liquid acid

4: to listen

It was evening by the time I arrived back at the dorms. I was alone, because Cillian had decided to go out with Elias and Ryan for drinks after practice, and I opted out. I was too exhausted and out of it to go anywhere else, and I just wanted to collapse and do nothing for the rest of the night. But when I reached the landing to the floor where my dorm was, I saw Alaya sitting on a bench near the railing. She was looking at her phone, but immediately glanced up at me when I arrived.

"Hi. There's... there's a lot of stairs here," she said, smiling. "At the girl's dorm, I just use the elevator, so it surprised me when there wasn't an elevator here."

"That's because this building is fucking old, they couldn't add an elevator even if they wanted to." I shook my head. "This is like the fifth time you've told me that. What the hell are you doing here?"

She put her phone in her purse and stood up. "I just wanted to see how you were doing."

I scoffed. "Yeah, right. Sounds believable." Briskly, I walked past her and headed down the hall to my dorm. Alaya followed closely behind.

"I mean it, alright? I feel bad about how yesterday went." I stopped in front of the door, going through my keys to find the one to the door. Alaya had stopped behind me. She continued, "If there's anything I can do, I just... I just wanna make up for it. I didn't mean to upset you."

I unlocked the door and pushed it open. I almost just went inside without saying anything to her, but instead, I turned around and looked her in the eye. There was a hint of desperation in her eyes, a pleading look mixed with a heavy collection of guilt and concern. And maybe, for the first time I could recall, it seemed actually genuine.

When the moment had passed, I sighed. "Okay. Come in. We can talk for a little while."

Alaya nodded quickly and followed me as I walked inside. I shut the door behind her and just walked straight to my room. When I took off my shoes, she did the same, and then said, "Your boots are falling apart."

"Yeah, I know," I said. "I don't really feel like looking for new ones."

My lamp was on when we walked into my room, which mildly bothered me, but I just dealt with it and tossed my jacket on the floor. Alaya and I sat down next to each other on my bed. I wasn't sure what I was going to say to her, and we sat there in silence for longer than would've been preferable, but luckily she managed to save us from the growing sense of awkwardness.

"Are you doing okay?" she asked. "Since yesterday, and all."

I shrugged. "I think it goes without saying." I looked over at her. She was curled up beside me, her legs tucked underneath her as her skirt draped over her legs. Even just sitting on my bed, she somehow managed to look just as perfect as she always did. "You know," I said, "I've never had a woman care so much about how I'm feeling."

"Oh." Alaya lifted her head slightly, meeting my gaze. "I'm s—"

"Don't," I interrupted. "Just don't, alright? You don't have to say you're sorry or anything."

She nodded. "Okay, I got it."

I glanced away for a brief moment and looked back at her once again. "You're apologizing for upsetting me, but I think that's a little unfair." I took a slow deep breath in before sighing. "I wasn't really very good company to you yesterday. It's kind of fucked up of me that I just went to see you and then didn't even bother asking how you were doing or what's been going on with you. So I'm sorry for doing that. I just ranted about my problems and then left when I got pissed at you."

She tilted her head slightly. "You don't have to apologize for that."

"I feel like I do," I said. "The entire time that we've known each other, I didn't even know what you were studying or where your classes were, and I still don't even have your fucking phone number."

She sighed. "I can see that. Thanks for apologizing."

"So," I said, "What did you do today?"

She smiled slightly. "If you must know, I just spent a lot of time working on my final project for the quarter. It's for my painting class. The assignment is to create an eighteen by twenty-four inch painting that's surrounding themes of individualism and subverting mainstream societal expectations. Both for what art should be, and also what the painting is depicting. I think my professor let the assignment be super open-ended on purpose, and that makes it a little easier on me, I think. I've had a lot of inspiration lately, and it would probably be really stifling to have a really closed and uncreative assignment."

"What are you painting?"

"If you come by tomorrow, I can show you," she said. "It's pretty hard to describe, but I can give you a hint. I've been listening to a lot of visual kei recently. It's basically this rock genre in Japan where everyone dresses up super flamboyantly, you know, sort of like 80's glam rock but in Japan. I wanted to make something sort of similar."

"I've never heard of that. I mean, the most japanese music I've ever heard is whenever Cillian would watch Death Note or Bleach. You know, the intros and the outros." I leaned back slightly, resting my head against the wall. "What bands do you listen to?"

Alaya adjusted her sitting position slightly before answering. "Lately, it's been a lot of Malice Mizer. They're not on Apple Music or Spotify or anything, so I had to download all of their music off of youtube. But I managed to find some of their CDs online, so I own a couple now."

"You should show me sometime, then. Might be... fun."

She nodded. "Yeah. Maybe."

"And, like, why do you dress like a doll? I'm just wondering. I thought it might be because you were a fashion major or something, but I guess not."

She glanced down at herself, fiddling with the ruffles in her skirt. "Okay, so..." She knitted her fingers together, pursing her lips as she considered her words. "I lived with my grandma for a long time, and she had this collection of antique porcelain dolls. Back in like, the olden victorian to edwardian days, they would be for little girls to make clothes for them. She taught me how to sew and gave me some of the old outfit prints, and I had a lot of fun. My favorite thing to make would be the frilly skirts.

"So I was always interested in styles similar to that, kind of victorian, kind of edwardian, and when I found Malice Mizer, with their amazing style, I learned that the guitarist, Mana-sama, had this clothing brand of this style called gothic lolita. It's similar to what I was describing before, but so much more elegant and gothic and more modern while also maintaining that similar vintage feeling, you know? Of course, they're based in Japan and everything, plus it's pretty expensive to order anything from overseas. So I just started to make some of my own clothes and put together outfits inspired by Mana's."

I didn't know how much I'd enjoy listening to her talk. She was so passionate, and I wondered just how many other people knew that. If anything, listening to her go on and on about her art and music made me feel even worse for not bothering to ask her about anything before. Unfortunately, at this moment, I had started to doze off as she continued on, her words blending together in my head.

After a couple of minutes, Alaya leaned over and shook me awake, making me jump. She laughed and said, "Sorry, am I that boring?"

I shook my head, smiling slightly. "No, I'm just exhausted after today." I sat up and rubbed my eyes. "Look, if you want to come with me to band practice tomorrow, you can. I could... I could use your company."

"Sounds good. Plus, I've never actually heard your music before. Might be cool to hear you guys practicing."

"Oh, right."

Alaya got up and put her shoes on rather gracefully. She smoothed out her skirt and pulled the strap of her purse over her shoulder. "Well, I should get going. Get some sleep, alright?"

"Sure. I'll see you tomorrow."

I watched her as she walked out of my room, and listened to the sound of her footsteps as she headed out the door. When she was gone, I closed my bedroom door and laid back down. Just before I fell asleep, I felt a crinkle under my pillow. Sluggishly, I reached under my pillow and felt around for whatever might be under there. I found a piece of paper, and written on it in nearly perfect handwriting, was a phone number with a note underneath it reading:

"You forgot to ask for it, but that's alright. Text me whenever you feel like it."

I managed to actually sleep that night.