CHAPTER 2: The Purpose Of Art

That evening was band meeting. They had those two times a week for the time being, but Rin knew that as soon as there are enough actual songs to play, Rest In Neglect would have to pick up the pace. They weren't on a super tight schedule, but Paul who was their producer was urging them to have at least a five-track demo by Fall. It was the first week of April currently so that meant they had a little over half a year to prepare.

They were using Paul's home studio for the time being. Apart from him, the only other person present when Rin arrived was Christian, her freakishly tall, pale-skinned ginger lead guitarist and a technical mastermind. They had to figure out what to do with a certain spot in one song, and so they were both sitting on Paul's big sofa with guitars in their hands, exchanging ideas as the producer supervised from afar. Jason, the project's drummer, was on his way to join them later.

"You know I've been kinda struggling to find the right key for this. I ended up in drop C again and I think I'd like to lock it there. So now the chord progression for the chorus is," and she played the chords as she was naming them; "C major, D major, B minor, and then E minor at the end."

"Good sound," Christian remarked as he was swiftly retuning his own guitar.

"Yeah, that's just generic j-pop shit. You can hear this sequence in, like, every other song, I swear."

"And here I was thinking you were trying to leave that behind," Paul remarked. He looked sort of bored as he sat in his office chair and only occasionally took some notes..

"Oh shut up. Anyway," Rin continued, and she locked gaze with Christian again; "I don't know what to do with the chords. I really like the power chord sound here, but I also wanna let it fully ring out, including the thirds in between. So I guess that's gonna have to be the matter of singing or bass?"

"Not necessarily. When you play power chords in drop tuning like this, you can just extend your finger three or four frets higher on the 3rd string and boom, there's your triad." And Christian played a series of chords to demonstrate. "See? Three strings on top, you've got an open C, open G, and then fret 4 on the other C. It's just as chunky as the power chord, but it's distinctly a major chord now."

The twin blinked. "That sounds great! I didn't realise that's possible." And she tried to copy Christian. "How did you come up with this?"

"I don't know. I may have borrowed this from metalcore, I reckon."

"I was about to say," said Paul as he stood up to a creak of his chair; "I dig this. You perhaps wouldn't have expected to hear this in this genre. Certainly based on how you described it to me."

Rin nodded. "I don't necessarily wanna follow any rules dictated by a genre."

"Well that depends on how you present yourself then. If you want your music to be innovative, be sure to really offer people something they would not find anywhere else. It can be a bit tricky. I'll be right back," Paul added as he walked out of the room and in the general direction of the bathroom.

"Okay," said Christian immediately and laid his guitar down next to him. "I have to ask. What happened to Tom? You said he won't be coming anymore, but you were very sparse with the details."

Rin frowned. Tom, as of last week, ceased to be their bass player.

"Ugh, I don't really wanna talk about it," she told Christian. "We just had a... situation and things got complicated."

She would never imagine someone's eyes could somehow widen and narrow all at the same time, but that was exactly the expression on Christian's face. "Don't tell me two you had an affair."

"No! Well..." Rin looked around the room nervously to evade eye contact; "we made out. We went to that concert on Tuesday and drank and then he walked me home and it sorta just happened."

"Bollocks. And I suspect you just couldn't put that behind you afterwards?"

"Yeah, turns out he had a crush on me. We tried to talk about it later but I rejected him and he didn't take it well. So he just decided to walk away from the project, the little drama queen."

"Even so." Christian stood up and walked up to a small fridge in the corner, revealing inside a couple of energy drink cans and some beers. "I don't want to tell you what to do with your life, but..."

"Zip it, Chris, I know," Rin retorded and splattered on her back on the sofa. "I gotta be more careful around co-workers."

A hand offering her a beer can entered her vision, and she absent-mindedly grabbed it. Christian sat down next to her pulled up legs, and she immediately stretched them to lay her calves on his lap.

"Or just, you know. Be more careful in general," he continued. "Sometimes it's quite unnerving to watch you throw yourself at random people so easily."

"Okay, fine. But let's forget about it for now, please? I don't wanna think about this here."

As a bit of an uncomfortable silence fell upon the room, the twin's mind got lost in recent history. They've been living in this city for how long, eight months? In terms of relationships and what she could only call love for the lack of a better term, she tried to keep herself busy – sometimes more subconsciously and other times less so. Rin felt as though spending her teenage years on the road and being constantly presented as the childish and innocent one amongst the Vocaloids made her miss out on a lot of things; the fact that her first actual boyfriend turned out to be a complete jerk only made her more isolated.

Moving here opened up a lot of previously repressed needs and emotions. So far she hadn't really pursued the idea of an actual relationship. Her mindset was closer to realising she was young, had much to explore and so much more to catch up on. Rin hadn't even spent a night with someone until then, and yet she was pressuring herself to act like the whole concept wasn't a big deal to her.

Her first lover appeared some four months ago, his name was Cory and in some ways he reminded Rin of her old boyfriend Ichiro. He was arrogant and not much for a deep conversation, but he was charming, handsome and knew how to impress instantly. Had she met him when she was fourteen, he would have been an instant crush; this time around, however, her interest in him was more tame and she knew more precisely what she wanted from him. It was nothing like in stories, with a big romantic lead-up and cautious, timid exploration of one another as the moonlight creeped into the bedroom through the curtains. It happened on a bright afternoon on a very regular day, they just undressed themselves, finished in under fifteen minutes and awkwardly watched the TV afterwards.

Rin cried herself into sleep that night out of sheer confusion. She didn't know if she should be disappointed or not. It was fun and felt good, but it was also somewhat underwhelming. She thought she'd feel a lot different in the aftermath, like a new era of life had just begun for her. But there was none of that. She felt exactly the same, safe for a little bit of expanded knowledge of how human anatomy works. The best part of the whole experience was to be able to feel, at least for a little while, genuinely grounded in the present moment, not to mention loved – even if that was a mere illusion.

She and Cory haven't seen each other nor even spoken since, but every once in a while Rin ended up in a similar situation, pursuing something more satisfying and never finding it. For about two months she dated a guy before realising they only functioned well in bed but not as a couple. Other than that, she made no effort to even try to be serious with anyone.

Deep down, she probably thought she'd want that. But because it felt inconvenient, she muted that side of her and kept looking for ways to satisfy that strange empty space in her life.

And at least it provided material for song ideas.

"Hey, Chris," Rin said to break the silence; "have you spoken to Jason? He told me he had a friend who plays bass and that he might bring him today, but I don't know much more."

Christian took a swig of his beer. "Oh yeah, he mentioned something like that. He didn't tell me much either, except I think he said that the guy's name was Billy?"

Footsteps faded in from the hall as Paul the producer came back into the room to the view of two musicians slacking off. "Brainstorming, I see?"

"Oh yeah, we just came up with a four-act opera," Christian retorted. "You can play a tree."

"Piss off," said Paul benevolently to the sound of Rin's chuckling. "By the way, Jason just texted me that he's down the street."

The twin sat up. "Did he mention if he's coming with a new bass player?"

"No. But I won't complain if he does. Means we won't have to go through another round of auditions."

"Regardless, let's just run through that riff again, Chris, so we know what to show him. Or them. Whatever."

Christian beckoned her to move closer with his finger and whispered into her ear: "Just don't fall for this one too, eh?"

"You're an idiot," she replied and pretend-angrily pushed him back into the sofa.

Paul didn't feel the need to acknowledge it. "Do you have lyrics for this song yet, Rin?" he asked instead. "We're only missing the bridge section and the ending, it seems."

Rin picked her guitar back up. "I'm about halfway there, I'd say. I'm calling this 'Stained Halo' for now."

"Well that sounds ominous."

"Yeah, it's turning into a song written from a perspective of someone who thinks about killing themselves. It's an interesting concept that..." And she thought about how to phrase her idea. "You suffer so much through life that you deserve to be turned into an angel when you die, but at the same time you end up hurting other people around you if you take this path, so you're kind of a faulty angel. With a stained halo."

"So..." Christian seemed a little bit skeptical. "Is this supposed to sound religious, or...?"

"Oh, not at all, it's just a metaphor! Let's say it's a moral dilemma that you have when you want to end your pain but don't want to inflict it on others."

"And these are... your thoughts?"

Rin smiled and dodged Christian's eye contact. "I reckon these are everybody's thoughts. At some point in their lives."

Paul didn't look concerned for the twin, his mind was already on the business aspect of this choice. "If anything, this will be relatable to lots of broken and confused people."

"Good. That's exactly who I wanna write for." And to resolve the discussion, Rin immediately started playing the opening riff to this song.

"Wait," she said when Christian started playing along with her. "I forgot. The intro is just one of us doing this E thing over and over with me singing, and on occasion there are these hits and let-rings in the other instruments. It goes like..." The girl demonstrated what she had in mind before switching back to her original riff. "See what I mean? I do this and you and the rest go, two, three, four – daaaa, hold it for two bars, da-da! And out. We do all this two times and then we jump into the song itself."

"Oh I see. But since the first two chords are C and E-" and he joined in; "how about we do C and D the second time around? It would've been a nicer transition into the verse itself."

"Oh yes! Thank you. Let's try that now?"

Within the next minute, they had the section learned and promptly recorded by Paul for future reference. It was at that time when the electronic doorbell rang, and the producer immediately pressed a button on his desk which unlocked the front door.

Once again, footsteps emerged behind the corner. "Right this way," said a familiar boy's name.

"Hey, Jas!" Rin shouted before the voice's owner came into view. In came Jason, a rather small long-haired fellow with a pierced lip. "Come on in," he said over his shoulder to a second person behind him apparently. "Hey you guys, sorry for the delay, the traffic is a shitshow."

"Don't worry about it," said Rin. "Did you bring that bass player with you?"

"Oh, yes. Sorry." The drummer proceeded further into the room, making space for his companion to enter the view. "This is my friend Lily."

Behind him, a tall girl with golden hair flowing all the way down to her pelvis emerged sheepishly. She wore high boots, a white skirt and a coat, and she carried a bass bag in her hand. "Hello, I'm Lily," she said in a soft voice.

The twin took a second to stare this woman down. Part of it was not expecting a female bass player to appear, she had gotten used to only be around guy musicians by then. She was also trying to categorise this Lily. She har very smooth, a little tanned skin, and her facial features suggested an asian heritage of some kind. And she was very pretty – undoubtedly a complete boy magnet, Rin thought to herself before realising she was supposed to greet her.

"Hi! I'm Rin," she sprung up, lining up behind Paul the producer who was just introducing himself. "'Billy,' huh?" she whispered to Christian while she was moving past him. He shrugged softly.

Lily's eyes met with hers. "Hi, so, you're the boss, right?" she said with an honest white-teeth showing smile. "It's nice to meet you."

Rin dramatically rolled her eyes. "Please don't call me that. Hi!" She took her hand to shake it.

"Hi," Lily replied.

The twin tried to be as subtle as she could about releasing the grip immediately and smiled back to cover her sudden nervousness. Something about this girl was making her strangely uncomfortable, but she couldn't place that feeling anywhere. Perhaps when they know one another better, she'd be able to make something of it, she thought.

The girl placed her bass in a bag on the floor and leaned it against the wall; she didn't seem to notice Rin's discomfort. "Now," she said as she turned back into the room; "do you want to know something about me? I have tons of questions about you all if that's okay."

"Well I mean... tell us about yourself first," said the twin and gestured towards the sofa, she herself standing. "Come sit."

"Thanks!" said Lily and sat down with Christian to her right side. Paul sat back in his chair while Jason stood next to him. "Well, my name's Lily, and I know Jason through his sister. I've been playing guitar since I was eight and I switched to bass three years ago. And, let's see. I like bands like Muse and Nirvana and and sometimes when I feel weird, I listen to System Of A Down. So I guess I listen to bands that do something different."

Rin decided not to mention that Lily just listed three of her most favourite and inspiring bands. Instead she replied with: "Okay. And what brings you here?"

"Well." The bass player was fidgeting with her fingers. "I've actually never been in a band and I've wanted to forever, and then Jason told me you were looking for someone. And he tried to explain the idea behind your band and I liked it, so... that's why I'm here," she ended with a smile, looking at Rin expectantly.

"Alright. Well, you seem excited to be here," the twin replied. "Look, we're just now starting. We're writing music for a demo-"

"Well, you write it, boss," Christian remarked with a smirk.

"With your guys' help," Rin continued unhinged. "We're writing music for a demo that we need to have ready by November. We haven't really played any shows yet because we barely have anything show-ready, but we hope to take care of that before the demo is ready. Best case scenario, we start playing shows in late August, so four to five months from now."

"Hopefully sooner than later," said Jason. "I like what we've got going here."

Christian turned towards Lily who had been hanging on Rin's every word. "What she means by that is, things are about to get serious soon-ish. Are you up for that?"

The girl looked only a little bit stunned. "Well, I guess so? If you're going to want me."

"You seem charming," said the twin. Then she had a split second of inner panic at her word choice. "I mean, you seem like someone who's fun to work with. Can you show us something?"

"Oh, sure!" Lily stood up and grabbed her bass bag again. While she did that and Jason with Paul looked at her, Christian looked right at Rin with a mixture of worry and amusement. He must have noticed the girl's state of mind and appeared to enjoy it. She only sticked his tongue out at him.

"Do you have an amp? I didn't bring mine," the bass player asked. She took out a plain black bass guitar with two little stickers on the body. One of them was a pixelated red heart, the other one a similarly styled skull with one eye socket glowing blue.

"Nah, this is why we have plugins, sweetie," said Paul, already clicking hectically on his computer with new windows and tabs opening. Three seconds later, he handed Lily a cable connected into his interface, and when she plugged her bass in and played a note, the low vibrating sound immediatelly filled the room.

"Just play whatever you want," Rin, now filled with anticipation, told her. "We can't really test you on any of our songs."

"Although we have about fifteen ideas recorded in here, so we can look at them right after," the producer added.

Lily played a brief pentatonic scale. "Alright. Well. I'm nervous, so I apologise for any mistakes," she said with laughter.

"Don't worry," the twin replied. "I'm all ears."