Rising Stars

III - The Weight of Memory

"There is no grief like the grief that does not speak."

-Henry Longfellow

October 20th, 2019

With Seraphine, the days passed at a foreign pace. Not slowly, not quickly, but somewhere between the two. Over the last week or so, we've worked day and night to get the EP finished. And between the two of us, we managed to finish up almost every song— arrangement. All that was left was the mixing, which would take a bit of time. But I was confident that Sera and I would be able to do it well, and do it quickly. The only issue, however, was agreeing on a final duet.

We had five of the tracks completed, which included Sera's solo songs, my solo songs, and the one duet we recorded.

Initially, I brought up the idea of covering a song.

"Let's just do a cover," I said.

"I don't think that's allowed," Sera said.

"The assignment never mentioned anything like that," I reasoned. "And people release covers as part of EPs all the time. Look at all of the Christmas albums over the years."

"Well, that's—" She pressed a finger to her lips in thought. "That's... totally fair. Okay. What song did you have in mind?"

"A DEAN song."

"DEAN?" She repeated. "Are you sure?"

I nodded. "It's a good song for the EP. It juxtaposes your song. Instead of wishing for an old lover to go away, the song is about asking them to come over and trying to find comfort with them."

Sera placed her hands over the keyboard. "What is it called?"

"Come Over," I answered.

She quickly found the song and played it. A few minutes into the song, she turned to me. "Let's sing it."

And the final song of our EP was finished soon after.

[;]

October 23rd, 2019

As I looked through our tracklist on the computer, Seraphine came from behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Satisfied?" She asked jokingly. "I swear, Jae. This is the fifth time you've looked at this in the last ten minutes. Is there anything you want to change?"

I shook my head. "It's fine. I'm just... afraid? Nervous?"

"Well, you're—"

My phone began to buzz in my pocket, interrupting Seraphine. From the rhythm and the ringtone, I knew it was my sister. And so did she. I picked up the phone.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Be home within the next hour. We're visiting them today."

"Today?" I asked. "But it's a week early."

"I couldn't get that day off. Sorry, Jae."

I sighed. "Okay. I'll be home by then, Noona."

"Thank you."

I hung up the phone and nervously checked the time. It was almost six in the evening. And I didn't bring my bike today because I planned on being home a little later— after the traffic cleared up— and because I was feeling slightly lazy.

"Se— Sera," I began. "Do you mind d— driving me to my house?"

Sera's mouth dropped in surprise. "Are you sure?"