Chapter Text
“Me? Oh, I didn’t have the chance to practice this week.”
Jaehyun scoffed. i dIdnT hAvE tHe CHAnCe to prACtiCe thIs wEeK, my ass!
“Whenever you’re ready.”
Jaehyun forced himself to take a deep breath. He could do this, right? He had practiced it multiple times a day now—so much that he could probably play it in his sleep. He briefly wondered if it was actually possible, but decided there were more important things to focus on in the moment. Rolling his shoulders back and straightening in his seat, he flipped to the page and—
made the worst mistake of his life by glancing to the side. There he was, wearing that stupid, stupidly charming smirk Jaehyun so badly wanted to rip off his face: Taesan. Jaehyun shot him a quick scowl before turning back to the sheet of music resting on the stand, pretending not to notice how Taesan’s gaze remained fixed on him.
“You know, you’d suit an E-flat clarinet more. About your size, right?” Taesan murmured, just loud enough to reach Jaehyun’s ears.
“Oh, how flattered I am that you acknowledge my talent. You know the band directors only give the best clarinetists the opportunity to play that clarinet. I guess then you’d finally get a solo on your B-flat clarinet without me as competition,” Jaehyun retorted.
“Nah, bro. Just looking for other options, since you clearly struggle with your first one.” Taesan shot back, raising an eyebrow, amused by the reaction he was getting out of Jaehyun.
“Oh, shut up. You can’t be talking when I’m 1st chair right now.” Jaehyun hissed, rolling his eyes as he turned his attention back to his music.
“Only time will tell.” He heard Taesan whisper, and despite Jaehyun’s futile effort not to look at Taesan’s stupid face, he could still see him smirking from the corner of his eye.
Relax. Take a deep breath. He’s just trying to get under your skin so you can mess up, but you won’t let him win that easy.
Jaehyun wiped the sweat off his palms and played a test note. He stared at his music for a beat, then closed his eyes. Welp. This is it. All or nothing.
Everything was going great as Jaehyun’s fingers moved precisely through the music—until he hit that measure with the dreaded high G. Of course, out of the nine out of ten times it usually came out, it didn’t happen this time. After that, his once-graceful fingers became sloppy, and the rest of the piece was a hot mess. If he counted—which, ironically, is exactly what he stopped doing during the song— he probably squeaked like six times. He might’ve even squeaked during a rest too.
Jaehyun looked over to the director, who was engrossed in whatever he was writing down. Obviously not anything good— that’s for sure; Jaehyun wasn’t a fool. His scrunched eyebrows gave it all away, accompanied by a hunch that could rival the Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Almost looked like him too, if Quasimodo was old and bald. Jaehyun’s could only imagine what the old, bald director was writing. Wrong rhythm in measure 68. Tempo sped up in measure 87. Bad tone quality in measure 101. Sloppy. Messy. Horrific. Might need to revisit beginner band.
Jaehyun sighed. He had expected to make mistakes, but he didn’t expect to turn the music into a completely different song. If someone heard him for the first time here, they’d think it was his first time playing his clarinet—or that he suffered a traumatic injury, leaving him with brain damage. Yeah, maybe that. Because who in their right mind plays 32nd notes wrong?
Okay, now Jaehyun was exaggerating. But this was not first chair material, and he knew that Taesan would beat him by a landslide. He just hoped either a tornado would whisk Taesan to another school, or that third chair had stepped up his game enough to be the new first chair. Sohee did sound a lot better here, so it was definitely possible. Though it was more likely that, like always, he wouldn’t get what he wanted: Sohee would be second chair, and his number-one opp would be first. Whatever. As long as I don’t have to sit next to that bastard.