The guitar had its own memory, apparently.
That was the only explanation I could arrive at, sitting there with the thing in my hands, watching my fingers find chords I had no conscious knowledge of.
It wasn't like riding a bike, where the body remembered the balance and the rest was just momentum. This was more specific than that.
And there was still a slight disconnect between the knowledge and what I was doing. My left hand knew exactly what to do, where to press, which fret, how much pressure, and my right hand knew exactly what angle the pick needed, how fast it needed to go, or stop, and which strokes needed to be sharp and which were a bit soft, lazy.
Crazy thing, muscle memory. I'd read once that it wasn't really stored in the muscles at all but in the cerebellum, whatever that was.
What mattered was that here I was, a completely different consciousness behind the same eyes, accidentally inheriting a skill I'd never practiced.
And as strange and almost grotesque an experience that was, it was also a source of incredible novelty for me. I started making notes and testing hypotheses in my mind.
I started with something simple, just to test the range of what was available to me. I had no theoretical knowledge to know what in the good heavens I was even doing, but my fingers just kept going, sliding into a fingerpicking pattern that produced a bright, brisk, and easy-listening sort of tune.
It sounded good.
Not impressive-for-a-beginner good. Actually good.
I stopped, stared at my hand for a moment, then kept going. I picked the guitar up because I was bored, and wanted to take the edge off the day a bit.
But I was honestly already fascinated. I was in uncharted waters with no map or rudder, and that felt fucking awesome.
Iris, sitting cross-legged at the edge of the bed with her knees up, her chin resting on her arms as she watched me picking up the pace slightly, my slender fingers sweet, sweet love to the instrument. The guitar moaned a beautiful cry for me.
"You're really good, Damien..."
Iris said quietly, smiling, as her eyes followed the motions of my hands with an innocent, pure curiosity.
"You think so?" I found myself smiling back at her. "I genuinely wasn't sure anything was going to happen when I picked this up. I thought I'd just make noise."
"You used to play all the time." She said, wistfully. "Before."
"Before what?"
She hesitated. "Before you got... quieter." A pause. "A few years ago."
I filed that away. So there had been a version of Damien who played guitar, and then a version who stopped, and presumably some event in between that accounted for the gap. I didn't push on it. Iris had the look of someone who'd said slightly more than she'd meant to and was hoping I wouldn't notice.
So, I hummed in vague understanding and continued playing instead.
Iris had uncrossed her legs at some point without me registering it.
Now she had them stretched out in front of her, ankles crossed, cute little footsies arching up.
She leaned back on her hands, swaying gently to whatever I was playing, her red hair shifting with the motion.
I couldn't have told you what I was playing.
That was the honest answer.
There was no name for it in my head, no theoretical framework, no sense of key or structure or anything resembling music education. There was just the feeling of where the next finger was supposed to go. It was very strange, being able to do something you had no recollection of.
I hummed, something just coming into my throat naturally.
A song.
I didn't sing it outright. I've never tested my singing voice against live feedback, so I wasn't actually sure how I sounded. I didn't want to ruin Iris's impression of me at all with a squawking, low or pitchy voice that grated on the ear.
Yet, slowly, as my hums and notes grew a bit deeper, a little bit richer, it began to approach something recognizable, coalesce into a song I used to listen to, and gradually, Iris' eyes grew a bit wider. She stared at me. "Did you... come up with that yourself?"
I briefly snapped out of it and stopped abruptly. I frowned. "Don't you recognize it?"
Iris shook her head, eyes full of curiosity. "No, I don't. What's it called?"
"I don't remember… it's just something I've heard, somewhere…"
Makes sense. Different world and shit, though I ought to do my own research regarding that. There might have been a song out there, in this world, that was an exact replica of the one I had just played.
Or at least highly similar to it.
She smiled, and I was taken aback for a moment. "You should play more often."
"I think I will." I chuckled. "If you're there, cheering for me."
And I meant it, which was mildly surprising. I hadn't expected to mean anything I said today. I wasn't playing a double faced life, though to Iris and the rest of my family, I might've as well been. I couldn't run from them, or this world, apparently. In a way, I had to find my own understanding of these women, untainted by OG Damien's memories and experiences. Suddenly living with all these women, all relatives, yet I didn't have any particular feelings for them beyond a vague exclamation for their looks.
A clean slate surrounded by so much color.
Iris smiled at that, opening her mouth to say something. The sound tapered off into a chocked sound.
Then closed it.
Then looked at the guitar instead.
I watched this happen with idle interest. Iris had a whole internal parliament, it seemed.
"What?" I tilted my head, narrowing my eyes.
"Nothing." She looked away.
"You were going to say something."
"I changed my mind."
She looked away, somewhat petulantly.
I put the guitar aside and leaned in. She almost backed off on reflex, before managing to school her reactions.
Then, like a coward, she covered herself by pulling her legs up into a defensive posture.
"What did you change it to?"
"N-Nothing! Y-You should learn more new songs, then. And let me hear them!"
"Hm, is that it?"
"Yep! Exactly that!" She nodded, puffing up her chest.
A futile effort, in all respects, but amusing.
"We can try writing something, maybe." I suggested, already brushing off whatever was rolling around her mind. "Wouldn't that be fun, making something up together?"
"Write a song? Just like that, just..."
Her expression darkened in uncertainty, and a touch of nervousness.
I leaned closer. She swallowed, staring down at me uncompromisingly, though her pulse was jumping through the veins on her neck.
"Just us. I mean, we could make it as long and as ridiculous as we wanted to. And we could do whatever we wanted. There aren't really rules, in theory. Maybe a couple, but who's gonna know the difference if you have fun, right?"
Iris didn't answer that one, instead staring at me as though she'd discovered the existence of a previously undiscovered, uncategorized species.
Then she tilted her head, almost as though she couldn't quite believe she'd just heard me correctly.
"... really?"
I shrugged, it's not like I had anything better to do, anyway, so might as well.
Besides, I did see some lyrics jotted down, along with some music sheets. Maybe I did actually try to write some, at least one. Roping Iris along was just for that extra bit of sibling bonding.
"Well... okay!" She said brightly. "I-I'd like that."
Then a slight pause. She flushed slightly, glancing up at me from under her eyelashes.
"... just you and me though, right?"
I leaned back again. "Don't want any witnesses?"
Iris looked confused, then laughed nervously. "N-no, of course not!"
"Then it'll be just me and you..."
I gave her a heavy-lidded, bright smile.
"Damien..."
She sounded relieved and frustrated at the same time.
"Hmm?"
"You're really frustrating..." She sighed, pushing me gently on the shoulder. "A girl's heart can't take these things..."
That was so out of nowhere.
I laughed. "My poor sister, are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine!" She insisted, scooting deeper into my bed and crossing her legs again. "Just felt my lifespan shorten a little, that's all."
"That's concerning."
"It's your fault."
"Is it now?" I raised an eyebrow. "You don't have to stay, you know. If your lifespan is under threat." I wiggled my fingers in an air quote.
"I'm aware." She didn't move.
I didn't comment on that.
"Anyway, Damien... are you really alright?"
"Did Mom tell you to ask?" I rolled my eyes.
"No." She pouted. "I'm asking you because I'm worried. We are family." She made sure to drive home the familial status card here, that was evident. "I mean, you didn't even remember me..."
"How could I possibly not remember you, Iris? That was just a bad dream." I gently brushed away her concerns, along with a strand of hair that fell over her eyes, making her look like a certain super sayan in his second form. "It was a very strange situation, and I thought I wasn't where I was supposed to be. Now everything's fine, isn't it?"
"... is it though?" Iris said quietly, holding her fist and lowering it on her lap. Her slender legs crossed, and her nightgown certainly didn't collaborate in hiding her assets, or those creamy, perfectly proportioned thighs.
There was no shame, no pretension, just a pure, natural movement without thinking too much.
This world was as dangerous to me as I was to these people.
I gently nudged her cheek.
She stared at me weirdly.
I chuckled and fluffed her hair up, just because she looked too cute like that, wide-eyed and utterly shocked. "You worry too much."
"T-This is a brother and sister thing." Iris protested feebly, half-heartedly trying to flatten the bird's nest that I'd made of her hair. "It's normal."
"Perhaps..."
Iris didn't look like she was about to leave anytime soon. Well, with how she had been eyeing the door, her hesitant expression, and how she would say something and then stop halfway, I guessed she probably wanted to leave, and didn't really want to leave.
It was a particular situation, so I sat there, and stared at her.
"......"
She stared right back, but couldn't quite hold my gaze, so she ended up glancing away instead.
"Damien... don't do that."
"Don't do what?"
"You... uh. Well. Uhh." She stuttered and tripped over herself so hard, I thought for a second there she'd managed to dislodge an incisor or something. "Don't stare so much..."
Turns out there were many things I couldn't do.
"If you hate it that much..."
"No, I—" She began vehemently, perhaps more vehemently than the context might've deserved, before suddenly cutting off when our eyes locked. "N-Not hate..."
I waited. She wrung her hands, apparently not sure where to put them.
"You know..." I said thoughtfully. "People always said that staring into each other's eyes was very romantic. All the literature pointed at it as being the primary instigation for intense romantic encounters or first steps towards relationships. Though, I suppose staring for three minutes and more can border on uncomfortable."
"Just don't do it to other women."
"Other women." I hummed. "Mom said the same thing."
"Mom's right."
"Do other women want me looking elsewhere, and not on their pretty little faces then?"
"D-Damien!"
She looked absolutely scandalized, pressing a hand to her chest as her cheeks were gradually filled with an alluring, seductive red. "Y-You have to be careful, if you're caught staring, they might misunderstand... you know... the intent..."
"I don't understand the logic. Women are everywhere. I don't want to look at the ground my whole life, sis."
"I mean... if a man stares or gets a little too friendly in the wrong context, they might get the wrong idea."
"Ah..." I scratched my nose. "Just to confirm, you wouldn't get the wrong idea if I stared at your face, right? Because there's no wrong interpretation to family?"
"Family. Absolutely. Right. No wrong interpretation."
Iris nodded robotically.
"Got it." I said easily, accepting this as my new truth. "Thanks, Iris."
"Y-Yes, what're sisters for!"
"You should go now, unless you'd like to sleep here." I stretched myself out, giving her plenty of time to make it out of the way if she wished, as my arms, fingers, shoulders, back popped.
It had been an intense day. It was time to hang my police hat on the metaphorical coat stand. In fact, I should probably frame it somewhere.
"Uhm. Really?" She said it like a question, her voice very quiet, and somehow managing to inject equal parts surprise, apprehension, excitement, and nervousness into two words. "C-Can I?"
I shrugged.
"Sure, but I'm super cuddly when—"
Iris scrambled out of my room before I'd finished the sentence, her hand covering her lips and her face colored crimson.