"I can't do this, Feliciano."
"Come on Lovi, there aren't that many people here! Just a few more than at a normal concert!"
"Yes, but there are more expectations here. My teacher, these people I don't even know, their parents, you..." There was a pause. "Me."
"Don't worry about expectations, just have fun! It's cool playing in an orchestra where everyone is pretty good, right?"
Silence.
"I don't think I should have made regionals, Feli."
"Lovino! Are you going to try out for Allstate? You made regionals, so that means you qualify," Mrs. Mock's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. As soon as she mentioned Allstate tryouts, his mind went over memories of his regional orchestra concert. He could distinctly remember staring up at the middle schoolers, ears hearing an amateur version of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, yet thoughts telling him he was next, and what if he messed up, what would happen, and oh, he was forgetting something.
"Um," his voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat a bit. "I don't… I don't know. Maybe."
"You should at least try," she loosened her grip on the small stack of music she previously held tightly to her chest. "Now, don't freak out."
Lovino looked at the music set in front of him. It didn't look that hard at first glance, but after some careful inspection, his heart fell.
"The first excerpt is from Poet and Peasant Overture, it has a very famous cello solo in it." She lay out a few of the other pages, tapping at certain excerpts. "Now these are the real tricky ones. Swan Lake. They're really going all out this year."
Lovino flipped through some of the pages a bit. There were about eight excerpts, which all looked pretty difficult, though some more than others. "Uh, what grade levels are these?"
Mrs. Mock laughed a bit. "Well, they're professional. They don't have a grade level. We kind of stop at grade six."
The music they played in his orchestra class was usually around grade three, but they would most likely have two or three hard ones that were grade four. The highest they would ever go was grade five, which was rare, and which was also the grade level for Orion and the Scorpion.
"If I had to give it a grade level, though, I would say seven or eight maybe?"
Lovino looked at his teacher in shock for a moment, then back at his music. During regionals they played grades four and five. "Alright. Thank you, I'll think about it."
Mrs. Mock smiled and nodded, then walked over to her stand to sort out some music. Lovino noted that she never said whether or not she thought he could make it or not. This wasn't very reassuring.
He put the music under his chair with no plans of playing it in his class that day. At that moment, he really needed to work on his solo for Orion and the Scorpion. It wasn't too hard, it was just one of the worst types of music to play in front of other people: way too slow. Music consisting of just sixteenth notes wasn't great either, but long drawn out notes were even worse since you had to focus much more on the tone.
He ran through the solo once, and then again, and again, and then Elizabeta stopped him.
"Lovino, you sound good! Don't worry so much, you've got this," she affirmed, placing her hand on his shoulder gently. She and Feliciano were the only people he allowed to do that.
He hoped she was right.
The next day he arrived in class much earlier than usual, and immediately took to the wall, slumping down until he was sitting with his forehead resting against his knees, legs held tight against his body. He felt like he had eaten something wrong, and his abdomen was suffering for it.
Being a picky eater, this was not the case. Feliciano had convinced him to try talking to Antonio that day, and he was severely second guessing the whole decision. It didn't help that they still hadn't gone over his solo in class since the first time, and all he wanted was to get it over with. Waiting was probably the worst part.
The bell rang and Lovino groaned, getting up to get his chair and his cello. Anything to make him busy until Antonio walked in would do.
A few minutes later, his eyes spotted the notorious brown curls and he knew what he had to do. Talk to him, dammit.
Lovino set his cello on it's side, waiting for the Spaniard's conversation to die down. Of course, if it never did he wouldn't have to talk to him today. That would be a great excuse, but he couldn't use it. He had to do it today.
"So, how's it going with that girl, Toni?" An obnoxiously German accent caught Lovino's attention.
"Oh, yes. This girl you're hanging out with instead of us. She better be a great girlfriend," Francis added to Gilbert's previous inquiry.
Lovino's blood turned to ice. Absolute dread took over his whole body. He couldn't think until he heard Antonio speak.
"She's not my girlfriend," Antonio replied, quietly. There was even a hint of sensitivity in his voice. "I don't have a girlfriend, you guys know that."
That must have been the biggest number of emotions Lovino had ever felt in such a short period of time.
"Oui, we know, but I think you need somebody to hug at night, and tell them you love them, you know?" Francis sighed, resting his cheek on Antonio's shoulder affectionately.
"Yeah," Gilbert suddenly ran and hugged Antonio rather violently, squeezing his stomach and knocking Francis to the side. "Because otherwise you'll be stuck with us hugging you and telling you-"
Antonio laughed and tried his hardest to push Gilbert's face away, which was at that moment affectionately rubbing up against his side, in what Lovino assumed was satire. He hoped it was, at least.
"I LOVE YOU, MAN. YOU BEAUTIFUL SPANIARD."
"Gil, stop," Antonio spoke between fits of laughter and was finally able to push Gilbert away. "Go play your cello or something."
Gilbert retreated with Francis following him, making crude, yet ironic gestures. "Seriously Toni, try to find someone. It'll be good for you."
Lovino suddenly felt like he had heard much too many things he shouldn't have, yet he felt a sudden impulse to do something, and at a good time. He looked at Feliciano, who was trying to get his attention, using the same air conversation tactics he usually used with Ludwig and Kiku. Unfortunately for Lovino, he never let his brother teach him the annoying code he had made up. Although, he was pretty sure he knew what Feliciano was trying to hint at.
Lovino got up and took a deep breath, bravely making his way to where Antonio sat on a stool, wiping down his bass with a cloth.
A cough. "Um," Lovino started, attempting to get the other boy's attention.
Antonio looked up suddenly, which caught Lovino in a trance for a moment, before he remembered his intentions.
"Do you, uh," he was cut off by an overbearingly loud, droned note coming from the metronome. He winced, deciding that it was a stupid idea to try and have a conversation while people began to tune their instruments.
"That goddamn metronome," he grumbled, having no choice but to move in a bit closer, leaning down so they were impossibly close, and able to hear each other. It was a shock to see Antonio's face so close, and suddenly Lovino felt as if he were in a dream.
"Do you take private lessons anywhere? Because, I kind of need some and I just thought I would ask," Lovino blurted out, locked onto the others eyes. Usually he had a big problem with eye contact, and avoided it with everyone, even his brother. With these eyes, he found himself hooked, and he couldn't help it. They were so caring, listening to what he had to say. What captivated Lovino so much was the color. He had images in his head of those eyes many times before, but never were they this vibrant, or this green. Lovino blamed their close proximity.
"Well," Antonio began, but trailed off as something in another direction caught his eye. Mrs. Mock was at the door with two other teachers holding her up as she cried. Antonio jumped up suddenly, and he was at her side before Lovino could even blink.
He felt selfish, because his first thought wasn't of his teacher's safety, but rather of how incredibly pissed he was that he finally talked to his crush and something as catastrophic as that happened. Holding his hands together over his chest, he could only watch as his teacher was settled on a chair, pointing towards her leg. He wanted to do something, but Antonio and his two friends seemed to already have it covered.
It was strange to see three people joking together at one moment, and then be caught the very next moment with such intense aura's of worry around them.
"Lovi, Mrs. Mock said she just called for a sub," Feliciano revealed, pulling a chair up next to his brother.
Lovino sat on his chair in a similar form to the way he sat up against the wall before the bell rang. Tired, annoyed, and every other negative emotion one could think of was running through his head at that moment. This meant no one else would be playing their instrument, as it was their only break.
"What happened to her?" He asked, sincerely worried about his teacher. He may have been more peeved than he had been in a while, but he wasn't heartless.
"Well, she tripped while she was in the parking lot walking into the school and she fell wrong because she was trying to protect her violin," Feliciano explained, ignoring the scoff that left Lovino's mouth once he finished.
"Figures," Lovino sighed, releasing his legs from his grip and placing them back on the ground, beneath his chair as he slid towards the end of his seat. "That's what we get for having a teacher so good that half the town wants her to teach."
"It's not her fault, Lovi! She said that the middle school didn't have anyone else to teach!" Feliciano exclaimed, a bit distressed.
"Yeah, I know." Lovino was silent for a moment. "I do hope she's okay."
He was telling the truth, really. He cared a lot about his teacher, even if she and her accidents had absolute terrible timing. It was still a shock that something so crazy could happen around him, yet he should have been used to it by that time. One time, he witnessed a heavy truck carrying cargo sprout fire from it's body, right next to the back door of the orchestra room.
"She'll be fine," Feliciano suddenly grabbed his hand in reassurance. "And you'll be fine too."
It was often surprising how naturally this seemed to come to Feliciano. Lovino couldn't think of anyone else who had ever cheered him up, really. Not to this extent. He always seemed too dense to be able to read a situation, but when it came to the more serious things, he was practically a professional. It may also be due to twintuition, or whatever it was called, but Lovino liked to think of his brother as a more intelligent being due to years of bullying directed at the two.
Lovino didn't respond, though he felt he didn't need to.
Feliciano turned around, glancing at something behind him, and then stood up with a grin. "Just tell me if you need anything, okay?" He shot out rather quickly before running back to his own group of friends, leaving Lovino slightly confused.
Although, once he spotted the view Feliciano's head was blocking, he understood. His brother's company was suddenly greatly missed.
"Hi, you were asking me something, right?"
Lovino wasn't exactly sure why he was so surprised. There is the fact that he half expected the matter to just have been dropped, but in the back of his mind he knew this guy wasn't the type to run away from someone mid conversation and never come back. At least, he didn't think so.
"Oh um, yeah," Lovino returned, though stopped there, staring awkwardly at the other's feet.
The body before him moved closer, and Lovino looked down to see a crumpled piece of paper fit between his hands. "I'm pretty sure my teacher knows a cellist that does lessons," Antonio offered, but left after Lovino failed to reply. He must not have liked awkward silences, like a normal person.
If he had said anything else, Lovino would have thought he was just gifted with the Spaniard's phone number, but he assumed it was his private teacher's instead.
Lovino exhaled slowly.
He was stressed, and he now had a whole block of absolutely nothing.
His grandfather was the one to call Antonio's teacher for information, as Lovino was too scared to do it on his own, though he would never admit it. His excuse was that he had to get his grandfather's permission first, and why not just let him do it since he didn't seem to be doing anything at that time.
When he received a call back about twenty minutes later, he had a new private cello instructor, and a lesson the next Monday. It happened so fast that Lovino didn't even have time to be shocked. He simply ran into the practice room once he hung up, and grabbed the music he still hadn't looked at.
Swan Lake couldn't be that hard, right?
Wrong.
A few days of stress and cello playing later, Lovino found himself dragging his cello all the way through his town. Everything was really closer than one might think downtown, so the trek from his school to his city's college didn't really take that long. Lovino's only problem was being able to walk by all those nice restaurants he loved without being able to go in.
It was surprising how well they made food there. He had been to other places in America, and their food never seemed to be able to compare in the slightest. His beloved homeland Italian cuisine was surely at the top of his list, but southern food cooked with love and only the finest ingredients was kinda great too. He'd never admit it, though.
Lovino huffed at the flight of stairs before he climbed it. If he had to walk this much every Monday and scale a flight of stairs, he'd end up a lot more fit than he currently was in a hurry.
The first of Lovino's struggles was finding the room he was told to meet in. It might have been a lot easier if they had labeled their rooms a bit better, but the sound of what Lovino assumed was a cello directed him towards an office rather than a practice room.
God, whoever was playing was horrible, but he didn't dwell on it too much when he saw a kid no older than seven walk out of the room with the smallest cello Lovino had ever seen. He wanted to feel proud that the kid probably looked up to him, since he was older, but he only felt jealous.
Lovino so badly wanted to tell that kid how lucky he was that he had started at such a young age.
"Hi, you must be Lovino," a woman who looked to be in her late forties reached out her hand for Lovino to shake it. He took it hesitantly and let the woman shake it to her heart's content, then let go, bringing his cello into the room. He was suddenly nervous. Meeting this person was much more difficult than he'd originally expected, for some reason.
She was extremely bold, and as he would later learn in the lesson, her playing reflected every ounce of that. It was like who she was as a person was transferred inside her cello every time she moved her bow across the strings.
"So, I'm Mrs. Sherry, as you probably know." There was an awkward silence as she took something from the top of a nearby heater and placed it on Lovino's stand. He busied himself with setting up his instrument, hands shaking as he adjusted his endpin. "You already know how to tune, correct?"
"Yes," he replied, coupled with a nod. Looking at the object placed on the stand, he found it was an iPhone with a generic tuning app pulled up on its screen. After no further words were spoken, he went on with checking that his cello was tuned, which was a bit scary as he felt his new teacher watching every move he made. He couldn't tell yet if she was judging him or just watching him for the sake of having nothing else to do.
Once his last string was tuned, another silence ensued. "So, I hear you've got some auditions coming up?"
"Yeah, Allstate." Lovino fumbled around in his bookbag until he found the four pages he was looking for, each decorated with two excerpts the Italian had considered quite hellish over the past several days.
Mrs. Sherry laughed. "Oh wow, Swan Lake. That's crazy."
Why did it seem like everyone had that reaction?
"Let's just go over this together, I'll play with you," Mrs. Sherry began, and Lovino could not have been more relieved. The first excerpt was a tough one, and reminded him too much of his solo for his own orchestra.
The whole lesson went surprisingly well considering how nervous he was at first. He didn't seem to have any problem playing in front of his new teacher, but seeing that it was only one person compared to a couple hundred didn't reassure him at all.
Apparently he was way too quiet. If he didn't get anything else out of that lesson, at least he knew that he had to play with ten times the force and passion that he had currently. Mrs. Sherry said it a few dozen times, but every time he tried it just didn't seem to be good enough.
Once he turned past a hallway to reveal the building's lobby, he groaned. The whole front of the room was covered in windows, and they all screamed the same thing: rain.
It was raining really hard, and Lovino had to either walk back or wait half an hour for a bus. He chose the latter quickly after sticking his head out the doors for a moment to test how hard it was really raining. The answer was really fucking hard, and it annoyed Lovino to no end.
He flopped down on a bench and leaned his head on a railing behind it. At least there were vending machines there.
One bag of Cheetos and half a Twix bar later, Lovino had come to two conclusions. One was that the place had a lot of loud, rogue college musicians all over at around 6:15. Another was that they all seemed to be in love with Shrek, and as one of them pointed out, how cool it would be if Shrek played the saxophone.
College students were weird, and Lovino was sure it didn't help that they were in an orchestra. Orchestra's seemed to attract crazy people. It was also possible that it was simply Lovino that attracted the crazy people, since his heart simultaneously dropped and fluttered at the same time as he saw the last person he expected to see at the time.
Brown curly hair sticking to the large, red cased object behind him, hands stuck halfway inside his pockets, and green eyes like nobody's business graced Lovino's eyes at that very moment. His initial thought was damn, could he get any more gorgeous, but once the other's eyes caught his own, embarrassment erased all his previous thoughts. It took away any thoughts, for that matter.
"Oh wow, funny seeing you here. You already got lessons here?"
The brunette was saying something, Lovino could tell. He hated how every time this guy showed up, it felt like all his previous intelligence was simply wiped from his brain. "Yes," he mumbled, choosing a generic answer he hoped wouldn't sound crazy. Judging by Antonio's face, it didn't.
He wanted to say something else more than anything, but nothing came to him. It was like he searched every area in his mind but he couldn't come up with anything to say.
"Well, it was nice seeing you Lovino."
Just like that he was gone. That one moment of regret seemed to last forever for Lovino, even as he sat curled up on a bus seat with his cheek pressing against a cold, rainy window.
Conversation number three with Antonio was yet another flop.
A/N: Gracious, this one was a bit tough for me. I suddenly came up with an idea for a new Fanfiction and I still can't get my mind off of it. I want to write it so bad, but I want to focus on this one. How badly would you guys want a YouTuber AU, because I'm actually craving it. I've thought up the whole thing in my head as well. Just tell me what you guys would think so I can figure out when I want to write this thing! Thanks lovelies!