She woke herself up.
“—did a collab with Tamaki-san that I really liked,” Cal was saying to Teddy, rousing Lia from the nap she’d taken in the very back seat of the van. Teddy’s equipment bumped against her, which was fine because there had been no other place for her to sit. Between a driver, a manager, and Cal and Teddy, Lia had been relegated to the backseat, where she had apparently cuddled some kind of box thing.
The massively wide highway, with trees that were just starting to change color, had given way to smaller, narrower streets now that she was awake. Buildings crowded and stuffed themselves into every available space, chasing their own piece of the city’s grey skies. The trees that lined the streets, in comparison, were just starting to turn, creating a strange palette of dull greys and blues with a touch of bright yellow green. People shuffled along the wide pedestrian streets, some already in jackets and sweaters, heads down and umbrellas out as a light rain sprinkled through the city.
Where had she heard this song before? The one playing in the car? Was she just coffee-deprived, or was it in Japanese?
“I listened to that one,” Teddy agreed, sitting in the captain’s seat to Lia’s right. “A KPop idol singing city pop and J-rock. It was actually very CoBOLT.”
Then the music changed. Cal was very clearly controlling the music playing in the car from his phone, and Lia recognized the song from the album art, because what Pinoy kid didn’t recognize the opening song ofGhost Fighterwhen it was playing? It was a classic that hit triple platinum on Lia’s CD player, with a pirated CD she’d begged her Dad to buy for her.A CD she’d listened to until it got all scratched up and skipped whenever she turned her head wrong.
“Anyway, that’s what I’ve been listening to lately,” Cal explained, tapping his fingers along to the song’s funk bass line. Lia didn’t have the vocabulary to describe the song outside of “nostalgic, funky, classic.” “Anime soundtracks from the nineties. I scratched up all my CDs, playing these songs on repeat.”
“So did Ate Lia.” Teddy chuckled, and Lia jerked in her seat like she’d forgotten she was actually in this car with them. “She used to cry in the middle of the pirated CD store just so Dad would buy her the anime soundtrack ones.”
“They were more expensive for some reason.” Lia grumbled.
“She used to burn CDs for her friends and make sleeves and CD covers.” Teddy continued, fully hammering the nail in Lia’s dorky schoolgirl persona. “She did that thing where they soaked the paper in coffee to look old?”
“I’m sitting right here,” she said from the backseat.
“Yes, I know. Youchoseto sit there.”
“Really now. I’m intrigued.” Cal twisted in his seat so he could look at her, and Lia was wearing the wrong sweatpants for this because she almost slid right off the leather seats in a bid to shrink under his gaze. He looked excited, and Lia recognized the look of someone hoping another fan was walking among them. “What songs were on those CDs?”
“I don’t remember, it was a long time ago.” Lies.
“A lot of Incubus. Imago,” Teddy said, and Lia narrowed her eyes to glare at her brother. As far as she remembered, her brother hadn’t paid any attention to the interests of her youth.
“The Fushigi Yuugi soundtrack,” he yapped on. “The opening of Hunter x Hunter and Flame of Recca. Spongecola. You had a Sugarfree phase too, ‘diba?”
“You were snooping on my files!” Lia gasped when she realized, because they only had one computer at home, and it probably didn’t take much to click over to the folders marked ‘LiA’s StUfF.’
“I liked the music in those shows.” Cal announced. “And the Rurouni Kenshin soundtrack.”
“It was a phase. A fangirl phase,” Lia said dismissively. He seemed disappointed, pouting and everything, and it was so cute, Lia wished she was holding a giant baby unicorn doll and choking it. Was that gigil or kilig? Or both? “I outgrew that.”
“I will never be mad at a fangirl phase,” Cal said, shrugging before turning to face forward again. “Fandoms run the world, after all.”
His world, maybe. Hers had long stopped revolving because she had an adult life to live, the real world to conquer. Girls shouldn’t waste time on loving things...for some reason.
Thankfully, Teddy was both a little shit and a single-minded, single-celled organism, and changed the subject. “How did your meeting with your CEO go?”
Was that something you just asked casually? Apparently, Teddy could. Cal shifted in his seat, and Lia wondered why she imagined him opening the door next to him and rolling out of this conversation. Could almost see him drop the idol persona all of a sudden, and Lia shouldn’t be hurt by that, but it did sting. A tiny bit.
Lia had to look away so she couldn’t see him run his hand through his hair, and also because this clearly wasn’t a conversation she was supposed to hear (but then again, she wasn’t a fan anymore). It was also so she didn’t ask herself what Cal’s hair smelled like.
Which might not be a mystery soon because they were on their way to his apartment so she could live in it, and suddenlyshe wanted to kill her brother all over again. Lia did not like having to panic, and she needed to find a hotel to stay in.
“They are expecting…a lot. At least double the sales of the last album, new endorsements, a music show win when we haven’t even performed since that last broadcast. They want this done in three months. Three months! For release by April next year.”
That was six months from now. Did they have a concept? A plan? A look?
“But you’re used to that pressure, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t have to handle it by myself before,” Cal admitted. Lia continued to look up hotels (but which neighborhood?). “Bomseok was the oldest, and he was just better at handling the company before. And he could keep me calm when I was panicking, and—anyway. I haven’t gotten a clear answer from them about the renewal, but they were not shy about letting me know they don’t have all that much planned for marketing.”
Of course you couldn’t make honey without bees. But Lia knew all too well that there were creative ways around it, things the band or the agency could do to push the album if they wanted to. She followed all the boys on social media, she didn’t remember seeing any announcement that the band lived on without Bomseok, that CoBOLT was still very much active.
