The stillness of that late afternoon was far removed from the blizzard that had swept over Peppermint Plains the night before. The waves of shimmering, untouched snow it had delivered were heaped against the bank of every locked door and shut window in the square. The joyous hollering of schoolchildren out for break echoed from far off, and when those cries eventually faded, the world fell dead silent. The sight of snowflakes in their slow descent served as the only reminder that one was in fact not a character in a winter landscape study.

Sylvia and Aster had emerged from the shop, squinting across a landscape of blinding white. Drawing Aster's attention, Sylvia pointed across the avenue to a shop far in the distance.

"How about a cup of coffee?" she suggested. Aster narrowed her eyes and tried to focus on the small shop, but found herself instead balking at the snow drifts which heaped over the town square like marble ocean waves.

It was a sight unlike any other she had ever seen before in her life. Those rare occurrences of snowfall, which every so often graced her city and always wound her young heart up in excitement for more, paled in comparison, only existing as a sad reminder of these great old storms that had long ago ceased to be. She gazed across the stretch frigid desert again, and thought Sylvia insane to think they could make it, though relatively speaking it was only a few yards away.

Before she could voice her lack of confidence in the situation however, Sylvia plunged into the snow, which instantly swallowed up the girl.

"Come on! It's not bad at all!” she exclaimed, glancing over to Aster once again. Sylvia's stubby nose had turned a soft pink in the cold. “Sorry, I know it's a little chilly for a walk,” she chuckled, smiling gently.

“No, it's fine,” Aster mumbled, cautiously following her in. If anything, the periodic bursts of bitter cold were welcomed distractions from their botched practice, the reflection on which was already making incessant rounds in her head.

As if Aster needed it, her fight with Cecil was just one more addition to an already strenuous collection of sources of distress weighing upon her weakening grasp on stability. Not only was she now living in a constant state of severe anxiety attacks and unease— owing mostly to the looming show at the Teen's Ball, their biggest performance to date— she found herself near constantly physically sick with rage at the mere thought of Johnny Vallerie, whose recent call had left him in her thoughts almost nonstop.

Cecil's breakdown and the hideous embarrassment she felt over it brought forth an inner reflection that her already weak and thinly-spread psyche was not fit to handle. She desperately fought back sobs and fits of mania as Sylvia went on about how when it warmed up, she'd definitely show Aster all the coolest 'shindigs' in town.

Am I just meant to suffer? she lamented as she looked out over the barren sheet of ice and snow that once was the town square. Even though she had received her wish to return, Aster couldn't help but think as though it had only been to watch everything fall apart.

She worried that perhaps something had gone wrong. That perhaps the Eden device wasn't meant to be left and returned to at one's whim as Nancy had hinted, and that by forcing her return the dream simulation was no longer rendering a dream.

How was there any way in the world she could fix this?

“There we are!” Sylvia at last exclaimed, pulling Aster up to the crest of a particularly large snow drift. Nestled in between two diners stood a quaint little building, whose dark facade played dalmatian against the ice which blanketed it.

“The perfect place to warm up!” she peeped, dragging Aster along across the street. Through the slush-laden cobblestone street they hobbled, eager to envelop themselves within the warmth of the coffee shop.

Pulling open an artisan glass door they entered, where they were met by the soft thump of a jazz bass and a haughty, laid-back atmosphere which was in strong contrast to all the other locales Aster had yet visited in this world.

The coffee shop on this particularly snowy day was a den of those likewise seeking refuge from the cold, as well as groups huddled in discussion around tables, and others partnered with a book in solitude. As they stood observing the small shop, a smartly dressed barista passed, mopping up the remnants of snow tracked in from outside. Aster was immediately taken with intrigue.

They chose a table not far from where they entered, but far enough to avoid the draft from the opening of the shop's door. Sylvia took her seat, looking proud of the locale she had chose.

“Cozy, isn't it?” she beamed.

Aster replied with a nod, though in reality a shop filled with the wandering gaze of dozens was one of the last places Aster would describe as 'cozy'.

Settling in, Sylvia left and soon returned with two cups of coffee.

Aster looked down at the steaming, dark liquid, whose characteristic smell billowed forth and upwards where it mingled with numerous other blends above the room in an overwhelming fragrance of toasted beans. She blew at her drink, attempting to cool it, and held it to her lips for a drink. Sylvia, engaged in dumping several creams and sugars into hers, abruptly stopped.

“Whoa, are you drinking it black?!” she exclaimed with an unexpected loudness, catching Aster in a flush of embarrassment as several people glanced over at their commotion. “That's so cool!” she continued, before looking disparagingly down at her own creamy, white cup. Aster continued to sip silently, the flush of her slightly chilled face now in marriage with the reddish hue of the haphazard embarrassment Sylvia had foisted upon her.

This did nothing to help Aster's distress, which only grew more intense by the minute as she waited for Sylvia to bring up Cecil and to begin the dance around her emotions so that she may avoid exploding with rage in a public space. Sylvia very transparently attempted to avoid the topic as long as she could, instead relaying to Aster facts about the latest Zorg reruns she'd heard about a thousand times.

Suddenly, Sylvia stopped. She was looking behind Aster, when her eyes went wide.

This was possibly the last thing in the world that Aster wanted to see.

Sylvia reached over the table and grabbed at her shoulder, excitedly pointing behind her.

“Aster! Aster, look!” she exclaimed in a hushed voice.

Aster froze, hesitant to accidentally make any unnecessary eye contact with whatever stranger could be behind her.

“Turn around!” Sylvia continued to prod as Aster held firm her cup of coffee, a torrent of fear churning within her. With great unease she relented and turned to face the source of Sylvia's excitement, when she saw them— two men she clearly remembered as members of The Cherubs.

The magnitude of the shock all but arrested Aster's anxiety for a brief second, as she finally, fully turned to get a view of them. The two sat at a table nearer to the frost-covered windows, locked in casual discussion with a number of people who appeared to be fans, gathered around their table in excitement.

“Go over and say something!” Sylvia pestered, breaking Aster from her temporary awe.

Her stomach convulsed to such a horrid degree she could hear the lurch at this suggestion. The very concept of Aster willingly approaching near-strangers was an absolute impossibility to her. You could simulate all the confidence in the world and she still would not have been able to break from her seat to do something like that, she thought.

And so, Sylvia brought them to her.

Aster's throat closed, the room narrowing until even the overwhelming smell of coffee ceased to be noticeable as she watched a jubilant Sylvia dart over to their table and begin pointing in Aster's direction, at which point Aster turned as pale as a sheet.

“Hey yeah, that's her— the girl with the eyebrows. Eugene was talking about her and Floyd,” she could hear one of them say to the other as they neared her table with Sylvia in tow.

“So, your friend over here said you guys are 'The Love You Forevers', huh? I've actually heard a bit about you,” one of them started.

Aster however, unable to process her surprise at the sudden appearance of two of The Cherubs, gave no response, and continued to look on at them with a thousand yard stare.

“I'm Sylvia, and this is Aster! She's the leader of the band!” Sylvia smiled, breaking the silence as she pranced her way proud and resolute back to her seat.

“Huh? Is that so?!” the one in front responded, giving Aster a look up and down. He kept his hair slicked back in a similar sort of fashion to that of Marion, and carried himself with a similar braggadocious air as well. Unlike Marion however— the nature of his confidence could be felt by those around him— his charm was easily notable and almost alluring in the apparent comfort that being entranced by it would give.

The one behind him appeared no less confident in comparison, but in a different, thoughtful sort of way. His expressions were more cloyingly charismatic, and his surprisingly youthful demeanor only furthered their potency.

Aster pushed herself to speak, meekly stuttering forth the following answer with a respectable amount of awkwardness. “Yeah, it's my band.”

Although Aster saw herself on the same level as the two of them, she couldn't help but still feel some sort of awe-struck uneasiness in the face of their eminence. They were the largest band in the area by far, of course. The Roundabouts and The Orkas and other local bands that Aster had acquainted herself with and come to enjoy were all fantastic, but none could match the success of The Cherubs. They had nearly broken into the national limelight by this time— and were certainly poised to do so with the release of their forthcoming single. The lips of the denizens of Peppermint Plains were abuzz with heralding the certain superstardom of these four young men.

“A girl band, eh?” the one in front replied, though Aster couldn't sense any true tone of derision in his otherwise dismissive sounding reply— unlike when she had met Johnny Vallerie.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Aster wished to tell him her gender had no bearing on what her band was, but couldn't bring herself to engage him in confrontation.

The two stood staring at her as she failed to respond, before the one in the back spoke up.

“Well, anyways, I'm Arthur, and this is March,” he introduced. March nodded in kind. “Do you guys have any shows coming up? I wouldn't mind coming out to see you,” he continued, revealing a noticeably posh accent.

Aster's blood chilled. Her eyebrows twitched, heart ferociously thrashing around within her chest.

Then, the words she would rather obfuscate and hide slipped forth from her lips.

“Yeah, the Teen's Ball this weekend,” she informed them.

Almost immediately, a horrid bout of stomach pain overtook her as she realized the stakes she had just put in place for the show.

She could have lied, and let the ball be the disaster it promised to be in hopeful obscurity, but Aster's hunger for recognition had just led her to inadvertently invite the biggest band in the area to their show— one that was only two days away, and one the band had given almost no notable practice towards at all.

“Day after tomorrow isn't it?” March mumbled to Arthur, lighting up a cigarette. “Decently sized show actually, that. Seems like your festival stunt worked out!” he laughed, exhaling a puff away before turning back towards Aster.

Aster laughed a stifled, uncomfortable laugh as a response, and grabbed on to her arm as silence drifted over the conversation once more. Thoughts of a reply came and went before they could even be considered, her mind racing as fast as that timid heart could pump.

"So, I heard from our manager you guys did something with Johnny Vallerie," March said, restarting the conversation.

Aster's eyes went wide at the utterance of his name. The mere mention of it made her apoplectic, her nauseating anxiety turning to a rage that bordered on homicidal.

In no manner of overstatement, the act of hating him had fully consumed her thoughts and life in the virtual weeks since it had occurred. Only recently had the most infinitesimally faint glimmer of that rage subsiding begun to appear, now undone by March.

In the not so distant weeks past back in her actual life— that lonely stretch of time filled with hopelessness and doubt that she would ever return to this place— the utter thirst for revenge she felt towards him was one of the few feelings that remained an ember in the suffocating flame that was her heart. Sylvia, with an instant look of concern and pity at her reaction, moved to intercede, but Aster spoke up.

"We played some songs with him," she uttered dryly, failing in any effort to deliver any affectation to her strikingly apathetic tone.

"I'm sorry," chuckled Arthur.

March smiled in kind.

"Quite the ass, isn't he?" March replied. Aster suddenly smirked at hearing this.

"He's a fucking idiot," she replied. Arthur laughed even harder.

"That he is," March continued. He smiled, wholly impressed at Aster's cutting tongue.

Sylvia, uncharacteristically quiet since the change in conversation, sat silently across the table, attending to her three cream and three sugar coffee as the three of them spoke ill of Johnny.

"Incredible that oaf should have such a big comeback, eh?" Arthur scoffed.

"Honestly. I mean, a number one record for this long? Even if he wasn't a has-been that'd be a feat," March replied.

That smirk of Aster's was short-lived. All hints of a relaxed posture or affability had faded entirely and instantly once they began discussing her song.

She was in no time beside herself with fury as they marveled over the impact that her song had made. That furnace of unease and anxiety she called a stomach cradled increasing bursts of hatred at every utterance of his name.

"Let's see if he can even follow it up," she muttered ominously.

A yet harder parcel to hide than the extent of her deep-seated hatred for him was her receipt of a tape in which Johnny Vallerie detailed his own various threats and misdeeds.

For the past week she'd laid awake until the wee hours of the morning, clutching the reel of tape in her hands, holding it above her face. At the right angle the moonlight would reflect against the tape, the chemically soaked strip suddenly awash in a cascade of colors that Aster's eyes would trace against as she thought to herself.

It felt like a gavel in her hands. A sure promise to right all wrongs and the plans she had for it sent her off to sleep with a faint smile each night.

And yet, the relief it provided could only be of so much aid when faced with manifestations of him daily. From the gaudy life-sized cardboard cutout of him that haunted the front of the record shop, to the constant, daily inquiries of his single by patrons. Her willful silence was a labor that had to be paid by an increasingly shorter and shorter fuse.

Her vague muttered threat therefore gave Aster the sweetest flush of excitement, and gave the rest, especially Sylvia, a minor look of perplexment.

“I'd say it's just luck, but it really is a fantastic little song,” March replied.

“Probably had a ghostwriter though, don't you think? His last few singles were such shit, and then he just writes that?” Arthur added.

March nodded and mumbled in agreement.

Aster was now completely on edge. The tantalizing, sweet hypnotic fruit of revealing true authorship had just been laid before her. Her heart raced as fast as it could, her palms glistened with sweat as her tired little head tried to weigh the options, when she heard it.

There is no end to love, crooned the voice of Johnny Vallerie over the shop's tinny speakers. March and Arthur turned instantly around, looking on in amusement at the coincidence.

“Well speak of the devil,” March smirked as the instrumental accompaniment of the Love You Forevers fluttered out into the shop with heavenly lightness— Johnny Vallerie the king riding upon the gold-plated chariot that was their playing.

A white hot flash of restlessness consumed Aster as she heard her song play. Her heart thrashed within her as a manic excitement opened her quivering mouth.

"You really think he did that all by himself?" she uttered. March and Arthur looked to her with curiosity, finding the girl now with the most serious, unsettled expression.

“Well no, I did say it was probably a ghostwriter,” Arthur replied.

“Hey Aster, let's—” Sylvia tried to interject.

"I wrote it. That was MY song."

It was the closest Aster had ever felt to pure bliss. So immensely and immediately cathartic was her utterance of those words that her thoughts went blank— her anxious and weary mind so desperate and starved for dopamine that a feast of it such as this disabled it momentarily, such that she hadn't even realized she'd uttered them until she saw their looks of shock for themselves.

The backing harmonies of the song— very noticeably sung by Aster and Sylvia, to whomever was acquainted with their singing, echoed out into the shop. Sylvia, at first speechless and stunned, soon became resolved with the situation, and joined Aster.

“Yeah, and he stole it!” she added, at which point March grabbed a chair and took a seat at the table.

“Wait, wait, wait. You're telling me you two wrote this song?” he asked with a barely hidden tone of immense surprise, gesturing up to the speaker above them.

“Nope, it was all Aster!” Sylvia replied, her short lived astonishment at Aster's outburst now having fully transitioned into what one could consider to be a look of smug pride.

Arthur now joined March, pulling up a seat to the table.

“And he didn't credit you at all?” he inquired.

“Would you have heard of us if not from the festival?” Aster shot back.

“Holy shit!” March exclaimed, laughing once again.

“I'm sorry, but if that's true and you did write this, you two got royally fucked! Sincerely. Jesus, it's such a good song. I'd have fucking killed 'em if that happened to me.”

Aster's brows furled inward at this response.

“I told you he was an asshole!” March remarked to Arthur, now leaning back in the chair. “It's unfortunate but this sort of stuff isn't that uncommon. There's a lot of snakes out there.”

“The one silver lining I think is that if you wrote a song that good then you should have no problem writing another, right? A hard-learned lesson is all,” Arthur added, looking to his friend. March shook his head in agreement, and extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray at the center of the table.

“Don't let it get you down, it's a good song,” he gave as weak consolation to the pained girl left sitting at the table, now smaller in her seat than she had already appeared at first meeting.

The feeling of emptiness that invaded her as she watched them rise from their seats was striking. All the rush of excitement and validation that so triumphantly washed over her just minutes before was gone in an instant, leaving her in a deeper depression than she had come to the shop with.

With quick goodbyes the two were gone, out the door before Aster could properly understand what had just passed. Sylvia likewise watched the door silently as it rocked back and forth in the wake of their exit, before turning to Aster with a look of sheepish playfulness.

“I can't believe you told them!” she exclaimed, smiling.

Aster couldn't either, yet unfortunately shared in none of her friend's enthusiasm.

The manner in which March replied was appallingly unaffected or concerned, contrary to the chivalrous backup and rallies to her aid she imagined would enlist from them through their outrage. Instead, she was given a weak frown and a sentiment of “that's too bad” which left her somehow more hideously embarrassed than her fight with Cecil had.

Such an immense shock it was to Aster to see that it didn't mean as much to them as it so terribly did to her, that a horrific bout of self-hatred and apathy set in quickly after, rendering her non-communicative for the rest of their coffee shop visit, although Sylvia was more than happy to fill the silence.

It was in this delirious, depressive stupor, peppered occasionally with the encouraging voice of Sylvia finding its way in, that she found herself thinking of Cecil, his own anguish now observable in new and surprisingly affecting ways to Aster.

Her heart and soul winced at the idea of compromise when it related to her art, but she also now— in the very deepest onset of horrific hurt and depression, sympathized with Cecil's pain. The most undesirable sadness, she whispered to herself as she thought upon their ordeal.

"You know, as much as I call him a jerk, Cecil isn't that bad of a guy," Sylvia suddenly said with a serious demeanor, breaking Aster from her depressive daydream.

She watched Aster's reaction carefully as the girl looked up with her dark eyes, tired eyes. Noticing her obviously upset but listening, she continued.

"He's kinda like you in a way."

Aster frowned upon hearing this. "How?"

"Well, Mr. Floyd kinda came across him like he did with you, although he was much littler than you were. He was a really big deal when he was a kid. Well—" Sylvia chuckled, and a bashful look came across her face. "We both were. Me and Cecil met each other as kids because we were both "prodigies", so we attended a lot of the same events. Mr. Floyd helped take care of Cecil when his parents weren't around and helped get him a job when he dropped out of school. It was actually Mr. Floyd who tried putting me and Cecil together as a duo, but Cecil got really fed up and said "no" and so Mr. Floyd never mentioned it again."

Aster, upset as she was, listened with amazement as Sylvia spoke. Although she tried to remain conscious of it and correct herself accordingly, the fact that this was a simulation usually led her to a mode of thinking that was horrifically narcissistic— that the world of Peppermint Plains existed to only suit her whims and her desires, and bend to them as she saw fit. But as Sylvia reminisced, warmly from the heart, Aster couldn't help but feel that most of what she held true about her existence lived on very uncertain ground. Fabricated or not, Sylvia looked and sounded as real as any person she had ever seen, and the stories she told elicited a deep response that couldn't be merely waved away as artificial.

Aster returned to her coffee while silently listening, enamored.

"So, it's a lot like the fight earlier! Cecil just gets that way. And I think you get that way too. Remember how fun playing the festival was? Wouldn't it be silly to never do that again just because of a fight?”

Aster agreed. It was apparent that somebody had to give.

Owing to the simulation, another pianist could probably fall right out of the sky, she figured. But to Aster's great astonishment she realized— she didn't want to find another.