We Were Kids [MIKA Fanfiction]

Forty-Six: Piece by Piece

"PERFECT! IT IS PERFECT!" I heard Mika yell from inside the recording room. It's been weeks and each day we were here, I got progressively more useless. Sometimes Mika would ask for ideas but I never could come up with anything right. Mika was working on multiple songs but for now, Underwater was the closest to finishing. They had just done a run through of it and although I could barely hear it, I was in love.

The door swung open and Mika's head popped out. He scanned the area for me and saw me. "Kathers! Come listen!" he said with pride. I got off my scrolling-through-Twitter position on the couch and Mika held the door open for me. The room was filled with instruments of all sorts. He gave me a place to sit on one of the twirly chairs and resumed his position on the piano.

"Let's do it one more time guys!" he announced. A small stream of people in the room found their instruments and their microphones. He held his fingers in position on the piano.

"3, 2, 1, go." he counted and began playing the same notes that he had previously played to me before. "Bursting through a blood red sky, a slow landslide, and the world we leave behind. It's enough to lose your head, disappear, and not return again." I watched as he played with grace and the other instruments slowly trickled in to make one big beautiful song. "All I need is the love you breathe. Put your lips on me and I can live underwater, underwater, underwater!" He made sure to look at me and smile.

I sat, still, watching everything come together perfectly. This started as a cute little poetic line he said to me when we unexpectedly went swimming months ago. After that it turned into him using it to create these beautiful, meaningful lyrics. Finally, it was a masterpiece of a song.

They went through the whole thing, even with some people on instruments singing back up vocals. Mika seemed so into it, enjoying what he was creating and enjoying that he had the chance to do it.

The song ended and he quickly asked me for my opinion. "Wow...I uh...wow." I managed to spit out. There were no words.

"That's one down. Expect more." he smirked at me.

My phone started buzzing in my pocket and I pulled it out. Zuleika was ringing me. Slightly thankful that she didn't call in the middle of the song, I excused myself. I had to take it. I shuffled outside and closed the door. I heard muffled clapping coming from them and others congratulating Mika.

"Hello?" I answered the call.

"KATHY GUESS WHAT!" she yelled, making my ears hurt.

"Whoa whoa what?" I asked. "Calm down."

"PALOMA GETS OUT OF THE HOSPITAL IN 3 DAYS!" she screamed even louder.

"3? No way!" I covered my mouth. She fought, she survived, she made it.

"Yes way! Do you guys think you could fly here to visit her and come back?" she asked, hopeful. Ouch...I didn't know how that would work.

"I'll ask." I said. I made my way back to their room and lightly knocked on the door. Mika answered. "Hello dear!" he said, cheery.

"Hey, Zuleika's on the phone. Paloma's getting out of the hospital in 3 days." I informed. His eyes grew and his jaw dropped.

"Oh my god this is amazing! She's okay!" he hugged me. I couldn't help but laugh. He quickly pulled me off and gave me a happy kiss.

"But, she wants to know if we can fly in to visit her when she comes out of the hospital." His expression dropped. He really didn't want to go back home. At all.

"I...Kath..." he started. "The team and I were planning on recording Underwater that day."

My heart broke. I wanted to see her. I wanted to see Zuleika and Momma Penniman and Fortuné, Paloma, Yasmine, Melachi, everyone!