Why we’re here.

We found a table with enough spots to sit down and set our trays down and I looked at my plate of pasta with some worry. It didn’t look great, so if it turned out that the cafeteria’s food sucked, I’d have to start making lunch for all of us to bring every night.

“So you run your channel with your sister, Oliver?” Steven asked me.

“Hm? Oh, yeah. It was her idea in the first place. She got back into editing videos and convinced me to open one. I’d been considering it, but if not for her, I probably wouldn’t have done it.” I gave the pasta a try, and found it… passable. A little bland, but not at all awful. I swallowed. “So… how is it that you share your music?” I asked him.

“I have a subscribers page,” he said before a big sigh. “My family owns a small music shop. We sell instruments and all that stuff, but it’s mostly all beginner level. We don’t carry a lot of expensive or specialized gear. At some point… the shop stopped bringing in enough money. I opened that page when I was 15 in an attempt to help my folks. They were adamant that I shouldn’t need to work to help the house, but I told them this would be like a hobby, so they agreed. I’ve been playing music since I was six years old, so I had confidence I could at least do it well enough. Didn’t see any growth until I hit up social media.”

Luna swallowed hard and, hesitantly, asked, “And… how much are you making now?”

Steven smiled with relief. “Only a bit less than the shop, but with both combined… It’s the reason I could afford to enter university. I didn’t want to, but my parents insisted.”

I nodded. “Same here, though my plan was to go full time at my current job.”

“Current job?” Ruby asked. “You mean your channel isn’t your job?”

“What? No,” I said. “It barely makes money.”

“Oh, that’s right, you stopped working at the coffee shop, didn’t you? What are you doing now?” Eric asked me.

“I’m a waiter at the bar in a hotel downtown while training as a bartender.”

“So… You don’t make money from music?” Luna asked me.

“A bit, but not much. And what we make we split in half between my sister and I. Then again, most of what I make there goes to the true star of the show.”

Eric snickered. “You mean you use it to buy Cake her food?”

I nodded. “Pretty much. That and a new toy every once in a while.”

“Ah, so Cake is the cat?” Steven asked.

“Yep. She always runs to listen whenever I start playing, and that’s where my sister got the idea for the channel.”

“That’s so cool! Come on, tell me your channel’s name!” Steven said.

“Sure, but you tell me where I can listen to your stuff.”

As Steven and I exchanged info, Luna and Ruby looked at each other again, grimacing before turning to me again.

“H-Hey, Oliver? We…”

“We’re sorry!” Luna said, her tone loud and frustrated, yet… genuine. “I said all those things the other day because… because we thought you were another one of those opportunistic assholes in it for the money!”

“Wait, huh?” Steven raised his head to look at them with confusion.

Eric did much the same.

I sighed and crossed my arms, which was mostly a physical way to stop myself from going into a rant. I wanted to ask if they expected me to change my asshole-y, greedy ways by saying all that. I wanted to ask why go out of their way to shit on a guy they’d never even met in person. But as I was just thinking regarding Eric, I want to be able to let this kind of thing go.

“Apology accepted, except for one thing,” I said. “The girl I was with, Fernanda. She genuinely liked your performance and went to praise you for it. It’s her I’d like you to apologize to.”

“Yeah, I… shit.” Luna swallowed hard and rubbed one of her eyes. “I acted like a child. Let me know how we can make it up to her.”

“...” I had an idea. “Could you make a cover of a song at her request?”

the eyes of both girls widened. “Y-Yes, of course!” Ruby said.

“You think that’d be enough?”

“I told you. She really liked how you played,” I said, grabbing my phone and texting Fern with a quick rundown of what had just happened. “She was just really disappointed after… you know.”

“Okay, don’t keep us out of the loop now,” Steven said. “How DO you know each other?”

“A brief encounter literally just yesterday,” I told them. “Something happened, but if they’re willing to apologize and let go of it, so am I, so it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“So… You’re NOT a poser who uses a cat to get people to sub to his music channel?” Eric asked me with a small smirk.

“No, that part is kind of true,” I admitted.

Steven snickered.

“And what about you two, then?” I asked Luna and Ruby. “How do you run your channel? WHY do you have a channel?”

“Yeah, what he asked,” Steven said.

“Well…” Luna sighed. “Ruby and I have been dating since we were 14.”

Woah. Since 14? That’s cool.

“We’re both… kind of huge otakus who like japanese culture,” Ruby said with some shame. “We started learning music because we wanted to participate in conventions and the like. Eventually we made a channel, and that channel began to make money.”

“We realized we could… maybe make a living doing something we like, and… we’re gambling on it.”

“Oh, so you’re the ones in it for the money,” I said, smirking. “That makes Eric the purest of us all here. He does it for the love of art.”

Eric clicked his tongue. “Hah! I wish. I’m the most shallow one here.”

“What do you mean?” Steven asked him.

“I… only started because someone asked me to.” Eric lowered his head. “Some childhood friends wanted to start a band, they knew they wanted a drummer but no one wanted to BE the drummer. They told me I’d have to do it, and… I didn’t want to be left out, so I became a drummer. I was 13, and that band didn’t last more than three months. I was asked to be a drummer again in high school, and I said yes for the same reason.”

“And yet he’s really good,” I said. “You were more committed to the music club than any of the other members.”

“And you clearly still like music, or you wouldn’t be here,” Ruby said.

“I… just don’t have any other strengths besides music. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“So you’re like us, then,” Luna said, smiling wryly. “You’re gambling on music, too.”

Eric smiled back. “I suppose.”

Steven chuckled and raised his can of soda. “To gambling.”

“Shut up, you already made it, you don’t get to toast with us losers,” Luna said, grinning and raising her bottle of water.

“The three of you are more successful than Eric and me,” I told them, raising my plastic cup of green juice.

“We’re all gambling until we’re set for life, and we don’t even know when that will be,” Ruby said, also with a bottle of water.

Eric hesitated again, but he raised his can of soda as well. “Please don’t put me on the same level as you.”

“Any time you feel down, just remember you’re better than Julian,” I told him.

Eric laughed. “Yeah, that helps me sleep every night.”

We made a toast with new and fresh air around us. I didn’t know where this would lead, if anywhere at all, but I was at least happy to see that it wasn’t the same as high school.

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