A Handful of Stardust

OHIO IS FOR EMO KIDS

CHARACTERS: Celia Starling, Linh Vu, Lukas Brown, Roxy Blake, Richie Carter, others in passing

TAGS & TRIGGERS: 2000s, emo, scene, musician, concert, electric guitar, wlw, f/f, lgbtq, character introduction, extract

The house is crowded, but not uncomfortable; I slip through groups of people easily, catching snippets of conversation, laughter, cheering and singing along. Intertwined with all of this, of course, is the (slightly toned down, I assume) sound of Under Siege.

From what I've worked out and been told, they're a band with members slightly older than Maple and I, a group of three people who'll, at this stage, play anything asked of them. That's why they're playing at Comet and Wilbur's engagement party, I guess; they don't look like the music they're playing.

None of the songs are familiar, so I assume they're playing original music. The lead singer, a tall blonde wearing a lot of pink and rhinestones, is also on bass, but her vocals are the main attraction: they're crystal clear and emotive, and she performs them easily, more like a Broadway performance than anything else. The guitar and drums accompany her perfectly, and it's just a wonder they're not more popular. Apparently they're small right now, just taking off, but I find that difficult to believe.

I move closer to the makeshift stage. It's just a raised platform set up in the middle of the huge foyer, with tables and a few seats dotted around it, but the mini-venue is still pretty packed.

At one table right at the front, almost flush to the stage, is one of the few people here actually close to my age. She seems fixated on the performance and although I don't want to disturb her, I at least think I should talk to someone while I'm here, where there are common factors and conversation starters. It'd be good to already know a few people when school starts.

I sit on the chair opposite the girl; she has turned her chair to better face the stage, so if I sit straight on mine, I am looking at her side profile. From this angle, her left eye is invisible behind a shield of straightened, teased black hair, and one leg bounces along to the rhythm.

"Are you a fan of Under Siege?" I ask, my voice coming out a little quieter than I intended it to. I don't want to have to repeat myself; she hears me anyway, and drags her gaze from the stage. A grin is on her face, displaying a smiley piercing sparkling above her two front teeth.

As she nods, her hair bobs up and down, hair-sprayed into place and moving as one. There are brightly coloured streaks in the mop of it, and two especially prominent green and pink ones at the front have raccoon-tail stripes dyed onto them. The eye that isn't hidden from view by a swoop of black is an unusual colour, appearing to shift and change like sand. It makes me uneasy looking at it for too long, so I focus on the one I can't see.

"Yeah. My girlfriend's the guitarist, so I guess I'm a bit biassed," she explains, in a voice that's rushed but still clear. Her accent is nice, noticeably un-Canadian. "But they're really, really good. Like, you should see their proper shows, with lights and amps and everything. It's ears-bleeding-in-the-first-chord good."

I can't really see how your ears bleeding is particularly positive, but I don't comment on that. "They sound it so far."

"Don't they just?" She turns back to the stage for a second. I follow her gaze to the guitarist, the member we're closest to right now. "That's her," the girl explains, waving at the musician; she puts her pick between her teeth briefly, waves back, then gets back to the strings. "She's called Celia. Isn't she pretty?"

'Pretty' isn't exactly how I'd put it; 'scary' is more like it (I nod anyway, not wanting to make a bad impression). She has an expression on her face that makes it look like she's trying to destroy the guitar itself, tearing at the strings and fretboard to make a tunefully discordant sound. Her eyeliner is thick around scrunched-up eyes, which flicker in and out of view behind a blonde fringe, dipped in black. She has the same raccoon-tails in her hair as the girl next to me, but less neat and colourful; they're printed directly on to the natural-looking blonde of her hair. She wears black and grey, with some red accents like her pick and striped tights, which match the colour of her guitar's body.

The song finishes, and everyone claps, but the girl next to me claps the loudest. Celia flashes her another grin, not even glancing in my direction (which I can't say I mind) and they start a new track.

The introduction to this piece is slower. The black-haired girl turns to me and says, "I'm Linh, by the way."

"Lukas," I introduce myself. "Nice to meet you."

She offers out a fingerless-gloved hand for me to shake. The cotton of this glove is striped with green, and the other with pink, matching the little streaks in her hair. Linh turns away from me and cheers at the stage; the lead singer turns as if to acknowledge it, realises it's coming from Linh, and turns away again with a slightly perturbed look on her face when she works out it's more aimed at her bandmate than her.