Aster looked at the girl in disbelief. She watched her carefully, scrutinizing her, as if she couldn't possibly exist— as if she might vanish the second she failed to keep an eye on her.

Yet, she didn't disappear. She simply stood there beaming, a symbol of Aster's dreams personified. If Aster had not exhausted every tear within her eyes, she would've wept at the very sight.

An awkward silence fell upon the room following the young girl's entrance.

This rosy cheeked girl, fidgeting nervously with anticipation, spoke again.

“I love your music so much!” she said eagerly.

Aster was taken aback, almost in revulsion of the emotion that came over her as the girl spoke. The joy swept over her, carrying with it a notion of acceptance so strong and pure and completely alien to her miserable life that she had no tolerance for receiving it. Thus, Aster felt a feeling much akin to what she imagined electrocution to feel like race throughout her body as she gazed upon the girl's incredibly hopeful and happy face.

She was terrified that if she failed to reply, if she remained quiet, the girl would mistake her silence for coldness. To Aster, who felt so dearly about meeting her first ever fan, the thought of her social inability threatening this nearly broke her heart in two.

She wanted to reply 'thank you', but the words were caught in her throat.

However, as if intuiting this, the girl smiled and began to talk about the songs she had heard, specifically the lyrics to her favorite, to which Aster finally mumbled that the title was “Das Gemeine”.

The young girl seemed to marvel at the unpronounceable title and thought the obliqueness of it fell right in line with who she had envisioned Aster to be.

Aster herself continued to stare at the girl, as if she must have been some sort of mirage or evidence of her mind finally breaking. She felt her face overtaken with hot blush at every compliment paid to her and, as she began little by little to open up with small, quiet replies, noticed the depressive fog which had caused her mind to languish was subsiding.

She glanced around, looking at the pockmarked, smoke-stained walls of the green room, and became overwhelmed by the degree to which lucidity returned to her.

She noticed Sylvia and Floyd standing by the doorway, watching her with interest, and became immediately self-conscious of their eyes. Sylvia, seeing this, took the overjoyed Floyd and exited the room.

A second, much longer silence then fell upon the two girls as they became enveloped in thoughts of how to continue the conversation.

Aster, scrambling for any idea to fill her blank mind, looked reflexively at the ground, but met the girl's excited, twinkling eyes as she did so.

She did a double take, startled. Staring back at her was not the enthusiastic stranger, but herself.

Her heart seized. There in the young girl's eyes was the same eager and hungry look with which Aster had devoured every wonderful thing she had ever seen, with which every lofty ideal of perfection she had ever promised herself had been gazed at and burned upon her mind.

This moment, significant enough in impact as to slow even Aster's perception of time, instantly ranked among the happiest in her life. Her heart, pounding within her chest, seemed to rejoice in finally shedding its blanket of malaise.

Blossoming in this new found joy, she showed the girl something which no one outside of Sylvia had ever seen.

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“Thanks for listening,” Aster said, smiling genuinely.

The girl returned her happiness.

“I should be thanking you!” she replied warmly. “You see, I was havin' a pretty blue day that morning I first saw you at the festival.”

Aster took a deep breath in surprise.

“The festival? But we didn't even advertise it...”

The girl chuckled.

“You didn't have to! I walk through the square every morning on my way to school! There was no missing those stalls set up all over the place.”

She then smirked.

“Though truth be told, there were so many bands playing all at once that it sounded pretty awful, from far away! I was hurrying through the square to escape the noise, when I passed the record store and stopped.”

A look of fond recollection deepened the pink of her face.

“It was like the rest of the world went silent when I noticed you guys. The way you all looked so passionate and alive made me wonder what I was doing with myself.”

She looked away, growing bashful. “I've never told anyone this before, but— I don't really have the best image of myself. If I was in a crowd, nobody would be able to pick me out. But you guys would never have that problem! Your music was something I couldn't turn away from!”

The girl, though smiling, looked to be holding back tears.

“Have you ever realized how amazing you are?”

Aster blushed intensely.

“No,” she mumbled, embarrassed. She hardly considered herself a proper musician, so she struggled to respond when faced with such compliments.

“Well you are, to me. You don't know how inspiring it was to see another girl up there doing what I'd only ever been told boys could do. Playing real rock and roll!”

Aster wished to tell her she had actually been playing a strain of shoegaze blended with neo-psychedelia, but restrained herself.

“My brother says that it's stupid for girls to try and play in bands, but I know he'd change his mind if he saw you! 'Cuz you changed mine! If you can do that, then why can't I?”

It was at this point that Aster's exhausted eyes once again began to tear up.

She had up until this moment worked solely with the aim of achieving success for herself— and to a smaller degree her bandmates— but had never considered the impact she would have on the people who would support her. In Aster's mind, the concept of people willingly supporting her music was so unbelievable to her she had never entertained it, regardless of how necessary it was for success.

She had never dared to hope that strangers would care about her— yet, this stranger was before her admitting just that.

She was admitting that Aster touched her life.

At once a feeling wholly alien and never considered threw itself upon Aster, as she came to realize that she really did have the power to affect others.

It reframed and re-oriented Aster's aspirations, augmenting them to now include a lust for this new spectacular warmth— the desire to touch the lives of others.

The girl wiped at her misty eyes and tried to regain her composure. She fidgeted again, clearly embarrassed about having lost it.

“I just wanted to thank you for being who you are. Having someone so confident to look up to really helps more than you know.”

Aster's lip quivered.

“I'm not...” she tried to respond, but her voice broke.

“Above all, thank you for letting me into the show even though it's sold out! I appreciate it so much!”

The girl finally lost her composure and began to cry in her happiness, moving forward to hug Aster.

The feeling of her small arms, diminutive even in comparison to Aster's tiny frame, caused ribbons of warmth to radiate throughout her body. The girl hugged tighter and tighter, and Aster, in great awkwardness, returned the hug.

How is this a simulation? she whispered in amazement.

The girl pulled away, again wiping at her eyes.

Aster looked at her innocent face and hated herself. She was this disgusting failure, and yet this girl looked upon her as a diamond.

“Sylvia!” Aster barked suddenly.

In almost an instant, the door flew open, and the heads of both Sylvia and Floyd poked through.

Their apprehension and concern was evident as they awaited Aster's response.

“The show starts in ten, right?”

Floyd began to weep.

“Yes!” Sylvia chirped, beaming.

“Well then, let's get ready. And make sure there's room up front for her,” she ordered, motioning to the young girl.

The fan, beside herself in joy, leapt to hug Aster again. Aster, owing to Floyd and Sylvia's eyes, was significantly more embarrassed the second time around, but returned it all the same.

She was in turn followed by Sylvia, who didn't wish to be left out, and Floyd, radiant in the face of their averted catastrophe, who completed the huddle.

As she looked up, her face flushed red and cheeks smooshed together, she noticed Cecil in the doorway, and died of embarrassment.

Her demise was short-lived however, as he bore a look which drew immediate concern.

The three of them broke their hug upon noticing.

“Do you have any idea what is happening out there?”