This is dedicated to all the piano evaluations, competitions, and recitals that have made me quaver in my sweaty black flats for years on end. Poetic, I know. (Especially over the past week, an evaluation and a follow-up recital killed me, ugh.)
I've read a lot about performers' experience while playing - their exhilaration, joy, et cetera. But hearing 'I switched to piano and andante, bringing a feeling of calm' or 'the gentle vibrato added a subtle undertone to the music' is really just them making stuff up. Sure, maybe their vibrato did add a subtle undertone or whatever, but I can attest to the fact that they probably never took notice of it while performing.
I don't know about professionals or those completely levelheaded freaks who never get nervous, but for normal people, performance is kind of surreal. Be it in front of three or three hundred people, there's not really much going through my head except stuff like I am actually performing what and focus focus focusfocusfocus. There are irrational fears that crop up, too - once, I began wondering if I knew the next few notes for a piece I'd practiced for four months.
At least today it was a small music room, and not a concert hall, and at least the Schindler's List theme was something I knew and loved like an old friend. I was able to play it through somewhat coherently. Now, I couldn't tell you if I played it with musical expression, because I honestly don't remember much. But I'm pretty sure I felt something stir inside of me as I hit that final, trembling high note.
I exhaled shakily, set my violin under my arm, and looked at them.
Bertholdt wasn't shaking his leg or tapping his fingers, and his pure stillness was more than any stuttered words could tell me. Reiner's face was inscrutable, as if he had absolutely no opinion. The epitome of professional.
Then, Annie.
Her eyes were wide, almost imperceptibly so, and perhaps I was just looking for recognition that wasn't there, but her mouth opened in the tiniest little 'o' as she let out a soft sigh.
"Thank you," she breathed, no emotion betrayed in her words. "One of us will call you over after orchestra once we have the results."
They were all sitting primly, looking at me pointedly, and it finally hit me that I should probably leave. "Oh! Um, thanks. Bye."
And I was off, grasping on to the handle of my case as hard as I could in case my sweaty hands slipped in excitement.
I almost tripped over myself again as I hurried over to my dorms - although the rain had let up, the sidewalks were still slick with the morning's downpour - and practically forced myself against the door. Turned out it wasn't fully shut, though, and so I staggered into the dorm in another unsightly spectacle.
"Hey, Er-" I stopped mid-sentence and glanced around. The room was empty.
I had forgotten, in my nerve-wracked state, that Eren had band rehearsal today. No, not band, like an orchestra but with trumpets and oboes, but a modern band with guitars and stuff. Him, Mikasa, and a few others formed a little group last year that somehow grew into a band, and Eren was the lead singer. To be honest, he was a bit of a diva sometimes (actually, a lot of the time), so standing in front of the mic was a good place for him - and as a plus, he got paid.
Since I had no one to vent to about the audition, I got a start on my homework. Strangely enough, now that it was over, I was way more focused than before I'd even decided to audition. An eerily calm feeling settled over me, and I plowed through my work at a steady pace.
"Thank you."
"Thank you."
"Thank you."
This time, though, Annie's voice was not an incessant whine in my head, but a soft ballad that carried me onward like a boat riding on gentle waves.
Ah, metaphors. (Or rather, similes.)
This calm didn't last much longer than that a few hours, though. I woke up in the middle of the night convinced that I had forgotten to play half the audition and left my violin on Annie's nose. After that, it only got worse. I wasn't sure I would be able to survive the next few days, to be honest.
"Haven't you done this sort of thing before?" Eren asked me as we, Mikasa included, stepped inside a relatively unknown bagel place we frequented.
"Yeah, but nothing was really riding on it," I said as I pulled a container of cream cheese from the fridge-thingy. (What do you even call the place where you keep cream cheese, anyway?) "College auditions were probably the only thing that were worse."
"Really? Not even all the orchestra auditions you did? Competitions? Come on, Armin, you just want to impress Annie," Eren said with a smirk before launching into a detailed bagel order.
"Quartets are different!" I protested. "It has nothing to do with Annie!"
The lady at the counter was eyeing me pointedly, and only then did I realize that I had been speaking to Eren and Mikasa's retreating backs.
"Oh - um - I'd like a bagel, please."
She gave me a weary look. "Is that so? We only sell cupcakes, sorry."
"What? But this is a bagel shop!" I spluttered.
The lady facepalmed.
"He'll get one poppy bagel, sliced and toasted." Eren called from the cash register. "No cupcakes, if that's okay."
"Thank you," she said with a grateful smile. "I was beginning to doubt my sense of humor."
Oh. Sarcasm.
"You are extremely lame," Eren told me matter-of-factly as I joined him at the register.
"Thank you," I grumbled.
The lady at the counter shoved the guy at the register aside so she could personally hand Eren our order.
"Here you are," she said brightly. "Enjoy your day. Oh, and can I have your number?"
She said it so naturally, it barely registered until Mikasa's jaw dropped and she gave him a deathly glare.
"Oh, I'm sorry, are you two together?" she asked, barely even fazed.
"No, she's my sister," Eren answered vaguely. Turned off by his lack of interest, she went back to the counter with a pout on her face. The three of us left with our bagels like nothing had happened.
I tried to pretend like the whole incident hadn't bothered me, but it was one of many all-too-similar occurrences. I somehow made a fool of myself, the girl looked at me like I was an idiot, and then started flirting with Eren.
I knew I wasn't popular by any stretch, but my friends were just so perfect. There wasn't anything Mikasa couldn't do, for instance. The band, grades, sports, not to mention all the guys (and girls) falling head over heels for her. Compared to them, I was just a violin geek. Not the most comforting thought.
"Listen, Armin," Eren began tentatively. "It doesn't matter. You know I'm not going to get together with any of them anyway-"
"I'm okay," I cut him off. "Being cool is far too much work, to be frank."
He laughed. "We all like you the way you are, so don't worry 'bout it."
"Sure thing."
We continued in near silence until I split up with Eren and Mikasa, who had the next class together. I was just waving goodbye over my shoulder when Mikasa, who'd been dead silent all morning, spoke up.
"Armin."
I turned around. "Yeah?"
"Annie mentioned that you played well. 'Met my expectations', to quote her."
My heart started breakdancing (probably better than I could). "R-really?"
"Didn't want to get your hopes up, but your shitty mood this morning warranted it." Her lips curved upward in a rare half smile. "It's going to be fine."
My vision started getting blurry, so I hightailed it out of there.
I kept bumping into Annie over the next few days. Before standing up at orchestra that one day, she was just another unreachable person, another piece of perfection that couldn't even be compared to the mess that was me. But after that whole mud incident and the audition, she seemed to be everywhere. I grew accustomed to her various greetings, and spent more time than I probably should guessing why she chose those words. Most of the time, it was just a casual "hi" that dropped into the air and floated gently over to me. By the time I caught the soft greeting, she was usually gone.
"Yo, Armin," she would say sometimes, if she was trying to seem cool for whoever was passing by, never her close friends but sometimes other orchestra members, someone she wanted to impress. (If she really wanted impress someone with just a greeting, maybe she should have chosen someone cooler to say hi to.)
Sometimes, when she was preoccupied, or involved in another conversation. she would just nod and shoot a wave my way. I wasn't offended at all, as a matter of fact, it flattered me to know that she would take time out of whatever she was doing just to say hi. If she was in a hurry, she would just barely acknowledge my presence with a hasty jerk of the head in my direction. She never really waited for a response - it was like she wanted to assure herself that she really knew me, but was either certain that I would reply or just plain uncaring.
Once, though, on an uncharacteristically warm afternoon for early November, I caught Annie gazing up at the clear, washed-out blue sky as she made her way across campus. Just as I opened my mouth to speak, she caught my gaze.
"Hey, Armin," she said. "Nice day out, isn't it?"
And then she smiled - she actually smiled. If I'd had a camera on me, I might have started snapping pictures mercilessly. Given the circumstances, though, I had to settle for memorizing everything about her face that day. The way her eyes sparkled to match the sky above her, the wind that caressed the hair hanging free from her bun, the soft pink of her cheeks - I committed it all to memory. And of course, the shape of her lips as they stretched slightly in the smallest smile.
Then the moment was over, and the her face faded back into its normal impassiveness. "See you around," she said, sounding almost embarrassed, and then she was gone into the near-winter air.
I couldn't stop grinning the whole day, and when Eren asked me what was up, I just chuckled and gestured vaguely at the sky.
"One nice day can really do something to a person, can't it?"
But this was only the calm before the storm. For on that day, I was forced to remember…
lol please dont expect this to turn drama that ending is such a troll
Read & Review! Next chapter is almost 1k words longer and stuff actually happens, yay!