Work Text:
Niko's prized possession is her electronic piano, plugged into her desktop and cleaned every week. She puts everything into her music. It's light, and synthesized, with floating layers and soft patterns.
It's missing something.
She feels like someone spending hours on their base makeup and forgetting the blush, left with something well-made but lifeless. It's not that she feels like she doesn't have any skill, just that nothing is happening because of it.
The first time Crystal - her flatmate - plugs her electric guitar into the preamp, as a favour, re-recording something that just didn't work digitally, it makes Niko feel stupid for not realising. She's missing something like Crystal, a confident, punchy centrepiece. If her music dances, Crystal's sprints - less flowery, less precise, but with more intent burning through it than anything Niko's heard or made before.
And, well, if it was blush she was missing, she's making up for it now.
Over time, Niko gets more comfortable collaborating with Crystal - she unplugs her headphones so they can both listen as she mixes the song, which eventually turns into live-recording ornaments or snatches of chords to blend the guitar with the keyboard.
In the end, they start to play together, with Niko underlining Crystal's sharp melodies with flowing chords. Crystal starts making more suggestions, adding more to the composition stage - she's better with the drum pad than a keyboard, which is fine, because Niko's drum beats always end up as a muted snare, lost under waves of harmonies.
They work well together. There stops being such a clear barrier between Niko's space and Crystal's space, and it's a first for Niko. Even at home in Japan, the unwritten rule was that she was the only one allowed in her bedroom. Now, it doesn't even bother her when Crystal waltzes in without knocking, or when she gets home from a long day of classes and flops down onto Niko's bed to relax, instead of her own.
Tonight, though, Crystal hovers at the door. Niko swivels around to invite her in, pulling out her earbuds, but stops halfway. Crystal looks nervous. So Niko waits.
"I, uh. I wondered if you wanted to go out tonight. Not, like, out on the town or anything, just... Get dinner, or something?"
And Niko nods immediately, even though she's never been one for spontaneous decisions. There must be something about Crystal that makes her more reckless.