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Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.
Chapter 10: Relearned
The next day, Kairi happily popped into Mr. Leonhart's office to give him the good news that he was hoping for. There was a skip in her step as she walked, because she was trying to prevent herself from running and knocking over the instruments, stands, and chairs. So this is what its like to be Selphie, she thought. Always having to contain your energy inside you, and when it comes out, it explodes.
She hastily knocked on the door of his office, anxiously waiting for him to open it. She hopped from one foot to the other, until she heard the click of the doorknob. He was coming out, finally!
When he came out, he looked at Kairi, wondering if Selphie had taken over her body. She had a gigantic grin on her face, her eyes were twinkling with happiness, and looked as if she was going to bounce off the walls.
"Hello there." He smiled at her, although he was slightly afraid of what was going to happen next.
"I've made my decision."
He mentally let out a sigh of relief- she wasn't going to be hyper and scary the way his best freshman violinist was. "And?" He was still a bit anxious to hear her answer.
Her wide grin seemed to spread wider. "I'm coming back!" She squealed.
The teacher smiled a bit wider. "That's wonderful..."
After a few seconds of silence, Kairi worriedly asked, "How's the counselor going to deal with this?"
Mr. Leonhart let out a small chuckle. "I'll see to that. Be here fifth hour? You can have your old cello."
Kairi nodded, and flew out the door to meet her friends.
-
The four girls at the lunch table were laughing again. About a week ago, it was just a few of them who would be laughing with the other, but now everything was back to where it had been before.
And now she was laughing loudly with them. She started out as shy as could be, and now, could she possibly be coming out of her shell? Roxas stared at her, the way that he always did. But he was across the cafeteria; there was no way that she would know what he had been doing since the first day that he saw her.
He's slightly backed off since the incident with Riku in the hallway. Oh, how he loathed that sophomore.
Maybe he should try to be nice. Walk over and chat a little... yeah, that would be a good idea. He had finished his lunch already, and it had appeared that they had, too.
He got up to walk over, telling his buddies at his table that he needed to get something. Hopefully they weren't watching him. He casually walked over to the table, pulled out the chair between Namine and Kairi, and said, "Hey." with a smile.
"Why are you here, Roxas?" Yuffie seemed to glare holes through him.
"I just wanted to have a little chat." His hand mindlessly wandered into Namine's hair, and he started to play with it. Namine blushed, but couldn't bring herself to scootch away. He didn't hear Selphie get up from the table, either. He was busy in his own little world.
He felt a slap across his face. Could it have been Namine? No, he answered his own question as soon as he looked up. Yuffie had been the one doing the slapping. "Get away from our table... and stop harassing Namine!"
Roxas continued to smile, and said, "Fine." He held up his hands to surrender, and walked away.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Yuffie spoke her mind. "That guy has no nerve to do that to you, Namine! You need to defend yourself!"
"It's okay, Yuffie. It was just my hair."
"But he was touching you, and not keeping his hands to himself! Who knows where they've been?"
Selphie started to laugh at the comment. "Yuffie! Calm down!" she sputtered, holding back giggles. She suddenly stopped laughing, "Plus, he so totally likes her. Did you see the way he spaced out?"
"But just because he likes her doesn't mean that he has the right to touch her hair. Plus, I doubt if Namine likes him back. Do you, Namine?" Yuffie looked at her for a confirmation.
"...No."
"See that, Selphie?"
Selphie crossed her arms over her chest and sulked. "But... they looked so cute together!" She continued to argue.
This time, it was Kairi's turn to burst out into giggles. She had been watching the whole time, keeping her laughter to herself. Now, she could no longer contain it and just let it all ring out into the already-loud cafeteria.
"I think we should drop the subject now." Namine tried to smile.
-
Kairi happily bounced into the orchestra room, along with Yuffie and Selphie. Today would be wonderful- actually, much more than wonderful. Everything that she had wanted was now in place... and she could have her happily ever after.
Unfortunately, happily ever after didn't come as easily as it seemed. Chair auditions had come and gone. Kairi was once again sitting in last chair, and felt a little bit disappointed. She also barely knew the music, and would clash with the rest of her cello section once again.
Mr. Leonhart handed her the music that they had been working on before the tardy bell rung and the tuner was set up to tune. Thank God Kairi hadn't forgotten how.
After tuning, Mr. Leonhart took the chance to talk before the class did.
"Welcome back our old friend, Kairi." He waved out his arm towards her. She slightly slumped down in her seat, not wanting to be stared at by the 60 other people in the room. Sora turned around and smiled at her.
She noticed that Tidus was no longer sitting next to Sora; he was now third, and some other girl was now sitting next to him. They were talking about something, and Kairi had now immediately felt jealous.
The voice in her head told her to stop. She didn't own Sora; she barely even knew him. He had the right to talk to other girls, didn't he? But then... she whined to her concience. But then, what? her concience replied. You wish that his full attention was still on you, don't you? A frustrated frown formed onto Kairi's face.
Mr. Leonhart had come up with a new way of teaching since Kairi had quit- he now wrote the pieces that they were going to play on the board, instead of constantly calling each one out. It was pretty hard to shout over so many people in one room, especially if they were noisy people like the ones in their orchestra.
"Okay, first piece, guys. Let's go." He adjusted the metronome to fit the tempo of the piece, and then raised his hands in the air.
Kairi struggled with the pieces, but since the festival music was harder, she felt the notes and rhythm come more easily than they did when she was first starting. It felt odd to hold the bow in her hand again, and every so often she'd feel like she would drop it.
Her stand partner was much more pleasant to be around than the last. She was more considerate, and would politely ask Kairi if she needed help with the fingering. However, she wasn't the best cellist by far, and her fingerings would always confuse Kairi.
As class came to a close, Kairi felt herself feeling melancholy. She hung on to what time there was left, and soon there wasn't any more. It was just a short fifty minutes a day, but she had wanted it to last forever. She slowly packed up her cello, knowing that Selphie would probably yell at her later for making Namine wait for them.
"Hey." She heard Sora's voice. "You need help on your music?" He knew her answer already.
"Yeah..." she mummbled, "but I'll be okay," she lied. She didn't want to rely on him for everything...
"I'll help you anyway." He smirked, knowing he had won. "When?"
"How about never?" This time, she smirked.
Sora put on a fake face of disappoinment. "But I was looking foreward to our wonderful nights together again!"
Tidus had only heard "nights together," and immediately walked over, ready to start lecturing them about sex. "What HAVE you two been up to?"
They both looked at Tidus as if he was insane, and Sora said, "It's none of your business." Then, they both walked over to the cello rack to put their instruments away.
Tidus raised an eyebrow at the two, and then went to talk to Yuna about what he had heard.
-
Kairi came in during lunch to practice the next week. She would have avoided it, knowing that Sora would be there, but she had work today, and she really, desperately needed to work on her music. She really didn't get why she was still avoiding him, though. Maybe, she told herself, it's because I don't want him to still see me as the needy newbie.
She slipped as quietly and unnoticably as she could into the orchestra room. There was nobody in there except for Mr. Leonhart typing something (she assumed it was an e-mail) and eating lunch.
She walked over to the cello rack, and carefully, as always, walked with it to her chair, getting the school's folder of music on the way. She didn't hesitate to take her cello out of its case and start practicing the many parts that she needed to work on.
She was frustrated with herself- she just could NOT get this rhythm right! As many times as she had tried to count and subdivide, it still sounded weird and out-of-place.
As she skipped that horrid part in her music and continued on to the next, she heard someone else playing along side her. Frustrated that she was not in tune with the other person, she stopped to see who it was.
And guess who it was. He had timed himself so that he would get there AFTER she did, and while she was lost in her music.
"Do you need help?"
There was no denying it now. "Fine. Help me. I don't get this, this, and that." She pointed the lines out on the page in front of her.
"Alright." He spoke calmly, and brought her through the passages step by step. He would stop everytime something was out of tune, and wait for her to correct herself.
Don't rush, he told himself about every other note that they were playing together. Be patient with her...
Every so often, though, he would have to stop, to change her fingerings, becuase they were a bit weird. They just made the already fairly hard song even more complex. He would also occasionally change the bowings that they had changed in class.
After her notes were in tune, they played it in rhythm. After that, Sora would speed up the tempo and they would continue to play, until they had reached the speed the rest of the class was going. He did this with every passage, and then asked her to play the whole page by herself. She did it, almost as well as he had.
He really could not believe his ears. Was she really the girl that hadn't picked up a bow until this summer? Could she really have been the one with almost no musical experience at all?
And his constant reminder to himself to be patient had paid off. By the time the bell rang, Kairi had those three passages down pat, even the one with the complicated rhythm.
"So," she spoke. "Could you help me tommorow again? Because we only got through one page..."
"I thought that you would be okay." He teased.
"Then I'll be fine without you." She whacked him on the head with her music.
He feigned a look of hurt again. This seemed oddly familiar. "If you really don't want the best cello player in the school to help you..."
"Oh, hush. I'll let you help me if you don't get too full of yourself."
"Okay. Let's shake on it."
Kairi giggled. She then stuck out her hand for him to shake.
He really isn't that bad after all, she thought. He's actually fun to joke around with... not the jerk that I saw before.
As he shook her hand, he felt something that he hadn't felt before... his heart rate quickened, and his cheeks felt very... warm. Of course he had liked girls before; he wasn't a prude! But his cello always seemed to come before them. Excecpt now, it didn't feel that way- His cello felt insignificant, compared to her.
He shrugged the feeling off. Sure, she was cute... but wasn't saying that she came before his cello... a bit extreme?
Kairi waved a hand in front of his face. "Sora, you there? My stand partner wants to sit in her seat."
He could feel the girl staring at him, and quickly got up to leave. "Sorry," he muttered as he brushed past the girl.
He was really losing his touch. First, he went crazy over getting Kairi back into orchestra, but why, oh why, was he falling for her now?
-
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