Chapter Text
“Eddie, all I’m saying is you should give him a chance! Get off your anti-trendy high horse and listen to one song. Just one,” Beverly teased him, the boy in question rolling his eyes. They were walking to class, having different exams in the same building that day, and Bev knew Eddie would have plenty of time to sit around and listen to one song after he no-doubt would finish his test early. “The whole reason he’s all over the news right now is because he doesn’t want to be famous. He’s refusing to tell anyone who he is and to talk to any reporters.”
Eddie opened the door to the building for her as they both stepped inside.
“Bev, it’s probably just some ploy for album sales or something. I bet he’s some actor hired to build up hype for some actually singer’s new album or something,” Eddie argued, huffing as the two climbed the stairs to the second floor where they would part ways. “I bet he just wrote those songs for some famous pop star asshole who’s gonna’ butcher them with autotune in the studio and make millions.”
Bev sighed, nearly giving up on her debate.
“Just one song. Listen to one song and I won’t ask you again if you hate it. That’s all I ask.”
Eddie pouted, but uncrossed his arms to Beverly’s delight. “Fine, but I forgot my headphones so I can’t today.”
Bev immediately pulled a wad of wires out of her pocket and placed it in Eddie’s hand.
“Problem solved,” she smirked.
“Great,” Eddie grumbled Unser his breath, slipping them into his own pocket.
“Eds, I wouldn’t ask you to listen if I didn’t think you’d love it. I sent his videos to Ben and Mike and even Bill likes them. There’s something special about him, I swear. It makes me feel like I know him.”
Eddie just passive-aggressively waves goodbye and headed to class, the weight of the headphones in his pocket feeling like stones.
He hated popular music. It didn’t even matter what genre it was, he just hated the whole music industry and the way they churned out songs with no meaning just to make money.
Sure, people called him pretentious but it wasn’t for any reason other than the fact that he wanted something real. Something that meant something to someone.
He’d heard small talk around his classes about the guy who went viral only a few days ago. The guy who supposedly lost his memory in an accident and was writing songs in hopes of triggering his memory to come back.
He’d heard about the anonymous boy blowing up every news site and talk show that was already being hailed as “the greatest songwriter in decades” after only three songs.
Hell, maybe that meant he had something real to say.
As soon as he finished his exam, early as expected, he put the headphones in his ears and found the first video on the mysterious boy’s channel.
A song for a boy I can’t remember.
A chill ran down his spine as he clicked play and the ambient noise of a dimly lit bedroom filled his ears. The boy, who seemed to have signed off his video description with “-R” instead of any real or pen name, sat at a keyboard, the camera to his side. The frame only showed below his shoulders so Eddie couldn’t see his face, but somehow he was instantly hooked.
There was something intimate about it. The boy started talked quietly, barely loud enough to even determine what his voice sounded like. Eddie was instantly hooked.
“I was finally cleared from the hospital a couple weeks ago and my therapist said this would be a good way for me to find closure of whatever so just hear me out.”
Eddie felt like he was somewhere entirely different. The other people around him writing essays and filling out test forms were gone. It was just him and the “R” guy.
“I lost most of my memories in an accident recently and...and I can tell there’s someone I don’t want to forget. I can tell that there was someone I loved more than...more than fucking anything.”
He felt his chest get tight as he listened to the boy speak.
“Anyway, I wrote this song for him. I don’t know who he is, but...I know him. I know I do.”
He laughed sadly to himself and Eddie swore his heart broke ever so slightly.
“So if you’re out there, this is for you.”
His fingers hovered over the keyboard before, as if settling into the place they belonged.
He played a gentle introduction, the obvious lack of professional recording equipment becoming irrelevant as he began to sing.
“All I want is nothing more, than to hear you knocking at my door. 'Cause if I could see your face once more, I could die a happy man I'm sure.”
Eddie watched that first video over and over again until his professor dismissed everyone and he had hardly even noticed that nearly thirty minutes had gone by.
There were even tears in his eyes.
He knew the moment he stepped outside that Beverly would be waiting for him to tell her what he thought about the video and he knew that the moment she saw his face she’d know exactly what had happened. It wasn’t that he was all that embarrassed. Bev was one of the best friends he’d ever had, but it was a matter of admitting it to himself.
It meant admitting to himself that there was some anonymous guy on the internet that made him feel like he knew the inter-workings of his soul and that terrified him.
It terrified him how it made him want to somehow find this guy and tell him how he wrote the most meaningful piece of music Eddie had ever heard from his own bedroom as if it was nothing more than a way to pass the time.
It terrified him how badly he wanted to call up the first boy he’d ever loved and tell him he was sorry. That he wakes up every day knowing he’d never be able to make a bigger mistake as long as he lived.
He hates that some anonymous guy filming a video on what was probably his laptop webcam with a keyboard that looked like it’d been sitting in his parents’ basement since the nineties was the guy that finally got through to him.
And he hates how much he loves it.