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It was actually remarkably easy to find Roch's room, even had she not known the room number. His door was open, and all the way down the hall this song could be heard playing. It sounded strange, though, for people more used to listening to music on the scareo than in real life. And every once in a while it would stop, then start again, replaying a certain part with tiny changes.

Roch had found gruetube, and he was teaching himself some new songs. He almost had this one down, but he would have to play it a few more times before he was certain. That wouldn't be a problem, though, because he really liked it. It was relaxing.

His rather empty room was relatively clean, except his usual vest had been tossed to the side and his minipets, Jackdammit and Clef, were draped over either him or his bed, or both. They tended to have a truce when Roch was playing for them.

He glanced up at the knock, looking at her curiously but still playing. "C'mon in," he said.

"Huh?" Roch said blankly. He was lounging on his large papasan bed, shirtless, shoeless, but seriously, this was his room... He let the guitar disappear, waving her in. "C'mon in," he said again. "I was just goofin' off. I kept screwing up, actually, sorry you had to hear that. You're Riley, right? Hard to forget you, actually."

Not only was she purple with tentacles, the first time he'd seen her she had tossed a booth like it was a flapjack. "I'm Roch," he said, standing and offering her his hand. Then he motioned to the desk chair sitting to the side. "You can sit down if you want."

"Yeah, actually!" he said. "It's like a club that you've got to be voted in to lead. They gave me the jist of it, that those guys are the ones that do all the talking for the student body. I can't imagine why you'd wanna be on it, myself. I'm having enough trouble running a little dinky club like mine," he said. That's what his mouth said, his mind was saying something else.

'Prodigy, huh? Thought I'd grown out of that one... hell, haven't heard that word since I was seven, and even then I swore Bones was gonna take his leg off and beat the lady with it...' There was a mix of emotion in that thought, starting with irritation and ending with amusement. The word "Prodigy" sounded more like a derogatory term coming from him.

"But you're running for an office, right? I got to shoot at the stuffed canon cats there!"

What did he want changed? Hell, so far--wait, there was one thing. One thing that irritated the living HELL out of the music obsessed reaper boil. "The music teacher," he said. "But hey, I don't expect you to be able to do that, so don't quote me on this, okay? But he's freakin'--Okay, how do I put it..." He frowned, trying to put it politely.

"You will never EVER learn to play something in that class if they're all like the ones I went to. Or maybe it was just because it was an introduction, I don't know, but hell, I expect... I don't know... MORE out of a music class. My music classes as a kid--"

Alcohol smells and gawkers walking past, the gang shoving various stereos in his face and going "Learn this one! Learn this one!" While Bones cackled and doffed a few more drinks before teaching him how to play what he heard in his head...

A little grin pulled at his lips. "I was so damn proud when I first started developing callouses. Before then my fingers were bloody and blistered for weeks. But I learned to play by ear, then by music sheets. Don't you at least expect that much out of a class?"

stare

Roch was quite good at this face, it seemed, because that was the face he made at that question. "I was... 6, I think," he said abruptly. "When I started, so I can't really SAY what new musicians should be treated like. It's been almost ten years, y'know? But all he did was grab random instruments--I had to fill out this jackin' form, listing what I wanted to play, and the thing he handed me had NOTHING to do with my top choices. Then he grouped us up by what type of instrument it was and made us play five or so notes, barely explaining how the general instruments worked by class. You know, wind instruments, string, etc."

He seemed really irritated with this, because he kept going on. "We played the wrong notes, he stared at this ghost dog boil half the time, and then he dismissed us. Maybe some guys like the guy, I know Bul said he did, but as a guy that's been playing for almost ten years, how can I respect that?"

He stood, pulling open the drawer of his desk and pulling out the "ceramic potato" to show her. That meant reaching past her, but he didn't seem to notice that fact. "See this?" he said. "This is what I'm supposed to be learning. I'd be fine with that, but it's so jackin' squeaky," he finished with pure disgust. "I wanted to learn how to sing! At least that'd be useful to me!"

"Yeah, but I wanted to learn something new," he said with a shrug, holding up a fist. The FEAR circled around his hand, taking the form of his guitar.

"I'm literally part guitar, here. I don't expect many people to be able to teach me more, especially someone that should know enough about all instruments to teach them all," he said. "He wouldn't have dedicated his life to guitar, see? I didn't EXPECT him to have. But that's the only type of guy I would even let teach me guitar. Besides, I have a guitar teacher, when it comes down to it. I still haven't learned everything he knows."

He shrugged and the guitar disappeared again. "But I at least expect to be taught something I'm halfway interested in learning." Then he stopped, his mind going back to the singing question. "And... we only got one singer in the group. He's good, sure, but he's a crooner. I might ask him for some pointers, but well... do I really look like a crooner to you?" he asked finally. "I didn't know they came at an age under eighty," he added dryly.

He dropped down on his bed again, draping his arms over the back and making it look like the gigantic chair that it was. What was it that he wanted? Was there anything so far that was hindering him from getting it? A serious look crossed his face as he thought long and hard. Clef, his Solar Flare, slipped off the back of the bed and crawled onto his lap, curling up and giving Jackdammit a gloating look.

"There's a lot of rich kids here," he said after a moment of thought. "I bet they'd come up with a lot longer list of things this place is missing than I could. Me, hey, I can live practically anywhere. I'm easy. All I want out of this school is to get out of this school and become an official reaper."

The only important thing (other than the pets) in the room seemed to be the bed he was sitting on, that wrought iron, twisted looking oversized papasan chair. There was also a fishtank in the corner with punkeesh in it, but it didn't look very expensive at all. Basically, the punk was poor. And comfortable with it.