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Dhan showed up for work on time, because he'd known that most of his Saturday was going to be forfeit to his new job and he'd had the foresight to set an alarm. (He spent a good ten minutes confirming it was right, and then double-checking, and then... yeah.) Anyway, he showed up on time, and he got right to work as Nasir instructed, but that didn't mean his brain wasn't back in the studio working out a complex drum line. Before he'd, you know, flunked every single English class he was in, he'd been in the school orchestra as a percussionist; now he just sort of. Did his thing? And if that meant tapping out a rhythm on the side of the bowl he was washing, then... that was what that meant.

With the bowl clean, he dried it and passed it back to Nasir for wing-tossing purposes. Dhan was very, very good at chopping up herbs into regular-sized little pieces, and so that was what he was doing between orders.

That, and humming. A lot. Quietly, but still. He had to get this drum line down.

Dhan smiled at the pile of cilantro he was busily plucking stems out of. "You think? It's not refined yet, but I think it's going somewhere." Hopefully that somewhere was somewhere good. Like, Dhan knew his musical skill could be relied on, but even he could heck up somewhere down the line. "I was working on it before I came. Something about the percussion line is off."

If Nasir had asked Dhan to show off any other skill he had, he would have politely demurred. But he loved his music, and he knew he was good, and he said, "Sure, but remember this is just the main line and the chorus," before starting over from the beginning.

(The sharp sounds of a knife hitting the cutting board as he chopped things subbed in great for sharp percussion.)

Dhan nodded. "Yeah. You've got a good ear. That's the part I'm trying to fix. I'm thinking... I might split off the second part, the percussion bit. And develop that some more separately?" It was kind of like a recipe, but six or seven times more annoying... maybe... only not really. He scraped cilantro into a small plastic container and put it back in the line cooler, wiped his knife clean. "Okay, what's the next order?"

Dhan nodded. "Or maybe they're used to spice?" He grinned at Nasir; Dhan had no problem with the atomic cheddar jalapeno poppers, or... pretty much anything that wasn't pure capsaicin. He'd grown up with his dad's cooking, though... if it didn't make his eyes water, it just wasn't hot enough yet. He sliced and cleaned the peppers, passed them back to Nasir in exchange for a nearly-empty plastic bin of cheese.

"Yeah. Wish I had more time to work on it, but I want to get the album done by this Friday, and with school and work... I have to get the liner notes to my sister too..." Hana had always spellchecked his work for him, and it was easier to get his thoughts onto the paper when he knew they'd be checked later. Also, she never made fun of him for file names like 'Imen-netes.txt'. By now, Hana knew what he meant. "Not that I'm not happy to be here," he added. "I am! Just... I wish I could drop out already."

Dhan shook his head. "Not really," he sighed, bending over the bacon and slicing it up very carefully, but also quickly because there wasn't much time to waste. "I could try to test out, but... I have problems with tests, and they don't exactly give, um. Extra time for just being bad at stuff. Dad says it's better to get the actual diploma anyway."

Not like Dhan would ever be able to do anything with it. Like, there was a reason he focused so hard on his music, besides being hecks of awesome at it.

Dhan grinned back. "I dunno, it's pretty cool to meet someone who likes my stuff and isn't my sister," he said. "It gives me hope that I can make a career out of this one day. Not the, uh, the cooking, but the music." (He sighed a little wistfully. Music.)

"What bands do you like," he asked, turning to his next task.

Dhan grinned. "I love Marina," he said. "I did a remix of some of her songs, actually. If you give me your email I'll send it to you?"