A senior trip near the beach wasn't the most ideal place to end your senior year. At least not for you. It was repetitive, not fun or exciting, and the first place anyone would run to on their day off. Or was that just you again? Unlike the other seniors on the bus, you were homeschooled your last highschool year—your senior year—and had merely been invited back for the trip. It almost seemed like pity. Lucky you could go to the beach any day you wanted as long as your homework was done on time, and it always was.

You groaned as you tried to listen to your music through your earbuds, but the bus was incredibly loud enough with idiotic seniors screaming at the top of their lungs for the senior football game last night. Since you hadn't been there, you could care less.

"LET'S GO, SENIORS, LET'S GO!" They clapped rhythmically then repeated. "WOOO!"

More like: let's shut up seniors. Hoorah. You're louder than my music app, therefore you need to die...

But you wouldn't actually kill anybody.

Racing to tap on the app store before the yelling could drive you utterly insane, you searched for a volume enhancer app—if one even exsisted. You found one and without a second thought, you downloaded it and tested it out. It worked—drowning out the loud seniors—leaving you satisfied as well. Now you didn't have to listen to the petty crap you never had to deal with at home and was happy about it.

You watched out the bus window at the fuzzy image of your cozy beach town as it passed you by—where you grew up with sea salt and constant sunburns. Just as the image you viewed outside played by along with the beat of your music like a movie, you realized that life had passed by exactly like that—a blur. A really confusing blur. Were you really a senior? Yeah, yeah, you were. There was no reason to pinch yourself out of this dream, cause it was real.

Soon the bus reached its destination, and you could tell long before looking outside because every single person—excluding you—jumped to their feet and raced towards the front excitingly. Every male and female, all equally annoying. Each person had their gear hanging off their bodies—towels, goggles, sunscreen, and other important necessities to bring to the beach, but you had yours stuffed into your oversized beach bag (which also doubled as your old school bag from your Junior year). You weren't even dressed in your bathing suit yet and needed to find one of those changing booths, and hope to God there was some space for your towel afterward. Yeah, you didn't really go into this well-prepared, did you? You never did.

The beach felt nice and once you smelt sunblock, you didn't mind much that your class trip turned out to be the beach. It was an instant relief that always brought back fond memories. The sand found it's way into your flip-flops and burned the soles of your feet when they slipped out temporarily. Okay, you didn't miss that much. Plodding your way to one of the booths. A tall, wooden station where a mere red curtain blocked the world from seeing your nude body; ah, so inviting. The first one that became available, you took and entered. Changing into your bathing suit, you left and found a spot on the beach.

As best as you could, you found an area away from others and threw out your towel. Somewhere that was comfortable for yourself. You took an umbrella patterned with hearts, sticking out from your bag—impaling it through the sand securely; there was definitely no imaginary senior head right there.

Your little beach home was ready and you curled on your belly on the towel underneath.

"Time for some music." You took your phone once again and opened your music app, playing some soft instrumental music, allowing everything to melt down into the towel. For hours, you entirely allowed yourself to succumb into the gentle caressing of music, protected by the shade of your umbrella. It felt like someone was massaging your back with music notes.

Feeling yourself drift off to a nice rest, you didn't worry about a thing—until water splashed your back. Abruptly, the sudden coldness that had to be from a water bottle, made you gasp. Your arm protected your phone and the water luckily only soaked your back. Tearing your earbuds from your ear, you scanned the beachy horizon like a hungry vulture, trying to find the perpetrator as they would find a carcass—though, throuh your own eyes, you saw them as the same thing.

Who the hell splashed me?

They had run off within seconds but grinned at you afar.

Your eyes continuously scanned the area like you were the unrelenting Terminator, landing on the biggest dick of them all: Daryl, and he was staring back at you, mimicking the expression you had just performed for him. Ugh, was all you wanted to scream since there was nothing you could do about the bastard. So you chose to ignore his flirty waves at you, and all his mighty teasing faces that you wanted to punch. He was just the most annoying senior of them all and raced to tap the closest ass near—literally and figuratively.

He flashed you a grin as he calmed down, and all you could do was grunt and lay back down on the towel, taking your earbuds to resume listening to your music to drown out his bullshit. Next time he poured water on your back, especially that cold, he would not have a dick to cuddle with at night.

    But there was no music. Just a voice; and not one you recognized.

"Zexion? Zexion?"
   
"Huh? Who's Zexion? Buddy, I think you have the wrong number." You tangled your fingers into your earbud cords and held the microphone to your lips.

"Zexion, do you hear me?" The voice, a male, asked with a small gasp. "I can just barely hear you. Please speak up."

"No. Who is this?"
   
The male's voice grunted disapprovingly. "Oh, I must have the wrong signal. Sorry," he muttered and then was gone.

    You picked your phone up and looked at its touch screen confusingly. Signal? Your music resumed playing—some violin instrumental tones meant to soothe someone to sleep. You moved to a sitting position with your knees to your chest and checked your call logs, but saw no recent numbers. That was weird. Both the call and this. You thought to yourself. The last person you had called was your mother earlier when you'd told her what you wanted from her grocery trip after school. But there was no recorded call log, or a number, and now you began to wonder how your phone even answered the call without you manually doing it.

    "Huh, that's weird," you mumbled to yourself and pulled your music app up, changing the song by pressing next. All you could do was shrug at the weird event then lay back down to resume your relaxation on the beach. Daryl maybe was trying to prank you to get your attention and you didn't want to hear it. The damn boy could splash in the ocean or prank call you for all he wanted for all you cared. You were going to sleep and that's final.

    Positioning yourself back into your comfortable position, you crossed your arms underneath you and leaned your head on the area, closing your eyes. It didn't take long before the relaxing scent of salt and sand sent you back to your sleepy state and you slipped away again. Briefly.
   
But then that voice came again, and this time, louder and more distorted, "ZEXION? When are you going to answer me?"
   
You grumbled some silent profanities and grabbed your microphone on your right earbud and held it close to your mouth so he could hear the wrath of your voice up-close, "What the hell are you doing, screaming?" you snapped, "You're busting my damn eardrums."

    "W-Woah-I'm sorry! I'm just trying to contact my friend with his new frequency thing." The male quaked, not much distorted anymore.

    "I don't think it's working. Can you stop contacting me?"

    "It's not my fault, ugh. I'm doing what my work instructions say but it's just bringing me back to this frequency. I'm not the techy one here."

    "I could care less so please stop complaining. And please, for the love of God, just leave me alone and delete my number, OK?" you demanded, and if you were there you would see the shiver run off the male's back. Your voice was very frightening to him; even more than the heartless.

    "What number?" He decided to test you. The patience wore thin on your end. "I'm contacting you through a frequency and they don't deal with numbers. At least, I hope I'm not." In the background, you heard clicking like he was on a computer. If you had been a little younger, you probably would've been upset, but you sucked in your breath like a big girl. Who the hell is this annoying guy?

    "Look, ugh." You rubbed the bridge of your nose in utter frustration, "Just put the—whatever it is you're on—down, and leave me alone? Or I'm contacting the authorities to bust your ass. I already have enough idiots to deal with here." In the distance, you eyed Daryl as he was chasing one of his buddies around, threatening to tear his swimming trunks off even when his friend pleaded with him not to. Daryl stopped, catching your eye, and the other idiotic male sex was safe—not that you were trying to help. The immature male smirked and waved his hand, but you merely groaned and turned your cheek the other way to focus on the ocean blue; an even more beautiful sight than he ever would be.

    The man stuttered. "Don't do that! I'm just doing what my boss told me to do, and I'm trying to contact him to tell him it's not working, but I can't." He whined like a puppy. It was weirdly adorable—if you were in an alternative dimension. "So, please, just give me a few minutes, OK? I'm trying to figure it out." He typed away on his computer more.

    "Try anything, and you're arrested," you warned.

    You couldn't see him raise his hands defensively. "I won't, I won't, I promise."

    "I'm going to drown you out with musi—huh?" You paused as you noticed your music app was still playing. It currently played something dubstep, but you couldn't hear a bit of the song as the current call you were in drowned it out. However, that had never happened before. "That's strange..."

    "What's going o—" The man's voice cut out just as you pressed the pause button on your song. You pressed play and he returned, "—mething I said?"

    "That's weird."

"What is? My voice? Or was it something I said?" He asked, confused. "I hope not."

    "No. Somehow you're contacting me via my music app. Now... That's some weird Hacker shit there. Care to explain it to me? And don't bullshit it cause this is perfect evidence if you try anything," You warned again.

    "Your... music app? What's that?"

    "An app. Where I play my music?" you grumbled and flipped through your other songs, but he seemed to play on every song and every station, "That's some freaky shit right there. How the hell are you doing that?"

    "What am I even doing?"

    "Controlling my phone." You hissed.

    To anyone who was even watching you, you probably seemed like a rambling mad-man. Or just a normal high school girl arguing with someone heatedly on the phone. "Can you please explain?"

    "Ugh..." He paused. "—Like I said: I'm not the tech guy here. I don't know how to explain it."

    "Whatever it is, I can't play my music." You groaned and tossed your phone to the side though your earbuds remained in.

    There was a perk to his voice, "You like music?"

    A weird question, but you answered anyway without any thought to it, "Yeah. Don't play it myself. But. I like it." Your nose wrinkled afterward after you gave it more thought. "Doesn't... everybody?" Life without music wasn't worth living since it drowned out petty bullshit, late-night arguments, and blocked everything you didn't want to hear.

    "I sure do! In fact—" After a long pause, you almost opened your mouth to respond, but then there was a long string of what sounded like a guitar, or so you guessed. Then another one. There was still a hint of static as he played some instrument, but otherwise, it sounded beautiful, and you liked the melody he began to play after warming up his fingers with the strings.

    Silently, you listened, and even leaned your head back, bathing your toes in the sunlight at the end of your towel as you listened to the beautiful humming of the guitar. You closed your eyes and listened until the melody stopped. Then, your eyes opened, and you stared at the top of the umbrella as if in another world.

    "Woah."

    "How did you like that? Demmy's got a little tune on his end for ya."

    A grin tugged at your lips. "You should link me to the YouTube video." A hint of teasing laced your voice.

    A pouting sound escaped his lips. "Whaa? I don't know what that is, but I know it's not a video! I played my sitar for you, live."

    "A sitar?" You didn't think you'd heard a sitar play before. "Well...I really liked it. Kinda more than what I was listening to before," you admitted, subconsciously holding the microphone to your lips tenderly. After his sweet melody, you didn't feel as angry as before.

    He cheered, sounding like a child as he did so, and you had to roll your eyes at that. "That's great!" He strummed the strings a few more times, playing a more upbeat song you couldn't think of a name for. "Glad somebody appreciates it. By God, nobody here likes it one bit." You couldn't fathom why. He strung a few more strings, his upbeat tone intensifying until he ruined it with the wrong note. "Ugh, I hate constantly tuning this thing."

    "Sounds hard—"

    "Hey, you know what else is hard?" Daryl, who you hadn't seen approach and cast a shadow over your body, came out of nowhere and kicked down your umbrella. Screetching too, you gasped and dropped your phone onto your towel, shielding your face as the umbrella rained down on you. "Me, baby." He ran a thumb over his grinning top lip.

    "Daryl, what the hell?!" You screamed and threw the umbrella off, looking up at him a furrowed expression that would last for days. But, you really didn't want to mess with him, especially with your friend on the other side. You sighed. "Look, can you leave me alone?"

    Puffing his chest out manly-like, he watched you with some hungry eyes. For some reason, he made you feel so vulnerable and you quickly wrapped the spare towel from your bag around your body. Bad news, as his smirk grew. "Problem baby? Can't handle the heat, baby?"

    "More like your breath," you said under your own, "My only problem is you, and I wish you'd go away. I'm very busy here."

    "Looks like you're getting busy, tanning for the Tannster, babe."

"You're an idiot, considering you just knocked the umbrella hiding me from the sun." Seeing his face fall gave you some sort of satisfaction.  You grabbed your phone and stuck your earbuds in, not taking his bullshit anymore. Maybe if you tuned him out, he'd eventually go away.

    "Hellooo? Are you even there anymore? Can you hear me?" The male you'd rather pay attention to—who could be a criminal for all you knew—called for you, but it was like an intense game of silence as a mouse, and the consequence of speaking would be a not-so pleasurable spanking from Daryl. "—Excuse me?"

    You sucked in your breath as you watched Daryl's feet turn around. Thinking he was gone, you released a breath, only to receive a mouthful of sand as Daryl kicked up as much as he could behind him like a cat with his litter. "There ya go baby." You hacked more, desperately rubbing your eyes with the back of your hand. Air struggled to come, but eventually, you could breathe, and when you could, you took a deep gasp of air.

    "Are you OK?"

    You looked to your phone, lifting the microphone to your mouth. He'd heard the entire conversation, and you knew it. "Yes, I'm fine. Just a—" You coughed into the crook of your elbow. "—Huge dick alert."

    "I heard. And man you tell me. Try living with twelve of them."

    Your eyes widened. That honestly sounded impossible and unimaginable. "Twelve? Like, twelve roommates...?"

    "Yep." He released some sort of breath of relaxation and you heard something clack nearby. Maybe he put his feet up? "It sucks."

    "It does. But it sounds like you got the dealio contained." You didn't want to believe him, so you just fed him what he wanted to hear, "Hope you can also contact your boss..."

    "Thanks—" He didn't finish his sentence as there was a loud burst—as if the door slammed open on the other side. You shut up immediately and your ears listened curiously.

    Demyx nearly screamed, falling out of his chair as Zexion burst through the door, growling at number nine, "Demyx, what the hell are you doing to the toaster? And don't you dare say Axel burned it—"

    "Z-Zexion!" Demyx curled up underneath the table.

Zexion stormed over, grabbing Demyx by his jacket hood and yanking him out from under the table before lifting him off the ground to stare him angrily in the eyes. Demyx cowered and reached backward, trying to type on Zexion's keyboard. "I'll fix it, I'll fi—"

    Your connection with the male timed out and you watched your phone seconds afterward, dazed and confused at who you just communicated with. Your music returned and it played a low romantic tune. Which had never been on your phone before; and the leading instrument was a sitar.