Chapter Text
Sua grips the silver instrument tighter in her already cramping hands. She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing to the music room gods that the brunette lounging on the piano chair next to her would just-
“Are you even paying attention to anything I’m saying?”
-shut up.
“I mean, I go through all this trouble to book a room for your nerdy ass in my name, with time I could be using to, I don’t know, eat the canteen’s hot chips or something. And I don’t even get a ‘thank you Hyuna, you’re my best friend ever for sacrificing your lunchtime to sit in this musty practice room, listening to you repeat the same run for the 5 billionth time while I ignore every word you say’.” The brunette huffs, leaning against the piano, and a slight creak wakes Sua up from her prayer.
“Get off that piano! Do you know how much that would cost to repair?”
Hyuna jumps at her sudden outburst, and the piano creaks again at the release of her weight, like a relieved ‘thank you’.
The pair were cooped up in one of their school’s practice rooms. They were far from perfect, yet they felt like a second home to Sua. Always either as hot as an oven or so cold that she would have to spend 20 minutes warming up to sound relatively decent. Despite how claustrophobic she felt every time someone else would be in a room with her, they were somehow built for enough space to fit an upright piano, an overflowing bookshelf that would sway and shift with the slightest excess weight, and multiple guitar cases, yet never enough for her to fully stretch without hitting something unreasonably expensive.
Sua sighs, and places her flute in her lap to reach for its case under her seat. The silver keys were fogged by her sweaty hands, and Sua wipes her palms on her skirt before pulling the microfibre cloth through the instrument.
“Eww, I always forget how much condensation gathers inside those things. Imagine how much builds up on that cloth,” Hyuna muses, grinning as she slouches back, thankfully not on the piano this time.
“You’re just saying that because you never clean your sax. Imagine how disgusting it’s gonna be when you do end up cleaning it,” Sua scoffs. She pulls the head joint off, then the rest of the flute, slipping it into the black case before closing the silver buckles with a sweet click. To Sua, it’s almost muscle memory now.
A long bang jolts the pair out of their banter from the hallway, something heavy and metallic dropping on its red carpet. Hyuna’s coffee sloshes in her hand, dangerously close to spilling onto the already stained carpet.
“You’ve heard me in my lessons, right? You must know how hard I’ve been working towards this! Surely I can do something to prove myself to you,” a girl’s voice shouts from where the sound occurred just before, whiny and pleading.
Sua and Hyuna share a knowing glance before squeezing up together against the practice room door, peering through its small window to get a better view of the commotion.
Sure enough, after rising to the very tips of her toes, and wrestling against a protesting Hyuna, Sua spots a pink-haired girl clasping what seems like a music folder as she looks desperately at her unimpressed teacher. A pastel yellow drink bottle rolls slowly on the floor beside them, a dark puddle beginning to spread on the red carpet. That must’ve been what had made the noise earlier, Sua concludes.
“I-I just, I don’t know w-what you want from me”, the girl continues, voice cracking in the middle of her sentence. Her voice is a lot less whiny now, Sua notices.
"I mean, I do everything you tell me too, you hear how much I practice, you know how much I care, you know how much I want this! What more d-do you want me to do?"
Is she crying? How embarrassing.
No, shut up, Sua. You’re better than this.
The girl shifts her black folder to one hand, wiping her sleeve at her cheek. Although her face was turned away from view, Sua assumes it must be a tear, as the teacher in front of her shifts uncomfortably. Sua hears a faint cough, and notices the staff in the office beside the commotion whispering to each other.
They’re probably figuring out how to sort out this situation. I mean, I would be uncomfortable too if some student started crying in the middle of the hallway after arguing with one of the staff.
Hyuna leans in closer to Sua, pressing her cheek against the window’s cold glass. “Although whatever the girl is complaining about must be not as serious as she makes it out to be, based on her teacher’s bored expression, it must be something she cares about.” she whispers.
Huh.
Sua presses her palms on Hyuna's shoulders, trying to lift herself to get a better view, only for Hyuna to warn her with shouts of ‘hey, Sua, wait, hey,’ before falling onto the carpet, letting out an ‘oomph’ as Sua crashed down on top of her.
The pair laid in a tangled heap against the groaning door, emerging with aching shoulders, messy hair, and uniform soaked with Hyuna’s coffee, matching with the carpet underneath them.
They lock eyes, smirks twitching on their lips, before bursting out into laughter. It’s always a surprise to any onlooker whenever Hyuna and Sua laugh side by side, the contrast unnerving yet harmonious somehow- Hyuna cackles like a stereotypical evil stepmother, as her laughs seem to echo and fill the whole room. Sua’s giggles seem more contained in her chest, small snickers that build into chortles that leave her gasping for air and hiccups that last for the rest of the day.
Their fun doesn’t last very long, however. The door bursts open, knocking the two back onto the floor as Hyuna and Sua gaze upward to see the vocal teacher herself looming over them, the pink haired-girl standing sheepishly behind her, like a kid told off for stealing the last cookie. Hyuna places a hand over Sua’s coffee-stained lap defensively, and Sua bites her lip, bracing for the flurry of scoldings that may just bring the end of her orchestral career. Hyuna and Sua share a wide-eyed glance, not needing more than their eyes to see that they were both mentally preparing for their expulsion.
Goodbye Tchaikovsky, Sua thinks wistfully.
It’s worth noting that neither Sua nor Hyuna had ever spoken to the vocal teacher before, so when the seemingly furious woman broke a wide, red-lipped grin, the pair jumped back in shock, and Sua banged her head on the piano seat with a muffled thump.
“Well, well, well, look who we have here, Mizi- I didn’t know our star flautist had a girlfriend!” The woman chortles, and the pink-haired girl (who Sua assumes is Mizi), flushes a dark shade of red, looking down at her feet before mumbling “me neither, Mary,” a whisper barely audible to Sua’s partially concussed mind.
“W-we’re not girlfriends!” Hyuna blurts, her face only slightly less redder than Mizi’s.
Wait, girlfriends?
At that, Sua’s lagged brain finally registers what this Mary woman called them.
Sua’s not entirely offended by the comment, but it still hurts nontheless. Just because two girls are on the floor, uniforms and hair messy, doesn't mean...
“Girlfriends,” Sua mumbles to herself, feeling her own face heat up before clearing her throat in an attempt to save the growing awkwardness of the conversation. “Hyuna just tripped on one of the chairs on our way out. We didn’t mean to disturb you, Miss.”
Sua doesn’t feel like calling the woman ‘Mary’ after the horrible first impression she had just left. She makes a mental note to clear things up when her head isn’t throbbing as bad, and pushes herself up off the carpet onto her feet, stumbling as her left leg gives way underneath her. Lets just hope Hyuna’s legs aren’t cramping too, or we’ll never make it to 5th period.
Mary sighs wistfully, giving them a soft shake of her head as Hyuna hoists herself onto her feet next to Sua, dodging the wobbly music stand close enough to get her mildly concussed too. “I trust that a student with a reputation like yours doesn’t normally make such a ruckus, Sua, so I’ll let you and your friend-” - winking a little too earnestly for Sua’s liking- “-off the hook this time.” She steps back out of the practice room, facing all three blushing girls. “Enjoy the rest of your lunch, ladies. Mizi, we will speak about it tomorrow. Anything urgent, email me. Toodle-oo!”
Mary whisks herself away with the spirit of a fairy grandmother, and Mizi shifts awkwardly in front of them. “I should get going too,” the pink-haired girl mumbles, and scurries away through the main door of the music department, ponytail swishing behind her as she closed the heavy doors with a quiet click.
Sua picks her flute case off the seat behind her, and she makes her way out of the music department with Hyuna in silence (contemplative or with both trying their hardest not to burst out laughing for a second time, Sua isn’t sure), and Sua gives the teachers in the music office a cort nod before making her way out the doors, cold wind blasting her hot face and blowing her bangs back.
“Do we really look that… close to other people?” Hyuna asks tentatively. “I mean, that Mary woman is, um, definitely an interesting character-” Hyuna snickers, and Sua giggles politely under her scarf- “-but no one’s really said anything about us that way before.”
“Stop overthinking it, Hyuna. I think it was just because we were both on the floor pretty close to each other, and we both looked kind of messy,” Sua pats Hyuna’s shoulder in reassurance, and Hyuna exhales slowly, leaving a puff of her breath in the cold winter air.
“I just wonder why that Mizi girl was so mad at her in the first place- I would kill for a teacher that sweet.” Hyuna sighs wistfully.
Sua snickers. Hyuna’s saxophone teacher is no joke- the tall lady has quite the reputation that at every dress rehearsal of the annual big concert, every ensemble is ‘gently’ reminded that any mishaps will go directly to her. During her first year at the school, Sua didn’t understand why all the older students grimaced at the warning, but she found out the source of their worries soon enough.
Another strong gust of wind smacks Sua in the face, and tear prick at the corners of her eyes.
“I didn’t know our star flautist had a girlfriend!”
“Hyuna.” Sua stops in her tracks, staring right ahead up at the blinding winter sky.
“Yeah? Why so serious?” Hyuna turns and faces Sua, tilting her head like a concerned puppy.
Do you think Mizi thinks we’re together?
“Sua, you’re scaring me.”
“Oh, sorry,” Sua stammers. “It’s just…”
She turns around and faces Hyuna, glancing up sheepishly.
“Do you think Mizi thinks that we’re, like, y’know, together? Uh, girlfriends?”
Hyuna bursts out laughing, her signature cackle ringing out around the school grounds. “You’re really funny sometimes, y’know that Sua? I’m sure you’d find a lot of people who’d appreciate you if you just talked some more.”
Sua chuckles, and shifts her thick scarf up higher to cover the growing blush on her cheeks. “The practice rooms have been doing fine so far, Hyuna.”
“Yeah right. Soon you’re gonna be hearing voices when all that mould has caught up to your brain. Those are gonna be all the friends you’ll need.” Hyuna bumps Sua’s side.
“Yeah, and you’re going to be the one to drag me out of that biohazard of a room to the hospital.” Sua teases.
“Sure, sure, just put me in your will in case it goes wrong.”
“Consider it done.”
The pair turn to each other and clasp hands in a firm shake, faces deadpan, before they burst out laughing.
Amidst her giggles, Sua can't help but think back to that timid, pink haired girl, green eyes (or were they hazel? Sua couldn't tell) staring down at her feet, like the ground contained all her secrets and she was locking them away with her gaze.
Somewhere else outside school grounds, a grey-haired boy shivers in the cold, hot chocolate in hand and guitar slung around his back, and wonders if the evil witch from his nightmares has finally come to provide a quick, sweet escape from this hellhole of a school.
Another 10 minutes passes at the bus stop, and he scolds the witch in his mind for taking way too long to steal him away to her evil lair. The cold's gonna end up killing me before you do, idiot. He sighs, and takes a long sip from his now cold-chocolate.
Later that night, a girl lies sprawled out on her bed, gazing up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the roof, pink hair a tangled mess on her dye-stained pillows, and she thinks about the black-haired girl peering up at her through neat bangs, eyes nervous and flustered. She sighs, then remembers her girlfriend-but-not-girlfriend, hand on her lap, her dark, narrowed eyes like a challenge to somehow try to beat her up and make out with her at the same time.
She notes to herself to ask her auntie about this ‘star flautist’ before drifting off into dreams of ruffled skirts, crumpled sheet music, and coffee-stained carpets.