[Spirit of Lust 2] Chapters 324 & 325. (Patreon)

Chapter 324: In sync again.

I had signed up and picked the song I’d play, one that I was confident I could play well. All that was left was to figure out how the hell I was going to do this.

“What do you mean?” Isabelle asked me. We were both in my room after school. I was sitting on my bed with my new guitar on my lap while Isabelle sat across from me on my desk chair and Cake laid next to me, licking the back of her paw. “You just play it, right?”

“The thing is… I took Thomas’ advice and picked one of my favorite songs. I picked one without lyrics so I wouldn’t have to sing. It’s also one in which the guitar plays a very noticeable role, but… There are like three guitars in the song and they each have a part in which they stand out. I could play parts of the lead guitar and parts of the rhythm guitars, but I’m worried it would sound strange with the backup track. And then, if I only play the lead guitar, there are parts where I’d be sitting there waiting, and if I play the rhythm guitar, it wouldn’t be as exciting as a performance.”

“So… you have to pick which guitar to play for the song and let the backup track play the rest?”

“Basically, yeah.”

Isabelle pursed her lips. “Okay, maybe this is harder than I thought it would be.”

“See?”

“Why not just play something popular? You’d get more votes like that.”

Oh yeah. The winner of the show would be determined by vote. Other students would pick the act they liked best. First place would get a $100 gift card for a clothing store, second place would get a $50 gift card for the same store and third place would get a $25 gift card to a local pizza place. Well, that and medals. Alice considered it an accomplishment that she convinced our principal to even have prizes beyond glory and pride.

“I considered it, but… I’m not looking for votes. I want to do this to prove to myself that I can do it. I… might not get people as excited as the guy who’s gonna dance like Michel Jackson, but… I’ve always played guitar for myself. It might be selfish, but I want to keep it that way.”

Isabelle chuckled. “I think that’s just how art is. I approved, brother. Do whatever you want to do. I’ll whistle and clap even if no one else does.”

“...Please don’t. I think that’d hurt me even more.”

Isabelle began to laugh, but then stopped all too suddenly. Her eyes went wide and a huge grin appeared on her face. “That’s it!”

“What is?”

“I’ll help you!”

I narrowed my eyes. “I know I have more instruments now, but there’s no way you’ll learn to play this in a month, not even the bass.”

“No, not like that! I just had a brilliant idea! Why don’t you just play lead and rhythm guitars at the same time? Even throw the bass in there!”

I looked down at my hands and counted them. One, two. Even Cake stopped grooming herself to stare at Isabelle like she’d just gone crazy. She was probably just curious about why Isabelle was shouting and flailing, but I wanted to believe.

“I’m afraid I’m missing a few arms, sis,” I told her flatly.

“You lack imagination, dear brother. Let’s record you playing, both on the audio interface and on camera. Then I’ll edit the footage and mix the audio and we’ll show it on the projector in the background while you also play live!”

That… didn’t sound like a bad idea at all. Actually, it was a genius idea. However… “It would be a lot of work for you. Do you even know how to mix audio? Because I still don’t.”

“We’ll figure it out. Worst case scenario you play lead guitar with a background track. But if we manage to do this, you’ll show yourself playing three different guitar tracks plus the bass!”

I’d… have to actually learn the bass track, but since I already knew how to play everything else, I could totally learn it in a month. I swallowed.

“And… you’d help me with this?”

“Hell yeah!” Isabelle smirked and clenched her fists over her knees. “Oliver, let’s show them. Let’s show the music club what they missed out on. Not with revenge, but with poetic justice. One-up them so hard the whole school will be wondering why you’re not the lead guitarist.”

Fuck. It had been so long since Isabelle and I were on such good terms that I’d forgotten that she understood me perfectly. Much as I hated to admit it, I still held that grudge. I wanted to forget it, move on, be the bigger man. I didn’t want to know who had cut the strings of my guitar. I was afraid that maybe everyone in the club wanted me out. It was better to just forget about it, but… What Isabelle proposed sounded way too perfect.

I smirked. “I’ll have to re-submit the registration form if you’re helping me out. I’ll have to add that I’ll need the projector, too.”

Isabelle brought out her phone and started typing. “I’ll ask Alice if we can do that, but I doubt there’ll be a problem with all this time before the event.”

“We need to figure out how to use audio mixing software soon. You’re already good at editing video, so that’s our biggest hurdle.”

“I’ll still need to watch some other videos to get some ideas. Should we show all the instruments being played together or switch as they become relevant?”

“Should we decide that after we have the footage?”

“Mmm. No, let’s get some inspiration first. It’ll be easier to work if we have a clear picture in mind. But… Should we film you here in your room or somewhere else?”

“I… don’t know how I’d feel about most of the school seeing my room.”

“Oh, come on. They’d see the bed and the wall at most, and your bedroom is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s on the plain side, actually.”

“Fine. But let’s see if we can make the garage work somehow.”

It felt amazing. Isabelle and I were in sync like we hadn’t been in years. We were excitedly bouncing ideas off each other and planning how we’d get it all done. The more we talked, the more we realized all the work we had ahead of us. Suddenly a month was feeling like a lot less time.

************

Chapter 325: Intermission - Cake’s internet debut.

One Wednesday, Mila asked Oliver if she could go to his house to hang out. She knew he and Isabelle would be busy preparing their act for the talent show, but she wanted to be there anyway, even if she was just watching them.

Sure, she saw Oliver at school, they still talked in the clubroom and did dirty things, but she wanted to be with him more. She didn’t need to be the center of his attention. She just wanted to be there.

She was in his bedroom, sitting on his bed while he looked at his computer with Isabelle standing beside him. They were watching different videos for reference on how to structure theirs. Mila, meanwhile, was scrolling down her social media pages.

Random thought, but she was thankful Oliver didn’t use any social media. If he did and they became friends in any of them, he’d see…

‘Holy hell! You look so hot!’

‘Oh the things I’d do to you…’

‘Lovely as ever. Why not show a bit more skin in the next photo?’

Those were just a few of the creepy comments she got on the pictures she uploaded. Not anywhere near the majority, but they were there. It didn’t matter that it was just a photo of her trying on a new jacket, someone always thought I’d get anywhere saying stuff like that. And let’s not mention the direct messages.

Mila had learned to ignore them, and thankfully no one had ever tried anything too out of line in real life. Still, it was the biggest issue with being an ‘influencer’. Sometimes she did upload pictures showing a small bit of cleavage when it was one with one of the items she got sponsored by, as she was paid depending on the amount of likes, but most of her pictures were pretty tame.

She squeezed her phone a bit tighter. It didn't bother her so much before, but now that she was seeing Oliver… She worried he’d think less of her for it. Perhaps she’d talk to him about it soon. She was sure Oliver understood how much he meant to her, but she couldn’t blame him if he was bothered by the comments regardless.

“I think it’s better if we show them all at the same time throughout the entire video,” Oliver said. “Otherwise, people might believe we just recorded a few parts and spliced it all together.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Isabelle said, nodding in agreement. “Then… if we assume you’ll play the lead guitar live, that means we have to record two rhythm guitars and the bass, right?”

“Yeah. So three screens side by side.”

“Mmm. Sounds a little boring, but better than trying something fancy and messing it up.”

Mila chuckled. They were so into it. She had listened to Oliver practicing a bit and she had liked it. She didn’t know much about music, but it sounded impressive. He was clearly still just starting to learn the bass part, but Mila knew he’d get it soon.

A couple minutes later, as Oliver and Isabelle were fiddling with the sound editing software, Cake strolled into the room, tail held high. She sat down close to Oliver’s desk chair, looked up at him and started meowing loudly and adorably.

Mila grinned and quickly began to record it. Cake was being too cute not to.

“What?” Oliver asked her, looking down at her. “It’s still not meal time. Wait a bit longer.”

Cake didn’t care. She meowed again, then threw herself to the floor, rolling around and staring up at her dad with her belly up.

Oliver sighed. “Cake, I’m busy right now. We’ll play later.”

Mila knew Oliver well. He would not break. Cake could act as cute as she wanted, but Oliver wouldn’t stop what he was doing to play with her. It seemed Cake knew it, too, because she stopped trying. Instead, the cat got up and got in position. She leaned forward, raised her behind and swayed it in preparation before she leapt into Oliver’s lap.

“H-Hey!”

“Ahahaha! That was amazing!” Isabelle laughed while Cake curled up proudly on her dad’s lap. Mila got up and moved closer for a better shot of it.

Oliver sighed deeply again, then began to stroke Cake’s back and scratch her around the neck while he also got back to working on his computer. Mila stopped the recording there. It made for a near perfect one-minute video.

Isabelle grinned. “You got that?”

“Yep. It’s perfect,” Mila said.

“Send it to me!”

“Already on it.”

Man, cat videos are just unfair. No matter what those balls of fluff do, you still want to watch. It was no wonder they made up like 90% of the internet, Mila thought.

…

Actually…

“Oliver? Would you mind if I uploaded this video to my page?” Mila asked.

Oliver, predictably, frowned and pursed his lips. “Does my face show?”

“Um… Yeah, a bit.” That was a no, then.

Oliver looked down at Cake on his lap then sighed in resignation. “It’s fine. Do it.”

Mila beamed. “You sure?”

“I have to admit it was pretty funny,” Oliver said, smiling. “Who knows? It might make someone’s day.”

Mila gave Oliver a hard kiss on the cheek, leaving him stunned, and threw herself on his bed, already working on uploading the video. She wrote a little something to go with it.

‘I was hanging out with my boyfriend and his sister when their cat, Cake, came in and demanded attention. This girl is just soooo in love with her dad! Hahaha!’

It wasn’t the first time she mentioned online that she had a boyfriend, so there shouldn’t be an uproar about that. If there was, fuck them, but Cake was the star of this short.

Mila had a decently big following, so the likes and comments began to pour immediately.

‘OMG she’s so cute!’

‘Lmao the way she moves her butt before jumping!’

‘When a cat wants attention, she gets it dammit! Hahahaha!’

‘What a jump!’

‘Is that your boyfriend? He’s pretty cute…’

‘Cute? That guy’s HAWT! More so while he’s petting a cat!’

‘Cute cats with cute guys is what I live for!’

‘Tell him to take off his shirt.’

‘More Cake videos, please! She’s adorable!’

‘That’s how you know a cat is loved and well-cared for. Lovely!’

In the next 30 minutes, the video had already gotten close to 500 likes. Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, Cake was a hit. And this also revealed that Mila had a fair bit of female followers, too. Oliver also seemed to be a hit, but that wasn't as big of a surprise.

Hmm… Maybe she should take more pictures and videos of them? The world needed to see them, after all. It wouldn’t be fair to have them miss out on such cuteness.

…

Oliver would refuse to get his picture taken so much, though. Particularly so if it was for the internet. But… maybe once in a while? Considering the comments he was getting, maybe it would help him understand that the ones she got were also unwanted? Would Oliver be the type to grow an ego if he knew he was popular on the internet? Well, he knew he was popular at school and mostly hated it, so probably not.

She then got a sudden message from Noelle. All it said was ‘post more.’

Well then, that settled it. Mila took some pictures of Cake to upload later, and… maybe she was imagining it, but either Cake was very photogenic or she was actively posing for the camera. Didn’t matter. She looked perfect! She also tried to record another video, but there wasn’t anything as interesting or funny as the lap leap.

By the time Mila went back home and was about to go to bed, Cake’s video already had over 2000 likes. Not enough to say she’d gone viral, but enough to say she was… more popular than Mila herself. Huh.

Man, cats videos really are unfair.