Archive of Our Own

Seraphine's phone screen kept flashing.

Locked in the bathroom at Pentakill studio, the little mermaid was having trouble breathing because she hadn't thought about the consequences of that spontaneous collaboration. How could she justify it? She'd ignored all the legal clauses that prevented her from appearing with other bands without any bureaucratic backroom deals, and now she was facing hundreds of messages from her friends and dozens of calls and emails from her lawyers for "breach of contract and damage to corporate image."

Fuck. Couldn't she just be a metal fan when she wasn't the Starry-Eyed Songstress?

The pink cupcake looked at her reflection in the mirror. Oh, how tragic the image was. She couldn't even recognize herself. The sweat from rehearsal had made the glitter stars on her cheekbones run, leaving a trail of sparkles running down her cheeks. Or was it the trail of dried tears? She had cried, yes, but she hadn't thought it would leave her feeling so bad.

On the bathroom counter, her phone screen flickered back to life. Immediately, dozens of notifications began popping up in the status bar.

Sera, por favor. Los inversores están llamando. La prensa tiene fotos tuyas en el Distrito de West Adams. ¿Qué estás haciendo? Contesta.

Right below, an email notification from KDA's law firm overshadowed the message. The subject line was cold and bureaucratic:

Seraphine closed her eyes, but she couldn't silence the constant buzz of guilt that rattled in her chest.

It wasn't just the lawyers. It was the collateral damage. She knows her rebellion has damaged the image of her colleagues, that her silence about how she's been feeling lately is hurting the people she cares about because she didn't know how to tell them: "My body is telling me to scream, to scratch, and to let go. I don't want to keep being a fragile, glass figure."

She hadn't wanted things to end this way; she hadn't planned to become the loose end that threatened to sink the ship the four of them had worked so hard to build. She loved them, she truly did, but her inability to communicate her feelings, to express that she was drowning under the demands of being an idol and the pressure to be perfect, had led her to do the worst thing she knew how to do: disappear. She had fled to metal to avoid exploding on stage, and in doing so, she had left a trail of fire in her wake. She felt selfish, immature… a villain in a glittery costume.

Her phone started vibrating again. A new wave of people (people she loved) and bureaucrats demanding to know where she was.

With trembling fingers, Seraphine held the power button to turn the phone off completely. Another act of immaturity. She couldn't give them an answer because she didn't even know what answer to give herself. She wrapped the device around her hand, pressing it to her chest as if she were holding a weapon, and opened the bathroom door.

The studio hallway was shrouded in a dense gloom; there was no sign of the other members of Pentakill… except for the drone of a lone guitar that began to filter through the air.

A tense, dark, and constant riff was joined by a hoarse voice. Apparently, this person was also going through a difficult time.

Her chest heaved with recognition. The melancholic melody seemed to resonate with Seraphine's emotions, and she didn't even bother to knock. The upbringing her parents had instilled in her as a child had been left in the bathroom, washed away by the tap water. She pushed open the heavy acoustic wooden door that led to the heart of the studio and slipped inside like a disheveled shadow.

The room was dimly lit, but the silhouette of that stranger was clearly visible. She didn't need to squint to recognize the stranger. Ah, it was that guy who'd arrived "late" to rehearsal… and found the whole group evaluating a very frightened Seraphine inside the booth.

What had they called him? Diego? Viego? Ugh, her memory was so overwhelmed by the enormous pile of legal trouble that had accumulated in such a short time that for a moment she doubted whether she was the Starry-Eyed Songstress.

The young man sat cross-legged on one of those enormous black speakers, an electric guitar resting on his thigh. His tie was loose, and his white shirt was slightly wrinkled. He wasn't rehearsing for Pentakill; he was playing for himself, searching for a new solo. The notes of "Black Honey" floated in the air, dense, repetitive, and laden with a melancholy that threatened to suffocate the room.

Sera stood motionless by the door. As she listened to the chords, she realized the problem: the song was stuck in a loop. Viego kept returning to the same musical bridge, unable to move forward, stuck in a rhythm that sounded as depressing and monotonous as rain falling on asphalt. It was the exact reflection of his own mind.

Silence settled between them as Viego's fingers dropped onto the strings, producing a muffled, distorted groan. He didn't look up, but his shoulders tensed. He knew she was there.

The frustration in the air was almost palpable, an electric buzz that competed with the flickering of Seraphine's phone screen (which, by the way, she'd turned back on to avoid worrying him or making things worse), still blinking silently in her hand. Viego glanced at the mixing board, where the divorce papers, full of legal jargon and Isolde's signatures, lay in the dim light of a lamp. Those damned bureaucratic paragraphs were a wall, preventing him from seeing beyond them. He didn't know how to finish the song because he didn't know how to end that chapter of his life.

Suddenly, Viego gritted his teeth. A flash of blind rage crossed his face. He threatened to raise his guitar by the neck, clearly intending to smash it against the wooden floor, or to deliver a savage kick to the speaker to silence the silence that was devouring him.

But he froze mid-movement.

His knuckles turned white around the instrument. He exhaled a shaky sigh, heavy with bitter contempt, and slowly lowered the guitar back against his body. He didn't do it. Even in the midst of his worst bout of misery, a sense of reality (and the exorbitant price of high-end production equipment in the present, which he could afford but was too lazy to do) curbed his impulse. Destroying the studio wasn't going to bring Isolde back; it would only leave him with a bill for thousands of dollars.

“It’s a loop,” Seraphine said from the doorway, her voice hoarse from rehearsal and exhaustion. “You keep going back to the same chord because you’re waiting for the ending to change on its own. But it won’t.”

Viego finally looked up. His eyes, dull and surrounded by dark circles, fixed on hers.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion, little mermaid,” he replied, his voice hoarse, trying to sound elitist, though the pain weakened the venom. “Go back to your calls. Your screen keeps flashing and it’s giving me a headache.”

Sera sighed heavily. Apparently, his pettiness was persistent, and he could still be a complete idiot despite having bared his soul… sort of. She understood that the song was about a defiant and stubborn attitude, an obsessive nature that pursued selfish desires without considering the consequences, as well as a destructive attitude and a lack of respect for one’s actions.

“Why do you all insist on calling me that?” she wrinkled her nose as she walked over to sit by another giant speaker.

“You didn’t even bother to change your outfit for this rehearsal,” he huffed, setting his guitar on the floor with the neck propped against the side of the speaker.

A valid point, but what more could she ask for? Seraphine would never admit out loud that her outfit made her look gorgeous and gave off ocean queen vibes.

His expression was serious; he didn’t want any company, and the pink cupcake, who for some reason seemed unmotivated, was getting on his nerves. He crossed his arms as he observed this fake facade of cosmetics and cheap silk fabrics.

“Clearly, something about me irritates you.” Seraphine rolled her eyes. They hadn’t even had a proper conversation, and she already felt the urge to punch him because of the way he was looking at her.

It wasn't lust or envy; the predominant emotions he noticed at concerts or on tours were more like… disgust. Viego felt a deep aversion toward the dreamy singer.

“It bothers me that you're a puppet,” he began, mimicking the diva's posture, though leaning slightly forward.

If his intention was to intimidate Seraphine, he had only partially succeeded. The girl bit the inside of her cheek but kept her head held high.

“You have a beautiful voice, Seraphine. Incredible vocal talent… yet you neglect it. You're so preoccupied with your image, the image of your 'friends,' or what your fans think of you that you ignore what you truly want.”

But… who did he think he was?! Those problems were Seraphine's business. She didn't need other people's opinions, which she hadn't even asked for.

“And what are you doing?” Seraphine hissed. “You’re begging for the attention of a woman who’s already signed the papers to erase you from her life.”

Sera’s blow struck a devastating chord. The ensuing silence was deafening. Viego lowered his head, defeated by the truth, and Seraphine felt a lurch in her stomach as she realized she might have crossed a line. Her phone lit up again at that moment.

Viego glanced at her screen and then at his own papers. In a voice now devoid of venom, filled only with weariness, he said, “Well, it seems the good girl knows how to spit venom. Is that part of your contract too?” He raised his hands to his chest, a truce. “You win, Serafín.”

Sera narrowed her eyes. “It’s Seraphine,” she corrected him, before settling back into her seat.

“Whatever…” he sighed. “Let me guess, your outfit has stood out so much in a supposedly dangerous neighborhood and now your “friends” are blowing up your phone with messages and calls… oh, and so are your lawyers.”

The remark wasn't malicious, but it was still cynical. Tired of pretending, she put her phone down and sighed heavily.

"KDA is going to sue me, the brand is going to ruin me, and I've hurt my friends by chasing a stupid dream." Her voice threatened to break with that last word, so she exhaled sharply and forced herself to calm down; she'd cried enough.

Viego leaned against the wall, staring at the ceiling. "The real danger of contracts and expectations isn't the money they take from you, but that they force you to forget your own name." There was a brief pause; the rebellious vocalist was reminiscing about his days touring with the band before he'd been caught in a whirlwind of controversy. "They impose so many clauses on you, they give you a persona that you have to play whenever you're with certain people... until you finally become the product they want to sell."

That confession gave Seraphine pause for thought. She no longer knew who she was: in the big city, she was the girl in pink who was always smiling because of a contract; here, on the other hand, she was an intruder playing at being a rebel. She felt like a stranger in both worlds.

“Your dream isn't stupid, Serafín. You've calmed that roar that was stressing you out so much and discovered a new side of yourself that you didn't even know existed.”

She looked at Viego again. She knew about the controversies he'd been involved in, and perhaps she'd even gossiped on social media about the scandal with his (now) ex-wife. He'd gotten so caught up in the role of Mutaris that all that chaos and disorder was starting to seep into his private life. He'd be lying if he said he didn't feel like a stranger in his own present; a man trapped in the memory of what his marriage had been, the constant performance of being the gang's “villain,” and the ruins of who he is now.

Suddenly, in an attempt to quell all the drama, Viego leaps from the speaker and reaches for the studio console, searching for a song.

With a crooked, weary smile, he clicks on a file and pauses it, turning to Seraphine with a casual invitation. “Since you’ve decided to ruin your pop star career tonight, at least make it worthwhile.” He gestured with his chin toward the screen, an impromptu karaoke session. “Sona left this channel open in case…” He stopped justifying himself; he wasn’t going to humiliate himself any further.

He pressed play, and instead of a Pentakill track, the intro to «Stranger I Remain» started playing. Perhaps Viego had saved it as a reference, or maybe he was simply looking for the right voice and setting to play it.

"Hmm... okay..." he muttered to himself as he picked up his electric guitar again and placed his fingers on the opening chords. Once he was sure he remembered the score, he pointed at the microphone with a teasing gesture: "Sing it. Not for your audience, not for me. Sing it to see which of the two strangers you are."

The music began, a rather rough, steady electronic pulse on the young man's guitar, but surprisingly not unpleasant. The first notes of «Stranger I remain» filled the studio room. It wasn't Pentakill's classic metal or K/DA's bubblegum pop; it was a more industrial melody, unpolished and with some notes missing, since it was just one instrument.

Seraphine gripped the microphone tightly. Would she have to scream and strain her vocal cords again? Maybe not. The notes she was hearing didn't indicate any parts where she'd have to dig deep into her voice. At first, her voice sounded shaky; again, she was hesitating, wondering if she should use that sweet, polished tone she reserved for the big stage.

"Stop," he ordered. "Again. This song doesn't require you to scream, nor does it require you to fake a voice that isn't yours." He gave her a sardonic smile. Oh, the bastard was referring to the real Seraphine, the one who had used her normal voice a few minutes ago to bombard him with verbal venom.

Seraphine said nothing, just nodded and took a deep breath. Fine, no screaming... or being a bubblegum princess... just being Sera.

The track rewound to the beginning, and Viego had to tune the instrument before pressing play. Again, the steady, industrial rhythm filled the room, only this time it wasn't as harsh, and the notes sounded slightly cleaner.

When she sang the first line, she glanced at her phone screen. The lyrics hit her like a punch to the gut. She realized it was exactly her: a girl from a suburban family who had risen so high that now the air above was suffocating her. A stranger.

This time she wouldn't sing to please anyone. She had come here from nowhere to truly find herself, to release the oil bubble that had clouded her mind for so long. Despite having drifted for months, she now knew what she wanted for herself.

There was no trace of the sweetness of her singles, but neither was there the abyssal monster she had displayed hours before. It was a purely human voice, broken at the edges, with a gritty distortion characteristic of modern rock that scraped against the microphone.

When the main riff hit, her barriers crumbled. It no longer mattered that she was a surface-level diva or that he was a marginalized musician who took refuge in a relatively quiet district with historic buildings to escape the chaos of the city. Prejudices evaporated when the chords began to resonate with Sera's magic. This song wasn't melancholic, as she had imagined; on the contrary, the lyrics and the score spoke of a person forging a path through two realities, struggling.

The clarity she sought came with challenges and inner conflict.

Perhaps the challenge standing in her way was this: having gone to the outskirts of the city to rid her chest of the darkness that was slowly consuming her. She felt comfortable doing this, so why was she so afraid to let it go? This was the clarity the song spoke of, and Seraphine had grasped it.

The main rhythm abruptly stopped, giving way to the song's outro. The heavy beat faded, but the atmosphere didn't relax; it became eerie. The sound system spat out a rough but sharp tremolo, a single note repeated at such a frenetic speed that it sounded like the shivering of a body frozen by fear.

Seraphine held her breath. That guitar melody, with its twisted, dissonant highs and lows, brought back a strangely childlike memory: it sounded like the deranged theme song from a cartoon Halloween special, the sound of something sinister moving in the shadows of a haunted house. The scale began to descend, rung by rung, creeping down the neck into the lowest, darkest notes of the string, as if the music itself were tumbling down a staircase into the void.

Perhaps that was what she was looking for. To be the villain for once, to be the creature lurking in the darkness, and to know what it felt like to be free, without contracts or bandmates who ignored her discomfort in order to push the band's new covers forward. THAT WAS IT! Her definition of "free," her original goal, was to make sure people felt seen and heard; to turn their stories into symphonies. Had she really abandoned her true dream since starting her professional career with K/DA?

Viego closed his eyes, letting the hysterical drone of that tremolo fill the dead space between his divorce papers and her phone. It wasn't a sad melody; it was the sound of two people who had decorated their gilded cages and now watched as the ghosts of the past and future came to collect the rent.

The echo of the last outro riff faded, leaving behind a silence that no longer weighed like a tombstone, but felt clean, like the air after a thunderstorm.

Seraphine lowered the microphone, but this time she didn't look at her phone. She looked at her hands. As the last vibration of Viego's guitar faded off the studio walls, something clicked inside her. She realized that his music, right in that frenetic Halloween tremolo, had stopped sounding purely depressing. It hadn't healed, of course not, but for a few minutes the melancholic loop had broken, releasing a wild urgency, a need to be heard that she had understood.

And there was her true dream. Not the one of golden contracts, perfect choreography, and bubblegum pink. Her original dream was to use her empathy to listen to broken people and transform their stories into symphonies. She had forgotten that since becoming the peacock of K/DA. Now, with her voice hoarse, she had a new goal: to find the music that would make her feel free, the music that would come from within her, and to stop being a pretty decorative figure inside a corporate golden cage.

She took a deep breath, feeling strangely light. She turned to Viego, her eyes shining, ready for her great existential epiphany, poised to launch into a profound discourse on artistic freedom and mnemonic redemption…

But the magic of the moment went straight to hell when Viego let out a frustrated huff and started wrestling with his guitar cable. Seraphine blinked, taken aback by the abrupt end to the mystical climax. She glanced at Viego’s guitar and then at the enormous speakers.

“It sounds very different from the released track,” Sera commented, covering her mouth to hide a silly giggle that had risen from her stomach.

And it was true; in the original song, there was no trace of that rough guitar drone. It was a clean sound, accompanied by solid drums, keyboards… Viego glanced at her sideways, one eyebrow raised, the cable dangling loosely in his hand, clearly offended.

“There’s a whole band on that track, Brillitos. You’re asking too much of a poor guitar,” he grumbled, winding up the cable. “Besides… Sona isn’t here to speed up my notes.”

“I can speed up too…” Sera’s reproach died in her throat before she could finish it. Now that she thought about it, most of the members of Pentakill could speed up their notes, but apparently, that task fell solely to Sona.

The jingle of a key ring preceded the sharp slam of the door as it swung open, plunging the two young men back into that awkward silence.

In the studio doorway, silhouetted against the cold light of the hallway, Thresh appeared. Unlike the leather and ripped or casual clothing, he wore a dark, tailored suit, impeccable, although his jacket was open and his shirt was not fully buttoned at the neck, revealing that he too had had a long night. His usually impassive face wore a slight grimace of annoyance, but his calculating green eyes gleamed with a dangerous lucidity.

“Ah, so here you are.” Thresh’s voice trailed off with a cold hiss that lowered the temperature of the room in an instant. “And you…” He gave Viego a once-over, hissing with disgust at the sight of his younger vocalist. “I thought you’d be in some bar crying over the past, not doing charity work.”

Viego didn’t even flinch; She finished packing up the equipment she'd used, but didn't leave the studio. Seraphine, on the other hand, tensed up at the speaker, pressing the microphone to her lap. She'd probably messed up again, yes, that was it. She'd used Pentakill's equipment again without telling them.

"You were looking for us," she said, trying to maintain that firm, non-submissive tone she'd just discovered within herself.

“I’ve been calling everyone. But I should have known, you’re so scared you won’t even look at your phone.” Thresh walked over to the mixing desk, deliberately ignoring Viego’s divorce papers to focus on the girl’s phone, which remained off. Seeing that his cruel chatter would only further panic Seraphine, he sighed heavily before lowering his tone. “I’ve been on the phone with one of your friends, Sera, for three hours. Your legal advisors are already drafting the exclusivity lawsuit. They want to make a public example of you; a doomed, ruined pink cupcake so no other idol would even think of straying.”

Seraphine felt a knot in her stomach, but before the guilt could choke her again, Thresh let out a dry laugh, devoid of any empathy.

“But they’re forgetting one small detail.” Thresh continued, leaning against the table, crossing his arms, and staring intently at her. “You’re on my turf. And I don’t let anyone touch my investments.”

The manager had listened to the duo, had heard again—though not physically—how his new investment had let go of the reins and pursued what it truly desired.

“Are you going to wage a bureaucratic war with the higher-ups over…” he gestured to Seraphine. He didn’t know whether to call her “cupcake,” as everyone else did, or some other derogatory name that referenced the color pink.

“I’m going to win a war, which is different,” Thresh corrected, a predatory smile spreading across his lips. “Those exclusivity clauses you signed with KDA have a loophole the size of this whole neighborhood, Sera. Your contract specifies that you can’t lend your vocal services to competing labels in the pop market. We don’t produce pop, and that demand borders on espionage. Your participation in Ocean Song is a separate issue, from what I’ve researched.”

Seraphine blinked, stunned by that remark. It was partly true; her contract hadn’t even started for a few days. Technically, she could do whatever she wanted before becoming KDA’s golden boy. Wait. Her contract wasn’t even in effect yet. Had she… thought the worst when her contract hadn’t even begun?

“If you sign the retroactive management contract with us, dated yesterday, their lawyers won’t be able to touch you without getting themselves into a corner. They’re not going to risk that for a corporate image tantrum. They want to scare you because you’re alone, kid. But you’re not anymore.”

Thresh took a step toward her, extending a pale, elegant hand, hoping the golden bird would fall into his trap. Seraphine glanced at the manager’s gloved fingers, then looked away at Viego, who was watching her from the speaker with a raised eyebrow.

Seraphine swallowed, feeling the ball of nausea in her stomach dissolve, giving way to a tremendous wave of embarrassment.

“It’s just that…” she began, fiddling with the microphone cable. “Actually… I haven’t signed anything.”

The silence that fell over the Pentakill studio was, this time, of a completely different nature. It wasn’t gloomy, nor melancholic. It was the silence of two men in the music industry processing the fact that they had built a criminal defense strategy for nothing.

Viego stopped moving his hands on the guitar neck. Thresh stood with his hand outstretched in the air, blinking slowly, as if Seraphine had just spoken to him in an unknown language.

“What do you mean you haven’t signed?” Thresh’s voice dropped three octaves, losing all its corporate finesse.

“Look, the agreement is drafted and the announcement in Los Angeles is imminent… but the official signing with the investors isn’t for another three days. Technically… legally… I’m free. I think,” Sera added in a whisper, shrugging.

Viego let out a snort that sounded like a stifled laugh, throwing his head back.

“By Iron Maiden nails…” the vocalist growled, running a hand over his face, visibly tempted to strangle her with the jack cable. "You had us here staging a Shakespearean drama, crying in the corners and almost competing to see who could elicit the most pity... and it turns out you were creating a cataclysm over a blank piece of paper?"

“I was scared!” she defended herself, her cheeks flushed. “The emails terrified me!”

“You are a public menace, Serafín.”

Thresh withdrew his hand, stuffing it into the pocket of his impeccable suit as he let out a long, heavy sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. The corporate chessboard had just taken a ridiculous turn.

“Good. This changes things,” the manager declared, regaining his composure but giving her a warning look. “They can’t sue you for breach of contract, but don’t celebrate too soon, kid. The big corporations don’t take kindly to being stood up at the altar. If you decide not to sign, KDA will send you the bill for every last cent spent on the Ocean Song campaign. You’ll be blacklisted. Banned from radio, censored on official Los Angeles channels… They’ll make sure you never see a massive stage again.”

That threat was real, and Sera knew it. The weight of the economic and social veto hung over the speaker.

“With us, you won’t have to worry about the bigwigs’ blacklists,” Thresh added, gesturing contemptuously toward the gloom outside. “Pentakill doesn’t answer to its investors. We’re more… permissive. Down here, we’re not going to ask you to smile on contract, or to play the part of a porcelain doll Monday through Friday. You’ve seen this… example.” Thresh nodded at Viego, a grimace of pure annoyance on his face. “He’s ruined three tours, caused disturbances on stage, and I’ve had to empty the label’s safe to pay out compensation for his public spats. And look at him. He still has an assigned microphone.”

Viego gave him the middle finger, not bothering to deny it.

Seraphine looked at them both. She knew Thresh was right. Staying in the upper echelons meant returning to the rose-gold cage, to the suffocating pressure of pleasing the fans and pretending everything was alright while she was drowning. Down here, on the other hand, the music was raw, analog, and loud, but it was real. She glanced down at the microphone she still held tightly. Even if she tried to convince herself she still had doubts, her own chest betrayed her. She wanted to be here. She wanted the freedom to spit venom and transform the roar she'd been holding back for so long into her own symphonies.

"So…" Sera looked up, fixing her gaze on Thresh with a spark of resolve that was nothing like the frightened girl in the bathroom. "…Where do you say I sign?"