Chapter Text
The storage room light flickered just imperceptibly as she looked over the boxes and half-wrapped equipment piled up around everywhere. Guess it was starting to go, thought Marina. She stared out into the distance without focusing on anything in particular. The lightbulb cast a warm glow wherever it reached, over a knee-deep sea of outdated speakers and obsolete amps and cardboard boxes with bubble wrap sticking out the tops. The wood flooring seemed to have a rich orange rosiness under that light. That was just how wood ought to look, you'd think.
But maybe it was too bright. Too rosy. Marina clicked off the light switch and gazed into the room again. Faintly lit darkness, shapes illuminated by what little light came through the hallway outside. Comfortingly dark and empty. Much better. That was the way it should look. A place for things to gather disuse. She wasn't in the mood to see everything here in sharp and cheery clarity. Maybe later, if she had to come back to dig around for the worn-out set of cables, or pull out the shorter stepladder from behind the spare mattress and the scratched-up table leaned upright against the wall someday, that light would be needed again. But not now. Just wasn't right for this.
Out of habit, a slightly out-of-tune E flat chord. Barely out of tune, almost melodic. In a song, in a practice or a live, it would have been at home. But she didn't want to hear it now. An awful sound.
She took her hand off the strings and hugged the guitar slung across her body closer to herself. Even now, there was something comfortable about the press of its familiar shape and edges.
One more time, for old times' sake, she thought. Played the first few notes of...
...Mm.
...We had some good times, didn't we?
There was a familiar ache. Marina felt it pulling down on her shoulders, down her legs to the soles of her sore feet, and gave into it slowly, lowering herself gingerly with the gradual, ill-fated certainty of a collapsing water tower. One leg folding at a time until at last she was left on her back gazing at the shadows of the ceiling. The hard surface beneath her head wasn't so uncomfortable, for someone who had spent a lot of time lying down these days.
Cradled that guitar in her arms and stared into the colourless dark.
For a moment, Marina Tsukishima was 18, and aimless. Classmates rushing about, running to cram classes, heads stuck in study guides, milling around the grades posted in the hallway.
A glimpse of laughter, a humid summer, leaning on the counter of that empty convenience store, the warmth of five bodies pulling each other in for a hug, flashing images on an arcade cabinet. Trying to recall something else, but without thinking, she'd circled back to those momentary scenes once more. She gave up. Laughter, summer.
...Wouldn't do much good to spend so much time thinking back.
She became aware of herself again. It was now. She was here. A little chilly in this room. She didn't want to get up, but it was getting close to opening time. Probably.
She sat up just enough to slide the guitar bag out from underneath her before letting herself plop back down against the floor. Leaned forward again to stare at the guitar one more time, as she ran her hands along the strings carefully, noiselessly. Strings that had callused the pads of her fingers until they no longer hurt, that had been picked and struck until they had to be replaced. These ones hadn't needed to be replaced for some time. And those calluses could no longer be felt.
Slid it back in its case, took her time zipping it up all the way. Time to get up.
...Wasn't 18 anymore, ahahaha. She rode out the wooziness for a few seconds until her vision had stopped sliding around and was no longer lidded with black shadow. Just the dimly lit silhouettes of two dozen abandoned amps, speakers, and sound systems, and a space on the wall between them just large enough to lean a guitar against.
It was probably about 9:40am. Came in a little early today to drop this off from her place, and she had barely gotten started on the opening routine. Her second week here, getting reacquainted with the livehouse after a few years away, and it was just starting to feel familiar again. She woke up that morning ready to drag herself out the door, turned around to check if there was anything she'd missed, and for the first time in recent memory, her eyes landed on that case.
It had been there for a long time, long past that period where she couldn't bear to look at it, long enough that it had become just part of her room. Now it was here, in a corner of nowhere, where she wouldn't have to look at it any more.
She stared at it for a long while a few steps away, feeling something, before tearing herself away. She couldn't help but look back at it one more time as she closed the door behind her.
See you later, someday. My friend.
She headed back up the stairs. The lights had been left off, and the lobby was eerily still. Through the glass windows, she could see goose feathers of snow floating down without a sound. She would have to shovel a path to the street later. But before that, there were still a few things left to be done.
Marina sighed, and put on the best smile she could manage. It was a little weak, and without concentrating, quickly faded to something weary, yet at peace. Good enough, she thought, and hauled herself up the last few stairs, leaving a little bloom of blue in the darkness behind her.