It was early in the morning, and once again, the three found themselves in the music room, performing music for only their ears.

Or rather, they were trying to. No one would admit it, but the guitar in their songs was lacking its usual majesty. Elena’s mind was clearly elsewhere, but they played on, trying to ignore the discordant chords that were played more and more frequently in the song.

It wasn't long before Diosa snapped, with one final incorrect pull at the strings. The bow of her violin slid off of her instrument with a screech that made both RJ and Elena wince

“Elena,” she began, keeping her tone light so as to prevent snapping unnecessarily. “Is something bothering you?”

Both RJ and Diosa’s eyes were on Elena now, and in the vacant school, without their music to fill the empty space, the silence was loud, waiting for an explanation.

“Well, I was thinking…” Elena began, and Diosa cracked a small smile, joking quietly, “Well, that's dangerous.” But she let her friend continue.

“I was thinking… we’re gonna be a band, and obviously we’ll play the instruments we know how to, but… what about vocals?” she said, anxiously turning the knobs of her guitar in a way that made Diosa internally cringe. She looked at the pair hopefully, if not downright enthusiastically, waiting for their answer.

“Well, I can't sing.” Diosa says simply, looking away hurriedly. “I play violin and a couple of other useless instruments. That's as far as i go, musically.”

It was quiet for a moment before Elena spoke up once again. “Well, we all know I’m as tone-deaf as anyone can get so…”

Their eyes fell on RJ, who had been silent this entire time, fiddling idly with a key on the piano before him, squinting at the notes in front of him in fake concentration.

“RJ? Care to join the debate?” Elena says, resting her chin on the body of her guitar, looking expectantly at her friend as though he was her last hope.

RJ glances at them, his eyebrows raised in surprise as though he hadn't been listening acutely to every word that was said. After glancing between the two of his friends, he turned back to his keyboard.

“I have nothing to contribute.” RJ says, and both girls groan, knowing by the tone of his voice that they’re not going to get anything out of him.

Elena slumps disappointedly in her chair. “Aw, man.” she mutters, but she soon straightens her posture, returning her guitar from her fiddling earlier and positioning her fingers, ready to play again.

Diosa glances at the clock above the music room door. “We haven’t got long before school starts. One more song?”

“Sure” RJ mutters, flipping through the notes on his piano, hands floating into place. Elena only nods, readying herself. The bow of Diosa’s violin met the strings once more, sitting poised and ready as they began.

|━━━━━━━━{♫}━━━━━━━━|

Elena huffed as she sat the box down onto the cold floor of the garage. “My gosh! What's in here, Didi, bricks?”

The three were cleaning out Diosa’s suburban home. Diosa sat down another box, moving hair out of her sweaty face.

“Honestly could be. My siblings are crazy sometimes.” She admitted, a little disappointed in her family. She looked around at the boxes filled with questionable miscellaneous objects. “Well, most times.”

They were moving boxes and random assorted items to be against the walls. This was so they would be out of the way so they could set up their equipment. It would also almost create the effect of a sound room.

The two were interrupted and came to a stop as they heard RJ's Jeep coming near. They turned and watched as it turned into the driveway and stopped just outside of the open garage.

RJ had just been on a snack run. Him and Elena were huge snackers, especially RJ. He'd gone out to buy tons of snacks, drinks, and ingredients for they'd ever get hungry when at the empty house.

He'd also gone and bought the three of them Subway for lunch since they'd all gotten tired from cleaning the whole morning.

He walked into the garage with a multitude of grocery bags in his right hand, while just one bag of subway in his left. He'd been absentmindedly singing a song he'd been listening to while driving.

Elena sprung to her feet as soon as he came into view, rushing towards him and nearly tripping over her feet like a gremlin as she reached for the snacks. “Thanks, RJ!” she says, opening the grocery bag and pulling out a pack of Smarties, laughing quietly to herself.

“And here we were, thinking you couldn’t sing.” Diosa teases as RJ continues humming to himself, carrying the bags into the house and setting them on the kitchen counter.

Elena follows, admittedly slower, concentrating on her snack, but as the realization of Diosa’s words dawns on her, her head snaps up, attention back on RJ. “Hey, yeah! Why didn't you tell us you could sing when I asked you TWO WEEKS AGO?!” she exclaims, sitting on the counter as he puts everything away.

RJ had long since stopped his singing, and was now shuffling around in the nearly empty cabinets, trying to avoid the conversation he very much did not want to participate in, muttering nonsense to himself to hopefully seem concentrated on his faux mission.

He could feel his two friends’ gazes on the back of his head, and he could practically see their accusatory glares in his mind's eye. He lets out a defeated sigh, turning around and facing the two, who were squinting at him just as he’d predicted.

His face scrunches up, and it is clear he is concocting some elaborate story to defend himself, but Elena speaks up before he can say anything, sounding surprisingly calm.

“If you don’t want to sing for the band, we’re okay with that, you know. I understand if it's another one of your vulnerable things.” she says, her glare melting away until she’s left looking solely reassuring.

RJ’s eyes widened. “Vulnerable? Oh no, no, no!” He said dramatically as he shook his head violently. “I am not vulnerable! I can sing if you want! I WILL be our lead singer!” He called out that last part as more like a theater song.

He almost immediately got sidetracked as he started pulling out the subs. “Italian herb footlong with ham, cheddar, tomato, ranch, and mayo would be mine,” He sat that one to the side for himself before going back to look at the other two sandwiches.

Elena’s attention is pulled towards the sandwiches, helping to unpack the food, checking the contents of her own sandwich excitedly as Diosa returns to the garage to continue organizing boxes.

|━━━━━━━━{Notes}━━━━━━━━|

Diosa has been writing a lot more than me recently, so applaud her, gracias.

This book is probably going slower than it should... sorry. We hope you enjoy and remember to stay safe!(1176 Words)