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Somewhere, in a town called Hometown- not a very creative name, and inaccurate for most, sure-, near the north end, by the forest, there was a giant house. This was the home of the Mayor of the town, but right now, she wasn’t home. The people who were there, however, were the mayor's daughter, her crush, her childhood friend, and the eldritch entity that had been possessing her childhood friend for the last few days.
She did not know about that last thing. Right now, she had other things to focus on. Like that her crush, Susie, was at her house! On her couch! And she played all the same things as her and Kris did and liked all the-
Huh? Her and Kris? Noelle caught herself off guard with that thought. What did Kris have anything to do with this? Sure, they were over too, but… they were over way more often! This was a rare thing! She’d never really spent quality time with Susie before!
In the back of her mind, she thought about how Kris had ‘hung out’ with Susie in the school closet, and she’d spent time with them all the time- they were neighbors, after all- and that her hanging out with Susie was sort of completing a triangle. But that was a little bit ridiculous, wasn’t it? It wasn’t a love triangle or anything- if there was any love triangle, it was with her, Susie, and Berdly.
She wanted to think about that even less, actually. Berdly was her friend, but she didn’t… She didn’t really like the idea of competing for attention at all. She didn’t want any of those elements in a relationship she might have. No competition- that didn’t necessarily mean that there had to be no one else, but…
“Uh, Noelle?” A hand reached forward to shake her shoulder. She jolted, her face feeling warm. Susie? Just touched her? Her hands were scaly but still warm and the expression on her face was worried for her and-
“I’m fine, faha!” She let out a nervous laugh. “Just spaced out for a bit is all.” She almost wanted to do it again, just to feel Susie’s hand on her shoulder again, but she didn’t want to make her too worried. She’d feel really bad if that happened. She opened her mouth to speak again, but couldn’t think of anything to say.
An awkward silence fell over the two teenagers.
From the basement, a soft melody started playing. Somewhere in the kitchen, someone froze and looked down at their hand.
At first she thought it was Kris, since it sounded like piano music, like the music Dess used to play on her guitar, but then she remembered that Kris never played that anymore. No, the direction the music was coming from, it was…
“Do you… hear something?” She tilted her head. “From the basement?”
Susie paused for a moment, to listen in too. “Damn…” A smirk spread across her face. “Hope it’s not the severed hand.” Wait, Susie played Blood Crushers 2? Or was it a reference to something else? Angel, she’d feel so embarrassed if she brought it up and Susie was just making a random comment. But if she didn’t mention it, then Susie would think that she didn’t know the game… aa, she’d try anyway.
She laughed. “Is that a Blood Crushers 2 reference?”
“Huh?” Responded Susie, looking half surprised and half confused. For a moment, she was terrified that the other girl had been talking about something else, but then a smirk fell over her face. “Dude, you actually know it?” Oh phew.
“Of course!” She tried to act fearless. “It's like a super duper classic! One day, the protagonist wakes up without a hand…” Kris always seemed unnerved at that part, even though few things seemed to faze them. Was it because they were afraid it would happen to them, and they wouldn’t be able to play piano anymore? But that was ridiculous! It was just a movie! That being said, she had too many stupid fictional fears of her own to judge them for that. But they just seemed so fearless that it felt odd.
She felt like she’d miss hearing them play just as much as they liked playing.
Susie picked up her sentence. “Then, like, they hear music coming from the basement…” Her smirk grew wider. “And when they go down, it starts attacking them and stuff!!”
“Cheezus, yeah!” WHY. WHY DID SHE SAY CHEEZUS. “That was so freaky!” She broke out into a nervous laugh. Angel, what was she thinking?
After a moment of just silently listening to the music together, Susie looked down. “Y’know, I never, like, saw the original. Only 2.”
Oh, she was missing out! “Gosh, really? I have the box set, do you want to watch?” Something about the idea of just watching something with Susie, something that Noelle knew, but she didn’t… it made her excited, but also kinda nervous? Like, what if she spoiled something, and ruined the whole experience for her forever!
Susie grinned. “Dude, that would be awesome!” YES! Oh, it would be so much fun, it was such a good movie, and there were so many things that made so much more sense when you watched the first one! Like why the protagonist didn’t have a name, but they did have one a long time ago, but they didn’t remember it because they weren’t supposed to choose their name, and they got a different name, but they didn’t like it because it wasn’t theirs, and it was like, a stolen name? But it didn’t make sense unless you watched the first one and also Noelle felt like even thinking about spoilers was probably a bad idea so she would stop that now.
“Yeah! Gosh, I used to watch it like, religiously.” The opposite of religiously, actually, because sometimes she watched it when she was supposed to be doing choir practice. But that was a while ago, she never did anything like that anymore. “It’ll be nice to… have someone to watch it with again.
She laughed. It was nice, just hearing that laugh.
For a little bit longer, they just sat there. Susie was the one to start up the conversation again. “...What about, uh… Catti? Doesn’t she like scary stuff?”
“Umm… well, she just takes it really seriously?” Catti always overthought everything. “Like, analyzes all the magic and stuff. It’s a little…” It was kind of fun, but after her fifth theory on how the urban fantasy magic elements weren't in their real world, it kind of lost its appeal.
Kris’ theories, on the other hand, were mostly about how the main character was going to kill everyone because in another game by the same creator ‘there’s the character that’s basically the same character as them and they killed everyone’ and also how the kind little companion character was evil.
Susie laughed. “That’s wicked annoying.”
“Um, no, no!” Noelle jumped to defend her, but it was kind of… “...but… yes.”
The silences started to get a little repetitive, so she tried to jump to fill this one. “OH, you know what else this reminds me of?” Oh she seemed clingy now didn’t she. Shoot. She kept going anyway, for fear of making it awkward.
She knew Kris would jump at the opportunity to tease her, there. ‘What, are you afraid of the music, Noelle? Scared that it’ll attack you if you go downstairs?’ They’d point at her in mock terror. ‘WAIT, YOUR HAND IS GONE!’ She’d probably be terrified, then mad at them, and…
She blinked away the daydream, and continued. “So there’s this guy who gets really mad about games, and he made this goofy horror series about this bucket with ICE-E’s face that tries to kill him?” She hadn’t watched it in a while. “Umm, have you seen that?”
“...No?” Susie tilted her head in curiosity.
Well, this was embarrassing. “Oh. Well, uh… maybe it’s okay, if you haven’t?” Suddenly, she felt like she lost the flow of the conversation. It was always easier with Kris. But she’d known them for longer, so that was an unfair comparison to make.
But the other girl responded with a huge grin. “Dude, let’s watch that too.”
Her heart leapt. “Really? Haha, I have it saved on my phone, here…”
She fumbled around in her pocket for her phone, but while she was doing that, the lights went out. Not just this one, either, it wasn’t just Kris switching off the light for a stupid prank- well, it was still probably Kris.
“Dude, the lights…” Susie looked around. “Did, like, the power go out?”
“Augh, Kris!” Noelle called out. “We know it's you doing one of your stupid pranks!” She turned back towards Susie. “Let’s go fix the breaker.”
The walk down to the basement was quiet, except for the still beating of Noelle’s heart. She hoped that Susie couldn’t hear. She grabbed two flashlights from the closet, flickering each of them on and off to make sure that they worked.
Kris had, of course, pulled this kind of prank before. There was a time a few years ago when they had to put a lock- a combination lock, Kris knew how to lockpick- on several objects in the house. Not even just the breaker, the oven, multiple closets, drawers… the combination to the basement breaker was 2512, she remembered. They managed to find ways to break in anyway, of course, but…
Noelle jolted as the Christmas tree she was pointing her flashlight at suddenly fell over, its little angel doll on the top falling with it.
Going forward without any such fear, Susie remarked on the tree falling casually. “Oops, the tree…”
She didn’t respond to that, for fear that she would give away that that startled her. Instead, she chose a corner of the room, almost tripped on a random piece of rubble on the way there, then swished her flashlight around. “Sorry, dad didn’t clean the basement this year… but the breaker’s down here somewhere.”
Susie didn’t respond. So Noelle spoke up again. “You know what REALLY made me afraid of basements?” In response, Susie tilted her head in curiosity. She continued speaking. “Like… the underground levels from Dragon Blazers.” She hated those. Even with the short music track, it managed to make her heart pound every time. Dess once tried to explain to her why it was scary, something about major and minor… octaves? Was that it? She couldn’t make any sense of it. She wished she’d paid closer attention whenever her sister talked about music theory. It would be fun to compose music of her own. “The music just repeats over and over again.”
“Hell yeah. That was weird.” Responded Susie. Oh shoot, she played Dragon Blazers too? How many interests did her and Kris share with Susie? They had really similar taste in things! She wondered which of the games she’d played, and what her favorite characters were, and how good she was at it…
“You played it?” She responded, simply.
“Yeah, uh. Only 2. As a kid.” Did Susie only play the sequel to everything…? But she was missing out on so much! It made Noelle a little happy, though, that she still had something to show her. That she didn’t know everything. Then, they could play these things together. “Got it from the lost and found.” She could hear a grin spreading across her face. “Even though it wasn’t mine.”
“Susie!” She half berated, and laughed.
The smirk didn’t leave her voice. Noelle almost wanted to turn to her, but she was supposed to be looking for the breaker right now, not admiring Susie! “I played it secret style so I wouldn’t get in trouble.” She let out a ‘heh’ after that.
“Oh my gosh, same!” She responded. “I played 2 with my dad, but like… there was like, this Evil Route that my parents didn’t know about?” It wasn’t a very fun route, but… “I always played in secret so they wouldn’t take it away.”
“Dude, I think I did that by accident.” Responded Susie. How did someone do that by accident? It was a really hard route to do! She’d always forget an enemy and ruin the whole thing…
She laughed. “You did the Evil Route by ACCIDENT?”
“Yeah, I like, didn’t know you could be… nice?” But still, you had to kill every enemy in an area! Was she trying to level grind or something and just stumbled upon it? “So I was just killing everything and getting, like. Pissed. Like, ‘Why the hell is everyone mad?’ Pretty sure I’d do it the good way now, though.” Oh yeah, that would do it. If you just play it like a normal rpg, the game will scale in some really annoying ways. But still, there’s a whole tutorial on being nice! Did she just mash through the dialogue? Hastily, Susie added, “Maybe.”
“Gosh, I’d love to see you play it for real.” Noelle replied.
“Well, uh, if you got another copy… just leave it in the lost and found I guess.” She did, coincidentally, have another copy. One time, Kris stole her copy of it- even though they had their own- and she had to replace it because she was really into it at the time and just thought that she lost it. When she got her copy back, she found that they’d switched her to the evil route.
They hadn’t pulled any of those kinds of pranks in the last couple days. It was worrying her a little, so it was almost nice to see that they were still at it with the breaker thing.
She laughed. “Maybe I will!”
More silence. The music had cut out a while ago, but she hadn’t noticed exactly when. It was nice hearing it fill the silences.
“So, uh.” Susie spoke up. “Where the hell’s the breaker?”
“Oh. Right.” She’d completely forgotten about that. Her flashlight hadn’t moved an inch since she’d started talking to Susie. “I’m, um, looking for that.”
“Um, yeah. Me too.” She couldn’t tell whether Susie thought that what she said was ridiculous or if she was also not looking for the breaker. She hoped it was the latter. “Dude, what if it wasn’t Kris?”
“Huh?”
“What if it was a severed hand…” Continued Susie. “Moving around down here, and then suddenly it reached out and grabbed your hand?” Oh, so that’s where she was going with this. She thought that Kris had brought up the same ‘hypothetical’ before, but she couldn’t remember when.
“Hey…” Her voice clearly shook. “I would, um, die, I guess.” Of a heart attack, or just. Something? So she wouldn’t die of it attacking her. It seemed not as bad as getting attacked by the severed hand.
Susie seemed bored by her response. Shoot. “You’d just die?” Well she couldn’t just sit by and let herself be embarrassed! Then Susie wouldn’t even consider hanging out with her again!
She decided to try to commit to the bit. After all, just ducking out of it would be even more stupid. “I think if it just touched me, I’d be dead.”
“Like, before it even attacked?”
“No, I think I would just, um, die of shock. Seems easier.”
“Well, um. I guess I would, um, have to protect you.” Noelle liked that idea. Her face flushed.
She decided to turn the question on her. “What would, um, you do, Susie?”
Susie smirked. “Thumb wrestling.” With the severed hand? She burst out into laughter.
The silence stretched on longer this time. Neither of them jumped to fill it. It felt a bit uncomfortable. For some reason, it felt like something was missing. If Kris had messed with the breaker, then why weren’t they down here? She swayed her flashlight around, checking if they were hiding behind something, but there was nothing. But if not Kris, then who…?
“Uh, d’you know where Kris is?” Susie voiced her concerns. “Wouldn’t they be in the basement if they broke the breaker? There some secret exit I don’t know about?” There was the vent in the other room, but somehow she doubted Kris could go through that.
“Yeah, haha, they… they should be down here. I’ve looked around, but…” Kris was nowhere to be found. Was it a rat or something? No, she didn’t think a rat could mess with the breaker that badly. “But if it wasn’t Kris, then maybe we should go get them for help?” As much as she liked spending time alone with Susie, she found herself gravitating to the idea.
“Maybe.”
More silence. Susie immediately tried to fill it, this time. “Okay, where the hell’s the breaker, though.”
“Right? If we keep taking so long…” Noelle paused for dramatic effect. “The severed hand is gonna get us first.”
A beat. Then, the sound of Susie standing up. “Screw it, let's just go get Kris to help.” Yeah, fair enough. Sometimes it felt like Kris could see in the dark. They’d probably be able to find the breaker easily. She pretty much expected this.
What she didn’t expect was Susie grabbing her by her arm and dragging her upstairs. She let out a yelp. Susie was grabbing onto her sleeve and her hand felt scaly but still warm and Noelle felt her face going red as she pulled her through the basement and upstairs.
The experience was sadly over all too soon, though, as she let go of her as soon as they reached the first floor. “Alright, the trip's over. Now where the hell…” she trailed off. “Is… Kris?”
After a moment, Noelle could hear why. She heard soft piano music echoing through the house. Occasionally, it paused, as though its player had forgotten the next note. Suddenly, Noelle felt like maybe it would be better to leave Kris alone for a little longer. Just to hear their beautiful, beautiful concert. Their concert was just for her. Or her and Susie now, she supposed.
She knew that really, they were probably just playing for themself. But they hadn’t played in so long, and she missed the sound of piano music so, so much. Hearing songs she didn’t recognize play throughout the house, echoing like an opera house… she wished she could just sit down and listen to them play.
Right now, they were playing a tune that sounded bright, but not quite sunshiney- more like it was meant to ring out through a concert hall, melody flowing like water, with dozens of instruments at its back and thousands of people watching it and yet it wasn’t any of that. It was just Kris, and her, and Susie.
“Hey, uh… what’s that playing coming from?” Asked Susie. Oh, right. How would she know?
“Kris.” She whispered back, to not break the magic of it. “Th-they’re playing a song. We shouldn’t interrupt them.”
Susie, seeming to get it, dropped to a whisper as well. “Oh damn. I didn’t think that they could actually play piano. Thought they were just messing with me.”
“No.” Her answers were quick. “They’re incredible.”
“Huh.” She processed the information. “Yeah. They really are.”
And they stood there. Noelle thought that she should be embarrassed. Maybe she was, but she just hadn’t heard Kris play in so long that maybe it was worth it. Maybe she’d be really flustered when explaining this to Susie later, but…
She just missed them.
“Hey.” Susie tugged on her wrist after a bit of silence. We should go see how they’re doing anyway. Y’know, I just… feel like we’re a bit too far away to hear, I guess.” But interrupting them would mean that they’d stop playing, and…
Wait.
Huh?
What?!??!
She shook out her head. What was that? It felt like she was in a trance for a minute there! Sure, Kris’ music was pretty, but she’d be able to hear it later! Right now she was hanging out with Susie, that only came once in a lifetime! She had to seize this! “Uh, yeah, haha! Let’s, uh, go talk to Kris…?”
Susie blinked. “Yeah. But, uh. You good?”
“Yeah I’m fine lets go” responded Noelle without a pause.
The other girl shrugged, and walked into the kitchen. “Kris, hey, where are-”
The piano music stopped abruptly, and Kris ran all the way across the kitchen as fast as they could. They’d never had this strong of a reaction before when she walked in on them playing. But they didn’t just continue to act normal, as she expected. Instead, they reached out, grabbed their phone, and shoved it in their pocket. Then, reverting to normal posture, they said in a raspy, mumbly tone, that it felt like she hadn’t heard in forever. “Hey, Susie. Noelle. Having fun?”
A grin spread across Susie’s face. “Hell yeah we are! But uh, dude, you good? I mean, I get privacy, but what the hell’s on that phone that you don’t want us to see? And why do you sound like you just smoked or something?” Kris, for everything stupid they’d ever done, had never done drugs. She wasn’t sure if it was out of respect for the law, or if there was a line to cross, or whatever. Maybe it was as simple as not wanting to do it.
“I’m fine. Just something I wanted to keep private. Don’t worry about it.” For some reason, unlike the last couple of days, Kris sounded normal. Yesterday, and the day before that, their tone had an odd monotony to it. It was even weirder than normal Kris, somehow… But now, at least, they sounded like they were back to normal.
“H-hey, Kris!” She greeted shakily. “We just, uh… needed some help in the basement, with getting the lights back on, and…”
Kris tilted their head curiously. “Why didn’t you just fix it on your own?” Despite their voice sounding the same, they felt different. They weren’t usually this… well, gentle was the closest word she could think of. The usual version of them would find some way to turn this into some kind of joke or prank or something. They were probably just rattled. But by what?
“Well, we were having trouble finding the breaker! I thought you might be able to help, because, well, you always broke it way back when, so maybe you’d be able to fix it? Sorry if that’s stupid, I just thought we should come get you.”
They shrugged. “Sure.”
“Sweet! Lead the way, Kris!”
The walk back to the basement was quieter than it should’ve been. They were never loud, sure, but they had been completely silent the whole way there. It felt off. So she spoke up. “Hey Kris, Susie and I were going to watch Blood Crushers later… would you want to watch it with us?” It was going to just be a one on one thing, but they clearly needed the pickup, they looked terrible. And, oddly enough, just thinking about it, it felt more comfortable with them being there.
Kris turned to her, and in a stage whisper, said, “Has she never watched it before?” Then, getting significantly louder and in a more mocking voice but still in the same stage whisper, they said, “She hasn’t? Oh, we better not spoil it for her then! I would hate it if Susie got spoiled on the part where May goes to check on her friend and-”
Noelle clamped a hand over their mouth. So they were fine, then. Phew, she got worried for a moment. That was one of the best scenes of the movie, and Susie wouldn’t even know about it even though she watched the second one! What the hell, Kris?
“You know I don’t mind spoilers, right? Like, it’s cool to see this stuff blind. But it doesn’t really matter?” She replied.
“Yeah, but it's fun to see your reactions to everything!” She responded with a smile, not moving her hand from Kris’ mouth. “And spoiling that kind of uh. Ruins it?” It was fun, seeing how everyone reacted to her favorite scenes, and the twists. She wasn’t quite sure why, but it was fun.
“Huh. I guess I get it?” And now Susie thought she was weird again. Noelle, why can’t you just be normal for once? “But I’ve already watched the second one, so nothing’s really a spoiler anymore.”
“You’d be surprised.” Responded Kris, who could now speak again. “They reference so few things in the second movie. It's like they assume you’re starting with that one!”
“I know, right!” She responded to their complaints with firm agreement. “Like, sure, you could be starting from the second one…”
Susie picked up her sentence. “...But then, wouldn’t it be funnier if you have no idea what’s going on?” That was not what Noelle was planning on saying.
It seemed like it was exactly what Kris planned on saying though, because they gave a firm nod. “Exactly.”
The rest of the walk, however, was silent. But it didn’t feel uncomfortable. Kris and Susie were there. And that was all that mattered! It felt like she’d found the final piece to a set. Now everything just felt like it was in place.
Once they got to the basement, Kris almost immediately found the breaker. She almost scolded herself for not finding it earlier before remembering that she wasn’t actually trying to find it because of how busy she was talking to Susie.
Unfortunately, finding the breaker did not necessarily mean that they fixed it. They spent an unnecessarily long time stroking their chin while staring at it and saying, “Quiet, I’ve almost made a great deduction!” In a Sherlock Holmes voice whenever Susie or her asked what they were doing and shooed them away whenever either of them tried to fix it themselves. Why did she get them for this, again?
But eventually, they did fix the breaker, and the lights came back on. “Aha!” They said in the same stupid voice. “I’ve uncovered a use for this device! But what would happen… if I licked it?”
Noelle grabbed them by the collar, pulling them away from the breaker. “Not funny, Kris! You’d get electrocuted!”
Susie pitched in. “Hey, if you do get a taste, tell me if it's any good!” Kris solemnly nodded in response. Noelle rolled her eyes, but laughed.
After a while, they went upstairs, and Noelle put on the movie. It was nice, just seeing Susie’s reactions to things, even having to censor Kris. It was just fun messing around, with her friend and her crush, watching something they all wanted to watch. Together. It felt like without one of them, from now on, nothing would be complete.
She smiled.