, but that’ll probably make a scene. He has no idea what’s going to happen now- are they just going to let Ellery and Brett perform as usual? 

Brett moves in closer to the standing microphone.

Maybe he can get up on stage after Brett is done- wait, but what if Brett decides to just stay on stage with Ellery? Knowing Brett, there’s a good chance of that happening; knowing Ellery, there’s a good chance of him just giving in to Brett. 

Earlier, Lyla said that Ellery and Adam only booked to play two songs. For the plan to work, the idea is- or perhaps more accurately was that Sean can crash the first one whilst the other slot is for Ellery and Adam to actually perform and audition. If this Brett guy doesn’t get off.. what the fuck are they supposed to do?

Ellery starts strumming the first four bars of Creep.

Sean stirs. This was my one shot to..

It’s almost time for the vocals to enter. Brett, beaming with confidence looks more than ready to show off his singing prowess.

“ When you were here befo- ”

Suddenly, the sound of loud horns and strings comes in without warning, jolting everyone in the club room. Sean covers his ears as an involuntary response, a little startled by the abrupt intrusion on his eardrums. But gradually, he takes his hands off his ears as he realizes- this is the rap beat he’s supposed to be rapping over.

As if by reflex, he immediately looks around to see how others have reacted. Some of the people lining up from outside the club room are leaning in to get a better look, probably curious to see what happened. The panel of judges are frozen in place like everyone else inside the club room, except for the club president who’s off her feet and scouring her surroundings. “Goddammit, who’s playing that?” she yells in frustration. 

And there’s Lyla, who’s now bent over and frantically scrolling through her phone. “Shit, shit, shit, I forgot I timed it,” she whispered anxiously. “ Why is it not letting me turn it off?”

Brett has stopped singing entirely. He’s certainly alarmed, but to a lesser extent than Ellery, whose face has gone completely white. Minus the circumstances, it’s a pretty amusing sight, especially with the G-Eazy instrumental blaring all around them.

“J- just turn off the Bluetooth on your phone!” Sean urges Lyla. But it’s too late; the music ceases abruptly as Sean looks up to see the club president holding up the speaker in her hand. 

“Damn, she found it instantly.” Lyla mumbles. 

The club president turns around to face the stage. She glares at Ellery. “This your idea of a prank, Winchell?”

What Ellery says right now will make or break his future of being a part of the Dazzlers this year.  “Um, no- look, this is a huge accident-”

“Save it. We’re skipping you. Nex-”

Brett protests: “Wait, what about-”

“That includes you too,” the club president glares at Brett, which seems to do the trick. “I don’t know if you know, we’re running on a schedule here. Next!”

All hope seems lost as Brett and Ellery start to make their way down from the stage. Brett, who Sean is glad to see sulking, rushes in a hurry and joins up with the rest of his band outside. However, Sean notices Ellery hesitating on taking the last step off the stage-

“Wait wait wait. Just hang on a second! We’re slated to play two songs, and we still have time, right?” Ellery indicates as he slowly backs up the steps.

“Are you serious? You’re gonna pretend like whatever just happened didn’t just happen?” the club president snarls. “I- we don’t appreciate being jerked around like this, so for the last time, just fuck off. Nex-”

“One song,” Ellery pleads, his eyes turning to focus on an uneasy Sean. “Just one song.”

For some reason, that seems to stun the club president into silence- though she’s still wearing an undeniably hostile expression on her face. After what feels like a very long time, she concedes. “..fine. One song. But-” 

“Sean!” Ellery yells out. 

Oh shit. Sean has no idea what’s going to happen now. But it’s his cue, and it doesn’t take long for him to get on stage together with Ellery. Although he’s dying to know how Ellery managed to convince the unwavering club president, he sets those burning thoughts aside- the plan’s actually happening . He can finally prove to everyone that he-

“I wasn’t done!” the club president snaps as she points a finger at Ellery. “No speaker bullshit. Also, there is no way you’re joining the Dazzlers this term,” A brief pause as she briefly thinks over something in her head.  “Maybe Barnes, if he shows up. But not you.”

Sean looks over at Ellery. His best friend had really just.. forfeit his chance with the Dazzlers this year. All for a stupid opportunity for Sean to impress Jenn- he doesn’t even see her in the room. She probably left at some point after her audition finished.

He has to do something. Fuck, everybody’s looking at the two of them, they have to do something. What the club president said hasn’t fully clicked with Sean yet- no speaker allowed? Wasn’t that the whole point? Well, maybe they could improvise something instead?

Ellery taps him lightly on the shoulder and whispers softly. “Fuck is the plan now?”

“Any uh.. rap songs you know on guitar?” Sean asks.

Ellery’s pale as a ghost. “Um, not any straight-up rap songs. Between us though.. Love The Way You Lie and.. Nothin’ On You? Pretty sure you know those, right?”

“Um, yeah I know those songs,” Sean frowns. “Those aren’t.. rap songs though?”

“Yeah, but it’s like half rap. That counts, right? I told you, I don’t know any like, straight-up just rap songs! How would you even play that on guitar anyways?”

The club president lets out an extremely noticeable sigh.

Sean gets the hint. “Okay, fuck it. Nothin’ On You.”

“Okay, so.. we’ll sing Bruno Mars’ part together and you can do.. uh, the rapping part. I have to warn you though, it’s not really in my range.”

“It’s fine. Main focus is the rapping, anyways,” Sean half-jokes. Come to think of it, he doesn’t really sing that much. Sometimes in the shower, and sometimes when he’s forced to go to karaoke night with his friends. Actually, now that he’s recalling, he’s received some non-negligible number of compliments on his singing in the past. Maybe this won’t go as disastrous as it’s already going.

Hurriedly, Sean and Ellery both take seats respectively in front of the microphone Ellery was previously using. A sound guy suddenly comes out of nowhere and gives both of them another microphone stand they can sing into. He also readjusts the microphone Ellery was using before to pick up the guitar’s sound. Sean offers his thanks by throwing up a sincere smile, to which the sound guy grunts in response.

“We finally starting?” the club president asks, prompting Ellery to nod and mouth a faint “yes”.

Sean can’t help but feel a little nervous. But he tries to set those thoughts aside when Ellery starts the count-in, and when they start singing:

Beautiful girls, all over the world

I could be chasing, but my time would be wasted

They got nothing on youuuuu, baby

Nothing on youuu, baby

Surprisingly, Sean’s hitting most of the notes thus far without too much difficulty- though he almost runs out of breath at the prolonged you ’s. To numb the feeling of being overwhelmed, Sean tries to focus on Ellery’s percussive slaps on his guitar body- the simple strum , strum , slap groove that he’s doing; the newfound feeling of warmth and intimacy it invokes in the song. He doesn’t realize that the room has gone completely silent.

They might say hi, and I might say hey

But you shouldn't worry about what they say

'Cause they got nothing on you, baby  

Nothing on you, baby 

Sean takes a deep breath. Ellery’s raspy delivery sort of meshes with his own in a good enough way. The first of several rap verses are about to arrive, though, which he can’t afford to fuck up.

I know you feel where I'm coming from

Regardless of the things in my past that I've done 

Most of really was for the hell of the fun

On the carousel so around I spun

As Sean raps, he looks over to his left- Ellery’s somehow doubling down on his percussive techniques to deliver an even more electrifying rap beat. He can’t help but be impressed, given that Ellery’s minimal right hand movement doesn’t seem to match the great range of sounds emanating from the guitar.

Focus, Sean has to remind himself. As he finishes the first rap verse out of many, he’s briefly reminded by the singing part of the chorus when Ellery sings and he doesn’t. However, he makes a swift recovery as he joins Ellery on the second line.

I could be chasing but my time would be wasted

They got nothing on you, baby

Nothing on you, baby

–

At some point, they’re done with their performance. Sean isn’t entirely washed over by relief, given that his heart is still pounding.

He looks at his surroundings. It seems like Adam finally manages to come- he’s towards the back of the room, near the entrance to the club room. He seems a bit shocked, which Sean kind of understands- the plan vastly deviated.

Actually, looking around, everyone in the room’s kind of in shock. Some of the judges are transfixed on Sean entirely, their mouths agape. Even the usual stone-faced club president seems emotional for once. Looking to his left once again, even Ellery seems kind of shocked. Was it.. that horrible?

Before Sean can figure out why though, the room erupts into thunderous applause.

Chapter Text

Sean feels as though he’s in a dream. He doesn’t remember getting off the stage and leaving the club room with his friends- everything’s on autopilot. The white noise of applause and cheering make it difficult to focus on what’s real and what isn’t.

“Holy shit dude, why’d you never tell us you can sing?”

Sean snaps back into reality. He takes some time to gather himself. “What do you mean? You guys have heard me sing in the past. When we did that private karaoke thingy a few uh, months back.”

“Yeah, but only ever for a short while! You always wanted to just rap,” Ellery continues to point out. “But.. seriously dude, that was.. incredible!”

Adam chuckles, joining the conversation as well. “Yeah, I felt like I was watching American Idol for a second there.” Lyla is seen lightly nodding her head as well, which Sean guesses is her way of praising him.

Sean doesn’t know what he’s feeling. He feels like he should be happy, and while he is, there’s also a strange sense of emptiness occupying him. 

On the other hand, Ellery looks fine, from what he can tell at least. It’s probably because he’s used to performances like these all the time.

Adam resumes, “Plus uh, Ellery said you guys got to see Brett walk off stage depressed? Awesome.”

Sean laughs. “Yeah, that was deserved. I don’t even know why he walked up on stage like that. Ellery didn’t even pick him.”

“Oh yea, Ellery told me. What a piece of sh-” 

Lyla chuckles abruptly, cutting Ellery off. Everyone turns towards her. “What?” She smiles brightly.

“Why’d you suddenly laugh?” Ellery asks. “Kinda.. random.”

“N- nothing, it’s just..” Lyla answers, a hint of hesitation in her voice. “I just.. find it funny that we did this whole thing to get Jenn’s attention, but it actually became like, I don’t know, an actual performance for Sean to.. to show everyone who’s boss. And Jenn doesn’t even stay back to watch it.” She laughs.

Sean scoffs- for some reason, the fact that Jenn left early doesn’t really bother him. “You know, I’m honestly okay with that. That.. whatever I- we just pulled off, that itself was awesome. Plus she’s probably out of my league .” He mumbles the last part. In his head floats a cruel reminder of his awkward interaction with her from earlier.

Ignoring Sean’s self deprecation, Lyla curls her lips and points out, “She was really good, too. Didn’t know she was into the Foo Fighters.. that kind of older stuff.”

“Really? She sang Foo Fighters? Which song?” Adam asks, his interest piqued. Sean’s not shocked- Adam’s kind of a big musichead. If asked to, he could probably name fifty different genres and briefly describe what each of them are about on the spot.

“Oh, uh.. fuck, what was it?” Lyla repeatedly snaps her fingers, as if doing that would help her remember. “Guys, help me out here.”

Sean struggles to remember the song name Jenn had told her. “Yeah, sorry. I don’t know any uh, old music like that.”

Lyla rolls her eyes. “If you think that’s old, I honestly don’t- you know what, it does make sense you would think that.” She taunts Sean with a grin.

“I mean, that’s pretty old. They’re like, ten years old at this point?” Sean refutes.

“Twenty or so,” Ellery corrects. “Um.. I think she sang.. Everlong? Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Ellery says with an air of confidence. “You know, Adam, we could probably uh.. y’know, do that thing we wanted to if she comes on.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “That’s a big if . Don’t we also need a drummer? And a bassist?” 

Sean’s eyes widen. “Wait, you guys are starting a new band? What about the iconic folk duo Barnes and Winchell?”

Ellery grins. “I’ll tell you later.”

But from that point onwards in the conversation, Ellery never mentions the topic again. They talk about other things- for instance, Lyla mentions an open mic night at the cafe she works at that’s happening on Thursday. Lyla seems enthused by the event, and tries to talk Ellery and Adam into performing- without much success, from what Sean can tell at least. She also seems really excited about a certain band’s appearance.

Eventually, it’s time for Ellery and Sean to make their way to track team practice, and Sean feels like he’s full of energy, for once. Later, when he runs on the track and feels his feet glide across the coarse surface like ice, he feels unstoppable.

–

At the end of a long, eventful Tuesday, an exhausted Sean is more than relieved to reach his stop. Getting off the school bus with Lyla, he waves her goodbye after agreeing to call each other later in the day and walks home. 

When he does eventually arrive at home, he barges into his room and tosses his bag aside before diving straight for his bed, not particularly caring how brash he may have come across. The soft embrace of his pillow and sheets immediately comfort him, and he breathes a huge sigh of relief.

Sean turns his body to stare blankly at the ceiling. On any other day, he would be idling like this without purpose or aim- it’s no different this time, except this time it feels like more of an attempt to wear off the adrenaline rush from the performance just now. Which.. had definitely wound up going better than he expected. He may have slipped up a few times, but he can probably let that slide considering he was literally rapping and singing.

Somehow it had all worked out. Somehow.. it was as though some inexplicable force came and took over him. To make him do what he did. Or was it just him? Sean holds both his hands up and looks at his palms. Was he just sick and tired of living through the motions and determined to make something of himself for once?

These fluttering thoughts are abruptly whisked away as Sean freezes up, realizing something. Tonight, tonight was the night he had to tell his dad the cold hard truth- the accident that happened the day before. Putting it off any longer would simply make matters worse- what if that what’s-her-name-again employee somehow tracks him down?

He wonders how his dad will react to the news. His dad is one who values honesty a lot, so maybe he won’t be that mad? How did this whole thing even happen , Sean curses to himself. If he hadn’t spent Sunday night binging anime, he probably wouldn’t have woken up late on Monday morning in the first place. If he hadn’t woken up late, he would have taken the bus and arrived at school on time- he wouldn’t have had to ride his bike. 

And if he hadn’t ridden his bike, that what’s-her-name-again employee’s girlfriend’s car wouldn’t have had a massive dent in it. That being said, in his defence, he got distracted by that fucked up dream with Karen, so it’s not entirely his fault. But what’s he going to tell his dad? Oh, I dreamt of your ex-wife telling me why she left us behind and got emotional so I couldn’t see the road? There’s no way he wants to talk about something like that with his dad- not yet, anyways. 

Sure, he could make up a fake scary nightmare that he “had”, but he doesn’t think he can sell it- what dad would buy that his sixteen year old son got frightened by a nightmare monster in the daytime? Plus, his dad’s kind of good at telling when he lies.

Sean grumbles. Might as well get it over with as soon as possible. His dad’s going to be home soon anyways. Anytime now. In the meantime-

“Yo, bro!” 

Sean gets up to look at who’s at his door, even though he already knows who it is. “Yeah, what’s up?” 

Daniel nervously fidgets. “Um, you free right now?”

“Sure,” Sean readies himself, his face growing serious. He tries to hide his exasperation, which seems to work. “What’s up?”

“Um.. maybe it’s easier if I just show you. Just come check it out!” Daniel runs away cheerfully, presumably to his room. Sean hears a door slam; maybe his brother’s trying to surprise him or something. He sighs in response and decides to entertain his little brother. 

Sean sluggishly walks out of his room and lightly pushes Daniel’s door open. It creaks loudly, which briefly takes Sean aback- it’s been awhile since he last opened his brother’s door, or entered his brother’s room in general. He notices sheets of newspaper laid all over the floor, their dull surfaces slightly brightened with paint splotches and pieces of cut-up cardboard scrap. In the centre of all the mess, Daniel proudly holds up a costume headpiece crudely held together by tape and painted addons. 

“Here, big bro! I made you an enderman costume,” Daniel beams. “Well, enderman head. But.. I’ll make the whole thing soon! ..This is for uh, using up your paint yesterday. Forgive me?”

Sean’s heart melts a little. His brother actually did something nice for him! He always feels like it’s him giving and Daniel taking- granted, he’s the older brother, so maybe he should be doing that anyways, but it does feel nice to be on the receiving end for a change.  

“Can I try it on?” Sean gestures at Daniel, prompting him to nod as he hands over the costume head to Sean. Now that Sean’s holding the costume head in his hands, he gets to look at it more thoroughly. It looks like the eyeholes are slightly misaligned and parts of the head are painted incompletely- the whole thing is kind of goofy looking, and Sean has to forcefully hold back his laughter. He dons the costume head and comes down to sit on the floor with Daniel.

“So.. what do you think? Like it?” Daniel asks, giddy with excitement.

Sean doesn’t know whether he should be honest. Being put on the spot, he opts for a compromise. “O- of course! Though we can still improve it, don’t you think?”

“How? It already looks so awesome!” Daniel says loudly, almost shouting. “..I mean, I kinda messed up the eyeholes, but other than that it’s perfect!”

“Yeah, and I like what you did to add texture. Like, you taped on gray and dark gray cardboard pieces just so the whole thing isn’t just a flat black box,” Sean adds as he tries feeling the uneven surface of the head to illustrate his point. “Well, I’d point them out, but it’s kinda hard to with this thing on.”

Daniel laughs, which makes Sean start laughing too. Shortly after, the laughter subsides and the air is quiet but still. “So, you forgive me?” Daniel mouths silently. “Y- you haven’t said.”

Sean smiles as he looks intently at Daniel. He can’t even fake being moody anymore. “Of course, bro. This is... so nice of you, thanks.” He hopes the message gets across despite the enderman head obscuring his wide smile.

“What’s this, my two boys finally getting along for once?” 

Sean turns around to see his dad standing at the door, his eyes obviously weary from a long day at the workshop. But he's bearing a glowing smile.

Sean gulps as he realizes that he’s probably about to ruin his dad’s happy mood. “Hey dad.” He utters as he turns to his dad, not daring to add anything else. 

“Hey dad! When are you going to help me make the fake blood?” Daniel asks, his high-pitched voice making the question sound cute out loud.

“We said Friday, right?” Esteban asks. “We can start the uh.. concoction process in the evening.”

Daniel laughs. “ Concoction process? Dad, are you like a secret wizard or something?” 

“Yeah, instead of fixing up cars at the Diaz Auto Master, what I actually do all day is brew potions and cast spells for my customers. Business is surprisingly good.” Esteban cackles, which earns him a playful punch on his shoulder by Daniel. 

“Argh, stop.. talking like that! It’s so cringey.” Daniel whines, even though he’s failing to hide a very big smile. 

“Hey, don’t punch me! Who’s the parent here, huh?” Esteban grins as he rubs Daniel’s big mop of hair. “Heh, but I might be coming home late on Friday.”

“Aww, but you promised!” Daniel whines.

“Well.. if I’m not home then, maybe Sean can help you out.” Esteban suggests as he winks at Sean.

Damn.. that sucks. Sean thinks to himself. Not exactly his ideal version of a Friday night. He takes off the enderman head and stammers, “Uh, I might have something going on..”

His dad quickly sees through his act and crosses his arms. “I know your schedule, Sean. Just.. do this for me, okay? And more importantly, your brother.”

Sean grimaces but notices his brother’s sad puppy eyes. He reckons there’s no escaping out of this one. Sighing, he concedes, “Okay, I’ll see if I’m free.”

Esteban flashes a smile at Sean. “There we go.. the two Diaz hermanos back at it again,” he remarks, which makes Sean roll his eyes. “Anyways, Daniel, done with your homework?”

Daniel seems to falter a bit. “Yeah.. I swear I was going to do it! But I wanted to make an apology gift for Sean first, so..” He points at Sean’s head.

Esteban chuckles as he turns his back away from the door, presumably going to make dinner. “Well, that’s very nice of you, and I’m sure your big brother appreciates the gesture.. but maybe get started on it now?” 

Daniel groans and gets up from the floor to go to his desk while Sean flocks for his room after planting the enderman head on the ground.

He doesn’t really feel like coming clean to his dad now.. maybe near dinner time is good? Exiting Daniel’s room in the hallway, he tries to sneak by and enter his room as covertly as possible. 

Instantly, he fails, and his dad catches him mid pose in the hallway.

“Hey Sean, come here for a second.” Esteban bellows, his voice echoing throughout the hallway. 

After sensing some hesitation from Sean, Esteban repeats, “Come on, I just want to talk with you real quick.” 

Defeatedly, Sean walks to what feels like his doom. After a dreadfully long ten or so seconds, he comes eye-to-eye with his dad. He wonders what gave it away- did the female employee (whose name he’s still struggling to remember) somehow figure out it was him, and did she break the news to his dad? But.. the picture her girlfriend took was so blurry, she couldn’t have possibly used that to deduce it was him. Did they get camera footage from the cops or something? But wait, wasn’t she weirdly adamant of not going to the cops for some reason? Then how-

“Uh, Sean? I think you’re daydreaming again.” His dad reminds him.

Sean snaps out of his flurry of thoughts. “Oh, uh.. sorry. I was just- was thinking about stuff,” He can’t help grimacing. Welp, he’s already onto me, might as well , Sean thinks to himself. “Dad.. I have something I want to tell you. Just- just hear me out, okay?”

His dad shuffles in place, his glare making Sean anxious. “Okay, but I think I see where this is going.” He crosses his arms.

Sean gulps. Here goes nothing. “Okay, so this Monday-”

“Lyla told me,” Esteban says calmly. “Look, I know you tried your best, and more importantly-” 

Sean is.. well, puzzled would be putting it mildly. “Um, sorry, wh-”

“-you’re trying to be honest. Which, I really appreciate,” Esteban smiles warmly at Sean. “And listen! I’m not even that mad. Actually, I’m not even mad! What matters is that you gave it your all and actually tried.. for that test.”

Oh.  

“Next time, you’ll do better for sure. And if you need help.. well, your old man’s probably not your best bet when it comes to math and that type of stuff, but maybe Lyla-”

“Wait, so..” Sean struggles connecting the dots. “Who even told you that.. I bombed the math test?” 

Esteban seals his lips shut.

“..Lyla?”

Esteban looks away, almost like he’s shameful. “Well.. now that I think about it, it is sort of weird why she would divulge that type of information. To me, no less.”

“Okay, ..wow,” But things still aren’t really clicking for Sean. “..but the thing is, I didn’t even tell her that I did bad. I mean, we sat the test together and talked afterwards, but I didn’t bring it up.” 

Esteban shrugs. “I thought you had told her. Beats me how she found out. But, she, uh, definitely cares for you Sean. Friends like Lyla.. they’re hard to come by, especially in this world.”

Sean rolls his eyes. “Well, you haven’t seen her rowdy side. I- I’m still astonished she figured me out like that. Read me like a book.”

“Here’s a life lesson from your beloved papito: don’t ever underestimate a woman’s ability to read people.”

Sean’s beginning to be a little suspicious. “Wait, so.. has she been telling you stuff about me?” That would be really weird, but also not out of the question- Lyla’s practically an unofficial member of the family with how often she comes in and out of the Diaz family home. Plus, she’s uncomfortably close with his brother and dad..

“..Don’t think I should comment any further.”

“Oh, what the fu- frick! Okay, c’mon dad, at least one thing. One thing she told you about me.”

Esteban scratches his chin. “Well.. she did tell me about this rockstar’s superb debut performance at the music club auditions today. Though I don’t remember what she said his name was..”

Sean decides to play along. “Bold of you to assume it’s a he. Could be a she, for all you know. It’s 2016, dad, come on.”

“Hey, it could be a ‘they’ too! What’s with the double standard?”

Sean chuckles, and his dad joins in as well. “Okay, fair point. You’re not gonna say anything else?”

“ Mijo , I wish I was there to see it,” Esteban says delightedly. “I can’t believe I have another musically touched son in the family. For the longest time I thought I was the only one. She said you were up there singing like um.. that one guy.. she said your singing was great!”

Sean doesn’t really register the second half of whatever his dad just said. Am I crazy or did Dad just say.. “another”?! “Wait.. dad, are you saying that you uh, play music?”

Esteban tilts his head in confusion. “..Huh. Maybe you forgot. Or maybe you were too young. Hold on, just give me a second-” he mutters as he races down the hallway into his bedroom. Sean looks on with a piqued face, and eventually sees his dad bolting to him with a guitar in hand. It’s half amusing, half anxiety-inducing to see his forty year old dad run in such an animated way.

Esteban signals for Sean to inspect the guitar himself, which he gladly does. It’s an acoustic guitar, which Ellery uses as well, except for the fact that it seems considerably bigger and longer than Ellery’s. With one hand firmly on the neck and the other tightly gripping one side of the body, Sean slowly rotates the guitar as far as he’s allowed to, basking in its glossy coolness, despite all the dust that’s on it.

“What’d you think of it?” Esteban asks proudly.

“This is.. awesome. How come you never told me we owned a guitar?” 

“Not we, I,” Esteban corrects with his tongue sticking out. “But yeah, I used to play.”

Sean coughs abruptly and waves off the dust floating off of the guitar, leading Esteban to remark: “Wow, I have really not touched this thing in years.”

“Why not?”

“Well..” Esteban scratches the back of his head and chuckles, “Just couldn’t find the time, especially after starting Diaz Auto Master.”

Sean nods in response and holds his arms out to look at the whole guitar at once. “This feels.. really big. Compared to Ellery’s, this is like.. what, twice as big?”

“Well, this is a full size guitar,” Esteban points out. “Your friend, Ellery.. he probably has a three-quarter. He’s the one who performed together with you, right?”

Sean answers: “Yeah. Man, he was awesome with that thing. I kept looking at him on stage.. his playing was absolutely mesmerising.” Come to think of it, Sean realizes that he’s never really paid attention to Ellery’s guitar playing in the past. Something about seeing a guitarist at work is just so.. therapeutic? He doesn’t know how to describe it, exactly.

“Are you uh.. good?” Sean decides to ask.

Esteban gently takes the guitar from Sean’s hands and takes a seat on a nearby stool. He rests its body on his right knee and tunes it with haste. “Well, let’s see if your old man still remembers a thing or two.” Sean looks on, slightly enamored as his dad settles into a bluesy groove. To him, his dad’s left fingers seem to fly across the fretboard effortlessly while his right hand alternates between calculated strums and bleedingly fast picking. Between the strums, Sean catches some impressively rapid, yet subtle finger movements- he doesn’t quite understand how his dad is able to produce such vibrant sounding notes despite seeming like he’s barely moving his right hand.

What’s more is that whatever his dad is playing is incredible- the intense rhythm, together with the bluesy riff has Sean utterly transfixed. While Sean is very much a stranger in the world of music and guitars, he still gets the sense that his dad is an incredible guitarist.

Finally, Esteban plays the final note of the song and lets it ring out. It sounds like the guitar is wallowing, wailing, and the sound sends shivers across Sean’s body. 

Sean is at a loss of words. “Holy shit, dad. You- you’re like a guitar god! Or a guitar legend, I guess.”

“Hey, I think that’s five dollars into the swear jar!” Esteban grins.

Sean’s face turns pale. “Oh, c’mon! That doesn’t count. It was more of an um.. an expression of astonishment.”

Esteban can only laugh in response. “I was kidding. But thanks, I guess.. even I’m surprised with how much I still remember over the years. Thought I had lost it all,” He turns around and accidentally bumps the guitar’s lower body against a nearby wall, which produces some discordant noise. “Crap,” he mumbles.

“When did you start playing?” Sean asks like an overexcited fanboy. “And how did you get started?”

“Well, this was back in Puerto Lobos. I think.. yeah, I wanted to impress this girl in high school, so I decided to pick it up. The guitar was from my late uncle, God rest his soul.”

Sean blinks. “Wait.. so you just.. started playing?”

“..yeah? I mean, I think I joined a few bands or so. Kind of just taught myself from that point onwards,” Esteban pauses as he glances over at his son, his mouth gradually forming a smile. “You know, if you’re interested, maybe I can teach you a few things.”

Sean laughs. Him? On the guitar? He would probably suck. “Nah, dad, I think I’m good,” he utters without thinking too much. Though right after, he suddenly feels like he shouldn’t have just flat out refused the offer..

“I mean, maybe think about it a bit. Girls love guys who play guitar, especially if they can sing well too.” Esteban teases.

“Yeah.. I- I don’t know,” Sean stammers. He’s giving the idea some actual consideration now. The truth is, after getting to see Ellery and his dad play the guitar with such skill- he’s not really sure how to put it into words, but something about it sparks a powerful feeling within him. But he doesn’t know if that feeling necessarily translates to an actual interest in learning how to play. Also, he doesn’t know if he has the energy to commit to a new hobby like that, especially with his already packed schedule- he’s got art, school and the track team to worry about.

“Well.. just let me know,” Esteban says as he places the guitar down on the floor, carefully leaning it against the wall. “Who knows? Maybe one day, this baby can be yours..”

Sean rolls his eyes. “You call your guitar your baby ?”

Esteban shrugs. “You’ll understand when you get to own one yourself. Speaking of events in the immediate future- how’s that art submission of yours coming along?”

“Um.. it’s going,” Sean gulps. “Haven’t really worked on it that much, to be honest.”

It’s subtle, but Sean senses some disappointment in his dad’s tone- he absolutely hates the feeling of letting his dad down. “The deadline is coming up, if you’re not aware of that. Maybe get some work done on it?”

“Okay, but like, you asked me that yesterday, and..” Sean says defensively. “.. what’s that quote again? Rome wasn’t built in a day? I- I was going to start working on it throughout the rest of the week anyways.”

His dad glares at him, which causes an unsettled Sean to look away from his dad’s eyes. “..Okay, but you better start working on it. You’re a great artist, and this contest would be a great opportunity-”

“Yeah, yeah, dad. I know.” Sean waves his hand, a little annoyed at his dad’s constant pestering. He kind of regrets it immediately, since deep down he knows that his dad’s just trying to give a shit about him.

Plus, he doesn’t have the heart to tell his dad that he was considering dropping out of the contest. Like, he’s very much into art, but he’s unsure whether he’s confusing it as his passion when it might just be a quirky side hobby. He just wants to draw stupid doodles whenever he feels like it.

Sean’s dad doesn’t seem to take his flippant response that well, as evidenced by a loud sigh and a barely concealed expression with exasperation written all over it. He quickly mumbles, “I’m gonna finish up dinner. Come eat when it’s seven,” and he goes to put away his guitar, leaving Sean all alone with his thoughts in the kitchen.

–

Sean almost crosses over to the wrong side of the road before quickly realizing that he can keep going straight to get to Big Head. In fairness, he doesn’t usually go visit Lyla when she’s working- he’s certainly brought up the idea a few times to her, with her turning it down every time, citing that she wouldn’t be able to focus at work with his “conniving ass lurking about.” Sean’s not even sure he knows what conniving means; it’s not like he cares enough to look up its meaning anyways.

The only reason he’s allowed to go today is because Lyla wouldn’t be working- and also there’s this open mic night thing Big Head is running tonight. Ellery and Adam said yes to coming, but Sean doesn’t really remember if Lyla managed to convince them to perform. It’d be definitely cool if they’re performing though; if they aren’t, maybe Sean can just crash their next rehearsal to check out things. Just something to curb his sudden infatuation with people playing the guitar.

In no time at all, Sean eventually finds himself swinging wide open the door to Big Head. Looking around, he catches sight of Lyla and waves at her briefly. Seems like she’s brewing up drinks behind the counter.

Walking up to her, Sean exclaims, “Wow, look at you. Barista Park.”

Lyla flashes a look of pure detest, but it looks like something clicks, and she instantly switches over to a customer-service smile. “Welcome to Big Head! How can I help you today?”

Sean’s taken aback, but he simply plays along. “Uh.. maybe I could get.. wait, didn’t you say you weren’t working today?”

“Sorry sir, I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.. do you want a specific drink?” Lyla says with a completely straight, shit-eating face.

Okay, what the fuck is she doing now , Sean thinks. He feels like he should be saying something right now, but he struggles finding a clever rebuttal.

“Hah, I’m just fuc- messing with you,” Lyla admits as she breaks into a wide smile. “Anyways, how would you rate my stellar customer service?”

“..Yea, maybe don’t ever do that again? Whatever bit that was, it wasn’t even that funny,” Sean comments. “I thought you weren’t working today?”

“One of my coworkers called in sick so I just decided to take over her shift at the last minute,” Lyla explains as she briefly checks her phone. “Though my shift’s ending basically.. now? So you won’t get to see me hard at work anyhow.”

Sean nods in response. “Where’s the other two?”

“Adam’s at the back. Ellery went back home to grab his guitar I think.”

“Oh shit, Barnes and Winchell are going live on the big stage?”

“Yep, it’s happening. You wouldn’t believe how long it took to convince them.” 

Sean furrows his eyebrows. “What, did you bribe them?”

“I have my ways,” Lyla gives him an intentionally sinister smile. “Now, shoo. I’ll join you guys in a bit,” she says as she scurries into some employees-only area behind the counter. 

With nothing else to do, Sean decides to join Adam at his table. Walking up to Adam’s table, the presence of another seated person catches him by surprise. As Adam shoots him a wave, the unknown individual turns around to greet Sean as well. 

It’s Eric- one of Adam’s friends. Wearing a pair of cheap black-framed glasses, Eric’s overgrown mop of curly hair is barely tucked in by a bright-coloured bandana. He reaches out his hand to dap Sean up, which Sean reciprocates after some initial delay. 

“Yo, man, how’s it going?” Eric greets.

“Nothing much,” Sean replies as he takes a seat beside Adam. He picks up on a strong scent of weed.. is it coming from Eric? “..Are you here for the open mic night too?”

“Guess you could say that,” Eric yawns. “I mean, I play the drums, but it’s not like, y’know, I always play. I’m here to watch people play.”

Adam chuckles. “Dude, are you still high?”

“-I play some mean drums. I’m talking meeeaaaan,” Eric proclaims as he mimes what looks like someone going all out on a drum kit. “Too bad my band doesn’t want me, I’m too good for them anyways.”

Sean’s a bit weirded out. Did the school’s local weed dealer.. get high on his own supply? It’s definitely a hilarious sight, but he’s too scared to laugh.

“Hey Eric, come on. You’re scaring Sean,” Adam jokes. “For real though, sorry to hear about that other thing.”

Eric glares at Sean briefly and scoffs. “Pff, Brett thinks he can replace me with Carter, whatever..” Suddenly, he starts laughing as he holds a finger against his lips.

As a moment of silence arrives, Sean seizes the opportunity for a topic switch. “Say Adam, remember Tuesday? You and Ellery were talking about forming an actual band.. at least that’s what it sounded like to me?”

Adam is seen briefly pondering before the answer comes to him in a snap. “Oh yea. It’s kind of a thing we planned out in the event that the auditions for the Dazzlers didn’t go our way.. and yeah, they didn’t. Since you guys overran, we didn’t get to perform our actual audition.”

Sean bites his tongue. He forgot that that happened. “Shit, I didn’t even realize that. Sorry about that.. shit went south and I should have just let you and Ellery perfo-”

“Nah, don’t even,” Adam waves his hand and smiles with sealed lips. “You were- the performance you pulled off that day.. I don’t think we would have topped that. Seriously, Sean, you’ve got something special.”

Sean’s heart thumps and beats. “Uh, thanks for the.. that’s nice of you, thanks,” he manages to rush out before his mind completely empties itself. “So um, are you guys going to be.. performing later?”

“Hell yes!” Eric exclaims, pounding his chest with all his might. “Yep, gonna go up there and bang out some drums. Fuck that Winchell guy! Fuck Barnes and Winchell, fuck Blue Box, it’s-”

“-Yeah,” Adam swiftly interrupts. “Not as the uh, full-on rock band though. That’s a separate thing. For now, it’s just Barnes and Winchell.” 

“Hey g.. guys,” Ellery says nonchalantly, sneaking up on everyone on the table. He seems slightly perturbed when he locks eyes with Eric.

Eric immediately stands up from his seat and shoots Ellery a stinging glare. “What? You got a problem with me being here?”

Ellery calmly sets his guitar case against the table and raises both his hands up. “No, no. No problem. Just uh, joining my boys Adam and Sean here.”

Weirdly, that seems to satisfy the enraged Eric. As Eric turns his back against Ellery to sit back down, Ellery silently mouths “ what the fuck ” to Adam, who only offers an indifferent shrug in response.

The table falls into silence- the unbearable type of silence, all thanks to some strange, unresolved tension between Ellery and Eric that Sean’s not privy to. Fortunately, Eric eventually gets up and disappears into some other part of the cafe.

Ellery exhales, “Guys, what the fuck was he doing here.” 

Sean doesn’t know either, so he turns to Adam for an explanation. “Bro, I swear, he literally came and sat down around five minutes after you left. Pretty sure he’s just high, that’s all.”

“Let’s hope so,” Ellery grumbles.

“What.. What's his problem?” Sean asks, dying to know what the whole drama is.

Adam briefly looks at Ellery before turning towards Sean. “So.. you know Ellery’s thing for the music club president? You remember us talking about that on Monday?”

“Um, yeah?”

“Well, as the story goes, Eric has eyes on her too.”

“Oh shit,” Sean gasps. “For real?”

Adam nods. “I know, right? He’s been kind of standoffish to Ellery ever since he found out.”

“I hate assholes like that,” Ellery mumbles. “It’s not even because we’re after the same girl, but.. he’s genuinely a bad person. Like, I swear.”

Sean wants to inquire further, but Ellery looks like he’s about to pop a blood vessel. “..dude, are you kidding? He doesn’t stand a chance against you, man.”

Ellery turns around coldly, fiddling with his fingers. “Well.. I don’t know man, I lost some points with her after that speaker stunt during tryouts.”

Sean grimaces. “Sorry.”

“No, no,” Ellery waves. “It’s not your fault. She’s just acting out again.. always does stuff like this. Bitc- she hasn’t even given me back my speaker.”

“Maybe she was so grumpy ‘cause she was still feeling sick. Y’know, after her set in the rain,” Adam offers thoughtfully. “I swear, she was in a bitchy mood for the whole tryouts. I don’t think she woulda even let you and Sean do one song if you two didn’t have prior history.”

Ellery sighs. “On the bright side.. I can’t wait to pull an all-nighter tomorrow night,” He scratches his chin. “Overwatch, here I come.”

Adam cocks an eyebrow. “Can you even run the game?”

“Uh, probably? I hope so. If not.. yea, that would suck balls.”

“Hey guys!” Lyla pops out from nowhere, which startles Sean. He’s getting scared an unusual amount of times today. “How are the three musketeers holding up? Ready for the epic open mic night?”

All three boys collectively groan.

–

It takes awhile for the Big Head employees to set up the stage, but eventually a large area towards the back of the cafe is cleared out to serve as a working stage. Sean takes a sip from his water bottle as he observes people moving out tables and chairs and moving in audio equipment and loudspeakers, their coordinated movements reminding him of a choreographed ant colony hard at work. 

Ellery told him that Barnes and Winchell would be the fourth to perform- apparently a band called Timbuktu is going up first, followed by some pirate band and then a band called Silk. 

Lyla leans back in her chair. “Man, I’m kinda disappointed in y’all. You should be more excited! The fucking High Seas are going to be performing!”

“Eh, I’m not really a fan,” Ellery comments indifferently. “Don’t get the hype. Plus, it’s gonna suck performing after them.”

“Yeah..” Adam winces. “Though their earlier stuff.. it’s not bad.”

Lyla pouts, her head shaking in disappointment. “Okay, that’s.. what about you, Sean? I know you’re the biggest High Seas fan!”

Sean blinks, having not really paid attention to the conversation. “Sorry, who?”

Lyla groans as Ellery howls with laughter. “You guys suck,” she shakes her head.

“No, I- I genuinely don’t know who that is. They’re performing today?” Sean asks.

Lyla frowns, shaking her head. “We literally talked about it on Tuesday.. your daydreaming’s getting worse and worse, man.”

“You talked about it, Lyla,” Adam corrects. “Anyways.. they’re a local band that sort of blew up on social media lately,” Adam explains. “I think they did a.. cover of some pop rock song that got a crazy amount of views. And then people started discovering their original stuff as well, and the rest is history.”

Ellery scoffs. “Not sure I’d go that far.”

“What’s your deal with them anyways? This is some wild hater behaviour coming from you.” Lyla confronts Ellery, her tone a little impassioned.

“I’m not a hater. I just think they’re overrated! ..though some of their covers are great.”

“Whatever you say.” Lyla waves her hand dismissively in response. “Oh shit, I think it’s starting.” 

Sean turns his eyes to the makeshift stage. Without him noticing, a group of people whom he presumes to be Timbuktu have taken over the stage and seem to be performing some last-minute soundchecks. Not too long after, the drummer does a simple count-in and Timbuktu’s set begins. Their first song is some alt rock track that Sean doesn’t know. 

He feels a sharp nudge from his left. It’s Ellery, who says in his ear amidst the loud music: “What kind of name is Timbuktu anyways? Sounds like it’s a few letters off from a place in Spongebob.” To which Sean laughs, and he does so with no care since the band’s performance is loud enough.

Timbuktu breezes through their set, finishing with five minutes left of their allotted ten minute slot. After the lead singer ends off their last song with a lingering high note, the crowd offers scant applause and cheering, which makes Sean cringe a little inside. Luckily, a Big Head worker steps in to hype up the crowd, and Timbuktu at least walk off stage to a short yet thunderous sound of applause. 

The same worker steps on stage briefly and announces, “Okay.. next up we have one of the most up and coming pirate bands on the West Coast- give it up for the High Seas!”

Sean jumps up from his seat once again when he hears sudden screaming and cheering for the High Seas. Are they really that big of a deal? To be fair, he wouldn’t really know- he’s not the most musically literate person.

A woman with a curled fauxhawk and eyepatch grabs the microphone. Sean presumes she’s the lead singer.. and bassist, judging on the dangling bass guitar on her chest. “Hi everyone, it’s Tammi. We’ll get on with it, but for the first song we just wanted to do something special- one of the first songs we performed live, on this very stage, actually! When we were still a small-time band.”

“ Still a small-time band,” the guitarist steps in to intrude, a frown on his face. He has nothing on but a white tank top and basic pants. It’s kind of hard for Sean to take this whole High Seas thing seriously. I mean, the guitarist, who looks like a full grown man is wearing orange sunglasses and a pirate hat ..

Sean looks around him. At least Lyla seems more than happy, he observes. I wonder if she’s fangirling over the guitarist or the keyboardist. Probably the keyboardist, he’s cuter.

“..You’ll have to pardon Dwight, everyone. Anyways, shoutout to uh, Kelly from Big Head if she’s still around, and uh.. yea, I hope you enjoy this cover of ours.”

Almost without any notice, the man with orange glasses- Dwight starts off with a menacingly upbeat guitar riff, signalling the start of the song. Intermittently, the other members begin entering the song; Tammi plucks some furious bass notes, the keyboardist enters with an equally mean, droning riff and the drummer whips up some brutal cymbal crashes. All of this mounting buildup seems to rest on the initial guitar riff that Dwight kicked off the song with, which has now evolved into a gritty, rapid variation of the same riff. 

Sean can’t take his eyes off Dwight- more specifically, his guitar. Right as the song unexpectedly launches into some jazzy interlude, his left hand seems to move with unbelievable haste and precision across the fretboard. The movement seems much more conservative than his dad’s playing a few days ago, but the sound nevertheless blends perfectly with the pulsating keyboard lick that’s going on at the same time.

The High Seas return to the main riff shortly after the jazz interlude, but seem to stay on the riff for quite some time. Actually, Sean thinks that the riff is slowly getting faster and faster in tempo, which only impresses him even more when he realizes that all the instruments are still staying in time. 

Very gradually, the layers of instrumentation peel back as Dwight begins strumming out single chords, giving rise to what seems to be a different segment of the song. The keyboardist enters, playing a blazingly clean and meditative riff. What’s to come must be pretty.. serious, Sean figures.

The crowd cheers when Tammi gently enters the song with some softly sung lyrics, with the instruments going into an equally soft spoken, yet intricate direction. From the corner of his vision, Sean thinks he sees Lyla rub her left eye. Is she crying?

Moving into the chorus section, Dwight and Tammi huddle close to a microphone and sing in unison. Together with the distinct and haunting aaahhh ’s contributed by the drummer on a separate microphone, the result is a rich, intricate layer of harmonies which sends chills throughout Sean’s body- even more so when Sean listens to what they’re singing about:

Don't doubt the fact there's life within you

Yesterday's endings will tomorrow life give you

All that dies, dies for a reason

To put its strength into the Season

Even though he doesn’t have the slightest clue on what the fuck the lyrics are even about, the mere mention of the words life and dies strike a chord inside of Sean. This, combined with the song’s powerful instrumental intro- man, there’s something about this song. Or maybe this band.

Eventually, it all comes to an end as the High Seas, in a coordinated effort sustain what seems to be the last line of the song. The song launches back into the intro riff in full force- Tammi, Dwight and the keyboardist trade looks at each other as they cap off the song by playing a rotating sequence of the same riff with their respective instruments. 

Tammi takes a playful bow as the crowd erupts into nothing but applause and loud cheering. “Thank you very much, thank you! And um-” -she turns around to face the drummer, who shakes her head profusely at Tammi- “-it looks like we went on longer than expected, so we only have time for one more song.”

The crowd, clamoring for more High Seas, squeals in response. “Sorry, guys! I don’t make the rules. Either way, the next song we’re going to perform is Elements. ”

And the crowd goes back into wild mode.

–

The second song that the High Seas perform, from what Sean can gather is one of their better known songs. If the reception to the first song was glowingly positive, the reaction to the second song is a literal supernova. The raw energy emanating from the band’s performance is overwhelming- it bleeds into some members of the crowd, which forces the poor, most likely underpaid workers at the cafe to start restraining people. Despite the innocuous and chill-vibes setting of the Big Head, the venue almost devolves into frenzy-filled thrashing and moshing.

“Another reason I’m glad my shifts aren’t during open mic nights,” Lyla remarks. “I can’t blame these guys though. The High Seas are soo good.”

“That first song was nice,” Ellery comments. “Any clue what it was, Adam?”

“Dunno. Yeah, it was good, for sure. You should ask Lyla though, she probably knows.” 

Ellery looks at Lyla. “Well?”

“I’ve heard the song once before.. not sure what it’s called though.”

Sean seizes the opportunity. “Well, Lyla, we’ve all heard it once before.” The joke earns him a sharp poke on the hip, which sends him recoiling in pain.

“Okay, okay, pipe down guys,” Adam laughs hysterically at the sight. “I think the next band is up. Damn, the guitarist is kinda cute.”

Sean makes a complete recovery from his pain when he sees who’s on stage. His brain freezes for a bit, almost as if it’s too stunned at the revelation in front of him. 

It’s- it’s them.. dad’s fucking employee and her girlfriend..

“Eww, Adam,” Lyla complains. “C’mon man, Max is my friend from work.”

Chapter Text

“Okay, next up, we’ve got the acoustic duo Silk! A warm round of applause please, for these two lovely ladies!”

Sean barely finds the time to look down at the table. Wow, that’s an interesting pattern on the wood, he pretends to think about.

His dad’s employee snatches the microphone from the host. Unlike her heavily jacketed appearance on Monday at the garage, she’s clad in a flashy graphic tee and a pair of torn, on-the-verge-of-falling-apart jeans. 

“Hey everyone! We’re Silk, and- what? Oh, there’s another microphone..? Whoops,” she hands back the microphone to the Big Head employee. Her long strands of hair flutter lightly as she runs over to an unoccupied microphone.

Sean, amidst the chaos on stage takes the chance to glance over at Silk’s guitarist, just to really confirm the situation at hand. Brunette, check. Small blue, doe-like eyes, check. A heavily freckled face, check. 

Yep, that’s her alright. His life is really just that poorly written of a sitcom. He wants to hit himself in the head- how the fuck did he not see them in the crowd earlier? Did.. she already see him?

“Okay, we’re good now? Okay..! Yeah, so like I was saying, we’re Silk, and I’m Chloe, and that’s Max-“ she points over at the guitarist- or Max, who gives a shy wave to the crowd and forces out a faint smile. “-and we- um.. we’re gonna perform a couple of her originals!” She shuffles her feet. 

Right, her name’s Chloe , Sean silently remembers. He probably should try to avoid looking in her direction as well- what if she recognizes him and tries to come over to his table with Max?

Chloe’s energetic voice doesn’t really match her body language. Max isn’t exactly a crowning display of confidence either, but she seems to manage. After a reassuring nod from Max, she returns her focus to the crowd and takes a few steps forward on the stage with the microphone firmly in her hand. She takes in a huge gulp of air. 

Then, suddenly, a soft and gentle guitar riff enters- and the whole crowd stops talking. Even Sean looks up to see the performance, momentarily unbothered by the potential consequences. 

Despite the soothing nature of the music, Max herself looks.. tense. Her gaze is solely directed towards her left hand, almost as if she’s afraid of messing up. Or maybe she already did, but Sean honestly wouldn’t be able to tell.

Sean notes that Max’s guitar looks similar to his dad’s, except that hers looks way newer and has an extremely sleek sheen to it. Also, there’s some white flower petal stickers stuck on the guitar body..? It’s a cute, girly touch.

“Is the song gonna start..?” Ellery mumbles to no one.

“Rude,” Lyla comments. “What if I heckle you guys next.”

And of course, Ellery and Lyla decide to have this random interaction when Chloe starts singing. Sean isn’t able to make out what the opening lyrics are, but he’s able to make out the next few lines.

There must be more of life for me to see

Than famous folks and hip parties

Desperation, drugs and vanity

Give me something real, tangible and free

Sean grimaces- Chloe’s voice cracks at the last line there. She seems to pull off the singing decently enough though, despite the fact that her voice sounds a bit too deep at certain parts. Perhaps appropriate to the mood of the lyrics, she stays mostly still on stage, closing her eyes and clenching the microphone tighter when hitting some of those high notes. 

Hollow glow

What do you have, and who do you know?

Hollow glow

Sometimes the hardest thing is learning to say no

Chloe almost seems- sad, which is something Sean didn’t think he’d ever get to see. To him, she left the impression of an upbeat person, perhaps excessively so. Like someone who couldn’t give a fuck, like her overall response to the whole car affair- she practically seemed ready to smash heads with whoever (him) dared mess with her girlfriend. 

But tonight, with her eyes half-opened, she’s bearing her heart out on stage.

But these blues won’t seem to pass

And this pain it holds too fast

My dreams, they all died a decade ago

I’m older now but I can’t let go

Of who I thought I’d be

Oh, it’s all too much for me

–

The duo top off the song with a final chorus section, and to the sound of furious clapping and high-pitched cheering. Both Max and Chloe stand around, not knowing what to do with themselves except wait as the crowd’s applause gradually winds down.

“Thank you! Thank you! Here’s- we have a few more songs- originals that we want to do. Oh, I guess I should say, the one we just did is called Hollow Glow,” Chloe then looks over to Max, seemingly confirming something with her, “And this next one’s called In My Mind..”

Another slow number. Again, Sean finds himself entranced by the music. While it’s only really one guitar and some half-decent singing by Chloe.. Sean can’t even explain to himself why he finds it so alluring. Maybe it’s the relatively simple yet powerful guitar picking. Or maybe it’s the hauntingly sung lyrics about growing up and heartbreak that speak to him. He really can’t explain why.

Sean is so transfixed that he’s rudely brought back to reality by the cacophonous sound of cheering and applause. The second song seems to be over, and before Sean even realizes the duo launch into the third song immediately.

The voice of someone talking creeps in. “Hey, Ellery, isn’t this..” Adam asks as he nudges Ellery’s shoulder. 

“Isn’t what?” Ellery impatiently whispers back. 

Adam sighs. “Um, you know, that one song. By.. fuck, who was it?”

“Dude, you’re really killing my vibe here. I’m trying to enjoy fucking Se- uh, Silk, man.” Ellery snarls in response.

“Okay, okay, sheesh, no need to be so bitchy,” Adam then raises an eyebrow. “..But wait, you’re trying to fuck Silk?”

Lyla tuts in annoyance. “Guys, please. I can’t fucking hear anything with you guys arguing. They’re already so hard to hear.”

Ellery rolls his eyes. “Real funny, Adam. And you’re exaggerating, Lyla. It’s not like we’re talking over them.”

“Bitch, you’re sitting right next to me, it’s the only thing I can hear!” Lyla hisses. To Sean’s relief, that seems to do the trick, and the group falls back into silence.

Silk’s third song, at least from what Sean can tell so far, seems to be a rehash of what they’ve been performing up to this point- sad, slightly angsty acoustic numbers with pretty, mellowed out vocals. Chloe, despite visibly trembling on stage, perhaps due to the cold or nervousness, remains consistent in her raspy, yet piercing vocal delivery. 

Even Max seems much more assertive and out of her shell in the third song. Instead of burying her head in the fretboard, she starts looking out into the crowd for longer and longer. 

In fact, she’s now looking at Sean right in the eyes. 

And her face goes cold.

Sean turns his head right away, and it’s not long before she quickly turns away as well. 

Sean winces inside- did she just recognize me?  

Taking a step back to analyze the situation, Sean realizes that the performance is still going on strong- she didn’t make a mistake, at least from what Sean can tell. Surely that’s a sign, right? Maybe she was just looking at something behind me. Given the crowd size at the Big Head, it’s certainly possible. And maybe- her face wasn’t even freezing up! Maybe she was just stretching her face after being so tense for that long! Right? 

The sound of applause fills the air once again, and Silk takes their bow. Chloe gives the crowd a smile and pulls in Max for a tight embrace, which riles up the crowd even more.

It’ll be fine it’ll be fine it’ll be fine , Sean repeats inside his head as he’s trying to look at anything except for Chloe and Max as they make their way through the crowd, seemingly in the direction of Sean’s table. It’ll be fine it’ll be fine it’ll be fine. Like.. she didn’t even mess up once, and she would have messed up if she did see me, so it’s all good.. just.. keep your head down..

Lyla giggles excitedly. “Damn, that was incredible.”

“Eh,” Ellery says coolly. “She made a few mistakes up there.”

Sean shudders. Who? Chloe? Yeah, I think she was missing some of those high notes.. right?

Adam rolls his eyes and groans. “Really? I think you’re just jealous that two of their songs were originals,” He pauses, almost as if to give Sean cruel suspense. “..Though in fairness, the guitarist kinda messed up towards the end.”

And Sean’s heart sinks. 

“Hey, is that.. Sean? What are you doing here?” Chloe asks, smiling.

Sean’s mouth is wide open. The two of them are standing right there, in front of his table. 

He doesn’t know what to say. Max is standing behind Chloe, and she too looks like she’s lost for words. She’s busy scrutinizing his face. 

“H- hey.” he manages to force out after an awkward amount of time. 

If Chloe finds Sean’s response strange, she’s not letting it show. She inches closer to the table and asks him who his friends are. Chloe’s eyes widen when Sean introduces Lyla.

“Oh hey! I think I’ve seen you around- don’t you work here?”

Lyla raises her head to look at the green-haired girl. “Uh, yeah! You do seem familiar..”

Max steps forward and briefly waves towards the table. “Hey, Lyla.”

“Oh my god, Max!” Lyla gets up and pulls Max in for a deep hug, which takes her aback. “That was such a great performance!”

Max chuckles, her expression becoming less tense. “Thanks.” Still stuck in a hug, she lightly pats Lyla’s back.

Chloe, who’s standing beside them this whole interaction raises an eyebrow. “Wow, Caulfield. Didn’t know you were so smitten with your co-workers. It’s kinda making me jealous.”

Max’s face reddens. “No, it’s not like.. she’s not even-”

Lyla howls in laughter and takes her hands off of Max. “Okay, jokes aside- that performance was amazing! I didn’t know you guys wrote your own songs! That’s so cool!”

“Thank you for the kind words..” Chloe beams, “But really, you should be praising Max! She wrote everything. I’m nothing more than a humble messenger.” She pantomimes a devout worshipper by clasping her hands together.

Max’s face somehow gets even redder. She starts shaking her head and breaking into a big smile. “No, no, we wouldn’t even be able to perform if not for Chloe! She’s a wonderful singer.” 

Eventually, the whole conversation descends into an endless back-and-forth where both sides try to compliment each other. Chloe brings up Max’s brilliant guitar playing, to which Max responds by saying she isn’t really that good at the instrument. She follows up by giving further praise to Chloe’s singing. Lyla’s laughing, amused at the whole situation.

Sean wants to laugh too, but he doesn’t want to bring attention to himself. Instead, he looks at the stage, which is behind where Chloe and Max are standing. Amidst the commotion, it seems like Ellery and Adam quietly snuck away to prepare for their set.

His gaze fearfully returns to the situation at hand. The girls are having a pretty wholesome banter, but his mind’s telling him it’ll all fall apart soon. He wants so badly to just stand up and leave, but even he knows that’s not an option here.

Just barely, he hears the faintest whisper escape from Max’s mouth. Something that sounded like.. Chloe, I need to tell you something.

“Whatever it is, it can wait! Surprise group selfie!” Chloe pulls out her phone and pulls in a flustered Max.

Sean sees that Chloe is smiling. As for Max.. she stares briefly at Sean before facing the camera lens.

She definitely knows. 

The flash of Chloe’s phone camera goes off, followed by its shutter sound. Sean blinks.

Max turns to look at him once again. Except this time, there’s something removed from her menacing stare- now she looks like she’s just seen a ghost. Her eyebrows curve upwards, their shape yelling urgency. 

“Alright, Sean, mind if we sit-” Chloe begins.

Max whisks Chloe away, which momentarily catches her off guard. She’s whispering something into her ear. Sean isn’t able to tell what’s being said this time.

Strangely, Chloe’s entire behaviour changes. She seems to freeze up for a few seconds before slowly facing Max, who nods frantically at her. She seems.. worried about something? Sean doesn’t know how anyone other than him in this situation could be worried.

“Um, sorry guys, time out. We’ll be back in a bit,” Chloe smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. 

“Everything okay?” Lyla asks, concerned. 

Max gives a thumbs up, but it feels forced. Chloe simply nods and repeats that nothing is wrong.

Sean looks on as the duo gradually disappear into the crowd, presumably to someplace private. He’s really confused- it almost seemed like Max was.. afraid of him? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

“What was that about?” Sean cups his jaw with his hand, hoping Lyla can offer an explanation. 

His friend simply shrugs. “Couldn’t tell you. That was weird for me too.”

Something else occurs to Sean. “Wait.. how do you know Chloe?”

Lyla turns to him, half astonished. “You don’t remember me saying that Max worked here?”

“Oh, right. I forgot, sorry.”

“Oh, well. I don’t really know her that well to begin with. She usually comes to pick Max up, but I don’t usually work on the same day as Max so I really don’t see her that often,” Lyla explains. She realizes something, and her eyebrows narrow. “Wait, didn’t she greet you first? How do you know her?”

“She’s one of my dad’s new employees, I think. Probably on an apprenticeship or something.”

Lyla nods. “Oh, that’s sick! Small world,” she leans back in her seat. “I didn’t peg her to be a car person. Though..” she scratches her chin thoughtfully. “..I guess it does kinda make sense.”

Sean scoffs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know, ‘cause she looks so.. y’know what, forget it,” She waves dismissively and looks away, trying to hide her weirdly red cheeks. “Are they not performing yet?”

Sean realizes that he forgot about the open mic night for a moment. He focuses on the stage, now aware of all the loud shouting and yelling coming from it. There seems to be.. a bit of a scuffle?

“..think you can take her away from me? Well, you can fucking try!” 

On stage, a completely intoxicated Eric flails around wildly, blindly swinging his fists in the air. He’s being restrained by a poor Big Head employee.  

On the other hand, Ellery, though visibly frightened, also seems eager for violence- the only thing holding him back is a rattled Adam, who’s fruitlessly trying to calm down his musical partner. Sean shudders as he notices a fresh, bright red bruise on Ellery’s face.

“If you’re that fucking insecure, go ahead! Maybe you can finally prove how much of a man you are!”

“C’mon, Ellery, stop egging him on!”

“Holy fucking shit,” Sean gasps. He turns to look at how Lyla’s reacting, but she’s already off running and leaping onto the stage. 

“Guys, guys, cool it!” Lyla shouts as she wedges herself between the two feuding boys, pressing a hand on each of their chests.

Before the situation can escalate any further, reinforcements in the form of tired Big Head employees arrive and manage to separate both Ellery and Eric, and they’re taken off stage. Eventually, Ellery returns to their table with the help of his friends, panting and gasping for air as he slumps back in his chair.

“The fuck happened?” Lyla begins. 

Adam sighs. “So basically.. right when we were about to start, a drunk Eric ran up on stage and started throwing hands. Started yelling about me taking the club president from him all over again.”

“What the fuck?” Sean exclaims.

“The next time I see him,” Ellery breathes, holding an ice pack over his bruise. “He’s dead.”

Adam buries his head in his hands. “I’m with you. I.. don’t even know if we’ll ever be allowed to perform here again.”

“How’d he even get drunk in the first place?” Sean asks.

“Fuck if I know,” Ellery replies, looking at the floor.

“Hey, this whole thing is bullshit! It’s not even you guys’ fault! Maybe I can tell my boss that-”

Adam locks eyes with Lyla. “You don’t have to do that.”

“There’s no harm in trying.”

“Well.. I just don’t want-”

“Seriously, it’s fine. My boss is super chill, I’ll try to make him understand.”

Sean nods. “I mean.. Even if he disagrees, it’s still worth a shot.”

Ellery looks at Sean with his uninjured eye. He doesn’t seem entirely satisfied. 

“Oof, okay, that happened,” the voice of a Big Head employee booms over the speakers. “But you know what they say, the show must go on.” 

–

The show must indeed go on. After the fight on stage, several musicians- most of them solo acts or duos go on to perform their respective sets as if nothing happened. Most of the songs are just acoustic covers of chart-toppers from the past decade, with a rare few being self-penned, full-band originals. 

Sean’s enjoying the performances. It’s a nice respite, especially from the big fight that just went down. The breezy and effortless folk songs being performed also seem to calm down both Ellery and Adam, who Sean imagines must be really upset over Eric crashing their set.

If he’s being honest with himself, it’s not too much of a stretch to see why the fight even happened in the first place- Ellery’s the type of person who’s all calm and well-behaved.. at least until the moment someone provokes him. Eric flailing at him on stage like a madman probably sent his best friend into uncontrolled anger.

Is the music club president truly worth all this mess? She seemed like such a control freak back on Tuesday during tryouts, Sean recalls to himself. That being said, she’s exactly Ellery’s type- white, blond, not too tall, pretty face..

These random thoughts are of course, a distraction from the other situation at hand for Sean. He’s starting to wonder whether he should just silently slip away from everyone while Chloe and Max are still off doing.. whatever. The timing couldn’t be better, after all.

But his conscience nags at him. He’s done something wrong, and the right thing to do is to apologize to Max, and then maybe (most definitely) to Chloe for not telling her earlier on Monday in the car shop. There wouldn’t be any point in running away anyways- Max and Chloe will find out what Sean has done regardless by end of day, and him not confessing will probably make matters worse for himself. 

Sean gulps as he feels a rising level of tension in his chest. Inexplicably, he’s now feeling a particularly strong sense of bravery to just get it over with. He stands up, deciding to go look for the two girls himself. 

No one at his table says a word about him leaving, which is fine with Sean. He heads to the back of the cafe, which is essentially a cramped hallway where the staff area, bathroom and backdoor are. He gently pushes on the bathroom door and realizes it’s unoccupied. They’re not here.

Sean notices the sound of faint chatter- he’s not exactly sure whether it’s coming from behind him from inside the cafe or from the outside. Before he has time to deduce, however, someone leans against the other side of the backdoor, exposing half of their back through the window panels on the door.

From what Sean can tell, the figure through the door matches what Chloe has been wearing for the evening. Are they still talking? Should I wait for them to finish their conversation?

The chatter seems to get louder, as some loud, rushed voices continue to creep in. Out of a fear of not wanting to be seen just yet, Sean reflexively runs into the bathroom. 

Now inside the bathroom, he realizes that their conversation’s flowing in through an open window near the ceiling. His interest piqued, he locks the bathroom door and tries to make out as much as the conversation as he can.

“..what are you talking about? I’m telling you, that’s the kid who rammed into-”

“Max, I know, but-” 

“Know what? What do you mean you know? Do you want to tell me what’s going on? I mean, you knew him-”

“ MAX , please!” Chloe yells, which shocks Sean. He doesn’t hear Max speak at all. “Just- just listen to me for a sec, alright? You went back, and I mean ‘other you’ went back, because.. apparently something horrible had happened. And we need to do something about that.”

Max sounds nothing short of petrified. “I.. I w- went back?”

A few seconds of silence elapse, but Sean senses that it isn’t a normal conversational pause- it’s tinged with absolute fear over whatever Max just realized.

“Look, don’t even- just listen to me. C’mere,” Chloe’s voice cracks as Max presumably starts sniffling. “Yes, you did. You.. we’ll deal with that later. But for now- hey, look at me. Just look at me. We’re gonna figure this out, okay? We’re gonna figure it out.”

“Oh god..”

At first, Sean was admittedly a little curious to hear their conversation, but now he’s unsure whether he should still be eavesdropping. He’s got no idea what the girls were talking about- apparently, something bad’s going to happen? 

I should leave, Sean realizes. He shudders to even think about what the ostensibly innocuous and friendly girls could possibly be hiding. He scratches his hair- just what the fuck have I gotten myself into? Can he even make his long overdue apology, at this point? Should he?

But maybe I shouldn’t leave- if someone’s being injured and they’re trying to hide something..

Sean panics- he’s at a complete loss on what to do. By the time he manages to calm himself down, he’s not sure how long he’s been in the bathroom for. Judging on the silence, the girls might be gone. Nonetheless, Sean tries to leave discreetly- the last thing he wants is to blow his cover, in case they’re still around.

Slowly opening the door, Sean freezes when the door comes to an unexpected stop. Someone is blocking the door.

A grunt comes out from the other end. Sean grimaces, and quickly mouths an apology at whoever he just accidentally hit.

“It’s okay,” a strangely familiar feminine voice responds back. Sean can’t quite connect the voice to a face.

But it doesn’t matter, because he immediately sees who it is once he moves the door away from the person’s face to close it. “Jenn?” he blurts out.

Jenn looks surprised to see Sean too, but she quickly greets him with an amicable smile. “Oh, hey Sean! Nice to see you here!”

“You uh, you too.” he returns a smile that he hopes is more friendly than goofy looking. He gestures at Jenn to move away so that he can fully get out of the bathroom. 

The two of them stand idly in the hallway connecting the back of the cafe to its main area. Sean feels compelled to fill the silence. “So what are you doing here? Checking out the open mic night?” Sean asks before he realizes something. “Wait.. are you performing?”

“Nah. I just wanted to come check out the performances. I’m kind of sick right now anyways.”

“Oh shit, why?” Sean doesn’t know why he feels the need to pry.

“I was in the rain last weekend during a performance,” Jenn explains. “And my immune system just proceeded to collapse. I’m feeling much better now, though.”

“Yeah, get well soon.”

“Thanks,” Jenn rushes out. “What about you? Didn’t know you were gonna be here.”

“Just here to check out some bands too, I guess. Lyla invited the whole friend group, so why not.”

The two of them don’t say anything for a while. Sean’s face burns, because his mind is drawing a complete blank on what else to say. 

Luckily for him, Jenn breaks the silence. “She’s into the High Seas, right?”

“Huh?”

“Lyla. She’s been sending me clips of their songs and whatnot.”

“I mean, I think she is? You- are you a fan as well?”

Jenn shrugs. “I like a few songs by them. I wouldn't call myself a fan, though.” Then, she gives Sean a renewed grin. “Y’know, you were great on Tuesday. I had no idea you were such a great singer!”

It takes Sean a moment to recall what Jenn is talking about. “Oh. Oh yeah, hah. Nah, I’m really not. I’m more of a rapper, freestyle kind of guy. It just so happened that the club president didn’t let us use Ellery’s speaker, so I had to make do on the spot.”

Jenn’s eyes widen, which does something to Sean. “Wait, seriously?! So you basically were just.. You basically just winged it?”

Sean lifts his arm to scratch a nonexistent itch on his back. “I.. when you put it like that, I guess I kinda did.”

“That’s.. amazing! You’ve got a really natural singing voice- I thought you would have maybe prepared a bit. For some people, it takes years of training to even get to where you’re at.”

Sean really can’t take any more flattery, especially if it’s from his crush. “You know, you were really good too. I really liked the song you were singing, which was..” Fuck, what was it? Curse my bad memory!

Jenn laughs. “Everlong? Yeah, it’s one of my favourite Foo Fighters songs.” Suddenly, she’s staring straight into his soul. 

“That’s cool. I uh, don’t really listen to a lot of that stuff though. I mostly listen to rap and hip hop these days.”

“No way, me too!” Jenn says excitedly. “Is that what got you into rapping?”

Sean’s still registering the fact that Jenn of all people is into hip hop too. “Yeah, it’s definitely one of the reasons. You listen to rap too? No way.. maybe.. I could show you how I break it down sometime.”

He kind of regrets saying that, but if Jenn finds it cringe-inducing she’s doing a good job of hiding her reaction. She asks Sean: “Y’know.. Eric’s throwing a party tomorrow night. He’s got a karaoke machine at his place.. maybe you could show me then?”

“Uh.. he’s throwing a party?” Sean blinks. “I mean, I’d like to come! But.. I’m not sure he invited me though..”

Jenn waves her hand dismissively. “Just walk in! Eric’s parties always devolve into an open-house thing anyways.”

In the back of Sean’s mind, one burning thought takes over all else. Is this.. Jenn asking me out? 

A finger snap brings him back to reality. “Um, Sean? You alright?” Jenn asks, amused. 

“Oh! Um, yeah, I’m here. Sorry, just- lost focus for a sec there.”

“It’s okay. Look, I’ll meet you there tomorrow.. at 6pm?” 

Sean’s stunned into silence. He wants to pinch his face- is he dreaming right now? He has to be dreaming right now. “Um.. we’re going together, then?”

Jenn pretends to act offended and chuckles. “Um, duh?!” The sight of a person making their way over to them in the hallway seems to interrupt whatever she’s going to say next, and she simply assures Sean that she’ll text him more details of the party later before leaving.

“See you tomorrow!” she shouts before running off. 

Sean’s left grinning like an idiot, his feet glued to the ground. Eventually remembering why he’s there in the first place, he proceeds to swing the back door open, only to be greeted by the tranquil silence of a late Thursday evening in downtown Seattle.

Chapter Text

For a while now, Sean feels like he’s been on autopilot mode. Sometimes for him, the days blur into each other. Same school, same family, same friends, same bullshit. Even his interests are beginning to numb him. He doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t feel the same drive to draw everyday like he used to anymore. Even the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction he gets from winning races or beating personal bests as track team captain is gone. 

Until today, Sean has been attributing his feelings of emptiness to bouts of stress and tiredness. Usually, whenever he has such feelings, he would shut down the thought immediately or refuse to acknowledge it. But after this week it’s gotten to the point where he can’t push it down any further- there’s something missing in his life. And he’s got no idea what it could be.

These are the thoughts flowing through his mind as he looks around with nothing better to do in math class. He looks down at the slightly creased test paper in his hands. 73%.. better than I expected, damn. Turns out studying with Jenn did pay off, after all. A wave of relief washes over him as he was expecting to have failed the test. He’s glad to have this particular weight lifted off his shoulders, especially with how the past few days have gone. 

Though undoubtedly, Jenn inviting him to Eric’s party is something uplifting. His friends scarcely believed him when he told them afterwards. In fact, they were in such disbelief that everyone temporarily forgot about the onstage fight that had just happened.

Only Lyla believed him at the time. She immediately started devising a plan of attack for Sean. What to wear, how to greet her, what to say to her and so on. Ellery and Adam were still pretty doubtful until Sean sent a screenshot of Jenn texting him the party details later that evening in the group chat. He quietly giggles to himself as he remembers the group chat messages afterwards:

Ellery: holty shit 

Ellery: yea sean im sorry For doubting you

Sean: apology accepted

Adam: what’s the link to the fake texts website u used?

Sean: …

Lyla: Guys, tbh i didnt realy believe it either but I just texted Jenn. 

Lyla: And yea it act hppned

Ellery: ok sean now its getting sad y are u paying lyla to lie for u

His friends are great.

Sean also thinks back to his walk back home with Lyla after the open mic night last night, and what she told him. “More importantly, just be yourself. Don’t think about it too hard.. after all, she is interested in you.”

Easier said than done. But Sean has to admit, even Lyla of all people can occasionally impart sagely advice. Now that he’s thinking about happier things, he cracks a weak smile to express his inner excitement for the party later.

“What’s got you so cheerful, huh?”

Not thrilled to be interrupted in his thoughts, Sean looks up to meet the source of the voice. Of course it’s Brett. He scoffs. “None of your business?”

Brett takes a moment to look around him before leaning in closer to Sean. He places a hand on his desk for support. “Listen.. you are done, you hear me? Done.” He says with a light but menacing tone.

Sean isn’t exactly intimidated, because his classmate’s threat comes seemingly out of left field. Though they’ve never seen eye to eye on a lot of things, he can’t imagine how their mutual hatred could ascend to this level of direct aggression. “Um.. okay? So what are you gonna do? Actually, I’ll do you one better: what did I do to piss you off so much?”

“Don’t fuck with me, Diaz!” Brett suddenly shouts, his eyes red with rage as he slams Sean’s desk. Sean recoils backwards in his chair out of shock, and everyone else in the class falls into abrupt silence.

“You and Ellery played me on tryouts day! You guys embarrassed me in front of everyone! And for that-”

“Boys, simmer down,” a commanding voice booms from across the classroom. It’s their math teacher, Mr. Daven. He’s actually one of the teachers Sean doesn’t outright hate at his school- his calm but strict demeanor is a comforting presence compared to his other screechy and unsympathetic teachers. 

Mr. Daven adjusts his necktie as he walks over to Sean’s desk. “Now, Brett, I saw the whole thing unfold. You want to explain why you decided to confront Sean in the manner that you did?”

Brett turns around to face his math teacher. “Sir, he- he and his friend, Ellery Winchell pulled a prank on me during music club tryouts on Tuesday! I was on stage, and-”

Mr. Daven lets out a sigh, which is enough to silence a now flustered Brett. “It’s math class, Brett. This is hardly the time to bring up music club matters, don’t you think?”

The teacher doesn’t wait for Brett’s answer. “Now, from what I see, depending on how severe this prank you speak of is, this matter is best settled in the principal’s office. Of course, if you keep disrupting my class like this, I’ll send the both of you there anyway.”

Brett’s stunned into silence, and Sean relishes in the look of defeat that’s plastered all over his rival’s face. He can’t help but shoot him a gleeful look of joy. 

-

“Soo what happened in math? I was back from the little girl’s room and Brett looked pissed out of his mind.”

“Apparently he’s mad about what happened during music club tryouts,” Sean mutters without looking at Lyla. The two of them are walking down one of the many dimly lit school hallways. They’re going to meet Ellery- he wanted to show them something.

Sean proceeds to explain the whole story of what happened in math class. Throughout his retelling, Lyla periodically breaks into long and hearty laughs. 

“You cannot be serious. I really should have held my pee for longer.”

“I know, right? I mean, have some dignity for yourself,” Sean remarks. “The way he was pleading with Mr. Daven to do something- at that point he should have just gotten on his knees or something, hah.”

Lyla’s bawling with laughter. “I don’t even know what’s more ridiculous here, the fact that he was begging for Mr. Daven to punish you or that he’s so full of himself that he thought we deliberately tried to prank him. Like, didn’t he voluntarily go up there?” she flinches as she places a hand over her stomach. “Fuck, I’m laughing too hard.”

Eventually, the two of them make it to the school library. Endless rows of books fill Sean’s peripheral- he had no idea the school library houses this many books. He looks around, stupefied, taking in the impressively modern but rustic decor of the place. 

They eventually make it to the study room. Sean’s pretty sure you have to book rooms like this in advance, but knowing Ellery he probably just chose an unoccupied one at the first chance. Inside stands a humble desk with several black folding chairs surrounding it. Ellery’s already sitting on one end of the table. 

“Hey guys,” he waves his hand openly. “Where’s Adam?”

Sean shrugs wordlessly as he seats himself down. Ellery groans: “Just great. Hopefully he didn’t forget- let me text him real quick.”

“What’s this about, anyways?” Lyla asks.

“Blue Box made it.”

“Made what? Tryouts?”

“Yep.”

“Damn. What about you and-”

“Nope. Did you forget? Me and Adam didn’t even get to perform!”

Lyla grimaces as she folds her arms. “Right, right. Damn, that’s news. Brett and his cronies making it into the Dazzlers.. I guess Brett redeemed himself after that whole situation with the speaker.”

“I mean, the fact that they made it isn’t really too surprising,” Ellery argues. “They’ve gotten pretty good as of late- their tryout performance wasn’t that bad. Real solid lineup, as much as it pains me to admit. Plus Blue Box isn’t really just Brett and his friends- the bandmates other than him are actually pretty chill. Well, maybe Eric isn’t chill, but apparently they kicked him out.”

“Why?”

“Beats me. Maybe he just didn’t fit in with them. Again, I wanna say, great drummer, but big fucking asshole-”

“Can I just ask, sorry,” Sean jumps in, wanting to resolve a question that’s been burning in his mind, “But what exactly is the Dazzlers? I thought it was an alt-rock band, but is it actually just the name of the club-”

Lyla chimes in, “I’m pretty sure it’s an alt-rock band. Except that once you get in, you basically have like untapped access to the school’s wealth of music equipment.”

“Not really,” Ellery corrects, which makes Lyla turn to him, confused as Sean is. “That’s just what it seems like on the surface. You’re right in that getting into the Dazzlers means getting 24/7 access to the equipment. But the difference is that it’s more like a list of people who are given access. 

“Let’s say you have like, let’s say six people who make the Dazzlers but it’s actually like two three person bands. In that situation, there’s an unspoken rule for the two bands to take turns with the equipment. But those two bands basically have free reign over all the equipment.”

Sean thinks he has a partial understanding of the explanation Ellery puts forth. “Wow.. I always thought it was just a band people audition to enter. Like, you’ve got a band and they can try to audition for the Dazzlers, and if their audition is successful the Dazzlers just absorb them or something.”

Ellery smiles mockingly. “Well.. you’re half right. From what I’ve heard, it used to be something like that.. but at some point demand far outstripped supply, and the Dazzlers were almost twenty people in total. The music club doesn’t have that much equipment, so now after every school year everyone who was in the Dazzlers gets kicked out and has to audition again for a spot. For example, I was in the Dazzlers last year, but to join this year I had to audition again. Or.. I guess I technically didn’t, but you get what I’m trying to say here.”

“How do you know so much about this anyways?” Lyla asks, half impressed. “Didn’t know you were such a geek over.. um, rules shit?”

“Oh, uh.. the club president told me,” Ellery answers, though all of a sudden he seems less assertive than before.

A spark seems to flicker in Lyla’s brown eyes, almost as if she’s seizing an opening she’s been looking for. “What’s up with you and her, anyways?” she presses. “..you sure you only have a crush on her?”

“What do you mean?” Ellery crosses his arms. He doesn’t seem too pleased at the sudden insinuation. “There’s nothing going on.”

Lyla glares knowingly into Ellery’s eyes, not saying a single word. The air grows tense all of a sudden.

Ellery hunches over and blinks rapidly. He eventually gives in and sighs, “Okay, okay. Wow, you’re really sharp, huh.”

Must be that woman's intuition dad was talking about, Sean remembers.

“Sharp? That fight between you and Eric yesterday was.. passionate. I don’t think anyone could chalk it up to a mere fight between two guys having mutual crushes.”

Sean thinks he’s grasping at what Lyla’s trying to get at. Sure enough, Ellery spills the truth- as it turns out, he and the club president are closer than he initially let on to the group. Or, in light of recent events, were. 

Ellery explains how he and she got closer during his time in the Dazzlers. They mainly hung out during band practice and talked to each other a lot during interim time periods when setting up equipment or travelling to gigs. Even after Ellery was out of the Dazzlers, they still texted and occasionally went out together. While Ellery was definitely developing some feelings for the club president, she never seemed to outright reciprocate any of the same feelings- as he describes it, he felt like she would often do stuff that sent out mixed signals.

“A week ago, we happened to be at the same party by pure coincidence,” Ellery describes as he winces. “And.. yea, all I’m gonna say is that, both of us probably drank more than we should have, and soon things happened the way that they did. And uh, unfortunately for me.. she didn’t see us like that. Things got awkward fast.”

“Wait, what..” Lyla’s eyes widen as the gears start spinning in her head. “Y- you made-”

Ellery nods, expressing silent admission. “But here’s the killer news: she’s dating Eric. Been dating Eric. Which explains why he went all berserk on me yesterday. He must have found out recently- I was already getting weird looks and insults from him the day before on Wednesday, and it all makes sense now.”

Sean blinks. “Damn, Ellery.. I don’t know what to say. This is a real mess.”

Ellery shrugs. “Eh. I guess it could have been worse if I found out later.”

“How long have they been dating?” Lyla asks.

“I dunno, she wouldn’t say.”

Lyla scratches her head. “Damn, I don’t know her personally, so I wouldn’t be able to find out directly..”

“‘Sup guys, sorry for being late,” Adam barges into the room. “What’d I miss?”

Just about everything, Sean thinks to himself.

They’ve been inside the study room for nearly ten minutes when Adam arrives. Ellery, more than eager for a change of topics, reveals the reason for the meeting.

“We’re dissolving Barnes and Winchell. In place of that, we’re forming a new band!”

“..Yeah, we know. You’ve been telling us the entire week,” Lyla frowns, expressing the same exasperation that Sean’s feeling. “Me and Sean are happy for you two, but this did not need a formal meeting.”

Adam chuckles and gets out of his seat, using both his hands as support. “We just wanted to put it out there like, officially. And also..” he twirls a pen while standing up. His eyes are glued on the table, away from Sean’s gaze. “..Sean, we were thinking of asking you to join the band as a singer.”

Sean gulps. He can hardly believe what is being asked of him. “M-me? Really?”

“Why not? You’re a great singer!” Ellery says, nodding his head. “Me and Adam think you’re the missing spark. The last piece of the puzzle we need to finally pop off.”

Suddenly, Sean feels his face warm up with intense heat as his eyes start darting nervously across the room, looking around for nonexistent answers. Everyone’s attention is now directed towards him, and it’s very uncomfortable. Fleetingly, he locks eyes with Lyla. Her expression is inscrutable.

Should he agree? He’s never really been part of a band before. Granted, he’s a decently good rapper, but it’s always been more of a party trick than anything else. To perform- to sing in front of a crowd of people wanting to be entertained- the thought of it alone sends his chest quivering. He’s quickly brought back to the day of music club tryouts. The mere minutes before he was set to perform, and where things went wrong because of the speaker. The paralysing fear he felt the very moment he got closer to the microphone, inhaled deeply and opened his mouth, not knowing what was going to happen.

But Sean also remembers the astonished looks on everyone after he and Ellery finished the song. The incredible applause and cheering that followed. The high he rode on for the rest of the day after that- he hasn’t felt that good in a long while. He would like to experience that feeling again- no, he wants to feel something like that again.

So he says yes.

“Um.. so why did I have to come?” Lyla asks a few seconds later, her face scrunching in annoyance.

-

Later in the day, Sean and Lyla ride the school bus back home. The warm evening sun paints an orange glow on the houses and a yellowish glint on the parked cars that they pass by. People jogging along the sidewalk, children playing on the front porch- nothing but the common excitement for the weekend ahead. 

Sean can barely contain his own excitement. He’s looking forward to meeting his crush, even if it means potentially bumping into Eric and the ensuing awkward interaction. But he averages at least one awkward interaction per day, so what’s one more?

It’s their stop. His mind is thousands of miles elsewhere as his feet guide him off the bus. Standing on the sidewalk, he turns around to face Lyla, who’s right behind him. 

“Ready for the party later?” Lyla asks.

He answers Lyla as the two of them walk in the same direction. “Yeah. You got the address, right?”

Lyla smirks. “And you got the drinks?”

“Sure, sure..” Sean raises both his arms in the air. “I’ll give it my best to sneak past my dad.”

“Oh c’mon, you can just ask him. Esteban is chill like that, he’ll understand.”

Sean shoots Lyla a look. “Y’know, it’s kinda weird that you’re on first name basis with my dad.”

“It’s not weird.”

“It is! I don’t call your mom by her first name!”

Lyla chuckles, kicking a pebble off the pavement. “We can make it fair. If you can pronounce her first name, you get first name rights.”

Sean scratches his chin. “Bet. What’s her first name?”

The two of them come to a stop as Lyla pulls out her phone to type out some words. She shows Sean her phone when she’s done.

“Hey, I can’t read Korean.”

Lyla scoffs. “I know. That’s the point.”

“Okay, you got me,” Sean smiles. “But really though, how would you say it?”

Lyla repeats the pronounciation several times before elaborating. “Kind of like ‘you’, as in me and you, and ‘gin’, the drink. You-gin.”

Sean nods. “You-gym. Yu-jin.”

“You got it!” Lyla shouts. “Okay, enough fooling around, I need to get back,” Something else however, seems to dawn upon her. “Wait.. did Jenn text you?”

Sean checks his phone. “Uhh.. no, don’t think so. Why?”

Lyla swiftly snatches his phone away and starts furiously typing away. Sean claws for his phone to no avail as Lyla giggles the whole time. Eventually, she caves and surrenders back his phone. 

“The fuck was that for?” Sean asks, a little upset. He looks down at his phone screen. “What did you-”

He’s in Jenn’s direct messages. It seems like Lyla sent out a singular chat message:

Sean: can’t wait 2 see u there

If Sean is being honest with himself, he’s expecting worse. “Okay, I thought you posted a bad tweet or something.”

“Maybe I did.”

“Haha, real funny.” 

“Look, if she texts back, call me immediately. Gotta bounce.” Lyla says as she starts walking away.

“Uhh, thanks?” is the only thing Sean shouts back at her as she recedes into the distance. As much as Sean doesn’t like to admit it, Lyla vetting his text messages is probably the play here- he’s a really bad texter.

It doesn’t take him long to arrive home. He enters his room and slumps onto his chair out of exhaustion, basking in some well-deserved rest. Playing with his phone, he opens and closes his messages app with endless anticipation for Jenn to text back.

A loud unpleasant sound enters his ears. Sean groans and turns around to see who just entered his room. It’s Daniel, hopping like a bunny, clutching a big plastic bowl to his chest. 

“Yo, bro! Let’s go make fake blood now!”

Not now, Sean grumbles. “I thought dad was helping you with that.”

“He’s not back yet! So you have to help me! Remember? You promised!”

A part of Sean ticks. Sometimes, he can’t stand his brother’s high-pitched pre-pubescent voice, how whiny it can sound.

“Sorry.. I’m going out to a party tonight, I can’t help you.”

“Why not? You said you would! You promised..” Daniel pouts, looking betrayed.

Sean falters. “I know, but..”

“You promised!” Daniel walks up to Sean, lightly bumping his bowl against Sean’s head. “You promised!”

Sean nearly loses it, but he controls his temper. “..I’m, I’m sorry, okay? I just can’t.” He gives his brother a gentle shove.

Daniel stops and retreats. Sean turns around and looks down at his phone again, but realizes that his brother’s still standing right there, unmoved.

“You.. always.. do this.” Daniel says, almost whispering. Sean doesn’t need to meet Daniel’s eyes to know that he’s sniffling. “You never want to.. do anything with me anymore.”

Sean feels like as a brother, he should probably do something. At least meet Daniel’s eyes or something. But his ego prevents him, and he doesn’t turn away. Enough time passes, and soon Sean hears the sound of a door slamming itself shut.

-

Still no message from Jenn. Sean sighs and puts down his phone- he’s been waiting for more than an hour. Maybe they’ll get to talk more later at the party. He takes a long gulp of water from his thermos and walks over to his wardrobe, picking out what he should wear. Eventually, he settles for one of his favourite graphic tees, a sleek black bomber jacket and a pair of ripped jeans. Very quickly, he takes a picture of himself in the mirror and sends it to Lyla, asking her to rate his fit before walking out of his room and down the hallway, ready to leave.

As he walks past the kitchen counter, he remembers what Lyla told him earlier: to bring some drinks. Giving a careful look of his surroundings, he starts looking once he senses that the coast is clear. 

Nothing in the fridge. Maybe in one of the cabinets? Sean thinks to himself. I can plow through the entire kitchen since dad isn’t here. I’ve got time.

The search is going nowhere. Sean nearly gives up right before he eyes something tucked behind their many used biscuit containers.

A pack of beer cans! Sweet! He swipes the pack away and starts running towards the front door.

His excitement is cut short when he sees his dad open the front door.

“Hey, look at you! Where are you running off to?”

It’s futile, but Sean hides the pack of beer behind him. “Um.. a party.”

Esteban tilts his head. “If you’re planning on drinking, just don’t get too rowdy. And.. you’re just gonna take that pack without asking me?”

“I uh, was going to ask..”

“Yeah, right. Don’t lie to me, hijo, ” Esteban scoffs, and Sean dies a little inside. “Plus, aren’t you supposed to help Daniel out with the fake blood?”

“I know, but.. it slipped my mind. Please take over for me? Since you’re back anyways? I really need to make it to this party.” Sean tries putting up the best puppy eyes look he can manage. 

Esteban seems firm in not folding, but eventually the man sighs. “..Okay, just this one time. But Sean, you’re not a kid anymore. You need to understand that-”

The sound of a phone ringing interrupts Esteban. Groaning, he takes a glance at his phone screen and says to Sean: “I have to take this. Look, we’ll continue this talk- and I meant what I said. Just.. be careful, okay? Have some fun, too.”

Sean nods idly, not really listening to his dad. He rushes out the front door, not wanting to keep Jenn waiting too long despite the fact that Eric’s house itself is a manageable ten-minute walk.

But Sean finds himself unable to move once he’s out in his front yard. It’s a perplexing task to unwrap what’s transpiring before his very eyes- his brother and.. Brett? Yes, the two of them are.. fighting, for some reason?

From where he’s standing, it’s impossible to make out the conversation. So he gets closer, and his heart starts beating a little faster. Why is Brett’s shirt all red ?

“Why don’t you watch where the fuck you’re going next time, idiot?”

“S- sorry! I- I didn’t mean to-”

Sean almost faints when Brett suddenly grips both of Daniel’s noodle-width arms. He starts running for it.

“My fucking shirt..” Brett growls angrily, “It’s ruined! Oh, there he is!”

“Sean! Please, you have to tell him.. it was an accident! I wasn’t expecting to run into anyone!”

Seeing Daniel’s plastic bowl dripping red on the grass, Sean pieces together what must have gone down. His brother probably went ahead and made the fake blood by himself and somehow managed to spill it all over Brett.. who has no obvious reason for being here in his front yard.

“Get your fucking hands off him!” Sean shouts as blocks off Brett from Daniel, “Back the fuck off, now. ”

Brett unrelentingly shoves Sean back. “It was your retard brother who started it!”

“The fuck did you just call him?” Sean’s yelling now. 

“Yea, you heard me! Bitch!”

Sean’s trembling. It’s getting hard to think slowly. “You take that back. Or-”

“Or what? Why? Why should I?” Brett shoves Sean again, and Sean almost loses his footing. “You’re gonna call your fucking beaner dad here or somet-”

Sean’s eyes widen. “Y- you.. I’m gonna..”

Brett grins manically. “Hah, you want a fight? I’m not surprised. You people, after all. It’s all you-”

A punch lands flatly on Brett’s left cheek. Brett, who looks shocked but also red with anger, lunges directly at Sean’s stomach, tackling him onto the ground.

Now that Brett’s on top of Sean, he starts throwing some hard punches on his face. Fortunately, Sean’s able to block one of his punches and strikes him squarely in the chest, forcing him to fall backwards in agony. 

Sean slowly gets up, panting and looking around him. His brother’s standing there, terrified, both hands clasping over his mouth. 

“Get in the house!” he shouts instinctively. 

But Daniel doesn’t move. He’s frozen in fear.

Brett seizes this window of vulnerability where Sean has his back turned. Wiping away the stream of blood trickling down his nose, he runs straight for Sean. “You fucking piece of shi-”

“Sean, look out!” Daniel shrieks.

Sean turns around just in time and barely dodges Brett. Instead of slamming directly into Sean, Brett twists himself and falls backwards onto the ground, hitting the back of his head on a stray rock.

Cautiously, Sean inches forward to inspect Brett. He’s not moving at all.

“Sean.. is he okay?”

Sean flashes a glance at Daniel. “I- I don’t- it all happened so fast-”

“Hey! Hey! Step away now !”

What the fuck? There’s a police officer who seems to have come out of nowhere. Pointing his gun at Sean. 

“I said step away from him! Step away from him, now!”

“Look, uh.. officer, this is a complete.. I can explain-”

“Shut the fuck up! On the ground, now! You, too!” He waves his pistol at Daniel.

“He was beating up my big bro!”

“My brother’s got nothing to do with this!” Sean cries out.

“Hands behind your head, both of you!” the officer kneels down to take Brett’s pulse. He whispers something to himself.

“Daniel, listen to me- it’s gonna be okay! This- this is all bullshit, and-”

“Guys, what’s happening?”

Sean does the best he can to turn around from his prone position. “Dad? Dad! We didn’t do anything, he just-”

“Get on the ground, sir!” the cop orders.

“Sean, be quiet. Officer, look, I’m sure my boys-”

The officer aims his gun at Esteban.

“Hands behind your head! Get on the ground, right now! That’s an order!”

“Dad! Dad, I’m scared!”

“I’m so.. so sorry, Dad..”

“Guys, be- be quiet for me, it’s gonna be okay!”

“Don’t move! Get down, now!”

“This is fu- this is bullshit!”

“Dad! What’s happening?”

“Daniel, just stay quiet for me.. it’s gonna be okay..”

“Did you hear me, sir? Get down on your knees, right now!”

“Officer, I’m- they’re good kids, I can assure you-”

“Officer Matthews!” 

The officer turns around immediately to point his gun at the source of the voice. Sean does the same, but with his eyes- whose voice is that? It sounds so foreign, yet so.. familiar..

“Look, I.. I saw the whole thing. They didn’t do anything.”

Sean blinks and tries to confirm for himself once again. Because impossibly, defying all logic, it’s Max.