two

One two three, one two three, one two three. School goes by like an even tempoed waltz and I find that my façade is easy to keep up with. It’s only the 2^nd day but I there isn’t much time for socializing outside of classes. Between rehearsals and individual practice there seems to be a tacit understanding if you skip out in order to practice so I assume I’ll be easily forgotten.

But there is still the matter of that kid; Huang “Call me Tao” Zitao, seems bent on earning my friendship. Outside of the classroom I see him associating in the halls with the other foreign students. I don’t understand anything they say nor do I care to know but as I pass by on my way to the practice room I feel a pair of eyes follow me down the hall.

It’s unsettling even when I know what he wants – something as simple as friendship – because I can’t figure out why he would want it from me. I am not the right candidate and I know that if he were to try the other students here would accept him. They all seem all too happy to be here despite the competitive nature of our fields.

There is no room for friendship in music. There is no room for anything frivolous.

As soon as the door of the practice room shuts behind me I feel free from Tao's oppressive stare but not at all alone. I have never felt alone since the moment I entered this school. It’s as if the airs, the walls, the very building and everything in it were alive. I can feel rather than hear the beating of this living creature's heart, like some silent counting metronome.

It scares me.

I suppose you could call me superstitious. I was raised around some semblance of religion and have a vague belief in God and spirits. However, the first thing to pop into my mind isn’t a ghost. I haven’t overheard anything about any hauntings within the building but I can’t ever shake the feeling of there being something here.

Besidess, it’s not the first time I’m plagued by disturbed thoughts.

I have made out passion to be semi-sentient. It seems to possess human hosts like a demon. I’ve seen it countless times in the eyes of others. Their eyes go wild and wide, their thinking muddled and singular, they can’t see forward or backwards but only fixate on their goal.

Mother is like that. Uncle too. My family is possessed by passion for music and this demon wants to take me to but I’m too aware to be swept away in its claws.

In these halls it’s no ghost that roams. It’s that madness amplified a hundred fold: Passion. It burns dimly in the eyes of every students here but different from anywhere else I’ve ever been it lives here. This school is its home. This school is a shrine, a temple if you will allow me to put it that way towards that horrible wraith.

I push myself away from the door and walk briskly to the music stand. I ignore the way the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The room suddenly becomes so cold and I ignore the way the pace of my heart quickens.

I must ignore it..

It’s merely a product of my mind and my hatred.

Passion is a demon of my own creation. I have given this hated emotion a personification.

There is no ghost or demon and I’m alone in this room. The coldness I feel and the breathing of the walls are all in my head.

Oh! But how my fingers do shake. My mind is trying to be rational but my body reacts so acutely to these imagined stressors: The walls seem to be heaving and my vision swims before me forming ripples in the black of the music stand.

“You don’t exist…” I say into the empty room.

The room is built for sound and the way my voice resonates through the room makes it feel all the more hallowed.

But it’s true. The demon doesn’t exist. This is all just a series of reactions I’m sure of it. It’s my hatred intensifying at an unanticipated rate. It makes sense. I hate everything this building stands for, I hate the hope and dreams I see reflected in my classmates hearts. I hate the fact that they see me as one of them. I hate the fact I don’t know how to tear myself away and just say “NO!”

I bring my hands up to my mouth, shocked that I had screamed the word out loud.

“Oh..” the room whispers back to me. “Oh”

I press my fingers against my mouth harder, my legs frozen and eyes wide. The room it had spoken to me. That wasn’t my voice and yet.

In my peripheral I see a shadow and I turn so fast my violin case knocks the music stand to the floor with a crash. My feet catch against the chair and I fall backward as well.

“Who.. who’s there?” I ask into the nothingness and curse my own stupidity. Of course nothing is there. I see with my own eyes nothing is there.

And yet I wait, sitting half on the music stand, for the answer.

The room is too quiet, the breathing seems to have stopped. There is no silent metronome keeping time and it feels oddly lonely. I don’t know what to do but I feel like I can’t get back up. I don’t know why but I feel like there is something important happening and if I move even a bit the moment will be broken.

The shelf of the stand digs into my rear but I have to just bear it. Seconds tick by and soon the walls seem to exhale. I close my eyes as the cold returns and the hairs on my arms raise alongside goosebumps.

“Oh…!” It’s breathy and like an echo and my eyes shoot open. “Sehun.”

My hands fly to my face again and my stomach churns violently.

“Oh Sehun. Oh Sehun.”

I can’t stand up quickly enough. My mouth begins to water and my eyes clinch shut from the strain of keeping the bile back. I trip my way over to the doorway and wrench it open just as that foul acid forces its way up and out.

The hallway fills with the scent of my half-digested stomach contents as I heave all over the floor. I fall to my knees, eyes completely shut as tears pour down.

It said my name. That demon said my name.

My stomach and throat clench again and more forces its way up.

The cold is gone and the entity is gone as if spooked into retreat. But why? What reason would it have to retreat? It wants to consume me. The school wants to consume me.

I wretch again but nothing comes out. It’s so painful that I almost fall forward into my own mess but a large hand reaches out and pulls me back.

“Are you ok?” came the accented Korean, but it’s not Tao. I can already tell it isn’t the warm violist but I can’t force myself to look up to see who it could be.

“Come on, let’s get you to the nurse,” he says and he pulls me to my feet with just a bit of trouble.

My body is so limp it wants to meld into the floor but he manages to pull me along.

What is happening to me? Have I finally lost my mind? Has God forsaken my wish for my soul to die and instead seeks to drive me to madness in retribution? The music does not see fit to just consume me. Me… ME!

I gasp out of my daze and pull away from the stranger.

“What are you—“ he protests but I interrupt him.

“My violin!”

My body feels like it’s torn in two and I know it’s because of my violin. I need my violin. Without my violin I’m not me and I have to go back. But the thought of being back to that thing—the reminder of it scares me and I don’t wantto go back but my soul is left behind with that thing and—

“I’ll go back and get it,” the stranger says and he disappears back the way we came.

I can do nothing but watch. My own legs don’t want to hold my weight but I manage to stay up by leanging against the wall. I’m only happy that although I am touching it this way I cannot feel it breathing.

“Sehun!”

I tense but the voice is not the same. It’s decidedly human and I turn around to see Tao jogging towards me, designer viola bouncing on his shoulder.

“Are you OK? You look like a ghost!” Tao said stopping near me. He then makes a face. “And you smell like sick.”

“I—“

“Zitao!”

Before I can answer the stranger is back with my violin case on his shoulder.

“Is this your friend?” the stranger asks.

Tao nods and replied in Chinese.

The older stranger replied, “Well, he’s sick. We need to take him to the nurses office.”

I want to refuse and tell them I’m OK. I want to just run down the hall and get away. But I also don’t want to be alone. The tall stranger loops his arm around my waist and pulls me away from the wall and I find I loop my arm around his back in response. I suppose it’s OK for me to stay like this for a little while.

Is it weakness to not want to be alone? I’m afraid to lose myself. I’m afraid that the life I’ve always envisioned I can be OK with isn’t going to fall neatly into order. I’m afraid of what this school is going to do to me. I’m afraid of my manufactured demon. Passion, have you finally come to life? Have you come to finally claim me for your own?

They're not questions I’m ready to have answered.

--- to be continued---

AN: thanks for the comments and the subscription! All are appreciated. I have a new banner. Credit is on the forward page^^ Please sub and comment!