A/N: I got bored...

Disclaimer: I don't own anything...

Chapter 5: Lessons

Kairi had figured something out the day she brought her new cello home- that being that it more definately did NOT have the same tone as her cello at school. Sure, it could be worse... but since Sora's music had been ringing in her ears lately, she just wanted to cover her own ears from her own playing.

She moaned as she sat back in her chair. Why was she so bad? Why wouldn't she play like Sora? Or Tidus? Or even her stand partner? She was hopeless...

A phone call sounded very comforting at a time like this. She dialed the number of her hyper violinist of a friend, and waited for her to pick it up.

"KAIRI! HI!" Selphie squealed into the phone. "What's up?"

"I got my new cello." Kairi's reply was blunt.

"COOL! I WANNA SEE IT!"

"Yeah, I'll show you it... later. Hopefully next week."

"Aww, Kairi! Why not now?"

"I'm kind of tired after getting yelled at by the manager, and then dragging my cello home."

"You know what Kairi?"

"What?"

"You haven't been having enough fun lately. That stupid job of yours is getting to your head!" She paused for a moment. "I HAVE AN IDEA!"

"And what is that?" Kairi sighed. Maybe she should have called Yuffie or Namine... at least they wouldn't be convinced that she wasn't having enough "fun."

"You are coming with us to the Junior High school concert next month! I know the date of it exactly!"

"Next MONTH?" That's... a long way to plan ahead! I don't have my working schedule for that month yet! What if I have overtime on that day?"

"You're coming, whether you like it or not. And you're going to help us drag Tidus and Sora along."

"I don't know. And why are you so obsessed with bothering those two?"

"Kairi..." Selphie whined, "you're acting like you're 30! You're only 14... stop worrying about the stuff that old people worry about. And they're coming because Tidus is cute, and YOU and Sora are going to hook up."

"But..."

"YOU'RE COMING!" Kairi's hyper friend was turning quite Nazi-like now- so poor Kairi had to agree.

"Okay, I guess."

She could almost hear her friend grinning on the other line. And she could litterally hear her jumping on her bed. "Selphie, aren't you getting a bit too tall to jump on the bed?"

"NO!" Selphie squealed, but that was soon followed by a shriek and a massive crash. "AHH! OW! OW!"

Kairi's once teasing smirk turned into a worried frown on her face as she heard the shrieking.

"Selph, do you need to me to come over?"

"No... I'm perfectly OKAY!" The hyper girl insisted.

"Then... well, I have to go, Selphie... Mom wants to call the financial advisor."

The two bid farewell, and then Kairi lied down on her bed, completely beat. "What was Selphie talking about, anyway? I'm not going to get together with Sora..." she mummbled to herself before drifting into sleep.

-

Monday came too soon, at least in Kairi's opinion. She still wasn't good enough on The Idylls of Pegasus... seeing that her intonation never matched the rest. Festival was going to be in a few weeks; was she ever going to be good enough to catch up with the rest of the orchestra?

Maybe it was mistake to join orchestra; so far, it had been just another pain on her life. Selphie and Yuffie had it easy, they had invested in their instruments starting in forth grade, so now they ones with quality that they were satisfied with. And now, she had felt a bit of guilt about leaving Namine. Before, Namine had been the one Kairi was closest to; now, Selphie was the one who she was closest.

Maybe it's just one of the changes that high school brings, Kairi thought glumily as she pulled on her clothes and brushed her hair.

She went out to meet her friends, and there seemed to be a bit of tension between the four. Selphie was constantly rubbing her head where a visible bump was, Yuffie was muttering something about getting revenge on someone else, and Namine seemed a bit... upset. Selphie and Yuffie slightly broke the tension by getting into another one of their infamous arguements.

Kairi took this chance to walk closer to Namine, hoping to find out a little bit about what was up. "Hey, Namine... you look down, what's wrong?"

Her voice allowed the other two friends in the group to come a bit closer, and allowed for the two to stop bickering. "Yeah, Namine, what's wrong?" Yuffie's face was filled with concern. "You're ususally not THIS quiet."

Namine responded by looking away. "I don't really want to talk about it..."

"Is it about that Roxas guy again?" Selphie asked. "Because you know... when a guy keeps teasing a girl... it means that he LIKES her..." she teased.

"That's part of the problem..." Namine mumbled. "But it's not really that..."

"Oh." Selphie then assumed that it was nothing too big, and contined to argue with Yuffie about the new violas this year.

"I can't believe that one girl, Maria... she thinks that she's so good, when she's all out of tune even in 3rd position!" Yuffie let out a huff.

"Well... I thought that they're getting a little better, I mean, at least that one guy, Ryou dropped out... I swear that guy couldn't even hold his bow! And then he always pestered Miss Heartilly with those stupid questions..."

"I didn't like Miss Heartilly anyway..."

"That's because she went out once with Mr. Leonhart!" Selphie knew that she was poking at Yuffie's sensitive spot.

"That's because YOU urged her so much to get a romantic relationship in her life..."

"Well, I'M not the one who likes someone about twenty years older than me!"

Yuffie sighed when she realized her loss. "Can we change the subject?"

"I wish that the stupid ninth grade orchestra wasn't so secluded from the rest of them... I mean, it just totally sticks out! You look at our program, and it says, Freshman Orchestra, Concert Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, and Symphony Orchestra. LOOK AT THE NAME DIFFERENCE! HELLO!" Selphie jumped in attempt to glare at Yuffie straight in the eye.

"But what difference would that make? The only thing would be that we wouldn't be playing with as many people in the same grade as us. You're making too big of a deal out of this, Selphie." Yuffie looked down at her short friend.

"Yuffie, are you deaf? Did you hear how bad the basses were after Kristina moved?"

"Oh, so now you're saying that our basses suck?"

"YES! We despirately need RIKU, but he's a sophmore. And if we got rid of the freshmen orchestra..."

-

The day was quiet. Unnaturally quiet, actually.

Or maybe Kairi had been missing out quite a bit about the drama going on at her usual lunch table with Namine, Yuffie, and Selphie. Selphie had seemed to be chewing on a piece of bread longer than normal people do, Yuffie had her face buried in "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl," and Namine was sketching quietly while Kairi was starting the load of English homework that she had for the night.

Kairi observed each of her friends quietly, until she couldn't take it anymore. "WHY MUST EVERYONE BE SO QUIET TODAY?" Her outburst seemed to overpower the low roar of the rest of the voices in the cafeteria, and a few heads turned to look. They found nothing but a screaming redhead, thought it was nothing important, and turned back to their own cliques.

"Kairi," Namine spoke softly. "Yuffie and Selphie got into a fight this morning."

"But they always fight, and it never ends up being an actual 'fight.'" She made air quotes with her hands.

"Well, this time it is."

"Oh."

Silence followed the conversation, and Kairi turned back to her English homework. The state of the lunch table didn't change until the bell rang.

"Kairi, wait up!" She heard Selphie's voice as Kairi hustled through the crowd to try to get to orchestra.

They walked in silence, and Yuffie was nowhere to be seen. She must have taken a different route... Kairi thought.

Selphie chose to end the quietness between the two. "I'm mad at Yuffie."

This wasn't news to Kairi, but she said, "Why?"

"Okay, this morning... when we walked off to put our instruments away and you and Namine went ahead to English, I told her that Tidus asked Yuna out. Did you know that?"

Kairi shook her head, so the other girl continued.

"And then she said, 'He wouldn't have asked you out anyway, or gone with you to any place outside of school,' and you know, I was already kind of mad at her, and it was like, the last straw, you know?

"So then I blew up at her, told her that she was a stupid bitch that was in love with a teacher right in front of Mr. Leonhart. But Mr. Leonhart was actually nice about it and didn't make us go to the office."

"...Wow." That was all Kairi could muster.

"And then Yuffie just huffed and said I was being immature, as usual, and then walked off to the other violas and decided that their conversation was MUCH more interesting than mine. I can't stand any of them! Tidus, Yuna, OR Yuffie! They're making my life miserable!" The once-hyper girl looked like she was going to cry.

Kairi gave her a hug. "It's okay, Selph... Tidus was a jerk, anyway. He doesn't deserve you. Yuffie's probably just going through some dramatic phase... like she always does... oh, I'm sure you guys will make up within a week!"

The idea made Selphie smile. "Come on, the tardy bell's about to ring! Let's go to orchestra!" The two girls ran into the room.

The class passed smoothly for everyone but Kairi. Everytime, she could feel everyone's, including Sora's, eyes on her. Mr. Leonhart even gave her a glare and said, "You better be ready for festival in a few weeks, Kairi." She grumpily put her cello into it's bag, and was about to bring it over to a rack when Sora stopped her.

"Hey, Kairi!" He gave her a cheerful smile.

"Hey," she nervously smiled back.

She was about to walk off again until he touched her arm. "Do you need any help with your music? I mean, I can help you like I did before..."

Kairi wanted to retort back at him, and walk off, but he obviously wasn't finished yet. "Yeah..." she mumbled a little bit before letting him finish talking.

Was it just her, or did he seem a little pink in the cheeks? "That is," he sputtered, "if you don't mind meeting together and all because I'm sure that you're busy..."

Did he just offer to teach her? This was an opportunity that Kairi could not and would not pass up. "I'd love that, Sora!" Her nervousness flew away and a wide grin made its way to her face.

He grinned back at her. "Well... I'll let you put your cello away now, and we can talk about when to meet like tommorow."

"Okay." she giggled, and almost pranced to the cello rack, but stopped herself.

Sora grinned to himself. She was so adorable...

-

Kairi decided to try to get to the bottom of what was happening to Namine in art that day. She learned a long time ago that if you wanted Namine to tell you exactly what was on her mind, you would talk to her while she was drawing or painting. Then, she would ignore the troubles of the world, and just let poetry soar out of her lips.

The only problem was; when would Kairi approach her? Ahh, she wasn't going to worry; she was just going to wing it.

She sat down and looked at the drawing that she was about to color. It was better than average... but not exactly the best. But that was okay; art was Namine's thing, and she wasn't planning on stealing that from her.

"Hey, Kairi... can I tell you something that you'll promise to never tell anyone?" A soft voice mumbled next to her.

"Yeah?" They were both looking at their pieces of artwork and not at each other, but it didn't matter because this was just their way, in their little artists' world, of having a conversation.

"I've been feeling unwanted lately... you guys are all in orchestra together... and I'm just the one that sticks out like a sore thumb. It's like... I wish I didn't rely on you guys so much... Yuffie's so protective and Selphie makes me happy... but it's like I can't be my own person around you guys. You treat me like... some china doll that would be broken if you left it alone for just a little bit. And I'm glad that you guys are so nice about chasing away Roxas and everything, but I... I want to fight my own battles."

Kairi was shocked. She had felt like Namine was excluded, but she always thought that she would be able to find another friend. And she had never realized how much that she had been like the caretaker of Namine all of these years.

"Namine... that's wonderful... I mean, not that you're so sad, but it's so wonderful that you want to fight your own battles. We'll support you all the way." Kairi felt that her words weren't comforting enough, but Namine had seemed to perk up a bit afterwards.

-

Kairi arrived promptly in front of Sora's house at 5:30 the next day. It was the only day of the week that she had off of work, so why not just schedule her lesson then? Sora didn't seem to care which day they had it on, or what time, for that matter; he was flexible with times.

It was a little bit awkward to be going to a boy's house at her age, but Sora's mom had spoken with her own, and Kairi assumed that they had agreed that it was okay. She rang the doorbell, and about thirty seconds later, a middle aged woman answered the doorbell.

"Hi! You must be Kairi... come sit, Sora's gonna come in soon." She silently sat down in one of the two empty chairs next to a music stand in the room that she was led to. As she did, his mother asked, "Would you like something to drink?" She shook her head.

She unpacked her instrument quickly, and tuned a little by ear before Sora came in with his own cello.

"Let's get started, before you go crazy tuning like a lunatic," he teased. "So, what do you need help with most?" He sat in the chair next to her, flipping through the four pieces. He took the freedom to pull out The Idylls of Pegasus, and said, "You seemed to having a lot of trouble with this one, especially when we're counting our rests."

"Yeah." She didn't know what to say, so why not just let him do all of the talking?

"So, I'll start right here-" he pointed about five measures before his solo had ended, "-and come in at the right time."

The first time they tried, she came in a measure ahead. The second time, she was late. And even though third time was usually the charm, she still came in one beat to early.

Sora was getting impatient. Who knew that teaching someone could be so HARD? He excused himself to get a drink of water, and he groaned as the cold liquid ran down his throat. He firmly set the glass on the table, took a deep breath, and headed back into the the room where Kairi was waiting.

"Okay. Let's try again. Kairi, if you don't feel like counting... just follow my part, okay? I know that you have a good ear, so you don't need to be staring at me. Plus, there's no answer written on my face."

She gave a little nod, and this time, she got on beat.

Sora was singing hallelujah in his head. FINALLY, he thought. Now to move on to the easier part; the intonation.

"So, Kairi... what else are you having trouble with? I know you messed up a lot today but I can't exactly remember..."

She felt her face burn with embarassment, until she realized that he was just teasing. She smiled weakly, and pointed out the parts with the high shifts.

"Okay, here... play it for me, would you?"

She tried it, and barely winged it. Her intonation was just awful... it sounded like she hadn't practiced in months, even though she had been trying to get that part fixed.

"Let's play it together. We'll go a little slower, so then you can match your notes with mine."

She listened closely to Sora's notes, trying to do as he said. She got it in the lower shifts, but in the higher positions, none of her notes seemed to match, and Sora was telling her which direction to move her finger.

She could almost feel his impatience growing within him. He spoke a little harsher, and she was afraid that he wouldn't want to teach her anymore. No... she couldn't do that... it was just the first lesson!

"Kairi, you are WAY too low. You know why? Because you aren't shifting your thumb high enough with the rest of your fingers!" He pushed her thumb further down the neck of her cello. "See, now you can actually reach the note."

"Heh... I see now." She looked up, to come face to face with a frown that completely intimidated her. And it was, most definately, one that she would not like to see again. Sora was not exactly happy at the moment, and it seemed that he was about to unleash his anger if it weren't for his mother to pop in.

"Sora, it's 6:30. Kairi's mother is going to call soon, wondering what you guys are up to."

"Okay, Mom," Sora said before sighing and setting down his cello to the side.

As Kairi packed up, she wondered if she should appologize. It wasn't her fault she couldn't count... or was it? She quickly told herself that she shouldn't be making excuses.

Sora walked her to the door, and said goodbye. When he was about to walk away, Kairi stopped him.

"Look... I'm really sorry that I made you mad..."

He smiled his usual goofy smile and said, "Hey, it's okay. I guess I just don't have the highest patience level in the world. I should be the one appologizing... I mean... I think now that I'm not ready for the whole teaching thing."

"You don't teach anyone already? I would have thought you did..."

"No, I don't... little kids and I don't really mix. And then you get my temper in there... haha, then it's not a pretty picture." He looked at the sky. "It's getting kind of dark... you shouldn't walk home by yourself; I'll ask my mom to drive you home."

She looked at the sky, too. It was blueish orange, and it was getting darker by the minute. "It won't be much trouble, will it?" She realized that she really did not want to be treking home about half a mile in the darkness.

"Nah, you live close." He went to call for his mother.

His mother came out, and they waved goodbye as she climbed into the car. "Thanks." She smiled.

And from that day on, a friendship had begun.