Hello my fellow readers! Here's the next chapter! I hope you like it, things are gonna start picking up pace after this chapter, promise

chapter 4: new discoveries

The next day, Andrew walks into the rehearsal room, it was a bit of a short day since 2 of the teachers are sick from the virus now, after the school day finally ended, the same girl from yesterday was in there already reading over the script, walking to the back he sat down with a book and waited for things to start up, but to his surprise, when Juul came in, they ran over to him and sat next to him.

Juul: hey, how's it going?

Andrew: uh… I'm fine, you?

Juul: I'm alright, sorry you didn't see me, I was hanging with my friend Jakob again

Andrew: i-its fine, so uh… why aren't you s-sitting next to your crush…?

Juul: I guess I just wanna sit with you, get to know a new friend

Andrew:*eyes widen* n-new friend!?

Juul: yeah? Why is that weird?

Andrew: i… it's just… n-never mind, s-sorry

Juul: *chuckles* it's no problem, so, you ready for rehearsal? Is this your first one?

Andrew: y-yeah, I've… never really joined something like th-this

Juul: why'd you join this time? You just bored?

Andrew: a-actually, uh, yeah kinda

Juul: oh, personally I joined so I could get closer with Joline, but, so far it's kinda been a train wreck

Andrew: I-I'm sorry to hear that

Juul: its fine, guess I'll have to find another way to get her to go out with me

Andrew: t-try not to go too far a-and begin getting obsessive over it

Juul: I won't, as long as I have Jakob to help keep me grounded

Andrew: that's g-good to hear

Juul: yeah, so what kind of friends do you have?

Andrew: *looks down* a-actually…

Juul: what's wrong?

Andrew: I-I… don't have any f-friends

Juul: o-oh *looks down awkwardly and rubs the back of their neck* sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable if I did

Andrew: i-its fine

Juul: well, hey, at least you have one friend now, me, and when I introduce you to Jakob, you'll have two

Andrew: *eyes widen and jumps a little surprised* w-we're friends!?

Juul: *eyes widen jumping a little too* well, yeah, after you helped me yesterday like that, I kinda feel like I can trust you a little, I mean, granted I know very little about you, but still, you seem like a really nice and cool guy

Andrew: w-wow… thank you

Andrew felt shocked, a friend? Someone wanted to spend time with him? It felt unreal, is this a dream? Should he pinch himself? Or just pray he doesn't wake up in his bed? He could feel himself having a small panic attack as he thought back on all the time he just spent time by himself, drawing, playing phone games, studying, reading. If this is real… why couldn't it come sooner? Why couldn't he meet Juul when he was in his worst place? Then again… Is his worst place even over yet?

Juul: hey! It's no problem! Anyway, what you reading?

Andrew: *jumps slightly coming out of his stupor and takes a deep breath* o-oh, it's called 'and in the morning', um, it's basically about a boy who… gets his grandfather's diary for his birthday, a-and while he reads it… h-he finds how he was a soldier in war, i-it's really good

Juul: *looks slightly confused* wow, that sounds… kinda interesting, but personally I'm not too much of a reader, I'm more into video games

Andrew: o-oh cool

Juul: what kind of games do you like?

Andrew: uh, actually, I-I'm not really much of a-a gamer, um, at most… I just play simple phone games

Juul: oooh, that's cool, phone games are fun too sometimes, so what other things you like? Other than reading or phone stuff?

Andrew: I-I guess… music, a-and… that's it

Juul: so you just like music, phone games, and reading?

Andrew: I-I guess… *chuckles embarrassed rubbing his neck* g-guess I need to broaden my horizons more…

Juul: yeah, you definitely do

They hear the teacher walk in and they quiet down, after an hour of short casting, the teacher left in a huff ending it early due to the fact that there were only three people, with only one being actually good for being a high schooler, Juul and Andrew sat on the stage chatting..

Juul: so you said you like music too right? Same honestly, I mostly like listening to classic rock if I'm gonna be honest

Andrew: I-I listen to anything really, a-as long as it's good at least, a-actually, I have a collection of records

Juul: wow, seriously? Then I know you, me and Jakob are gonna get along, cause he loves that stuff!

Andrew: w-wow… I-I never thought I-I'd meet someone w-who doesn't think record collecting i-is lame

Juul: I think it's awesome, oh hey! Do you have any Queen or Guns' N Roses?

Andrew: I-I think so, w-why...?

Juul: those bands and a few others are my idols! People like Freddie Mercury, Van Halen are so awesome! And I personally feel like music wouldn't be where it is without badass' like them! They honestly helped me be where I am today!

Andrew: w-wow, that's amazing

Juul: yeah! Honestly, I wanna be just like them one day, all manly, badass, can get anyone to fall for them by giving the right sexy eyes

Andrew: w-wow, how… far have you come with all that?

Juul:*sweat drops* not… far, but, I kinda feel like I'm in the right direction a little, like, I've updated my casual style to look cooler*kicks their leg up high showing their black and white stockings and poses dramatically*, I'm trying to learn how to be more confident, and I'm trying to get more friends, now I have two so… definitely better than I expected, at least their good friends

Andrew: y-yeah… so, uh-

*Joline walks in looking down upset*

Joline: hey guys…

Juul: *looks worried at her* hey Joline, is something wrong?

Joline: it's just… the teacher asked me if I could organize the backroom a bit where all the props are for when we need them… since everyone else left I guess I ended up being the unlucky one…

Juul:*eyes widen* the teacher asked you to do it by yourself? Why can't we do it while everyone else was here?

Joline: I don't know, teachers are confusing, she probably forgot about it and it couldn't wait tomorrow, but still… I was really hoping I could practice my lines more…

Juul: uh, h-hey! Why don't I just do it!

Joline: *looks up surprised* what? I could never ask you to do that alone!

Juul: no, no! I'd be happy to do it!

Joline: well…

Andrew thinks for a moment looking down, he suspected this was now important to Juul, and Joline looked uneasy about it, so he decided to lend a hand and help

Andrew: I… I could help Juul, s-so she won't be alone at least…

Joline: well… alright *blushes* thanks Julianne, and thanks… I'm sorry, I don't know your name

Andrew: its… Andrew

Joline: well, thank you Andrew! I'll see you both tomorrow! *skips out*

Juul: you sure you wanna help dude? It might take a while

Andrew: y-yeah, I… don't have anything better to do

Juul: well, thanks, anyway, let's go

*they go to the backroom, there's a large stack of boxes, containers and crates against the wall*

Juul: well… shit, looks like this might be a while

Andrew: yeah…

Juul: how should we organize them anyway?

Andrew: uh… maybe… plastic containers with plastic containers… boxes with b-boxes, and so on…?

Juul: worth a try, let's get this over with

*they begin moving boxes and containers around, they ranged from heavy, to light, to somewhere in between, after making neat stacks for each, they were on the last small pile*

Juul: *breaths deeply* just a few more, then we can go

Andrew picks up the biggest box and they see a clean, dark colored oak table from what it looked like

Juul: huh? What's that?

They move each box, when they finally finished, they see that it wasn't a table, but instead a piano, it looked old, but there was very little dust because of the boxes on it, the wood was dark brown and kinda glossy, there was a seat tucked in under it that was covered in some dust and looked pretty old.

Juul: a piano? That's weird?

Andrew: m-maybe its… a prop for shows?

Juul: maybe, wonder if it works

Andrew walks over and looks down on it, the piano keys are all clean looking and looked as good as if they were brand new, raising a hand slowly, he played a few notes, he played a bit of clair de lune, one of his favorite piano songs, also the only one he really knew. He stops and pulls back

Juul: wow, that sounded really good, you know how to play piano?

Andrew: n-no…not well, I've… barely even touched one honestly

Juul: huh? Then how-

They stopped themselves when the wall began rumbling.

Andrew: w-what did I do!?

Juul: what is happening!?

The wall slowly began opening, dust falling as it did, when it was fully open, they saw that it was a broom closet weirdly enough, it had black wood that was tall enough to reach half the wall, the rest was blue paint or wallpaper and a black door at the other side of the room.

Juul: uh… has this always been here?

Andrew: I-I… don't know…

They both walked forward towards the door, Andrew slowly reaches for the door knob and…

that's it! Sorry for the cliffhanger ending, but more will soon come, I promise, I hope if your reading your enjoying this, there's a lot more soon to come and I can't wait to show you all. One more thing, if any of you are curious as to what they look like, the important characters in drawings, well I just posted what some of them look like in my amino! Which I plan to update regularly whenever an important character joins or becomes relevant, so if you wanna know what they look like, just go to SMT: persona Amino, my username is Quartz, with that, please review, favorite and follow, see yah!