Chapter Text
Takumi Sumino, coffee in hand, ambled out of his car eight minutes before first period. He lazily turned around to check his parking job: not great - his car sat at an awkward angle in between two parking spots- but Takumi was not in the mood to redo it. Unable to keep his eyes open, the boy tested out walking with his eyes closed before cursing the overwhelming amount of potholes in the parking lot and reluctantly trying to wake himself up. Takumi brought his coffee to his mouth only to immediately spit it out- why did it taste like spoiled milk? Continuing to trudge towards the school, Takumi pulled up his hood, eyed his surroundings, and proceeded slowly. Hopefully no one witnessed his milk debacle.
“Hello Takumi! Do you know how disgusting that was?”
With an exasperated groan, Takumi glanced over his shoulder to meet Eito’s expectant gaze. Eito merrily sauntered up next to Takumi, a grin innocently decorating his face, leaving both of them almost no personal space. “Such fitting behavior from someone as grotesque as you!” “Ugh, not the time,” mumbled Takumi, trying his best to pick up his pace and hurry to the school only to be met by a much more awake Eito keeping by his side. He groaned as he pulled on the strings of his hoodie in an attempt to shut out the nuisance next to him. Shoving his hands in his pockets, Takumi looked down and continued to walk in hopes that Eito would decide to leave him alone. The other boy, seeing Takumi’s resistance, redoubled his efforts, mocking, “Why, thank you Takumi! It’s so kind of you to hide that ugly face.” Takumi couldn’t see him, but he was sure Eito had that stupid fake smile where he looked just a little too perfect.
“Why do you have to be so awake? It’s, like, what, 7:30? Are you just that excited for music theory?” mumbled Takumi, his closed hood muffling his speech as he continued to use it to block out Eito. Eito, sounding mildly offended, retorted, “What, would you rather me wake up at the same time as you? I mean, what was it this morning? 7:10? You really should be getting up earlier.” Takumi sighed, opening up his hoodie as he approached the school’s entrance. “Leave my sleep schedule alone. I’m on time, see?” He gestured to an electronic sign outside the school showing the time alongside the flashing message reading, “Up and at em’, troops!” It was only 7:37, much to Takumi’s satisfaction. He smugly began, “Three minutes early! And the theory classroom is right next to the entrance.” Eito rolled his eyes, pouting and letting his shoulders slump just a bit. “Three whole minutes!” he muttered in fake excitement. “How impressive!” Takumi smiled just a little bit seeing Eito give up his fake-nice act. He smirked, commenting, “Someone’s a little rude this morning. Not in the mood to pretend to be nice to me?” The other boy scoffed.
Eito opened the door for Takumi with exaggerated formality and a sarcastic smile as the two arrived at their classroom. With a sigh, Takumi ambled in, took his seat, and began emptying his backpack of his mildly-crinkled notebooks. The other boy followed suit, sitting in the front row right behind the teacher’s desk and right in front of Takumi. He carefully took out an older model of a laptop, placed it gently on his desk, and laid his hands on top of it.
“Good morning, Mr. Sirei!” chirped Eito. “How was your commute?” Unable to hold back a wince, Takumi cringed at how overly polite Eito sounded. Despite not being able to see him, Takumi could guarantee that Eito had that same fake smile that he had put on before. His hands would be neatly folded, his head tilted gingerly to one side, his mouth curved in a disturbing parody of a grin. There was a large chance that Eito was doing this specifically to annoy Takumi as petty revenge for earlier. Mr. Sirei, however, was none the wiser to Eito’s facade, laughing, “It wasn’t too bad this morning! Not too much traffic today.” The bell cut the conversation short before Eito could respond, leaving a relieved Takumi realizing he wouldn’t be forced to witness Eito’s weird performance anymore.
Mr. Sirei, after fumbling with and cursing at his computer for a minute, opened up his power point presentation to a slide with the word, “REVIEW!” in bold Arial font. The only other things on the slide were a clip art picture of a music note and a text box tucked away in the corner that said, “Click to add text.” Turning to face the class, Sirei began, “Okay, troops! Get ready for your… 3rd day of midterm reviews! Be ready to give your all into these sample questions- the ones on the test will be pretty similar.” He gestured towards a tall stack of paper on his desk. “Make sure to come and get yourselves a review packet for today. If you wouldn’t mind, organize yourselves into small groups so you can work together. Multiple heads are better than one!” He finished with a flashy grin and a thumbs up before dropping the act and turning to look at two students in particular. Mr. Sirei added, “oh, and, uh, by the way… try to work with different people this time! It’s no fun if you’re only talking to the same person every single day!” Takumi couldn’t help but notice how a trace of unsureness crept its way into his request.
“Oh, but Mr. Sirei! That just won’t do. See, my dear sister and I have to work together!” pleaded Ima, a look of exaggerated disappointment coloring his expression. Kako sat next to him, nodding along and giving the occasional firm “mhm!” while her brother did all of the talking. Putting his hands on his chest, Ima begged, “Please reconsider! It would be such a shame for Kako and I to have to work with anyone else.” A look of concern quickly flashed on Mr. Sirei’s face before he tried to regain his composure. “Sorry to say, Ima, but you two have to work with other people. I mean, maybe some other people could help you two in areas you’re both having trouble with, right?” Clearly encouraged by the fact that Mr. Sirei seemed unsure if he was making a sound decision, Ima continued to lay on the guilt. He cried, “No, I understand, Mr. Sirei.” Just as Mr. Sirei began to feel a sense of relief that he wouldn’t have to push the twins any harder, Ima continued. “Kako and I are used to adults separating us. We get how it is. Adults disappoint us a lot, is all.” Ima was faking tears at this point as he continued to turn up the dramatics. “Mr. Sirei, it was disrespectful of us to assume you’d be any different. We’re so terribly sorry.”
Tugging at his shirt collar and unable to meet the twins’ eyes, Sirei started to mutter some sort of explanation before Ima once again cut him off. “It was bad enough that poor Kako and I were transferred to high school and forced to leave behind all of our friends in middle school, but now we’re forced to leave each other, the only people we know! But it’s okay, Mr. Sirei. Disappointment is nothing new to us.” As Ima was busy monologuing, Kako gripped her bow and frowned at Mr. Sirei. Takumi thought she wasn’t as good of an actor as Ima (or Eito, for that matter), but Mr. Sirei seemed to be buying their performance. Eventually, he sighed and frowned, finally making eye contact with the Tsukumo twins as he resigned, “No, I’m sorry, you two can stay together. It isn’t my place to separate you two when you just transferred you to a new school.”
Almost immediately, Kako and Ima shot up, sitting straight in their seats with clasped hands and wide smiles. Kako declared, “You’re the best, Mr. Sirei!” as Ima gave him a thumbs up. “Brother Dearest,” she continued. “Let’s get that packet and get to it!” She hurriedly ran to the front of the classroom to collect their worksheets as Ima smugly sat back and reveled in his success. Kako soon returned with the papers, the twins eagerly racing against each other to finish it. As the rest of the class slowly got up, Eito turned around in his seat to face Takumi. “No, no,” Takumi pre-emptively answered, shaking his head and holding out a hand to stop Eito from continuing. “I’m not gonna be your partner, Eito. Tsubasa and Yugami are over there, and I’m gonna work with them.” A look of disdain colored Eito’s face as his grin turned sour. He snarled, “And why would you assume I’d ask to work with someone like you, ugly Takumi?” “Because you always ask to work with me, and we always end up working together because I fold!” retorted Takumi, getting up from his seat. “But not today. Tsubasa and Yugamu are over there- I think I’ll be joining them.”
Eito groaned, rolling his eyes as he glared at Takumi. “You really want to work with them? This is for our midterm, you know. They don’t exactly have the highest grades.” A smirk grew on his face as he continued talking. “You really could benefit from a straight A student, don’t you think? You need a good grade on this test, don’t you?” Takumi began to sit back in his seat with a huff- he had a point. Seeing his resignation, Eito added, “And- so sorry if I’m wrong- but isn’t your weakest subject writing four-part harmonies? Don’t I remember Tsubasa and Yugamu failing that test? If only there was someone who aced it…” With a groan, Takumi held his head in his hands as he mumbled, “Stop making good points.” Eito, taking this as a victory, smiled as he went to grab the two of them packets.
“So, ugly Takumi,” teased Eito. “What do you need me to teach you first? You do know what a music note is, right? Do we need to go over how to read a bass clef?” Looking up with a smirk, Takumi grabbed one of the packets from his hands and commented, “You know, you’re getting a little too cocky. Don’t make me take your earplugs out.” Instinctively, Eito dropped his packet and rocketed his hands to his ears, narrowing his eyes at Takumi as he protected his earplugs from any potential theft. Relenting, Takumi laughed. “Kidding, kidding.” “You better be,” groaned Eito as he slowly lowered his hands and picked the paper off the ground. “I can barely stand your awful talking with these in. I can’t imagine how atrocious you would sound without them!” Taking a pencil out of his backpack, Takumi quipped, “Well, come talk to me if you ever want to know!” Eito groaned once again, getting up to rearrange his desk so that he could face Takumi.
Pulling a freshly-sharpped pencil out of his pocket, Eito began to flip through the packet, asking, “So, would you like to start with writing four-part harmonies?” Takumi nodded. “That’d be great. Could we start with the example where we have to write a V to I resolution?” Eito looked up confused, asking “Really?” There was no malice in his voice- Takumi could tell he was genuinely baffled that Takumi couldn’t do the basics. Debatably, it was even worse than if he was being mean. Looking to the side and stuffing his hands in his hoodie, Takumi answered, “I mean, we don’t have to-” “No, let’s start with the basics. I mean, it must be hard stuff for someone as unsightly as you,” interrupted Eito. Unwilling to admit it, Takumi felt a tinge of gratitude that Eito had agreed to help him and wasn’t mocking him that much. “Uh, yeah. Thanks,” answered Takumi, still embarrassed and flushed but for different reasons.
Eito began to flip through his packet to the example Takumi spoke of. He began, “So, after you have the notes of your dominant chord, you have to remember your tendency tones. And those are…?” He looked up at Takumi expectantly. “Um, would you mind, uh, going over those?” Once again, to Takumi’s surprise, Eito didn’t have any rude comments or mean quips. Instead, he began writing notes on Takumi’s paper, “So, your V chord is made up of the notes sol, ti, re, and fa. Ti always resolves a half step up, and fa-”
Eito glanced up at his student to ensure that he was paying attention only to be met with a very flustered Takumi. “Is everything-” “Yeah! All good!” Takumi stuttered, putting on a wide smile and pretending like his face wasn’t bright red. Despite his efforts, he couldn’t help but tug at the strings of his hoodie as Eito continued to look at him with perplexity. “Um, I just,” Takumi started, trying desperately to move the conversation on to a different topic. “I’m really into, um, fa. What a note, right? Ha! Haha!” Eito cocked his head to the side in innocent confusion. “Fa isn’t a note. It’s a scale degree,” he explained, trying his best to analyze the situation for anything that would explain Takumi’s strange behavior. “We’re in the key of Eb, so fa would be… Ab. Is that what you mean?” Desperately trying to salvage the situation, Takumi laughed, “Oh yeah! I love Ab. My favorite…” he paused, distracted by how Eito’s eyes looked at him with curiosity. “Flat… note...” He trailed off awkwardly, continuing to pull on his hoodie strings as if they were an escape rope.
“You’re doing that thing you do when you’re nervous,” noticed Eito, looking down at the other boy’s hands. “Everything okay, Takumi?” “Oh, of course, don’t worry!” “...I may have been just a little mean when you asked to review V to I resolutions,” scoffed Eito, looking down at the paper and fiddling with his gloves. A touch of kindness crept into his voice, one that was most likely undetectable to anyone else but obvious to Takumi. “I mean, I’m not sorry for it or anything,” quickly corrected Eito, meeting Takumi’s eyes again as he put on a show of arrogance. “It really is quite pathetic that you don’t even know the simplest of subjects.” Despite the words Eito spoke, Takumi could sense some buried compassion in his face and tone. He smiled, assuring, “Nah, don’t worry. That wasn’t it. I just got a bit distracted, is all.” In a quiet moment of relief, Eito flashed a smile before returning to his usual detached demeanor. “Tch, distracted? You know we have a midterm coming up, right? You’re wasting valuable time,” he lectured. Eito was right- they were wasting valuable time. Takumi still couldn’t resolve a V to a I, much less identify passing tones or understand what the hell a Cadential 6-4 was.
And yet, all of his responsibilities seemed to melt away for a second as he continued to stare at Eito. Takumi scoffed, blushing as he admitted, “I mean, can you blame me? That eyeshadow you’re wearing is a little distracting.” After a brief pause, he continued, “You look like you got your face painted at a carnival.” Eito sat up in his seat, slamming his hand down on the desk as he announced, “My eyeshadow is perfect! Maybe someone like you can’t understand, ugly Takumi, but it’s a fashion choice. Not that I would expect someone who wears the same hoodie everyday to understand…” “Leave the hoodie out of this!” Takumi yelled. “Talk to me when you get an outfit that isn’t three sizes too big for you.” “It’s comfortable!” “No, it’s stupid! You look like a rejected astronaut! Who also got their face painted!”
Takumi figured that they would be yelling forever if the bell hadn’t just rung. Mr. Sirei got up from his desk to address the class before anyone could leave. “Wait! Wait! Don’t pack up yet!” His words fell on deaf ears. “Um, just, make sure you have it done by the time you have to take the exam!” Slowly, Takumi lowered himself into a slump on the desk, trying to pack up his belongings while staying comfortable with his terrible posture. As he finished loading the notebooks into his bag, he looked over to Eito, who had neatly tucked his worksheet into a folder labeled “Music Theory” and his computer in its dedicated compartment. “Someone’s organized,” Takumi mumbled. After another second of securing his computer, Eito stood up and glared down at Takumi. He laughed, “You should try it! Maybe it’d help your grades.” As exited the room, Eito turned around one last time to give Takumi a quick wave, his deadpan expression making it seem as much as a threat as it was a farewell. Stretching his arms and slinging his backpack onto his back, Takumi followed suit.