Sea Songs - Ralph Vaughan Williams

 

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Today is Saturday. It’s a lovely day for sleeping, and that’s just what Mina is planning to do.

 

Planning.

 

“Mina! Mina? Miiiiiiiinaaaaa??? MINA?? MIIINAAAAAAA!!!! EXCUSE ME?? IS ANYONE HOME??”

 

Oh my Lord.

 

Mina tries her best to cover the screams coming from outside her house with her pillow but it’s useless. The screaming prevails (she has an inkling she knows who it is; there’s only one person she knows who is loud and audacious enough to disrupt an entire neighborhood at seven on a Saturday morning,) yet she can’t find it in herself to actually leave the comfort of her bed to open the door. So she does what any U.S born-and-raised teenager would do: go back to sleep. 

 

Her peace is short-lived.

 

The screaming miraculously stops and Mina somehow manages to doze off again, but then she hears footsteps running across her lawn to the back of her house. There is more than one set and that should probably be her warning to get her out of bed before her house burns down.

 

She groans and throws the covers off her half-asleep form before shuffling downstairs to make herself some coffee. She stops short when she reaches the kitchen- her kitchen window is open and there is a foot gingerly sticking itself inside, trying to find a foothold.

 

She stares, unimpressed at the scenario, before heading off to make her coffee. There are hushed voices coming from her back porch, and the foot flails faster trying to find a solid platform. 

 

Mina pours herself a freshly-brewed cup of Nescafe coffee and sips at the froth on top contentedly. She opens the fridge and takes out a cup of yogurt, washing some blueberries and slicing a banana to go with her light breakfast. In the meantime, the foot in her window manages to land on one of her kitchen counters. There are some frantic flapping noises and hushed cheering, and Mina goes to her cabinet to get some oats to sprinkle over her yogurt. It’s a picturesque yogurt bowl so she takes a picture (this is definitely going on the gram later) and she tucks in, sipping at her coffee and scrolling through her Instagram feed (she’d reached 1k plus a couple days ago and she was always looking for new content to grace her followers’ feeds with). 

 

The foot makes it a little further inside and there’s real cheering this time. Soon Kim Dahyun’s head follows the foot and the younger girl scrambles her way in the window onto Mina’s kitchen counter. Mina looks up from her coffee.

 

“ASSA! Guys, I made it- eh?” Dahyun stops short, still crouched on the counter, eyes widening as she sees Mina sitting at her table calmly sipping frothed Nespresso. “S-Sunbaenim?? You were here the whole time?!”

 

Mina looks at her. “This is my house. I live here.” She explains calmly, spooning some more yogurt from the white porcelain bowl.

 

Dahyun actually seems a little flustered. “Oh my gosh! You're as cool as they say you are!”

 

Mina blinks. “Excuse me?” She asks, perplexed.

 

Dahyun is flailing her limbs a little now as she wriggles off the counter and effectively invades Mina’s open kitchen space. “Mina sunbae, I want to be just like you when I grow up!”

 

Mina is actually a little flustered herself at this point. “Do I- do I even know you?!”

 

“No, I don’t think so.” Dahyun replies with a shake of her head and a broad smile.

 

“Then why are you breaking into my house?! Who even invited you here?”

 

Dahyun perks up. “Oh! I forgot about the unnies!” She exclaims, rushing to the locked glass sliding door that leads to the deck. She hastily unlocks it and scurries out to the deck, leaning over the railings. “Guys! I made it! And guess what; she’s been awake this whole time!”

 

“What?! That’s impossible! Mina doesn’t wake up on weekends until three in the afternoon!” Mina hears a faint voice call back, and the remark makes her blood boil. She puts her spoon down and rushes out after Dahyun.

 

“YAH. That is false and untrue! I’m up now aren’t I?!” She seethes as she rains her glorious morning appearance down on the trespassers, complete with stylish penguin-print pajama pants and a loose grey t-shirt. The sun shines right behind her head and she’s practically glowing. Her friends have to squint to see her.

 

Jihyo, Jeongyeon, and Nayeon look back up at her from the grass.  “She looks like a hobo.” Nayeon snickers and they giggle silently to themselves for a few moments before Jeongyeon finally decides she’s hungry and needs to go inside. 

 

“Oh, Mina! Great timing, could you unlock that back door please?” Jeongyeon calls from her seated position, legs sprawled out in front of her in a very unladylike fashion.

 

Mina waves a hand at Dahyun telling her to go unlock the door. The younger girl complies and runs off, and Mina turns back to glare at her friends. “Why couldn’t you come in through the front door instead of sending Dahyun through the window?”

“We didn’t want to wake you up.” Nayeon replies like it’s the most normal thing on earth. “And Dahyun is the only one who fits through there- of course we had to send her.”

 

“She could be a contortionist.” Jeongyeon praises, eliciting a delighted beam from Dahyun.

 

Mina almost bursts a blood vessel. “You didn’t want to wake me up?! You were standing on my lawn literally screaming for me to open the door!” She howls back, slamming both hands down on the deck railing.

 

“Correction; Jihyo was screaming.” Jeongyeon yawns through her hand, leaping nimbly to her feet as Dahyun finally manages to open the door.

 

“And Nayeon! Yeah that’s right- I heard you.” Mina squints at the other girl before going to meet them in the kitchen, where Jeongyeon is already going through her fridge and Jihyo has finished the rest of the Nespresso. 

 

Nayeon shuts the door after them and helps herself to the leftover chicken wings from last night. “You weren’t coming to open the door.”

 

“You said you didn’t want to wake me up!”

 

“Anyway,” Jihyo smoothly interjects, effectively preventing World War III from happening in Mina’s kitchen at 7:30 am on a Saturday morning, “Mina, we’re planning on going fishing today. Make sure to put on sunscreen.”

 

The homeowner stops short, turning to look at Jihyo. “What?”

 

“I said we’re going fishing today, so don’t forget to put on sunscreen. Gosh woman, don’t you have ears?” Jihyo shoots back, throwing away the peel to her fifth banana of the morning.

 

Mina blinks. “Why are we going fishing?”

 

“Because Tzuyu likes to fish and she’s an amazing musician. So if we also go fishing, by default, we should also be amazing musicians. We have a concert coming up in the library in two weeks, have you forgotten Mina?” Nayeon says annoyedly, uncapping Mina’s half-gallon of chocolate soy milk and proceeding to chug directly from the container. She lets out an obnoxious ‘ah~’ and smacks her lips when she’s done, and Mina laments at the sight of the newly emptied container.

 

My grocery bills.

 

“Why do you assume Tzuyu’s good at music because she goes fishing? What if she just practices a lot?” 

 

They look genuinely stumped at this question. Mina waits patiently, looking at them expectantly.

 

“Well,” Nayeon begins. “She seems like she’s pretty smart.”

 

“She’s friends with Chaeyoung at least, so she must be a little smart by default, right?” Jeongyeon mumbles thoughtfully.

 

Dahyun nods. “Yeah. Chaeyoung’s super smart. She’s a good musician too.”

 

“Who?”

 

They blink at her. “Chaeyoung. That really small sophomore who plays oboe in band?” Nayeon asks, giving Mina the most condescending look.

 

“The only oboe player?” Jeongyeon adds pointedly. “You must know her.”

 

Ah. The word ‘oboe’ lights a bulb in Mina’s head and she internally snaps her fingers. Yes. The small, pretty oboe player who sits behind Sana in the lone oboe seat. She’s the only oboe player, a reborn flute player, and she’s quiet and kind of cute.

 

Jihyo had disappeared a bit back and she reappears now with a bottle of sunscreen, which she promptly slaps on Mina’s otherwise perfect face. Mina chokes on her own spit as she feels Jihyo forcefully rubbing the slimy white substance on her skin, and her hands flail for a solid surface to steady herself.

 

“Jihyo! There’s sunscreen in my eye!”

 

Dahyun perks at the sight of sunscreen and she trots over. “Ooo, can I get some? I burn really easily.” Jihyo forcefully holds Mina’s smothered face out to the underclassman who gingerly wipes some of the excess sunscreen off Mina’s cheek to rub on her arm. “Wow, I got sunscreen off the Myoui Mina sunbaenim’s face! All my friends are going to be so jealous!”

 

Mina would give her a weird look but there’s sunscreen in her eye, so she decides it’d be best to keep her eyes closed for the time being. After Jihyo’s forced sunscreening Mina is deemed adequately prepared for their fishing trip, so they pile into Jeongyeon’s gunmetal grey Jeep Wrangler Unlimited and head off to God-knows-where to fish.

 

“Say,” Mina comments/screams during the bumpy ride (Nayeon has taken over the wheel and it’s a little less than safe; she’s going at least fifty along the off-grid path with her teeth gritted and her foot firmly on the gas, the windows are down, the roof is off, heck the doors are even off, Jihyo is screaming a garish rendition of Justin Bieber’s ‘Sorry’, Dahyun is playing the tambourine, and Jeongyeon is snapchatting the whole thing) “Why are you even here?”

 

Dahyun stops her tambourine swinging long enough to answer the question. “Well I wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to break into the Myoui Mina’s house. And I know Momo unnie who knows Jeongyeon unnie- Momo unnie always plays near me in band class.”

 

Mina squints at her. This is what happens when I don’t bring sunglasses, she laments to herself. The sun sure is strong today. “Call me Mina unnie. And I didn’t know you were friends with Momo.”

 

Dahyun shrugs. “Well now you do.” She replies, and her attention on Mina is lost as the next song comes on (it’s Firework by Katy Perry) and Jihyo takes this opportunity to belt out all the high notes at her full capacity, Nayeon chanting as she drives as encouragement. 

 

Why didn’t she join chorus instead?

 

After forty-five minutes of hellish and almost certainly illegal driving, they somehow make it to a very serene and beautiful lake where there are canoes and kayaks for rent and an old man selling bait to visiting fishers. 

 

They rent three boats; two canoes and one one-seater kayak for Mina (there were no more canoes and she was the only one they were sure was fully capable of going out alone and returning in one piece.) Nayeon and Jihyo share a canoe and Jeongyeon and Dahyun take the other. Mina is thrown a fishing rod, some bait, a small pail, and a pineapple-print bucket hat for good measure. (“It’s sunny today Mina, don’t forget to cover your face.” Jihyo says as she ungracefully slaps Mina in the face with the white hat. Mina splutters a little but says nothing; arguing is futile. She looks down at the pineapples floating about on the hat and accepts her fate.)

 

It’s a rough start, but after some arguing and yelling and a lot of squealing, the NaJi and JeongDa canoes manage to get a ways into the water and Mina is on her own. She apologizes to the boat rental ahjussi on behalf of her friends (he and his wife are instantly charmed) and pushes out smoothly on her yellow rental kayak, paddles dipping in the glistening water to propel her forward. She manages to get out to the middle of the lake where there are a couple other visiting fishers scattered about and settles herself down, strapping the paddle safely to the boat and casting her line into the sparkling water. It’s sunny and it’s a beautiful day (good thing too. If it had been raining and she was dragged fishing, she would’ve flayed them all alive), so she pulls her pineapple-print bucket hat a little further over her eyes and relaxes into the leisure time (NaJi and JeongDa look like little dots in their canoes but she can hear their squabbling from here). A fellow fisher glides smoothly past her and sends a smile. Mina smiles back as the person courteously avoids her line and continues on his way back to the docks.

 

Mina kicks her feet up on the small pail to relax with her fishing pole clasped between her hands and thighs and she thinks back to her trip to the music store last night.

 

It’s usually pretty quiet there; most people just go up front to ask about their products, or people go in wanting to buy an instrument in which case more specific assistance would be required. But for reed shopping or sheet music shopping, you’d be on your own unless you asked someone up front for a specific brand or title.

 

Mina is the type that likes to take her time and browse through these kinds of things carefully. She’s been a musician since she was four; her parents had actually started her on piano and ballet, a combination that led her to almost inevitably develop her penchant for classical music, and when she was in fourth grade she was given the opportunity to choose another instrument to learn. She remembers that there was a display of sorts where the older students would bring in their instruments, play for the younger kids, and the rising fourth-graders would choose three of the instruments that most appealed to them. They would then be assigned accordingly by the music teachers, depending on the numbers and concentration of interest. Mina remembers that she had immediately been attracted to the saxophone. It was a unique shape, and the older student who played it had this amazing, jazzy tone that is ingrained in Mina’s mind to this day. Sure there were trumpets that were loud and bright and flutes that were elegant and sleek, but there was something about that curve, that gleam of the saxophone that had inevitably drawn Mina closer and closer until she had almost begged her parents to buy her one. They had obliged and young Mina got her wish, but soon her mother had to transfer jobs and she was sent from the States off to South Korea where she would spend the rest of her schooling time.

 

Anyway.

 

As Mina is someone who has been with music from a young age, her ears rarely fail her. Tone, timbre, and all those other fun things are very important things to Mina, and she knows how important reeds are when trying to create the perfect blend of round and smooth. This is why she shops for her own reeds; this particular music store does not have a saxophone specialist, just someone who is able to fix saxophones when parts go missing. Mina takes it upon herself to try all different reeds and to experiment, striving to find that golden last 15% to her setup that would make her playing complete.

 

She was definitely surprised when she encountered Tzuyu in the store last night, but only in the ‘I didn’t see you there’ kind of way. Tzuyu is every bit as nitpicky as herself when it comes to tone and playing feel, especially as a reed instrument player, so Mina really isn’t so shocked to discover Tzuyu shopping for her own reeds as well. She’s mildly impressed when Tzuyu takes her advice about the Légère reeds though, because those are kind of high-up and no one around here really plays those- but to be fair, no one around here plays their reed instruments as much as Mina or Tzuyu do.

 

Her line floats about in the water and she vaguely wonders if fishing is really part of Tzuyu’s secret to being a better musician. She hasn’t actually heard Tzuyu play alone though; the few times she’s passed the girl practicing alone in the band room, she always conveniently seems to make a mistake which results in a loud SQUEEEAAAK and a binder unceremoniously thrown at her head by angry bypassers.

 

She chuckles briefly at the thought. It isn’t that she dislikes Tzuyu- quite the opposite, actually. Something about Tzuyu’s personality resonates with her. Tzuyu could easily pass as her little sister when she thinks about it, with their unconcerned and blunt personalities and love for music. Momo has even commented at one point that they kind of have the same ‘auras’ (whatever that means) so Mina thinks that’s probably a sign that they’re somewhat similar.

 

The fishers around her are all looking to the right in a shocked manner, so Mina looks too to see what all the fuss is about. She groans when she realizes what’s going on; Nayeon and Jihyo have capsized and GodJihyo is thoroughly displeased, flailing about mightily in the water while letting out some of the loudest shouts Mina’s ever heard from the girl. Nayeon is no better, flailing and making a scene as well with an equally shrill voice. Jeongyeon and Dahyun are trying to keep them afloat by having them cling to Dahyun’s paddle while Jeongyeon tries to haul them aboard. They’re on the verge of capsizing as well.

 

Mina pulls her pineapple-print bucket hat lower over her eyes and prays no one makes the link between her relationship with them. She’s suddenly thankful that there were only single-seat kayaks left.

 

---

 

Sometimes Sana feels her life is just a series of misunderstandings.

 

She isn’t stupid- well, in some aspects. She’s on the higher end of the social pyramid, but that doesn’t really mean much to her. She wouldn’t ever bully someone like Chaeyoung just because Chaeyoung is smart, quieter than most, and wears glasses. She wouldn’t ever bully anyone. It just isn’t in her nature.

 

Chaeyoung, bless her heart, must’ve caught on to this fact since she’s sitting across Sana in a coffee shop nursing a cup of Caffè Latte between her hands, listening to the older girl vent her frustrations about her first-chair.

 

“… and I’ve known this entire time that he doesn’t like me, but don’t you think this is too much? I mean come on, even professional musicians aren't this petty, it’s just a chair for crying out loud!”

 

“So would you be willing to give it up, since it’s ‘just a chair’?” Chaeyoung quotes placidly, gazing at Sana through her lenses.

 

Sana shoots her a withering glare. “NO. Absolutely not! My love life is on the line here, don’t you understand??” She practically barks, shaking both Chaeyoung’s caffè latte and her caramel frappuccino.

 

Chaeyoung blinks. “What love life?”

 

Sana sighs dramatically. “I need to have that duet with-“

 

Wait.

 

Sana almost slaps herself. Oh dear. How could she forget that sitting across her is Tzuyu’s best friend, the one who probably wouldn’t even hesitate to tell Tzuyu anything Sana tells her now? Sana slumps down in her seat, visibly deflated.

 

How careless.

 

Chaeyoung is still waiting expectantly and Sana shoots her an awkward smile in a last-ditch attempt to cover her tracks. “Uhhh- with Momo!”

 

What.

 

Chaeyoung raises a brow. “Momo?”

 

Why.

 

Sana feels like a complete idiot but she forges on. “Yeah- Momo said she's really impressed with my flute playing, you see, and I have to keep my chair if I want to maintain my good image!” She chuckles awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck.

 

I wouldn’t date Momo if she were the last lesbian on earth.

 

Well that’s a little far-fetched- Momo is pretty cute, and she has this amazing set of abs (Sana’s seen them plenty in the locker room) and she has a really pretty smile, but Momo doesn’t seem very interested in flute-playing and she probably doesn’t even know who Sana is (they’ve never really crossed paths) so she’s more or less out of the picture at this point. Luckily or unluckily, Tzuyu isn’t. They face each other every time they have a full band class- Tzuyu must know who she is, or recognize her at the very least.

 

Chaeyoung seems to accept her rat’s explanation though, to Sana’s immense relief, and she looks out the window thoughtfully. “Well you have to play at the audition too right? Have you picked a song yet?”

 

Sana opens and shuts it. “Ahh… no.” She finishes lamely, casting an innocent aegyo-filled look to a less-than-impressed Chaeyoung.

 

Chaeyoung frowns at her. “Unnie, you should’ve started practicing the day you knew there would be this kind of event going on! That jerk probably already has two days under his belt if not more, since he’s anticipated this whole thing from the start. Do you  have anything in mind?”

 

Sana is losing steam quickly now. She shakes her head and looks at her junior pleadingly.

 

“Help me.”

 

Chaeyoung leans forward and rests her chin on her fist. “Hm. Well, if you really want to shut this topic down for once and for all, you need to play something really out there. Something no one in this school has ever played. At a level no one in this school’s ever seen from a high school flute player.” She says ponderously.

 

Sana looks up. “Like what?”

 

Chaeyoung thinks for a moment more. Sana watches her hopefully. Chaeyoung sips her coffee and finally looks up with a weighed stare and a glint in her eyes.

 

“Sana unnie, how badly do you want to keep your chair?”

 

The older girl looks up. “Do you have a plan?” She asks, hope shining in her eyes as she lunges across the small table to clasp Chaeyoung’s small hands between her own small hands.

 

Chaeyoung looks back at her gravely. “Do you trust me, unnie?” She asks solemnly.

 

Sana nods with all her best, baby hairs falling free from her ponytail and into her eyes.

 

“I have a plan. But you’re going to have to stick with me.”

 

Sana nods again fervently. “I can stick with you!”

 

Chaeyoung smiles devilishly. Sana sees the glint in her eyes and while she's feeling a little apprehensive, she knows she’s found the right person.

 

“Then let’s get to work.”