Passionfruit

3.

 The music slowly faded out of my headphones. Once it was completely gone, Luka gave Miku and I the thumbs up from the other side of the window, and we both took our headphones off.

"Sounds good, girls!" Io said through his microphone. "Come on out."

"Ugh," I muttered to Miku as we walked towards the door into the lobby. "I hate singing all cutesy like that."

"Oh shut up. It's a cute song," she replied, defensive.

"It is, it is. Just... it gets old sometimes."

"There's another one for the album!" Io confirmed, clicking and typing away at his laptop, plugged into the sound system of the studio.

"Three more!" Gumi grinned from her seat next to him. Luka stood behind them, her arms crossed, leaning over Io's shoulder and watching his screen.

"We're getting there," I said, my voice still warmed up for recording. We'd been there nearly all day and I was more than ready to head home.

Luka nodded wordlessly at Io's typing. "Yeah, we're about there. Another few days of recording and then it's up to Io."

"I'll get right on it!" He promised, his bright eyes twinkling behind his glasses.

"What are we doing tomorrow?" Miku asked, grabbing her jacket from the hangers on the wall.

"Pull it up, Io," Luka told him.

"Aye aye, boss."

Luka scanned the screen some more. "'Summer Festival', '1,2 Fanclub,' and 'As the Gods Say.'"

"Easy enough," Gumi chirped, leaning closer to them to peek at the screen herself.

"What time tomorrow?" I asked.

"Well, if we're just doing Summer Festival, we might not even need you two," Io pointed out, looking at Gumi and I.

"Oh, come on!" Miku whined.

After deciding on who was showing up tomorrow, the three of us left Luka and Io to their technical stuff as we made our way home. I sat in the driver's seat of my car, Miku crawling into the passenger's seat beside me and Gumi getting comfortable in the back. The sky was dark, not completely black with night, but close. The traffic was only just beginning to die down as I merged onto the highway, heading back to our apartment in San Diego.

"When are we moving to L.A.?" Gumi groaned as she did every time, as we began the several hour drive home.

"When we can afford it," Miku countered.

"It's not any more expensive than San Diego! If only Luka would let us record there instead..."

I drove with my right hand on the steering wheel, leaning against the door with my left.

"Hey," Miku asked me, narrowing her eyes. "What'd you do with that bracelet?"

My eyes flickered down to my bare wrist. "I, uh, I left it with that guy in Vegas."

"What?" Gumi asked, leaning forward in the middle seat so she was between us. "Why?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. Felt right. Like I was getting rid of it."

"You could have just thrown it away," Miku pointed out.

"Yeah, but..." I trailed off. "I don't know, dude. It just felt right. I don't know how to explain it."

It'd been weeks since that night in Vegas. By that point, it seemed more like a distant dream than a memory. It hurt to think about it. I blamed my recklessness on the performance high, but there was no point in worrying about it at all. Because it was over.