Author's Notes: Welcome to another installment of "Writer Is Avoiding Real Life." Oh, wait, is that not the title of this story?
Special thanks to moeouji, ForeverInAbyss, and a lovely Guest for the support and encouragement. :) Without you, this chapter wouldn't exist.
P.S. I know schools are in session again, so good luck all, take care of yourself, and I hope this update cheers you up. xoxo
Warnings: Unbeta'd improvisation. I probably shouldn't have admitted that aloud.
Pairing: IkeMarth, probably (i.e. who am I trying to kid?).
Disclaimer: I don't own Super Smash Brothers.
Summary: He was only checking his reflection en route to the band's rehearsal room. He didn't mean to notice the pianist at all. [Modern AU] -Yaoi, slash: Ike/Marth-
Fermata
By SSBBSwords
He had tucked that fragment of paper into his pocket, only to have it weigh on his mind all the way home. He could feel himself sinking deeper like a stone, churning scenario after scenario, wondering if he could orchestrate another (more successful) meeting. Maybe he could fake difficulty reading the website address (except the handwriting was impeccable and anyone with half a brain could find this information online). Maybe he could reserve the last practice room and then magnanimously allow the apposite party to use it (except terms and conditions restricted his access to two hours a day, which posed the desultory question as to how the pianist had claimed it for a full day). Maybe he could return the scrap of paper, which consisted of two bars of music (except the pianist deemed the music score worthless enough to be recycled as a non-sticky Post-it).
So it was futile, and he was embarrassed that his wishful thinking persisted. There was something alarming about how much he wanted to see a complete stranger again. He wasn't even sure why the compulsion had fomented to this point. It was one thing to find someone attractive, but another to amend a less than stellar impression. He had not uttered one word to the pianist, who had been a paragon of civility, so his mortification lingered unabated, as did the scowl on his face.
He completed the day's prescribed gym routine through sheer force of habit alone, but it surprisingly restored his equanimity in the process. It became obvious that unless he went out of his way to track down and loiter near the pianist, he would never run into the other man again; this did not alleviate his earlier disconcertion, but it at least implied being spared from future mishaps (and beggars couldn't be choosers, right?).
Tamping down the nagging sensation that he was losing something invaluable (as if there was some hidden opportunity—if only he knew how to read between lines of musical notes), he dropped the piece of paper into a trashcan and resisted the urge to dive in after it.
"I had an idea last night," Pit proclaimed with envy-engendering self-assurance.
At this point in their careers, he felt no twinge of surprise in the room. Deceptively creative, the guitarist-slash-keyboardist always had a gift basket of 'What-If-We…?' and he had deduced by now that the brunet must not sleep. His bandmate should consider changing those wing tattoos from angelic to chiropteran.
Seated across the conference table, Zelda gave a minimal nod, pen poised above paper. Link made one more sportive turn in the swivel chair before also presenting the synth player with undivided attention.
Eyes trained onscreen while browsing for previously uploaded sample clips, Pit explained, "I was playing with some of our old tracks like this one," and they dutifully listened to thirty seconds of the fourth track from their EP, "but what if we…?" The altered thirty seconds sounded richer by far, and even though he had sufficient audio engineering background, he couldn't distinguish exactly what the other had tweaked to get this sound.
Curiosity surging, he hoped his bandmate's tablet contained a version of the software program used to create the new mix, but seeing as Pit hadn't hooked anything up to the projector, it was an empty wish. "What did you do?"
"It's not simple." Pit's face scrunched into a grimace. "Arranging it virtually, that is."
Thoughtfully spinning her pen between nimble fingers, their manager translated, "You mean we need another one—no, two-"
"We could get away with one," the keyboardist interrupted before any obviating misapprehension could take root, "but I propose hiring another guitarist or bassist."
After sharing a glance with Zelda, Link immediately tackled whatever mission the manager had tacitly conveyed. Rapidly texting, the blond ruminated aloud, "Roy could fill in at the studio," and upon receiving a prompt reply from their publicist, presented the latent issue: "But touring."
"I'll start recruiting," their manager answered, unperturbed as she delegated responsibilities in her notes, "and discuss this with Palutena. What else might we be looking for?"
The open-ended question left the band in silence. "What do you mean?" The vocalist asked in an unprecedented display of incomprehension.
Blinking up from her notepad, Zelda rephrased, "Do we need any other live instruments?" She contemplatively listed some examples: "String, brass, woodwind?"
As if their manager had just unleashed a carload of puppies into the room, Pit blurted out, "Yes!"
With a bemused smile and quirked eyebrow, she repeated, "Yes, what? Like a clarinet?"
He wasn't sure anyone in this room currently knew how to compose and integrate a clarinet (clarinets?) into their music, but faith in his bandmates quashed any doubt in his mind. He interpreted Pit's beaming grin as, "We don't know yet, but yeah, we'll need some live instruments."
"Here, play with this," was the extent of the instructions Pit left him when the synth player all but shoved him into the chair in front of a glorious heap of audio tech and dropped headphones into his lax palms.
Even though brainstorming tended to be casually unstructured, he felt blindsided after being handed the reins to Pit's musical arrangement equipment, especially when unfamiliar with the mixing software. Things were infinitely easier when he had physical drumsticks in his hands, as opposed to a digital screen with innumerable options via numbers and buttons. He wanted to learn how Pit altered their previous tracks, but it looked like he would be lucky just to create a varying beat at this rate.
Link tapped his shoulder and signaled the removal of his headphones. "How's it going?"
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't want a drum set right now," he deadpanned in return. "Respect," he concluded, inclining his head toward the petite brunet mutely listening to something from an omnipresent tablet while hanging haphazardly over the couch edge. "Writing?"
Shrugging, the blond replied unapologetically, "Disjointed as fuck."
"Ah." Fortunately, his relief didn't supplant the sympathy in his response. There was a reason why he didn't volunteer to write lyrics or melodies.
"Hey," the keyboardist shifted positions from horizontal to head-down on well-loved cushions, "don't you play the flute, fearless leader?"
Like an animal sensing danger, Link froze. However, unsure of what Pit wanted exactly, the vocalist recovered and cautiously replied, "Not recently. Why do you ask?"
Sitting upright and detaching one earbud, Pit finally looked away from the tablet screen and pinned the blond with a penetrating stare. "I like the sound of it. What else do you know?"
With a resigned sigh, Link answered, "Besides guitar and drums, harp."
Just as he mumbled, "Really?" the brunet exclaimed, "Oh, that's a good idea!"
"Sure, as long as it's not me," the vocalist agreed, acquiescent but firm.
"Yes, but practice," Pit emphasized with patented wide, innocent eyes, which absconded immediately when another question arose. "How about harpsichord? Do you know that?"
"No."
"Piano?"
"Still no," Link verified with another long-suffering sigh.
With a huff, Pit muttered, "Damn, I liked that one," to which the blond offhandedly commented, "I thought you knew that one."
Rattled by the rapid back-and-forth between his bandmates, he cleared his throat and pointed out, "Aren't we hiring people for this?"
"Right. Ri-i-i-i-ight," Pit mulled over this established fact like a newfound epiphany. Popping the dangling earbud back in, the keyboardist dictated with finality, "Good, 'cause I want violins."
"So we're hiring an orchestra," Link summarized with a laugh. "Palutena's going to kill him."
The next time he walked into the practice room, their publicist was laughing uproariously with Pit by the keyboard.
"Dude, she is going to kill you," the redhead confirmed with a shit-eating grin, "and with an Excel spreadsheet to boot." Noticing the drummer, Roy gave a two-fingered salute. "Hey, Ike. Want to contribute to this guy's eulogy?"
Before he could respond, Zelda entered, followed closely by a drowsy-looking Link. "Don't ask me," the blond forewarned. "I've wasted all my rhetoric on lyrics last night—this morning, I mean."
"No one is killing anyone," their manager informed, holding up a placating hand. "However, considering pecuniary anxieties, I'm hoping someone tells me something more specific than an orchestra. Please."
Pit glared at Link with the compressed fury of a betrayed toddler. "Just wait until I get my hands on your phone." The brunet blew a raspberry at the vocalist and threatened, "Brass Marching Band ringtone."
"What do you mean?" Zelda asked solemnly. "You want an entire brass section?"
"No!" Pit denied vehemently. "We're thinking strings, actually."
Roy rocked upright from a previous slouch. "Hey, my roommate was a violinist." Their publicist turned to Link. "Remember?"
"True," the blond mused. "You still talk to him?"
A rueful smile adulterated the redhead's original excitement to take advantage of an extensive network of musicians. "I dropped the ball on that one. Last I heard, he got signed by some classical music company," Roy paused in recollection, "or joined an orchestra. Or both. Is it possible to do both?"
With an impressed whistle, the keyboardist quipped, "So a professional. Would he consider hanging out with us plebeians?"
"Does he have a consultation fee?" was their manager's provident question.
"Is he in the area?" he added, not sure where, when, or why Roy had lived with this guy.
The redhead groaned at the onslaught of unanswerable questions. "I don't have the slightest clue right now. Let me make some phone calls or something, okay?"
A disembodied yawn in the vicinity of Zelda's feet redirected all of their attention to Link. Phone in lap and curled up in the vertex where floor met walls, the blond reported vaguely in the direction of the rest of the band, "He's on concert tour. Something about this city's philharmonic."
Wide-eyed, Roy crossed the practice room in two bounds and a skid, snatching up Link's phone before the screen went dark. "Are you serious?"
Rubbing tired eyes, the vocalist chuckled before reminding their publicist, "We all went to the same school, remember?"
"I was his roommate!" Roy argued.
"Maybe this violinist just likes lead singers more than guitarists," Pit chimed in with a melodic giggle, sounding entirely too entertained.
With the redhead debating in the background, Zelda expropriated Link's phone for herself. Surrounded by a dozing vocalist, defensive publicist, and eccentric keyboardist, she turned to him as the remaining member of the band and confessed, "Thank god you're the laconic one."
His manager's assessment of his personality was never far off. He didn't care to maintain a dynamic pretense to compete with his more colorful bandmates, and as much as he admired and enjoyed their company, it was nice to be surrounded by instruments—alone. Just a few minutes of solitude, the calm before the storm, the antithesis of a room designed to be the acme of acoustic treatment—
"Hello?"
He nearly jumped out of his skin and in his surprise, jostled his drumsticks to the ground. Standing hesitantly in the doorway was the pianist, looking ready to choose the latter of the fight-or-flight response. His heart bounced agitatedly as his mind sloppily reviewed every viable option as to why this man had reappeared before his very awestruck eyes.
"H-hi," he stuttered, both pleased that he managed to speak this time and ashamed that he sounded like he lost his voice. "Hi," he repeated, summoning some semblance of his social persona. "Can I help you?" Nailed it. Roy would be proud.
"Zelda is holding a meeting here, correct?" the other asked. At his terse nod, the pianist stepped fully into the room, and the door inched shut with a muffled click.
When he caught sight of a violin case in the other's hand, he felt faint as his brain put two and two together. "So you're Roy's roommate from school?" Was that the right thing to say at this time? He wasn't sure, but repeating the sparse knowledge he had of the situation seemed ingenious for small talk fodder.
"Yes." The pianist set down the instrument and approached him at the drum set. "My name is Marth."
Shaking the proffered hand, he introduced himself in perfunctory return, "It's nice to meet you. I'm Ike." Was he shaking? He might have been shaking. He felt like he was shaking. He swallowed, but the dense cramp in his abdomen refused to dissipate.
"So you're the drummer," Marth posited with a subtle smile, as if finally deeming him innocuous. "I listened to the EP. You're very good."
The credit for that remark was most likely due to professional courtesy, if not ingenuous flattery, but his heart sped up anyway. This was very bad. The exact opposite of what the other said his playing was.
"Thank you." His voice sounded oddly far away. Maybe this room had shitty acoustics after all. Or he was dissociating. Stalling for time to collect the scattered vestiges of his focus, he scrubbed a hand through his hair and hedged, "Were you practicing piano the other day?"
"I was." Discovering the neglected drumsticks on the floor, the shorter man retrieved and extended them toward him to accept. "Were you looking for me then?"
-tbc-