Chapter Text
For the most part, Keiichiro Asaka liked the incoming freshmen on the drumline. They all had to audition for their spots, so he knew that Mr. Shinmei, the percussion director, had deemed them skilled enough to march competitively right off the bat. Two of them - Gira Husty and Right Suzuki - would sometimes get too excitable, but they were disciplined enough to know when to lock in.
Unlike Kairi Yano.
At first, he thought he was just tired - they did start summer marching band rehearsals at seven o'clock in the morning - but his reaction time and ability to follow orders did not get better over the course of the day, or even a few days. He was constantly distracted, always whispering snide comments to Gira and Right, and never listened to anyone except for Mr. Kaijo (and he had to listen to him, since he was the band director).
If his unruliness only affected himself, Keiichiro would be content to just leave him alone to face the consequences of his poor choices. But today, after a grueling four hours of afternoon marching practice, the entire drumline was forced to stay behind until they could all march a perfect box drill together.
And guess who was the squeaky wheel?
After the third attempt, Marvelous, one of their drum majors who had been forced to oversee the drumline's extra practice, pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "… again. On my count."
Despite their fatigue, everyone immediately snapped to attention, ready to march again. Well, everyone except for one person.
In his peripheral vision, he could still see Kairi taking his sweet time to get his feet into position and raise his arms.
Before he could stop himself, Keiichiro turned and growled, "Today? Please?"
Kairi dropped his arms and snarled, "Excuse you?"
Behind them, their section leader Takayuki Hiba muttered, "Oh my god …"
Marvelous's eye twitched as he pointed to both of them. "Okay, you two - run a lap around the field - now. The rest of you, get some water. We'll try again once these idiots get back."
In unison, they complained, "But -"
He pointed to the edge of the practice field. "Lap! Now!"
Automatically, Keiichiro began jogging in that direction, but he (and everyone else) noticed that Kairi hadn't moved a muscle and was instead having a glaring contest with Marvelous. And Marvelous was winning.
Keiichiro rolled his eyes. "Can you start moving so we can get this done and go home?"
Kairi snorted. "As soon as you get that stick out of your ass."
"Why, you little -" He sprinted towards him, still trying to decide whether to punch him or tackle him to the ground. Kairi, too, looked like he was about to throw his own punch -
The rest of the drumline members all shouted and cursed as they surged forward to separate them. Marvelous stepped between them, holding them out at arm's length. "ENOUGH. I changed my mind - everyone else, go home. You two are staying here until I see you march a box drill together without trying to kill each other."
Kairi's nose twitched. "And if we don't?"
Marvelous folded his arms. "Then I guess we're staying here until rehearsal starts again at seven tomorrow."
Keiichiro scowled. "And why do I have to be here? I can march it fine!"
"You are here to be a good example, Asaka," Marvelous explained, adding a threatening amount of venom to the words "good example." Wordlessly, he pointed to the nearest yardline and ordered, "Start there. On my count."
As the rest of the drumline slowly filed back to the band hall and then home, they both shuffled to their starting positions. Marvelous counted them in, and they stepped off.
Normally, Keiichiro would check his peripheral vision and make sure that he was in line with the rest of the formation, but right now, he didn't want to look at or even think about Kairi. The prick could mess up as many times as he wanted - he would be perfect every time they marched this drill.
Eight steps forward, eight steps to the left, eight steps back, eight steps to the right - they should be back where they started, and since Marvelous hadn't moved, he was a perfect marker - eight more steps forward, right, back, left, and stopping, completely motionless until their drum major ordered them to fall at ease.
Marvelous pursed his lips, as if he were tallying up everything Kairi did wrong. Instead, he turned to him and griped, "That was goddamn perfect. Why couldn't you do that before?"
Kairi shrugged. "Didn't want to."
Keiichiro's hand curled into a fist. "You asshole."
Lazily, Kairi waved goodbye as he strolled back to the band hall.
He sighed heavily. "Marvelous -"
As if he could read his mind, he interrupted, "I can't kick him off drumline. That decision lies with Mr. Kaijo and Mr. Shinmei - and they probably won't since we only have three tenors this year because no one else wanted to audition for them."
He frowned. "I already know how to play snare - tenors can't be that hard to pick up. And Jeramie can take my spot."
Marvelous shook his head. "Jeramie's still recovering from that surgery - he can't march. And he's pit section leader anyway - Shinmei's not gonna move him."
Keiichiro folded his arms and looked towards the front of the field, where the pit usually stood, playing xylophones, marimbas, and other percussion instruments that were too large to march with. There had to be someone who wanted to get out of there and march on the field.
Kairi hated Keiichiro with every fiber of his being.
He was good enough to coast through summer marching rehearsals - and when he wasn't, he always made sure that no one important was watching. Unfortunately, this perfectionist tryhard was always watching.
There were other freshmen in other sections doing much worse than he was - why was he the one saddled with a watchdog?
He didn't need this - between practicing his real instrument, a weekend job (Mr. Kogure was not happy that he could only work on Sundays through the end of marching season), and the start of high school in two more weeks, he desperately needed some place, any place, where he could just have fun, be himself, and forget everything else. Joining drumline was supposed to be that release, but with Mr. Anal Retentive looking over his shoulder, it wasn't going to happen.
Not for the first time, he considered simply dropping out of the marching portion of the band program. It was unusual, but not unheard of - his band period during the school day would simply become another free period, and for the rest of the season, he didn't have to go to football games or competitions.
And most importantly, he wouldn't have to see Keiichiro's face again.
Kairi locked his bike on the bike rack and checked the time - six-thirty. The bike ride here was certainly getting easier; last week, he had been slapping the lock on and rushing to the drumline's designated break area at six-fifty-five (which, of course, Keiichiro gave him shit for). He definitely didn't have enough time to practice his real instrument, but maybe he could step inside and relax in the blessed air-conditioning before having to learn the drill for their marching show.
Unfortunately for him, as soon as he stepped inside, he overheard a rather loud argument between Keiichiro and - who was that other voice - the pit section leader?
"Jeramie, come on -"
"Little one, I've already told you, no one in pit wants to switch -"
"But -"
"And you're being unfair."
"What? How am I being unfair?"
"I'm Gira's ride home, so I had to stay and watch your box drill exercise last night."
"So you know how awful he is -"
"Kairi only messed up once, at the very beginning. It was Gira who kept messing up after that."
Kairi clenched his teeth. He knew it.
"And don't think Takayuki and I don't see you being soft on Sakuya. He's made his fair share of mistakes too, yet you never berate him like you do Kairi."
"But - but Sakuya means well and he tries! Kairi's just an asshole about everything!"
"He's got a horrible attitude, sure, but he's not constantly screwing up. Gira and Right are starting to get scared of you because of how you treat him."
"I … I didn't mean to … that's not what I …"
"Try to show a little kindness and grace, please. If that doesn't work - if Kairi's attitude refuses to improve - then Takayuki and I will go talk to Mr. Shinmei about our options."
Surreptitiously, Kairi crept back to the band hall door and noisily opened it, wiggling the doorknob and allowing it to slam loudly. Jeramie poked his head out from the ensemble practice room.
"Ah, good morning, little one!" he cheerfully greeted. "Excited to finally start learning the show?"
He shrugged. "Should be more interesting than what we've been doing."
At the sound of his voice, Keiichiro stepped into the doorway. "Kairi?"
He narrowed his eyes. "What?"
His arm twitched as if he wanted to hit him, but instead, he took a deep breath and said, "… good morning."
"… morning," he muttered as he walked past him into the band hall, not sparing him a glance.
Jeramie chiding Keiichiro was probably the best thing that had happened since marching band started. For the first hour of morning rehearsal, Keiichiro had been silent.
But, as Kairi should have known, all good things must come to an end.
The band took a longer than usual break so that the section leaders could pass out dot books - a little notebook for each member that contained their positions for the entire marching show, including coordinates for each dot, how many counts they had to get from one set to the next, and how long to hold the position before moving. As members slowly received their dot books and the upperclassmen gave the freshmen a crash course in reading them, they scattered onto the field, trying to find their dots for the opening set.
Fortunately, Kairi's first dot was in whole steps, so he didn't need to figure out how big a quarter of a step was just yet. He made his way to the forty yard line, marched a few steps upfield, turned to the right, and marched two steps outside the yardline.
Next to him, Keiichiro was also marching up the forty yard line, stopped approximately where he was, and took a few steps towards him.
Automatically, he grumbled, "You don't have to double check me. I know this is two steps outside the forty."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "Not everything I do is about you." He stood at attention four steps outside the forty before relaxing. "This is my dot."
Kairi tried not to sigh too deeply. Because the drumline was the heartbeat of the band, most drill writers kept them together to prevent any confusing echoes. Maybe there would be a set that would put them on opposite sides of the drumline formation.
And then, for the next three sets, Keiichiro trailed after him as they found their dots - not because he was a hovering pest, but because their dots were next to each other.
After they found their side-by-side dots for the fifth set in a row, Kairi snarled, "Oh, for fuck's sake - lemme see your dot book."
Keiichiro complied, clearly as unhappy as he was. As they flipped through and compared the pages, an unpleasant realization dawned on them.
Through clenched teeth, Keiichiro complained, "We are next to each other for the entire show."
They paused, trying to figure out the best solution to this problem.
"Touma!" Kairi called.
"Tsukasa?" Keiichiro asked.
In unison, the adopted siblings said, "No."
Takayuki approached, carrying himself like he knew this was happening all along. "You two aren't allowed to trade dots," he explained. "Work out your problems and get along."
Kairi's nose twitched. "And if we don't?"
Sardonically, Touma answered, "Then one of you kills the other and I never have to hear you two argue ever again."
Tsukasa rolled her eyes. "Touma …"
Takayuki clapped Touma's back. "Thank you for graciously volunteering to watch these two and make sure they don't murder each other."
His eyes widened. "Wait, Takayuki -"
Mr. Kaijo's voice echoed over the loudspeaker. "Two minute water break, then we reset back to one. Remember your dots!"
As Kairi took two gulps of water and ran back to the opening set, he wondered exactly how much "kindness and grace" Keiichiro was capable of.
Keiichiro thought that this was probably one of the roughest weeks he'd ever had in marching band. After Takayuki refused to let them switch, he had to sit back and say nothing as Kairi purposefully made mistakes in front of him. And this wasn't the perfectionist paranoia, either - one run, he stepped off with the wrong foot and glanced back at him, as if daring him to say something.
He sighed as he got off his bike and walked it to the bike rack. Kindness and grace, kindness and grace - Takayuki and Jeramie made it abundantly clear that they would only talk to Mr. Shinmei on his behalf if he made his best effort to patch things up with Kairi.
As he leaned down to lock his bike, he blinked.
There was another bike here.
There shouldn't be another bike here.
Due to the band's hard work and diligence, Mr. Kaijo decided to cancel today's morning rehearsal - no one was supposed to be here until four o'clock this afternoon.
Unless another student worked something out with the directors and also had a key to the band hall.
He marched to the door, picking out the right key from his key ring, but then decided on a whim to try the door anyway.
It creaked open, and Keiichiro was met with the sound of an oboe player practicing scales.
Quietly, he closed the door while going over all the oboe players he knew - or, rather, the one oboe player he knew: Swan Shiratori. And this couldn't be her - she was out of town with her family on one last weekend vacation before school started.
He slipped into the locker room, grabbing his bassoon and practice etude books, as he originally planned. Perhaps it was one of the freshmen? Due to the fragility of oboes and the … well, everything about bassoons, they could not be taken onto the marching field; oboe and bassoon players had to learn a new instrument to march. Until marching season was over and the concert bands started preparing for the winter concert, he generally had no idea which freshmen were playing oboe or bassoon - if there were even any incoming double reed freshmen at all.
He stepped into the band hall proper and nearly dropped his instrument.
Kairi?!
He finished his scale and took a moment to stretch out his fingers before he flipped open one of the several etude books on his music stand. From where Keiichiro was standing, he could see that almost every single page was marked up. Finally, he stopped on a page marked with a sticky note labeled "All-Region."
So they were both here practicing for the same thing, huh?
He began the piece, and it was like Keiichiro was listening to an official recording. Not a finger or breath out of place, dynamics were perfect, intonation was spot-on - it sounded less like the technical exercise it was supposed to be and more like a music piece he would go to a concert hall and listen to.
Without Keiichiro realizing, he had started to walk closer and closer to Kairi until he was a few feet away. As he reached the end of the piece, Keiichiro couldn't help saying, "Wow."
Kairi flinched, making an undignified squeaky quack with his oboe. "What the -" He spun around in his chair to see Keiichiro. "What the hell are you doing here?!"
He felt his cheeks and ears turn pink. "Sorry, sorry - I, uh -" He wiggled the bassoon case in his hand. "I was gonna practice - but then I heard you, and -"
Kairi rolled his eyes as he leaned back in the chair. "Great. What was wrong with it?"
"Nothing."
"Okay, I've been working on this shit for the last month and I -" His face softened and his body relaxed as he realized that Keiichiro hadn't criticized him. "Oh. Uh …" He looked back at his sheet music while his cheeks flushed. "… thanks, I guess. But I can still do better."
With the utmost sincerity, Keiichiro said, "If your other etudes sound like that, you'll make first chair at Region, no problem."
Kairi shifted his stand and chair so that he was facing away from him. "Didn't you have to practice or whatever?"
"Oh. Yeah. Um. Right." He turned around and walked to the other side of the band hall to set his things down and then find a spare chair and stand.
As he left, he could've sworn he heard Kairi mutter under his breath, "Dork."