"I can't believe you're making me do this," Quinn Fabray huffed as she was being dragged into William McKinley High School's auditorium. Having barely survived a lengthy day of boring classes - along with narrowly escaping certain death in a gym class game of dodgeball - she was in no mood for humiliating herself on a brightly-lit stage.
"I bet that's what Beethoven said to his friends before hitting the big-time," Kurt Hummel sighed dreamily. Quinn stifled a giggle at his over-dramatics.
Mercedes Jones, however, was much less impressed. With an eyeroll, she shook her head and stated, "Look, Quinn. A glee club is musical. You play musical instruments. Folk are hardly lining up around the corner to join this thing..." She paused, allowing the three to glance at the people - or lack thereof - sitting down, waiting to audition. "We need all the help we can get."
Quinn opened her mouth to protest, but was interrupted by Mercedes giving her a little push in the direction of the other auditionees. Kurt, who was in front of Quinn (and had been using his position to pull her by the arm), led both girls to the empty seats beside a gothic-looking Asian girl. In front of her, that nerdy kid Quinn recognised from chemistry class sat in his wheelchair. Yet the most noticeable of all was the tiny brunette, who was pacing back and forth so quickly, just looking at her almost gave Quinn a headache.
Rachel Berry.
There wasn't a soul in the school who didn't know who Rachel Berry was - although this was not necessarily a good thing. Rumoured to be extremely ambitious, Rachel had joined almost every club founded in McKinley. Strangely enough, many of these clubs had closed down shortly after she had pledged her allegiance. That didn't bother Rachel, however. After all, the YouTube channel she used to showcase her musical talents kept her terribly busy. Irregardless of the fact that she only had nine subscribers.
Rachel quit pacing and the other two looked up as Kurt and the girls approached. Quinn couldn't remember the names of those two kids, but she didn't feel particularly guilty. They probably didn't remember hers, either.
"Hi, former clubmates," Kurt began, "This is our friend, Qu-"
"Is this it?" Rachel demanded, abruptly cutting him off. Quinn noticed Mercedes' jaw clench.
Kurt raised his eyebrows. "E-excuse me?"
Rachel rolled her eyes impatiently. "Six of us. Six! Do you know how early I got up to warm up my vocal chords this morning? I've been up since four AM. Four. Freaking. AM. And now, I come prepared to face stiff competition, only to find out there's just six of us? That's half the number a glee club needs to compete. Meaning we all automatically get in, by default."
Goth Chick looked as relieved as Quinn felt. "Th-that's a g-g-good thing though, right?" she stammered, raising from her seat.
Rachel looked horrified by the fact that someone could ask such a question, but Kurt continued before she could begin ranting again. "As I was saying, Rhythm Explosion glee club allowed us to get to know each other...along with everyone's musical capabilities. But following the posters advertising the founding of a new glee club, Mercedes and I began to wonder how accompanying music would be carried out in this one. Hence, we decided to bring our friend along to the auditions. Her name's Quinn Fabray and she plays a number of musical instruments," He paused briefly to shoot a reassuring smile at the blonde. "And she's not a bad singer, either."
Quinn looked around at the others, trying to look somewhat enthusiastic. "Hey," she waved awkwardly.
There was a slight pause before Rachel stepped forward. "Hello, Quinn. I'm Rachel - spelled R-A-C-H-E-L, not with the unnecessary extra 'E'," She extended her hand and shook Quinn's firmly. "I look forward to seeing how your instrumental knowledge will be of benefit to my vocal talen-"
"I'm Artie," Chemistry Guy cut her off. Artie, that was it. Quinn remembered him saying so when she lent him a pen some time last week. It appeared as though she had been right, however; Artie did not remember her name.
"And I'm T-T-T-Tina," Goth Chick - or Tina, apparently - offered Quinn a friendly smile. The blonde returned it gratefully. With the way this day was going, she was going to welcome any friendliness thrown her way.
To be fair to Rachel, the brunette had correctly predicted the results of the auditions: every single one of the six were accepted into the 'New Directions' glee club. Mr. Schue, Quinn's Spanish teacher and mentor of the newly-established group, was kindly encouraging after each audition. Rachel had once again managed to get on people's nerves by offering a second critique of their performances. Great offence was taken by all but Quinn, who had bit her lip to keep from laughing when Rachel informed her that she had "decent piano skills," but was "a little weak in terms of vocal ability". In Quinn's opinion, the others were being over-sensitive. Rachel just called it as she saw it.
Then again, maybe Quinn was kind of biased. After all, she kind of had a crush on the ambitious brunette. And she kind of planned to take advantage of all the time they would spend together in glee club.
She just had to keep it a secret. There was no "kind of" about that.