marlowemuses | Everything I got, I got working for me

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Everything I got, I got working for me

As she rapped her knuckles against the hotel room door and leaned against the door frame, using her 5'11" height to loom, Satoru felt jubilant with success even though this tour hadn't officially started.

It had taken months of planning already, and Satoru itched with impatience. When she'd first announced a joint tour with Suguru, Satoru already had the plan drafted with her own media team, but they'd mentioned nothing to Suguru's team, only sending over the proposal after Satoru had made an informal teaser announcement about it. She'd half expected that Suguru would refuse the dare and call it out as the prank that it absolutely was (at which point Satoru would be able to make a stink about Suguru being a coward and backing out of an agreement). So she'd been thrilled that Suguru had agreed to the tour.

They'd share the stage--there was simply no other reasonable way to do it. Swapping off songs, providing support vocals, even featuring a few duets. It was a highly unusual arrangement, but that had helped to blow up the publicity around the tour, which had sold out within hours, immediately creating clamor to have more dates added and a social media frenzy of fans thrilled or enraged about the situation.

They'd arrived at the hotel and their first show was tomorrow night, but aside from some agreed-upon arrangements and a set list, negotiated and exchanged through their respective teams, they'd done nothing to prepare for performing together. Satoru wasn't worried about it. She knew every one of Suguru's songs. She'd written the arrangements herself that she'd sent over to propose which ones she wanted to cover with support vocals. Even though she'd never been to any of Suguru's shows, she'd seen recordings of them. As much as Satoru wanted to spend the next three months irritating the shit out of Suguru, she also wanted to uncompromisingly create good music and put on an incredible performance that their fans would be talking about for the rest of their lives. And she knew she could rely on Suguru to do the same.

Finally, though, they'd arrived at the same hotel, and finally Satoru could be face to face again with her best enemy.

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There are a dozen people who could be knocking on her door. More, even. There are multiple reasons why people would seek her out the day before a highly experimental opening night of a joint tour. Her manager, the various members of her backing band, her stylist, her assistant, hell even the tour manager. All of them have valid reasons to seek her out.

And yet, Suguru knows it's Satoru with the first rap of knuckles against the door. There's no secret code or a knock only known to the two of them, but in the same way she always knew it was Satoru when they were teenagers, Suguru knows.

She looks up and at the door, eyes narrowed in disbelief.

"A decade and things haven't changed," she mutters, and shifts her attention back to the task she was in the middle of. Hotels are tedious and she hates living out of suitcases, so whenever she can, Suguru actually puts her clothes in the dresser or the closet. Now, she continues to fold her pajamas and set the loose tank top and shorts in the dresser drawer before closing it. Satoru can wait a moment. It would serve her right, after all this, to linger outside Suguru's room for a little while.

Satoru is right there when she finally opens the hotel door, imposing in the way she's always been— more so, really, if Suguru admits it. The closest they've been in a long time, less than a foot separating them. Satoru's taller than her now, especially since Suguru had taken off her heavy boots with the heels that added inches to her height when she got inside, and is now just in her socks, and comfortable sweats rather than anything presentable.

She should have known better than to change. Not that it matters; she doesn't need any armor against Satoru and her antics. Her chin goes up and she smiles, wide and polite and so impossibly fake.

"Hello, Satoru. Long time no see."

Satoru's dressed in her 'casual' version of high fashion, which in this case is a graphic t-shirt a couple sizes too small combined with low-cut jeans, so she's showing about six inches worth of solidly muscled abdomen. Fortunately for Suguru, she's only wearing flat sneakers and not the heels that she likes in public.

"Hi, Suguru," she says cheerily, crowding into her rival's space and elbowing forward into the room, planning to just push her way in unless Suguru puts her entire weight into trying to keep her out. "This your room? Hm. Mine's bigger."

It is. But it doesn't have as good of a view, Gojo notices, as she swings by the window and takes a look out, admiring the city skyline. Then she continues on, poking into Suguru's things with shameless curiosity.

Suguru doesn't put her entire weight into keeping Satoru out, knowing that Satoru would find a way in, or keep pushing until she got in, and she's not up for that fight. She closes the door after Satoru walks in and then turns to her, looking her over. Even more gorgeous in person than she is on the screen, and she knows it, not that Suguru will ever admit that.

"Is it?" Suguru asks, voice sugar sweet. "You must need all that space to hold your ego. It would make a poor bedfellow."

She walks further into the room, leaning against her desk, arms folded over her chest as she watches her former friend meander around her room. "Did no one ever tell you not to poke at things that don't belong to you, Satoru?" she asks. "I don't know what you're thinking you'll find."

Suguru figured out how to tour, carry, and what she needs in her hotel rooms. Her diary, a music journal, some books, activity books for distractions, and makeup. A guitar leaning against the wall; not the one she'll perform with, but something to use in case she gets struck by random inspiration. A few personal items in a case in the nightstand, and should Satoru go poking around those, Suguru doesn't care. A few other odds and ends for comfort, with most of her things in the vans and buses they'll use for the tour.

"In fact, I'm not sure why you're here, even. Don't you have a boy toy to dangle on a leash or something?"

"Oh, am I interrupting your busy schedule of being an unlikable bitch with no friends?" Satoru retorts, rolling her eyes. Suguru's quips make her smirk, pleased by the challenge and the invitation that they present, so that she can be just as mean in return.

After some poking around, the books draw her, and she snags several of them, flopping down onto the bed and flipping through one without much interest, then opening the next. "Ooh, is this a diary? Dear diary, didn't make any small children cry today. Wicked witch dreams fail." Satoru skims through a few pages, literally just looking for her own name. "You wanna order dinner or are you full up on Hansel and Gretel?"

"Get your feet off my bed, or take off your shoes. Don't be gross, Satoru." Suguru stalks forward to climb on the bed and reach for the diary.

"I start a new one with every tour, you aren't going to find anything particularly juicy in there." It's not entirely true, but she had just started a new diary around the time the tour was announced. There are a few mentions of Satoru by name, mostly with notes of annoyance. There wasn't anything too deeply personal in it yet, and the one entry that might read as something deep made no mention of Satoru, simply a relationship she missed, the longing in her heart. She's not worried about Satoru reading anything too personal, but this makes her aware that she needs to be more careful.

"I don't need to eat children to make my wicked witch dreams come true," she says, ready to tussle with Satoru to get the diary out of her hands. "I eat the hearts of men. I thought you'd be familiar with my music by now, but you did have a nasty tendency of never paying attention, so really, not surprised. Why are you asking me if I want dinner? You're willing to spend time with someone you dislike that much?"

Satoru rolls her eyes and toes off her shoes, but she continues skimming anyway. She's only just started on the entry about some mysterious 'her', which sounds very interesting, and then Suguru's trying to grab the diary back, so Satoru has to twist to try to keep it, trying to read another sentence or two.

For a second, Suguru's on top of her, while Satoru twists onto her belly, trying to sort of shield the diary under herself, but when Suguru starts to pull and the diary might end up torn, Satoru lets go.

Sitting up again once Suguru's off her again, Satoru reaches for the room service menu like nothing happened. "How am I the diligent, hard-working one here? We should go over shit before tomorrow's run-through. I need you to explain what's happening in that new song you're debuting, Contact? The sample track they sent over doesn't match the notes on arrangement for the stage. I don't know what the fuck you want."

Wrestling with Satoru feels too much like the old days, times Suguru does her best to forget, and once she gets her hands on her diary, she's off Satoru lightening quick. She tucks her diary into her purse, putting it away in the closet, and only then turns to Satoru.

"We don't need dinner to have a conversation about arrangements," she says. She is starving and had been planning on ordering in room service after putting away her clothes, so her argument isn't too solid there. "It's experimental, anyway. I haven't solidified the song yet, but I wanted to debut it at the first show. Something for my fans."

The frustrating thing with the song is that she's been struggling with it for months, and still hasn't figured out what she likes best. Satoru was always good for that sort of experimenting, and she trusted Satoru's judgement more than she's trusted anyone since.

Satoru gestures in the direction of Suguru's guitar, fixing her with an expectant look that implies Hurry up and demonstrate, idiot.

Then she returns her attention to the room service menu. Suguru's being stupid, but that's not news. Satoru's planning to hang around annoying her for at least an hour, and they have plenty of work-related stuff to fill that time, even if Satoru doesn't take any tangents solely to piss Suguru off. "What do you want?"

She's already picking up the hotel phone and dialing, ordering a burger and fries, a milkshake, chocolate cake, and some kind of duck confit salad thing that sounds good. Then she hooks her fingers in summons at Suguru to get her damn answer already so that she can add Suguru's requests. Otherwise she'll just decide for her based on Suguru's decade-old preferences.

The impatience Satoru demonstrates gets her a roll of the eyes. If Suguru's hair had been down, she would have tossed it over her shoulder, a petulant child trying her best to show her disdain. As it is, tucked up in a messy bun, all she can do is toss her head.

"Get me whatever," she says. Hotel food always ends up roughly tasting just like everything else, nothing too spectacular but nothing terrible. "No dessert, though." She doesn't add anything on to that, focusing on her guitar instead. It's already tuned, but she checks her strings again out of habit, making slight tweaks as she does.

"You know, there are better places to do this. Like the stadium tomorrow. Not a hotel room with other guests." The people on either side of her are part of the tour, she knows, but she does try to be respectful.

Satoru orders her a pesto chicken sandwich, a cup of broccoli cheddar soup, and a glass of red wine. Thanking the staff member, Satoru hangs up and returns her attention to bickering with Suguru.

"Yeah? While we're busy figuring out blocking and with a dozen aides requiring our attention? That's when you want to argue with me about whether I should do vocals on the refrain or the chorus? Am I interrupting your busy schedule of brooding alone in your room? Do you think maybe you can stop saying stupid things for just five minutes and do your damn job instead?"

Satoru gestures at the guitar to prompt her to hurry up and play.

"Don't tell me you've never rearranged a song at the last minute while handling your aides." They weren't quite at that level when they were teenagers, but it wasn't like they didn't deal with chaos and changes. But still, she has a point, and there's no getting rid of Satoru now. Better to spend time doing work rather than making barbed remarks at each other.

"Let me pull up both." Suguru digs out her phone, pulling up the arrangement they sent for the stage and the sample track. She listens to the sample so they both can hear it, She catches where they changed it, remembering her thoughts about the change, and why she sent a different arrangement. The sample lacked... something.

"This has you on the chorus," she says. "The stage arrangements says refrain because we changed it last minute, and I think that's the better option." Some of the tension drains from her shoulders, and she picks up her guitar to play the refrain.

As soon as Suguru shuts up and starts playing, Satoru's attention focuses. She sits forward, legs crossed, and asks a couple of questions in between sections, making Suguru replay a couple of bars, mind already working on it like a problem to be solved.

"No, that's wrong." Satoru grabs for the guitar without asking, expecting that Suguru will just let her take it. Her eyes unfocus while she plucks a couple of riffs on the guitar, testing note patterns in an order that only makes sense within her head, then plays through the melody again for that section with an adjustment. Stops midway, tests another couple of notes, then starts again from the beginning of the section. Satisfied with the adjustment, she jerks her chin toward Suguru without looking up at her, a wordless cue for Suguru to sing this time.

Satoru defaults to a keyboard when she writes and if she plays onstage, but she can pick up just about any instrument with competence, and she's used to guitars. (Especially Suguru's guitars.) Her fingers pluck the strings easily, providing the adjusted accompaniment. "No, go up there," she corrects, interrupting, sings the line to demonstrate what she has in mind. Plays it again as Suguru echoes her suggestion, again as Suguru tries a couple different variations on it until one rings true and Satoru nods, starting the section again from the beginning, then starting the song from the beginning. "It needs to be mirrored through," she says, adjusting the couple of spots that her mind has already flagged as the right places for the modified strain. Once Suguru properly understands the additional suggested edits, Satoru hands the guitar back to her so they can start actually working on Satoru's role in the song.

Any annoyance that Suguru feels when Satoru just grabs her guitar fades quickly; Satoru is talented and incredibly creative, a genius when it comes to music, and Suguru works best when she has someone creative to provide feedback. None of her band members came close to the sort of energy Satoru brought to jamming sessions nor the feedback she really needed.

Not that it matters. A few months of this, and then Satoru would be out of her life again. Working out a song or two, providing some feedback, doing these things a couple of times is fine.

Suguru gets caught up in working out the song, throwing in her own ideas on it and weaving together the suggestions Satoru has, chiming in with the intent and meaning of the song, both incredibly important to her. She takes the guitar back, running her hand along the body as though soothing it, and plays through the refrain again.

"Where do you think you should come in?" she asks, jotting down their notes on a scratch piece of paper she'll put into her notes later. "This might actually work better as a duet, not just backing on the refrain." Much as it galls her. If the song is a hit and they have to do anything with it after this, she'll have to continue seeing Satoru. Working with her.

Satoru's expression shows surprise when Suguru suggests making it into a duet. It had felt too personal, so Satoru hadn't expected more of it to be offered up. She taps her fingers against her chin, running the possibilities through her head.

"Let me come back to it," Satoru says at last, knowing that the back of her mind will keep working on it while they make progress on their other songs. "Did you get the two arrangements I sent over for Summerblue? I want to try it as a call and answer, but I don't know if it can be made to work."

They start in on that, and then their food arrives and Satoru sets all the work aside to eat. She turns the TV on, finds some melodramatic supernatural teen show and stares mindlessly at it while she eats, mulling over her fries and licking salt off her fingertips.

"Will you let me try something weird with it?" Satoru asks, snapping back to reality and dropping straight into a previous thread of their conversation as if they'd never left off. "Contact. As a duet." Satoru's solo career has always been more experimental, even though she's skirted the line of popular music well enough that the edge of weirdness has helped to make her a megastar. "Do you want to keep it yours, or do you want ... I've got an idea, but it won't be purely your sound anymore."

There's a sharp retort on the tip of her tongue, ready to be let loose, but Suguru swallows her words at the last minute, turning away to think. The food has helped make her less agitated and snappish, and the red wine has mellowed her mood somewhat. She could go for an entire bottle, though.

She hadn't let Satoru sit on her bed to eat her food, not wanting crumbs on her sheets later, and now she almost regrets that. They're too close together, sitting on the small couch in the room, food spread out over the table.

Suguru grabs one of Satoru's fries.

"I get the first option to veto it, if it doesn't turn out well or your weird is too weird." Suguru's sound is much less experimental, and she's less willing to take such risks, especially after her biggest risk was walking away from their group. She's got a faithful audience, adoring fans who like her sound and her attitude, and she's done her best to keep giving them what they want from her. "But I'm willing to hear your idea."

She wants to debut the song in roughly twenty-four hours. What a time to be reconsidering it.

"Yeah, you don't have to take whatever I end up with. It's your song and we fixed the issues with it. It's ready. I can step in on the support vocals no problem. If you keep it as is, I think don't make it a duet. It'd be fine. Boring. People will do covers of it as a duet and they'll be fine. It's stronger with a single voice. The sentiment is too strong, and if you just split it, traditional duet, it weakens it. Still boring either way, but it's a good song. I'll do echoes on the chorus, that's all it needs." Satoru shrugs, dismissing this as a done deal. "I'll write the experimental version tonight. Should take me an hour or two. It'll be an interesting exercise for me even if it ends up scrapped. Maybe I'll release it as a cover in a few years."

She waves a hand to dismiss that, a fun project that she assumes Suguru won't want. Moving on to the next item she wants to discuss. "Are you comfortable with your part in Infinity or did you want to workshop that at all?"

It's the biggest challenge item she'd tossed at Suguru out of the arrangements she'd sent over, and she's curious to see how Suguru will rise to it. Infinity is one of Satoru's big hits, but it's also one of her brightest, poppiest songs, the furthest from Suguru's style, and Satoru had given her a huge chunk of it for a duet. If Suguru leans too far into doing it Satoru's way, it'll weaken her part of the song and her personal brand. If she rebels too hard against the sound, it'll break the song.

Satoru gives her a smirk, inviting Suguru to ask for help.

A decade ago, Satoru's "boring, boring, boring," would have gotten her hackles up and gotten Suguru snipping at her friend and the perceived insults to her music. It still does, somewhat. When she'd still be in the group and things were the worst with Satoru, she'd taken the tone and attitude as rejection, as a deliberate mockery of her abilities. Suguru's songs were boring, thus Suguru was boring, not worth the time and the attention and the effort and Satoru could do something so casually, so easily and make it a dozen times better, and she didn't need Suguru.

It's still there, some of that pain still sharp and awful and ugly in her. But part of this is Satoru trying to goad her into something, and part of this is just how Satoru operates, and when Suguru didn't feel on the outs with her, she'd enjoyed that; it was straightforward and honest.

So she leans into the languid feelings from the wine and a satisfying meal, and lets it go for the moment. Besides, Satoru offers her an opening that she can't resist.

"Did you know, Satoru darling," she begins, shifting on the couch. There's less than a foot between them, and Suguru crawls over that space until she's practically in Satoru's lap, "that I used to do that song in karaoke with my friends? I know it's hard to understand the concept of friends, but I did find them once I left." Her own little dig. Granted, most of her friends were people she worked with, so she's not sure it counts. "I made it my own, in those little rooms we'd rent, and we'd all have fun with it, despite the fact that it's a shallow pop song.

"I'd put on a performance for it. Really try to wow everyone." She's tempted to lean in closer, but resists the urge for the moment, and instead breaks into the chorus of Infinity, keeping it almost as bright as the original, with an underlying gravitas in her voice that lends it more depth. It doesn't quite mesh with her personal brand, but it doesn't cut out her typical style, either. As she sings, she lowers her voice and does lean in, until she's inches from Satoru's face. Once she finishes, she leans in as though she's going to kiss Satoru, stopping half an inch from her lips. "Like so."

She pulls away, straightening up but not moving out of Satoru's lap. "Don't worry, though. I won't scandalize you with kisses."

Satoru blinks in surprise when Suguru advances on her like this, a completely different approach to teasing her than she'd ever done before. She leans back on the couch, though it doesn't help when Suguru just keeps advancing, trapping her back against the cushions.

Suguru's voice still gives her chills, and it's been years since she's heard it in person. Recordings never do it justice, the rumbling vibrato that Suguru has in there.

Satoru's always had the natural aptitude, with an incredible range, but she's always thought that Suguru has the better voice. It's more interesting. And Suguru has also been more diligent about training, so she has control and technique that put Satoru to shame. And she meets Satoru's challenge perfectly.

Brow lifting at having Suguru crawling atop her like this, Satoru holds her enemy's gaze. Maybe her cheeks are a little flushed. Maybe.

"Yeah," Satoru says, when Suguru backs off a few inches to let her breathe. Her lips slant into a smirk. "That'll work."

Grabbing one of Suguru's nipples, Satoru gives it a sharp, vicious little twist, trusting that will get her to back off enough that Satoru can get up.

"See you tomorrow, bitch," Satoru says, snagging her shoes and heading to the door, glancing back over her shoulder with a last little sneer. "Sad to think of you in that karaoke booth alone, though."

Suguru squeals when Satoru twists her nipple, jerking back away from her former friend and rubbing her nipple. "What the fuck, Satoru, are you a child?" she bursts out. "Still incapable of being anywhere close to mature, I see."

Her voice is maybe a little high. A little breathless. Her cunt certainly isn't wet and clenching around nothing.

She wasn't wearing a bra, and her nipples had always been sensitive, not that Satoru knew that.

"I have actual friends, not people I pay to hang out with me or people who want to mooch off my fame. Pity you'll never understand that." She doesn't know if Satoru hears her before the door slams closed. Suguru doesn't care. She's fuming over it, and grabs her phone. She has Satoru's contact information now, and she finds an old picture of her, Manami, Miguel and Larue in a karaoke booth, posing together to send to Satoru. Suguru obviously looks younger, so she can't even accuse Suguru of staging it.

After sending it off, she tosses down her phone, and then throws herself on her bed, digging in her nightstand for the vibrator she usually carries. It's an unsatisfying orgasm, Suguru too impatient to take her time on getting off the first time, but her breasts are aching and her cunt throbbing with repressed arousal.

Seeing Satoru in person after all these years made Suguru intensely aware of the desire she still harbored for Satoru. No one had made her burn quite the same way, no one made her very bones ache. At least it was only desire, which Suguru was good at dealing with, channeling all that passion into her music, and they wouldn't be alone often, so it wasn't like she was going to have opportunities to act on any impulses she had.

She showered after her rather disappointing orgasm, and crawled into bed, doing her best to forget about Satoru and everything they'd talked about, only to be plagued by restless dreams all night, waking up once with her fingers down her panties and Satoru's name on her lips. She hadn't even done that as a teenager, and felt mortified when she realized what she was doing. Rather than attempting to sleep again, she found her way to the hotel gym, working out some of her stress on the elliptical and weights until she needed to be up for the day.

Of course, she couldn't escape Satoru and her team completely, since they were putting on a show together, but she did make her way to the venue earlier than she needed to, simply so she wouldn't see Satoru alone again.

When they'd been teenagers, Satoru had dated constantly. It was almost always arranged in some way, almost always a PR stunt. The agency offered up the prettiest boys from acting and pop and made them seem like trophies. If they hadn't acted like trophies, hadn't doted on her properly, Satoru had dumped them promptly. But some of them lasted for a few weeks.

Satoru was always horny, but making out was boring, and she wasn't really interested in doing anything more than that, so she just kind of accepted that was how things were. She always wanted sex, but whenever she had the prospect of doing that with someone, it wasn't appealing. So she just decoupled her desire from herself. When she got herself off, her fantasies were abstract things--walking along a beautiful beach alone--or externalized--characters in some book or movie that she liked. Occasionally she thought about Suguru, but that was usually when they'd quarreled or done something adrenaline-packed together, so it was only that her blood was high. It wasn't like she was thinking about doing things with Suguru. It was just the thrill of the trouble they'd gotten into together.

As an adult, with more control over her own life, she'd dated more exclusively. Testing out what she liked and never finding it. The relationships that lasted a few months were with other musicians, usually older men, and always as something that started as collaboration. A conversation about music, a jam session, a few nights together. Satoru kept the collaborations, had given a few of them places on her albums.

So she thought nothing of it when she went back to her room and masturbated to the thought of Suguru crawling over her like that. It was just the thrill of the challenge that excited her. That was all.

In the morning, Satoru showed up at the venue in high-waisted leggings and a crop top that kept falling off one shoulder. She was still showing about six inches of midriff, but now it was a higher section from her waist to the band of her black sports bra, visible in flashes every time she moved because the crop top was so short. In the bright daytime sunlight of the venue, she had on her black blindfold to take away most of that glare, though that did mean she had to keep Ijichi closer at hand to help make up for the loss of details and her peripheral vision.

Heading straight over to Suguru once she spotted her, Satoru smacked a sheaf of papers against her rival's chest. "Look that over," she ordered, intending to stand there and loom until she complied.

The arrangement she'd written for Suguru's song was like a single part for two voices, layered like a madrigal, rather than the logical two parts of a traditional duet. On the harmonies where they sang together, the two voices wove in and out, neither one possessing the melody alone. If the two parts were recorded separately, they'd both be discordant. In the sections where only one of them sang, Satoru had slightly modified some of the lyrics to make the two parts diverge.

Suguru's original song had been about yearning and regret, but the modified version created the first impression of a woman in conflict with herself over whether to leave a lover. But there was also the sense of a narrative of two lovers separating, reconnecting--unable to truly come together and unable to fully break apart.

When Satoru had suggested that maybe she'd do this as a cover of Suguru's song, she'd already known that she'd need Suguru to record it with her. No one else could do it. Handling the counterintuitive melody-harmony interplay of the voices required either exceptional technical skill (Suguru) or the kind of genius who could comprehend that level of musical complexity (Satoru). But more importantly, it required two singers with rare synergy, both to keep them in sync and to keep the tension between the two voices.

The whole thing was a display of mad genius, and Satoru wasn't sure that it would work, even if Suguru committed to trying it. Suguru's song was something special, strong enough to carry the weight of what Satoru had done to it, and Satoru knew that if it did work, the result would be transcendent.

Back when they had been teenagers, in the group together, Suguru had realized one bright, vivid afternoon that she loved Satoru. She still remembers the day, and everything they had been doing, the clothes they were wearing. They had a rare afternoon break, and she and Satoru had gone to a movie, and the sun had been too bright for Satoru when they emerged, and Suguru laid in a cool, dark room with her best friend. She had curled up, facing Satoru as they chatted, and Suguru's heart beat so strongly against her ribs that it felt like they might break as the realization hit her. "Oh," she thought, carefully touching her fingers to Satoru's, who looked at her with a smile like the dawn, "I love her."

In the years since, she had done her best to get over it. Satoru was never going to love her like that, which was fine when they were friends, and then Satoru wasn't even her friend. Any good will and friendliness between them was shattered with Suguru walking out, especially the way she did, carefully and deliberately burning every single bridge she had behind her. She forged her own path, found people who supported her and believed her and even liked her. Found girlfriends, although none of her relationships lasted longer than six months or so. Found out what she liked. Found people who loved her, and who she loved in return.

Which is why, when she sees Satoru that day, all long, lean limbs and midriff on display, it's only the aggravating frustration and latent, unresolved desire from her youth that leaves her mouth dry and her heart beating painfully in her chest. The leggings and crop top look suited her, and Satoru was an objectively gorgeous woman. Suguru was gay; admiring beautiful women was a thing. It didn't mean anything more than that.

Idly, Suguru realized she was going to have to step up her pre-show look, if this was what Satoru was going to be coming in with. Suguru appreciated her comfort before shows, usually wearing comfortable sweats or leggings and loose t-shirts that let her move around easily, her hair usually in a messy bun to style later. But if Satoru was showing up in things that showed off skin like that, model perfect, then Suguru couldn't bring less than her best.

This tour was going to be a nightmare.

When Satoru hands her the papers, Suguru takes them and turns away, rolling her eyes when Satoru keeps looming. Less than two inches between them and of course Satoru acted like she was a giant.

"Fine," she snaps, and sits back to read over the arrangement. She doesn't expect much, since Satoru had been so adamant that the song was boring, acting like it was nothing to her to make a few changes. Despite herself, Suguru still admires Satoru's talent and musical abilities, and the experimental nature of her music even if she wishes Satoru would do something more honest. And this is stunning, in a way that Suguru didn't expect and isn't quite sure what to do with now that it's been presented to her. It's a beautiful song, taken to new heights with Satoru's input.

"I see you're capable of understanding emotions," Suguru says, overly sweet, once she finishes reading the thing through twice. "I didn't think you had it in you, Satoru." Which was perhaps the biggest lie Suguru's said so far; she was one of the people who could see beneath Satoru's exterior and see the emotions in her, and the depth. "I need to hear it with both our voices."

Satoru just ignores the jabs. They're fairly weak ones, anyway, nothing interesting enough to respond to. The music is far more interesting, and Satoru's electrified with it. She loves music no matter what, but she also loves challenges and puzzles, something difficult enough to be interesting. This is something exceptional, and she wants so much for it to work, and only Suguru can make that happen with her.

"I know," Satoru says, a bounce of eagerness in her voice, like an energetic puppy. "I do, too. It's not exactly something I could test out on my own." She hears it in her head, but there's always a blurring effect with imagination. The mind simply elides over things that are missing or incongruent. It works in her head, but that doesn't mean it'll work in person.

She doubts they're going to rehearse the whole show. They both know the songs and arrangements, and there's a certain element of improvisation that Satoru wants. She expects that Suguru feels the same. It would have been an easy, obvious thing to demand an extra day or three of rehearsal so they could run through the show together. Neither of them do choreography--they're both too focused on the music for that--and while there are lights and effects, those change from stage to stage and are easy to learn in the pre-show run through and setup. So they hadn't needed to coordinate anything other than the music, and Satoru is pretty sure that they're both preparing for that like a duel rather than a dance. Their music is going to be something alive, something flashing back and forth between them, rather than something rehearsed.

But this has to be rehearsed. The life in it during the performance will be the tension between them, the energy of keeping their voices entwined, something vibrant and real. In order to do that, they have to already know the push and pull of the piece, and the interplay of what Satoru created. Satoru knows both parts, and she'd given Suguru a little more of the lead (it's her song, at heart), and herself a few more of the discordant beats, the stranger and more challenging part. The two parts aren't marked, but Satoru knows Suguru will be able to see which one was crafted for her voice.

Following after Suguru, Satoru lets her take control of what accompaniment she wants for this, how she wants to run through it. Satoru just waits, vibrating with anticipation until she can sing.

Suguru can be professional about this. She cares about the music more than she cares about getting jabs in, and more than she cares about seeing Satoru excited and eager over something. She owes it to her fans to bring them something they'll enjoy.

"Let's find Miguel," she says, and heads off in the labyrinth of the backstage rooms and staging areas to find her lead guitarist. Suguru knows how to play guitar and piano, and has done so on stage, but she always has her backing band with her. Any of the musicians with them could play the song but he'd be the best at understanding what was going on with the music and the intent woven into the lyrics and the music. The song is strong enough not to need much else, although that might change with a run through.

She grabs a roadie on the way, letting him know to set up two microphones on stage for a quick rehearsal. While he runs off to do that, Suguru finds her guitarist and passes him the notes. They talk it over for a minute, Suguru pulling Satoru in for any technical questions he has, and then they're on stage.

Most of their staging has them on opposite sides of the stage, with the occasional crossover or stepping back while the other person is in the limelight. But this one— with this one, they need to be closer. It's not a song they're singing at the audience, facing the crowd, especially this initial try.

The song is an impressive blend of Suguru's style and Satoru's experimental nature, neither one taking center stage, but blending beautifully. Intimate, almost, especially given the lyrics. It needs an intimate setting. She pulls the mic stands closer together, and while she doesn't expect they'll be tied to the placement, it's a start. Miguel off to the side, and the two of them center stage. A spotlight on them, perhaps, leaving the rest of the stage dark— fitting for a reveal of a new song, one now a duet between the two of them.

But those are details for later. Now, she turns to the mics, gesturing to Satoru to take the other one, and puts the notes on the music stand, just in case they need anything. Despite the lyric changes, she still knows the song.

She gestures to Miguel, and the opening chords fill the stage.

Satoru's never done a song like this before, and she's anxious about whether it will work, whether she can pull it off. If it fails and Suguru is shitty about it, the vulnerability of that will gut her. If Suguru had just said no, too weird, too much of a change to the original song, that would have been fine. But if it fails.

Bouncing a little in place, energy as restless as ever, Satoru lets all that energy settle into tense readiness as she steps up to the mic. She's glad that Suguru starts, that the first couple of lines are unchanged. It would be too hard to start that blending from the first words. They need to lead up to it, lead into it. One melody, then add the harmony for a couple of lines, and then everything twists.

Her adrenaline feels supercharged as they run through the song, with Suguru matching her and keeping up with her, like a game, a puzzle--this performance they can only do together. There are a few mistakes from what she'd intended, a few discordant moments where it doesn't work, but those are minor fixes. The concept is solid.

As soon as the song finishes, Satoru's reaching for the notes, marking an adjustment and asking Suguru's input on another, workshopping it and then running through it again. They're drawing a crowd now, aides and stadium employees stopping their other tasks in order to come and stare, and there's applause at the end of the second run-through. Satoru lifts a sheepish hand in appreciation and thanks, preferring to minimize it rather than bask in it as she would for a performance. Right now she just wants to keep working, talking through another set of tiny adjustments. "I want to run through it at least once more with the full accompaniment, once things are more set up on stage."

The song works, and it is better than what she'd started with, something unique for both of them. Suguru rarely collaborated with other musicians; duets were even more rare, and the few she had were not as daring and interesting as this.

Suguru's the one to wave to the group surrounding them, grinning at them. She knew a number of the aides, since they were her people, and some of the stadium employees from previous events, and liked that they did feel they could stop and listen.

"Thank you, everyone. We'll perform this one as a run-through later so you get a chance to hear it before anyone else. Don't spoil the surprise!" she says, loudly enough for everyone to hear. Her voice carries well, and she's always polite when dealing with the staff. "For now, we'll get out of your way. " They could practice elsewhere, especially since there were notes she wanted to discuss with Satoru.

She passes her staging notes to the manager and heads backstage, grabbing Satoru's wrist to pull her back into the green room. They weren't sharing dressing rooms, which would be too much, but this was open to both.

"The lyrics here&mdash" Suguru says, pointing to two lines. "They're too weak. We need more impact. Something that shows how torn she's feeling. Her heart is broken, and she knows she needs to leave, but it's tearing her apart." She pauses, then reaches for her phone, scrolling through her notes until she reaches something. Her forehead wrinkles, deep in concentration as she mouths a few words, and then she scribbles a few lines down, handing it back to Satoru. "How about this? And what do you think about accompaniment? I liked the guitar with it but I think it needs piano too. Drums, the original had a bass line that I think would still work with this."

She's careful to close her notes app and lock the screen after that, not wanting anyone else to see anything.

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