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It was the night just after the first semi final, around midnight in Sweden, and quite a few of the participants (mainly the ones from the first semi) were gathered in a restaurant celebrating. Bambie was attempting to have a conversation with Olly while also getting incredibly drunk, Nemo was falling asleep on Silvester, who was talking to Tali about random things, and Raiven and Luna were in the corner, looking out at the carnage that surrounded them.
The only contestants who had essentially detached themselves from the party were a certain Alena Shirmanova and Kat Almagro. They were in a different room to get away from the noise, and Kat was teaching Aiko some more Spanish words and phrases. Kenzy was also in that room but she was just sleeping, occasionally giving an extra seal of approval while asleep when Aiko’s Spanish sounded good. Being a demon came with the added benefits of being able to sleep through large amounts of noise, being conditioned to the screams in hell. She only tuned her ears to hear what she wanted to listen to, and that was two queer supernatural girlfriends speaking Spanish, which was one of the only reasons why she was still there.
Somehow it took 15 minutes before Kat noticed that there was a karaoke room nearby.
“Mi amor. I have an idea.”
Aiko looked distantly at the wall. “Yes, miláčku?”
“Karaoke, but each other’s songs.”
“Best. Idea. Ever. Race you there?”
“Obviously.”
“Bye, Kenzy! You’re alright, right?”
Kenzy elicited a sleepy groan in response. “Yes. Adiós. Déjame en paz.”
“No puedo discutir con eso.” Kat said before Aiko started running towards the room. It was a close-run thing, but Aiko only just grabbed the microphone first, and Kat landed on top of her about 3 seconds later, and neither of them made any effort to get up at all for a good 5 minutes, deciding to turn it into a cuddling session.
“Do you think we should, you know, do the karaoke?”
“Probably. You go first.”
“Okay. And yes, I technically have the ability to speak any language fluently, but it’s more fun when you teach me. I’ll start with 11:11, how about that?”
Throughout the song, Aiko continually turned it into a duet, and they ended it singing together and laughing on the floor.
“My Spanish is still rubbish without magic, which I don’t want to use for this anyway.”
“I’ve told you, you get better every day.”
“What? My Spanish or me in general?”
Kat kissed the sorceress’s cheek. “Both, mi amor.”
“You might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Kat Almagro,” Aiko murmured, returning the kiss.
“Same. Your song now?”
“We should duet this all. And maybe grab someone else at some point.”
“Bambie?”
“They are currently very, very drunk. Last time I saw them, they were struggling to string sentences together. Hopefully someone will stop them drinking. It’ll probably be Teya.”
“And Kenzy isn’t getting up anytime soon.” Kat sighed and muttered, “Si no fuera por ti y el karaoke, yo también estaría dormido.”
“Te amo.”
“Beautiful pronunciation. Yo también te amo.”
And then, without warning, the two got up and immediately launched into Pedestal. Neither of them objected to Aiko singing the original words, as long as she didn’t sing them on the live shows. In fairness to her, at this point she was also very slightly drunk, and she wouldn’t be on Wednesday and Thursday. Even though she still had to conserve her voice, she still did a fair few screams. Everyone else in the building couldn’t hear them, but they could definitely still hear the people in the other room.
Meanwhile, in the other room, Bambie had not stopped drinking, and was on their 6th glass of sherry, which Teya had unsuccessfully tried to pry from their hands, though she had successfully managed to stop Silia from drinking any alcohol in the first place. Fahree and Ilkin were having multiple staring contest tournaments with Teemu and Henri, for some reason. Iolanda was just sitting there with sunglasses on like the icon she is, having a very in-depth conversation about plants with Hera. And Kaleen, knowing what was good for her, had sensibly upped and gone back to her hotel. Why Kenzy hadn’t done that, given that her main reasons for staying were in the karaoke room, no one had any idea. No energy to get up at all, probably.
The next song they did, which they picked at random from the ESC 2024 karaoke album, was (nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi, which they half sang and half just vibed to. It is a bop, after all. They got through a few more 2024/2023 songs (in no particular order: Who The Hell Is Edgar, We Will Rave, My Sister’s Crown, and Eaea) before Aiko said, “What if we did the plan and sang some more of each other’s songs?”
“Can we find them?”
“They’ll be there somewhere, miláčku.”
“I love when you call me that, mi amor.”
“And I love when you call me that.”
“What’s your favourite Megara song?”
“Probably Hocus Pocus.”
“Let’s see if we can find it.”
[The author does not know if it is possible to find a karaoke version of Hocus Pocus, but for the sake of the narrative it is]
About a minute in, Kat stopped singing and mimed the drums, but there was still another voice singing with Aiko. A voice that sounded suspiciously exactly like Kenzy Loevett. Aiko still didn’t want to turn around (mainly because she was concentrating on the words), so she waited for the entire remaining 3 minutes and 24 seconds-ish of the song before turning around, mainly to see how shattered Kenzy was. The answer was incredibly shattered.
“It sounds alright. You don’t know what most of it means and I can tell you’re not fluent, but it really is getting better every time.”
“Gracias!”
“Kenzy, necesitas dormir.”
“Lo sé.”
Kat just shook her head and sighed before searching for Aiko karaoke.
“Kenzy, she’s right- Hmmm, I think we should do Lucky Streak, Kačenka. Gotta save my voice.”
“Of everything, you know that.”
“It’s useful. Everyone needs sleep a lot lately.”
“Yeah. Adiós.”
Kenzy quietly walked out of the room and somehow didn’t immediately fall asleep.
“Found it!”
“This can be our last one. We really need sleep.”
“I agree.”
After entering the main room of the restaurant place, Kenzy walked right up to Bambie, who was still drunkenly talking to a very-much-less drunk Olly. “Bambie, you really don’t need 6 glasses of sherry.”
“Oh! Hey, Kenzy, I have sherry,” the witch said slowly (and very much like they had had a lot to drink). “Do you want some?”
“No,” the demon firmly said, before muttering, “Ugh, prefiero morir que socializar.”
“Why?”
Kenzy groaned again. “You need to go to sleep. Olly, do you know where they’re staying?”
“Yeah.” Olly leaned forward and whispered, “Thanks for taking them, I couldn’t deal with anymore drunken talking about witchcraft. I’d be fine if they weren’t drunk, but it’s off-putting when they are.”
“De nada. I’m going to sleep as well, I need as much as I can get.”
Back in the karaoke room, Kat and Aiko had just finished Lucky Streak, and were lying on the floor.
“Ah.....we need to do this again.”
“Maybe tomorrow or after the main semi we could do 10 minutes, mi amor.”
“I’d love that. Let’s go back.”
“And pray that Kenzy has also gone to bed.”