We Are The Music Makers

 📅 December 2011

【ᴛᴡ ғᴏʀ: ɴᴏɴ-ɢʀᴀᴘʜɪᴄ ᴅɪsᴄᴜssɪᴏɴ ᴏғ sᴄʜᴏᴏʟ sʜᴏᴏᴛɪɴɢs】

At first Anarchy thought they were joking, or maybe not joking, but at least not necessarily serious.
He was a squat kid, a heroin addict—a recovering one, now, but still…that. Maybe he could carry a tune or pick out a beat, that’s cool, but surely plenty of people could. He’d been invited to “join their band” twice, or maybe it was more like “form their band.” But he didn’t think it actually meant anything. Until Kato walked into the living room and dropped a guitar on his nuts.
“Alright. Let’s fuckin’ go,” Kato said.
“Fucking ow…” Anarchy rolled over onto his side while Kato hefted the guitar up by the neck and smirked.
“Promised I’d teach you to play if you stuck around,” he said. “Let’s get cracking.”

Anarchy decided to go along with it. After all, what else was he supposed to do? It wasn’t like he had anything else going on outside of treatment. He sat and listened while Kato reeled off the Cliff Notes on guitar playing, and let the instrument be shoved into his hands, only interrupting when Kato went to fix the way he was holding it:
“I’m left handed, does that matter?” Anarchy asked; “Like…is that going to be a problem?”
“Shouldn’t be,” Kato replied, after a brief pause; “There are plenty of left-handed guitarists who play right-handed. And you’ll be using your dominant hand to fret and everything, which might make it easier. How left-handed are you?”
“Uh…I don’t know.”
Kato rolled his eyes. “Well if you’ve got a dead fish for a right hand, lefty guitars exist. But try it like this first anyway,” he said, positioning Anarchy’s hands for him while explaining further which string was which, and encouraging Anarchy to give each one a pluck and a listen. Handling the instrument felt awkward, but Anarchy didn’t imagine it would feel much less clunky with his hands reversed. He did his best to just listen and follow Kato’s instructions.

“It’s gonna be different with a bass, ‘cause it’s tuned deeper, and it’s more about rhythm,” Kato said, a half hour into their impromptu lesson.
“What do you mean?” Anarchy asked, grateful for a reason to set the guitar down: His fingertips were starting to sting.
“Well, rhythm is the music’s pattern of sounds and silences, in essence—but relative, not like the beat. That’s like…the pulse. Athena’s basically the rhythm, and I’m the melody, alright? On bass, you’ll hafta be, like, the halfway point between me and ‘Thena. We’ll need to get you a fuzz pedal too, but eh.”
“A what?”
“Don’t worry about it yet, that’ll be for later.” Kato waved him off. “For now, just get a grip on the guitar.”
Anarchy rolled his eyes. “Okay, yeah, sure. So…is it just the tuning that makes it different from a bass or what? It’ll be that easy to swap one for the other?”
“Well, it’ll have fewer strings, too—like I said, it will be different. But if you can learn this, yeah, you’ll be able to figure it out when we get you a bass, no problem.”
“And what if I can’t learn this?” Anarchy asked, briefly inspecting his fingertips before raising an eyebrow at Kato.
“Then you better pray to god you can sing or learn keys,” Kato said, sitting back. “Actually…do it. Sing.”
“Say please, asshole,” Anarchy replied.
“Are you good enough for a please?” Kato cocked his head to the side.
“Are you good enough to be a dick about it?”
Kato grinned. “Probably not.”
“Tch. Let’s hear it anyway.”

Kato rolled his eyes, still smirking, though he leaned forward and let his hair fall into his face when he took his guitar back. He gave it a couple practice strums, as though finding his place, then set his fingers on its neck and started playing in earnest, nodding his head in time with the music.

“Existence is—infinity times infinity,” he started to sing:

“I know I might be too far gone
Couldn’t earn my parents’ love
I know no fleeting halcyon
I’m not sure if the pain ever made me tough
But I know living it through spilled my blood

Again
and again
and again
it doesn’t end

The ouroboros of the venomous and the victimized
The cycle repeats, the starving snake eats
and bleeds
and never dies

I’m not sorry that I
said that goodbye
the spokes on the wheel of fate
might break
under the weight of that day
Where is the lie that I tell?
I’d been living that hell
for infinity times itself

Clawing up the inside of my head
Knowing everything is knowing nothing instead
so simple and so complicated
How can I pay the price?
and why should I?
Now can I recoup what’s mine?
Again?
it never ends

Do you want me to convince you I’m profoundly changed?
I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m reformed, I’m just rearranged
and blamed
For being ambivalent when I should be ashamed
Don’t you think I felt that enough?

I’m not sorry that I
said that goodbye
the spokes on the wheel of fate
might break
under the weight of that day
Where is the lie that I tell?
I’d been living that hell
for infinity times itself

Haven’t we watched this all a million times?
When does the shock wear off?
When do we just accept mankind:
As bloodthirsty, vengeful, and blind?

the cycle repeats
a million times
following the highway lines

infinite memories, infinite minds
If you had your way, how would I pay for my crimes?

I’m sorry that I
said that goodbye
the spokes on the wheel of fate
might break
under the weight of that day
And now if I must tell
I’m still living that hell
for infinity times itself

pure, pure happiness—
hate everything, love me:
the contradiction continues
infinitely.”

“My own song,” Kato said, silencing the last note vibrating off the strings. “‘Infinity Times Itself.’”
Anarchy begrudgingly had to admit that Kato was talented; not just as a guitarist, but as a singer and lyricist as well.
“It’s about your school…thing?” he asked, instead of giving any immediate praise.
“It’s about a couple school shootings,” Kato responded. “Or I guess, yeah, mine mostly. But some of the lyrics are from or based on Dylan’s journal.”
“Dylan…?”
“Klebold. One of the Columbine shooters.”
Anarchy grimaced. “Which of you is the sorry one?” he asked furtively.
Kato snorted. “Who knows?” He shrugged one shoulder, but his eye contact became rather flighty. “It’s both me. The sorry and the not sorry. I still don’t know, you know? ‘Cause it’s like, if I hadn’t done it, or tried to do it, I wouldn’t be here now. But it…really scared Athena.”
“That’s the big problem, huh?”
Kato laughed again. “Well, I’m not regretting risking my dad’s reputation, that was part of the appeal.” He lost the laughter and looked away. “It’s complicated. So simple and so complicated.”
Anarchy considered him for a couple moments. “…I understand,” he eventually offered. “It’s different, but I get it—the trade off. If I hadn’t run away, I wouldn’t have ended up…hustling, and a junkie, and everything. But if I hadn’t run, I’d still be there. It’s a good song,” Anarchy ceded. He leaned back and propped his elbows up on the couch. “But okay, you’re our guitarist, songwriter, composer, and lead singer, then? You’re a bit much, aren’t you?” he ribbed.
Kato laughed off the comment. “I’m not that good; I was gonna scream instead. We still need a lead vocalist.”
Anarchy furrowed his brow and scoffed. “That’s stupid.”
“Whaddya mean?” Kato said, mirroring Anarchy’s expression.
“You do sing well. Really well. Why waste that?” Anarchy mused for a moment. He’d been getting into the music the other two listened to, over the few days being with them. At first they’d teased him for having ‘nearly-normie’ tastes a bit, with his affinity for Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit and Eminem, but they’d been getting him up to speed, with new bands; harder bands. He’d become somewhat taken by it. The music was…more than music. Rawer than anything—it had rage and pain and passion and…power. With some songs, it felt like they ended up in his chest—especially the screaming, which he hadn’t expected to necessarily like in such saturation, but these artists used it like an instrument. Rough, blooded-throat sounding, fuck, it was just…undeniable. He wondered if he could do it—scream. Like that. He’d been screamed at enough; it seemed like it ought to be time he got his turn with the world.
“You should sing,” he told Kato. “But maybe I could scream.”
“You think?” Kato looked contemplative. “Well…Alesana does high and low uncleans. Worst case scenario, we could both go for it.”
“Sure, right, ‘worst case.’” Anarchy sighed through his nose. “For the record, you are good enough to be a dick about it. Just don’t let it go to your head.”
A nearly startled smile lit Kato’s face, and he searched Anarchy’s gaze for a moment. “You mean it?”
“Unfortunately,” Anarchy said, allowing a small smile, himself. “Thanks for wanting me in your band.”
“Yeah, no problem…” Kato glanced down at his guitar, then back up. “Thanks for wanting me in yours.”

Anarchy did find guitar a little overwhelming at first, but mostly because he didn’t think the same way Kato did, maybe. Kato seemed like he always had a lot in his head, and somehow he managed to hold it all there, and so there was a lot of pertinent information he rambled on about: Like notes and chords, and stuff about scales and progressions, and a bunch of formulaic things. Anarchy struggled with the glut of information and found he did best after he was shown how to use the damn thing and then could just make noise with it until it sounded more like what he was wanting, or wanting to recreate.
Obviously the tuning and chords and strumming patterns and all the rest mattered, and he let Kato teach him the immediately relevant parts—it was just a little more fun when he was able to explore, and when he did, he was apparently “intuitive” because he managed some key parts of the skillset, like transitioning between chords, all on his own ahead of Kato mapping it out for him to practice. Kato seemed impressed by it, at least.

Anarchy didn’t have much else to do, and it was…gratifying, really, despite the protests of his bleeding fingertips, to put in a few hours of work and familiarize himself with a chord or two—and plenty of songs only required knowing two. He scrolled through pages of options for “absolute beginner” level songs to start trying to play, but only one had a title that stuck out to him so starkly that he couldn’t pass it by. He only needed C# and F# for Heroin by The Velvet Underground, and within a couple weeks, closing in on Christmas, he could play it—and a couple other simple two-chord songs—at almost the right tempo.

Christmastime itself in his new digs was something of a curiosity for Anarchy. No-one here was apparently religious; Kato had that inverted cross tattooed on his face, and frequently wore a second one as a pendant around his neck. Amongst the books he busied himself with were titles like “The God Delusion” and “The End of Faith.” No one said grace at the dinner table; no one went to church. God featured more than Anarchy preferred in group therapy, but religion was essentially absent at home.
He didn’t mind, of course. Preferred it, really. He’d celebrated Christmas as a kid, but religion had largely been rather thin and plastic in his family; a knick-knack, an object of convenience, pulled out when handy, like when needed to prop up the concepts of obedience or in relation to why those queers in other parts of Cali were objectionable, but mostly just a uniform standard: They had Christmas because that was what you did. They owned a Bible and talked about Hunter being in Heaven now because that’s what you did.
He’d never really thought about it much until he met Chey, who’d had faith beaten into him, drowned into him. Chey struggled with recollecting it all, and struggled more with holding onto it once he did, but in bits and pieces over their two years together, Anarchy had pieced it together: The God Chey had grown up with; who hated and punished. A Devil that hunted—haunted, even. Possessed. Subjective sin that had him and his foster siblings beaten, and strangled, and held beneath the bathwater.
Chey had been weird with it. Faith; holidays. He sometimes prayed; sometimes quoted verses. He sometimes “got stuck” and thought everything wrong with the world might be because he, specifically, was bad and being punished. He loved Christmas like he loved anything bright and beautiful and joyous; it sometimes scared the shit out of him and the seasonal nightmares had been bad. They didn’t really have much capacity to have “real” Christmases together, but they’d shoplifted cookies and trinkets together and exchanged them, laughing, a couple years in a row. And then last December Chey’d vanished. It hadn’t even occurred to Anarchy that Christmas had ever happened in 2010, because how could it? It had never come, for him, and as far as he’d been concerned, it never would again.
But Athena’s parents had mentioned Christmas, and Sethfire did pull out a plastic tree a few days before the holiday and stand it in the corner of the living room.

“So…Y’all still do Christmas?” Anarchy ended up asking Kato, a little afterwards, gesturing to the tree, then the tattoo.
Kato shrugged. “I guess. Most people do. Christian nation. My folks and I went to church in Montana because it was fucking Montana and my dad would have died if he didn’t conform. I can’t remember if we kept going after we moved here…” he paused and looked troubled for a moment. “Must not have, I dunno. We did Christmas, though. I think just because it’s what you do in American suburbia. It’s more a capitalist holiday than a religious one at this point anyway.”
“Right…I guess that’s what it was for my family, too. Just ‘the thing to do,’” Anarchy replied.
“My folks probably did it for appearances too,” Athena added, finally home more often thanks to winter break; “but it’s nice just to give gifts and stuff, isn’t it?”

Afterwards, Anarchy managed to get back out to the mall with Kato, who was also experiencing his first Christmas under Sethfire’s roof. Anarchy’d been told that Kato was a recent addition, but it still seemed strange to think on: They all seemed so familiar with each other. So…at home.
“Well, Seth’s the one to thank for that,” Kato responded when Anarchy voiced as much; “So we better make sure he doesn’t start waxing poetic about last Christmas when he didn’t have to put up with us. What do you think? Like, a tie, or something? Or a book?”
“I’m supposed to know?” Anarchy asked; “I’ve been here two weeks. And he doesn’t read me his letters to Santa when he drives me to the clinic.”

Kato ended up allowing Anarchy to be the one to get Sethfire a tie; he chose a camel-colored one with complex math equations on it at Kato’s recommendation, since Sethfire allegedly was ‘some sort of twisted wackjob who likes math.’ Kato, in kind, got Sethfire an impressively boring looking box set of books titled “A Cultural History of Mathematics.” Then Anarchy had to lead the way for the rest of the shopping they were meant to be doing for Athena, because Kato kept “just checking” the Cultural History of Mathematics—In Antiquity volume, and coming to a dead stop or walking into people.
They did finally manage to get her some punky-looking spiked bootstraps; a new, badass-looking backpack with a brass-knuckles-shaped handle affixed to the top flap; a few band tees, and a set of twelve black and gold bracelets, one of which was shaped like a centipede.
“She’s going to be the coolest girl at school after break is over,” Anarchy commented.
“She’s always been the coolest girl at school,” Kato said. He added a pin-back button that said “FREE PUNCHES IN THE FACE” to her gift pile. “We’re just making sure no one can deny the truth.”
The two of them took turns, once home, distracting Athena while the other wrapped his gifts for her, though she caught on near the end and started actively trying to sneak a peek, leading to Kato actually locking the door.
“You’re locking me out of my own room?!” she called, feigning offense; “Fine! I guess I’ll just sleep on the couch with Anarchy, then!”
She nearly fell over when Kato abruptly opened the door, which she’d been leaning most of her weight against.
“You won’t have to do that,” he scowled; “I’m finished.”
“I’d have taken the floor, bro,” Anarchy said, raising his eyebrows and stifling a smirk while Athena darted into the room and started hunting for where Kato had hidden her presents.
Kato made a cat-hiss noise at him before relaxing back into a good-natured eye-roll and a smile. “Yeah, yeah. I know, you’re such a gentleman.”
For a brief moment Anarchy considered saying something more, something without a smirk behind it—but Athena was just a few feet away and really, there was nothing for Anarchy to say. Kato had said his piece already, and so Anarchy allowed the moment to pass without questioning Kato again about his decision not to pursue things with the girl his wistful gaze turned and followed. It wasn’t Anarchy’s business anyway—though, privately, he felt that Kato hadn’t quite told him the truth before about not knowing whether he “felt sorry” or not: He surely did, and yes, upsetting Athena really had been the big problem.
“Fine, I’ll stop looking,” Athena faux-whined from the bedroom before glee overtook her tone and she beckoned them both back in with, “But come see what I got Sethy!”
Kato rolled his eyes at Anarchy and tilted his head in Athena’s direction, as a sort of nonverbal repeat of the invitation back in, and the two of them acquiesced to looking at Sethfire’s present.
“Hair dye?” Kato scoffed, plucking the box out of Athena’s hands. “You think he’ll go for it? He’s a shrink. And ‘emerald’? He’ll look like a tree.”
“You’re just jealous ‘cause you’ll be the only boring one left!” Athena laughed, snatching the box back to wrap it. “It’ll be fun. We’ll be Christmas colors together. And he got his ears pierced! Hair dye isn’t even permanent.”
Kato rolled his eyes, but gave ground anyway: “Fair,” he said, handing her back the box and ceding a smile. “He’ll like it, if only ‘cause it’s you. Well, and ‘cause your folks would hate it.”
Anarchy chuckled. “I just hope it’ll go good with the tie I got him.”

—

No, none of them were religious, and only Sethfire had a job at the moment, but there still ended up being presents crowded under the tree come Christmas morning. It felt like stepping out into some bizarre-o, delusional, Hallmark-nostalgia unreality, waking up in the living room to Christmas lights and wrapped presents, as though less than a month ago he hadn’t been on the ground, or in some bedbug trap of a motel, not even thinking about Christmas, not thinking about anything; and having no knowledge at all of the people who had somehow—already—become…almost like family.
Kato was sitting quietly on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, still in his sleep-wear, and turned his head though Anarchy hadn’t thought he’d stirred enough to make noise.
Judging by the thin light and the silence, it was still very early, so Anarchy kept his voice quiet when he greeted him with a soft; “Merry Christmas. Why are you up so early?”
“Was up all night waiting for Santa,” Kato whispered back. He shrugged and looked back at the tree and the small hoard of presents around it. “It’s kinda weird, isn’t it?” he asked. He sounded almost meek.
Anarchy looked at the tree, too. “…Yeah, it is. It’s like a real Christmas.”
“So it feels like a not-real Christmas. To us.”

They sat quietly together for another half hour or so, while the light streaming in from the kitchen strengthened along with the smell of the coffee Kato put on. It wasn’t long before Sethfire came out to join them and offer Christmas-morning greetings; followed in short order by Athena, who swiftly appointed herself the present-distributer.
Sethfire was the first to receive his presents, which he accepted graciously. He agreed to allow Athena to assist him in dying his hair that evening; gave the tie a kind chuckle and the acknowledgment that it was, indeed, “very him.” He paged through the first of the books in the set Kato had gotten for him, with a rather touched, “Thank you, Julian. These do look fascinating.”
“You’re so weird,” Athena said, wrinkling her nose. “Who likes math?”
“I’m aware it’s abnormal, but…I don’t know. It’s a nice break from work. Numbers are…straightforward, I suppose, particularly as compared to all the complexity of human beings. I find them interesting, but also…comforting, or relaxing, maybe. And the history will be riveting.”
Athena’s quizzical expression bordered on one of disgust, making Anarchy snort.
Kato—who’d looked somewhat anxious over how his gift would be received—relaxed, himself, and pulled a smirk. “It’s like I got him a beach read,” he said, and laughed, before ducking for the presents and grabbing the presents he and Anarchy had gotten for Athena so he could hand them to her. She fawned over them, blatantly thrilled.
“Guys, what the heck, you didn’t have to get me so much! It was just my birthday,” she exclaimed, putting on the bracelets and hugging her new backpack, the tees draped over one arm.
“I mean, you deserve it,” Kato replied, rubbing his neck and sitting back on his heels, smiling.
“Well, so do you!”
Athena abandoned her own gifts in order to return to the tree and distribute further presents. Kato ended up receiving a pair of silver broken-pillar-shaped earrings and a red iron-on patch emblazoned with a golden eagle and the letters SPQR, which he tested the placement for on his pants leg while Athena handed Anarchy his own gift.
“I wasn’t really sure what you’d like,” she said, almost shyly.
Anarchy peeled back the snowman-patterned paper to reveal a heathered grey t-shirt, which read “PART WOLF” when he held it up to unfold it. As he did, something small fell out of it into his lap. He picked it up and found it to be a badass steel ring, shaped like a snarling wolf head.
“Because of…what that guy said at the clinic. About us being your wolf pack,” Athena explained.
“They’re perfect,” Anarchy replied, slipping on the ring and beaming. “Thanks, Athena.”
Kato had managed to find a point in time to get Anarchy something, too, somehow, and presented him with a Linkin Park necklace and tee, along with a sew-on patch that said “Anarchy” with the circle-A, before leaning rather obnoxiously into his space to ask, “And what did you get me?” in a smarmy sort of laugh—maybe assuming Anarchy hadn’t had the chance to do any such thing, since they’d been shopping together.
“I got you a bass player. You’re welcome,” Anarchy said, giving Kato a shove. “But also these, while you had your nose in Sethfire’s present.” He handed Kato the clumsily-wrapped wad of presents—just trinkets from the same Hot Topic they’d gone to for Athena, but Kato seemed pleased nonetheless by the small black stud earrings shaped like hands giving middle fingers; the fingerless fishnet gloves with spikes along the knuckle and wrist bands; and the rubber bracelet that read “fuck off.”
“Oh. You shouldn’t have, ‘Key,” Kato mumbled, pulling his new accessories on, a pleased—if half sheepish—smile playing on his lips.

There were still a lot of presents left around the tree; some very large. Sethfire smiled brightly and gestured for them all to continue to open things.
“Still plenty more there, no?” He said; “Athena, how about you bring over those medium sized ones, they’re for the whole apartment.”
Sethfire turned out to have gotten them all an Xbox and quite a few video games to go with it; Kato seemed especially enthused about a title called ‘Skyrim,’ which had apparently only come out the previous month.
“That large box standing on its end in the green paper is for you, Anarchy,” Sethfire prompted, while the others looked through the new games. “Why don’t you go see?”
“You didn’t need to get me anything,” Anarchy said, rubbing the back of his neck even as he got to his feet. “It’s so big—what is it? It didn’t cost a lot, did it?”
“Just open it; no need to fret over it,” Sethfire replied.

Past the gift wrap and cardboard, the hard black guitar case was unmistakable.
“Sethfire!” Anarchy turned around and gaped wordlessly. It was a simple yet sleek Yamaha bass guitar, with a glossy white body and a dark neck. Anarchy was almost afraid to touch it and get his fingerprints on it.
“I hope it’s decent enough. Give it a try for us, won’t you? Of course we can get you a better one should you really take to it, but this model is supposed to be just fine for starting out,” Sethfire said, waving away Anarchy’s shock. “I know you’ve been working rather tirelessly with Kato. And actually, Kato, the other large gift against the wall should have your name on. How about you open yours, too?”
Kato, who’d looked so excited over Anarchy’s bass that it might as well have been his gift, too, raised an eyebrow and padded over to the equally large box beside the tree, while Athena flashed Sethfire a thumbs-up behind his back. He opened his gift less delicately than Anarchy had done, and the loud tear of paper gave way to an even louder sort of yelp:
“Seth! This is an Aristides!?” Kato wheeled around, wide-eyed.
“Yes, they are supposed to be good. Didn’t you say you wanted one?” Sethfire inquired, a small smile on his lips.
“Yeah, matte black, this EXACT one, but—you’re INSANE! THIS IS SO MUCH MONEY! WHAT?!” Kato knelt in his wrapping paper, holding the new guitar like something sacred.
“Yes, well…” Sethfire shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “I felt rather bad that I failed to get you anything more than a cake for your birthday in July…Consider this my making it up to you.”
Kato looked like he might protest, and Sethfire clearly took notice, because he swiftly stood and changed focus:
“Now, Athena, I’m afraid your gift is not nearly as large, but I daresay it’s quite as exciting,” he said, crossing the room to the tree.
“You didn’t need to go crazy for me, too,” Athena objected; “You already got me a Balmain jacket…”
“That was for your birthday. Here, open these first.”
Athena dutifully chipped away at the last couple boxes beneath the tree, netting herself concert tickets to see a band called Deafheaven and a couple pairs of Demonia-brand platform boots; “I did not know which ones you’d like best, so…” Sethfire explained contentedly. Finally, he plucked an envelope out of the tree’s upper branches and handed it down to her.
“Last but not least. It’s a contract,” he explained, while Athena unfolded the paper; “For a year of membership at a recording studio with a sound engineer. When you’re ready, I’ll cover it. It will be in your name, however—and when the time comes, you may want to put down a band name as well.”

‘Psyched’ would have been an understatement for the mood of the flat. Athena nearly knocked her brother over with the force of her hug, and Kato was practically vibrating. Anarchy marveled at his new bass; when he first hefted it out of its case and into his lap he found it awkward to hold, and thought maybe it was just an adjustment from a guitar—but then realized he was holding it the wrong way around, and Sethfire had actually bothered to get him a left-handed bass. Anarchy couldn’t believe how truly known he was; known and seen and wanted. He tuned it while Kato did the same with his new guitar, and they talked in low voices while Sethfire busied himself cooking breakfast and clearing up the discarded packaging, having rejected every offer of help.
“I can’t believe how much money he spent on us,” Anarchy murmured. “I feel, like, kind of…”
“Guilty? Me too,” Kato concurred. “I mean…I wasn’t really expecting much. Anything. I’m not used to getting shit I actually want, you know, my dad would usually get, like, planners, or Algebra For Dummies, or books about how to study effectively in college or whatever…”
“I, uh, might have let all that slip to Seth, maybe,” Athena admitted, somewhat sheepishly. “I told him how your birthdays and holidays were pretty bad before, and, well, Seth is gonna Seth and fix it…”
She fiddled with Kato’s old guitar. “Who got you this one?”
“I guess technically my grandmother got it for me: Shout out to her for dying and leaving me money,” Kato laughed. “Dad let me have lessons as a kid on an acoustic, but I didn’t end up playing the sort of stuff he liked; he’d never have shelled out for a hybrid.”
“You gonna keep using it?”
“Why, you want it? It’s yours,” Kato rolled his eyes. “Or…joint custody, how about, in case I don’t wanna bother with an amp.”
“Dope,” Athena hummed. She unfolded the contract paper again, then strummed Kato’s old guitar once, beaming, and slapped the strings. “Guess we need a band name, don’t we?”