It had been two weeks since then, and the three had successfully set up Diosa's garage to become a makeshift recording studio for their band.

They were dragging their feet, trying to avoid actually recording anything. They hadn't even picked out a song to do a cover of. Elena had brought old band posters that had been previously owned and discarded by her older brother to hang around the garage.

The house's kitchen had been stocked with snacks and ingredients for when they got hungry, while their main instruments had been moved into the living room of the otherwise empty house.

And yet the group had not visited the house for days. It seemed that there was an unspoken agreement between the three to avoid the place, for whatever reason.

It could have been that they were scared and nervous about actually committing to the idea of a band. It could have been that they were now fully submerged in their busy schedules now that school had begun completely now.

They each had an excuse to use if the topic was ever brought up.

Elena was still adjusting to high school, and since it was only her second year, she could argue that she was still adjusting to the larger campus. She would ignore the fact that she knew about places in the school that even Diosa and RJ were not privy to.

Diosa would argue that she was just getting started with her first job at a cafe close to her house, but even then, since she was a new recruit, her hours were few and far spread out.

RJ didn't have a good excuse already thought up as Subway hadn't needed him to work much recently. He took slight comfort in the idea that the idea had been dropped and slightly abandoned. He was glad he had this extra time as well, spending a lot of it with Ken at the park, specifically the old willow that looked out over the pond.

However, the abandonment of the idea began to grow on all three of them. They'd really wanted to do this, and now they all had an underlying feeling of guilt at discarding it. It was a friday, and the three were sitting at breakfast, an underlying tone of guilt and hush as no one really talked about anything, afraid that their abandonment of the band would come up.

RJ picked at his food with the plastic fork while Elena scrolled on her phone, not really interested in what was on it. Diosa kind of just sat in their booth, just fiddling with her hands. The whole scene was just an awkward mess. That was until-

"Good morning!" A chipper voice cut through the silence. Ken stood next to their booth, food in hand. He had a friendly smile on his face.

"Oh, morning Ken," Diosa greeted. Her and Elena had not spent much time with Ken. He mostly hung out with RJ, though they could tell he was friendly.

RJ very quickly grew a happier aura and smiled wide. "Morning Ken! You wanna sit down?" He said as he slid to sit in front of Elena. The girl in question had finally gotten off of her phone as she'd gotten very bored.

"Thanks!" Ken said as he sat down. He scanned the group as he did. "So, what's up?"

The three looked at each other, trying to find a viable answer.

"Um, just talking about music we like," RJ tried to fake out a convincing answer. He then had an idea to take advantage of the situation. "What's a song you like?"

Ken's eyes turn thoughtful as he pauses to think, clearly oblivious to the way Diosa and Elena tensed slightly at RJ's mention of music.

"Uhhh... I'm gonna say Just Fine, by SpookyGhostBoy." Ken shrugs. "It's not well known, but it's one of my favorites."

RJ nodded with a glint in his eyes, both Elena and Diosa could tell he was hatching a plan. "Interesting, interesting..." he says, trying to sound nonchalant. "It sounds like a good song."

Ken nods back at him, smiling. "It is. You should give it a listen." Suddenly, his phone dings, and upon checking it, he begins to stand up. "I have to go now, sorry" He looks up from his phone, back at RJ. "But if you text me later, we could hang out sometime?"

RJ nods. "Sure thing."

Ken smiles, waves to Diosa and Elena, and rushes away from their booth, typing furiously on his phone as he leaves the restaurant.

Diosa immediately turns to RJ. "What was that about?"

"Yeah, what ideas are you having in that huge brain of yours?" Elena asks, both of them narrowing their eyes suspiciously.

"Nothing, nothing." RJ says, pointedly returning his attention to his food in order to avoid explaining the plan formulating in his brain.

Elena continues to narrow her eyes at him, nodding once, twice, and then, sitting back, begins, "Well! Since we're apparently on the topic of music-"

Diosa immediately stands. "I think I'm gonna go..." she gave up on trying to think of an excuse and just left.

"But-" RJ began, hoping he didn't have to face the impending conversation alone, but Diosa was already too far away to hear him.

He groans and reluctantly looks at Elena, who's already looking at him with a large smile, like a predator who's isolated their prey. She lets out an evil laugh before speaking again.

"So, as I was saying... music." she begins. "I have three tickets to a concert if you guys want to go."

RJ blinks in surprise, raising his eyebrows. "You do?" he asks.

"No." Elena says. "But I do have free time for us to, I dunno, actually start our band."

RJ lets out a groan, running a hand over his face as Elena scoffs.

"Come on! We all agreed to do the band!" she says, exasperatedly. "Why are you guys backing out now?"

"I dont know... I've been busy with-"

Elena interrupts, pointing an accusatory finger. "Don't you give me anything! I know all three of us have an 'I'm busy' excuse, but frankly, we lack creativity."

RJ fell silent, his words dying on his tongue. She was right. He did have an excuse, and he knew it wasn't even a good one.

Elena sighs. "Look, if you guys really don't want to do it, we won't. But after all of the work, we put into cleaning that disgusting garage, not to mention moving a ton of heavy instruments." she says, exaggerating a little and pausing for dramatic effect. "It'd be a shame if we didn't even go through with the plan."

RJ chanced another glance at her, seeing her hopeful brown eyes looking back at him. It was clear that even though she had also been avoiding the topic of the band, it still meant a lot to her.

His eyes roamed the cafeteria as the guilt crept in, looking for anything that would get him out of agreeing to something he very much did not want to, but there was nothing. No distractions, and Diosa was outside, seated at an outdoor tables, contentedly making airplanes out of a stack of napkins.

RJ blew out a long sigh before nodding. "You're right. We've been avoiding this for a while."

Elena nods encouragingly, a smile growing on her face. "Yeah..." she prompts.

"And all of us did agree.." he continues, cringing slightly at the reality even as he says it.

"We did." Elena agrees, nodding solemnly.

"So I guess it'd be pretty bad if we gave up before we even started." he says, and Elena pumps her fists into the air in triumph.

"Hell, yeah!" she says with a wide grin. "We can do our first official recording... gig.... stint... practice?..." She pondered, "after school!" she declared before RJ could say anything else.

After a while of small talk, the bell rang for school to start.

After Elena conveyed the news to Diosa, it was very clear that she was unimpressed with RJ's resolve.

|━━━━━━━━{Notes}━━━━━━━━|

Just a chapter of them procrastinating cause they're scared... and a bit lazy. Don't worry, though. Music is just around the corner. This chapter is actually longer than I thought it was, though.

We hope you enjoy and remember to stay safe!(1395 Words)