Rising Stars

IX - Our Solace

"There's a kind of genius where you look at them and realize that you will never be that good. That was Jae."

- Yeng Seraphine

November 25th, 2019

"You know," Seraphine said as she sat beside me in the recording room. "It never gets boring watching you work."

My hands paused on top of the keyboard. "Why's that?"

"Because you're always in a world of your own."

I turned to look at her. The most minute of smiles danced across her lips, appearing and disappearing like it was never there in the first place. "Is that a compliment?"

She hummed. "Maybe for you it is."

"And for you it isn't?"

Sera shrugged. And she left it at that. Seraphine spoke up again a whole hour later, when I asked her if she wanted to start recording her vocals.

"Let me warm up first," she replied.

The day after Seraphine stayed the night at my apartment, we managed to get two songs finished that day, something that would've been unheard of during the production of the previous EP project. And I didn't mean that we had two songs fully recorded and produced, just waiting to be mixed— no, those two songs were completely done. There wasn't anything left to do on them.

"Ready?"

Seraphine slipped her headphones on, sliding them over her ponytail. "Mmmhm." She positioned herself in front of the microphone and tried a note. And as always, the sheer purity of her timbre blew me away. She shot me a quick thumbs-up, and I rewinded the track to the beginning, pressed the record button, and watched Seraphine work.

"Yeah I don't know why you're messing around with all them other girls. Acting like you've got all of the time left in the world." Seraphine's eyes closed on their own, her body swaying to the music as she sang. "Because it's 4 o'clock in the morning. And that's about the time I start zoning. Thinkin' 'bout all the ways that I want it. And it's time that you know, you know, you know..."

When Seraphine finished recording, she placed her headphones on the microphone stand and returned to her chair beside me. "How is it?" She asked.

"Wouldn't hurt to record it all again," I said. As great as Seraphine sounded, there were still a few instances where her voice wasn't being used to its full effect, or the note she was singing wasn't entirely clear to the listener. "Let's take it one stanza at a time though."

"One stanza, huh?" Seraphine asked.

"Yeah." I raised a brow at Sera. For some reason... I sighed. I turned to face Seraphine as she picked up her headphones again. "Seraphine."

She perked up. "Hm?"

"What's wrong?" At her confused expression, I continued. "You seem... prickly today."

"I..." Seraphine trailed off. She glanced at the ground, and let out a long, incredibly deep sigh. She ran a hand through her hair. "It's nothing."

"Talk to me," I pleaded. As strange as it felt to say those words, it also felt right. Seraphine was my friend— we were each other's friend— and that meant being there for one another when it mattered. "I can't help you if I don't know what's going on."

"It's nothing, Jae," Seraphine repeated, much stronger this time. "I'm okay. Really."

"You..." I sighed. I didn't want to press her for an answer. If she didn't want to talk about it, then I would leave it at that. Even if I knew that it wasn't for the best. "Okay. Let's get back to work."