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Paimon hefts Alhaitham’s headphones in both of her hands. The blue wire weaves between her constellation-studded cape, and the music player dangles precariously from the end.
‘They’re so bulky,’ she says, her first assessment a complaint. Kaveh is the very same – putting up a front, meeting frightening ideas with negativity to hide his uncertainty.
Alhaitham leans forward from his seat on the chaise, cradling the music player between his palms. Paimon makes an ugly sound of surprise, and it is sharp: it’s sharp, cutting through Alhaitham’s ears like a crossbow bolt shooting through him.
At his wince, Paimon further narrows her eyes in suspicion. She starts to frown, but she makes a visible effort to keep her snark back. It was she who approached him, asking to try out his headset for herself. And it was Alhaitham, in turn, who explained what that would mean, how sensitive he would be without their solid protection.
‘... So how does this thing work?’ she asks instead. Alhaitham stands, securing the wire into the music player’s jack.
‘Put it on.’
‘It’s way too big!’ Paimon protests, even while she’s putting the headphones over her tiny ears. The green-studded earcups hug her face from chin to forehead, and the golden headband rises awkwardly above her hair. In the most curious way, it makes her look like a princess from beyond the stars.
… The princess from beyond the stars, Lumine, is watching them from the other couch. Paimon turns to her, pointing at herself – and Lumine replies with quiet clapping, an indulgent smile on her face. Paimon starts glaring again.
‘I look dumb. This is dumb,’ she declares. Then, jerking upward in surprise, she adds, ‘My voice is so loud! Paimon isn’t even talking that loud!’
Alhaitham nods his head. ‘That is the noise-cancelling function. It uses phase inversion to output wavelength-inverted noise compared to the input from outside–’
Paimon’s groan is a jackknife. Alhaitham covers his ears with his palms as she drags the sound out, losing the momentum of anger and flowing into the curiosity of sound. She hems and haws several more times, eyes sparkling in delight. Paimon’s greatest weapon is her voice, and she appears to enjoy the modulating effects his headset offers.
This time, Alhaitham catches Lumine’s eye. She smiles, shrugging her shoulders. A woman bathed in scars and eyes ringed by deep valleys of black… perhaps she finds the greatest joy in these inconsequential, languid moments. Alhaitham cannot fault her for that.
He puts the long blue wire into Paimon’s small hands, keeping the music player in his hold. ‘You can increase the active noise cancelling by pinching the wire from here… to here,’ he instructs, gesturing with his free hand. ‘To cancel it entirely, tap the right earpiece three times.’
‘WHAT?’ Paimon asks. She has already dragged the noise-cancelling all the way up. Her pupils are blown large, and she looks around in fascination at a world gone fuzzy-silent.
Alhaitham pinches the wire and drags the feed back down. Paimon tries to kick up a fuss, but when Lumine laughs, she pouts and crosses her arms. ‘And then?’ she demands. ‘You said you had music.’
‘Some,’ he answers. Paimon continues to regard him sceptically. Alhaitham pushes the music player toward her, and a spark of amusement dances through him when her eyes go wide at all the different buttons. None of it shows on his face. ‘Not a great amount. Are you familiar with Spincrystals?’
Lumine sits up straighter. Paimon practically jumps up in the air. ‘Oh! Yeah!’ Paimon exclaims. ‘We got a buncha those! We can play music for our friends in the Serenitea Pot. It’s super handy.’
‘... Is that why you asked to see our collection during your visit?’ Lumine wonders, looking back at Alhaitham. ‘You were able to copy them?’
‘I’m a scholar, not an inventor,’ dismisses Alhaitham. ‘All I could do was create impressions of the Spincrystal’s notes with paper and charcoal. Madam Faruzan–’
‘I KNOW! WE KNOW HER!’ shouts Paimon, who has once again jacked up the noise-cancelling effect.
‘– has helped me turn those impressions into music for this device. Her abilities are second-to-none.’
Lumine is looking across the living room, past the stained glass windows of his home, and toward the spot where Kaveh once fussed over a painting’s alignment. Her question is obvious, but she speaks it anyway: ‘What about your roommate?’
‘My spouse,’ Alhaitham corrects blandly, ‘Refuses to help me add more music to my device until he can make his own play Spincrystals.’
‘Your spouse?’ echoes Lumine.
‘Would rather fuss with his own devices than help me, yes.’
Paimon glances between them. She is seconds away from stamping her foot – she cannot hear them. Alhaitham recognises the impatience beginning to boil over inside of her.
With a few clicks and dial adjustments, Paimon is dragged out of her fury: she gasps, hands rushing to her cheeks.
‘Oh– ohhhh! It’s that! It’s the song! The one Nilou danced to! Lumine, Lumine! You gotta listen!’
Lumine stands up, but the smile on her face is affectionately bemused. ‘Can more than one person listen at a time?’
Again, Alhaitham shrugs. ‘The earpieces are extendable. Be careful.’
She is. Lumine, approaching Paimon, chuckles at the excitement she sees. Paimon is moving limbs and swaying delight, getting the wire wrapped around her leg no matter how many times Alhaitham bats it away.
Paimon practically forces the headphones off of her ears and proffers them to Lumine. Lumine seats one of the earpieces back on Paimon’s left cheek, pressing in close on her right to share the other half. They are squished together, leaning in – and the moment they both hear the notes of the song, their pleasure is unmistakeable.
Paimon starts to laugh like an evil villain. Lumine touches her shoulder, hushing her, bringing her back to the moment.
Slowly, the both of them close their eyes.
Alhaitham watches them sink into another world.
Unobserved, he finally lets his mouth relax into a tiny smile.