~| Jealousy or Just a Mere Envy? Last Carnival |~

 

It had been weeks since I had my debut as part of Crescendo House and I had become familiar with Crescendo House’s way of creating music. I didn’t get surprised anymore when they suddenly threw some random songs to work for at me. I just played along. Besides, I knew that I was working in a team and they would always be there to help me whenever I was stuck.

 

I also found out that every Crescendo House members was actually closed to each other. They were friends in actually life. The older members were also willingly to help the younger members in their study. By then, I had two mentors to help with my study; Lay and Junhyung. While the others…

 

Sayaka was a great partner for practicing classic music. She had some experiences of performing with orchestra as one of the top pianists on our School. Somehow I always found myself asking her as my companion for practicing the orchestra’s songs. IU and Minhyuk were fun friends to hang out with. They had these friendly and bubbly nature that made people coming to them easily. Even they could hang out with my friends and my friends could accept them easily.

 

As for Seoyul… Surely, I couldn’t ask her advice for my study because she wasn’t a music major student. But I often discussed music with her. She really had a lot of brilliant ideas in music. Sometimes, I found myself in awe with her whenever we were talking about music. The more I spent time with her, the more I admired her. Seriously, I really enjoyed the time that I had spent with her and every Crescendo House members.

 

So although my life was juggling between home, my study, the school Orchestra and Crescendo House, I didn’t felt bad after all. It really felt like my life had been doing great lately.

 

But, what a life without obstacles.

 

As I became widely known as one of Crescendo House’s members, there were some people who jealous of me. To be more specific, those people were the School Orchestra members who had failed to get a position in Crescendo House. By then, I knew that Seoyul wasn’t joking around when she said that she had tested every violinist in the School before me.

 

One day when I was late for Orchestra’s practice session because my study counselling session took longer than I had expected, I noticed that there were some cynical eyes looking at me while I walked to my designed seat. And when I prepared my violin, I heard someone from the first violin section whispering that I was late because of Crescendo House and that I was still there when I got accepted by Crescendo House.

 

On that moment, I was wise enough to ignore them all. But as the time went by, those cynical gazes and sarcastic comments were multiplying. Even our School Conductor really believed that I would leave my position as one of the Orchestra violinist because of Crescendo House. Lucky for me, Taylor, our concertmistress, stood out for me and shut them all when I came.

 

How did I know all of it? It was because of Taylor; she told me.

 

Honestly, I was trying to ignore them all and kept on doing my activities with the Orchestra as usual. But somehow, it made me a little bit reluctant to stay longer within the Orchestra other than for the practice session. So I started to distance myself from the Orchestra Members and limited myself to interact with them.

 

That day, I was practicing on one of the practice room at school. Actually, I got a solo part for a violin, cello and piano performance on our School Concert next month. It was an honor for me; I thought Taylor would get the part in the first place. I remembered that I felt very proud when our conductor appointed me as the violinist for the performance. But now with everything that had happened lately, I really felt reluctant to practice with the other performers; I wasn’t even sure if the cellist and the pianist would want to practice with me outside our Orchestra practice session. So I practiced alone.

 

As I practicing, the thoughts about what had happened lately came into my mind. I really didn’t know why my position at Crescendo House made me an outcast in the School Orchestra. That moment, no one had actually told me why they acted like that.

 

Seriously, the thought of quitting either one of them had come across my mind. But I didn’t know which one that I had to choose. I liked being in our School Orchestra; it was my dream to be a part of an Orchestra. And I also liked to be a part of Crescendo House; they were talented people and they were my friends. So I couldn’t choose.

 

I stopped when I realized that I had made a mistake by playing the wrong bar. Tsk… this was what I got when I couldn’t concentrate. I lowered my violin and looked at the music sheet. On that moment, I heard the door opening. I raised my gaze and saw Seoyul entering the room.

 

“Hello,” she greeted with a smile on her face. But somehow, I felt as if a burden was lifted inside. I smiled in return. “Hi.” “I’m not bothering, am I?” I just shook my head. “No, you’re not. Just get in.” She seemed to be happy as she lightly chuckled and closed the door before approaching me.

 

“Are you practicing?” she asked while standing on my side. I nodded but I guessed she didn’t see it because she was looking at my music sheet. “Ooo… Acoustic Café’s Last Carnival.” She read the title while taking the music sheet from the stand.

 

“Do you know the song?”

 

She nodded. “I’ve heard it once.” She looked at me. “Is this for your performance?”

 

“Yes. I will have a solo performance for this song.” Her smile became wider as if she was proud with my achievement. But I wondered why a broadcast student like her was here at the Music Department. So I asked her, “By the way, why are you here?”

 

She put my music sheet back to the stand. “I have some matters to take care of here for some events. And when I wanted to leave, I happened to see you.” I only smiled to hear it. But seriously, her presence made me feeling a little bit better.

 

“Say, Daniel.”

 

Her voice broke through my thought.

 

“How long have you been playing violin?”

 

“Since I was 7,” I replied.

 

A slight smile came to her face before she stretched out her hand on me. “Can I see your left hand?”

 

I was actually confused by her request. But still, I stretched it out for her. She took my hand. It surprised me but I was unable to say anything when I saw her serious look.

 

“Wow, your fingers are long,” she said in awe then looked at it carefully.

 

Seriously, it amused me to see that she studied my hand as if it was an interesting object for her. But I took the moment to look at her carefully.

 

She might not be the most beautiful girl in the campus, but I found her beauty natural and she was kinda good looking too. Her hair was soft with sweet fragrance of her shampoo. It really tempted me to touch her hair and to caress it. Her body was lean and her clothes fit well enough. She really knew how to make herself attractive. In my wild imagination, I might round my arm on her waist, pulling her closer and pressing those loving lips of her with mine.

 

Okay, scratch that. It was just my imagination. I was still a guy after all.

 

Her hum brought me back to my sense. “You surely play a lot,” she said then touched the tip of my fingers. Weird. I swore I felt something stirring inside of my stomach. And I somehow found my throat drier than usual. I gulped. “Ye-yeah.”

 

She then raised her gaze to me and, to my relief (or probably to my disappointment), released my hand. “How long do you practice every day?” I tried to remember then shrugged. “Around four to five hours.”

 

I could see her gasping in surprise. “Seriously?” I just nodded. “Actually, I wasn’t practice much when I was younger. And I almost failed when I took IAA’s entrance test. So I want to redeem the lost time.”

 

She turned her gaze elsewhere then purged her lips and crossed her arms on her chest while tilting her head slightly. “I’m not sure if I can spend four hours of practicing every day.”

 

A corner of my lips tugged up when I heard the words. “What? Are you thinking to take a lesson for instruments?”

 

Her face quickly whipped back at me; her clear eyes were glaring at me in disbelieve. “Are you kidding me? I’ve tried playing piano and guitar before yet I failed—“

 

“How about violin?” I cut her words.

 

Her gaze dropped to the violin in my hands.

 

“Well, you have never tried it, right?” She still looked unsure. “Oh, come on. You won’t know unless you try. Here.” I took her hand and handed her my violin.

 

She only looked at it before she gave up and asked for the bow. I gave the bow to her and stepped back to see her posture when she held a violin. I was taken by surprise.

 

On a quick glance, I almost thought that she ever took a violin lesson once. For someone who always said that she never played violin before, the way of her standing, putting the violin on her shoulder and her hand holding the bow was almost right.

 

I stepped forward. “Here,” I said. “You’re holding the bow wrong.” Without thinking, I took her right hand. “You should place the fingers like this.” I was correcting her fingers. But then, I realized that her grip seemed weird afterward.

 

“It feels weird.”

 

I smiled and looked at her. “Just place your fingers comfortably. But you must remember that your thumb, middle finger and ring finger are supposed to hold the bow while your pinky finger is for balancing the bow.”

 

“And my index finger?”

 

“It’s for controlling your bow pressure.”

 

She was frowning, looking confuse.

 

“Well, it relates with the bowing techniques. If you learn violin more, you will understand.”

 

“Ah…” She looked understand. “But I don’t think I will learn that far.” Her gaze went back to the violin and she lifted the bow; fingers were back in her comfortable way of holding the bow. Then she tried to bow.

 

It surprised me to hear a clean sound instead a squeaky one. Although I must admit that her sound was lighter than mine; perhaps it was because she swiped the bow lightly and didn’t put any pressure on the bow.

 

I quickly corrected her again. I put my hand on her, engulfing her right hand on mine. That moment, I realized that her hand was actually smaller than mine. “You suppose to bow like this.” I put a little pressure on the bow to the string and pulled her hand downward.

 

She grinned to hear the heavier and squeaky sound. “Oh my, am I suppose to press that hard?” she asked in concerned look. “I’m afraid that something will snap.”

 

It made me chuckled. “Don’t worry. The bow and the strings will be fine. But yeah, you need to put a little pressure on it.”

 

She lowered the violin and shoved it back to me along with the bow. “I think it’s better if you’re the one who play.”

 

I took the violin while chuckling, feeling amused by her behavior. But seriously, if Seoyul told me that she ever took a violin lesson long ago, I might believe in her. So it made me thinking that she might be a natural violinist. And for her first try, I could say that I felt satisfied.

 

“Say.” Her voice brought me back to look at her. “This song.” She pointed at the music sheet at the song. “Can you play it for me?” “Sure.” I lifted my bow, ready to play the song.

 

“But play it alone.”

 

The last request made me stop. I looked back at her. “Do you mean solo violin?”

 

She nodded.

 

“But do you know that this song is meant for violin, cello and piano?”

 

She nodded again. “I’m aware. I’ve told you that I’ve heard the song before, right?” She ended her sentence with a smile and I found myself unable to refuse her request, again.

 

I looked back at the music sheet and heaved before taking my phone. “Actually, I can’t really play it without piano companion,” I told her while swiping my phone’s screen, trying to find a file on my phone. I found it and put the phone on the music stand. “So I recorded the piano part for practicing.”

 

“Why don’t you practicing with the others?”

 

Her voice seemed confuse. But I only took a quick glance at her, thinking that she wasn’t supposed to know about my problem within the school orchestra. It was my problem and my problem alone. I didn't want to burden any Crescendo House's members with it, especially Seoyul. I turned to the music stand and touched the play button on my phone. The piano sound started to play. I raised my bow and played.

 

Yes, Seoyul doesn’t need to know about it.

 

 

~ooOOOoo~

 

Author(s) Note:

Thank you for reading this story and I really hope you enjoy it until the very last. I'm very sorry for any grammar mistakes.
Any suggestion and questions are very welcomed. Feel free to ask me from the comment box or via my Twitter @AFFalize_sakura ! :3