Do not read this chapter if you haven't read the note before this 😊 Kindly return to the previous chapter. Merry Christmas! -slides down your chimney- -gets stuck- -oh nu-

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The Rivendell School of Musical Arts had finally recovered from their greatest financial downturn of the century as small-town, independent art schools would so often experience in the unfortunate era of practical parenting that inevitably produced practical children who were ultimately convinced by society and the people around them to walk the conventional path—brightly lit and present on every obscure map of the world.

Among the passionate students was a rare species of club enthusiasts, simply ecstatic to hear about the school's re-opening of funding options in club activities. This was a year after they'd decided restrict afterschool activities to supplementary theory lessons, which were really all they could afford under absurdly strict financial circumstances.

At present, all club activities had to be started anew and the online forms for applicants keen on proposing the start of their very own club soon churned out a list of all interest groups. For a high school of musical arts to lack their very own symphonic orchestra was to Vanilla Julian White the greatest criminal liability. He'd sought the list of recruiting clubs with the intention of joining one but upon discovering that everyone else had proposed multiple acapella groups of different genres, rock bands, choirs and at least five different varieties of Korean-pop interest clubs, the first-year filled in an application form of his own.

Under the temporary guise of three different names, he'd registered himself as the club president, vice-president and treasurer all at once. Either way, this wasn't going to be official anytime soon; all he required was for the orchestra's name to be on the list and, at the very least, be garnering some form of attention.

It wasn't long before the bespectacled bean encountered a devastating obstacle that could not be solved by his IQ of 144 or the vastness of his knowledge—the requirement of a club advisor in the form of a full-time teacher or instructor at Rivendell.

Within minutes of unnecessary panic, Vanilla knew what he had to be doing. It was go big, or go home.

"Mr. Honeycutt," he approached his favourite instructor the very next day with his tie done up proper and his dress shirt pressed to perfection, as always. "Have you, um... have you, maybe, had any musical background or experience in the field? I was wondering if you'd like to be our student organization advisor. For the school orchestra, I mean.

"I've put it down as a symphony orchestra but there's a line-up I have in mind and it would require players of other instruments like the electric guitar and perhaps guest soloists for the piano and harp but the term could be settled otherwise at a later date. I digress—um, it says here that I need the approval of an instructor. For... well, club advising. It's like an overall IC thing. Looking after the kids," sighed Vanilla. "And now that I've said all that, I can't see why anyone would agree to it."

Chip Honeycutt was the ever-radiant north star of Rivendell and the youngest of all full-time instructors at twenty years of age. To say he was a man of kind and heartful nature was an offense—Chip did not belong to the race of man; he was an angel. He also happened to teach the least relevant subject at a school of musical arts: home economics.

Vanilla, like many other students before him, had had a history of admiring the instructor for sacrificing his youth on foolish teenagers uninterested in the wonders of the culinary world by choosing to teach. At present, the angel could not help expressing the emotion of pleasant surprise.

"An orchestra!" He nearly gasped, softly like the tinniest ball of fluff. If fluffs had the ability to gasp. "I-I can play the harmonica," he offered at once, eager to help a soul in need. "I'll be your advisor-student. Student advisor. Club, person. I can help put up posters around the school for recruiting."

Already, the first-year was beyond capable of functioning having received the near pooling extent of support he felt from a single statement. "That would be perfect. I'd been so troubled by all this and you were, really, the only person I could think of and is there anything I can do to thank you? It's been a dream of mine to lead an orchestra and I promise to do you proud."

"You're a good boy, Vanilla," said Chip as he reached for the top of his student's head. The latter was about an inch taller. "I heard orchestras need a lot of members for administrative approval, which is probably why no one's tried to apply for it just yet... I'll do my best to help you fulfil your dream. T-teamwork makes the, um, dream! Work!"

To fill the presently empty orchestra with a minimum of seventy names was an impossible feat achieved only by the best of main characters and for the bespectacled bean who could in no way see himself being the attention-grabbing, eye-catching soloist who could sway the audience with a single note, this

was his Everest.

______________________

Chip was the kind of person who could never bring himself to put up the carefully-designed recruitment poster he'd done up the night before over a dated announcement of some charity shop donation drive from months back; and because the rest of the notice board had been so enthusiastically occupied with party nights and pay-to-enter music festivals, the poor thing resorted to filling up the only available space at the very top of the notice board, jumping every now and then to reposition the poster before pinning the corners down, thumb tack after thumb tack.

This was his third. He'd done up a couple on the notice boards downstairs and had moved on to the second floor of the senior's block after deciding against pasting them on walls and pillars, afraid that it'd give the cleaners a hard time with the double-sided tape.

At present, Chip could only hope for an influx of high school seniors looking for clubs that would strengthen their portfolio and give it a final added boost before graduation. He was so distracted by this (and by the constant need to jump in order to reach the upper left corner of the recruitment poster) that he hadn't paid the slightest attention to a student who'd emerged from a classroom nearby and, out of boredom and sadistic amusement, had stopped to watch Mr. Honeycutt put up the poster for the past five minutes or so.

Leaning against the back door of his classroom several feet away, Xander Jaxon did not seem particularly interested in giving the instructor a helping hand despite possessing a clear advantage in height. He watched the tiny frame struggle for moments and, after clumsily pinning up the last corner of his recruitment poster, stand back to admire his work with a private smile.

How strangely familiar this expression appeared to the final-year student that he uncrossed his arms and, feeling quite drawn towards the light, approached the figure from behind.

"You're in charge?"

He hadn't meant to startle the person, who was starting to resemble a small frightened animal confronted by its predator. "Uwa! Uh—um, hello. In charge? Mhm, but also, not really, I'm not conducting or anything. I'm just the advisor. Not the teaching advisor teacher, just, the paperwork, taking-care-of-kids club, advisor, person. U-um, if you're interested, you could turn up for the preliminary interest interview tomorrow afternoon at block C! If you have any questions about... anything! We'd love to, um, we love people." He finished in the softest voice but Xander hadn't exactly been giving him his full attention after the first sentence.

"You're an instructor here?"

All he'd seen in his week or so in Rivendell were greying old men in bow ties and suits with tailcoats. Chip nodded, piping an excitable 'yes!'

Xander couldn't seem to decide between laughing and frowning. "What do you play?"

It was a standard question here at Rivendell; sizing up a stranger by their instrument, grade or talent, depending on their course of study. In this case, the senior was having a hard time trying to figure out what sort of module someone like Chip would be teaching. The small frame seemed to shrink even further into himself, as though retreating into his rabbit hole.

"The, um. The harmonica...?"

Honeycutt was the only member of the school's teaching staff without a musical background and as such, belittled by students and colleagues alike despite the gentle, cosy warmth he'd never fail to provide in his classes and even along the hallways. He was never caught with a frown or seen sulking after a bad day in or outside of school. For other reasons, Xander was distracted.

"You look... familiar," he told the instructor, gazing down at him and into his eyes. Dark, clouded skies looking at a sunny day.

"Oh, I teach home economics," Chip laughed, sheepishly. "It's compulsory for all first years."

Xander sported an expression that was a cross between a smirk and a frown. "I'm new here, so I definitely skipped that." In the distance, he heard someone calling his name and turned to see his friend, Blake Mason, waving him over. He gave a nod of acknowledgement over his shoulder but soon returned his gaze to Chip. "What's your name?"

"Mr. Honeycutt," the small frame tidied the posters in his arms that had almost slipped out of his grasp, half-afraid that he was severely embarrassing himself in front of the cool student before him. Then, he extended a hand.

The senior took it. Slowly. "Okay, Mr. Honeycutt," he repeated in a somewhat teasing lilt. "I'm Xander."

*

It wasn't long before Chip and Vanilla found themselves busying over interview preparations in the tiniest remaining available classroom since, well, every other music room with better acoustics had been long reserved or booked by other budding clubs. The club advisor had insisted on putting up chairs outside the classroom for prospective members looking to join the orchestra despite the empty hallway fifteen minutes before the arranged start of the interview.

The chairs were a part of the instructions Vanilla had written out and sent to Chip that very morning, categorized and labelled with the various sections of an orchestra. Strings, Brass, Woodwinds and Percussion. And now that the anxious pair could see the outcome of nothing more than an enthusiastic turnout, Vanilla was inclined to remove every label and limit the chairs to a grand total of three—just so that they wouldn't be taking up unnecessary space in the hallway.

"Cheer up Vanilla," said the voice of an angel. "More people will come. I'm sure of it!" He went back to arranging the chairs in an orderly manner before encouraging his student to check the arrangement of tables and chairs back inside the classroom. The first-year nodded at once.

He'd marked out a seating area for the interviewees at the very front of the classroom before using the teacher's desk as a station for Chip and himself, leaving the registration forms and sign-up list right in the middle for convenience. After closing the windows shut for better acoustics and turning on the air-conditioning so that no one would be choking on still air, the student conductor headed for the door and peered out.

His home economics teacher was addressing someone else seated on one of the chairs labelled 'strings', having handed him a copy of the registration list and in the midst of noting down his name, year, and contact details.

Vanilla could not help but notice the way this stranger's hair was falling past his shoulders like a waterfall of ash, professionally dyed and meticulously cared for. By his side was a violin case of an exquisite, ivory shade and it wasn't long before he felt himself anticipating an interview with the student who was likely a senior. After all, it wasn't often that he'd come across a person of such height (even as he was seated) and grace that was any younger than seventeen.

At the stroke of three, the representative returned to the teacher's desk to sit, waiting for Chip to enter with their very first (and as of far, only) prospective member after the cue.

His name was Vaughn Alekseyev, according to the sign-up sheet his club advisor handed him as they entered, and he was, indeed, a final-year student months from graduation. At once, his general demeanour and artful penmanship set Vanilla in quite a mood of pleasant expectation. Further, the senior had a proper walking and standing posture that translated into an air of confidence that, though tragically false, was enough to convince the general public of his dominance and control. Iolani Tori was most unfortunately not included in this circle of human beings.

"Good afternoon," greeted Vanilla at once. Professional. "Thank you for attending the preliminary interest interview, Mr. Alekseyev. Please, have a seat."

Vaughn would on every other occasion have thought first-years speaking in such a manner to be pompous arses like a certain silly little sparrow but it was at present that he seemed to not consider the thought immediately. With a word of politeness and a note of dismissal, the violinist declined the offer to sit and instead, produced his instrument; on instinct, he'd assumed resting position. Vanilla was quick to notice the natural professionalism and trained orderliness he possessed, finding himself unable to decline the interviewee's enthusiasm and eagerness to play.

"Oh!" Chip perked up at the violin, quietly excited. "Are you going to play something for us?"

"Yes of course," quipped the vulture. "What did you think I was going to do, have a conversation?"

Admittedly, this was a mere preliminary interest interview—meaning that Vaughn did not necessarily have to play or undergo the procedures of a proper audition and would merely have to say, 'I am interested' or ask relevant questions regarding the club before leaving his name on the list for submission. But we all know how uncontrollably enthusiastic the silly thing can get about certain things like reading and ornaments and Christmas music, so.

"O-oh," was all Mr. Honeycutt, the club advisor, could say in response. Retreating.

Vanilla was on the brink of bursting into laughter. He had not imagined someone so perfectly monstrous as Vaughn Alekseyev to exist and yet, it seemed nearly plausible now that he'd met him. "Well it was merely an occasion of interest indication but we'd be glad to have you audition right away. And, um, what is it you'll be playing?"

"Tchaikovsky," said Vaughn as he lifted his bow and promptly got into playing position. "Violin concerto in D major. Thirty-five." His gaze rested on the pair behind the teacher's desk, waiting for a cue.

He received a nod from the student conductor, who proceeded to pen a brief description in his notepad. "I understand. Then, could we start on the down bow of bar twenty-eight into the triple stops in forty-one?"

The room seemed to pause; air coming to a still. This had not been among the player's anticipated interview questions (which he'd very naturally stayed up all night preparing himself for amidst rounds of kimchi and ramyeon, overthinking, as usual). He simply could not in any manner comprehend the prospect of there being some human being—let alone a freshman nearly three years younger than himself—possessing the ability to memorize the entire score of some random piece, down to the very measure numbers. In fact, this was all starting to remind him of the same certain sparrow boy and at once, he felt the fair defensive streak in him surface in words. Vaughn lowered his bow.

"And where is that?"

Vanilla took this all in stride and hummed the twenty-eighth bar down to the twenty-ninth, just in case. "And forty-one would be—"

"I am aware of forty-one," Vaughn told him before lifting his bow once again, preparing to play. So stunned by the boy's talent that he'd nearly forgotten to be nice! His trademark smile, his natural state in front of prey, a mask, and for all he knew, this one... this one was as dangerous as that sparrow. This one was no prey.

He began as instructed and right on cue: down bow on the twenty-eight and then all the way to the chords, forte—the triple stops—in forty-one, impressing his interviewers rather extensively till one of them (the fairly obvious of the two) stood and clapped right after the performance like a proud mom.

"That was... it was stunning," said Vanilla, having intended to write the number of mistakes or areas in which the senior could have worked on, his strengths, weaknesses and such for future reference. He'd ended up in a state of blank. "You are very talented. The triple-stops were executed with great precision... your bow pressure was exact. I'd thought you'd have gone for a broken chord instead, but you did not and I don't think I heard any wrong notes except a D sharp on forty but this was on a first play without warm up so I'd say that could very well be excused. I observed the technique you adopted for the chord and it's very special. I've never seen anything like it. You're hired. I-I mean." Embarrassed, Vanilla corrected himself with a shake of his head. "I mean we'd love to have you."

Chip was nodding. Vaughn was frowning; appalled because compliments were never his thing and goodness, they had been attacking him as of recent. He lowered his violin and bow, resuming resting position.

"This is... quite, rather... unexpected, I would say," said the vulture. He seemed unsure, as though he'd thought there were several stages in the audition like it is on the path to hell. Er. That, too, he was uncertain about.

The student conductor reached into his book bag to produce the sheet music for a particular piece he's had in mind for the performance line-up approximately four months from today. He handed Vaughn the score. "How do you feel about sight-reading?"

"Nothing particularly offensive," determined the vulture upon receiving the sheet music and giving it a scan. "Hm. Modern?"

"Yes," Vanilla confirmed. He was feeling a little afraid all of a sudden, wondering if someone as well-versed with the classics as Vaughn would find his tastes outrageously scandalous. "We, um, have plans for a modern orchestra. I've always appreciated the unique style of a composer by the name of Yuki Hayashi. His work occasionally calls for perhaps a tenor and, or, a baritone saxophone. It also has electric guitar solos. And a drum set in the percussions but really, um, plans... is the right word."

He appeared visibly crestfallen nearing the end of his conclusion, which was the cue for Vaughn-the-enemy-of-emotions to look away in an attempt to remain wholly objective. A decision wrought of bias was very simply a bad decision and there was no convincing him otherwise.

Placing the score on a stand that Chip had so kindly set up (courtesy of Miss Julie Dempsey, the new student choir advisor), the violinist proceeded to play every note on the sheet music with confidence and precision, counting rests, bowing and dynamics of the piece all whilst counting in his head without given direction or beat.

This all, Vanilla had anticipated.

"You may rest," he told the senior, glancing down at his name on the register and turning to Chip for a quick exchange of looks. "This may sound a little rash and perhaps impulsive on my part but I was wondering if, um, well... if you would like to join us, that is, that you would be interested in playing for the first chair. The concertmaster, in other words."

The vulture promptly froze in resting position, staring at Vanilla with eyes the shade of smoke. Concertmaster; the grand position, leader of the first violin section in an orchestra or more specifically, the one and only instrument-playing leader, second-most significant after the conductor and more often than so deemed the most skilled musician in the section.

He paused. "Correct me if I'm wrong but this is the first interview you're conducting with prospective members."

"Yes," admitted the first-year. Quietly. "Which is why I've opted to use the word 'impulsive' precisely because I understand where you're coming from. Either way, I cannot guarantee that there will, even, be an orchestra. You've seen the turnout."

Both students lapsed into yet another bout of silence and poor Mr. Honeycutt was obliged to interrupt with his usual cheery disposition.

"H-how about your friends, Mr. Alekseyev? It would be nice to join a club with friends, don't you think? Surely we could make it to seventy members."

The truth was simple: Vaughn had been privately honoured by the invitation to join as first chair but was most unfortunately unwilling and quite unable to express this emotion aloud. Lips thin, he put away his instrument.

"I'm afraid they do not exist," he told the club advisor rather kindly, flashing one of those wretched smiles he reserved for prey. Chip was confused. "But I will consider the offer. You will be contacting me with further details?"

Vanilla nodded at once, hurriedly circling out the senior's name and adding it to the mailing digital mailing list on his iPad. "Of course! Um, we'll be sending out an email right after the end of today's session. We're hoping to hear from you by Friday."

This, Vaughn acknowledged with a curt bow of his head and as he picked up his violin case and book bag to leave, he seemed to pause—as though seized by the strangest of thoughts. "Hold on," he turned, hesitant. "Any violin solo in an orchestral work will be played by the concertmaster."

"Yes," the conductor blinked. "That would be the case."

The vulture whose scented fragrance reminded Chip of an all-time-favourite, crème brûlée, appeared visibly distraught. Gathering himself together in the next couple of seconds, he bid his interviewers goodbye for the second time and, upon opening the door to leave the room, was met with the most traumatising scene in his entire musical career.

"Vaughn!" Iolani Tori rose from his seat at once, a wooden flute in hand. "Hi!"

Frightened by the monstrous entity, the poor senior stepped back into the interview room with a final: 'I humbly decline!' before leaving for good—the door closing shut on a still-waving flute boy.

The last expression Chip had caught on Vaughn's flawless features was one of tremendous regret, as though reconsidering his life choices was the only remaining option.

"I'll go call the next one in," said the club advisor, bringing along with him several more registration forms. "We still have three more hours to go, Vanilla! Don't give up!" His encouragement was a blinding beam of sunlight and in all honesty, the student conductor was not feeling one bit fazed by the professional violinist's decision. In fact, he was bent on changing it.

Either way, both current members of the organization were pleased to find the registration list left outside the interview room gradually filled with several names. Going down the list according to the arrival time, Chip and Vanilla processed a couple of half-hearted, some decently enthusiastic and well-trained individuals before arriving at their very first prospective player for the Woodwinds section.

"Hi," Io was waving as he entered the room of protagonists, characteristically forgetting that he was one himself. The first-year possessed no bag, no books, no visible phone, wallet—not even his blazer, tie or any prominent accessories. In fact, his pants didn't even have any pockets. Simply put, he was as plain as a sparrow. "I'm Io."

All he had in hand was a transverse wooden flute.

"Good afternoon, um," Vanilla did a double take at the name since he'd been expecting an 'Iolani Tori' before realizing that the boy had introduced himself as his nickname. "Mr. Tori. Please, have a seat."

"That is a very nice flute you have." As usual, Chip was quick to compliment every single human being on earth and here he was in his natural state.

Io thanked the advisor at once. "My ma—I mean, my mother gave it to me when I was four. It's kept me company since I'm alone most of the time." He smiled.

Both interviewers behind the teacher's desk seemed to blank out at the sudden rising of the night; a darkness that was strong in nature. Neither had expected such odd words from a boy so easily identified as ordinary and plain. Brown hair, brown eyes. Sparrow-like.

"So, um, I'm assuming you brought your flute along to play something for us," Vanilla re-directed, to which Chip nodded vigorously. "Are you quite experienced?"

"Experienced...?" He seemed to find the term rather intriguing, blinking twice and pausing to think. "No... not at all. I don't really know what experience is. Sometimes it feels like another word for 'time' and sometimes, if feels like another word for 'events.' Maybe I can play something short and you can tell me if I'm... experienced?"

The boy was smiling and what a strange feeling it was, to be hearing such words from a seeming protagonist of the same creator, startling one and nearly impressing the other.

"Fair point," said Vanilla, agreeing. He watched and listened as the flautist proceeded to play a small segment of a familiar tune.

To the keenest, most sensitive of ears, trained by theory of music and strict in its search for order, Iolani Tori was far from skilled. Simply put, he was, like he said, not at all experienced in the field. In the minute or so he'd played, the student conductor could point out nearly ten or more notes that were out of tune and also poor posture that severely hindered his breathing.

Yet, it felt very much... whole. Something round and full in nature. A soft, filtered light that, despite its inexperience, held on to something beyond the seeming importance human beings seemed to place on such a concept, an idea, a valuation of another. At once, Vanilla could tell this sparrow knew what it meant to move the Self.

"Clair de Lune."

Io nodded in return, hoping that he hadn't embarrassed himself with the multiple mistakes and wrong notes that were clear as day. "It's my favourite. I played it back in the village, but I think they preferred the drums, so no one really liked listening to me. Except my ma. She listened and brought me potatoes."

Chip was all of a sudden overcome with the urge to give the boy a warm hug. He felt, oddly, on the verge of tears. "D-do you like potatoes, Mr. Tori? I could bake some for you next week? If you'd like to join us."

The sparrow appeared mildly surprised. "I'm in?"

"Yes of course," already, Vanilla was adding another name to the mailing list and filling in the blanks of his charted orchestra, instruments and roles. "We'll get you a concert flute at once and at present, we're looking at five hours of practice three times a week. Is that too much of a commitment? If it helps, we, um, we'll provide potatoes." He glanced at Chip for confirmation and the latter gave a warming thumbs-up in return.

Io had laughed.

"Commitment? That's a very long word," he thought. "What does it feel like? Commitment. If it's the staying, I'll stay," he said. "I'm always staying."

How strange. How odd his words were for a mere village boy, living quite apart from a world so vastly connected and yet, seeming to know it better than those who'd grown accustomed to its workings. Vanilla felt himself quite small speaking to Iolani Tori and it was a feeling he'd never quite felt before.

"Y-yes," he stammered after coming to, looking down at his list and losing quite the extent of his vocabulary. "That would be... nice. We certainly need as many committed members as we can."

"If you have potatoes, my friend might be interested," Io added in a whisper, as though sharing a secret. Chip had laughed.

"I will bring the potatoes! Please tell your friends about tomorrow's interview. There's another one on Thursday too but that's actually auditions, for some people. O-oh, but I don't know if you'll like the potatoes I bake. I really hope you do."

The flautist flashed a reassuring smile in response. "I think my liking of potatoes is in the potatoes," he told Chip. "Not in the way they are cooked, but as they are, what they are."

*

Luka Sullivan had been on his way to the next dreadful class on his timetable, void of stray thoughts and wandering remembrances when he'd heard a faint tune so strangely familiar to the creature in his cage. He was, at once, struck with an odd curiosity uncharacteristic of his usual disposition, searching for the source of the music and gravitating towards it like an astronaut to the moon.

His fascination was short-lived. The tune came to a disappointing end as soon as he identified the room it was coming from, leaving the third-year student momentarily distraught. He'd blinked out of the trance he was seemingly put in and registered the chairs lined up neatly outside the room, labelled with the sections of an orchestra. The list of names, handwritten and taped to the empty wall beside the door, enabled a brief conclusion of this being an interview or audition process for a club.

This did nothing to his interest.

It was at this point that the door to his right opened with a creak and Iolani Tori emerged with his wooden flute, visibly excited; fingers wriggling at the thought of a baked potato party. He'd paused upon noting the presence of another, slightly embarrassed at being caught red-handed in his private celebration. Not quite knowing what to do, he met the eagle's gaze and waved.

Unbeknownst to the flautist, this was not the first of times he'd been observed by silent Luka and the latter, having identified the boy as the one who'd always catch the last train at the station, found himself momentarily stunned.

It was, therefore, no surprise that he'd proceeded to turn up for the second round of interviews the very next day with his cello on his back and the quietest of anticipation in his chest, locked.

The waiting area was not what it looked like the previous afternoon. Luka found himself having to take the last remaining seat available next to an excitable girl who'd nervously introduced herself as Silvia the Si Yin and her violin, Naruto the Ninja. She was accompanied by a pair of third-years who were, coincidentally, Luka's classmates: Abigail Volt and Vellayappan Ajitabh Bageshri; the former with her violin and the latter, her viola.

It was quite the turnout. With every seat in the Strings section filled and nearly half the room full of others waiting to be called, practicing and warming up in their chairs of respective labels, Luka wasn't too sure if he was going to see the flautist again any time soon.

At this, he was pleasantly surprised with the entrance of the very person on his mind, in the company of a girl in a wheelchair who had an oboe case placed on her lap. The pair appeared to be showing the way, having met a lost nightingale on their way to the interview room and communicating through written notes.

"I wonder if Nash would've liked to join. Would it hurt Mr. Honeycutt's feelings if he complained about the potatoes not being salty enough?"

"I could bring a saltshaker along," offered the girl in the wheelchair. "He can't complain if he's got the option of additional salt."

Together, they joined the line for Woodwinds and wrote their names on the registration list up front. Behind them, the Brass section saw an instant doubling of numbers in the very next moment—labelled chairs filled by senior students filtering into the hallway and chatting amongst themselves.

It was no surprise that in some alternate universe, Dmitri Ford and Ace Salander were the best of friends, settling at the top of the pyramid with a tie for the most potato person to exist. Both absolute bananas could be seen loitering between the Brass and Percussion section in an aimless disposition and without any visible instrument in hand. Neither appeared to possess any musical inclination or basic preparation for the audition.

"It's just a preliminary interview," Dmitri had his voice lowered and conveyed his sentiments in hushed tones of panic. "Why's everyone so serious? Where are the free potatoes?"

"I think we're in the wrong room," deduced Ace, intelligent. "I don't see th—okayholybananasthey'rehere."

The pair scrambled aside and over to the Percussion chairs far away from the Brass section, where a group of seniors had, nearly at once, made their way towards.

"How many of us?" One of them was responsible enough to register for the rest.

"Seven."

"This should be easy. Unless Blake messes up his pentatonic again." The one writing their names flipped him off without looking up.

No creator would ever be able to decide among her multiple universes which male character was the most attractive of his species. Xander Jaxon and Jeremiah Reyes would have ruled the lands of earth and sky with just the upper half of their bodies. Considering the lower half would have made everything else obsolete.

It was also therefore not very surprising that the seniors who banded together all possessed some form of physical appeal superior to that of other characters. If Lucienne Deveraux, Jing, Odette Scordatto and her brother Odile, had not banded together with Xander, Jeremiah and Blake to form the most flawless group of visual alphas, this would not be the perfect crossover universe ever invented.

From afar, a pair of potatoes watched longingly.

*

By the third hour of interviews and auditions, the day's work and assessment was beginning to take its toll on the resilience of our poor protagonists, who were on their twenty-third prospective member of the day.

"Are you okay, Vanilla?" Chip turned to his student, offering a hot cross bun he'd baked in home economics just this morning. "Should we call it a day?"

"According to the list, we have eleven more to go, Mr. Honeycutt," the student conductor insisted with a shake of his head. "We can't let them down after they'd been waiting for nearly an hour. Could you call the next person in? It says here..." he glanced down at a copy of the registration list. "Xander Jaxon."

Visibly moved by the young boy's dedication to the task at hand, Chip was determined to make things work. He gave his student an encouraging pat on the head before heading out to the waiting area in search for a 'Xander Jaxon.' It was then that he'd matched name to face and registered a fond familiarity, tottering over to the senior he identified almost at once.

"Mr. Jaxon?"

No response. He inched closer, doubtful now that he might have mistaken the broad shoulders and dark hair for someone else. "Um, Mr. Xander Jaxon?"

Upon noticing the wireless earphones fitted snug into his ears, the club advisor felt himself enlightened by the odd circumstance and opted for a shy tap on the senior's shoulders. Xander turned.

"H-hello!" He was a bunny mustering all the courage he had to speak to the wolf. "I think it's your turn, Mr. Jaxon."

The senior stood, taking with him his instrument case and leaving the rest of his classmates nodding off in their seats.

"Xander's fine. Not going to thank me for boosting your recruitment, Mr. Honeycutt?" He'd teased almost at once, smirking as he removed the AirPods from his ears and stowed them away.

Chip was, very naturally, a flustered mess. "Oh! Is that why there's—I-I didn't know you had a part to play in the, um... thank you so much."

"I was kidding," the senior nearly laughed, amusing himself over the various expressions that the older male seemed to display without any sign of falsehood. The sheer prospect of having someone two years older than him blush in his presence was altogether very entertaining. In fact, so distracted was Chip that ushering Xander into the interview room completely slipped his mind and it was the latter who'd ended up leading the way.

"O-oh! That's a very nice case you have there," he pointed out as they were walking. "What instrument is that?" To an amateur, the black, oddly-shaped case was not very telling of the treasure it contained.

"Bari sax," he said on instinct, but upon observing the embarrassed confusion in the older male's blue eyes, explained shortly. "Baritone saxophone. But I play tenor too."

Chip was very clearly in awe; the gleam in his eyes sparkled anew and he put his hands together for yet another compliment he could dish out. "That sounds very hard b-but also very professional. I can't wait to hear you play."

Xander raised a brow at the advisor's fascination, finding himself increasingly entertained by the teacher's remarks and having to remind himself that he possessed no musical background whatsoever, which would account for his admiration for nearly everything. He'd thought about this prior to the interview, upon his very first observation of Chip attempting to straighten the recruitment poster without overlapping another club's on the notice board. Or how he seemed to smell faintly of freshly baked bread—which wasn't all that surprising since his teaching subject was home economics.

But it was upon entering the audition room that he was drawn to the gentle fragrance of something soothingly familiar. The semblance of a gentle hush; of snow cloaking the land on a soft winter night, of angels and the prospect of maybe.

He brushed it aside, noting the presence of hot cross buns in a transparent container in front of Chip, who, preoccupied with allowing Vanilla to copy the interviewee's name onto the registration sheet, had not noticed the distraction.

"It's rare for a saxophone player to join an orchestra full-time," the student conductor did not hesitate to start off with, forward and to-the-point. "Is there anything else you can play?"

"No," Xander was as honest. "We're in jazz, most of us outside. Orchestra exposure is limited, and we don't play in groups more than ten. You don't need a sax?"

"On the contrary, we do," Vanilla told him, turning to Chip who'd been ready to offer a hot cross bun to the interviewee after their audition. "We've got two solos available, but unless you'd like to share that between yourself and your friend, Miss Deveraux, who went earlier, then I suppose we'd have to choose between the two of you. Unless you, well... prove to us that you are far superior in skill."

All he did was laugh, a hint of a smirk on his lips and a sharp, devilish look in his eyes that housed a storm.

"Sure."

It wasn't so much the word that piqued Vanilla's interest but the way it had been said; how Xander's eyes rested on the advisor beside him as soon as he'd said it and how a gaze could feel so awfully thunderous in the channelling of its heat. The first year, clueless, found himself alternating between an appreciative Mr. Honeycutt—listening with utmost attention—and what felt like a heinous criminal playing the saxophone.

H-how odd. I feel like I should be leaving the room, thought the student conductor mere seconds into the solo, mellow notes in which the barisax was particularly suited for in the octave key, and in the hands of a skilled musician, produced a clean, soothing sound that resembled the cello.

The instrument was not the easiest to play when it came to altissimo notes and Vanilla was well aware. Xander was breezing through the altissimo's but had compensated by choosing a solo with a slower tempo, languid and almost sensual in its performance—smooth and pleasant to the ears, which was only the case when the musician had mastered the technique of double tonguing. Or triple. But in the case of this particular solo, he believed it had to be the former.

The fact that this saxophone player had decided to keep his eyes on the harmless fluff of an angel throughout his performance made it all the more troubling for Vanilla as he found himself increasingly uncomfortable in the presence of the pair. He was beginning to feel quite as though he was in the middle of some mating ritual—u-um, he meant, some... um, some trap set up by an expert predator.

Unfortunately, Chip Honeycutt was no professional of ulterior motives and, harmless and unguarded, saw his heart tottering over into the wolf's den. In fact, he was blushing, red as a strawberry, by the end of the minute-long solo and his student, unable to stand the stifling atmosphere any longer and thoroughly embarrassed by the odd sensuality he'd thought he'd mistakenly interpreted between the two, dismissed the saxophone player by confirming his position.

"That is all," he'd said after giving Xander the 'yes,' looking over to the advisor only to witness a complete inability to pull himself together. "Practice starts next week Monday and we'll be sending out emails containing further details. Y-you may leave."

"Um!" Chip stopped him just in time, holding out the box of hot cross buns. "Would you, um, please have one before you leave. I-I made them."

How peculiar did it begin to seem for a third party to witness anything other than a characteristic smirk on Xander's features, as though watching him momentarily break the spell in which he'd cast upon everyone else and see, for once, the raw creature hidden inside. He'd left the room in such an appearance, with the hot cross bun in one hand and his instrument case in the other. A quiet departure observed by the teacher seated beside Vanilla, eyes following the back that he'd thought must have drawn the attention of many others like himself.

"Mr. Honeycutt? Sir?" The student conductor tapped him on the shoulder and the bunny came to, shaking his head abruptly as though waking from a dream. "Are you, um, perhaps, acquainted with Mr. Jaxon?"

"O-oh. You mean, Xander?" Chip was having a hard time conversing with a head full of someone else. "I... think I met him in the hallway while I was putting up the recruitment posters and everything. That's all, really. But, um. For some reason... I feel like we've met before that."

Indeed, things were starting to get fairly dramatic for an alternate universe about instruments and music. By the time the pair of interviewers pulled themselves through to the last two names on the registration list of the day, Chip had kindly asked if they were alright with doing the interview as a group.

"This is good," concluded Dmitri the intellect in a lowered voice. "You back me up when I'm lost. I back you up when you are. More time to think when we're answering questions, you know."

"Genius." Ace was awestruck, bananas flying in and out of his mind. Holy. "We'll take turns then."

"Okay. You go first."

"Ohmygodno."

This was the point in which they were, together, ushered into the audition room and escorted to the chairs up front. And upon ensuring they were comfortable, Chip proceeded to offer the box of hot cross buns while Vanilla confirmed their names and contact details. As far as he could tell, the pair of potatoes had come to the preliminary interview as, well, curious potatoes. Neither had an instrument in hand nor did they appear to be asking for one.

"We'll start off with some simple questions," said the first-year who, according to Dmitri, sounded like he was fifty years of age and frightened him immensely. "Would anyone prefer to go first?"

Potato one pointed at potato two. Potato two pointed at potato one. Both sighed.

"I'll go," Ace gave in eventually, only because he soon realized how terrible Dmitri was going to make him look if the latter went first. After all, the falcon had, at the very least, some musical background.

Unbeknownst to the pair of panicked potatoes, Vanilla was pleasantly surprised by their presence regardless of what their answers to his interview questions were. Reason being, they were the first of students to be applying for the Percussion section. In comparison to the rest of the orchestra, this was the only section that had yet been assigned any core member. Simply put, the conductor was ecstatic.

"Alright," the tips of his fingers met in quiet anticipation. "So what do you play, Mr. Salander?"

"Okay, I know this sounds weird," breathed the banana. Potato. Thing. "But I'm the best at the triangle."

It was at this point that the air-conditioning decided to lose its ability to function and the entire room fell into the most disappointing silence, as often was the state of Ace Salander's life. Dmitri himself had been so stunned into oblivion that his promises of having his best friend's back had all but vanished into the void. Chip proceeded to clap. He did not know what a triangle was.

"Well, um," Vanilla recovered after clearing his throat in a moment of embarrassment. "Is there, maybe... anything else? Perhaps the snare? Or, the bass drum?"

The silence had been long enough for the banana to surpass his limits of nerves and achieve the enlightened state of zen. He did not appear to panic at the question and merely looked as though he was attempting to arrive at a breakthrough in his philosophy of potato.

"Tambourine," he snapped his fingers upon adding. Like it was an 'aha!' moment. "And 'hot cross buns' on the recorder."

Fortunately for him, this, Dmitri appeared to have words for. "I've heard him play it. It's honestly really good. Clean sound. Not piercing. Very whole. He's also probably mastered tonguing."

Vanilla took this all very seriously and had this all written in his book of notes as per procedure. Proper consideration was necessary in the objectivity of his task at hand. "Indeed. And, the next question would be your reason for expressing interest in joining the orchestra. After all, we don't have a recorder instrument. If it's the triangle you're interested in, then that is very well a valid answer too."

The potatoes exchanged a look and, in that instance, communicated the telepathic sentiments of starchy delights.

"So um," Ace sighed, gaze alternating between his interviewers. "It kinda has nothing to do with what I'm good at. You're an expert. You can tell how bad I am at a glance, so. Not gonna lie but I have to be learning from scratch. And you have to be teaching me from, like, basics up so I understand if you don't need someone like that, but. I, um, there's this... friend—no, we barely know each other like we hung out like once—he's waay out of my league and I know that but I still wanted to try. Impressing him."

His best friend promptly signed a private thumbs-up as substitute for a standing ovation he couldn't give at present. Chip nodded away encouragingly.

"I see." The first-year had not been so quick to react to the entirety of this sentimental speech, unable to process the reasoning behind such terms he'd used and how the premises led from to another and ultimately, to such a conclusion that he struggled to dub sound and valid.

Vanilla had never been on the giving end of such an odd, strange longing—to impress someone else by learning something new or related to their field; and wanting to do so because of a desire to establish a relationship closer and more intimate than the current one they had and by doing so conjure an empowered drive towards bettering oneself. Never felt that way but at the same time, had never been on the receiving end of such feelings either.

Like anyone would want to impress someone as boring as himself.

"Then it's got to be more than just the triangle," he concluded aloud, penning something down on his notepad with a lowered gaze. "Maybe give timpani a go. Or mallets. I'll put you down on mallets. We do need a xylophone and glockenspiel player."

The potato expressed extreme bewilderment. "So—wait. I'm in?"

Chip laughed and just the sound was so adorable that it lifted the spirits of the entire room and Dmitri found himself harbouring the uncontrollable hope of joining the orchestra and impressing Lucienne Deveraux, who at the age of fourteen had attained a diploma in soprano saxophone and had a private hobby of making memes of Dmitri's photos.

"We're looking for members who are committed and have um," Chip double-checked the list of qualities Vanilla had churned out for their reference, "have an aptitude for learning! It doesn't matter if you're not all that experienced. Let's work together and, and, um! Teamwork makes the dream work!"

The sheer number of exclamation marks was enough to instil in Dmitri the energy to reveal the truth of his musical background and the fact that he and Ace shared not only hearts of potato nature and brains of banana soft, but also a very capable and outstanding love interest whilst completely oblivious to their own strengths and appeals. Very similar characters, or so their creator admits a possible resemblance.

"Okay, I can't play the triangle like he can but I know this might offend some of you—I don't know, I always offend people even if I don't mean it—but I only play the electric guitar and watching High School Musical makes me think orchestra kids and rock bands will never get together, so," he finished. "Or maybe I just took the wrong leaf out of the wrong book..."

Vanilla's face lit up almost at once. Not because of High School Musical. He did not know what that was. "As a matter of fact, we are in need of an electric guitarist! It's a modern score we're performing, and the composer has a unique style of orchestrating instruments that don't usually go together. This is brilliant." He began writing furiously on his notes and Dmitri, who had been prepared to play the triangle just so that he'd be in the same after-school club as his crush, felt wholly attacked by his creator who had merely been playing with his feelings.

Which was really always the case.

_______________________

Teamwork makes the dream work groupmates: Chip Honeycutt, Utako Jiro, Blake Mason, Vijay Krishnan, Ace Salander (but are you sure you want me on the team are you really sure are you)

I only swim free (Work alone) groupmates: Leroy Cox (because he's never had good teammates), Vanilla White, Vaughn Alekseyev (Cooperation? Is that a word?), Xu Si Yin, Nash Ford, Giselle Jaxon, Kiku, Slayne Castor (humans suck) and tbh most predator hearts not mentioned here

The only one who can lead me is me groupmates: Xander Jaxon, Jeremiah Reyes, Odette Scordatto, Chen Le, Violet Birchwood, Reux Yvone

"What do you think of this layout?" "Anything." groupmates: Luka Sullivan, Jing, Odile Scordatto, Loki Honeycutt

Teamwork makes the dream work but what happens when it doesn't and they know it's going to come crashing down but will still carry the fucking team on their back and fly if they have to groupmate: Iolani Tori

______________________

Not once did it cross the student conductor's mind that a concert harp being wheeled into the rehearsal room would be so tragically difficult, further worsened by the owner's passive demeanour in which she'd only stood out in the hallway and moved aside for the cellos and the double bases, and then, the tubas and the euphoniums. The instrumental chaos did not incite in Jing the minimum despair required for her to react in a practical sense, and she figured it would be too much of a trouble to say 'coming through' and so waited by the side.

It was Io the flautist who ultimately helped her out and eventually got her in before those moving the percussions from the storage room further down the hill to the practice room came by for further chaos. Chip had insisted on doing it alone and barely made inches of progress before collapsing from exhaustion. Vanilla had sent the Brass section to help.

"Thank you so much," the club advisor said to the arriving six, seven of them as they each took a random individual instrument and began either wheeling or lugging it up the hill. Xander was one of them.

"You were thinking of doing this all by yourself," he said to Chip, teasingly and without the intention to offend. His companion had resorted to playing with his fingers.

"U-um. Well, I thought everyone would be busy with practice, so I didn't want to cause any further trouble..."

The operation had been launched swiftly into motion and soon, Xander and Blake were the last of helping hands and left with the remaining largest timpani drums of the set, which were also the most troubling of the lot.

"I'll take the thirty-three. You take that one," Xander said to the trumpet player, nodding at the smaller drum of the two. Blake rolled his eyes but got to work without much complaint, leaving Chip rather empty handed and looking around rather helplessly lost.

"I-I'll help," he ended up saying to the senior whom Vanilla had appointed as the section head and main saxophone soloist. This was a great mistake on the student conductor's part since, strictly speaking, his creator had pegged Mr. Mason as the better leader.

"Sure," Xander had mused, quietly entertained. "You go on the other side." He nodded at the end of the drum that would have been the 'pull' going up the hill. It was less dangerous.

Chip did as told and together, the pair made their way to the ground floor of the building housing several rehearsal rooms after a grand total of ten minutes, arriving at the same time as those who'd set off beforehand. By this point, our poor athletic protagonist bunny was on the verge of collapsing.

"I—ha, can't believe you're—ha, not, ha, dying like, nh—I, am," he struggled to say, peering up at the student two years younger than himself. He figured: it must be due to age. Not once did his outstanding aptitude for sports cross his mind as a core reason. "Thank you."

Xander laughed; a low, attractive sound that oddly resembled his instrument. "Is there a reward for helping out?"

This startled Chip for a brief moment, snapping him out of an oxygen blur and his attempts to quell the heavy panting. "W-whuwa?" He seemed to panic, taking the request into serious consideration. "I... um, true, I didn't think about... I-I mean, I never really thought about something like that but it's true that helping out was sort of by choice and, um, I mean I do really appreciate it, so..."

He patted the pockets of his pants that were very slim; nearly six sizes smaller than Xander's. The student, thinking that his teacher was seriously about to hand him some spare change upon a word of provocation, found himself thoroughly entertained.

"Here!" Chip produced something barely visible, and the saxophone player held out an open palm to receive it. He was pleasantly surprised. "U-um. It isn't much, but. They're coupons! I only started doing it a few days ago... some initiative for the elderly and kids at a local orphanage, but they come by with these a-all excited and, um, all you have to do is exchange them for any bread of your choice."

The home economics teacher handed him a total of ten coupons—reminding him to distribute it among his friends who helped out.

And, as usual, typical Xander Jaxon... kept them all for himself and his sister. Totally not for his private enjoyment.

Back in the rehearsal room, chaos ensued. To say that potato-Ace, the only percussion member in the orchestra, nearly fell head over heels when he spotted the person wheeling in the last of his timpani drums was... well, simply put, it was not an exaggeration.

The boy had been checking everything on a list provided by Vanilla from the instrument storehouse manager when Blake had arrived. This had caused the banana in him to cartwheel around in the wildest manner and just before he managed to pull the reins on his desires, Ace proceeded to trip over the pedal of one of his smaller timpani drums and fall into a dramatic kneeling position in front of his love interest.

Blake was trying hard not to laugh. "You, uh, you okay?"

"My knees hurt," whimpered the banana boy, and the trumpet player did not bother holding back his laughter.

"Didn't this happen at the cafeteria the other day?" Blake held out a hand and helped him up. "You always end up kneeling in front of me."

"I know, I'm an embarrassment," Ace admitted, much too shy and nervous to look his companion in the eye. He'd only steal a glance every now and then. "Thanks for helping me out at the stall the other day. I swear the card machine has something against me. I'll definitely make it up to you! For sure. Promise."

The senior laughed, reaching out to give his hair a quick ruffle treatment. "Doesn't matter. But sure. Anytime."

Aside, Luka had been watching everyone from his cello corner. He quite liked his cello corner. It was quiet and seemingly far from the chaos happening everywhere else in the rehearsal room; furthest from where Vaughn Alekseyev the concert master had been arranging the chairs of violins one and two for the past thirty minutes, unable to make up his mind.

The vulture had, after a week's worth of deliberation, come to the conclusion that being concertmaster and playing a worthy score was an opportunity far too good to be missing out on for the sake of avoiding the terror that was Iolani Tori and had at once composed an email to accept the offer made by the orchestra committee. And here he was, entrusted with the task of having the violin and viola section arranged just as he thought suitable.

Luka Sullivan had been watching. Characteristically, he wasn't the kind of person to lend a helping hand for no good reason since, well, that involved being interested in the business of others and that was precisely the very last thing on his mind, so he did not. He did not extend an offer to Vaughn.

"Do you...?"

"I don't need any help!" The violinist declared with a note of finality, checking that each chair was an exact twenty inches apart. "Return to the cellos at once."

Luka stared. "Do you know where the flute player went?" Was what he meant. He hadn't the tact to say anything else, or not to repeat what he'd said, or to just walk away and allow Vaughn his peace and quiet. No. He'd very unfortunately chosen the best way to ruin the concertmaster's day.

It was at this exact moment that Vanilla had called for silence and took his place at the front of the room, before the conductor's stand, and began handing out official, annotated copies of music scores—a complete set of the pieces they would be performing four months from now.

"I will be giving fifteen minutes for additional annotations among your sections, led by the respective section heads, before we begin sight-reading as an orchestra. Granted, I do not expect today to be anything near perfect. In fact, I am certain it is going to be a mess," the first-year cleared his throat and several faces appeared surprised by his honesty. "But no orchestra is ever good without starting in chaos, so. Let's begin."

The way in which a young student like Vanilla was able to command the respect and attention of approximately seventy others who were mostly older than himself had much to do with the natural talent and musicality he possessed. While his keen ear and aptitude for music certainly impressed, the boy's inherent determination—hard at work since the very day he'd began his journey with an old, second-hand keyboard till three years ago when he'd attained a diploma in piano playing—seemed to bend the will of other professional to consider his remarks and feedback at every pause.

And by the end of their first four hour practice, the entire orchestra found themselves convinced of a possible, masterful performance in four months' time. Added to that the connections he had with other musicians for special section-based trainings, Vanilla could confidently conclude that they would be getting somewhere by the end of the month.

"Alright. You're all dismissed," he'd said to the room before noticing, at the corner of his eye, by the front door, a waving club advisor with a pair of tongs in hand. "Mr. Honeycutt? Sorry—you have something to add?"

"O-oh no," stammered Chip as soon as the entire room turned to stare at him over their shoulders, fazed by the sudden extent of attention. "Just, um. As promised, I made some baked potatoes for everyone. They're outside! With the sour cream, spring onions and bacon-flavoured soy bits so vegetarians can have them too. I-it's all self-service, so."

All at once the entire room seemed to bloom like a garden of watered flowers in spring and people began to put away their instruments and make for the door and by putting away their instruments I mean leaving them lying on the chair, hooked precariously on the backrest or simply on the floor inches away from excited feet. Chip took the liberty to help put them in a proper position, and so did Vaughn Alekseyev who wasn't one who stood for anything out of order.

"Ghastly." He'd went around the room muttering to himself, setting a cello straight and retracting its metal rod into the body just in case some fool decided to trip over it. Vanilla thanked him just in time to see Io running over to Vaughn with a mini baked potato packed in aluminium foil.

Outside, Xander had so miraculously landed himself the most decent of potato sizes before taking his instrument case and duffel bag with him, ready to leave. Blake had just presented him the indecent finger—their form of greeting.

"Xander?" The saxophone player ran into a literal angel on his way out, who appeared rather concerned upon noticing his bags. "You're leaving already? D-did you get yourself a potato?"

He held up the aluminium foil for Chip to see. "Yeah." And then, with an uncharacteristic streak of honesty regarding his private life, told the club advisor that he'd rather save it for his sister. "I'm picking her up from piano school and then heading home."

It was an odd moment of revelation; one in which Chip was most certainly not expecting to witness so soon, and especially not in the case of a student like Xander Jaxon, who wasn't exactly the politest or most well-behaved one he'd come across. He also recalled Vanilla looking out for a guest pianist for a solo in one of the pieces they were intending to play.

"Take care," was all he managed, however, watching the attractive back recede into the distance, unable to control his strawberry shyness.

*

A grand total of eight weeks since their first combined practice, the Rivendell Orchestra found themselves in an admirable shape of perfection and student conductor V. J. White, or so he'd decided to go by for the sake of sounding less like a joke on concert promotion media, was nearly satisfied with the progress of their sound. 'Nearly' was a term he had a particular dislike for but found necessarily useful in certain specific circumstances and this was one of them.

Ace—albeit improving drastically at his triangle skills and as of the most recent practice, managed to pull off the glockenspiel solo without missing a beat—remained the one and only member of the Percussion section.

The timpani had been manned by Dmitri whenever he wasn't required for the electric guitar solos and the cymbals by Lucienne on occasion (whenever Xander was the only saxophone required, which made Dmitri insist on continuing his timpani duties), leaving the drum set perpetually empty despite the primary role it played in the entire of Yuki Hayashi's musical work.

"It's literally the only instrument that needs you to actually have skill," Dmitri was saying the other day, when Vanilla had called for a short meeting among the substitute and main percussionist(s). "Not, that, uh, you don't need it for the other stuff but like it's not like we need years of practice to hit one timpano note when cued. Drum kit's like... you're actually the foundation of the entire orchestra."

Alas, the only thing they were missing; a step away from playing as a whole and yet, quite the biggest step they'd yet to make. The difference between the presence and absence of a drummer both in practice and on stage was nearly as important as not having a forward on a soccer team or a wing spiker in volleyball. Simply put: there was no attack.

Without a drum set, he was beginning to feel the brunt of an emptiness he had anticipated but felt far too anxious about perfecting what was present to address the problem at hand. The entire performance would be lacking even if everyone were to play perfectly on the day of the concert.

He'd had a conversation with Iolani Tori just yesterday, one of the few other first-years on the orchestra and perhaps the only one with the insight of some ridiculously aged hermit only just emerging from his cave.

"What does orchestra mean?" "What does it mean to orchestrate?" "Is there a setting-up?" "What are we setting-up for?" "So are you the orchestrator?" "Does one person do the orchestrating?" "What is the role of the conductor and is he, like the many others who orchestrate, an authority?"

Good questions required thorough answers and Vanilla did not have them all. What the conversation did was renew his love for music despite his current state of struggle; that it was his passion that had paved the way to deeper emotions and that the tidal waves were a necessary part of it all that he, as the captain of the ship, must brave.

All he needed to do was find the canons. The spark of a flame that would have them, lit and fired.

"To take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them." Or so Vaughn had quoted from his Shakespearean library of a mind and relayed to Vanilla in a manner so vague and confusing that had it been anyone else who weren't as well-read as the student conductor heard it, would have assumed it was a mere muttering of nonsense.

At present, the troubled boy was on his way home from school with a folder of recruitment posters in hand—having decided to drop by the street of instrument stores twenty-three stations from school. That would not be considered 'dropping-by'. Poor conduct of English I have, and so limited vocabulary I use.

The dedicated hard-worker had entered and spoken to the managers of three guitar shops, four violin shops, one with a cymbal room, another that has a collection of sheet music, and one record store for luck before arriving at a run down percussion store squeezed between a fast food joint and a hair salon that specialized in punk rock styles.

"... don't need brats. You're too young to understand music anyway."

"Jade's policy said a month's notice."

"Jade's gone bankrupt hiring kids like you, so I saved her ass by buying the store and now I'm just helping her get rid of the problem."

"By firing the people who actually know every model inside out?"

It appeared to Vanilla at once that he'd chosen to enter the store at a time of perfect chaos. The payment counter was on a raised platform at the back of the store, which allowed the person behind it an elevated viewpoint whilst keeping the entranceway spacious. The distance between a customer upon entering the shop and the storekeeper was purposefully great.

Before the counter was a stranger's back, dressed casually in a black bomber jacket and sweatpants of the same shade—a rucksack over his shoulder. A pair of drumsticks jutted out from the top corner.

"Exactly why the sales have been going down, little fucker. You go around telling customers the pros and cons of every model and they weigh them. Takes too fucking long to make a sale when all you gotta do is tell them why they should get everything in the store, retard."

Vanilla stood quite neglected by the entrance, slightly put-off by the way this storekeeper was speaking to a customer and having second thoughts of even going up with his recruitment posters. He'd glanced at the rusted nametag on the man's uniform. Bill.

"Think you're the expert? Going around showing off what you know. Listen—it don't matter if they know. You know what matters?" The man behind the counter held up a cheque and flicked it twice, in front of what Vanilla had deduced to be an ex-employee. "Go home, little boy."

Whether their reaction to this had been for the exact same reason (the absence of a working brain in the middle-aged man with a strong body odour), both teenagers did not know. The stranger had glanced over his shoulder with a private laugh, only to witness something of similar nature on Vanilla's face.

The latter cleared his throat and Bill seemed to snap out of his speech of human degradation, turning to him with cash-coloured eyes. "Oh! Welcome. Didn't see you there."

This demeanour of his had been mostly influenced by a quick assessment of the student's uniform, which, like every other private boarding school, gave the appearance of a wealthy schoolboy.

"Good afternoon," said the boy with a smile. "I'd come on behalf of my orchestra to source for a drum set with an initial budget of twenty grand. We have plans on performing at The Arc in two months' time to a grand hall, sold out within a day, and there have been rumours about a decent salesperson over here at your store, and so I decided to drop by."

Vanilla watched as the greasy grin on the storekeeper's face stiffened at his words and found the horrid beating of his heart, trembling at the very first, elaborate lie he'd ever told, to be worth the price. The stranger, whose age wasn't exactly the most telling upon first glance, had a look of quiet amusement in his eyes. The flickering of a candle.

"I see now that I am mistaken, according to the conversation I've fortunately overheard. There is no decent salesperson in sight and the school has no plans to be spending good money on a store that has minimum respect for model knowledge." This was the point in which the student conductor realized he was losing the (possibly) most useless form of contact with other drummers living in the area. "Good day."

Well, guess I won't be finding a guest drummer here, thought Vanilla, adrenaline running through his veins like electricity and leaving him quite numb as he exited the store, lightheaded and trembling.

Mindlessly hoping that the storekeeper hadn't been observant enough to notice his nervous disposition and that he would, by some miracle, have a change of heart and return the stranger the job he'd lost, Vanilla did not register the hand on his arm until he felt himself jerk backwards from walking.

He turned. Startled. "Goodn—"

The stranger with hair the shade of something fierce and of quiet rebellion was staring at Vanilla's trembling hand, unused to the effects of a lie. He had, after all, been wholly nervous and frightened by the impulse to teach the man a lesson.

"You were lying," observed the youth, still looking at and holding onto Vanilla's arm. Now that they were close and facing each other, the latter found himself oddly fazed by the strangest eyes he'd ever seen. Indeed, a flame.

"It was an unfortunate circumstance," he slipped his arm out of the other's grasp as they stood outside the empty hair salon. "You're out so soon? I'd hoped he'd come to and perhaps hire you again. Did he apologize?"

His companion snorted and offered something short in response. "That's cute. You're overestimating his abilities."

"You could have hoped the same," the student pointed out after being momentarily confused by the first two words of his reply. "If he'd been just that bit susceptible to logical reasoning and less of a brainless idiot, you would have kept your job."

The stranger lowered his gaze, looking sideways at Vanilla who'd started off in the direction of the subway station. He fell into step. "You not used to lying?"

"Well," the bespectacled bean adjusted the metal frames resting on the bridge of his nose. "I prefer not to. The last I said something of similar nature was when I'd kept quiet about a wrong order. It infuriated me throughout the entire dinner and that didn't even require lying through my teeth. A mere omission of the truth and already, I was destroyed. I was ten."

This nearly made his companion laugh. "What are you now?"

"Fifteen," and as though suddenly registering that he was having a proper conversation with someone else beyond the realm of musical terms, Vanilla, flustered, quickly remembered the 'Basics of Daily Conversation: An Introduction' by theCuppedCake and proceeded to ask his companion the same question in return before giving his name and extending a hand.

"Cox. Leroy." They shook hands. "Sixteen."

"Oh!" Vanilla hadn't expected them to be so close in age. "What school do you go to?"

Leroy shook his head. "Don't school."

This caught the student by surprise and he quickly looked away, clutching the folder in his arms. "You can't afford it? Is that why you needed that job?"

"Kind of," said his companion rather shortly, his eyes resting on the leather briefcase the student conductor was holding in his other hand. The boy was dressed prim and proper; even the way he walked and carried himself spoke thoroughly of 'good upbringing.' Him, on the other hand, bore the appearance of nothing more than a delinquent. "What were you doing in there?"

Vanilla promptly sighed. "Well..." he gave his recruitment posters a glimpse. "I've been giving these out all day, I guess. Then I chanced upon your store which would have been really useful since it's really just a guest drummer that we need, since no one at our school has been keen on that position after a two-month search. I'm conducting, so... it's been on me to fill that spot for the longest time."

"Drummer?" Leroy mused, reaching over to slip a poster out of the student's arms. "Anyone can join?"

"Yes to both questions. If your former one was a question," Vanilla clarified. "We have an empty drum kit to fill and this composer's pieces we're playing is highly modern with a heavy emphasis on riffs. Could you, um, perhaps, take a picture of this and send it to any customers you happen to keep in contact with? If you have anyone in mind, that is."

His laughs were the kind that were an almost. The kind that lingered on his lips like a smirk and easily disarmed. "I don't know," he teased, unzipping the side of his rucksack and slipping out his very own pair of sticks before beginning to spin one of them. He did this all without looking—keeping his eyes fixed on the person he was talking to. "Me?"

Now, Vanilla was admittedly very distracted by the spinning drumstick in Leroy's left hand but attempted to hold his companion's gaze without being too fazed. "Alright. Are you good?"

He was direct; clear as ice, and the drummer found himself unconsciously drawn. He liked it.

"Try-outs?"

"They're called auditions, um, Mr. Cox."

"It's Leroy," he corrected, privately amused. "When?"

"Oh. Oh alright, if you could join us at three in the afternoon, perhaps? I could confirm the details with you by tonight and send you an address."

"So I get your number?"

At this, Vanilla blinked twice. "Yes," he pointed at the small font situated near the bottom right. "It's on the poster. For general use."

"Disappointing," his companion teased, then gave the sheet of glossy paper a closer read. "It's paid?"

"Yes of course. I'd proposed this to the club advisor, who'd consulted the school and came back with a generous number. Oh—provided you're worth that price, naturally," the conductor quipped, forward as usual.

The still candle burned a little brighter, an intense heat burning down the wax that was red and hot and dripping. "I like your honesty."

"Here are the scores," Vanilla produced copies from his briefcase and soon, the subway station was in sight. "Would you mind an immediate evaluation in combined practice? Everyone will be there."

Leroy did not comment, merely nodded once as though it was an instruction. He'd noticed the name of the conductor written on the poster: V. J. White. This did not match the name that his companion had introduced himself with and he pointed this out, drawing Vanilla's gaze to the printed letters.

"What's V stand for?"

The bespectacled bean blushed. His creator was fond of alliteration. "W-well, um... you're unexpectedly observant."

"Julian's your middle name," he pried further, fixing his gaze, a heated flame, on the anxious ice-cream. His creator was also fond of alluding her characters to inanimate objects. "What's your first?"

=================

The front door of the rehearsal room opened at the stroke of three, just as the student conductor had raised his baton and the tensed bubble of silence and utmost attention popped at the sound, turning heads towards the entrance.

There stood Leroy Cox, dressed in the same bomber jacket but now paired with a pair of jeans and a shirt with sleeves that went came up to his elbow, eyes going at once to the bespectacled bean up front. His drumsticks in hand said it all and Chip, seated by the door, welcomed the guest at once, escorting him to the drum kit all set up right down the middle, all the way at the back.

"Good timing," said Vanilla from across the room as curious, prying gazes followed the drummer to his position. "We were just about to start. 'Battle,' then, on my cue, your riff."

"Finally, no more counting for rests," whispered oboe-player Pipa to her flautist friend. Most of the orchestra seemed to think the same.

Leroy had crossed the room in seconds and took his place behind the drum kit, sticks in hand as he shrugged off the bomber jacket and dropped it over his rucksack. He sat, spinning the stick in his left after giving the set a scan. In his other hand were the music scores handed to him yesterday; looking quite as though they'd gone through the rain, down the drain, and back up in the sun before the horrors of a rucksack without a folder. He placed them on the stand.

"Would you like a couple of minutes to warm up?" The conductor was offering, oddly conscious of the fact that the empty chair right down the middle of his line of sight was now lit with a candle. As informed, he would be assessed by playing once through with the orchestra.

Leroy tested each pedal for the hi-hat and bass drum beater twice, finding his control. He then, very casually, looked up and straight at his conductor—spinning the stick on his left. "Ready."

The entire room was as curious and as speechless as Vanilla himself, who'd never witnessed the sheer confidence of any player to decline warm up before an audition. After all, it was a paid role he was going for, and an important one at that. Still harbouring his doubts, the conductor nodded and returned his attention to the orchestra, raising his baton for the cue.

"From the top."

And it was at this moment, this timely, fleeting moment of frightful exhilaration and tension, that Vanilla Julian White began to realize how bad of an idea this was; choosing such a piece to open with, one with began with a drum riff—and that the drummer was the first person he'd have to look at for the cue.

It wasn't so much him looking at Leroy that was the problem (or maybe, it was), but the fact that he knew the latter's heated gaze would be there meeting his own that made the creature in his cage shiver. Then it was the upbeat.

He'd given it without quite knowing if Leroy, a drummer that he knew not of his background or if he could even understand the cues of every other orchestra leader but the deed was done and the beat at which the riff began was like a tiny flame setting an entire house on fire.

As the conductor of the orchestra, Vanilla could feel it coming together and the rising, burning heat went on to drive the rest of the room into becoming something of an entirely different mechanism. With and without him—how much of a difference could it have made? Well, his answer was here.

Too much of one, thought the lead halfway through their opening piece after the violin solo and noting the consistency, cleanliness, and accuracy of the drummer's beats and how this translated into a scaffolding that supported the rest of the orchestra. It was reassurance, what it was. Leroy provided a sound to the conducting that was able to root the given tempo in everyone else's heads. Rushing was a common mistake in fast pieces like this one, and having a drummer to keep them in check had never crossed their mind as so useful and important.

Was it normal for a conductor to be more conscious of a stare than usual? Vanilla found himself thinking about the normality of eye-contact and how this very human being (if one) might as well be taking this to an entirely new level. It was contact indeed. The conductor had often struggled to communicate the importance of looking up at him for cues, away from the temptation of staring down at a musical score but for some reason, the thought of telling Leroy to do the opposite honestly crossed his mind.

Not once did he look at his score. Not once.

His entire being exuded a form of effortless musicality; casual, and so uncanny in his familiarity with every beat and his sticks and the pedals under his feet that this all felt very much to him like breathing. By the end of the first piece, Vanilla was dizzy. He called for a fifteen-minute water break, which left about half the seats in the room empty.

Uncharacteristic, the conductor completely did away with all formalities and, forgetting to ask if he could 'have a minute' with the drummer, simply went up to him at the back of the room despite the multiple stares he'd received and went off.

"Frankly speaking, I wasn't expecting you to be this good."

Leroy, seated, found himself thoroughly amused. He said nothing—only held the other's gaze.

"Well I've come to realize that you are. And that we will be paying you the stipulated sum. Also, I was wondering if you'd like to join the school under a scholarship. That way, you don't have to be worrying about the fees and get a monthly allowance at the same time that would cover your costs. The orchestra would benefit from having you long term."

And then the guest was fire.

He stood, levelling their eyes. Strictly speaking, not quite the phrase since he was a couple of inches taller than Vanilla. "Anything... else?"

The bespectacled bean blinked twice. "Um. Well... no, not really. Oh—perhaps hold back on the showmanship. I understand you might be perfectly capable of stick tricks in the middle of some extremely complicated riff but we're unfortunately not performing as a rock band, so." This was the moment he caught the drummer spinning the stick in his left hand. "Yes, precisely. It is distracting."

"But you like it." Altogether, Leroy was full-on smirking by this point and naturally, poor Vanilla was a vocabulary mess upon these words.

"I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure I said it was distracting."

The pair might as well have been under a mistletoe; Leroy was inching closer and the remaining half of the orchestra that had stayed to practice was beginning to either regret their decision (Vaughn Alekseyev) or convert to Cuppie-ism (Nguyen and her new friend, Shri).

"Your eyes," laughed the drummer. Low. "They don't say that." 

You have no idea how much effort I put into this

TBC...?