Okay so I'm sorryyy for those of you who read One Day but I hadn't written the next chapter of that in advance and then this morning I heard about the leave vote and so I've had zero motivation to write anything so take this chapter which I wrote ages ago. I'll update One Day next week I'm sorry again :)

"How was your day, Dan?" His mother's falsely bright voice floated through the hallway towards him. 

"Other than piano, it was awful."

"Oh, you had piano! Fantastic!"

Dan ignored her. She'd give up soon enough.

He dragged his bag upstairs and dumped it on his bed, kicking the door closed behind him, and sitting down heavily.

He picked up some crumpled pieces of paper, held together by a bent paperclip, and grabbed the stub of a pencil from his desk.

He tried to focus on the song playing in his head, and get it written onto the paper, but he couldn't focus. His thoughts were invaded by the dark haired boy with the ocean coloured eyes.

He's a Master. I've seen him. I know he is. So how did he fail that badly?

*****

The next day was no better than the first. The only thing that made it less awful was the fact that Dan was too busy thinking about Phil to notice it.

He muddled his way through his first two lessons - physics, and writing. He'd never liked physics, and found himself regretting the decision to let the receptionist choose his subjects more than ever. Writing he wasn't so bad at, but he hated sitting in a room surrounded by people chattering excitedly about their new dystopian novel, while all he could do was awkwardly mind-map ideas for sub-standard fanfictions. (Just like me)

However, it was badminton next, with PJ, who seemed to know everything about everyone, and was perfectly willing to tell you all of it. Dan changed quickly, and approached PJ shyly, holding two electric-blue badminton rackets.

"Er... PJ?"

"Hey, Dan! How are you?"

"Alright, thanks. Do you want to pair up?"

"Sure! We can work on your overhead clears. You were getting quite good at them last week."

Dan smiled at him and handed him one of the rackets, and they made their way over to the very end court.

Dan held the shuttle on his racket, and lightly tapped it over the net. PJ returned it effortlessly, and they rallied for a while, getting up to 32 hits before Dan missed it.

Before PJ could serve, Dan called over to him. "Hey, Peej, could we have a quick break?"

"You tired already?"

Dan laughed. "A bit, yeah."

They sat down, leaning against one of the poles which held the net up.

"So," PJ began, "how was piano the other day? I know that was the thing you were looking forward to."

Dan grinned. This was the perfect opening to the questions he wanted to ask. "It went pretty well, actually, except I made one mistake in the piece I was playing at the end, and now I think everyone knows."

"It won't matter," PJ reassured him. "I did piano last year, and they were all really nice to me, very accepting of-" he stopped abruptly.

"Of what?"

"Of my Inability."

"Inability?" Dan stared at him, bewildered.

"Yeah. Didn't you know?"

"Know what? I'm so confused."

PJ smiled. "Every Master has an Inability. It's that one thing that they can't do. Most people never discover theirs, because it's such a specific thing, and it could be anything. For example, I had a friend whose Inability was cooking pufferfish. She never needed to do it, of course, but it was that one thing that she couldn't do."

Dan smiled slowly, thinking of Phil. "I get it now."

"What?" PJ looked curiously at him.

"Nothing," Dan answered quickly. "Anyway, what's your Inability?"

"Mine was talking."

Dan stared at him. "I didn't realize that was even something you could master."

"Unfortunately, it is. And I was completely incapable of it for the first few years of my life." PJ gave him a wry smile. 

"Well, you're talking fine now..." 

"I had to learn."

Dan laughed lightly, shifting his position so that he was facing PJ. "Now you know how I feel about everything."

"Yeah, I do. It must be a pretty hard existence, trying to learn everything."

They giggled.

"But you can talk now. How did they even learn that it was your Inability?" Dan asked, trying to relate what he was learning to Phil.

"It was part of the 'finding out about each other' thing that Miss Averell does at the start of every lesson."

Dan nodded, understanding. "Um... PJ?"

"What?"

"Do you know a boy called Phil?" Dan asked, diving straight in without even bothering to build up to it.

PJ looked surprised. "Phil Lester?"

"That's the one."

"I do, yes. Why?"

"He's in my piano class, and he's definitely a Master, but..." Dan trailed off, unsure.

"He can't play the piano?"

"How did you know?"

"I know Phil quite well," PJ answered, looking pleased.

"Oh. Well, thanks. That's cleared up quite a few of my questions."

PJ laughed at the formal way Dan was talking. "Do you want to carry on playing?"

Dan nodded and they stood up again, making their way to their positions. Dan was still playing well, for a Non-Master, but he seemed to be distracted. He couldn't stop thinking about Phil, and his Inability.