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keith_ltd2022-01-15 08:15 am
runawayballista) wrote in keith_ltd2022-01-15 08:15 am
Live at the Mile High Club! Chapter 8
Fandom: BanG Dream!, Scum Villain
Title: Live at the Mile High Club!
Summary: Shen Yuan confides in Shang Qinghua on her mixed feelings about Airplane's latest release. Shang Qinghua and cup noodles have a no good very bad night.
End notes
AO3 mirror
Shang Qinghua didn’t get home until late Thursday, but she found herself a little less soul-suckingly weary than usual. Actually, all things considered, she was in a pretty good mood.
The thing was, from the start, she’d gotten into music for herself: it was fun, she’d gotten the hang of composing with synths pretty easily after years of piano, and there was a distinct high that came from making things and getting people to pay attention to those things that she never stopped chasing. And she loved the art of it! Okay, so Peerless Cucumber would probably sooner choke on a guitar pick than call Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky a “real” “artist”, but if Shang Qinghua let every little hater get to her, she wouldn’t still be in the game. In her mind, a comment of praise weighed five times as much as a comment of negative criticism, so even if her fans and haters numbered the same, she’d still come out on top. She knew she’d keep making music even if no one listened, even if the music she made now was influenced by the response it received. No matter how many “fan request” tracks she churned out for extra cash, music would always be something she did because she actually really enjoyed it.
But it felt like she was seeing another side of it since the Mile High Club and its problems had been dropped in her lap. The idea that she was helping foster the growth of young musicians, of the entire Tokyo soundscape, was…a really fulfilling one, actually. Paying the bills was always on the forefront of her mind, and it was true that high school bands were easier to book these days than older and more established acts, but when she could get past that thought: it felt good to see these kids up on her stage, playing their hearts out. It felt good to think that when they were playing, they were influencing each other’s sound, learning and growing with one another.
Maybe the endless hustle was going to Shang Qinghua’s tired head, because when she thought about it for more than a minute, she started to get choked up at the idea. All those kids playing on that stage, so young and full of promise…they were almost like her children, if you thought about it, really!
Alright, so that was giving herself too much credit. But she’d actually sat down with Mobei Jun and jammed for a half an hour, even sent the stony-faced young bassist home with a fresh new hook to play with. If nothing else, the kids in Proud Immortal Demon Way were definitely her children! She could claim that much, okay!
High on that sweet satisfaction and a little giddy from it, Shang Qinghua decided to surprise her fans with an early release of this week’s track. A bit of a comeback, she thought, one of her most interesting and original pieces in a long time. It had felt so, so good to shake off that composer’s block, to have something come together so easily it felt like she was channeling some divine muse through her synth. Her haters would, predictably, probably hate it, but there really was no pleasing the kind of people who sucked on lemons for fun.
Yuka gave Shang Qinghua a highly suspicious look when she strolled into work whistling, but Shang Qinghua ignored it and proceeded to her office into which she then shut herself for a shockingly productive couple of hours. Yuka would be so impressed, if she could be bothered to care about Shang Qinghua’s logistical prowess, but that was fine. Shang Qinghua would be impressed for her. They might still be behind on the bills, but Shang Qinghua, perpetually broke, was great at cutting corners! They were inching back towards breaking even, bit by agonizing bit. All they had to do was keep that forward momentum going, and the Mile High Club might just make it.
When she finally emerged from her office for a snack break, Shen Yuan was sitting at one of the tables by the drink bar, hard at work. Well, Shang Qinghua assumed that frowning deeply at her laptop counted as hard at work. When had she shown up? Shang Qinghua was about to ask if she wanted something to drink when she saw that there was already a can of coffee on the table next to her laptop.
She caught Yuka’s sullen look from across the room and flashed her an enthusiastic thumbs up. Yuka’s expression flared into a glower, and she slammed the door to the studios shut behind her, a guitar case on her back. Ah, what a devoted employee! For all her bellyaching, Yuka was going along with the Shen Yuan schmooze plan. Shang Qinghua felt like doing a little victory lap. That was tantamount to Yuka admitting she was right about something, basically!
Her good mood unspoilable, Shang Qinghua dropped herself in a chair opposite Shen Yuan and grinned. “Finally got thirsty?”
Shen Yuan looked up, removed one earbud, and raised an eyebrow. Shang Qinghua shrugged, palms out.
“Haven’t seen you all week. I was starting to worry you’d never show your fan here ever again.”
Shang Qinghua grinned at her own stupid pun even as Shen Yuan rolled her eyes, but conceded to remove her other earbud. The truth was that Shang Qinghua hadn’t been that worried about it—that was partly a function of how busy she was, but Shen Yuan actually answered her DMs now! Granted, it was usually with incredibly short-worded responses, or worse, a single emoji, but that was fine. She didn’t need to be friends with Shen Yuan; she just had to stay on her radar.
“I have other places to be,” she said, and Shang Qinghua swore she was about to go for the fan, but instead she lifted the can of coffee in a delicate grip. Ahh, she was always just off the mark when it came to the himedere thing. You had to add that haughty little lift of the chin, pinky held daintily out, or the effect was totally ruined. Shang Qinghua flapped a hand.
“Sure, sure, all those other cafés that give you free drinks while you work, right?”
Shen Yuan let out a little pfft. “I don’t actually spend all day blogging, you know. I have a life.”
“Oh, yeah? You must be a real fast writer, then.” And a popular one, yes, Shang Qinghua had to concede. Maybe she really did have a life outside blogging, but it was hard to imagine. It wasn’t like Shen Yuan was a celebrity-level knockout or anything, but seeing her in person again, it was getting kind of hard to completely reconcile her cool, (kind of) elegant image with the fervent anti-fan whose comments Shang Qinghua had been reading for years. Disappointingly, she hadn’t seen a trace of the heated, contrary message-board-spamming nerd since the night of the Afterglow concert. Shen Yuan acted just as cool and distant towards Shang Qinghua has she had before those couple of drinks. If Shang Qinghua didn’t recall it so vividly, she might have been tricked into thinking she’d dreamed the whole conversation. The whole thing kind of gave her whiplash. Shang Qinghua might have been a loser, but at least she was consistent!
“Usually, yes.” Then, to Shang Qinghua’s surprised, Shen Yuan frowned.
When she neither continued nor put her earbuds back in, Shang Qinghua ventured, “Buuut…?”
Shen Yuan blew out a little sigh that puffed up her bangs for a second. Absent-mindedly patting them carefully back into place, she said with a trace of hesitation, “I’m just…having a little trouble with this post, that’s all.”
“Oh yeah?” Shang Qinghua leaned in, tenting her fingers. Yes, please, go on, tell her all about it! Maybe it was a little mean of her to be so eager to get a peep at Shen Yuan’s weak points, but could you really blame her? Either Shen Yuan really was that cool, or she spent a lot of time making it seem like she was that cool, and Shang Qinghua just really wanted to know which it was, okay!
Shen Yuan’s lips thinned, like she was really debating the merit of telling her problems to the loser who all but paid her to hang out here. “You read my blog, don’t you? So you must have read at least some of the posts about Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky.”
The little ball of glee dancing in Shang Qinghua’s chest immediately froze, as did the smile on her face. She couldn’t play dumb against a direct question like that! It’d be too suspicious!
“Ahaha…I mean, yeah, you do write about her kind of a lot, don’t you?”
Shen Yuan stiffened slightly, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I write about her music, when she releases it. I can’t control the fact that she releases something new every week. It’s ridiculous.”
Yes, sure, but no one said you have to write about it every week! There’s no reason you couldn’t do a monthly digest or something! Shang Qinghua kept her mouth shut on this point, however.
“So, what’s the big deal? I thought hating on Airplane’s music was like, second nature to you.”
“It’s not hating, it’s criticism.”
It was totally unfair that Shen Yuan could somehow maintain that dignified air while saying something so stupid. Shang Qinghua suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, kept her mouth shut, and let Shen Yuan keep talking.
“I call it like I see it. Airplane’s number one problem, overall? Consistency. She’s shown some promise, is the thing, but it’s mixed in with all the mindless drivel. It’d be so much less frustrating if it was unilaterally terrible. And when she finally does show some consistency, it’s a total disappointment. A few months ago, it was like all her real talent finally dried up, and everything she’s put out since has been almost unlistenable garbage.”
Shang Qinghua fought to keep her expression in place as she took ten thousand points of psychic damage. Ouch, okay, ouch! It was one thing reading about herself on Peerless Cucumber’s blog from the comfort of her rickety desk chair, rolling her eyes and snickering at the fervent criticism, but hearing it in person, straight from the cucumber’s mouth? Actually kind of mortifying!
She had to close her teeth against the flood of protests that immediately welled up in her throat. It had nothing to do with talent, okay! It’s just that her now full-time job has swallowed her whole and she’s been too busy bribing and begging you to help her save her business to make anything worth listening to!!
Besides, what about the single she’d just released! While Shang Qinghua could agree that her work lately wasn’t of the highest quality, she was pretty proud of yesterday’s release!
“Right,” Shang Qinghua said, and she even managed not to totally choke on the word. “So what’s the problem, then? If it’s all so, uh, totally trash, shouldn’t this be a cinch for you?”
Shen Yuan pursed her lips, her fingers closing around her coffee. “That’s the thing,” she said slowly, almost reluctantly. “It would be easy to write another one-star review if it was her usual trash. But she put out an early release yesterday and it’s…actually not terrible.”
Shang Qinghua’s heart skipped a beat.
Wait, hang on! Why would she get even a little bit worked up over a lukewarm compliment from Shen Yuan? Yes, yes, she was like a dog at the dinner table when it came to good reviews; she’d never pass up a single scrap of praise, no matter who it came from, but it wasn’t like Peerless Cucumber had never written a single nice thing about her music. So really, Shen Yuan acknowledging that a good song, already a huge hit with Airplane’s fanbase, “wasn’t terrible” wasn’t even that much of a compliment!
It was just that, much like with the criticism (“criticism”), it was different when Shen Yuan was sitting across the table from her in those stupid hipster glasses, with that stupid oh-so-cool and distant look, and saying it out loud. The effect was totally different, okay!
So why did she feel like she was taking another ten thousand points of psychic damage?!
Shang Qinghua, realizing she’d gone a little too long without a response, finally managed to say, “Ah, yeah? So what’s different about this new song?”
Shen Yuan frowned, gesturing vaguely with one hand while she tried to find the words. Shang Qinghua noticed, belatedly, that her fingernails were painted a pale shade of green, sensibly matte. “It just sounds…fresh. I haven’t figured out how to put it into words yet. Here—”
She pulled her phone out of her bag, offering her earbuds to Shang Qinghua. If this weren’t such a personally agonizing situation for Shang Qinghua, this might have been kind of a cute gesture, even from Shen Yuan. Especially from Shen Yuan, since she channeled that cool and aloof vibe so hard! But as it was, the prospect of listening to her own music in front of an expectant Shen Yuan was a little too much to bear, and she actually jumped back, her chair scraping against the floor with an ugly squeal.
“Uh, aha, thanks, but I can listen to it later!” Shang Qinghua cleared her throat, mindful of the strange look she was getting from Shen Yuan, and slapped a bland smile over her face. “I mean, I’ll totally listen to it later. But I kinda want to hear what you think of it first.”
No, she didn’t! She really didn’t! In fact, Shang Qinghua was currently contemplating what limb she had to gnaw off to escape this conversation. But what else was she supposed to say? She didn’t have any good options here!
Shen Yuan frowned at Shang Qinghua, then down at her earbuds, with the air of someone faintly offended but too graceful to show it. She slid her phone back into her purse. “It’s just…got a certain energy. Maybe it’s the beat that’s different. Airplane tends to favor bland backbeats—she might as well just set some of her music to a metronome, you’d barely notice—but this is…more dynamic sounding? Ah, no, but a good beat isn’t enough to make a mediocre track actually listenable. And if it were just the instrumentation that were different, it’d be no better than palette swapping bad monster designs. It’s more like…”
She gestured uselessly a little more, then huffed out a sigh. “Well, if I could put it into words so easily, I wouldn’t be having such a hard time writing this post.”
“Ah,” Shang Qinghua said distantly, rubbing her jaw, “yeah. Makes sense.”
Her mouth was oddly dry, and her stomach was starting to feel like it was trying to digest itself. Really, she should make some excuse for work—it wasn’t like she didn’t have plenty to do!—now was the time to exit this conversation if there was one. But Shang Qinghua felt rooted to the spot, and didn’t get up from her chair, instead saying, “Is it more like, I dunno…like she’s returning to her roots as an artist?”
Shen Yuan blinked, touching a finger to her chin in thought. Her brow furrowed slightly. “Actually…that is an apt way of putting it, yes.”
Shang Qinghua immediately wanted to bite off her own tongue and swallow it whole. Why! Would she say something! So stupid! And so on point! She already confirmed that she’d, technically, never even listened to this song, not to mention, she’d really never claimed to be a fan of Airplane’s in the first place! No matter how you looked at it, it was suspicious!
But if Shen Yuan suspected anything at all, she didn’t show it. Her eyes actually brightened; it made her look a little less distant. Her fan had found its way into her hand again, and she was tapping it against her palm with a thoughtful look.
“That’s exactly it—it doesn’t feel like she’s breaking into totally new territory; it feels familiar. It sounds sort of like she’s rediscovered the things about her music that actually make it good. All of her recent releases have felt so stale, even her covers—I mean, how do you make a Hare Hare Yukai dance mix sound so flat?—but this week’s single…it’s almost like Airplane managed to breathe a little life back into her music.”
Shang Qinghua had to swallow a hysterical, high-pitched sound that rose from her throat. A tiny, strangled squeak managed to escape, but Shen Yuan either didn’t notice or pretended not to. Shang Qinghua felt like her head was caving in, like the feeling you got crossing your eyes for too long, but on the level of her entire brain. Such unequivocal praise (cover comments aside) should be pure elation, and it kind of was, but at the same time, she was possessed with the powerful desire to run screaming from this conversation. Hahahaha, what the fuck???
Of course she wanted Peerless Cucumber to give her a good review every once in a while, who wouldn’t, but this third party confessional was way too weird! Would Shen Yuan ever actually say any of this if she knew she was talking to Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky in the flesh? It was really asking way too much of her to take this with a straight face!
But before Shang Qinghua could crack, Shen Yuan’s brows drew down and she sat back. “But I can’t just write that.”
Shang Qinghu snapped out of her cognitive dissonance. “What? Why not?”
Shen Yuan snapped her fan open, and this time, Shang Qinghua had the distinct impression that she was hiding behind it. Her shoulders were even ever-so-slightly hunched. “I have standards to uphold, you know. I’ve been giving Airplane one-star reviews for months now. If I start giving her positive reviews all of a sudden, my f—my readers might think my integrity as a critic has been compromised.”
Shang Qinghua couldn’t help but stare. “But you just said it was a good track!”
“I said it was not terrible,” Shen Yuan sniffed. “It certainly doesn’t merit a rave review.”
Shang Qinghua’s soul emitted a sound like a deflating balloon. It doesn’t have to be a rave review, you could just write what you just said to me! Besides, if you pretend to hate music you actually think is good, how is that not compromising your integrity as a critic!
But Shang Qinghua bit back every one of these comments. If she argued, she’d seem way too invested in Airplane’s music and Peerless Cucumber’s opinion of it, and that would definitely be suspicious. Swallowing her pride along with a confusing tangle of other feelings, she made a vague noise of concession, and when it seemed safe, changed the topic.
“So…I’ll see you tomorrow night, right?”
The standing offer had implied that Shen Yuan would come to more than just one show, and they needed more than just a special appearance to build a reputation. It was lazy and a little disdainful to hitch the Mile High Club’s reputation to Shen Yuan’s coattails, but Shang Qinghua had long since surrendered her compunctions. Shen Yuan tilted her head behind her fan.
“Is ochawari still on the menu?”
Shang Qinghua snorted. “Yeah, nobody else drinks that stuff. What are you, an old man? Besides, this is a live house. People mostly just order beer.”
Shen Yuan’s eyebrow twitched, but she only said, “Mm. Well, if you managed to pull together a lineup for this weekend…”
Shang Qinghua grinned. “Sure did, and no last minute auditions this time! I mean, we don’t have any stand-out bands like Afterglow on the roster, but, you know, better than an empty stage, right?”
“I wouldn’t show up for an empty stage,” Shen Yuan said primly, which Shang Qinghua took as a yes. Keenly aware of how much work she still had to do and desperately afraid of being sucked into another conversation about her own music, she quickly got out of Shen Yuan’s hair and headed back for the practice studios, so she could scream into a pillow in the comfort of a soundproofed room.
When Peerless Cucumber’s review of Airplane’s new single went up, it was, to Shang Qinghua’s surprise, a grudgingly positive review. Well, lukewarm was probably a better word for it, but for all of Shen Yuan’s fussing about her reputation, she’d included the reflections on Airplane’s revived sound that she’d discussed with Shang Qinghua, if a little less flatteringly worded.
Ah, so you really do like to draft your blog posts out loud!
Reading her review didn’t have the same stupefying effect on Shang Qinghua as discussing it in person, and she brushed it off as the shock of having that experience for the first time. She’d definitely handle it way better next time, if it ever came up again.
At any rate, she was still riding the creative high she’d had going for the last few days. She had a classic Caramelldansen remix lined up for next week—you had to pad out the good ones, you couldn’t turn out a masterpiece every week—but she was steadily building a pile of very promising musical sketches. Filling them in was always the most fun part, seeing what she could stitch together and what she could extrapolate and expand. Composing music was almost like solving a puzzle sometimes, and it was immensely satisfying.
She spent a couple of hours after the show on Saturday just dicking around on her keyboard and recording sketches, a few set aside for experimentation with her concept album. She was still squeezing in time for that where she could. Around 3am, once her brain had started interpreting all music as a drawn-out drone, she settled in at her laptop and messed around with six tabs’ worth of picrews. She was developing a new OC for the album, but she really couldn’t afford to commission a character design right now. The problem with using these things for reference was that they almost always had a vast selection, but were missing one crucial detail or another! It was going to be a challenge to make a model without a proper reference. Ah, but she’d figure it out one way or another.
She treated herself to a spicy new flavor of ramen as a late night (early morning) snack. This was the last of the cup noodles, with the little dried veggies she liked…after this it was back to packet ramen, where she’d have to supply any other ingredients herself (she wouldn’t), and it was slightly more work. Ah, her life was so hard!
But, even sitting in her cramped apartment in a t-shirt so threadbare it could barely be counted as decent, she laughed out loud at that thought. Yeah, sure, she definitely didn’t have it easy, but lately, things were going pretty alright. Maybe not everything was coming up Airplane, but the situation at the live house was improving.
Slurping up her noodles, she relaxed by fractions, letting in a long breath she must have been holding for weeks now. She’d been working so hard lately; didn’t she deserve a little break? She couldn’t afford to go out, much as she was feeling in the karaoke mood…but singing in her apartment was free!
She had the decency to put earbuds in at least, and even tried to keep her voice down for her neighbors’ sake. They’d complained without restraint the last time she’d stayed up late; apparently her brainless laughter had penetrated the thin walls that separated their apartments. Shang Qinghua wanted to point out that they were far from quiet when they were making love (if you could call it that), but that might leave both parties with too little face, and at any rate, her neighbors’ glares had her sufficiently cowed. But she’d keep her voice down as a courtesy, so you couldn’t say she was a bad neighbor, okay!
But her restraint only lasted a few songs. She’d added a few of Afterglow’s songs to her apartment karaoke playlist, because their music really was good and it was perfect for belting out just a little off-key, and by the time she hit Y.O.LO.!!!, she was at full volume. Her neighbors were knocking angrily on the walls, but with her headphones turned up, she couldn’t hear them, too absorbed in her frantic air drumming. Man, that Tomoe really knew how to lay down a good beat! She supposed it was to be expected of a band that had been together since their middle school days, but really, no matter how you looked at it, they were pretty impressive for a high school band!
She was too absorbed in wailing on her air guitar to realize how precariously close to her desk she was until she backed right up against her chair. It slammed into the desk, jostling it hard, and her still-steaming cup of noodles toppled over onto her open laptop.
“Fuck!”
Afterglow still blaring in her ears, she fumbled with trying to pull out her earbuds and rescue her laptop at the same time. She succeeded mainly in tangling her left hand in the cable for her headphones and half-lifting her laptop in her right before she lost her grip and it crashed back down to the desk. The styrofoam cup, with its remaining broth and noodles, sailed off the desk and directly onto her very old and not entirely up-to-code power strip.
It was probably just as well that she dropped her laptop, because as the power strip sparked and smoked, a frantic current of electricity surged up through the laptop’s power cord and snuffed the life out of her computer with an alarming zap. A second later, tiny tendrils of gray smoke began to creep out from the spaces between the keys.
“Ohhh fuck, oh no, fuck fuck fuck—”
Shang Qinghua devolved into a garbled yell of protest, dancing in place, reaching for her laptop then withdrawing her hand, afraid of getting zapped in turn. With a horrible sick sinking feeling, she had to conclude that it was beyond saving. Shang Qinghua pressed F in her heart.
It wasn’t until she turned around to pick up the spilled cup that she realized the power strip had caught fire.
Fuck!!!
What started out as a few angry sparks quickly caught on the pile of dirty laundry next to (almost on top of) the power strip, thick smoke filling the air. Shang Qinghua instinctively lunged to pull the broth-soaked plug from the outlet with—wait, fuck, not with her bare hands! She didn’t have a death wish, okay! She instead grabbed a not-on-fire sweater that had seen better days, wrapped it around the base of the plug, and yanked it free.
It hadn’t been that hard to pull out, but Shang Qinghua let go immediately and tumbled back onto her ass, narrowly avoiding being burned by the fire that was quickly spreading through her cramped apartment. She scrambled away from the dirty laundry bonfire as her stupid, tired, panicked brain racked itself for next steps. What the fuck do you do when you set your own apartment on fire with cup noodles! Who even does that! Of course, if this had to happen to anyone, it had to happen to her!
The smoke alarm was already blaring by the time she remembered where the fire extinguisher was (hanging on the narrow sliver of wall next to her fridge) and she fumbled with it uselessly until she remembered there were instructions on the side of the fucking thing. She could hear her neighbors flooding the corridor, a muffled murmur of confusion, alarm, and irritation. It was indeed really fucking alarming how quickly the smoke was filling her apartment, stinging at her eyes, as she finally managed to release a burst of fire retardant foam, but the fire was already climbing up the nearest bookshelf, claiming years of collected music magazines, manga, and scorebooks. And at the top—ah, no! Not her best girls!! At this rate, they’d be reduced to multicolored blobs of plastic.
When the coughs turned to gasps, she gave up, dropped the fire extinguisher, realized it might explode if she left it here, picked it back up, and ran out of her apartment in bare feet. It didn’t occur to her that she should have grabbed a robe, because as she filed outside with the rest of the building, she was the only one not wearing pants. At least she was wearing a shirt this time?
It was already apparent to her nearest neighbors by the smell of smoke soaked into her hair, the fire extinguisher she was clutching in her shaking arms, and her general reputation that she was the source of the late-night disturbance. Shang Qinghua smiled with desperate, nervous apology at her neighbors, an increasing number of whom were giving her dirty looks sharp enough to kill. Augh, this really was the true meaning of “glaring daggers”!!
Her neighbors were restrained by courtesy from going off on her, though she could tell that some of them really, really wanted to. She was probably only saved by the fact that, in the end, aside from the lingering perfume of heavy smoke, the only real damage had been to her own apartment. Shang Qinghua was lucky there was even an apartment to go back to; at least the damage hadn’t been absolute. But no level of courtesy could save her from her landlady, who made it clear that she was through tolerating Shang Qinghua’s rent delinquency, and if she didn’t pay up what she owed plus damages for the fire, she could start packing what was left of her belongings up and be out of there in thirty days.
Swallowing a fat lump of panic, misery and tears, Shang Qinghua hurriedly promised to send her landlady everything she owed in the morning and trudged up to her apartment to assess the damage. The smell of smoke and burned plastic would probably take days to air out through the tiny windows, but that was the least of her concerns. Her desk had been destroyed and her laptop along with it, and the fire had totally devoured one bookshelf and gotten halfway through the next one; only a few of her treasured anime figures still remained unscathed. Shang Qinghua estimated a conservative half of her small wardrobe had survived the fire, but with so much of it heaped in varying piles around her apartment, it was hard to tell. The only true miracle was that, with the exception of an aged Yamaha keyboard, her instruments were still intact. Not that a pile of synths and MIDI controllers did her any good without a computer, but…still. And while the keyboard hadn’t been a huge material loss, it’d held some sentimental value. She didn’t use it much these days, but it was the first instrument she’d ever bought herself, and she’d kept it around for nostalgia's sake. Ah, a brave sacrifice to keep its brethren safe, for sure…
She was too frazzled to think straight anymore. She hadn’t shaken the panic attack that had bubbled up on her flight from the building, and it still churned hot and sick in the pit of her stomach. Every time she even began to think about what she’d have to do now, she was so bowled over by the enormity of the situation that her brain promptly shorted out into tears. Shang Qinghua lay on her singed futon alternating between crying and coughing for an hour before she decided she was sick of smelling like smoke.
She zoned out so hard in the shower as soon as she finished washing her hair that she failed to notice the passage of time at all until the water ran cold. She managed to wash the smell out of her hair, but unfortunately her towels smelled plenty like smoke, and the clothes she scrounged together even more so. By the time she dropped herself back onto her futon, eyes rimmed red and mouth dry, dawn was already peeking through her shuttered windows.
Fuck it. There was no way she was going to sleep now, and she had to be at work later anyway; all that was going to happen between now and then was more stomach-gnawing over her finances. And her career! The Mile High Club aside, how was she supposed to make any music without a fucking computer! Just thinking about all the work she’d lost—the handful of buffer tracks she’d managed to produce, the half dozen or so sketches in the works—was enough to send her into tears again. She was already feeding the Mile High Club’s finances with her meager private funds; if Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky went on hiatus, that revenue stream was going to dry up real quick. There were so many places she really needed to be putting money she was no longer about to have, and her head felt like it was going to cave in.
Her furious stomach finally won out, and Shang Qinghua lurched from her futon to the bathroom in a single wild leap that immediately felt like a mistake. Her internal monologue was a mix of a steady mantra of fuck fuck fuck and a mental cascade of spreadsheets she didn’t even ask for as she threw up what little she’d eaten—ah, that precious last cup of noodles! She really had to stop eating the spicy stuff, whichever end it came out, it usually resulted in agony, but couldn’t the universe cut her a break! Just! This! Once!
End notes:all good things must come to an end for shang qinghua (for now)
anyway Y.O.L.O!!! is a bop
Title: Live at the Mile High Club!
Summary: Shen Yuan confides in Shang Qinghua on her mixed feelings about Airplane's latest release. Shang Qinghua and cup noodles have a no good very bad night.
End notes
AO3 mirror
Shang Qinghua didn’t get home until late Thursday, but she found herself a little less soul-suckingly weary than usual. Actually, all things considered, she was in a pretty good mood.
The thing was, from the start, she’d gotten into music for herself: it was fun, she’d gotten the hang of composing with synths pretty easily after years of piano, and there was a distinct high that came from making things and getting people to pay attention to those things that she never stopped chasing. And she loved the art of it! Okay, so Peerless Cucumber would probably sooner choke on a guitar pick than call Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky a “real” “artist”, but if Shang Qinghua let every little hater get to her, she wouldn’t still be in the game. In her mind, a comment of praise weighed five times as much as a comment of negative criticism, so even if her fans and haters numbered the same, she’d still come out on top. She knew she’d keep making music even if no one listened, even if the music she made now was influenced by the response it received. No matter how many “fan request” tracks she churned out for extra cash, music would always be something she did because she actually really enjoyed it.
But it felt like she was seeing another side of it since the Mile High Club and its problems had been dropped in her lap. The idea that she was helping foster the growth of young musicians, of the entire Tokyo soundscape, was…a really fulfilling one, actually. Paying the bills was always on the forefront of her mind, and it was true that high school bands were easier to book these days than older and more established acts, but when she could get past that thought: it felt good to see these kids up on her stage, playing their hearts out. It felt good to think that when they were playing, they were influencing each other’s sound, learning and growing with one another.
Maybe the endless hustle was going to Shang Qinghua’s tired head, because when she thought about it for more than a minute, she started to get choked up at the idea. All those kids playing on that stage, so young and full of promise…they were almost like her children, if you thought about it, really!
Alright, so that was giving herself too much credit. But she’d actually sat down with Mobei Jun and jammed for a half an hour, even sent the stony-faced young bassist home with a fresh new hook to play with. If nothing else, the kids in Proud Immortal Demon Way were definitely her children! She could claim that much, okay!
High on that sweet satisfaction and a little giddy from it, Shang Qinghua decided to surprise her fans with an early release of this week’s track. A bit of a comeback, she thought, one of her most interesting and original pieces in a long time. It had felt so, so good to shake off that composer’s block, to have something come together so easily it felt like she was channeling some divine muse through her synth. Her haters would, predictably, probably hate it, but there really was no pleasing the kind of people who sucked on lemons for fun.
Yuka gave Shang Qinghua a highly suspicious look when she strolled into work whistling, but Shang Qinghua ignored it and proceeded to her office into which she then shut herself for a shockingly productive couple of hours. Yuka would be so impressed, if she could be bothered to care about Shang Qinghua’s logistical prowess, but that was fine. Shang Qinghua would be impressed for her. They might still be behind on the bills, but Shang Qinghua, perpetually broke, was great at cutting corners! They were inching back towards breaking even, bit by agonizing bit. All they had to do was keep that forward momentum going, and the Mile High Club might just make it.
When she finally emerged from her office for a snack break, Shen Yuan was sitting at one of the tables by the drink bar, hard at work. Well, Shang Qinghua assumed that frowning deeply at her laptop counted as hard at work. When had she shown up? Shang Qinghua was about to ask if she wanted something to drink when she saw that there was already a can of coffee on the table next to her laptop.
She caught Yuka’s sullen look from across the room and flashed her an enthusiastic thumbs up. Yuka’s expression flared into a glower, and she slammed the door to the studios shut behind her, a guitar case on her back. Ah, what a devoted employee! For all her bellyaching, Yuka was going along with the Shen Yuan schmooze plan. Shang Qinghua felt like doing a little victory lap. That was tantamount to Yuka admitting she was right about something, basically!
Her good mood unspoilable, Shang Qinghua dropped herself in a chair opposite Shen Yuan and grinned. “Finally got thirsty?”
Shen Yuan looked up, removed one earbud, and raised an eyebrow. Shang Qinghua shrugged, palms out.
“Haven’t seen you all week. I was starting to worry you’d never show your fan here ever again.”
Shang Qinghua grinned at her own stupid pun even as Shen Yuan rolled her eyes, but conceded to remove her other earbud. The truth was that Shang Qinghua hadn’t been that worried about it—that was partly a function of how busy she was, but Shen Yuan actually answered her DMs now! Granted, it was usually with incredibly short-worded responses, or worse, a single emoji, but that was fine. She didn’t need to be friends with Shen Yuan; she just had to stay on her radar.
“I have other places to be,” she said, and Shang Qinghua swore she was about to go for the fan, but instead she lifted the can of coffee in a delicate grip. Ahh, she was always just off the mark when it came to the himedere thing. You had to add that haughty little lift of the chin, pinky held daintily out, or the effect was totally ruined. Shang Qinghua flapped a hand.
“Sure, sure, all those other cafés that give you free drinks while you work, right?”
Shen Yuan let out a little pfft. “I don’t actually spend all day blogging, you know. I have a life.”
“Oh, yeah? You must be a real fast writer, then.” And a popular one, yes, Shang Qinghua had to concede. Maybe she really did have a life outside blogging, but it was hard to imagine. It wasn’t like Shen Yuan was a celebrity-level knockout or anything, but seeing her in person again, it was getting kind of hard to completely reconcile her cool, (kind of) elegant image with the fervent anti-fan whose comments Shang Qinghua had been reading for years. Disappointingly, she hadn’t seen a trace of the heated, contrary message-board-spamming nerd since the night of the Afterglow concert. Shen Yuan acted just as cool and distant towards Shang Qinghua has she had before those couple of drinks. If Shang Qinghua didn’t recall it so vividly, she might have been tricked into thinking she’d dreamed the whole conversation. The whole thing kind of gave her whiplash. Shang Qinghua might have been a loser, but at least she was consistent!
“Usually, yes.” Then, to Shang Qinghua’s surprised, Shen Yuan frowned.
When she neither continued nor put her earbuds back in, Shang Qinghua ventured, “Buuut…?”
Shen Yuan blew out a little sigh that puffed up her bangs for a second. Absent-mindedly patting them carefully back into place, she said with a trace of hesitation, “I’m just…having a little trouble with this post, that’s all.”
“Oh yeah?” Shang Qinghua leaned in, tenting her fingers. Yes, please, go on, tell her all about it! Maybe it was a little mean of her to be so eager to get a peep at Shen Yuan’s weak points, but could you really blame her? Either Shen Yuan really was that cool, or she spent a lot of time making it seem like she was that cool, and Shang Qinghua just really wanted to know which it was, okay!
Shen Yuan’s lips thinned, like she was really debating the merit of telling her problems to the loser who all but paid her to hang out here. “You read my blog, don’t you? So you must have read at least some of the posts about Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky.”
The little ball of glee dancing in Shang Qinghua’s chest immediately froze, as did the smile on her face. She couldn’t play dumb against a direct question like that! It’d be too suspicious!
“Ahaha…I mean, yeah, you do write about her kind of a lot, don’t you?”
Shen Yuan stiffened slightly, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I write about her music, when she releases it. I can’t control the fact that she releases something new every week. It’s ridiculous.”
Yes, sure, but no one said you have to write about it every week! There’s no reason you couldn’t do a monthly digest or something! Shang Qinghua kept her mouth shut on this point, however.
“So, what’s the big deal? I thought hating on Airplane’s music was like, second nature to you.”
“It’s not hating, it’s criticism.”
It was totally unfair that Shen Yuan could somehow maintain that dignified air while saying something so stupid. Shang Qinghua suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, kept her mouth shut, and let Shen Yuan keep talking.
“I call it like I see it. Airplane’s number one problem, overall? Consistency. She’s shown some promise, is the thing, but it’s mixed in with all the mindless drivel. It’d be so much less frustrating if it was unilaterally terrible. And when she finally does show some consistency, it’s a total disappointment. A few months ago, it was like all her real talent finally dried up, and everything she’s put out since has been almost unlistenable garbage.”
Shang Qinghua fought to keep her expression in place as she took ten thousand points of psychic damage. Ouch, okay, ouch! It was one thing reading about herself on Peerless Cucumber’s blog from the comfort of her rickety desk chair, rolling her eyes and snickering at the fervent criticism, but hearing it in person, straight from the cucumber’s mouth? Actually kind of mortifying!
She had to close her teeth against the flood of protests that immediately welled up in her throat. It had nothing to do with talent, okay! It’s just that her now full-time job has swallowed her whole and she’s been too busy bribing and begging you to help her save her business to make anything worth listening to!!
Besides, what about the single she’d just released! While Shang Qinghua could agree that her work lately wasn’t of the highest quality, she was pretty proud of yesterday’s release!
“Right,” Shang Qinghua said, and she even managed not to totally choke on the word. “So what’s the problem, then? If it’s all so, uh, totally trash, shouldn’t this be a cinch for you?”
Shen Yuan pursed her lips, her fingers closing around her coffee. “That’s the thing,” she said slowly, almost reluctantly. “It would be easy to write another one-star review if it was her usual trash. But she put out an early release yesterday and it’s…actually not terrible.”
Shang Qinghua’s heart skipped a beat.
Wait, hang on! Why would she get even a little bit worked up over a lukewarm compliment from Shen Yuan? Yes, yes, she was like a dog at the dinner table when it came to good reviews; she’d never pass up a single scrap of praise, no matter who it came from, but it wasn’t like Peerless Cucumber had never written a single nice thing about her music. So really, Shen Yuan acknowledging that a good song, already a huge hit with Airplane’s fanbase, “wasn’t terrible” wasn’t even that much of a compliment!
It was just that, much like with the criticism (“criticism”), it was different when Shen Yuan was sitting across the table from her in those stupid hipster glasses, with that stupid oh-so-cool and distant look, and saying it out loud. The effect was totally different, okay!
So why did she feel like she was taking another ten thousand points of psychic damage?!
Shang Qinghua, realizing she’d gone a little too long without a response, finally managed to say, “Ah, yeah? So what’s different about this new song?”
Shen Yuan frowned, gesturing vaguely with one hand while she tried to find the words. Shang Qinghua noticed, belatedly, that her fingernails were painted a pale shade of green, sensibly matte. “It just sounds…fresh. I haven’t figured out how to put it into words yet. Here—”
She pulled her phone out of her bag, offering her earbuds to Shang Qinghua. If this weren’t such a personally agonizing situation for Shang Qinghua, this might have been kind of a cute gesture, even from Shen Yuan. Especially from Shen Yuan, since she channeled that cool and aloof vibe so hard! But as it was, the prospect of listening to her own music in front of an expectant Shen Yuan was a little too much to bear, and she actually jumped back, her chair scraping against the floor with an ugly squeal.
“Uh, aha, thanks, but I can listen to it later!” Shang Qinghua cleared her throat, mindful of the strange look she was getting from Shen Yuan, and slapped a bland smile over her face. “I mean, I’ll totally listen to it later. But I kinda want to hear what you think of it first.”
No, she didn’t! She really didn’t! In fact, Shang Qinghua was currently contemplating what limb she had to gnaw off to escape this conversation. But what else was she supposed to say? She didn’t have any good options here!
Shen Yuan frowned at Shang Qinghua, then down at her earbuds, with the air of someone faintly offended but too graceful to show it. She slid her phone back into her purse. “It’s just…got a certain energy. Maybe it’s the beat that’s different. Airplane tends to favor bland backbeats—she might as well just set some of her music to a metronome, you’d barely notice—but this is…more dynamic sounding? Ah, no, but a good beat isn’t enough to make a mediocre track actually listenable. And if it were just the instrumentation that were different, it’d be no better than palette swapping bad monster designs. It’s more like…”
She gestured uselessly a little more, then huffed out a sigh. “Well, if I could put it into words so easily, I wouldn’t be having such a hard time writing this post.”
“Ah,” Shang Qinghua said distantly, rubbing her jaw, “yeah. Makes sense.”
Her mouth was oddly dry, and her stomach was starting to feel like it was trying to digest itself. Really, she should make some excuse for work—it wasn’t like she didn’t have plenty to do!—now was the time to exit this conversation if there was one. But Shang Qinghua felt rooted to the spot, and didn’t get up from her chair, instead saying, “Is it more like, I dunno…like she’s returning to her roots as an artist?”
Shen Yuan blinked, touching a finger to her chin in thought. Her brow furrowed slightly. “Actually…that is an apt way of putting it, yes.”
Shang Qinghua immediately wanted to bite off her own tongue and swallow it whole. Why! Would she say something! So stupid! And so on point! She already confirmed that she’d, technically, never even listened to this song, not to mention, she’d really never claimed to be a fan of Airplane’s in the first place! No matter how you looked at it, it was suspicious!
But if Shen Yuan suspected anything at all, she didn’t show it. Her eyes actually brightened; it made her look a little less distant. Her fan had found its way into her hand again, and she was tapping it against her palm with a thoughtful look.
“That’s exactly it—it doesn’t feel like she’s breaking into totally new territory; it feels familiar. It sounds sort of like she’s rediscovered the things about her music that actually make it good. All of her recent releases have felt so stale, even her covers—I mean, how do you make a Hare Hare Yukai dance mix sound so flat?—but this week’s single…it’s almost like Airplane managed to breathe a little life back into her music.”
Shang Qinghua had to swallow a hysterical, high-pitched sound that rose from her throat. A tiny, strangled squeak managed to escape, but Shen Yuan either didn’t notice or pretended not to. Shang Qinghua felt like her head was caving in, like the feeling you got crossing your eyes for too long, but on the level of her entire brain. Such unequivocal praise (cover comments aside) should be pure elation, and it kind of was, but at the same time, she was possessed with the powerful desire to run screaming from this conversation. Hahahaha, what the fuck???
Of course she wanted Peerless Cucumber to give her a good review every once in a while, who wouldn’t, but this third party confessional was way too weird! Would Shen Yuan ever actually say any of this if she knew she was talking to Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky in the flesh? It was really asking way too much of her to take this with a straight face!
But before Shang Qinghua could crack, Shen Yuan’s brows drew down and she sat back. “But I can’t just write that.”
Shang Qinghu snapped out of her cognitive dissonance. “What? Why not?”
Shen Yuan snapped her fan open, and this time, Shang Qinghua had the distinct impression that she was hiding behind it. Her shoulders were even ever-so-slightly hunched. “I have standards to uphold, you know. I’ve been giving Airplane one-star reviews for months now. If I start giving her positive reviews all of a sudden, my f—my readers might think my integrity as a critic has been compromised.”
Shang Qinghua couldn’t help but stare. “But you just said it was a good track!”
“I said it was not terrible,” Shen Yuan sniffed. “It certainly doesn’t merit a rave review.”
Shang Qinghua’s soul emitted a sound like a deflating balloon. It doesn’t have to be a rave review, you could just write what you just said to me! Besides, if you pretend to hate music you actually think is good, how is that not compromising your integrity as a critic!
But Shang Qinghua bit back every one of these comments. If she argued, she’d seem way too invested in Airplane’s music and Peerless Cucumber’s opinion of it, and that would definitely be suspicious. Swallowing her pride along with a confusing tangle of other feelings, she made a vague noise of concession, and when it seemed safe, changed the topic.
“So…I’ll see you tomorrow night, right?”
The standing offer had implied that Shen Yuan would come to more than just one show, and they needed more than just a special appearance to build a reputation. It was lazy and a little disdainful to hitch the Mile High Club’s reputation to Shen Yuan’s coattails, but Shang Qinghua had long since surrendered her compunctions. Shen Yuan tilted her head behind her fan.
“Is ochawari still on the menu?”
Shang Qinghua snorted. “Yeah, nobody else drinks that stuff. What are you, an old man? Besides, this is a live house. People mostly just order beer.”
Shen Yuan’s eyebrow twitched, but she only said, “Mm. Well, if you managed to pull together a lineup for this weekend…”
Shang Qinghua grinned. “Sure did, and no last minute auditions this time! I mean, we don’t have any stand-out bands like Afterglow on the roster, but, you know, better than an empty stage, right?”
“I wouldn’t show up for an empty stage,” Shen Yuan said primly, which Shang Qinghua took as a yes. Keenly aware of how much work she still had to do and desperately afraid of being sucked into another conversation about her own music, she quickly got out of Shen Yuan’s hair and headed back for the practice studios, so she could scream into a pillow in the comfort of a soundproofed room.
When Peerless Cucumber’s review of Airplane’s new single went up, it was, to Shang Qinghua’s surprise, a grudgingly positive review. Well, lukewarm was probably a better word for it, but for all of Shen Yuan’s fussing about her reputation, she’d included the reflections on Airplane’s revived sound that she’d discussed with Shang Qinghua, if a little less flatteringly worded.
Ah, so you really do like to draft your blog posts out loud!
Reading her review didn’t have the same stupefying effect on Shang Qinghua as discussing it in person, and she brushed it off as the shock of having that experience for the first time. She’d definitely handle it way better next time, if it ever came up again.
At any rate, she was still riding the creative high she’d had going for the last few days. She had a classic Caramelldansen remix lined up for next week—you had to pad out the good ones, you couldn’t turn out a masterpiece every week—but she was steadily building a pile of very promising musical sketches. Filling them in was always the most fun part, seeing what she could stitch together and what she could extrapolate and expand. Composing music was almost like solving a puzzle sometimes, and it was immensely satisfying.
She spent a couple of hours after the show on Saturday just dicking around on her keyboard and recording sketches, a few set aside for experimentation with her concept album. She was still squeezing in time for that where she could. Around 3am, once her brain had started interpreting all music as a drawn-out drone, she settled in at her laptop and messed around with six tabs’ worth of picrews. She was developing a new OC for the album, but she really couldn’t afford to commission a character design right now. The problem with using these things for reference was that they almost always had a vast selection, but were missing one crucial detail or another! It was going to be a challenge to make a model without a proper reference. Ah, but she’d figure it out one way or another.
She treated herself to a spicy new flavor of ramen as a late night (early morning) snack. This was the last of the cup noodles, with the little dried veggies she liked…after this it was back to packet ramen, where she’d have to supply any other ingredients herself (she wouldn’t), and it was slightly more work. Ah, her life was so hard!
But, even sitting in her cramped apartment in a t-shirt so threadbare it could barely be counted as decent, she laughed out loud at that thought. Yeah, sure, she definitely didn’t have it easy, but lately, things were going pretty alright. Maybe not everything was coming up Airplane, but the situation at the live house was improving.
Slurping up her noodles, she relaxed by fractions, letting in a long breath she must have been holding for weeks now. She’d been working so hard lately; didn’t she deserve a little break? She couldn’t afford to go out, much as she was feeling in the karaoke mood…but singing in her apartment was free!
She had the decency to put earbuds in at least, and even tried to keep her voice down for her neighbors’ sake. They’d complained without restraint the last time she’d stayed up late; apparently her brainless laughter had penetrated the thin walls that separated their apartments. Shang Qinghua wanted to point out that they were far from quiet when they were making love (if you could call it that), but that might leave both parties with too little face, and at any rate, her neighbors’ glares had her sufficiently cowed. But she’d keep her voice down as a courtesy, so you couldn’t say she was a bad neighbor, okay!
But her restraint only lasted a few songs. She’d added a few of Afterglow’s songs to her apartment karaoke playlist, because their music really was good and it was perfect for belting out just a little off-key, and by the time she hit Y.O.LO.!!!, she was at full volume. Her neighbors were knocking angrily on the walls, but with her headphones turned up, she couldn’t hear them, too absorbed in her frantic air drumming. Man, that Tomoe really knew how to lay down a good beat! She supposed it was to be expected of a band that had been together since their middle school days, but really, no matter how you looked at it, they were pretty impressive for a high school band!
She was too absorbed in wailing on her air guitar to realize how precariously close to her desk she was until she backed right up against her chair. It slammed into the desk, jostling it hard, and her still-steaming cup of noodles toppled over onto her open laptop.
“Fuck!”
Afterglow still blaring in her ears, she fumbled with trying to pull out her earbuds and rescue her laptop at the same time. She succeeded mainly in tangling her left hand in the cable for her headphones and half-lifting her laptop in her right before she lost her grip and it crashed back down to the desk. The styrofoam cup, with its remaining broth and noodles, sailed off the desk and directly onto her very old and not entirely up-to-code power strip.
It was probably just as well that she dropped her laptop, because as the power strip sparked and smoked, a frantic current of electricity surged up through the laptop’s power cord and snuffed the life out of her computer with an alarming zap. A second later, tiny tendrils of gray smoke began to creep out from the spaces between the keys.
“Ohhh fuck, oh no, fuck fuck fuck—”
Shang Qinghua devolved into a garbled yell of protest, dancing in place, reaching for her laptop then withdrawing her hand, afraid of getting zapped in turn. With a horrible sick sinking feeling, she had to conclude that it was beyond saving. Shang Qinghua pressed F in her heart.
It wasn’t until she turned around to pick up the spilled cup that she realized the power strip had caught fire.
Fuck!!!
What started out as a few angry sparks quickly caught on the pile of dirty laundry next to (almost on top of) the power strip, thick smoke filling the air. Shang Qinghua instinctively lunged to pull the broth-soaked plug from the outlet with—wait, fuck, not with her bare hands! She didn’t have a death wish, okay! She instead grabbed a not-on-fire sweater that had seen better days, wrapped it around the base of the plug, and yanked it free.
It hadn’t been that hard to pull out, but Shang Qinghua let go immediately and tumbled back onto her ass, narrowly avoiding being burned by the fire that was quickly spreading through her cramped apartment. She scrambled away from the dirty laundry bonfire as her stupid, tired, panicked brain racked itself for next steps. What the fuck do you do when you set your own apartment on fire with cup noodles! Who even does that! Of course, if this had to happen to anyone, it had to happen to her!
The smoke alarm was already blaring by the time she remembered where the fire extinguisher was (hanging on the narrow sliver of wall next to her fridge) and she fumbled with it uselessly until she remembered there were instructions on the side of the fucking thing. She could hear her neighbors flooding the corridor, a muffled murmur of confusion, alarm, and irritation. It was indeed really fucking alarming how quickly the smoke was filling her apartment, stinging at her eyes, as she finally managed to release a burst of fire retardant foam, but the fire was already climbing up the nearest bookshelf, claiming years of collected music magazines, manga, and scorebooks. And at the top—ah, no! Not her best girls!! At this rate, they’d be reduced to multicolored blobs of plastic.
When the coughs turned to gasps, she gave up, dropped the fire extinguisher, realized it might explode if she left it here, picked it back up, and ran out of her apartment in bare feet. It didn’t occur to her that she should have grabbed a robe, because as she filed outside with the rest of the building, she was the only one not wearing pants. At least she was wearing a shirt this time?
It was already apparent to her nearest neighbors by the smell of smoke soaked into her hair, the fire extinguisher she was clutching in her shaking arms, and her general reputation that she was the source of the late-night disturbance. Shang Qinghua smiled with desperate, nervous apology at her neighbors, an increasing number of whom were giving her dirty looks sharp enough to kill. Augh, this really was the true meaning of “glaring daggers”!!
Her neighbors were restrained by courtesy from going off on her, though she could tell that some of them really, really wanted to. She was probably only saved by the fact that, in the end, aside from the lingering perfume of heavy smoke, the only real damage had been to her own apartment. Shang Qinghua was lucky there was even an apartment to go back to; at least the damage hadn’t been absolute. But no level of courtesy could save her from her landlady, who made it clear that she was through tolerating Shang Qinghua’s rent delinquency, and if she didn’t pay up what she owed plus damages for the fire, she could start packing what was left of her belongings up and be out of there in thirty days.
Swallowing a fat lump of panic, misery and tears, Shang Qinghua hurriedly promised to send her landlady everything she owed in the morning and trudged up to her apartment to assess the damage. The smell of smoke and burned plastic would probably take days to air out through the tiny windows, but that was the least of her concerns. Her desk had been destroyed and her laptop along with it, and the fire had totally devoured one bookshelf and gotten halfway through the next one; only a few of her treasured anime figures still remained unscathed. Shang Qinghua estimated a conservative half of her small wardrobe had survived the fire, but with so much of it heaped in varying piles around her apartment, it was hard to tell. The only true miracle was that, with the exception of an aged Yamaha keyboard, her instruments were still intact. Not that a pile of synths and MIDI controllers did her any good without a computer, but…still. And while the keyboard hadn’t been a huge material loss, it’d held some sentimental value. She didn’t use it much these days, but it was the first instrument she’d ever bought herself, and she’d kept it around for nostalgia's sake. Ah, a brave sacrifice to keep its brethren safe, for sure…
She was too frazzled to think straight anymore. She hadn’t shaken the panic attack that had bubbled up on her flight from the building, and it still churned hot and sick in the pit of her stomach. Every time she even began to think about what she’d have to do now, she was so bowled over by the enormity of the situation that her brain promptly shorted out into tears. Shang Qinghua lay on her singed futon alternating between crying and coughing for an hour before she decided she was sick of smelling like smoke.
She zoned out so hard in the shower as soon as she finished washing her hair that she failed to notice the passage of time at all until the water ran cold. She managed to wash the smell out of her hair, but unfortunately her towels smelled plenty like smoke, and the clothes she scrounged together even more so. By the time she dropped herself back onto her futon, eyes rimmed red and mouth dry, dawn was already peeking through her shuttered windows.
Fuck it. There was no way she was going to sleep now, and she had to be at work later anyway; all that was going to happen between now and then was more stomach-gnawing over her finances. And her career! The Mile High Club aside, how was she supposed to make any music without a fucking computer! Just thinking about all the work she’d lost—the handful of buffer tracks she’d managed to produce, the half dozen or so sketches in the works—was enough to send her into tears again. She was already feeding the Mile High Club’s finances with her meager private funds; if Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky went on hiatus, that revenue stream was going to dry up real quick. There were so many places she really needed to be putting money she was no longer about to have, and her head felt like it was going to cave in.
Her furious stomach finally won out, and Shang Qinghua lurched from her futon to the bathroom in a single wild leap that immediately felt like a mistake. Her internal monologue was a mix of a steady mantra of fuck fuck fuck and a mental cascade of spreadsheets she didn’t even ask for as she threw up what little she’d eaten—ah, that precious last cup of noodles! She really had to stop eating the spicy stuff, whichever end it came out, it usually resulted in agony, but couldn’t the universe cut her a break! Just! This! Once!
End notes:all good things must come to an end for shang qinghua (for now)
anyway Y.O.L.O!!! is a bop