Chapter Text
Harper liked music because music made sense.
Songs had structure. A song could be complicated, loud, messy, or completely unpredictable, but it was honest about it. Every note belonged somewhere, every instrument had a purpose, and even the strangest songs followed rules if you listened closely enough. Music never made her feel out of place. It never expected her to be anyone other than the person listening.
People were different…
Songs had structure. Even when they were chaotic, there was still a rhythm underneath them, something holding everything together. People weren’t like that. People changed the rules halfway through conversations and somehow expected everyone else to keep up. They said one thing and meant another. They shared looks that carried entire conversations Harper could never seem to understand.
It was almost fascinating to Harper…at a distance of course. It wasn’t as captivating when she had to be part of said engagement.
That’s how to explain this moment. You see…
Harper wasn’t eavesdropping. She was simply lingering outside the kitchen….
Very quietly—ok maybe she was eavesdropping…
Her parents’ voices drifted through the doorway…warm, familiar, and laced with the easy rhythm of two people who had long ago learned each other’s melodies.
A random coincidence…
“Remember that abandoned building?” Leroy asked.
Abigail’s laugh was bright and immediate. “That narrows it down so much.”
“The one we both went to.”
“The one we both went to,” he clarified. “C&A Technologies. With the headset.”
Harper started to drift closer to the kitchen, but slowed her pace. C&A, that totally doesn’t seem like an important piece of information for later.
“You know, it’s still weird to me that we both went to the same place,” Abigail started.
Leroy nodded. “What’s even weirder is that we both found it, but years apart. What a small world…”
Abigail giggled, “Yeah, a small world…
…Didn’t you find it first?”
“Yeah. And my friends dared me to put on the creepy headset, and I did…so brave.”
Abigail snorted. “You say that like I didn’t do the exact same thing.”
“That’s because you got pressured by your Youtube fans. I did it for the bit. Because I’m the funny one-.”
“Hey, I’m pretty funny too, you know. I married you.”
Leroy looked offended. Abigail looked pleased with herself.
Harper paused by the fridge, fingers brushing the cool handle. She wasn’t thirsty. She just needed an excuse to stay, instead of simply talking to her parents…
The fridge just happened to be near the conversation.
“You know,” Leroy chuckled. “If someone had told me there was another person dumb enough to try that thing, I wouldn’t have believed them. Yet, we do have dumb friends, so—
Abigail chucked but pointed at him. “Hey, don’t be rude to our friends.”
“If we all did the same dumb thing, then can’t I insult myself along with our stupid friends?”
Abigail thinks, then leans closer… “I guess, but I don’t want you to insult yourself. I love you too much…”
“Wow…
—kinda cringe”
“Woooooooow,” Abigail giggles. “That’s your defense for everything.
Their banter wrapped around Harper like something she could clearly see but not quite feel. She understood the words. She just couldn’t grasp the look that passed between them next…a soft, knowing glance that lasted less than a second yet seemed to hold more emotion only a human could define. It wasn’t secretive and it wasn’t meant to exclude her. But it highlighted everything she struggled to have: the invisible rhythm between people.
She opened the fridge. Stared at the glowing shelves. Closed it. Opened it again. She had completely forgotten why she’d actually opened the fridge. Probably because she never came in with a reason in the first place, at least a realistic reason—
“Harper.”
She jumped.
Her parents were both looking at her.
“…Yes?” She managed
“What are you doing?” Abigail asked, tilting her head
Harper looked around…Then looked back.
“I had a plan when I walked into this room.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I no longer remember the plan.”
“Harper…
…You know you can just ask questions, right?” Leroy finished.
For a moment all three of them stood there.
Harper shifted her weight. “So…” Harper said.
Her parents waited. The silence stretched. Harper shifted her weight, heart hammering. She wanted to ask…really wanted…The question felt enormous, too important...
The silence stretched.
She hated silence.
Silence always expected her to do something with it.
Leroy blinked.
Abigail sighed.
“Harper.”
“Yeah, what’s up!” Her voice was waaaay higher than it needed to be. “ Sorry, choked…”
“Alright, well, it’s pretty late. We might as well go to bed, Harp,” Leroy stated.
Harper shoots her shot—
“But, I forgot something…”
”What?” Her parents questioned.
”How conversations work…” She waited for the ba dum tss…it never came. Music failed her. “Yeahthatwaskindacringysorrybye-“
Harper gracefully rushes up the stairs, almost falling for her demise 3 times.
She could hear her parents continuing their earlier discussion. It somehow transformed into a reminiscence involving a bus stop…
How could those possibly be connected, Harper questioned…
Harper lay in bed. Her mom’s old YouTube video idle on her phone. Sleep refused to come.
She rolled over.
The clock read 1:17 AM.
Wonderful.
The normal response to this information would have been:
“Wow. I should really get some sleep.”
Harper’s response was:
“The abandoned building is only twenty minutes away.”
In her defense, it sounded significantly less stupid at one in the morning.
She sat up. Regretted it. Stood up. Regretted that too. Then, before she could talk herself out of it again, she grabbed her hoodie and sneaked downstairs.
And by sneaking, she meant slowly descending each step while trying to remember which ones made noise.
—Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea—
Each step was a negotiation with the house, she kept loosing—a big reason why she’s a musician and not a businesswoman. Step three squeaked. Step six betrayed her. Step nine sounded loud enough to wake the neighborhood. She froze on every creak, heart thundering, but the house stayed mercifully quiet.
Outside, the night air was cool and still. Streetlights cast long, lonely pools of orange on empty sidewalks. Harper pulled her hood up and walked, the reality of what she was doing settling heavier with every block.
Outside, the world was quiet. Streetlights glowed over empty roads, and suddenly Harper became very aware of the fact that she was walking toward an abandoned building in the middle of the night because of a conversation she hadn’t even participated in.
This was probably a bad idea…maybe definitely
Harper kept walking anyway.
—
Twenty minutes later, the building emerged from the darkness. Old. Empty. Forgotten. A rusted sign still hung over the entrance.
C&A Technologies.
The same company her parents had mentioned.
The same company both of them had somehow stumbled into years before they ever met.
“What a small world,” Harper muttered.
Harper swallowed. “What a small world,” she whispered. The words felt different now—less funny, more real.
She pushed open the front door.
The hinges groaned loudly.
“Cool. Coolcoolcoolcoolcool”
She pushed open the front door and stepped inside. Dust coated the lobby. Broken desks sat abandoned throughout the room. Old computers lined the walls, most of them looking older than she was. Her phone’s flashlight illuminated hallway after hallway until she finally found a room that looked untouched by time. In its center sat a plain table, and on the table rested a single headset.
Harper stared at it. For a moment she expected something dramatic. Glowing lights. Strange noises. A giant warning label that read DO NOT PUT ON UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Instead it just sat there.
Looking disappointingly normal.
“…Really?”
The headset offered no response.
Rude.
Harper stepped closer, pulse quickening. “This is stupid,” she muttered. “People are stupid. Why does something like this matter so much to them?”
Did such a small moment really bring people close? Could she make a tradition that would make connections for her…
Or just, maybe if she understood the headset…
Maybe she would understand them.
Harper slowly picked it up.
It felt lighter than she expected.
“Well,” she muttered, placing the headset on her head. “This is either going to answer a lot of questions…”
She hesitated.
“…or become a very embarrassing news article.”
A pause.
Harper winced.
“Wow.”
She rubbed her face.
“That sounded way cooler in my head.”
Another pause.
“Actually, that’s true of most things I say.”
Whatever. That isn’t important.
She places the headset on her head and reaches to press every button to try to turn it on, but it does it on its own.
The headset flashed.
And suddenly—
Nothing happened.
So, she took it off
”Uhhhhhhh…ok…? Looks like I made a tradition, I guess.”
Little did Harper know…
The headset had already done everything it needed to do.