Chapter Text
Raining. Great.
Ahri should've watched the news, but she was already too late for the bus. The rain was getting harsh, and she didn't even got a coat or umbrella before going to her music classes. Eve told her to meet in the Eye Of Twilight, but the bar was farther away from her house than the station.
Thank the gods for her waterproof phonecase, or else her phone would have died.
She ran to the bar, getting soaked in the process. When she finally got there, Eve and Kaisa were already there, their table fitting for four people. She definitely would not sit. She was drenched.
"Girl, what the hell happened to you?" Eve asked, looking over Ahri, up and down.
Kaisa seemed worried. "You forgot your umbrella?"
"And everything else." Eve pointed out with a serene smile. "Come and sit, darling."
No, no, no, no!
But Ahri didn't knew how to say it out loud.
"But I'm..." She murmured and Kaisa arched an eyebrow.
"You're...?" Eve encouraged.
"Wet?" Ahri said, bitting her lips. Eve held her laugh.
"Eve, stop, this is serious." Kaisa told the blond girl. "We can ask for a towel, Ahri."
"Oh, no, no," Ahri started out, but Eve had already stopped one of the few waiters in the bar.
"Excuse me, darling," Eve started with a smile and a boy apparently their age looked back at her.
He had cautious flags all over him, just by the way he looked at Eve. Serious, distant, robotic even. He also had a tag with a name Eve didn't bother to read. She was just like that. Ahri hoped time would change her for the better in the future.
He didn't say anything, he just heard Eve talk about how her friend could possibly die because she was that dramatic. His eyes drifted from Eve to Ahri, and he didn't seemed bothered by Eve one bit.
Kaisa looked from a distance, but it did not slip from her mind that somehow Ahri knew that boy.
Just from the way she looked at him, to her hands clinging over her skirt. And the way his eyes would drift to her and then immediately back to Eve, as if he was trying to pay attention to both at the same time.
Yeah, they knew each other. And Eve was NOT doing Ahri a favor by saying all the dramatic stuff.
"I'll grab your towels," The boy told them, his voice sweet but a bit tired.
"And the food!" Eve added.
"Aham" He said back and walked away.
Ahri noted that his ponytail was already falling apart to the girls and Eve gave Ahri a giggle. "You're staring."
"You know him?" Kaisa asked, confused.
"What? No, not really." Ahri looked at her friends. "We take the same bus, that's all. He never gives the free space his goddamn backpack occupies for anyone ever, it's the worst."
"Annoying prick," Eve added.
"Guys, come on, it's rude to talk bad things about the workers." Kaisa said, trying to get Ahri to sit somewhere.
Ahri stood beside their table for about five minutes before the guy came back with towels, he muttered some words about their food and told Ahri something in korean, which surprised everyone.
More surprising than that, was that Ahri's reaction was a high pitched confused sound. And then, suddenly Ahri was talking to him like they knew each other for eons. And she seemed a bit mad.
Eve had both eyebrows arched and a smile all over her face, and Kaisa was just extremely shocked. She really didn't knew Ahri could get frustrated over her own language.
"나는 내일 버스에 앉지 않을거야, Yasuo!" Ahri told him, frustrated and struggling with her words. "다시..."
He looked her up and down, and then had the balls to give her a smirk.
"아마도 줄을 잘못 잡았기 때문일 것입니다." Yasuo told her, words coming out fast and mumbled, as if he wanted to end the conversation right there. "다시한번."
"I don't know what they're saying, but wow, this seems rough." Kaisa told Eve as they ate their candies.
"I know, right? Let's observe." Eve giggled.
Ahri stared at him with the angriest look the girls had ever seen on her. He bowed and left, which made Ahri even angrier.
She muttered curses in korean and sat on the towels.
"Can you believe him?" She asked the other girls.
"I didn't understood shit of what you guys said." Evelynn told her with a bright smile. "But wow, that was awesome. Please curse more in korean."
If Ahri wasn't already red with anger, now she was, but from embarrassment.
"You were right, he's annoying." Ahri said, laying her head on the table. "This day is going worst than I thought it could."
Kaisa caressed Ahri's wet hair. "What did he say?"
"Basically he told me to never sit. Ever. Anywhere." Ahri told them. "And that I should stop taking the wrong bus line."
Kaisa tried to not laugh, but Eve didn't. She laughed so hard, the other clients stared at their table.
"Oh, the drama!" She said and went back to laughing, less loud this time.
"Ahri, you know he could just... Be joking about it, right? Like, everytime he sees you, you're standing." Kaisa told Ahri.
"Oh, he definitely wasn't joking." Ahri mumbled, hitting her head lightly in the table. "God, I just want to eat and leave."
"You're seeing this, right?" Eve asked Kaisa. "Now I'm not the only dramatic one."
A different waiter brought their food, a man with brown hair and kind eyes. He seemed less tired than Yasuo, for some reason.
"Yasuo told me one of you needed tea and new clothes." The man told them. "The tea is on the house, by the way."
Evelynn and Kaisa looked at Ahri as the man put their food on the table, and she lifted her head.
"He did?" She asked, skeptical.
The man smiled. "He said 'the girl from the wrong bus line needs tea and new clothes.' But, you know, I didn't knew which one of you he was talking about, so I came personally."
"Wait, you're the owner?" Kaisa asked, a bit more shocked than the other girls.
"Yes?" His smile grew bigger.
"Are the clothes on the house too?" Eve asked and the man laughed.
"Don't worry about it." He told her and turned to Ahri. "Come with me, darling."
Ahri took a few seconds to get up, looking behind her for her friends to follow her, but they didn't, and she shyly followed the man to behind the bar, where they had a long corridor. She didn't expect the Eye of Twilight to be this big. At the end of the corridor was a door, and behind it, stairs.
The man told her to go upstairs, and he would wait for her down here. Ahri bit her lip and followed his instructions.
She could hear music and someone talking. No, not talking. Rapping. A girl.
It was a small house, much to her surprise.
To her left was a small kitchen, to her right an open door to a medium-sized bathroom with a washing machine and two different clotheslines and clothing racks filled clothes.
As she entered the house, she saw two beds, a small couch, a even smaller center table, a TV, speakers, and there was a door with a sign in korean.
It read "CAUTION: 2Y/A production room", and the music was coming from there.
The clothes and the tea were in the center table. She took the clothes and went to the bathroom, and as she changed, she noticed they were bigger than she had expected. And neutral. Mostly dark colours, and it had a soft scent.
The music changed and Ahri head a frustrated growl coming from the room. The beat was fast, wtih some EDM inspired bass, but nothing that couldn't had lyrics sung over it. There was a silent moment, then a beat drop, and the music was suddenly much slower.
"Oh my fucking God!" She head coming from the room. "This is amazing!"
She heard the girl muttering something else, but the beat and the door concealed most of it.
There was a piece of the song that had synths and the drums hit less harder, in a build-up, as if someone was supposed to be singing, but most of it was made for rapping. Ahri frowned as her mind immediately started writing lyrics for the beat.
She took the tea and drunk it all in one go, and went downstairs again. She needed to eat.
As soon as she went back to the bar, Eve and Kaisa looked at her up and down.
"Baggy clothes are so not your style." Eve told her and Ahri rolled her eyes. "You're feeling less bad now?"
"No," Ahri sat and took her bowl. "But the tea was really good. You guys knew there's a house upstairs?"
"Really? I thought it was a studio or something. Dad used to say this was a dancing studio before." Kaisa told them and Eve shrugged. "Maybe the owner lives here."
"No, definitely not him." Ahri said and looked at the ceiling, as if she could see the house from there. "I mean, there was no real adult stuff in there."
"And the clothes." Eve pointed out.
"And the girl too." Ahri said and immediately regretted it.
"Who?" Eve and Kaisa asked at the same time.
"I don't know?" Ahri looked at them shaking her head. "She was rapping, though. In korean. And really well. She had really good lines. Then the song changed and all that."
"Was it good, though?" Eve asked.
"It was. Very professional, even. Like, SM kind of stuff." Ahri told them as she ended with her lamen.
"Interesting," Eve stared at the rest of them for a few seconds with a malicious smile.
"Eve, no." Kaisa held her hand.
"Eve, yes." Evelynn told her. "I'm asking that Ya-soo about it."
"Yasuo" Ahri corrected her. "And please don't."
"Why not? Wasn't that what your school was searching for?" Evelynn arched an eyebrow. "That 'producer one' thing. If she's that good, then get her."
"I didn't want to eavesdrop, okay? Stop. Let's just not talk about it and forget I even went upstairs." Ahri mumbled as she got up to pay for their food.
She had a small bag with her clothes in it, and when she went to the cashier, the man stared at her for a few seconds, in shock, before blinking and smiling awkwardly and actually getting stuff done.
The rain had stopped, and Evelynn paid her an Uber to go home. When Ahri got home, she immediately went to her room. If her mother saw her with clothes like these she would be a dead musician. She took a shower and hoped not to get a cold.
Instead of going to sleep, Ahri spent the rest of the night writing lyrics for that one song she heard in the Eye of Twilight.