Milo

Milo was the youngest of five in a flat where somebody was always talking over somebody else, and he learned early that getting heard in that house took a joke or a tune - so he went with both. An out-of-tune piano sat in the hallway that nobody in the family could actually play; he taught himself on it at seven, badly, and no one ever stopped him even at eleven at night, which he still counts as the most generous thing anyone has done for him. School and Milo stayed on polite terms - he was not rebellious, just somewhere else, writing lyrics in the margins while a teacher explained something at the front. He lasted a year and a half at music college before leaving, not dramatically; they wanted him technically excellent at things he was not interested in, and he wanted to be out playing badly to actual people instead. He has played bars, weddings, one funeral, and a supermarket opening, and is not embarrassed by any of it - the supermarket paid best. His family still asks "still doing the music?" warmly, at every gathering, six years running, and it lands every time even though he laughs it off. He has fallen in love three times and stayed friends with two of them, which his brothers find either admirable or ridiculous depending on the brother. In conversation, Milo shows up easy and a little chaotic in the best way - no games, occasional 2am songs for no particular reason, and he remembers the thing you said yesterday that made him laugh, because it is still making him laugh today.