La Corda D'Oro Terzo Passo

Opus III

~The First Dilemma~

"Kanazawa-sensei said what?"

Tsuchiura sighed. Hihara's frequent inattentiveness could really mess with his nerves at the best of times.

"He said that a famous composer from Germany is coming to Seisou to hold auditions for some sort of youths-only orchestra," Tsuchiura repeated.

"Kanazawa added that the orchestra is deemed to be the beginning of a new generation of orchestras that will be centred on young people only," Yunoki added. The blush on the girl's cheeks who sat on the table across from theirs heightened, making her puffed up cheeks closely resemble tomatoes.

Hihara snorted.

"I'm sure that only those ambitious little pricks will get chosen," Everyone in the table looked at him.

"If those ambitious little pricks are talented and capable, there's no reason why they shouldn't be chosen," Tsukimori retorted with a sideway glare to the salt and pepper shakers.

Kahoko nodded her head in approval.

"Ne, Hihara-kun, everyone who participated in last year's concours has a very good chance of being chosen," she said with a smile. "And that includes you. I know I don't stand as much chance as you all have since my level is nothing in comparison, but you can be sure that I'll be cheering for everyone wholeheartedly."

"We can always rely on you to be so positive, Kaho-chan!" Hihara said with a grin. The nods of approval made her smile.

It's been two weeks since the beginning of the school year, and though summer break had been a fun and eventful one at that, none of them really had the chance to spend enough time with each other as a group. Thus, under the great force of the pouts and pleadings of Kahoko and Amou, they managed to arrange a time when they all could genuinely catch up.

And a perfect day it was. A slightly warm Saturday afternoon, with a nice, slightly cool breeze.

Everyone preferred the outdoors more so than being inside an air-conditioned room and so they ended up on the cabana-styled beachfront restaurant who cooked the finest fish and chips around town.

Kahoko munched on the fries with the biggest grin. Everyone in the table were so dear to her and she couldn't express her happiness enough with their being together and casually jostling about than by grinning from ear to ear as she admired the different conversations and sometimes even arguments that took place.

Shimizu told Yunoki that he spent most of his time playing the cello on the beach. She laughed when Shimizu, in his snail-paced way of talking, added that a man had thought that he was blind - since he was very much into his music - that after his playing, he found a large sum of money in his cello case.

Hihara and Tsuchiura were bickering over the match between two international soccer teams that she knew nothing about, Amou constantly made Fuyuumi blush with her indecent and off-hand remarks about the male surfers on their view while Len, in his statuesque glory, sat still, glancing here and there as he munched on his food with casual contentment.

He glanced her way and she offered him a smile. He nodded his head in acknowledgement and turned to answer Yunoki's question. After spending more than an hour in the restaurant, the girls proposed to split up then meet-up again after half an hour.

The boys didn't agree at first since they all thought that the day was supposed to be group-orientated but the girls insisted that they needed to go grocery shopping and that "it wouldn't take long."

"It better not, or I swear I will come in there and make a racket myself," Hihara said with a heave of his shoulders. Kahoko bumped them with hers.

"We won't be long, promise," she said with a wink. And so the girls found themselves in the middle of aisle five, waiting for Fuyuumi to pick the right brand of dishwashing soap.

"Tsuchiura's been eyeing you all day," Kahoko looked at Amou in surprise.

"He's what?"

Amou grabbed a pair of pink cleaning gloves and tossed it in the shopping cart.

"You know Kaho, I've only heard rumours and being me, I always want the truth," Kahoko could almost see Amou's nose getting longer and longer and mentally laughed.

"So tell me," she said, leaning on Kahoko with a sly smile, "what is really going on between the two of you?"

Kahoko bit her lip in hesitation.

"N-Nothing Amou-san,"

"Oh Kaho, you're no fun when you're all miss liar," Amou said with a sway of her hips. "You do know that sooner rather than later, I'll have the answer right? So I'm warning you my little violinist, if I find from other sources rather than your cute little face, then the whole school all the way to the University will have some good gossip to be talking about for the next...school...year."

Kahoko gulped and playfully punched her friend on the shoulder. It was true that nothing was going on between her and Tsuchiura and that they were merely just friends. In a way though, she wasn't too happy about the prospect of him thinking that they still might have a chance of being together in the future now that she's already in with his biggest school rival.

Kahoko scratched her head in slight annoyance.

Fantastic. Boy problems always greeted with the slap on the face.

And school was just Two. Weeks. Old.

For the confuzzled friends:

Absolutely everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, shall be made crystal in the chapters to come. Like a good novel (as I'm trying my hardest for this to sort of be like), the confusions and the puzzlements of the first few chapters will always, and yes, I mean ALWAYS, be made clearer.

You are all so lovely for dropping by and possibly even reviewing (insert wink face here) and all deserve a good ol' "HAVE AN AWESOME DAY/NIGHT/AFTERNOON/EVENING" greet.