After a small gig, Sesangbit and Seolmeari film their first introduction on a phone. While replaying it as they wait for the last bus, they notice three unfamiliar notes hidden in the sound of rain.
When the applause died away, I checked my phone first. There were nineteen minutes until the last bus.
The last person in the audience stepped through the door. Only the clatter of folding chairs and the scuff of wet shoes remained. I switched off the microphone and packed our cables into the equipment bag. The faster I tried to coil one, the more its end kept springing loose.
Seolmeari sat on the edge of the stage, pressing her heels against the floor in time as she quietly hummed the chorus we had just sung.
“You’ve been doing that for a while.”
“Doing what?”
“The chorus.”
Seolmeari closed her mouth as if she had not realized it. A moment later, her lips began moving again without a sound.
“It doesn’t count if I’m not making any sound, does it?”
“Your feet are still keeping time.”
“You count things like that too?”
“Yeah. And the minutes until the last bus.”
Seolmeari smiled through her tiredness.
“Did you see the person in the front row?”
“The one rubbing their eyes?”
“They were crying.”
“Maybe it was just their contacts.”
“They could have been crying and bothered by their contacts.”
Instead of answering, I pushed the cable into the bag. The lid still would not close. Seolmeari came over and picked up the loop sticking out.
“You wound it the wrong way.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you keep trying to force it shut?”
She unwound one loop and coiled it in the other direction. This time, the cable slipped neatly into the bag.
“You’re in such a hurry for the last bus, you’re doing everything twice.”
“It was one mistake.”
“You were looking for your water bottle earlier, too.”
“You moved it.”
Without a word, Seolmeari pointed to my left hand. The bottle I had been looking for was already in it. I quietly set it down beside the bag.
“Don’t tell anyone about this.”
“Too late.”
Seolmeari propped her phone on the closed equipment bag. On the screen, we looked less like singers fresh off a show than people who had run in out of the rain. Her bangs were stuck to one side of her forehead, and the collar of my jacket sat crooked.
“We’re filming now?”
“We said we’d make one video today.”
“Looking like this?”
“The lighting will take care of it.”
Watching herself on the screen, Seolmeari pressed her bangs down with her palm. Then she straightened my collar.
“Fix your own hair.”
“This is how I always look.”
“Same here.”
I watched the screen as I adjusted the angle of the phone.
“Why’d you move it?”
“There was too much ceiling.”
“Not because of your chin?”
“Starting now.”
We had decided to use the names Sesangbit and Seolmeari whenever we sang together. We had even memorized our opening line.
“Hello. I’m Sesangbit, and . . .”
Nothing came next. The sentence that had been in my head only moments ago vanished the instant I saw my own face on the screen.
Seolmeari finally spoke up beside me.
“And?”
“Give me a second.”
“Your ears are red.”
“It’s the lighting.”
“The lighting is white.”
I reached to stop the recording, but Seolmeari slid the phone toward herself.
“Again. I’ll do it this time.”
The second recording began.
“Hello. We’re sisters, and we do gigs together. I’m Seolmeari, and this is my older sister, Sesangbit.”
“You should say we sing part-time. That’s more accurate.”
“Do we have to say ‘part-time’?”
“But it’s true.”
“That makes us sound like we don’t have dreams.”
“We have dreams. And tonight, we have a last bus to catch.”
Seolmeari laughed, then noticed me glancing at the outlet beside the camera.
“And she’s still looking at the plug instead of the camera.”
“One left.”
“She always ends her sentences like that.”
“Not always.”
“You just did.”
After that, we forgot about introductions and spent the rest of the take teasing each other. Seolmeari mimicked the low note I had sung, and I brought up the beat she had missed. Maybe we were tired, because both of us were one beat slow to react. We kept bursting into laughter only after the other had finished speaking.
“Let’s film it again.”
Seolmeari checked the recording.
“Why? This one feels the most like us.”
“The introduction cuts off halfway.”
“We said our names, said we’re sisters, and said we sing. That’s enough.”
“And my collar’s crooked again.”
Seolmeari looked from the screen to me and smiled.
“That’s what’s really bothering you, isn’t it?”
I did not answer. I picked up the equipment bag.
“Let’s film again next time.”
“At every show?”
“No. Only on days we want to remember. And if words aren’t enough, we can record a song too.”
“We haven’t even listened to the song we sang tonight.”
“Then let’s listen together when we get home.”
When we stepped outside, the rain sounded much closer. Behind a folded sidewalk sign beneath the eaves, a cream-colored cat was curled into a ball.
Seolmeari crouched a few steps away. She neither reached out nor called to it; she simply lowered herself to its eye level. The cat did not run. It looked at us for a moment.
“Don’t go any closer. You’ll scare it.”
“I know. Just eye level.”
Seolmeari greeted it under her breath, then stood. The cat stayed where it was beneath the eaves.
I opened the clear umbrella and tipped it toward Seolmeari. She took the handle and brought it back between us.
“You’re getting wet.”
“Look at your left shoulder.”
I turned my head. My shoulder was already dark with rain.
“When did that happen?”
“You notice my side getting wet, but not your own shoulder.”
“If you catch a cold, you can’t work the next gig.”
“You sing too.”
Seolmeari centered the umbrella between us again.
At the bus stop, Seolmeari opened the video on her phone to trim the end. It had kept recording for a few seconds after we stopped talking. We heard the equipment bag opening and closing, chair legs scraping across the floor, and the rain beyond the door.
Amid those sounds was something like a brief hum. Just three notes.
“Is that you?”
“No. Wasn’t it you?”
Seolmeari played it again. Three notes amid the rain were not enough to tell who had made the sound.
“If you trim the ending, it’ll be gone.”
Seolmeari shook her head.
“Let’s leave it.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know what it is yet.”
On the screen, my crooked collar kept catching my eye, but I did not say anything else. Seolmeari closed the editor.
The bus arrived, and we put the phone in the bag.
Once we were on the bus, Seolmeari said softly,
“Let’s listen again when we get home.”
I touched the wet collar of my jacket and nodded.