Christine entered the dark hallway, quickly stuffing her keys in her coat pocket to keep them from jangling around—potentially awakening her roommate. She bent down to unlace her boots, and kicked them off—again, as silently as possible. It wasn't a particularly large hallway; she learned the hard way that if she had a large knapsack she could end up clanging against the coat hanger, or worse, knock over one of the heavy metal picture frames.
"Christine." A deep voice emanated from a corner of the sitting area, just to the immediate left of the hallway.
Christine gave a start, and her shoulder bag, which was bulging with perhaps one too many mini launchpads, clanged against a piece of furniture with a loud metallic sound that cut through the hallway. Since she was hunched over, in the middle of taking off her shoes, she bumped into the side table, causing its legs to scrape across the tile like nails on a chalkboard. While this all happened, Christine couldn't help but curse loudly, both at herself and the very shadowy figure sitting on the couch. A cloud of smoke enveloped the silhouette—she noticed that a blue electronic light was emanating from the end of an e-cigarette. The more her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized who had disrupted the silence: "Sorelli—what the fuck, dude."
"Hey." Sorelli took another drag, not moving from the couch. "Don't worry, Meg's not here."
"Uh, okay." Christine waited a beat to let Sorelli explain—but nothing. So she had to prompt her. "What, did she go out to grab some food?"
"No—she took the train to Perros-Guirec a few hours ago."
"Wait…Her home town? Why would she do that? Don't you guys have a big dress rehearsal coming up tomorrow?" She turned to the kitchen counter to set her bag down.
"Christine-"
Ignoring Sorelli's plea, she clattered around more in the kitchen, starting the tap faucet to get the kettle on. "Hey, do you want some tea?"
"Christine." Sorelli's alto voice reverberated in Christine's skull. She shut off the tap water and stared at her from across the counter.
"Her mom's in the hospital."
"Wha—what for?" As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she knew it was the wrong thing to ask.
"Her mom's sick. You didn't hear?"
"Um. I mean, no. Is everything okay? Is she-?"
"She has to have a bit of surgery..." Sorelli's voice trailed off, but all Christine could hear was a loud ringing in her ears. It was deafening. Why didn't Meg tell her?
Apparently, she wondered the last bit out loud, because Sorelli replied: "Come on, Christine. We kept inviting you out. You know we did. Meg was so excited to introduce you to her friends. Then, you met this Korean superstar who might as well not even exist, it's a good thing we met him at the Opera otherwise I'd think you're making him up." She took another puff on her e-cig. "Then- I don't know. When he's not here, which is 99 percent of the time, you're- you're not here. We heardyou're picking up less shifts at the box office, too. What's that about?"
Christine still had the kettle in her hand, with her fingers wrapped around the handle. Instead of answering Sorelli, she turned to the stove and turned it on to heat their water. "What kind of tea do you like?" She called out. "I'm getting turmeric and ginger."
Sorelli let a sound come out of her mouth-exasperation, perhaps? But she held back, closing her mouth, and sighed, giving in: "You still have the chamomile? With honey?"
"Yep, you got it."
Christine busied herself once more, clattering open the cupboards for cups and tea bags.
"Meg wanted you in her social group so badly, but you just seem like you have bigger things to worry about. You know Meg's jealous of you, right?"
"What? No, that's stupid. I mean- there's hardly anything to be jealous of," Christine half-muttered. "Like, sometimes I think Sehun's only dating me for the publicity since his label wants his group to make an English-language debut. I'm literally not allowed to call him. Even on the rare occasion that we get to go out, his managers have to approve what I'm wearing. Like, what the fuck? I feel like an accessory most of the time. And then, as for my music career, that is laughable to even call it a career. It's nonexistent."
Sorelli just went on staring. Christine set the mugs full of hot tea down on the coffee table.
"Sorelli, I- I'm fucking winging it. I don't have a plan, I barely know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow. Probably a latte on the corner store and I'm probably going to try flirting with the barista so he can give me a free pastry that I can't afford."
They looked down and watched the streaks of steam from their mugs rise up into the air for a moment.
"Look," said Sorelli. "I know a little something about winging it, okay? I'm a fucking black queer ballerina. I had no idea what the hell I was doing."
Christine scoffed. "Yeah, you became a member of an elite ballet corps by accident, did you?"
"No, no, that's not what I mean," Sorelli pushed her braids out of her way before reaching for her mug. "It's that sometimes you have no idea what the fuck you're doing. And your journey doesn't always have a clear map. So you need to make sure you have the right people in your life to make sure you're even moving forward. Moving in the right direction."
Erik's quiet laugh came into her mind. She chewed her lip, trying to hide her smile.
"Who are your navigators, Christine? We want to help but you seem like you keep straying away."
Christine gave a hollow laugh. "Sometimes I feel like I'm just walking aimlessly, hoping I run into something that somehow works."
Just-don't give up, okay? If you're looking for a sign, or whatever, this is your fucking sign.
I'm not going to tell you what to do, it's your choice. But I think you need to see Meg. She is going to be in Perros for the rest of the weekend, maybe longer.
X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X
Please pick up please pick up please pick up— These were the words Christine kept whispering to herself as the dial tone trilled through her phone's speaker. She sat on the edge of her unmade bed, with her head between her knees as her phone lay among the worn folds of her comforter. She was almost on the verge of tears by the third ring.
Please, she thought one last time. The word may have escaped from her lips soundlessly.
The dial tone cut, and then she heard— something? Was that something? Yes, she could hear some rustling. Maybe. It took a lifetime until she could hear any discernible sound.
"Christine?"
"Erik," she breathed. She bit her lip, for she felt terrible for smiling, but she was already a terrible person—what did it matter anyway?
"Christine, it's—what time is it? Shouldn't you be asleep? I—"
Christine shook her head, interrupting. "Can I explain in the studio?"
"Yeah, when do you want to meet? I think I'll be free after—"
"No. Erik, please, I need—" Christine's voice wavered, holding back tears. "I need to see you now. We don't have to meet in the studio, you can come over here, or I can meet you—?"
"Er—" he didn't realize it in the moment, but Erik had begun to stammer like an idiot. His brain was skipping over those words Christine had uttered like a broken record. "I need to see you. I need to see you. I need… you."
How did his brain work again? Shit.
"Erik? Are you there?"
"Sorry— yes, I'm here, Christine." The way he said her name, depending on the day she was having, could either be exhilarating, or simply drive her mad. Tonight, it was somewhere in between: it gripped her like his icy stare, and her throat tightened up, and she did all she could to not let herself cry. She had to keep it together, at least until she could see him. Wait. Why?
Before she could even consider the answer to that question, Erik's voice filled her ear. "The studio—let's meet there. Thirty minutes?"
"It takes me fifteen if I catch the train. I'll leave now."
X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X
Christine fumbled with her keys—now that she thought about it, it had been awhile since she had come into the studio with no sunlight. Usually she left the studio this late at night.
She wrenched the heavy door open, and saw that a few lights had been turned on. He was here, she thought. Her heart leaped into her throat, imagining him pacing around in the studio—
"Christine." She heard his voice before he turned the corner from the hallway leading to the studios and mixing rooms. Of course, he was wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his head, but tonight he only had a mask covering the lower half of his face—a kind of chic surgical mask, something that she would see Sehun and his bandmates wearing as they walked through Incheon airport to hide their faces from the paparazzi.
But thank God for this disguise he had chosen tonight, she thought. More often than not, Erik would wear large, tinted sunglasses to cover his eyes. He used sunglasses on days he wanted to focus on work, to get things done so Christine wouldn't be desperately scanning his eyes for cues to grasp onto as they waded through particularly long recording session. But tonight, his eyes were exposed. It was like he knew—his eyes were filled with pleading, desperate to find out what was wrong—he knew she needed to see his eyes. She could even see part of his brow, furrowed with worry and anxiety. She knew it was selfish, but she felt somewhat relieved to see him as worried as she was. It made the weight less heavy to bear.
He didn't have to say anything to prompt her. She dropped her bag at her feet—once she opened her mouth, it was like the floodgates had opened. "I don't have anyone else, Erik. I didn't know who else to talk to, I— I f-feel so alone." She couldn't hold it in any longer. The words dissolved into sobs, and it was uncontrollable.
For a moment, he just stood there a few feet away from her as tears began to fall, Christine's shoulders heaving as she cried. Then, Erik slowly took his hand and outstretched it towards her.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Maybe. But not right now," Christine replied, brushing the back of her hand across her cheek in a feeble attempt to hide her tears. "I just—I know this seems stupid, I know."
"No, don't be ridiculous," he urged. "You don't need to explain yourself. Let's just—come on, let's go to the studio."
"Erik, let's just stay out here, I'm not really in the mood to record or anything like that—"
"No , it's not that," he interrupted. "I want to—I want to play something for you."
He led her down the hall, and instead of going into studio 1A on the right where they always go to record, he led her into a smaller studio—one that she never really thought about. She knew it was always there, but since it was towards the end of the hallway she could tell it wasn't nearly as big as the main studio where they would only ever record in.
He opened the door to studio 1B, and held it open for her, letting her in first. She heard him flick the light switch behind her, and it illuminated something she couldn't even begin to fathom in her own imagination. It was a treasure trove of music archives. Beyond a small lounge area, a bookcase stretched from the top of the ceiling to the floor, each shelf packed with catalogues of music. The majority was vinyl records in carefully labeled sleeves, but she could see some of the shelves were stacked CD's, tapes, and eight-tracks. As suspected, the room was narrow, but as she craned her neck, it was clear that the room extended many shelves back— it was quite literally a small library, filled with any and every piece of music that Erik deemed worthy of archival. Even in the aftermath of tears, her heart leaped a little at the sight of some of her favorite records.
"You're only just showing me this now?" Christine scoffed a little.
"Well, it's not really as impressive as it would have been, say, 20 years ago," Erik replied, and he wasn't wrong, she supposed-all of this could be effortlessly stored on a small hard drive. "As much as might not sound like it, I didn't just bring you here to be a braggart." He made a beeline for something, disappearing down the third or fourth aisle.
Christine glanced around at the listening area while she waited-it had a lovely burgundy sectional couch, with a plush carpet underneath the expensive-looking coffee table that separated the sitting area from the huge wall of a media center. It had to have every kind of music player imaginable, complete with a sleek desktop computer and some kind of digitizing software that looked like it was in the middle of being repaired, with its front panel taken off and resting on the desk with some tools. She could tell, even though there wasn't a speck of dust on a single surface, she would have bet money that Erik has probably never sat down on the couch. She imagined curling up on the couch while watching him at work at the computer, when she heard him call out from deep into the stacks: "Can you boot up the sound system?"
"Uh, yeah, I'll try," Christine called back as she rubbed her eyes on the back of her sleeve, trying to focus on the task she had been assigned. She silently thanked Erik for letting her figure out a shiny, swanky-looking piece of equipment to help her start calming her down, letting her focus on something relatively mindless instead of the dark thoughts that had been eating away at her since Sorelli had left her to her own devices.
"Got it," Erik announced, and she heard a few tapes clatter as she heard what sounded like a cardboard box scraping off of a shelf. After turning on the sound system, she craned her neck to see Erik edging his way through the narrow aisles. In the box, she could see some tapes sliding around on the top, suggesting that it was nearly filled to the brim.
"You really haven't digitized these?" Christine's question had barely left her lips when Erik raised an eyebrow at her wordlessly. She rolled her eyes. "Okay, okay," she said—she couldn't help but to let out a breathy laugh as she watched Erik set down the box onto the floor.
As he rifled through the box, she tried to snoop as quickly and silently as possible. Some tapes only had years, some had venue names, some festival names, but nothing else identifying who might have been on the tapes.
"Ah, here we go," Erik muttered with the gentleness of a father lifting a child out of their bed. Christine wanted to make fun of him, but she only smirked at him without making a sound.
She made a very bold, but not unreasonable guess: "It's you, isn't it? It's an old tape of an old live set?"
"Bingo," Erik muttered, taking the tape out of its cardboard sleeve with such care and dexterity that she stopped smirking, and instead got goosebumps as she watched him. He was so gentle—so gentle, it was almost— "You're probably wondering why I'm even bothering to play the original for you,"
This time, it was Christine's turn to raise an eyebrow. "This is a test, right? Every time you transfer from one format to another, even if it's a high-definition, high-bit rate capture, you're still losing some elements of fidelity," she rattled off. Erik smiled back, but it wasn't mirroring Christine's smirk, but rather—something proud, perhaps? Christine bit her lip, fighting back the swelling feeling in her chest—like she had just won the spelling bee.
"Right, so all I ask is that you listen closely—It's not often that I play these tapes, any kind of rewinding or replay will vastly increase the chance of ruining them."
Christine snorted. "Yeah, I wish my ten-year-old self had known that when I ruined my Riverdance VHS tape from re-watching it so many times."
"Riverdance?" Erik's eyes glittered. Christine noticed that he always looked like that when she shared old bits of her childhood. "That was your favorite thing as a kid?"
She shrugged. "One of many, trust me. Stop putting it off and hurry up, before my breath starts to degrade your precious tapes, Erik," she said in an almost singsong voice as she waved her hand towards the media center. Christine edged towards the back wall where the sectional was and plopped down on one end of the sectional. She put up one of her feet on the edge of her seat, balancing her chin on her knee as she studied Erik for a moment. His shoulders were so broad, even when he was hunched over the sound system to make sure the equalizer was just right.
It was like he could feel her gaze, and her cheeks involuntarily flushed as he looked over his shoulder. "Ready?"
"Mm-hmm." Her chin didn't leave her knee—she tried to keep up the cool, only relatively curious air while her heart hammered against her rib cage.
It was dead air for a moment, which gave Erik a bit of time to wander over to Christine. He didn't sit down on the couch next to her, instead pulled out a small pouf that was hidden behind the sectional to sit on near her feet. She normally would have argued about this, insisting that she didn't mind if he sat next to her. Instead, she heeded his earlier warning and kept her mouth shut as they waited for the first discernible sounds hit the stereo speakers.
The first tones were the muffled announcements of a host. His microphone line wasn't connected to the soundboard for whatever reason, so they had to strain their ears to listen. Or maybe Erik already knew exactly what he had said even though it was so long ago?
"…Presenting: Bring Me the Beats! "
Wait-what? Did Christine hear that right? No. No, it couldn't be…
Then there were drum beats that led into an unmistakable guitar riff, one that Christine hadn't heard in years. The old tape that had warped slightly from age had muddled the precision of the guitar player's notes but she knew that he did not miss a single note.
Over the intro, the guitarist stepped up to the mic. He was wearing a white shirt with Hawaiian print and shades with a mop of jet black hair that framed his forehead. It looked like he had just stepped off of a cruise, giving off the cool surfer vibe. Amidst her shock, Christine wondered if this was the in, hipster look for the time.
"Hey guys, I'm Gus, welcome to the party." He paused to soak in some enthusiastic applause, and gave a crooked smile to his bass player as he started to riff. His announcement instead elicited something far from enthusiasm. The tinny audience kept clapping as they started their first song.
Christine clapped a hand to her mouth, stifling a sob.
As she head herself begin to cry, she suddenly became aware of two very interesting details: First, she had somehow slid off the couch and crawled on her hands and knees towards the monitor-her nose was mere inches away from the screen. Second, her companion in the room had all but disappeared; he hadn't said a word since the tape had started playing. Maybe he did leave-?
She couldn't help but look over her shoulder. Erik's eyes weren't even watching the video-he had been watching Christine watch it.
"How did you-?" She could barely choke out a single word, let alone a sentence. "How did y-you know?"
Erik's gaze grew heavy. His gaze moved down to the floor, toeing the shag carpet with great intent. "The similarities were uncanny."
Training her eyes back on the monitor, she studied the body language of Gustave. He wasn't terribly tall, but awfully lanky-thin as a rail. The shirt wasn't oversized but it seemed to hang off his shoulders, especially when he slouched. He pushed back his hair each time he stepped up to the mic to round out the song with his vocals. Erik was right-it was uncanny how Christine had the same mannerisms as her father when she was up on stage, too. The way he bobbed his head side to side. The crooked smile that Christine had been teased for, especially on picture day at school.
"Starlight shines bright
Every time you come around it's starlight
I didn't think it'd shine
Just as bright as you…"
Christine didn't hold back any longer- she let her tears flow. She knew every word of this song even though she hadn't heard it in almost a decade. It brought back watching her dad croon quietly with an acoustic guitar, singing that melody to her as a little girl curled up in her bed. It brought her back to the funeral, when they played this song- it was likely the last time she had heard this song in its entirety. Her and her mother didn't play it afterwards. Her mother eventually had learned to listen back fondly, but Christine avoided it as much as she could. She didn't want to face the pain. The gaping hole that was her father. The unfairness of everyone else having a father in high school except for her. The promises that he didn't keep.
But this time, it was different. Yes, the pain was there-it always will be. It's not as sharp as it was when she was 14 years old and everywhere she turned she had saw signs, images, sounds that reminded her of her dad. The grief still twinged her with sadness, but this time there was hope. It was in the lyrics and the earnest singing of her father.
"It's come into view
The constellations of you
And I can't believe I have you
I can't believe I have you
Galaxies are dark and cold
But your smile streaks through the sky
You're the comet I've been wishing on
And I think it might come true tonight."
"You know that you and your father both do that thing with your eyebrows?"
"Wait, what?"
"Here, look-" Erik pulled out his phone, at first Christine furrowed her brow but then realized: Erik wanted to minimize rewinding the tape as much as possible to preserve the original copy.
Erik couldn't help but laugh a little, before even showing her the digitized footage on his phone. "When you focus hard on something, especially when you sing, you knit your brows together a certain way. Not only do you two have the same eyebrows, you both-" he gestured at the TV, and then towards her. "Here."
He handed over his phone after a moment, and he had queued up an instant replay of Gus belting the last note of the chorus: on "tonight," the inner corners of his dark brows went up-they almost looked like those squiggly brackets that you see on the keyboard, Christine thought to herself. She even managed to smile through her tears. "I remember," she sniffled, "I remember when he got really mad or worked up about something they would do that."
"How long has it been- since you lost him?"
"Almost 11 years," she replied, cradling Erik's phone in her hands as the digitized video continued. "It'll be 12 this April." An idea suddenly struck her, and a flash of light glimmered in her eyes and she looked up at Erik. "Did you know him? What was he like?"
"Christine, you know- I didn't know him, he was only a passing glance when we would cross paths at festivals in Paris, or sometimes on the countryside."
"Oh." Her voice became very small. She looked a bit sheepish, even.
"He always seemed really happy. For the life of me, I don't think I ever talked to him, but from what I remember him and his band really seemed… happy. A lot more at peace than most of the other groups you saw in the 90's, you know?"
Christine nodded, her eyes brightening just a bit through her tears. "I guess that's good."
"Yeah, you could tell they weren't fighting, they weren't doing it for the fame, it was just-because you knew it made them feel free, you know?" Erik was gazing at the TV monitor, seemingly lost in his memories of a day passed many years ago. Faint and flickering, but still bright all the same.
Her eyes drifted back to the monitor too. "I miss him so much."
Erik shifted a little towards her, remaining silent yet opening himself up to her as she continued.
"I wish he could've seen my first show in Paris. I remember that night I was so happy, but then when I woke up the next morning-I remembered he wasn't here to see it. He wasn't even here for me to tell him about it.
"It's like-" her face screwed up as she came to a realization. "I think I've been feeling like that ever since. It's like I can't really be happy if he's not here. I wanted to share it with someone, to share it with him. If it weren't for him I wouldn't be here." Her mouth opened but emotions took over, and instead her shoulders took and quiet sobs poured from her instead of words.
"But you're not doing it for him, are you, Christine? This is for you."
"I guess," she conceded. "I dunno, I just feel more alone than ever these days. I just get so caught up in my head, and I get scared and I need someone to talk me down some days, but- I don't know." She looked at the floor rather glumly.
"What about your mother? I know she's still around, you text her every so often."
"She's-she's my adopted mom. I know that sounds horrible, but it's not the same. I know she tries to understand, but she doesn't." Still, Christine didn't look at him.
"Oh." Erik was quiet for a moment, fumbling for the right words in his head.
Finally, something struck him. He sat up very straight and looked at Christine, who very quickly gazed up right back at him through her mascara-smeared eyes.
"Let me be your friend, Christine. And I don't mean a friend who you just add on Instagram, someone you think you can only see once a month. I mean it. I want to be there for you, because I know you'd be there for me if I needed you." He stopped himself. "No, it's not even that. That sounds selfish, I don't mean it like that. I mean-if you asked me to write you a song, I would. No strings attached. If you needed help with a mix, or an analog synth track, I- I'd help, and not because I'd feel like I'd have to."
"Well, why?"
Erik looked shocked at such a question. They just stared at each other for a moment, with Christine kneeling on the floor and Erik leaning towards her on the couch with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together.
Erik just laughed. Christine almost jumped. "I don't know, but I'll tell you when I find out."
Christine gaped at him for several moments, only to join him in helpless laughter. "Well, thanks, I think?" she cried as she used her sweater sleeve to dry off her wet lashes.
"I mean, when you called me tonight, why did you?"
Christine made a show of rolling her eyes, trying to look annoyed. "Okay, fine, point taken," chuckling in spite of herself. "I guess that means we're, like, best friends or something."
"Yeah, it kind of does."
"So, can best friends find a take-out place that's open at 2am so we can eat junk food and talk shit about social media influencers who somehow turned into famous pop stars?"
"Well-" Erik hesitated, looking around. "Not here."
Christine groaned, wheedling as she dramatically threw herself on to the floor, her gaze fixed to the ceiling. "You really won't ever let me eat in the studio, will you?"
"We can eat upstairs, if you'd like," Erik suggested. She blinked over at him with confusion. "I mean, I live upstairs."