the record store; viii; twenty one pilots

Every single Friday I had known had been chaotic. Today was not an exception.

I'd always been unorganised and ever since I'd hit the unfortunate high school years, I'd discovered that the problem was only amplified. With the knowledge of that, and the fact that I had to leave to meet Davie in little under half an hour, it was easy to understand why I was now rushing around the house with my bag in hand, trying to find the various items that went in it.

Today, it was my phone. Although, as many people described it, my phone was like an extra limb, but it was an extra limb that often became unattached, and would decide to hide around various locations of the house. As much as I tried to always remember to put it in a certain location, I would almost certainly forget where it was as soon as I put it down.

I tried to hide the fact that I needed to leave in about ten minutes if I was ever going to get anywhere on time, that I still was running round frantically and that the chances of me finding my phone before tomorrow were slowly diminishing as my mum walked in, with a look of confusion clearly visible on her face.

"You do know you've got to leave soon if you're going to be on time, Hollie." She looked around at the mess before speaking again. "You've lost something?"

"My phone." I knelt down to look under my bed again, for what seemed to be the tenth time this afternoon. Instead of a phone, all I was greeted with was dust, and a book that was probably about a year overdue from the library.

She thought for a second, before speaking again. "Didn't you have it with you when you got back from school? You were Facebooking or something?"

I thought for a second, searching through my mind for what I had with me as I walked in the door, and slowly but surely, one of the items was in fact my phone. I grinned, rushing forward to hug her, like she'd just found my pet hamster that ran under the floorboards when I was five.

And then it went back to the endless rushing around that I'd become accustomed to ever since I decided that I preferred sleep to being organised. The phone was thrown promptly inside my bag, and a hairbrush, portable charger (which probably was about 10% full) and a small coin purse with a quickly accumulating amount of penny coins, and not much else.

Finally, I seemed to be ready. Or close enough to, at least.

And before I knew it, I was running down the stairs in order to answer the door to Davie, or hopefully Davie, before a parent could get to it, ready prepared with a book of baby photos.

"You okay?" He asked as I shut the door, hearing the small lock click behind me. "Enjoying the weather?"

I laughed, looking up at the sky and realising the obvious chance of rain. What was new? "I'm good, I enjoyed the songs. However, the tape proved to be quite an interesting experience for both me, and the next door neighbours."

"Should I even ask?"  He replied, laughing slightly.

"Probably not." I laughed back, smiling. "All you need to know is their cat seemed to like the idea of sharing the cassette reel with the whole of the back garden." I paused. "And the front garden, to think of it."

Davie laughed, straightening the jacket he was wearing. He held out his hand and I returned the gesture, smiling.

"So, what's the plan then? Mysterious 'Friday' outing. I'm intrigued."

"A friend of mine. He's playing some music in the store tonight, he has a small following I guess. So I thought we could go along. Music themed things always seem to go down quite well with you."

"Correct." I replied as we continued to walk, now past the rows of endless houses and through the park that would lead us to the small rows of shops. "Though, to be honest, as long as we're not doing any kind of sport, I'm pretty fine with whatever we do."

He smiled, letting out a single laugh. My relationship with sports had never been good, and I had always been forward in admitting this. "Darn, that's paintballing out of the question then."

"Yes. It is." I joked. "But just for the record, I would beat you."

We carried on walking. It had got slightly darker since we'd left the house, with a mixture of the clouded, grey sky and the dark nights which were steadily creeping up on us ever since summer had finished. An odd number of streetlights lit the pathway, however, any kind of brightness they would have provided wouldn't have really been of any use for a few more hours, as the sun was still giving one last attempt at trying to provide some sort of light.

"Let's talk about the songs. Which ones did you like?" Davie asked, mentioning back to the playlist.

"The Twenty One Pilots, that was good. It was catchy. And the ukulele stuff was cool." I thought for a minute, trying to remember some of the songs that I had heard. "And the, what was it? A band, something about a theatre."

"Vinyl Theatre?"

"Yeah, them. They were the right level of techno." Davie laughed, meaning that I now had to explain my point, which was going to go miserably. "The point where the when beep-boop goes into, like..." I couldn't explain myself. "Yeah, nope. I'm going to stop there."

"On a scale of one to techno, how techno is too much techno?"

"I don't actually know." He replied. "It sounds like one of those woodchuck questions. Like, about as much techno as a woodchuck could chuck if it could chuck techno?"

A few streets later and we had arrived at the venue. It was a small building I'd been to before: once to see a band that some people Laura had knew, and a second time to participate in some kind of theatre skills workshop my school had laid on. Needless to say the second event did not end up well for me: I almost ended up falling off the stage due to tripping down some steps, and had a coughing fit during the warm up exercises.

"So, tell me about your friend?" I asked as we walked past the box office, Davie showing what seemed like two tickets he had brought before. "What kind of music does he play?"

"Mostly acoustic stuff. I met him in the store when he was flyering for a gig he was playing." He replied, answering my question.

The small standing area in front of the stage was already quite full. I didn't know when the gig was starting, presumably in about half an hour. It was quite a wide audience: there were quite a lot of people who looked older than us, and a few who looked younger.

"Do you want a drink, or some sweets or something?" Davie asked as we walked towards the bar area. I looked around, and bottles of water looked like the only thing that was being refrigerated. Water it was.

"I'll just have a bottle of water." I said as Davie repeated what I'd said to the guy behind the desk. I pulled my purse out of my bag, but by the time I had found it, Davie already had two bottles of water in his hand and a packet of Starburst. "Are you sure?" I asked. "I can pay, you know."

"But I want to." He smiled at me and passed me the water, as well as a sweet from the packet he'd just opened.

And sooner than I thought, the stage lights dimmed to white (well, slightly off white) and the music started to play.

---

AN - So, a lot seems to have changed since I've last published a chapter of this story. I have finished my GCSE exams, grown a year (and a half) older, and seen quite a few of the bands and singers I've mentioned in this book. I feel like I should apologise for the lack of updates, I kind of  felt stuck as to where to go with it, and still do, really. But thanks for sticking with this story so far. Not long left.

But Twenty One Pilots, my chaptered band of choice (?). I saw them earlier this month after what seemed like years and they did not disappoint. 11/10.

Also, before I end this super long authors note, I have just posted a short introduction to a short Christmas project I'm working on this year called 'Secret Santa'. Please do check it out, I'd be glad to hear your opinions!