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2D wasn’t sure why he was here.
That feeling crept around fairly often, but usually he did know the reason really, he’d simply forgotten it at some point. The feeling of walking into a room only to forget why he had entered happened to him more than most, for various reasons, but luckily most rooms were interesting enough that he could busy away at something while he waited for the reason to return.
This was different. He knew why, on a basic fundamental level, he was here. For a 15 minute interview about watches, likely to be cut down to under 5. His preferred interviews had broad subjects, the broader the better. That way he didn’t feel too embarrassed once he realised he’d waffled on for 10 soundbite-less minutes without so much as glossing over the question he’d actually been asked. This time around, there was a topic. They’d been paid specifically to talk about the topic. It was the final stage of the promo, and theoretically for all involved, it was the easiest one.
He knew WHY he was there. He just didn’t know why HE was there.
Noodle had responded to his trepidations regarding the interview with little more than indifference, which was understandable, albeit unhelpful. She’d seemed more concerned with what else they’d be getting up to in order to make the most of the week in Japan. She wasn’t the biggest fan of doing video interviews but, while she shared 2D’s concern for looking a fool, she was far better at prepping to avoid such occurrences. What’s more, she much preferred topics to him, drilling down to philosophical levels of semantics, locked into a chess game with the interviewer while 2D was left playing 4-in-a-row in the corner. All of that, plus the interview being in Japanese, explained perfectly her somewhat run-of-the-mill demeanour.
What it still didn’t explain was why he was there.
2D looked at the outfit on the rail that had been picked out for him. Not what he would’ve chosen, a little 2016, but it’d do the job. The vest was dark, at least, meaning no nervous sweat stains would be on display. If he had known a 40 year old that wore this when he was younger, he certainly would’ve made fun of them behind their back.
He toddled over to the rail to grab the jeans. No sooner had he touched them, a fist came smashing through the wall, missing him by about a foot. He yelped and backed away. The fist uncurled slightly.
“Sorry.” He heard Noodle say from the other side. “Forgot you were on that side.”
“That’s alright.” He called back, his hand on his chest, checking his heartbeat. “Are you? Alright, I mean?”
“Yes.” She said, a little curtly. The fist uncurled entirely and her hand drooped. “No. Not really.”
The hand slowly retracted to its owners side. Feeling safe that no further violence was to occur, for now at least, he turned and leaned against the wall, hissing slightly in surprise as the cold connected with his bare back.
“Having problems with the getup they chose for you, too?” He posed, “I got stonewash over here, not sure if I’m keen.”
“No.”
“Oh. What is it then?”
He heard a sigh. Many of their conversations had been ending that way recently, and he was ready to hear nothing further.
“Why are we here, 2D?” She asked tiredly.
Her native accent was always thicker when she returned home, something she never seemed to notice. It reminded him of when she was younger, a thoughtful and to-the-point verbiage that made her sound even more intelligent than she was.
With a similar, more self-centered question on his mind, it was hard for 2D to have a solid answer for her.
“What you mean?” He said, playing it safe.
“Are we doing the right thing is what I mean. Is this really us? Going up and talking about how brilliant watches are?”
“You didn’t mind the cartoons.” 2D said, more looking for clarification than some kind of gotcha.
“Talented people were paid good money for those cartoons.” She pointed out glumly. “This is just an ad.”
In the past, this sort of promo would’ve been Murdoc’s to handle, at everyone’s insistence, most of all his own. It was one of the times his dubious morality worked in the bands favour. There wasn’t much he’d say no to if the cheque had enough zero’s. And if he wasn’t so recently out of jail, if his probation officer wasn’t watching him like a hawk, he likely would’ve been here today. Not just instead of 2D, instead of both of them. Brands could always rely on a few fresh Murdoc-isms to make the rounds any time he sat down to interview, and as long as their logo was in the corner or the background, that was all the promo they were looking for. Sometimes the life of a soulless man seemed the easiest life of all.
“I reckon what’s-his-name is gonna be doing most of the actual shilling.” 2D reasoned through the wall, “So I wouldn’t worry about faking it too much.”
“Not the point.” She said flatly.
“And to be fair, the watches seem decent. I heard there’s a bloke in Moldova that wears one when he’s birthing cows and it’s still good as new.”
“Also not the point.” Her irritation was building. 2D couldn’t think of many more issues she could have.
“Course not, yeah. What is the point, again?”
“The point-“
He heard her stomp over to the opposite side of her room and grab a few things, while other things clattered to the ground.
“The point is this!”
Half a dozen watch boxes poured through the hole Noodle had made in the wall, all landing on the ground besides one that 2D managed to catch. Appropriately, it was the box that had his own face on it. He studied it, pulling a face.
“Urgh, they used the picture where I was about to sneeze, that’s annoying.” He groaned, “Ok, I see your point now.”
“No!” She slammed what sounded like an open palm at the wall, causing him to flinch, “The point is we’ve yet again extended the measuring stick that people will use as a way to show how big a fans of us they are!”
2D frowned, puzzled.
“They will?”
“You can’t just enjoy the creative work a successful artist makes anymore. It’s not enough! Got to bleed all the money we can out of them! There’s levels and, and layers of oh, here’s the newest way you can show you’re a true fan, that’s what a true fan would do. Just buy an album if you want to support! Or don’t, if you can’t afford it! Steal it! Everything we talked about for years, am I the only one that was meaning it? Maybe even I didn’t, if I’m going out and doing this. This is shameless from us and the most we deserve from it are rolled eyes and mutterings about selling out. And that’s the problem. That’s all I’m going to want to say out there.”
She exhaled, and gave a muffled groan that sounded like her hands were covering her face.
You could say all that, he thought about saying. But even 2D knew it was more complicated than that. The ramifications of it would be pretty bad. The interview wouldn’t air, and the deal would likely be off as well, meaning funding for any future projects would need to come from somewhere else. Tours, videos, collaborators, even the albums themselves didn’t pay for themselves anymore. Murdoc would be livid, declaring them both unfit for public appearances, and it would be hard to argue against him. Russel would understand and say he was proud, and on some level he’d mean it, but then he would do that silent worrying he does when things weigh on him deeply, but doesn’t want to burden others. As the one that handled the money these days, he’d know before anyone else just how tough the times were getting. He told 2D over a joint once that sometimes he missed EMI, before making him swear to never tell anyone.
Noodle broke him from his moral dilemma by responding for him. “But I can’t say that. Obviously.”
She sounded defeated, like she knew she was in check and there was nothing more for her to do than waddle the king back and forth until she was inevitably taken.
An idea popped into 2D’s head.
“Maybe I could go out there just me?” He suggested, “We’ll say you had an emergency, or got the runs, or anything.”
She gave an unamused laugh. “And how on Earth would you handle a Japanese interview by yourself?”
“I’ll figure it out. When Russ was learning it for you I sat in on a couple of his DVD sessions, I remember some sentences. Well, hang on, one, one sentence.”
“What sentence?” She asked, genuinely curious.
“Uh, let’s see, sore wa isu desu ka.”
“When would you ever need to know if something is or isn’t a chair?”
“It’s happened. Just not in Japan.”
She laughed again, this time a genuine one. “You’re dumb.”
He heard her relax a little. He wasn’t sure how he was helping, but it seemed like he was.
“Can I peek through, are you decent?” He asked.
There was a beat of silence as he waited.
“If you’re nodding or shaking your head, I can’t see that.”
He heard an amused, yet embarrassed gasp, “Oh my god, I was nodding!” She exclaimed, more British in her voice than there had been in days.
“I only said that cuz I’da done the exact same.” He crouched and peered through the fist shaped hole.
Noodle gave a half-hearted smile as a visual greeting. She seemed already dressed and done-up, causing a realisation in 2D that they likely didn’t have long.
“For what it’s worth, you were right earlier, I’m not a fan of what I’m wearing either. I just didn’t want that to be the conversation.” She said.
Not wanting to break eye-contact so soon after suggesting it, he swatted at the rail until his hand made contact with the vest, and retrieved it.
He thought about his own reasons for not wanting to be there as he buttoned it up. Whether he should question some sort of creative integrity within him, considering Noodle’s reasons hadn’t even occurred to him. He wasn’t sure if she was better at explaining her problems than he was with his own, or if her problems were actually just worse, but in the duel of who’s he should be concerned with more, hers always seemed to win.
“The whole thing feels a bit weird to me and all, if I’m honest.” He said, “These sorta things aren’t exactly my strong point.”
She nodded in agreement, a little too wholeheartedly.
“But, I’m tryna look at it like, people like us doing things. They really like you doing things. And most of them ain’t really gonna care what the reason is.”
“But what if I do?” She asked pleadingly. Seeing her face made it harder to rationalise that such questions might be rhetorical. She wanted an answer.
2D shrugged. “Noods, who’d listen to our opinion on what a good watch is anyway? What do we know? And I’m just gonna look daft out there, if anything that’ll make them look worse.”
She looked away distantly, nodding. Connecting a few dots that maybe shouldn’t have been connected, 2D suddenly felt a pang of hurt.
“That’s not why you wanted me to come, is it? Just to look stupid and sabotage the ad by accident?”
She looked back at him, surprised. Her answer took longer than he would’ve liked.
“No.” She said firmly.
He wasn’t fully convinced, but had no further evidence to push with. He hadn’t wanted to question previously why she’d asked for him to do the ad with her, rather than Russel. He’d initially assumed that neither her nor Russel felt comfortable leaving Murdoc and 2D alone for so long this early on. In any case, he’d just been happy knowing she still wanted to hang out with him after all that went down during the last album.
“You told me once the thing that matters to you most in the world.” He said softly. “You remember what it is?”
“Making as many people’s lives better as possible.”
“Sick albums, and getting brilliant people on board, and ridiculous music videos are the ways you can do that. No one’s gonna remember this. Like, people go nuts for Spider-Man 2, no one remembers Doc Ock plugging Cheez-Its.”
“Why do you?”
“By doing this” he continued, not having an answer, “What you actually wanna say is gonna be louder, be more beautiful, and be heard by way more people. Means we can afford to have more people knick our CD's. And in the long run, you’re gonna be doing way more good. At least it’s still us, eh, in control, like it’s always been. All them messages we put out, we’ve always been doing this at the same time. It’s just a bit harder to look past it this time round.”
She swallowed. “Maybe.”
“I’m with you, love, it feels naff. If it was up to me, I’d go out and busk every night and raise all the money we need that way. It’s crap. It’s crap that we can get what we want, or do what we want, but not both.”
“Unless you’re Murdoc.”
“Unless you’re Murdoc. He’d think me busking was a rubbish idea. Gigolo, maybe.”
2D bent out of eye-shot to hoik his jeans up. When he returned, Noodle’s smile was warmer.
“I ain't got a clue if this is you convincing me to bail or me convincing you to go through with it.” He admitted as he zipped up.
“I think both. And I think we’ve both succeeded.” She said with a chuckle.
“Sorry I’m not gonna be very useful out there.”
“You will be, trust me. You ready?”
“Just doing shoes… yep, think so.”
They emerged simultaneously and inspected each other.
“Oh you look really cool!” Noodle chirped, the lack of barrier putting her far more at ease. “What were you worried about?”
“So do you,” he echoed. “We’re just thick sometimes, dunno what to tell you.”
“Ok, it was this way, I believe they said” Noodle mumbled with a gesture down the hallway behind her. “Shall we?” She offered an arm and a grin, both of which were crooked. He snorted and took her arm with his own, as they strolled in what was hopefully the direction of the studio, both the least tense they’d been since they arrived. 2D was now a little less sure about why they were there. But he was at least a little more sure of why HE was there. And that would have to do.
“Do you think they’ll be angry about the wall?” Noodle asked him.
“Their fault for not making their walls out of the same thing they make their watches out of.”
“Shut up.”