✮ Rockstar ✮ || A Lightbrush Fanfiction

Chapter 30 - Practice Makes Perfect

T/W// Don't worry, no one dies; but Suicide is discussed in this chapter

Paintbrush waited on their couch for the sound of their doorbell, their eyes wandering mindlessly. Finally, the familiar ringing reverberated throughout the house. They walked over to the door and opened it, greeted by Fan with a smile. "Hey, Paintbrush!" He said, "May I come in?"

    "Yeah, of course," they agreed and stepped out of the way. He thanked them and walked in, looking around at the new area he had just entered. "Wow, it looks really nice in here. Anyway, so where's that drumset you said you had?"

    "It's in the basement. We'll have to assemble it because I think it's still in the box." Paintbrush shrugged and led him over to the basement door. They flicked on the stair light and made their way down the stairs.

    "Dude. I thought you meant basement as in basement, not an underground secret 3rd floor," Fan deadpanned, marveling at the neatness of the room presented to him. They sighed and walked through the archway to the main area, "It's really nothing much, my parents just prioritize cleanliness over anything else."

    They grabbed the TV remote off the basement couch and flicked it on, "You can pull up YouTube and watch anything. We don't have cable down here since this is where I put my consoles and stuff."

    Fan stared at them and took the remote. "So this is just your second room. You have two rooms to yourself, Paintbrush. You're rich." They shook their head and headed towards the closet, "Yeah, okay, you've said that a million times. Because I'm so nice, you can chill on the couch while I look for it. If it's not in here, then my dad might've put it in the gym right over there-"

    "Gym?" Fan interrupted in amazement.

    "Yes. Gym. A home gym. It's nothing much, just a treadmill and a bike and some weights," they explained, opening the door and stepping inside, "I used to use it a lot when I had nothing to do."

    "So, okay, let me get this straight, you're rich and ripped. And you say you have nothing!" Fan exclaimed while he pulled up YouTube, "You're so lucky."

    They rolled their eyes and started rummaging through the random items they had stored in the spare room. I should've just invited Test Tube... they thought.

    After a while of searching, they finally found the box containing the parts of the drumset. They heaved it up with little effort and carried it out. "Found it."

    Fan turned to them and gawked. "Dude, how can you carry that? That's straight-up magic!"

    "It's not magic," Paintbrush retorted, placing the box in an empty corner in the main room, "maybe you just stay in your room so much playing Genshin Impact that you can't lift 5 pounds."

    "I don't play Genshin!" Fan argued, crossing his arms, "I play Valorent!"

    "If anything that's worse," they mumbled, breaking the sealed box open. Fan hopped off the couch, "I heard that!"

    "Okay, so just screw that in and we should be done!" Fan said, closing the unnecessarily thick instruction book. Paintbrush did as he told them to do and smacked the high hat, "Finally! Alright, show me what you can do."

    He walked around the drumset and plopped himself down in the seat, grabbing a pair of drumsticks Paintbrush found on a shelf in the storage room. He sighed and began to play a base beat. Nothing too impressive; but he'd only been learning by watching tutorials and hitting his fingers on the table, so they were happy with his progress.

    "Nice, I don't think I can do any better," they complimented with a short nod, "you have some potential."

    "Thanks!" Fan chirped, spinning the sticks like a pen. They smiled as an idea popped into their head. "Hey, you stay here for a sec. I'm gonna go grab my guitar and amp and see if we can play something nice, or at least something consistent."