Chapter 7

Alive With the Sound of Music (Part 1)*

Will sat at his usual table in the cafeteria alone, with earphones plugged securely into his ear, music blasting just loud enough to drown out the noise of the student body as he ate his lunch. His extensive song collection ranged from show tunes to varied genres of music coming from different years in time, with some classical tracks of piano and guitar instrumentals. He wondered why he hadn't done this sooner—he had no one to talk to anyway, and not only did it serve the purpose of blocking out the noise of shallow conversations and boisterous laughter among his fellow school mates; listening to music relaxed him. More importantly too was Will's idea that music was the only thing that seemed like his friend now.

Emma was his friend too, though… wasn't she? The New Year had already begun and Will still couldn't settle on what he really thought about the only student in McKinley High who wasn't embarrassed to be seen talking to him. Even Henry, his half-brother, denounced him every chance he got—from sitting far from him in the school bus, not making eye contact at all, and probably the worst, was insisting that he was the only Schuester in school. The other students knew they had to keep their distance too—what with their tarnished mindsets about having a good reputation and keeping the status quo in order, they wouldn't want to be seen talking to a bastard son and immediately getting tagged as losers. However, Emma was different; sure, she had meddled into Will's life at the start, curious just as much as the others had been, but she had stopped and apologized—and none of the other kids ever did that. Although Will could sense that she was intimidated by him, he could tell how she still made an effort to greet him whenever they passed each other in the halls; add to that the time she had yelled at Henry because she had been defending him, and the time Emma had caught him in his boxer shorts, which was admittedly, his most embarrassing moment so far, since his move to Lima.

Where was Emma, by the way? The last time Will had seen her was the day she and Henry were at the house to do their science project. And for the remaining school days of the previous year everyone had become so busy with school work and extracurricular activities, and all sorts of holiday preparations were keeping all of them preoccupied, so it made sense that they couldn't even randomly pass by each other in McKinley High. Will couldn't have had a chance to see Emma around Lima during the Christmas break too, because he hadn't planned to stick around his father's family during the holidays; as soon as school had ended for the anticipated break Will immediately headed down to Akron, Ohio—his hometown— which was only a few hours away from Lima, only returning to his father's house the night before classes resumed. Now it has been a week since everything was back into full swing, lessons continued on as if the chilly Christmas season never happened, yet Will couldn't find a trace of Emma anywhere. He also noticed that Henry had spent the past week sitting with his friends from the swim team because his lunch buddy still hasn't gone back to school, but Will didn't want to ask Henry if he knew where Emma was because simply doing that implied something—something he'd rather not let Henry know—perhaps like how he was just a little too concerned about his half-brother's ginger best friend— a feeling of concern he shouldn't be having in the first place…

Because concern also meant that he was worried about her.

Worried, because he had started to care about her too.

But caring about someone he barely knew… it meant that there was something more to it.

Like an attraction, maybe?

"No," Will mumbled to himself as he took a sip from his bottled water. But it was as if the very music he had been listening to wanted to playfully tease him, because as soon as he'd said it the next song began to play on his iPod, which he had put on shuffle, and the coincidence of it simply matching Will's thoughts was too good to be true; Frank Sinatra's smooth voice began to croon, singing the words to his song—Where Are You.

Where are you?
Where have you gone without me?
I thought you cared about me.
Where are you?

A funny coincidence? He didn't think so. Will leaned back in his chair disbelievingly, yanking the earphones from his ears. "Oh God, really? C'mon!" He scoffed.

"It's 2014, Will," a familiar voice from behind him chimed. "I thought you'd be less grumpy, for a change."

Will spun around in his seat and looked up to see Emma standing right behind him; she wore a bright red turtleneck sweater and contrasting black leggings, which Will noticed was a break from the flowing skirts she wore before winter came. The cold winter air made Emma's cheeks and nose blush lightly, reminding him of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer; Will smiled at the thought, amused. At the back of his mind he thought, Thank God she's back….

Emma excitedly set her tray of food on the table as soon as she saw Will's reaction—from a surprised and slightly confused look on his face, his lips finally curled into a smile; it was a big deal for her because it was the first time she'd ever seen him smile at her, and if her instincts were correct—it was probably the first time Will had ever smiled too, since his move to Lima. "Will!" she beamed happily at him.

"What?"

"You're—I can't believe it—you're smiling!" Emma clapped her hands together as she sat on the chair next to him, her doe eyes fixed on Will. It's not that he wasn't already good-looking, but Emma thought he looked even better when his crooked smile lit up his face.

Will leaned forward and bit his lip as the realization hit him as well; he felt relieved, as though his facial muscles had abandoned its paralyzed state and had started to function again. Emma was right—he was smiling! When was the last time he had smiled—a sincerely warm and heartfelt one—anyway? Even he couldn't remember. Ever since his mother had become hospitalized and he had found out about her disease, Will found that there wasn't so much to smile about anymore. Not until now, when he decided that a mental picture of Emma as an adorable personification of a famous red-nosed reindeer was, indeed, worth a smile.

The walls he had built to shunt himself out from the world had started to crack. Emma was breaking it down for him effortlessly.

Frowning on purpose, he slumped in his seat and sighed heavily. "Not anymore," he droned lazily. "I'm sad again."

"Stop it," Emma chuckled, playfully tapping Will on the arm. "You should smile more often— I'm serious!" She laughed even harder when Will pouted and pretended to look distressed. "You're cute when you smile—" Emma said without restraint before biting hard on her lip, when she realized what a blunder of herself she had made in front of Will. Again.

Will raised an eyebrow, smirking. "Really?" he said. So are you was what he wanted to say, but he knew better; besides, he enjoyed watching Emma turn red in the face before she redeemed herself by diverting the conversation to another randomly thought of topic. She was the cute one.

"I—well—I meant you had, I mean you have a good smile, b-because you know— you're a good person." Emma rambled out a string of words which didn't make sense to her at all. How does she even find a way to embarrass herself without trying?

"Having a good smile doesn't automatically mean one is a good person," Will replied matter-of-factly, as he leaned back in his seat, entertained.

Emma shook her head helplessly. "I know, I know! It didn't make sense, it's ridiculous." Shrugging, she took his iPod, sticking one earphone into her ear. "Well anyway, what are you lis— it's from The Sound of Music!" She said happily.

"Hand me one," Will said, taking the other earphone from Emma and placing it in his ear. True enough, Edelweiss had begun to play on his iPod.

"It's my favorite movie," Emma whispered softly, her eyes staring blankly forward as she lost herself in the song. Will only nodded, allowing a few minutes of uninterrupted silence, seeing as Emma was clearly in love with the all-time classic film's soundtrack.

Edelweiss, Edelweiss,
every morning you greet me;
small and white, clean and bright,
you look happy to meet me.
Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow,
bloom and grow forever….

The song had ended but both Will and Emma were still dazed in a trance even as another song began to play. Emma was staring lovingly at a spot on the table, smiling reminiscently at all the times she had repeatedly watched The Sound of Music; Will, meanwhile, had rested his head on his hand and was unconsciously staring at Emma, his eyes fixated on her long eyelashes.

"Beautiful," he sighed.

Emma turned away as soon as she faced Will, upon realizing that he had been watching her; his green eyes were unintentionally piercing, and she immediately felt her ears warming up just at the sight of him staring at her.

She pulled the earphone from her ear and shivered. "I h-haven't eaten my lunch y-yet…." Emma took the sandwich from the plate and took a bite, making sure her eyes didn't stray back to Will's. "You should finish eating yours too, before lunch is over."

"Now that I think about it," Will began, as he munched on an apple. "Why were you even here? I know you've been gone a week so in case you forgot, your table's over there," he said, pointing at an empty table not far from where he sat.

"Isn't this a free country, Will?" Emma remarked. "I can sit wherever I want. And I haven't forgotten where my table is, by the way." She was covertly touched that Will noticed her one week of absence from school; he, of all people, noticed that.

"Yeah, but what about Henry?" He looked around the cafeteria and found two tables moved together, where a bunch of students—most of them wearing varsity jackets—were grouped together, laughing loudly; Will's half-brother was one of them, sitting next to his teammates from the swim team. "Does he know you're back?"

"Oh he does," said Emma gloomily. "I told him today's the day I'd be back from my family's trip to Virginia."

"Okay," Will said carefully, taking a hint that something terrible was brewing between the two friends yet again. He shrugged. "So… he didn't tell you he'd be sitting with the jocks today, is that it?"

"He wouldn't be sitting with them if we hadn't fought again, that's what it is." Emma set her sandwich down and crossed her arms.

"Geez, why do you keep fighting?" Will said, rolling his eyes. "Is this a thing between best friends now—"

"It's not like what I'm asking him to do is difficult—it's not!" Emma interrupted, her bottled up frustration evident in her voice. "Before my family and I left for Virginia I told him to do one thing while I was gone, and that was to be nice to you, and you know what he told me?"

Will closed his eyes in surrender. They were fighting about him for the second time; how he wished they didn't have to, as Henry hates him enough as it is. "Emma, you didn't have to tell him that—"

"He said, 'What for? He's not Santa Claus, is he?!' Would you believe that?" Emma was cutting Will's sentences short, but was too busy bantering to notice. "Sometimes I don't feel like I know him anymore! Henry wasn't like this when we were eight—"

"Emma, you were kids then—"

She shook her head defiantly. "It doesn't matter!" she exhaled exasperatedly. "I just thought you could use some friends. Why is he so against that?"

Will wasn't expecting that remark; he had been caught off-guard. He thought this discussion was heading towards a "you-should-learn-how-to-get-along-because-you're-brothers" theme, and if it had gone that way he could have gone and brushed it off with a grim joke; but as it turns out, all of it was simply Emma worrying about him not having any friends in McKinley High. It was endearing how she seemed to care about him so much, how she made him feel special… unless, of course, if she treated everyone else the same way then maybe he wasn't so important to her after all.

"Emma…."

"What?" She sighed desperately.

"You worry too much, you know that?" Will ran his fingers through his hair, chuckling softly.

"I worry too much because I know what it feels like. I know how you feel," she whispered.

Will swallowed, suddenly tense, but kept his face as unexpressive as possible. "You have no idea what I've been through, so excuse me if I think that you don't know what it's like to be me," he answered cautiously, not wanting to give away any signs of emotion.

"You're right, though. I don't know what you've been through, or what your life was like before you moved here." She paused, watching Will's face intently. "But I know one thing and I'm sure of it: you're lonely, Will." She finally said it, and Emma saw the faintest quiver of Will's thin lips as it struggled not to turn into a frown.

Will shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "I'm fine," he said pretentiously. But he knew there was no pretending left that could ever fool Emma; she had finally broken his walls of seclusion and knew he was only faking it. She had persisted long enough to see through his masks, until she finally found herself close enough to let him think she was a person to trust. It was all up to Will now, if he was willing to step forward and take the chance to trust in someone—to trust her.

"I could help, you know. I have a few ideas already planned out; I just need your cooperation." Emma said lightly, before she focused back to her sandwich, chewing in a hurry because most of the students were beginning to leave the cafeteria for their afternoon classes.

"You're over-thinking the situation, Emma," Will shook his head, biting back a smile. Yet again she finds another way to get to him and this time he chooses to willingly surrender, instead of fighting back. Yes, he is lonely. Emma thinks she could change that? Well, maybe she could.

"It certainly beats not thinking about the situation at all. Are you in or not?" Emma shrugged, acting nonchalantly because she felt that she had already won Will over, what with seeing another smile on his face—a smile he was trying to suppress. "And stop holding back that smile, Will. It's not illegal to show your teeth, is it?"

The bell rang and Emma swallowed the last of her sandwich, pulling Will up by the wrist as she stood. "We'll be late," she gasped, slightly panicky; she hated being late for class. "Anyway, meet me at my locker after class and we can get started—"

"Hey, I haven't said yes yet," Will quipped, allowing Emma to drag him out of the cafeteria and into the throng of busy students rushing to get to class as well.

"That smile was as good as a yes though, so I win!" She laughed, before letting go of him in the middle of the hallway. "Get to class, Will! We'll talk later—" and Emma waved him off as the teachers began to emerge from their offices, ready to head into the classrooms.

"Don't be late!" Will called back, and before he turned his back on her, he swore he saw Emma's face flush red once more, her eyes sparkling with unbridled anticipation.


*This chapter and the next one are directly interconnected two-part chapters, which is why they have the same title. And as the title suggests, chapters 7 and 8 are inspired by the classic film, The Sound of Music.