When the period was over, the teacher asked me to take some things to one of the second year music classrooms on the other side of the school. I was glad to help, of course, but weren’t there other students she could have asked? Like maybe a guy to carry all these heavy books? And the canister was kind of awkward to hold with everything else.
As I rounded the corner of some stairs, I felt a bump from behind that offset my balance. The papers on top of my stack slid forward and flew down the stairway. I could feel the books would be following them shortly as gravity pulled me forward.
The books and canister fell as I outstretched my arms to brace my fall. Suddenly I felt an arm around my waist that pulled me back on my feet. I took a deep breath to slow my racing heart down before turning to see who was kind enough to save me.
“That was close,” a deep voice sighed in my ear.
I twisted my neck to see my rescuer was a green-haired general ed. student.
“Sorry,” he continued as my blue eyes met with his golden brown ones, “Are you okay?”
“Oh, yes, thank you,” I stammered.
We stood like that for a moment, and then I remembered all the stuff I dropped. I pushed his arm off of me and ran down the staircase to pick up the books and papers.
“Oh dear, what a mess!” I fumbled to stack the items.
The boy followed me and gathered a stack of his own.
“Here, let me help,” he offered.
“Really?” I exclaimed, standing with my stack, “Thank you so much!”
Likewise, he stood in front of me with the rest of the books. He held them under my stack and lifted what I was carrying on top of what he had. I smiled at his generosity then realized something was missing. I looked around and found the canister had rolled all the way to the bottom of the stairs. I ran to grab it and brought it back to the floor I needed to be on. I continued to carry the canister as he followed beside me.
“I do appreciate this, whose kindness am I enjoying?” I asked him.
“I’m Ryotaro Tsuchiura, from class 5,” The boy replied.
I noticed he wore a scarlet necktie, which indicated he was a second year student like myself. I replied, “Nice to meet you, I’m Refi Chan, from class 2.”
We crossed into the music half of campus. It was like walking into a completely different school. All the music students have white uniforms while the general education students have gray. The music students kept staring at us like we were aliens. Finally, we arrived at the designated classroom.
“Why are you just standing there?” an annoyed voice came from behind.
We turned to find a blue haired boy with his arms crossed like he was impatiently waiting to pass us to go into the classroom. His face had an unpleasant scowl to match.
“You’re in my way,” he flatly stated.
“Arrogant little brat,” I thought to myself, but there was no use in causing trouble so I stepped aside to let him pass.
Ryotaro didn’t budge however. He stood firm and informed him we had brought the supplies for his class. He even offered the other guy to help us carry some of it, to which the other kid implied we were fully capable of carrying them ourselves and walked between us into the classroom.
“Who does he think he is?” Ryotaro grumbled.
“Well, we’re almost done, let’s get these delivered!” I said in attempts to distract him.
After we were done, we headed back to the general building and Ryotaro went on to where he was headed before. I stood on the walkway between the two school buildings. The light breeze was refreshing. I thought over the day thus far, and I’ll admit, I felt a bit giddy over making a friend, especially one from the opposite gender!
The intercom turned on and a faculty member’s voice came on. He was announcing the competitors for this year’s music competition. It didn’t really matter to me who they had chosen, so I kept to my thoughts as the names were listed off.
“Year 3 class B, Azuma Yunoki. Year 3 class B, Kazuki Hihara. Year 2 class A, Len Tsukimori. Year 1 class A, Keiichi Shimizu. Year 1 class B, Shoko Fuyuumi. Finally, from the regular section of our school, year 2 class 2, Refi Chan.”
My eyes shot open and I gagged. How could they have called me? I mean I tried trombone in 4th grade and played viola in middle school, but I wasn’t good enough to make it into the music department when I auditioned.
Just then I heard a jingle sound. I spotted the fairy from before flying up. He hovered, looking down upon me.
“Ah-ha! I’ve been looking for you, Refi Chan!” the fairy said.
“Stalker! How did you know my name!”
The fairy chuckled, “No need to be afraid of me! I am the fairy of this scho-!”
I didn’t stick around to find out what that stalker-fairy wanted. I had to check with the teacher in charge of the competitions to make sure I heard right. A bit of me was excited for the chance, but the majority of my feelings was the embarrassment I would make of myself performing in front of everyone if I was really so bad that I couldn’t be in the music program.
I rushed into Mr. Kanazawa’s office. I found him gazing out the window, his pale pink hair pulled back in a ponytail. He looked at me questioningly as I sprinted up to him.
“What’s the matter with you, kid?” he asked.
“I’m Refi and they just announced my name for being in the competition!” I sped through the explanation.
He turned away from the window with a look of disinterest, “Oh, you’re that one contestant.”
“Mr. Kanazawa! It’s not that I don’t appreciate the honor, but how am I suppose to compete when I’m not even in the music department. Did I really make it? There hasn’t been a mistake or anything has there?
“Nope, no mistake,” he bowed his head and apathetically explained, “You made it into the competition because you saw…that thing.”
“That thing? You mean that stalker-fairy? Can you see it too? So I’m not going crazy?”
“I can’t see that thing at all. That’s just what the principal informed me,” he sighed, “Oh yeah, I should tell you, you’ll have to come to music practice after school now.”
Wait, practice? That would mean I’d have to redo my whole schedule! But before I could respond, a few other students entered the office.
“Hey, Mr. Kana! We both made it in!” a voice enthusiastically rang out.
I turned to see two taller boys from the music department approach us. The one calling out had his uniform jacket and shirt unbuttoned, revealing an orange t-shirt underneath. His spiky green hair kind of reminded me of seaweed. The other had long, sleek purple hair with the dark green necktie that the third years wore.
The purple haired boy spoke in a softer tone, “Mr. Kanazawa, I heard that you were in charge of the competition. Good job.”
The first boy’s face lit up as he noticed me in the room.
“Oh! You must be the competitor from the normal part of school!” he shouted and grabbed my hands, “I’m Kazuki Hihara! I play trumpet! It’s so good to meet you! You must be way excited to get into the music competition even though that isn’t your main focus in study. I hope you have fun!”
“Easy now, Hihara,” the other boy persuaded, “Your forwardness has scared the poor girl.”
Kazuki dropped my hands and apologized fervently. His purple-haired friend politely reemphasized the apology and introduced himself as Azuma Yunoki, a flute player. If players ever resembled their instruments, he sure did: tall; slender; shiny. His voice was sooth and gentle. Not that I go for the stereotypical flute, but at this point, I felt like I could be easily persuaded by his aura of refinement and elegance.
“You must be Miss Chan,” Azuma continued, “What instrument do you play?”
I choked as I finally got a chance to reply to what was going on around me. What I would be playing totally spaced my mind. My first choice, of course, would be viola, but these were both band guys, so maybe if I said trombone they would be more impressed. Still, I didn’t have much time to think of a response as Azuma kept talking.
“We’d have a slight problem if you played flute as well,” he smiled, bringing a finger up to rest his chin upon, “then we would be rivals.”
“Uh, no…” I stuttered. How could I tell such a gorgeous guy what I really thought about flutes and flute players?
“So you play trumpet then?” Kazuki enthused.
“I don’t know what I’ll be playing yet!” I screamed, “I need to go practice!”
Flustered, I ran out of the room. Great, I just made a fool of myself in front of the competition. They probably didn’t take me seriously before, but after that little outburst, how could I hope to impress them?
