The apartment was dead quiet except for occasional rapid-fire typing on the computer keyboard. Yukio had the laptop where all his sound-mixing samples and music were stored sitting on the tabletop of the kotatsu in the middle of the living room, and he was tucked cross-legged on the floor in the warmth beneath the kotatsu's skirt. His apartment may have been quiet, but the sounds emanating from the big studio headphones he wore were anything but. A steady electronic kick-drum beat pulsed through them into his head, laying the foundation for the piece he was shaping on the laptop; he had his drum machine, a small piano-like keyboard, and his phone plugged into the computer as well. All the ingredients for the perfect song to answer the question in his mind: What would Abbey enjoy dancing to?

He found himself thinking a lot about Abbey lately. They were both so busy lately that they hadn't been able to meet up in person except on the rare occasion they were both free, though they texted each other constantly, sharing vids back and forth on TikTok and comments on YouTube. It wasn't the same, though, as actually seeing her. Yukio missed that in-person interaction with her, taking silly selfies at some club or other and posting them to tease their respective audiences. She was fun and cute and she liked him as he was, clove cigarettes and all.

As he felt his heart begin to beat faster at the thought of Abbey, an idea struck him. Dialing up the tempo a tiny bit, he flipped through his sound effects and added a heartbeat, adjusting it to match the time of the kick drum. He added a hi-hat and a particular cymbal tap he'd lifted (with permission) from another DJ. Satisfied, he saved it, naming the file "Heart Music". He then began to shape the rhythm track's tonality, muting and sharpening things up until he was happy with it. His head bobbed in time with the beat as he started rummaging through his collection of random samples – outdoor noises, car horns, glasses clinking, crowd murmurs, all sorts of things he'd sampled over the years. He tossed in a melange of sounds, mixing them just above the rhythm and spreading the channel separation out to give it a "live" ambience.

Now that the heart (haha) of the track was done, Yukio could play with adding melodies and song samples and more percussion layers to it. He spent the next several hours throwing things into the mix to see if 1) they fit and 2) if he liked them: samples both musical and otherwise, keyboard riffs, sound effects, whatever his instincts guided him to. It was a bit like cooking – start with a solid base (that was something he needed to add, a bass riff) and just toss stuff in until it's delicious. Or in this case, listenable and (most importantly) danceable.

The sun was beginning to send rays of morning light through the blinds on the living room window by the time he sat back against the couch and hit "playback" on his mixing software. He listened with a judgmental mindset: was this good enough? Was it the right length? Did it sound right? Did it capture the mood he was looking for?

As the track ended, he nodded with a small, satisfied smirk. It was perfect.

Yukio tapped out a quick post to his YouTube channel. Was up all night working on this. Let me know what you think. You know who it's for. He uploaded the track to his SoundCloud, linked it into the YouTube post, and hit the Post button. With a deep sigh, he leaned his head back on the couch cushion. Now the really hard bit started: waiting to see if Abbey liked it…

(wc: 643)