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Chapter 2: Sora
At 1 o'clock sharp the next Tuesday, Yuffie, Kairi, and Selphie arrived in the Destiny High Orchestra room to meet Mr. Leonhart.
"Hello, girls! I've been wondering when you'd finally come! You're going to come at this time every week, right?" He had a cheerful smile on his face.
Yuffie nodded for the three, and the teacher ushered them inside.
"Yuffie..." he called for her, "did you ask Kairi?"
"Uh, yeah," she answered, slightly blushing. "She said she would love that." She hid her face as she thought of what Selphie had said the week before.
He turned to Kairi. "Okay... you'll be assigned cello number three. Don't forget to take it home tonight to practice."
"Uh... okay." She quietly grabbed the cello and stumbled with it towards a seat, ignoring Selphie's screams. Wait, what was Selphie screaming about anyway?
She finally stopped long enough to listen. "Ohmygod, Kairi, you're not holding it right!"
Up until then, Kairi was not aware that there WAS a specific way to hold a cello in its case, just as long she didn't drop it. "Uh..." she was dumbfounded.
"Here, I'll show you how," Kairi was relieved that her more sane friend was coming to help her. "You grab onto the handle with your right hand, then swing your left arm around the cello's neck and let it rest there. Perfect!"
Kairi then carried the cello like it was her newborn baby. "Heh... I can actually walk now!" She let out a nervous giggle.
Selphie giggled. "You're going to have to NEED to actually be able to walk with it, Kai. Or else it won't even make it to your house!"
Mr. Leonhart waited patiently for the girls to get out their instruments, and when Yuffie and Selphie where busily warming up on their own, he told Kairi, "Let's get started. So, show me how you hold the bow."
The next two hours were spent vigorously learning. Every few minutes, Kairi would put down her bow in frustration. There were just too many things to think of at once... did she put enough pressure on the string? Was the bow close enough to the bridge? Was her elbow high enough? And, most of all... where her fingers in the right place? The tapes were slightly assuring, but not enough. Besides, Mr. Leonhart hoped that she wouldn't need them by the time school started. And for now, that event seemed awfully close.
In the middle of the lesson, Sora came by with his own cello. It puzzled Kairi on why he did that; the school cellos were already plenty nice! Plus, wouldn't it be a burden to bring it every day to school?
Soon after he arrived, the three friends took a short break. They were chatting a little bit about the pieces, until their conversation was inturrupted by the beautiful notes of a cello, just as beautiful as the one that had played "Silent Night" so many years ago. At first, she thought it was Mr. Leonhart, thinking that a student couldn't produce something so goregous. When she turned around to look, it was Sora. She felt her jaw drop down to the floor.
Yuffie caught her staring. "See, Kairi, we told you he was good."
Selphie, who was confused, randomly burst out, "HEY! I never found out WHY he's not taking this spot in Julliard! I have to ask him!" She was about to run towards him, but her two friends held her back until he finished his piece. THEN they let her go on her rampage, obviously not thinking of the torture that Sora was about to go through.
"OHMYGOD! Sora! You never answered my question last week!"
"...And your question was?" he asked and raised an eyebrow.
"I thought you were going to Julliard!"
"Uh, Selphie, I hate to break it to you, but that's not a question." Yuffie commented from their corner of the room.
"I'm not going because I wanted one more year here." Silence followed, and then Selphie squealed.
"OKAY! Fine by me!" She grinned, and then confused swept her face again. "Hey, where's Tidus?" She usually saw the two practicing together.
He shrugged. "I haven't seen him with eighth grade graduation. Besides, I don't stalk him the way you do." A small smirk played on his lips. She sweatdropped. Shows how much you know about them... she moaned to herself.
Mr. Leonhart interrupted their joyous "conversation" of Selphie screaming. "Okay, stop the chatting. We're here to practice. Talk on your own time."
Kairi picked up her cello, but couldn't help but steal occasional glances at Sora. Gosh... when am I ever going to get that good? she wondered to herself. Every note that she played after that seemed inferior to Sora's majestic music. She moaned to herself and slumped over her cello.
"Kairi." Mr. Leonhart came over to where she was. "What's distracting you? If it's Sora, please just ignore him. I know that he seems much better than you, but that's just because-"
"It's okay, Mr. Leonhart. I'll try to concentrate harder." She did not want to hear much more about how much better Sora was than her.
Her words were in vain. She was even more distracted by his music. Argh... why must he be so good? she thought. If it wasn't for him... then I'd be doing better!
Sora watched her as her face turned pink in frustration. He wasn't aware that there would be someone new playing the cello this year. But... she was doing okay. At least for a new comer. Most of them didn't even last long enough to get first position down. Plus... she was kind of cute, especially the way that she was getting frustrated with herself. He would like to help her, if he ever got the chance. He smiled, and decided to rest for a few minutes to watch.
Slowly and unaware of the person watching her, Kairi started playing the C major scale. Mr. Leonhart only wanted her to try one octave, since she wouldn't be shifting for at least another month. She hadn't known her notenames too well, but Yuffie gave her a little tutorial on the bass clef before. But then, scales shouldn't be too hard... since they were just one note right after the other.
She was wrong. Her scale didn't sound anything like the Do-Re-Mi-thing she learned in elementary school. It was more like... Do-La-Ti. Or something like that. As in, she was completely out of tune.
Both Mr. Leonhart and Sora saw the frustration in Kairi's eyes, but Mr. Leonhart was the one who waltzed over to calm her down. "It's okay. Don't expect it to be perfect on the first try. You're doing a good job. Just keep it slow, and you'll get it."
Half and hour later, she felt a tap on her shoulder. "I have to leave now, and I'm sure that you guys do, too. It's five."
Kairi looked at Mr. Leonhart in amazement... had it been that long already? "Okay... we'll pack up. I think we're all ready to go." She looked at Sora, who was also packing up and getting ready to leave. When he was done, he gave a small wave and dissappeared through the door. He hadn't said a word to her, and she didn't either... so why'd he wave?
"So, Mr. Leonhart, what shoud I practice for this week?" She shifted her gaze back onto her teacher.
"I want you to keep on trying C Major, then I want you to try D and G. Next week we'll work on the extended fingers that you'll need to play for the sharp notes in A. Also..." he pulled out a music book. "I want you to work on reading your notenames. Try playing this, this, and this song." He checked off three short pieces. "They should be fairly easy, if you know your notenames, and you have your scales down. But- scales are the most important right now, okay?"
Kairi gave a nod, although she didn't quite understand why scales were so important.
"Let's go, Kairi! We'll help you get your cello home since it's kind of a long way to carry it!" Selphie's perky voice rang in her ears.
"Uh, yeah. Okay, let's go!" She felt a bit sad to be leaving the orchestra room, and having to go home and to work.
Work. The worst part of the day. For Kairi, at least. She hated the minimum wage, she hated her co-workers, and most of all, she hated her boss. He was a nosy little man who popped his nose in everyone's business, then, in turn, told everyone what he had found out. Kairi had been lucky to have not been one of his victims yet; but then, she'd only been working here for about two months.
She worked at a small pretzel shop at the mall- the only place where a 14 year old like her could work. Every day, except for Tuesday, now, she was up at the cramped counter serving the ditzy teenage girls that could afford to shop at Abercrombie day and night.
She just all out hated it. No one else her age had to get a job- Selphie and Yuffie all had their summers and weekends free, unlike her. They all got paid allowance, and didn't need to get jobs to pay for everything until they got a car. And even then, the parents usually paid for the gas.
Nope, Kairi didn't have that luxury. She and her mom, after her parents had divorced, have lived in the same house, on the same street, with the same car. And did she mention they only had one car?
"Kairi! We need a pink lemonade slushie and a sour-cream and onion pretzel! Stop daydreaming back there!"
Oh yes, the wonderful life of working minimum wage.
Money has been tight for Kairi's family as long as she can remember, and now with her dad gone, it was even worse. How on earth am I going to be able to rent a cello once school starts? She wondered. More hours here, I guess. I'll never be able to own my cello at this rate...
"KAIRI! Did you not hear what I just said?"
"Um... I heard perfectly well, m'am."
"Now get to work before I call out the boss."
She quickly filled the slushie cup and dipped the pretzel in the sour cream and onion powder before handing it to the customer.
"Next." she said, in a bored monotone voice.
And so it went. On and on, from eight AM to four PM.
"Finally. Work is OVER. Gina, I'm leaving!" She called to her nearest co-worker.
She hastily walked home. It was her first day of being able to practice on her own, and she didn't want to lose any time. As she was walking, she passed the music store outside the mall. "Hm... I'll go in. It won't be long anyway."
She pushed through the door and walked in, straight to the rentable cellos, just to take a little look. She shifted sideways to get a look at the ones further away. As she shifted, she ran smack into another person.
"Ohmygod... I am SOOO sorry." She took a quick glance at him. Messy brown hair, bright cobalt eyes... wait, Sora? As in the cello player?
"Hey... I saw you yesterday. In Mr. Leonhart's room. You're Selphie's friend, right?" he asked.
"Yeah." she said, suddenly feeling small and meek. Not knowing what to say, she added, "...you're really good at the cello."
He smiled. "Thanks... if you need help, you can just ask me, you know."
She blushed. Did he realize that she had just started? "Um... no... that's okay. I'm going to go now, bye!" She ran out of the music store, trying to hide her red face.
Sora stared as she ran off.
Kairi looked around nervously as soon as she was a block away from the music store. "Oh god... I must've looked so stupid!" she said to herself. And he has the prettiest eyes, too... I never really saw them yesterday, since they were glued onto his music.
She dashed home to call Selphie.
"Kairi! I am SOOOO happy for you! Cuz Sora is sooo cute and now you're playing the cello too and you'd look so freaking CUTE together!" Kairi could feel Selphie squealing into the phone.
"Geez, Selph... I don't even know if this is going to last... beacuse all I know is that I love his eyes and his cello playing. He could be a jerk inside, for all I know."
"Oh, I feel it! This is going to turn out into something AMAZING! And he's not a jerk, I know he's not, Kairi... Ohmygod, what are you going to do next week when we see him? Because I know that he goes into the orchestra room almost EVERYDAY!"
"Selph, we are not going to do anything. Please don't tell the world about this... especially not him... because what if I'm over him by the time school starts? Then... that would just be... awkward!"
"Kairi, Kairi, Kairi! You worry too much! I won't tell anyone, I swear!"
"Okay, then... hey, I'm going to go practice now, kay?"
"Yeah, me too, bye!"
Kairi hung up the phone and got out her cello. She took out the bow, and slowly tried C Major. It was a little better, but there was no way that it was good enough... she tried again, and again, until she felt it was right.
She repeated this process with the rest of her excersises, then put her cello away and flopped onto her bed.
Summer soon passed, and very quickly at that. Every week, when Kairi, Yuffie, and Selphie went in to practice, they ran into Sora. Kairi tried to ignore him, but it was completely in vain. She was always relieved to see him go, because then, she'd be able to concentrate. It wasn't because she liked him; of she just liked his eyes! And really, her heart did not go ker-thump the way that it would be if she liked someone.
She had learned how to tune her instrument, and had been working on vibrato. She was also getting fairly good at shifting, thanks to Mr. Leonhart's help.
Finally, the long awaited first day of school came.
