"You skipped practice today", remarked Yukimura coldly as Fuji stepped into the greenhouse.
"Yes", replied Fuji honestly, "The auditions for the showcase are next week and I need to prepare. You can understand that right?"
"Why are you so concerned about the showcase?" asked Yukimura curiously, "You never showed the slightest interest in music before. Don't tell me that you're already bored of dancing"
Fuji walked over to examine the plant that Yukimura was tending to. It was a bright flower that looked like it was from deep in the rainforest. Typical, Yukimura really like exotic plants.
"I'm not bored of dancing", answered Fuji slowly, "After all, I'm not even close to your level yet. But dance just isn't enough. There's something missing"
The dance captain snorted derisively. "I've known you for years and there's always something missing with you. Music bores you. Art bores you. Tennis bores you. I'm fairly sure this whole gardening thing bores you too, even though you're sticking with it."
Fuji nodded. Beyond vague amusement, the whole garden that he and Yukimura had created over the years was pointless to him. "That's just because I can't find anything interesting enough. You've known me long enough to know that."
"So why are you showing such interest in music? I thought that music was far too easy for the miraculous Fuji Shusuke"
"You know that really clumsy guy from dance class?"
"The guy who's supposed to be some musical prodigy?"
"Yeah, he's... interesting"
Yukimura grinned and asked sweetly, "Does someone have a crush?"
"No. It's not a crush. It's just that he's so unpredictable", Fuji paused and grinned to himself, "Every other musician in the Philharmonic is so predictable that I practically know what they're about to say before they even open their mouths. Tezuka is harder to read. It's interesting and he might even be able to compete with me"
"Yeaaaah, not a crush", said Yukimura, leaning over to pat Fuji's cheek. The genius blushed as the dancer continued, "If you wanna chase after him that's perfectly fine, but not if it means wasting precious practice time. The recital is in a month and even though you have all the moves down perfectly doesn't give you an excuse to skip. The next time you miss any practice time, I'll make you run laps"
"Laps around where?"
"Don't skip practice and you won't have to find out"
Fuji merely rolled his eyes and moved to his section of the green house. It was much smaller than Yukimura's and much simpler. He preferred less flowery plants and his main focus was cacti. Why bother with exotic flowers from the middle of the Amazon that died with the slightest change in environment when you could have cacti that could survive anything? A small sprinkle of water even few days and they remained perfectly healthy. Simplicity was the greatest thing about cacti.
"How are things going with Sanada?"
Yukimura sighed in exasperation at the name of his roommate. "He's an idiot. He clearly has feelings for me but he refuses to acknowledge them"
"How do you know he's interested?"
The dancer grinned almost evilly. "I have my ways of knowing. But Sanada being an idiot is merely a small roadblock. Sooner or later, he'll realize that he's madly in love with me and then everything's straightforward"
Fuji sighed and continued to work with his plants. Yukimura and Sanada had been dancing around each other for several months now, well, more like Yukimura was dancing circles around Sanada while the stubborn boy refused to admit that anything was going on, and it was starting to get downright annoying. Fuji would be happy to lock the two of them in the closet of he thought it would help, but it wouldn't, so he resorted to rolling his eyes and Yukimura's increasingly odd ideas.
Eiji doodled on his homework absentmindedly while Oishi rummaged through the music folder. Neither was particularly worried that the auditions were in a week and they hadn't even picked out a song yet. They had a long list of songs that they'd learned but never performed.
"What about this one?"
Eiji glanced up at the music in front of him. "Can we sing something modern? I don't like Handel"
"We don't have many modern songs", muttered Oishi returning to searching.
"Oh, I know", Eiji jumped up and snatch the folder away from his boyfriend and pulling out an older piece of music, "What about this one?"
"That's a really easy song", replied Oishi doubtfully, "Are you sure that it's enough. They probably want us to sing something challenging"
"That's not the point"
Oishi patiently waited for Eiji to elaborate, but the redhead seemed lost in examining his piece of music.
"What's the point then?"
"Chemistry. The reason we're the best pair in the school is because no one can compete with our chemistry."
"Basic chemistry isn't enough to win against kids at this school. We need something else"
Eiji stood and moved closer to his boyfriend saying, "Everyone knows that were the best. We don't need a complicated song to sound good. And if we sing an easy song than we can spend more rehearsal time doing important things"
"Like what?"
The redhead moved faster than Oishi expected and pulled their lips together. They kissed for several minutes before running out of air.
"Ok," said Oishi with a silly grin, "I guess we can do that song."
Kikumaru nodded and pulled the other down for a kiss saying, "Awesome now we can continue with the important stuff"
"Don't smoke in here"
"Lay off, Taka", muttered Akutsu darkly as he continued lighting his cigarette. Kawamura sighed as the acrid smell filled the practice room.
"So, why did you call again?"
Kawamura lifted his base. "I wanted to get your opinion on this piece"
"Wouldn't it be easier to get one of your music friends to judge?"
"No one knows about... my problem. And you're as good a judge as any."
"Don't tell me that it's still a problem"
"Of course not," lied Kawamura, "it only happens when I'm playing now. It's get in the way anymore"
"You can't just pretend it doesn't exist, Taka. At least one person in this school should know"
As amusing as it was to be lectured on responsibility by the guy who'd dropped out of the school a month into freshman year, Kawamura didn't want to deal with his problems. He forced himself to lie. "I'll tell someone as soon as I can find someone that I trust. Can you just listen to my song now?"
"Whatever", muttered Akutsu darkly and he let out a long smoky breath.
Kawamura lifted his bow and took a deep breath before letting the red overtake his vision and the world fade away.
He regained consciousness to find himself pinning Akutsu to the wall with a rough kiss.
Kawamura jumped back in surprise. The silver haired boy didn't seem surprised by the sudden retreat. He merely rubbed his wrist that would soon bear bruises and said, "I can see that you have everything completely under control"
Kawamura immediately burst into uncontrollable tears. He'd though that he'd be able to pull himself back before he'd hurt anyone, but it seemed he was wrong.
"Stop blubbering", snapped Akutsu darkly.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to"
Taka was brought out of his tears when his friend dragged him roughly to his feet. His eyes immediately dropped to the ground but Akutsu didn't seem to mind.
"The only reason you've been able to get rid of your problem is because you're such a pansy. Of course you can't change anything when you're too scared to even try."
"I'm sorry"
"If you haven't found someone to tell by the end of this week, than I'm going to personally tell all of your friends whether you trust them or not", said Akutsu firmly before walking out. Taka watched him go in fear before immediately dissolving into tears again.
He couldn't tell anyone his secret. An sane person would insist that he be locked up. But if he didn't tell someone than Akutsu would tell everyone. Either way he was doomed.
"You're rushing"
"You're dragging"
"No I'm not"
"Yes, you are. You always drag"
"Well, you always rush"
Echizen rolled his eyes and refrained from retorting. Arguments like this never ended with Momoshiro. Instead he said, "I have the melody here and that means that I control the tempo"
Momo replied, "I have quarter notes which means I'm the metronome and I control the tempo."
"You can't control the tempo. You're always so slow"
"You just want to play the song to fast"
The music was forgotten as they began bickering childishly about the tempo yet again.
"Kaidoh, you're As were sharp 33% of the time during this passage", instructed Inui while leaning over the younger boy's shoulder.
Kaidoh hissed and nodded, but didn't react otherwise. Even when Inui hovered over his shoulder for several seconds longer than necessary, Kaidoh didn't react at all.
"Do you want to try the song again?"
Kaidoh shrugged and nodded not saying a word. 95% chance that he was agreeing.
Inui signaled the tempo and they both began. Inui found the music simple and rather boring. Bach's mathematical music was interesting, but overly predictable and barely required him to concentrate on the music in front of him. Kaidoh, on the other hand, never seemed to lose focus during the song. It made it easy to watch him without interruption.
Inui could easily admit that he was interested in Kaidoh, but he couldn't quite explain what made Kaidoh so fascinating. Normally such an anomaly in logic would frustrate the data boy to no end, but for whatever reason, with Kaidoh it didn't matter.
When they reached the end of the song, Kaidoh looked up, "How did I do this time?"
"Much better", grumbled Inui half-heartedly, "You came in late at forty-six, but you're intonation was perfect this time"
Kaidoh blushed at the praise and Inui found himself taking note. Suggestive language, invading personal space, and blatant flirting didn't show any results, but a mere compliment made Kaidoh blush. That could be useful later.
Inui glanced at his watch and jumped in surprise. The practice had run 24 minutes later than normal.
"I guess we should wrap things up. You probably have some homework or something"
"No", said Kaidoh quietly as they both moved to pack up, "I finished all my homework before rehearsal."
"I see", replied Inui calmly. There was less than a 15% chance that it was meant to be an invitation. But it was 150% more than Inui was used to hearing out of his new partner. He watched Kaidoh out of the corner of eye as he packed up. No indication of nerves and no tells to what he was thinking. Completely unreadable as usual.
They walked back to the storage room together and dropped their instruments off without saying a word. With anyone else, it would be awkward, but with Kaidoh, it worked.
"Does your back ever bend?" asked Atobe sarcastically.
"What's that supposed to mean?" snapped Tezuka in reply.
"When you play, you don't move. You have the most perfect posture in the history of proper posture and it's annoying", explained Atobe.
"That has nothing to do with expression"
Atobe sighed in exasperation. "Yes it does. You need to move with the music. Bend and sway. You need to move to show emotion."
"You want me to dance while playing the violin. I can't dance without the instrument, what makes you think that I could dance with it?"
"You're completely hopeless", said Atobe moving to grab Tezuka's shoulders, forcing him to sway, "It's not dancing, it's swaying. Back and forth, back and forth. See, you can actually move"
Tezuka pushed him away in annoyance. He'd hoped that Atobe would be able to teach him how to be expressive, but all the arrogant boy was doing was being distracting.
"There's more to being expressive than swaying. How do you show emotion?"
"Well, for one, I can actually show emotion with my face", Atobe cracked a smile, "See emotion. Smiling, it's this thing that humans do when they're happy"
Tezuka glared back at him without even a fake smile. "This isn't a happy piece. It's a fiddle tune. It's supposed to be aggressive and furious not happy"
"Then get angry when you play it"
"So, you're saying all I have to do is think about you", said Tezuka calmly.
Atobe rolled his eyes. "Your jealously is amusing. I shouldn't have decided to help you after all"
The silver haired boy stood to leave, and Tezuka made no move to stop him. Atobe was clearly in no mood to help him and his presence was only distracting. Unfortunately, Atobe decided that he wasn't done talking to Tezuka.
"So, that Fuji is really scaring you. I'd never thought I'd see the day that you'd actually admit that expression was important."
"I'm merely trying to improve my playing. I'm not competing with him", replied Tezuka curtly.
"Competition isn't a bad thing", said Atobe, "It's the reason I'm where I am. If there's no one to beat then what's the point of playing."
"That's all fine, but I'm not competing"
Atobe scoffed but didn't say anything. Tezuka took the silence as an opportunity to start playing. The song was insanely fast and it was nearly impossible to focus on anything but getting the notes right. He finished without making a single mistake and glanced up with Atobe.
"You still look like a statue", said Atobe smoothly, "Maybe you should just stick with the whole robotic playing machine. It's not like the judges won't pick you."
"I can't let my guard down. If I don't work on continuously improving, then I might fall behind'
Atobe rolled his eyes. Typical Tezuka talk. It didn't matter that he was the best player in the school. That wouldn't be enough; no he had to be the best player in the world. Atobe secretly hoped that Fuji wouldn't crush Tezuka in the audition just so that the concert master could just move on with his life and relax for a few seconds.
AN: Random question. Am I the only one that's kind of disturbed by Kawamura's 'Burning Mode"? It's basically multi-personality disorder that he can barely control and his other personality is dangerous to himself and other in canon. Don't get me wrong, I love Kawamura and he's hilarious, but it's really weird that no one even considers that having a split personality could be a bad thing.
On a happier note, thanks to everyone that's reviewed and alerted and favorited. I send you my virtual love.