Heyo! I am back and with a new story! Disclaimer: I am not the owner of Ansatsu Kyoshitsu!
Read and Review! Constructive criticism is allowed! :3
Btw, this chapter may be a little more detail than dialogue since I wanna just get everything out there before diving into the rest of the story.
Chapter 1: The Asano's Melody
Music.
It was such a strange concept. There were all kinds of genres like classical, pop, jazz, romantic, rock, blues, etc. despite the fact that they all served as one being and purpose: to entertain. Notes read off of a page and transformed into a story, be it tragic or like a fictional fairytale. Lyrics were able to let the story become more animated with actual words describing what had happened. Heartbreak, a true love story, friendship. All of these concepts were all rolled into the one, beautiful concept no one could ever dream of living without, regardless of genre. That was music.
Asano Gakushu was a fan of classical music. Composers like Mozart, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Bartok, Chopin, and Vivaldi. They all produced brilliance without words, but with emotion and focus. Sure, he liked pop. He knew what most kids his age listened to nowadays, but the more complex pieces with different tones and rhythms fascinated him more than repetitive and cutesy pop or rap that had no actual variation in notes. He liked the way he could play the pieces with swift fingers, a rich sound, and impress everyone by just playing a simple tune on the classical instrument.
Playing his violin was how Gakushu enjoyed spending his free time. If he wanted to get away from homework, or-his father forbid- procrastinate his work, he'd turn to the expensive instrument and practice until the calluses on his fingertips grew sore and hard. However, things were different now. He couldn't get way with his music being the only thing filling up the quiet house he lived in.
Now, there was a pianist living with him. She'd play a piece by Beethoven for hours and hours to the point where silence was barely an option. In Gakushu's opinion, it was almost irritating as to how long she had done it. He could admire fellow classical musician, however there was a limit. He figured it was the reason why her grades were dropping so much; she practiced instead of doing her homework.
Monday morning, he heard a new piece. She was there in the music room when he woke up, eyes closed with emotion as her nimble fingers danced across the keys energetically. She still had bed hair and was still dressed in her silk nightgown, but she was practicing. It was a new piece, but nearly perfect already. Maybe that was what irritated him so much.
In academics, he won against her, no argument there. However, in music, she could get a piece to perfection in a matter of days. She was the quintessence of musical perfection. She was the one person Gakushu had not expected to be interested in classical music. Usually she was so timid, one wouldn't expect her to produce such an intense fortissimo. Usually she was so shy, one wouldn't expect her to sharpness of a knife. Usually, she was so happy and upbeat that the mature appeal of classical music wouldn't be expected to interest her.
"What's this piece called?" he asked on his way to the kitchen where their maid was preparing breakfast. She looked at him with the blankest eyes, her face pale with exhaust. Thinking back to it, the girl had barely smiled genuinely since arriving. Then again, neither had he. Neither had a reason to be happy with current situations, but they both sucked it up. They didn't argue, nor did they violently reject the idea, but they didn't exactly accept it either.
The girl pushed a strand of pale blue hair behind her ear and nodded over to the sheet music sitting atop the stand. "Chopin's Ballade Number one in G minor, Opus twenty-three?" he recited, squinting a bit. "You're on to Chopin now, Shiota? I thought it was still Beethoven."
The cerulean-eyed girl with the sky blue hair gave a small laugh. "I performed Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata-
"Opus twenty-seven, Number two, third Movement?" Asano looked at her with a challenging smirk. Nagisa responded to the childish act by rolling her eyes and taking the music off the stand, ready to close it for school.
"Yes," she admitted, "I performed it at the local music hall just yesterday, but... you probably didn't hear about it."
Her responses were usually short, but calm. It seemed to also be the tone she took with her mother sometimes. She seemed so collected and aloof when she did this, but Gakushu could tell. He couldn't be a genius and not read obvious signs. Her collectiveness was a cover up for intimidation, distaste. She wasn't too fond of him, but that much was obvious. His associates in the main building had been tormenting her and her friends for the few months they'd been in their set classes for year 3.
"I didn't." he told her before ending their conversation there.
It was strange. It was June when Nagisa had learned of her mother's relationship with her frightening chairman that had apparently been going on for over a year. Strange considering she hadn't noticed any change in either person's behavior throughout the entire thing. She had concluded that her mother had been a better actress than she credited her to be.
Now, not only had she gone from living in a basic apartment to a large, contemporary house that favored glass above all for walls, but she also went from living as the only musician, to sharing the space with a violinist who used music in a similar manner as she. She gained a new father as well as a younger brother. Granted, he wasn't younger by much. She was born in June, and he in January, so only a good few months apart.
Nagisa knew her younger brother was smart, but she was a lot smarter than he gave her credit for. She noticed how he played music to escape his homework, or to pretend he didn't hear whatever his father had asked of him. That same reason was why she distracted herself with piano all day. Her mother had always urged her to do better in her studies, and she was, but studying wasn't everything. The piano produced a large, filling sound that distracted Nagisa from anything said around her. As long as she played, her mother wasn't controlling her. The piano was a free realm for her to explore, and a distraction from the pressure that was set on her shoulders.
After all, now she was the daughter of the chairman. It was either perfection or nothing. Nagisa knew she wasn't as smart as her step-brother, but maybe perfecting the music more than she already did was enough.
"Asa- Shuu," Nagisa called him by the nickname she was told to use by their father. The two were almost ready to leave the house, tidying up their bags and packing their lunches. He turned to her, humming a bit in response. His tie had been crooked ever since he left the bathroom which had irked her to no end. Her habit of organization had began after spending a day at Karma's place where his liberty took too much space. Rather than studying and, or, playing video games like they had intended, Nagisa assisted him in his cleanup. He was pretty sulky about it, but she made him get over it.
Nagisa reached over as he put on his shoes and she abruptly yanked the tie, nearly choking the poor boy. Her face flushed bright red as this happened. Half of her felt the need to laugh when he practically dropped the piece of extra toast he had been stuffing his face with, but the other half took pity on him. "Sorry!"
"Were you trying to kill me, Shiota?" he gagged, trying to recover from the recent activity. His tie was set right now, but it seemed his condition got worse. Nagisa innocently slipped on her shoes, coming up with a quick way to fire back that insult.
"Your fault for moving when I tried fixing your messy tie."
she didn't dare wait for a reaction from her scary step-brother, but she ended up giggling almost the entire way to class after hearing some sort of animal call from the house.
At school, no one knew of their situation. To Class-E, she was still Shiota Nagisa, a regular girl who lived with her mom. She wasn't a rich and graceful Asano like how she acted at home, but it was clear that she was ultimately trying harder with academics.
"Mornin', Nagisa!" Sugino Tomohito, a baseball player in her class, waved to the female Asano and beckoned her over to where he, Kayano Kaede, and Akabane Karma were hanging at. Her face lit up with a lively smile etched onto her face. She ran over to occupy the seat beside her friend with the green hair.
"Did you finish yesterday's math assignment?" Sugino asked. "It was horrid. I always thought I'd be closer to the answer, but no! Somehow the stupid thing comes out as fractions!"
"Ugh, barely." Nagisa breathed, trying to forget about the nightmarish subject. She has stayed up till midnight the previous night trying to finish her work, but eventually gave up after getting the same (wrong) fraction five times in a row. After that, she practiced piano and vented her frustration into notes which did help, but it also woke up her mother which was never good.
"It was easy!" Karma sang. "Gaussian elimination is super easy. Just a matter of observation."
Kaede made a noise of distaste and cringed. "Yuck. Karma, you can only say that 'cause you're a genius. We're ordinary kids in our third year of middle school. This is high school stuff."
Nagisa and Tomohito nodded behind her, gazing at Karma with judging eyes. Karma made a mock gasp of betrayal. "What? Are you saying I'm not normal?"
Making a face, Nagisa tried to explain in the most "delicate" manner possible, "Karma, there are a lot of different ways to describe you, but I'd never use normal. Ever."
The redhead let out a small chuckle before leaning back in his chair, tilting it to an angle so that it didn't fall, but could still support his weight as it tilted. They continued to chatter bout trivial things. Nagisa didn't bring up her piano, her mother, her step-father, step-brother, her new aim towards "perfection", or her real change of a surname. She was just Nagisa to them, and to them, Nagisa was the same shy and playful girl they all knew and loved.
Thinking about it made her smile. She never showed them what she was like outside of their little safe haven of a classroom, and she didn't plan to. She liked being herself, not the princess she was pressured to be, and since they didn't know of her musical talent, they never made her play for their own selfish entertainment like most do when their acquaintances play what they feel is a complex instrument.
"You okay, Nagisa?" Karma called, laughing a bit. "You have a strange smile on your face."
Nagisa's cheeks heated up and she gave a little fake cough, making it obvious she was composing herself. "Sorry, I was thinking."
"About what?" Kaede's eyebrows lifted with mischief. "A boy? It's a boy isn't it? Who is it? Karma?"
"I'm flattered!" Karma cheered, laughing along with Kaede as they teased their little friend. Nagisa whined and tried to escape them, unable to take any more embarrassment. "Stop it!"
"Oh! I smell romance! What's up!" Nakamura Rio joined the conversation and Nagisa released a breath, giving up on trying to persuade her friends to cease the mockery.
Asano Gakushu had little to enjoy about school. The "friends" he had spoke about things he never related to, or never really cared about, and no one in the class fit his interests well enough. One could've concluded that the idol of the school, Asano Gakushu, was isolated. It wasn't that making friends was super hard, but his interest in his peers continued to decline as time went on. Honestly speaking, the only person who'd ever rival him academically was that redheaded delinquent with the personality of the devil, Akabane Karma.
Not like he'd ever admit it to his face.
Though recently, Gakushu had faced another person to pique his interest. That attention of his went to his new older sister. Shiota- No, Asano Nagisa was no genius, academically anyways. She always attacked the most difficult of songs head on and didn't stop until she achieved perfection. In that case, they were slightly more similar, but in different fields. Unlike her usual timid self that honestly had no backbone (with the exception of a few odd times, he spectated), when she even touched a sheet of music, it was like any other noise in the world had disappeared. She'd never hear anything other than the notes printed on the paper and her finger's played the most emotional melody the youngest Asano had ever heard, and that sure meant something. The way he noticed her wasn't romantic in any way like how an outsider would see it as, but with a rivaling interest. He saw her as appropriate competition.
Not like he'd ever say it to her face either, though. After all, they were on mutual terms which meant they weren't supposed to hold any sort of "like" towards each other, but they weren't going to hate each other either.
"I can't believe this," he muttered, messing up his usually neatly combed hair that fell across his forehead evenly. "I find the most appropriate people in that wretched Class-E."
After classes, Gakushu had remained in the classroom to continue his homework. His earbuds were in, already listening to his current solo piece. It was a set piece for his next competition to which he already knew he'd win. Though, extra practice did deliver a much better meaning than dominance. Diligence always shone more than basic talent.
"Asano, you're going to just stay?" Sakakibara Ren called from the classroom door. Silence greeted him back and Ren's eyes moved to Asano's left hand which was testing its limits by drastically drumming and slamming itself onto the desk as his right hand continued to easily solve the problems that had been assigned for that day. Despite his hand not being in the right position for his violin, it was good practice for his precision as to which fingers to press down and when.
"Leave him be," Tomoya Seo told him, throwing his head back as he walked out of the classroom. "He's listening to music, so there's no way you're getting his attention."
Ren, already knowing this, simply shut the door behind him and continued to walk with his friend, another one of the Five Virtuosos.
It was almost an hour later when Gakushu was completely finished and was pretending to hold his instrument and bow, dramatically swinging his arms as though he himself were playing. It would've been humiliating had anyone else seen him doing such ridiculous movements. Little did he know, someone was already watching.
At the finish of the song, Gakushu lifted his exhausted bow arm into the air, concluding his fake playing with every movement giving the sign that he was finished. Then, Gakushu heard clapping behind him. Dread pooled into his stomach as he snapped his head to the back. Behind him was a familiar bluenette who had stopped clapping, holding her bag over herself protectively as though his very gaze would've hurt her. Though, with the look he believed he was giving, it might as well have.
His older sister of musical perfection was clapping at the younger brother of academic perfection. "What are you doing here?" he asked her, letting go of the fists he hadn't even realized he'd been making. Relief washed over him when he realized it wasn't anyone who'd dare spread rumors of him.
"The cha- I mean, Dad said to meet with you here since he had a meeting to attend." she explained, not really giving elaborate details over the subject. Gakushu rubbed the back of his neck, frowning as he realized his dad was using this as a chance for them to... uh, "bond".
Neither of them were stupid or in lack of common sense. Both of them already knew that the intention of them bonding wasn't a simple family matter, but another step in building that so-called "ideal" family their parents were obsessed with. The mother hen of the group was already obsessive over Gakushu's older sister. He had seen it before when she tried to dress the poor girl in dresses and tie up her hair as though she were a doll to be played with. Like him, she was put under a ton of pressure, though once more, they were in different fields.
Likewise, Nagisa had seen the way her step-father had stared at Gakushu when he got a 98 on a recent math quiz. It was a smile, but there was nothing kind about it. She had even witnessed Gakushu turning pale and she had noticed the sweat dampening the quiz in his hands. She had also gotten that smile when she took her last math quiz and just managed to slide by, but this time her mother joined him on it. It had gotten Nagisa to study a bit more, but nothing was really helping her.
"I suppose we can walk home without him." Gakushu told her. Even though they'd been siblings for the past three months, it was hard to act remotely normal around each other. They had deeply despised one another until that point, but both had realized that neither of them were too bad. They had come to a point of "half" acceptance, but loving each other was kind of a stretch.
"Yeah," she replied, shouldering her bag. Nagisa stepped into the halls to wait for him, lucky to know that no one was even left in the building. When he came out, they silently began their way back to their home.
"Hey, Shio- Nagisa," he said her name so uncomfortably that it nearly made Nagisa cringe. "Yes?"
"You..." he began, trying to find the right words to spill out of his mouth. "You like Akabane, right?"
The sudden question caused Nagisa to trip over her own two feet and smash her face right against the pavement clumsily. Gakushu stared at her with the widest eyes as he tried to figure out the process of that fall. "S-Sorry?"
"You're fine," Nagisa assured, flustered as she picked herself up and dusted off her clothes. The scene replayed itself over in her head and she braced herself for the insults to come, her face red with embarrassment. They did come, but they didn't seem as harsh as she expected. Instead, they were more... playful?
"How can someone even trip over their own two feet?" he asked, doubling over in genuine laughter with no malice. Nagisa had rarely ever seen the strict boy laughing, so she couldn't help but stare as he tried to control his breathing. She had to wonder how something so simple as tripping was a way to break his heart of stone, even for just a bit? Not to mention, he had never smiled in the past three months.
"What?" he demanded lightly, breathing heavily from his sudden fit. "Is there something on my face?"
"Yeah," Nagisa shrugged before trying to use an appeal to familiarity. "There was a smile, but I had thought it was a myth for you this entire time. Sorry." she tried to act as genuine as she could.
Gakushu's face flushed red right up to his ears and he moved forwards, his pace suddenly increasing as his frown came back into play. Nagisa held back a small laugh as she moved to catch up to him. Sometimes they had these little moments that they never saw significance of even though kindness had never really been a thing between them. That was just how they were. Gakushu himself didn't even know why he had laughed over something so simple. Maybe it was because of how obvious she was being? Or maybe he had just needed a breather and his mind chose that exact moment to let go? Either way, they continued their walk home in silence that wasn't as awkward as before.
The two were polar opposites, yet perfectionists under the pressure of their parents who breathed down their necks. Their personalities couldn't be further apart, but they both saw some kind of shine within each other. They weren't close yet, and maybe they never would be in a childish attempt o rebel against their parent's wishes. However, maybe one day they'd feel more comfortable to admit that being around each other wasn't so bad. At least, not that much. That was their constant melody.
Gakushu glanced at his shorter companion before lightly coughing and opening up his mouth as she fished for the house keys in her bag.
"Your crush is really obvious when you text him all day and all night, by the way."
Alright! I'm finished! Hope you guys enjoyed it and don't forget to review! I know this chapter is a little slow, and maybe a bit dry, but this was just the opener, so I promise it'll get better in the next chapters! Thanks and love for all! 3
