The talking slowly died down while Professor Shion wrote something down on the whiteboard at the front of the room. It said "Kaito Shion - Call me Kaito!" Next to it was a stick figure wearing a coat. I guess it was supposed to be a drawing of him. Next to that, he wrote "Instrumentals 1A: Choosing your instrument". Apparently this was an actual class and not just a one-time thing. Next to that were some drawings of instruments. A guitar, piano and violin.

"Alright, everyone," He said, turning around to face the class. "I'm Professor Shion, but you can call me Kaito! This class is called Instrumentals, and today you're going to be picking an instrument to play." One of the girls pointed to the board.

"We know. You just wrote it down." She said. A few other kids laughed.

"Oh, I did, didn't I? Well, that aside, let's get started. As you'll see," He pointed to the back of the room. I nearly gasped. How had I missed that? "I've set up a practice area." The back of the room (which I didn't even know was there) had stacks of boxes, all likely filled with instruments. They were organized by type: brass, woodwind, strings and percussion. All of the students seemed to be just as shocked as I was. Kaito motioned for us to get moving. "Go on then!"

We all moved to the back of the room, pulling down boxes and inspecting the contents. Each of the boxes had a specific instrument, and enough for each of the class to have their own. I was over in the brass section, looking for a saxophone, while Yukari was in the percussion section fiddling with a keyboard. I wondered if there was a difference between a regular piano and an electric keyboard. Aria was in the woodwind section, probably looking for a flute. Lily was in the strings section admiring a guitar. All three of them knew exactly what they wanted to play, and they knew how to play it. I suddenly started wondering if I really wanted to play the saxophone after all. I only picked it because it was the first thing to come to mind when I thought of Jazz music. "Might as well give it a try." I muttered, pulling out what I assumed to be a sax. It was already fitted with a reed, thankfully, because I had forgotten those things even existed. I looked around, and saw that everyone was already practicing their instruments. I shrugged, raising the instrument to my mouth. "Here goes..." I took in a deep breath, put the mouth piece to my lips, closed my eyes, and blew. A loud, high-pitched squeal is what came out. Everyone turned to me and laughed. Well, everyone but Aria and Yukari. Aria looked annoyed and Yukari looked worried.

"That's not how you hold it." A male voice from behind me said. I turned around. Kaito was standing behind me, shushing the other students. "You might bend something. Here," He said, adjusting my hold on the instrument so that I was holding it by the tube-thing on the bottom. "There you go. Now, you put this finger here, and this one there," He moved each of my fingers to different spots on the saxophone. "Alright. Now, put to mouthpiece to your lips. Teeth halfway up, lower lip touching the reed. And blow." I followed his instructions, and instead of a high-pitched squeal, a beautiful, low and steady note flowed out.

"Wow." I said, kind of impressed with myself. I looked over, expecting Kaito to be smiling, but he was shaking his head.

"Hm. No, I don't think this is the one for you. Do you have any experience with any other instrument?"

"Uh, no, I-"

"What did you choose for your music genres?"

"Jazz and soft-rock. But, I-"

"Then you'll want to head over to the strings section. Try the bass or the cello." He pointed to the strings section, where Lily was standing. I nodded in agreement, because even I knew the saxophone wasn't for me. After thanking him, I met up with Lily, who was still giggling from my failure.

"I'm glad my embarrassment amuses you. No, really, it's fine. Keep laughing." I said, rummaging through the boxes. These ones only carried one instrument at a time. I saw a violin, a cello and what looked like a bigger cello. They even had a harp.

"Sorry." She said, though it didn't sound very sincere. "So a bass, huh? Pretty cool. We could do a duet." She grinned, picking up what looked like a guitar out of a nearby box. It was black with a red trim. "Here." She said, handing it to me.

"Isn't this a guitar?" I asked, fiddling with one of the knobs at the top.

"Nope. That's a bass. It's like a guitar, but it's bigger. It also has less strings and makes a lower sound. See?" She grabbed the guitar she had been looking at, showing me. She was right. The guitar had six strings, and the bass only had four. The bass was also bigger.

"Huh." I plucked one of the strings, and a super-low sound came out. "Whoa, you're right.." I said, trying out the other strings.

"How do you like it?" She asked, plucking the strings on her guitar. She was right about the sound, too.

"It's kinda heavy, but... I like it. Plus, how hard can four strings be? Definitely less complicated than all 50 of those nobs and levers." Lily shrugged.

"Guess we'll see!" She said in a way that almost made me uncomfortable, and continued to mess around with the guitar. I looked around and decided to check on Yukari, who was sitting up against the wall with a keyboard in her lap.

"Hey." I said, sitting down next to her.

"Hey!" She said, smiling. "Look, they have keyboards!"

"Well duh! What kind of instrument class wouldn't have pianos?"

"Keyboards! Not pianos. They're different!"

"Really?"

"Of course! They're smaller."

"Is that it?"

"Well, not really. I'd go into the details but you probably wouldn't understand." She and I both nodded. "Is that a guitar?" She asked, gesturing to the bass.

"No, it's a bass. Jeez, Yukari, can't you tell the difference?" I teased. She rolled her eyes.

"What happened to the saxophone?"

"Do you really need to ask?"

"Yeah, I saw that. Or, heard it. At least Mr. Kaito was nice enough to help you." I nodded, looking to see where he'd gone. He was off in the corner messing around with a few boxes.

"He's kind of weird. Also, 'Mr. Kaito'?"

"Well, I'd feel weird just calling him by his first name... he's our teacher after all. Or professor." I shrugged. Yukari looked like she wanted to say something, but she stopped and instead looked over at the woodwind section. "Oh, wow."

"What?" I asked, leaning forward and looking.

"She's really good at the flute!" Yukari said, sounding like she was talking about her crush.

"Who? I can't see." A lot of students had gathered around the woodwind section. A beautiful sound was coming from somewhere in the crowd.

"Aria!" Yukari stood up, heading over herself.

"What?" I walked over, pushing past a few of the students. Everyone in the room had stopped what they were doing to listen. After getting past a guy who was too big for his shirt, I saw her. Aria was sitting down against the wall, legs crossed, playing a song on the flute with her eyes closed. I recognized the song. Aria was playing "Senbon Zakura", and it was as if she remixed it specifically for the flute. Instead of being high-paced and upbeat, it was slowed down, each note being played for a bit longer. 'Wow' was all that came to mind.

After the song finished, everyone clapped. Apparently Aria didn't even know they were there, because her eyes shot open, and I swear I saw her jump. She stood up, trying to regain her composure, but I could tell she was nervous because she was shaking. Aria, the girl who seemed to disregard everything and everyone as unimportant, had stage fright.