Sleepless In September

2 - Hall & Oates

"Fuck, Minji. What took you so long?"

Kim Minji doesn't waste time answering Kazuha and shoulders her way through the metal double doors and onto the stage. Her other three bandmates are busy connecting guitars to pedals and cables to amps and whatnot. There's no crowd yet, but they'll be here in 45 minutes. Minji's holding out a black Fender guitar by the neck and Sakura, on the ground fiddling with her pedalboard, gets up and takes it from her.

"Gee, thanks a lot. How much was the rent for this thing?" Sakura waits for an answer but doesn't look at Minji very long, she's already busy tuning the guitar.

"Umm.." Minji thinks. "It's only 30 dollars if we return it tomorrow morning. Honestly, the place didn't have any Fenders left for like, rent. But like, that one was just sitting by the counter next to a bunch of other second hand ones, so I was like, Hey! can't you just let me borrow that one? And he's like, No, no, that's our second hand stock. And I'm like, Why not? And he couldn't really come up with a reason why it would matter too much so he just let me take it. Oh and also! I asked the guy how much it would cost to fix the jack socket on your guitar and he said it's like 10 dollars so let's fix it tomorrow as well."

Sakura chuckles. "Damn, okay! You're so helpful, Minji. Thank you so much, seriously. Now go warm up your voice, we're starting sound check in five minutes."

Tonight, Sleepless in September are playing their first show. After two weeks of saving up, the band was able to scrape together $370 to rent this place for two hours. It's a small brick warehouse hiding underneath a flyover intersection in La Mesa, a rusty neighbourhood tucked away in East Los Santos. Not much to do around here, it's all factories and warehouses. The type of place where there's more semi-trucks on the streets than cars. Performing here was Winter's idea. It's not out of character for La Mesa anyways. In the last 20 years these retired warehouses have seen more car meets, poor people's weddings, stray bullets, raves, rap battles and punk shows than ever.

The stage wasn't anything pretty, or even a stage at all. It's just a rectangle separated from the rest of the concrete floor with tape. There's only the girls, their instruments, a stack of three big amps, bare minimum pedalboards for Chaewon and Sakura's guitars and two secondhand party speakers with the tripod legs. Sound check goes swimmingly, so they take a break until it's time for the show to start. Minji's really excited to sing tonight. The band's been driving their next door neighbour mad all week practising in the living room of their one bedroom apartment for five.

It's been almost two years since they all moved in together. Living hasn't been comfortable at all, but there's a certain romance and joy in living by the skin of your teeth. Minji loves that the five of them can literally do whatever they want to in this city. They go to the Los Santos river and ride their bikes drunk, or shoot empty Monster and Heineken cans off buckets. They jump over the barrier at the subway stations and travel for free. Sometimes they stay home and sleep all day. They buy cheap weed from their neighbour down the street. Maybe they'll go see the street races in South Los Santos and run for their lives whenever the cops show up. This weekend they might drive their old kidnapper van to the desert in Blaine County with nothing but a handful of cash. And not that they ever use the van for kidnapping, it's just an old white van with five seats and free space in the back. But who knows?

Just six years ago, Chaewon and Winter were graduating highschool in Seoul. They spent three years in the same class without bothering to befriend one another. There was really no reason to. But one day, Chaewon lost her iPod full of all her favourite songs she ripped off of YouTube. Winter found it on the ground somewhere and decided to pocket it. She knew it was Chaewon's, but not giving the iPod back was saving money. She always wanted one of those.

Winter liked indie rock, a couple of songs from My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy, but it wasn't really like.. her thing specifically. But Chaewon's iPod was full of a whole new world of music and she couldn't believe she spent the first 18 years of her life without it. Slowdive, Deftones, Cocteau Twins, my bloody valentine, Jesus and the Mary Chain. Winter decided she had to work up the courage to return Chaewon's iPod, explain the whole stealing thing, then tell her about how much she loved the music on there and maybe gain a friend in return. And she did.