“Just going to play on these tonight,” Serim said after rolling out a few large buckets from storage. “Since we’re just trying stuff out either way. If we want to play more, I can get my drum set here or we find a different place.”

Theora noticed the cord that Serim had plugged into her guitar; it led to a little box on the ground. This was, probably, what the ‘electric’ part in an ‘electric guitar’ was all about, although Theora had little concept of what it actually meant. To test it out, she plucked a string, the guitar still lying on the ground — and startled.

She said, “There might be something wrong with it.”

Dema giggled. “You mean because it’s all grungy? No, that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

“Really?”

Dema came a bit closer and nodded towards the box standing on the ground. “It’s an amp!”

“An amp.”

“Short for…” Dema looked like she’d forgotten the term, but eventually said, “amplifier,” making Theora question just a little bit whether it was actually the right word. Then, Dema said, “Like, imagine you’re playing some video game and you’re really strong, but then you get tons of buffs and get even stronger? An amp’s like a buff. Makes you shine!”

Serim nodded. “If you say you click my links then you must be hearing that all the time?”

“Well,” Dema said, “not sure she realised it’s the same instrument. ’Cause she also says notes played an octave apart sound ‘completely different’ to her. Pretty sure she’s still only pretending to get that they’re the same.”

“Don’t embarrass me like that,” Theora answered with a soft smile. “I know very well that they are the same note, even though they are an entire octave apart.” Because Dema had said so, and she trusted Dema.

Theora turned back towards her guitar, still just kneeling next to it as it lay there. She hesitantly plucked another string, trying to understand what exactly that machine was doing to the sound. It was puzzling, so when the sound stopped, she played one more, until she noticed both Serim and Dema stare at her expectantly.

She looked up at them, tilting her head. “What?”

“Nothing,” Serim said, raising her arms, using the gesture to push a strand of black hair out of her face. “Just fascinating to watch. Like a cat touching water.”

“Like a skunk getting petted for the first time ever,” Dema agreed.

Theora couldn’t help but laugh. “Sweeties, I can’t focus on this if you make fun of me.” With that, she returned to tentatively playing notes, trying to ignore the whispers from the two about how she’d just called them ‘sweeties’.

She played an open E. Then, an F. Then, an F sharp — or a G flat; Theora wasn’t sure, Dema kept changing its name whenever she talked about it. All through this, of course, the guitar itself still made sounds — they were just overwhelmed by the loud distorted interpretation of the amplifier.

But there was some kind of structure to it. In fact, sound was really a lot like fast winds. It had been less apparent when listening to music on earphones, but now… Now that she could feel it with her entire body, not just her ears, she noticed: It wasn’t just one wind, it were many. A slow one at the base with more stacked on top. She pressed the pedal to deactivate the distortion. Then, she added it again.

“It puts more into it,” Theora mumbled.

Dema scratched her head. “More into it?”

“It’s all wind stacked on wind. But the winds are very rhythmic. You can count them, right? But this one—” She pressed the pedal. “More. Puts in more little winds.”

Serim said: “She’s probably talking about overtones.”

Theora found her gaze. “Overtones?”

“Yeah. Pitch is determined by the slowest sound wave, which is called the first harmonic. More harmonics stack on top of it, and they resonate because they share nodes. Feels good to listen to. Then, the amp adds saturation — including overtones that don’t harmonise. That makes it sound distorted, fuller.”

Theora blinked. That was how it worked? She played an E again, and then another, focusing on the lowest way it made her body swing. She counted.

Then, she laughed.

“One of them is twice as fast as the other. That feels funny.”

“That’s why it’s the same note, yes,” Serim nodded. She looked at Dema. “You didn’t teach her this?”

Dema jolted up at the accusation. “Why, didn’t think it was important?”

“Well,” Serim started, “I guess normally it isn’t, but…”

Humming along and shifting her body left and right, Theora played through some chords Dema had taught her, and realised — “This… sounds well together, because…” She played another chord, dissonant this time. “Ah.” Her cheeks hurt from smiling. This was amazing. “The ones that sound satisfying meet each other more often.” They made her body swing in harmony.

A buff. Adding overtones. Playing together. Supporting each other.

She’d never seen much use for buffs or support before. Taking care of quests — or rather, emergency calls — felt easier when she didn’t have to worry about people around her who might get caught in the crossfire. And so, she’d gotten used to doing everything on her own, alone.

But Dema was strong. She played the guitar better than Theora could ever hope to, and the guitar wasn’t even Dema’s main instrument. And now, Serim was here too, providing a base for them to move on top of.

Perhaps Theora didn’t have to play solo anymore.

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She plucked through the notes of an octave, but then hesitated between a G sharp and an A. She played the A over and over again, listening closely. After focusing for a while, Theora’s eyes opened again, and she smiled. “So this A has a little more than 438 winds per second as its base.”

Serim shot Dema a glance. “Really? You are doing this even to her? Can’t you at least start with standard turning?”

Dema bit her lips. “What do you mean! What— what if she miscounted?”

“Lying won’t get you out of this. There is no way she miscounted.”

“I might have,” Theora admitted.

Dema’s eyes sprang to her, bewildered. “No way. There’s no way you miscounted, don’t listen to them! You’re perfect.”

“It’s you who said it,” Serim deadpanned. “What if you mess up her absolute hearing by telling her all the wrong names of notes?”

“She doesn’t have absolute hearing,” Dema grumbled. “She’s just counting the bumps.”

“Yes,” Theora said. “I’m just counting how many times it shakes me. Nothing is being messed up. My innards are fairly resilient.”

“Also,” Dema added, looking like she was about to cry, “I thought she wouldn’t notice! I thought nobody would!”

“Well, they notice as soon as they start playing with you and everything sounds off.”

“Not my fault all the best notes aren’t on the normal tunings…”

Serim sighed. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just thought you’d let Theora learn the basics first…”

“What are you talking about?” Theora asked. “What did I notice?”

Dema sat down on the ground next to the guitar and sang a note. It was incredibly stable in her raspy, resonating voice. “That’s how an A is supposed to sound like,” she explained, but it sounded off. Then, Dema played the note on Theora’s guitar, and sang that note too, in perfect resonance. It didn’t sound off at all. “I prefer tuning it a little lower.”

It was at that moment that Theora realised Dema could sing perfectly if she wanted to.

“Anyway!” Dema let out and jumped up. “Are we gonna play anything or not? I wrote lyrics so someone’s gotta sing. Theora?”

“Yes?”

“Gonna sing for us?”

Theora jolted back, bumping into an aluminium shelf, clattering its contents in a sharp noise.

“Don’t scare her like that,” Serim said, betraying her worry by looking amused. “Guess you gotta do it yourself, Dee.”

Theora flushed as she tried to sort the shelf back into order.

Dee. That was a cute nickname.

Dema looked at Serim. “How about the song I sent you? Did you take a look at it?”

“Sure.”

“What song?” Theora asked.

“The one I’ve been writing,” Dema said proudly. “It’s called ‘yet to ask her out’. Haven’t written a guitar section for it though, so can you just—” She tapped a few notes on her bass. “Play that on repeat? Like, as chords or something.”

Theora played through it once to commit it to muscle memory and then nodded.

“Nice. Let’s go then!”

Serim counted down and then she and Dema began playing. Theora joined in within a fraction of a second because she wasn’t sure if they would start at one, zero, or a beat later.

The sound coming out of Dema’s bass was low and brute, and Serim’s makeshift drums were low in comparison to Theora’s guitar, but the timing seemed amazingly accurate where Serim wanted it to be. Of course, Theora had heard Serim play before, but it had never made so much sense to her as it did now.

By the time Dema started singing, Theora had concluded that it was both the worst and the best song she had ever heard, and everything about it was screaming that that was exactly the point. Dema could sing on pitch; she had just proven that. Now, she was sounding off and clumsy. Because she wanted to.

Trick her into liking me by playing cool ♫

Then melting as she fills my void

It was never that Dema couldn’t sing; it was that Theora had been unable to listen. And just as the song threatened to start making sense, Dema continued with:

Plucked my heart from the garden ♫

Like a grape to be devoured by a shark

… before Serim went haywire for a moment and they started the chorus:

We already kissed but I wanna ask her out

Already moved in with her, haven’t even asked her out ♫

Theora almost messed up the next chord when she noticed that this song might be about her. Yet, it was amazing — the way every single note played or sung brought its own harmonics, then weaved together with the others into a massive and beautiful storm.

I’m coal and she’s hay,

tinder, hearth, and prey ♫

Breathes life into the ashes

Volcano goes boom!

Theora had never been good at magic, but for once in her life, she felt a little closer to it. Of course Dema would be good at this; of course she would sound off to people who wouldn’t meet her on her own terms. Dema was an ancient mage who invented spells at leisure, and in a way, music was like magic too — it was this world’s magic, together with chemistry, perhaps.

They played for an hour or two; Theora wasn’t sure. After every playthrough, Dema and Serim found new things to add or change, and what started as a few chords on repeat turned into a lot more; Theora wasn’t sure what, but she tried her best to remember.

When they finished, Dema cheered, turning to Serim. “She really is that good, right? I was like, almost kinda scared I was imagining it ’cause I’m like, biased from crushing on her big time.”

“Well,” Serim went as she walked over to the couch, “I’m biased too, since she’s basically my little sister… But no, I don’t think the issue lies with our biases.”

Theora carefully placed the guitar in its bag and then joined Serim.

“May I?” Serim asked, and Theora nodded absent-mindedly while watching Dema tidy up behind them.

Dema was treating all the instruments and devices with newfound care and poise, now that they had used them to actually play together. Her movements were a little slow — perhaps from carefully tipping around cables on her rollerblades, or maybe from exhaustion.

“So…” Serim began tentatively, “does that mean we’ll do this again, or…? How’re you all feeling?”

“I feel good,” Theora blurted out. “I mean — it was fun. I had fun. I feel good.”

“Me too!” Dema said. “We should set up another session, right? Theora and I can’t tomorrow ’cause we’ll be out.”

Theora turned her head to face her. “We will be out?” It was the first time she’d heard of that.

“Yep! I asked around and managed to find the apartment complex Amanda Dupont used to live in. I set up a meeting with one of the neighbours who knew her so we can ask her questions, if you wanna. Sound good?”

Theora felt a sudden bout of nerves flare up, although not necessarily in a bad way. She nodded. “Let’s try that.”

Dema was smiling all the way through, until she saw that Serim had dropped her legs into Theora’s lap. A hint of jealousy flashed over her face, followed by a little pout. Then, she shook her body, and continued working.

“You can lie on my lap later, if you want to,” Theora offered. Dema didn’t even have to ‘ask her out’ for that, she could just do it.

“I know!” Dema let out. “I know, I know!” She took a deep breath, looking at the wall. “I’m gonna.”