5: practice

I woke up feeling better than I had the past couple of days, though not without the obvious pressure of the way the creature had decided to take residence in my skull. It was a feeling that was hard to describe, but nonetheless, I knew that's what it was. It was never the same kind of discomfort a headache would offer.

It was earlier than I would usually wake up, even earlier than Cillian, so that meant he was likely still in bed. I first texted Alaya for her dorm room number, then spent around thirty minutes making a half-hearted attempt to clean my room. After it looked moderately better, I changed into clean clothes, duct taped the soles of my boots so they wouldn't fall off, and headed out of the dorm.

The sky was dark, as it always seemed to be these days. It was always in this everlasting tension that fell upon the sky just before it would start to storm, but never began to storm. The air always vibrated with that energy, a kind distinct to this weather. It pissed me off sometimes. The sky wanted to rain, and yet, it never would. This somehow managed to occupy my mind as I walked across the mostly empty campus, for it was too early for most classes to have started. I appreciated the rather clear lawns and sidewalks, since it was always filled with people during the day, when I was usually out.

The halls were quiet when I entered the girls' dormitory. This was the first time I'd set foot here, and somehow it felt like I was doing something wrong. I quickly entered the elevator and rode it to Alaya's floor, pressing the close door button as though someone was following me. In the quiet hallway, I looked upon each door, many of which had a decoration underneath the door number, either of the occupants' names or just something pretty. Alaya's door had no such thing while I expected that she might've been the type to do something of the sort, I had assumed incorrectly.

After I knocked on Alaya's door, there was an eternity of a minute before she opened it. I was met with the sight of her with her hair tied messily behind her head, and no makeup upon her face. She was still in her pajamas, which I supposed was given, all things considered.

"You really did want to come over here first thing, didn't you?" She stepped aside, letting me step in. As I did, she shut the door quietly behind me. "Try to keep it down, my roommate is still sleeping."

I nodded. "Sure."

The dorm layout was pretty similar to the one I shared with Cillian, though very obviously a lot newer; this was evidenced by the fact that the floor was covered in carpet, rather than chipped tiles, and the corners didn't appear as though plaster was somehow rusting. The small common area in between the two bedrooms had a wider window, which clearly wasn't bolted shut. And once again, no kitchen, just a mini fridge and a microwave, likely left behind by some previous students.

When I followed Alaya into her room, I was greeted with the sight of her unfinished painting sitting on a desk beside the wall on the opposite side of the room. I'd not had the opportunity to do any research on what she had described as "visual kei", but it seemed close enough to what she had told me. The subject of her painting was androgynous, with no certainty of whether they were male or female. And while she had been using a variety of different colors for the piece, it wasn't a bright rainbow, it was a lot more dreary. The colors were all muted, drained of the life they'd have otherwise. Additionally, her art wasn't hyper-realistic, instead it followed a more exaggerated style, reminiscent of cartoons and anime.

"Your painting looks really good so far," I said, glancing over to her.

She'd been going through a set of CDs as I stood there, and when I spoke, she turned her attention to me. With a small smile, she replied, "Thanks. You know, it's not really done yet, so it'll look a lot better once I finish."

Upon taking another look at her desk, I observed a palette covered in a mess of mixed paints and a discolored glass of water with various paintbrushes sitting inside. "Were you up working on this last night?"

Alaya nodded. "I couldn't get to sleep, so I just decided to take advantage of the time." She chuckled quietly and crossed her arms. "I ended up staying up later than I wanted to." She walked over to her desk and picked up a collection of photos that resided next to her setup. "These are some of the references or inspirations I used. They're all a bunch of musicians from different visual kei bands. I just like their styles in particular." She held them out to me.

I took the photos from her and looked through them. A few were lower quality than the rest, but primarily because they looked to be photos from concerts. "I can see what you're going for," I said. "This is pretty cool."

"Yeah, yeah." Alaya returned to her collection of CDs and pulled out one case from the small stack. I watched as she put the disc into a CD player, adjusted the volume, and hit play. "This album is called Merveilles."

"Is that supposed to be French?"

"Yeah." With a short laugh, she said, "Malice Mizer likes to use a lot of French words in their music."

We sat down on her bed and listened to the first couple of songs in silence. This kind of music was difficult to describe, but it was definitely theatrical. It sounded like rock music for musical theater, though without being able to understand the lyrics, it was possible that I was mistaken. It was good music, but it wasn't the kind of thing that I'd listen to on my own time. I could see how Alaya would enjoy it, especially with how much the orchestral parts reminded me of the way she dressed: classical, and somewhat dreamy and romantic.

"This sounds like Castlevania," I muttered, breaking the shared silence between us.

"Well, they're Castlevania fans," she replied, "They also like to call themselves vampires. It's pretty funny."

I looked at her. "So...Do you understand the lyrics or anything? Can you speak Japanese?"

"What? Oh, no, I'm not Japanese, I'm Korean."

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to assume anything---"

She shook her head. "It's fine, no big deal. I get that all the time."

My face burning, I swallowed. "So, how did you discover this band, and this whole...this whole scene, anyway?"

"My cousins," she said. "I keep in close contact with them, and one day they sent me some playlist of songs, and Malice Mizer was amongst them. I looked a little deeper, and here we are."

I nodded. "Well the music is interesting, I guess. I don't think I'd listen to them, since I can't really understand the lyrics."

"You listen to metal, right? Isn't like the whole thing not understanding the lyrics? Because it's all just a bunch of screaming?"

Involuntarily, I laughed. "You're ridiculous."

She raised her eyebrows, looking at me with sincerity. "Come on, is it not?"

"Okay, alright, what fucking metal music have you heard, first of all?" I said in between my laughter.

Alaya shrugged. "I mean, my dad was pretty into Metallica, I guess."

I shook my head. "Seriously? If it's only Metallica you know, you should know that not all metal has screaming in it. Besides, after you listen to the genre enough, it gets easier to pick out words. There is proper articulation in all of the uuuurrrrrrggggghhh noises, believe it or not." Genuine growl, I was now hot in the face and a bit lightheaded and compensated by clearing my throat and swallowing hard.

She stared at me with the weirdest look on her face. "How did that noise just come out of your body?"

"Skill," I said, a little bit of pride swelling in me. "I do really need to get you on some deathcore, though."

"Maybe when I go over to your dorm later today." She winked at me with a little quirk of a smile, before standing up. "Anyway, wanna come to class with me? Then we can head to your friend's garage together later."

I shrugged. "I've got nothing better to do." I thought again of my own classes, and wondered how long it would be before I got kicked out of them. I hadn't been the least bit consistent with any of my coursework or even just showing up to class in the past few weeks.

I waited in the common area of the small dorm while Alaya was getting dressed. I sat myself on a purple bean bag that was close to the window, and tried to relax. This proved difficult, however, for with no distractions, I could feel that cursed creature inside of me crawling around. The pressure on the back of my eyes had alleviated, but I could feel it making its way down the back of my throat, squirming and writhing with unchecked fervor. A wave of nausea hit me as all of the sensations pressed into my flesh and nerves, twitching and restless and twisting into knots over and over---I could feel its horrid texture, each little dip in its smooth body, all as it pushed its way through my esophagus. This was a feeling of invasion and violation that I could never forget, the sort of thing that would always find residence inside of you. Even if one day, I managed to force whatever this cursed thing was out of me, nothing would feel right again. And then my mind went back to the fucking acid.

The ten minutes that Alaya took to change felt like an eternity before she finally met me in the common area. It was the way she smiled at me that caused warmth to bloom in my chest---having someone looking at me as though they were happy to see me, though I knew I didn't deserve it. That is what I would call a miracle.

Spent the remainder of the morning sitting uncomfortably in Alaya's three hour figure drawing class before we went to the canteen for a small lunch, then took the bus to Ryan's neighborhood. Cillian and Elias were the only ones who owned cars, and Cillian had left without me. When I called him for a ride, he said he didn't feel like driving back to the school just for me, and because of all of that, we were forty-five minutes late.

Ryan kept the garage door half open for us. I ducked under first, stepping inside, and Alaya followed closely behind. As expected, the attention turned to us as we entered, and for a moment I was at a loss for words before remembering that I needed to introduce Alaya. "Hi," I said. "Um, this is Alaya. I think a couple of you might've met her one or two times, but here she is. She just wanted to sit in on practice for today."

"Sweet, a groupie," Elias said, and I was sorely disappointed that he was the first one to say anything. I shot a glare at him, but that only seemed to amuse him.

Ryan jumped up from behind the drum set and came over to us eagerly. He shook Alaya's hand with enthusiasm and smiled widely at her. "Nice to meet you, Dolly girl! Did he show you Infant Annihilator yet?"

She blinked in surprise. "Infant what?"

Ryan chuckled. "You have no idea what you're in for. Their music is amazing."

Alaya smiled. "Cool, that sounds...cool."

Elias took a puff of his cigarette, on an exhale, "So, 'Dolly', how many fuckin' handjobs did you give to this dumbass?"

Alaya glanced over at him, her expression immediately shifting into a frown. "I'm sorry?"

"Shut the hell up, Elias," I snapped.

He ignored me with a grin, and continued on, "Did he tell you how schizophrenic he is?"

I bristled. "When will you learn to shut your fucking mouth, you blond piece of shit?!"

Elias cackled out loud. "You're blond too, fuckhead!"

Cillian stood up. "Alright, alright, let's stop this before you two start ripping out each other's throats."

I bit back a snarky response, already feeling guilty for yelling in front of Alaya, and decided to just ignore Elias. "Fine, okay, let's just practice," I said. In the moment before I went to go and plug in my microphone, I glanced at Alaya, hoping she wasn't looking at me, and much to my dismay, she was, and the concern on her face shot knives through my heart.

I stole a water bottle from the fridge near the door, and took a long drink from it. I drew in a few long deep breaths as Elias and Cillian got their instruments ready, and as Ryan took his seat behind his drum set. After a few vocal exercises and clearing my throat more than I needed to, I nodded at Ryan to signal our start. As we went through each take of the song, occasionally stopping to modify the melody or the way I screamed a lyric, it took everything in me to avoid looking over at Alaya to see her reaction. I knew it would just distract me, so I just faced Ryan's drum set the entire time. And honestly, screaming and growling into a mic while deafening drums and guitars were funneled into my head was exactly what I needed. I just hoped that Alaya wouldn't realize why.