Blast beats and Blondies

Magenta had texted you about it the day before like it was the most casual thing in the world.

she wants your help learning blonde beats

You'd stared at that for a solid thirty seconds before deciding she probably meant blast beats and responding yeah okay. You weren't about to ask. With Magenta you just learned to fill in the gaps and move on.

So here you are, standing in front of Chodan's door with your stick bag over your shoulder, knocking.

There's a beat. Then two. Then the door swings open and Chodan is standing there with a towel turbaned around her head, the collar of her shirt dark with water, and the kind of unbothered expression that only makes sense if she completely forgot you were coming.

"Oh hey Bumi, what's up?"

She's already unwinding the towel, working it through her hair as she steps back to let you in.

"Nothing. Genta wanted me to help you learn blast beats."

Chodan's eyes go wide. Not surprised — more like something just clicked into place for her.

"Oh that's perfect." She gestures vaguely behind her toward the interior of the apartment. "I'm in the middle of dying my hair right now though, so — make yourself comfortable? I'll be out in a bit."

You shrug and step inside.

The apartment is lived-in in a way you appreciate. Not messy, just present — a couple of mugs on the coffee table, a hoodie draped over the back of the couch, the faint smell of whatever she's got processing in her hair cutting through the general scent of the space.

The drum kit is in the corner like it always is, tucked against the wall but never quite out of the way. You drift toward it on principle. No real intention behind it, just gravity.

You settle onto the throne, adjust it out of habit, and pick up the sticks from the snare. Forgive and Forget had been living rent-free in your head for three weeks. You didn't think about it — your hands just found the opening and went.

The intro hits different on a real kit. You lean into it, letting the muscle memory take over, and somewhere in the middle of the first verse you stop thinking about anything at all. That's the part people don't understand about drumming. It's not mindless. It's just that your mind gets completely occupied by the thing in front of it.

You play the whole song through.

When you come back to yourself, Chodan is standing in the doorway to the hallway, arms folded, watching you with a smile she's not trying to hide. Hair still damp, a different shirt on now, a faint line of color along her hairline that she hasn't fully blended yet.

You have no idea how long she's been there.

"Okay," she says. "You have to teach me how to do that."

You set one stick across your knee and look up at her. "Sure. It's all in the wrist and fingers."

Chodan's mouth pulls into a smirk at that. Something clearly landed differently than you intended it.

You choose not to investigate.

"Cool," you say, like you didn't notice.

She pushes off the doorframe, crossing toward you, but she stops short of the kit and tilts her head a little.

"Hey — before we start." A pause. "Can you help me dye my hair?"

The bathroom is small the way most apartment bathrooms are, which means you're closer to each other than either of you bothered to acknowledge. The smell hits you first — developer and toner and something floral underneath it, whatever her shampoo was. The counter is covered. Gloves, foil, a bowl, two different bottles of what you assumed were related products.

"Okay so." Chodan leans against the sink and looks at you seriously, like she's about to brief you on something. "I'm going blonde for the comeback. I need it to look good. Like actually good."

"Okay."

"I'm trusting you."

"I hear you."

She studies you for a second, then nods and hands you the gloves.

You've helped with hair before. You know the mechanics of it. You worked the bleach in section by section, careful about coverage, while Chodan sat still on the closed toilet lid with a towel over her shoulders and her eyes closed. She had her hands folded in her lap like someone waiting for a train.

When the timing was done you rinsed her out, got the towel under the dripping ends, and moved into the toning. That part was slower. You took your time with the applicator, working through each section from root to mid-length, making sure the color was even. Your fingers traced along her scalp as you went — not thinking about it, just following the part lines, keeping track of where you'd been.

That was when she made the sound.

Not loud. Just a small, involuntary exhale that dropped away into something quieter. Her shoulders, which you hadn't even noticed were tense, came down about an inch.

You didn't say anything. Neither did she.

You kept going. Methodical. Gentle. The black slowly giving way through the foils until when you finally unwrapped the last section and held up the hand mirror, what was looking back at her was unmistakably blonde.

You set the mirror down.

"Job's done."

Chodan turned her head side to side in the mirror above the sink, pulling sections forward, checking the ends. Her expression was unreadable in the focused way that meant she was actually looking.

Then she nodded once. Satisfied.

"Go back out, I'll finish up."

You found the kit again without meaning to.

Porcelain Wings this time — slower build, more room to breathe. You settled into it, let the opening carry you. You were somewhere in the middle stretch of the song, in that space where your hands knew exactly what was coming before you did, when you heard her come back out.

You let the song finish anyway.

When you looked up, Chodan was standing in the middle of her living room with her arms at her sides, blonde hair dry and styled, smiling at you with the ease of someone who knew exactly what she looked like and was fine with it.

You set the sticks down on the snare.

"You look nice."

She laughed — that short, bright laugh she had when something actually got her. "Take a picture. It'll last longer."

You looked at her for a beat. Then you took out your phone.

"Okay."

The laugh that came out of her then was different. Caught off guard, a little helpless. She turned her face away and covered her mouth with the back of her hand.

You took the picture anyway.