Chapter 8
" Arigatou! So Noako isn't here today?" Terada flipped open the score and sat down on his famous stool. " You might want to move the piano a little to the left, Li-san, you mind helping him one of you cellos? Arigatou. Ano, let me hear your A...a little flat, push it in a bit. You? Flatter. Flat, sharp. Pull it out just a hair-now all of you..."
" Ano...Terada-sensei?" Syaoran began timidly. " The chair sort of...broke."
" Nani?" Terada looked over. " Oh, I see. You can steal a chair from room 603. Can
we have an A, oboe? I can't-arigatou. You're sharp."
Syaoran and one of the cellos brought the chair in and set it in front of the piano. He raised the chair so that it was high enough and sat down to test it. A distinct violin sounded, which was most likely Sakura's, but he must not think about her right now. He's missing his lunch for this rehearsal.
They got through most of the piece, until there was almost a duet between the orchestra and the piano-and that was when the orchestra fell apart.
" That was a total disaster." Sakura muttered as the two of them made their way
down. Syaoran passed a test the other week and so those who didn't pass needed to
take it over again ( the whole class, really,) and Sakura's teacher wasn't there so she
didn't need to do anything.
" Tell me about it." Syaoran answered.
Eriol and Tomoyo walked behind them.
" That was a disaster." Tomoyo muttered.
" Tell me about it." Eriol answered. " Syaoran was probably the only one that was
keeping himself together. Did you see Terada? He was so mad at us."
" I messed up on the second one." Tomoyo laughed nervously.
" And Terada heard."
" Un."
" That's bad."
" I know, but what can I do? I'm not Sakura."
" You're the champion."
" Oh please." The girl shook her head. " What nonsense!"
" Please!" Sakura giggled. " I'm just starting to learn Chinese. We've gone with one
two three fours, and it's all in Mandarin."
" I know Mandarin." Syaoran blinked. " That's why I'm laughing at you. You said it
all wrong, but no matter-you'll get better."
" I thought you were Cantonese."
" If I only knew Cantonese, Sakura-san, I wouldn't be able to communicate with
anyone. Ninety something percent of the Chinese population is Mandarin, baka." He
chuckled. " I can't speak Mandarin very well, but I do know it. I thought I told you
that already!"
" Ano...you did?" Sakura blinked. Syaoran rolled his eyes.
" It's called Rococo."
" Rococo?"
" Hai. It's between the Baroque period and the Classical Period."
" What a horrible name!" Sakura exclaimed. " Rococo! That sounds so...cocoish!"
Syaoran chuckled. " Rococo is when the Baroque people were experimenting
with music. It probably turned out as a disaster, but that's the transition between the
Baroque and the Classical Periods."
" Rococo." Sakura muttered over and over again to herself. " Rococo. Rococo.
Rococo."
" Stop that!"
" Gomen."
" Now, all you-"
" So Syaoran wrote this piece. Isn't it so pretty?" Yamazaki laughed. " You see,
Syaoran has a crush on Sakura, so he wrote this piece especially for her-"
" Yamazaki-baka!" Syaoran exclaimed. " You better give that back. Pay no
attention to him, Sakura. He's a total pain. Yamazaki!"
But the other boy was dancing away with the notebook, laughing at him.
Syaoran sighed in annoyance and sat down. Yamazaki, having gotten bored with
the game, returned the notebook to Syaoran. Unfortunately, Sakura was known for
her curiosity.
" Can I see it? I'm not good at sight-reading, but it must be a really good piece."
Well, what could Syaoran do?
" Guess WHAT!!"
Sakura and Syaoran cringed at Fuutie.
" MEILING'S coming over!!!"
Again, Sakura cringed, but Syaoran gaped widely and protested.
" Iie! Kami, she's going to ruin everything!"
" Like what?" Eriol asked, a mischievous grin tugging at his lips.
" Everything! My life! My room! My whole reputation!" Syaoran sighed.
Shiefa was drinking soda in a rapid pace. She didn't like Meiling either. She
was a troublesome cousin, always lousing about Syaoran and never leaving him
alone. She felt pity for her brother.
Unfortunately, drinking soda has its side-effects.
" Ano, what was that?" Eriol asked.
" It was a burp." Fuutie answered pleasantly.
" Ano..." Eriol began, " Bless you? Wait-that's not right. Excuse-wait, excuse you.
Iie, that's rude, right?"
" Hai." Syaoran answered flatly.
" Forget it!"
" Smart."
Eriol shot him a glare.
" I don't want her to come over! Can't she stay in Hong Kong?"
" Who is Meiling?" Sakura asked.
" A kaijuu." Syaoran answered. " Truly and literally. You'll see."
" I don't think she's that bad." Sakura blinked.
" You never met her, that's why." Shiefa answered. " She has this weird idea that
Syaoran is her fiancé."
" Talk about being weird." Eriol laughed. " But she is a great violinist, although
she's a viola minor. If she comes over, you'll have a hard time, Sakura-san. Meiling
is a very competitive individual; Syaoran would have fallen into her clutches if he
hadn't chose the piano when he was five years old."
" I never get how people could practice two instruments at once." Syaoran suddenly
remarked, " And actually practice them. I really do not want to talk about the
source of my nightmares. Can we please go to the library?"
Meiling came three weeks before the juries, which was a day when all
students take a sort of ' audition' before three to five judges and are given a grade
for the year besides their own teacher's grade. Students were required to play a
romantic piece, a classical piece, and a twentieth century piece at least, and Syaoran
had a lot of work to do.
" It's not fair!" He complained to Eriol and Sakura. " Wakabayashi-sensei wants me
to have a new piece ready in three weeks! And it's darn hard! Plus I have to
rehearse with that concerto. And then," He decided to stop. It would be bad if he
complained about Meiling in front of Meiling.
" That's not a problem." Meiling chirped, causing Syaoran to groan. " You can
ready a piece in one week. Why brawl around with three?"
Syaoran mumbled something about not liking pressure and Sakura giggled. She was answered with a glare from Meiling.
Meiling sat at a vacant seat in the symphony orchestra since she was a visitor, and Sakura managed a whisper to Syaoran to ask why Meiling dissapproves of her so.
" It's simple." Syaoran answered. " I told her about you. I told her not to give you
trouble. She somehow memorized the name-and found that composition piece I was
working on and got jealous. What ever am I going to do with her? Speaking of
which, I have a composition concert! Eek!"
" Relax. We only have seven weeks left of school." Sakura whispered. " You have
seven weeks to worry about Prokofiev."
" No. I have five seconds and counting." Syaoran mumbled as Terada stepped on
the podium.
" Alright, settle down, we have a lot to cover today, because as you all know there
are no classes on jury day. After that we only have three more meetings before the
concert, so I want this Prokofiev ready. Can we have an A please?"
Meiling waited patiently for the orchestra to tune, but as it was a raining day, the strings took a long time.
" Don't you kids know how to tune?" Terada blinked.
" It's the weather." Eriol called from the cello section. " My pegs won't stay."
Terada waited impatiently until everything was right again, and looked over at Syaoran. Syaoran nodded. Terada gave an upbeat with his baton, sat down on his famous stool, and they began.
" What a horrible rehearsal."
" The pegs wouldn't stay."
" The notes were like Biarrrrr."
" Not our fault."
" Meiling, please stop that." Syaoran said seriously. " I'm only hoping that during
the concert the strings wouldn't do that. If they did it would be mighty ugly..."
" Who cares? As long as you play it right."
" Well, if I play it right and the orchestra plays it wrong, I sound wrong."
" That's how it works, anyways." Eriol agreed. Sakura adjusted her shoulder strap
as they stopped at the third floor.
" Alright, I'll see you guys later."
" Ja!" The three of them called as Syaoran went out of the elevator. The door
closed.
Syaoran entered the library and the first thing he did was heave a great sigh. One full week of Meiling was enough to tire anyone out. Of course, it was fun helping her practice her sonatas, but he didn't like her around him all the time. Did she have to insist on coming to school with him?
After getting his Ravel Syaoran sight sang through it and nodded in approval.
He liked the song. Looking at the title he frowned at the foreign characters.
" Pour Une Infante Defunte"
Looking at the translation he gulped. The translation was " Of the Death of an Infanta."