🎶🎧Sombr — back to friends

End of November, night after yet another concert. The tour has nearly finished them both off: hands aching from guitars, legs buzzing, only one desire left in their heads—to switch off completely.

She’s lying in his bed, in his hotel room, even though hers is one floor down. Just doesn’t feel like getting up. Just wants someone close to run a palm through her hair, down her back, over that spot between her shoulder blades that always goes stiff. The room smells of cigarettes, his cologne, something familiar and home-like. Her head on his chest, one leg thrown over his thigh—familiar, natural. One of his hands lazily strokes her hair, the other holds the phone as they scroll through stupid reels together, sometimes bursting out laughing, sometimes just quiet. Alanas’s fingers lazily glide through her hair, sometimes slipping down to her neck, her back, drawing meaningless little circles.

Friends with benefits—that describes them perfectly. No “where’d you go,” “who were you with,” “why didn’t you reply.” Just when you want to—you can. When you don’t—no, and nobody gets offended.

She’s known since childhood: relationships are an anchor. Report in, explain yourself, justify. With Alanas everything’s simple. They are together since school. They ditched music lessons with him, then university lecturers. Just two people who’ve known each other since fifth grade, when they skipped piano classes together, smoked behind the school, and laughed their asses off while the piano teacher hunted for them all over the neighborhood. Then teenage years—first bottles of cheap gin and parties.

When it first happened—senior year of high school, in his room while his parents were at the dacha—it was without any drama: “Let’s try it, can’t be worse, at least with someone we trust.” Then it started feeling good. Then it became a habit, became part of their friendship, like shared jokes about teachers or loving the same tracks. Then again. And again. After parties, after one of them gets drunk and starts whining that everything sucks. He hugs her—she shuts up. She hugs him—he shuts up. Works perfectly.

In the band, in classes, in friend groups they’re still considered the gold standard of platonic friendship. “See,” the others say, “a guy and a girl can just be friends.” Even Jokubas, who met them back in music school, has no idea.