Music Of The Soul (Suselle)

Chapter 3 - Our Song

"Alright, one rule before we start." Susie stated, cracking her knuckles. "No Christmas music."
"Well, if you're saying that, then no heavy metal. My vocal chords can only take so much." I retorted.
It was so surreal to have Susie sat next to me. She arrived a little late, but at least she showed up. We were both sat on barstools at the main counter, I had a hot chocolate, while Susie had a soda. We looked really mismatched, and yet it made sense. We were both scrolling through our playlists, trying to find a song that matched.

"You listen to vocaloid?" I chuckled.
"I- um- I had a phase back in the day." Susie stammered, embarrassed. "I just haven't been bothered to remove them."
I giggled a little bit. Who knew Susie listened to Hatsune Miku? Anyway, we both scrolled to the end of our playlists and found out our music tastes were completely different.
"Ugh, this is a lot more difficult than u thought." Susie grumbled.
I nodded in agreement. I tried to take a sip of my hot chocolate, but it was still scalding. I quickly placed it back down, the tip of my tongue burning hot.

"Woah, you okay?" Susie asked, concerned.
I'm fine. Might need you to kiss it better, though, I thought. Thankfully, I didn't say that in front of the whole diner, and instead just responded through a burned throat, "I'm fine, thanks."
"You sure? You can have a drink of my soda if that helps." she suggested, gesturing to the drink.
I cleared my throat and said, "I'll be fine, Susie. I'm not the biggest fan of fizzy drinks, anyway." Damn it.
"Suit yourself." Susie replied, guzzling the whole drink in one mouthful.

I scrolled around on my phone for a bit when I noticed something. An audio recording from a few years ago, when I tried my hand at making an instrumental to a song. I showed it to Susie, saying she could learn the chords, and I could add lyrics to it.
"Sounds like a sad song." Susie observed.
"Tear-jerkers are perfect." I countered. "You ever seen talent shows on TV? It's always the sad songs that get higher rankings."

"Good point." she responded. "If you could send that audio to me, I'd be able to get the gist of it."
I nodded and immediately jumped to my text messages to send it to her. I heard the chime come from Susie's phone. She opened her phone smiling, only for it to drop.
"I'm so sorry, Noelle, but my parents have given me a strict curfew, so I've got to." Susie muttered hastily. "This was nice. Maybe we could do this again someday."
As she rushed out the door, Catti came around and picked up the empty glass. She glanced at me quickly and said, " She's totally into you."