Four thirty-three

Chapter 9

"That C was a bit too sharp. Try it again, from the open string."

Brett sighed in defeat. He repositioned the violin on his shoulder and did as told. Really, after two months of playing the bloody thing, at least he thought he would have first position all sorted.

Well. Apparently not.

"No, that's not right. Here, listen." Eddy played the note on his own violin, and Brett fumbled with his fingers until his sound matched the teacher's. "Good. Now, from the A again."

He tried, but missed the note again.

"You are not hitting the C. You're putting your finger between C and C#, but you're doing neither. Remember, the second finger needs to be next to the first one. Here, let me..."

Eddy grabbed Brett's left hand, intending to show him the correct position. Brett, taken aback, violently snatched it away, like the contact had burned him. Then he realized what the teacher was actually trying to do, and blushed, embarrassed at his reaction.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," and this time around he got it right.

Eddy raised his eyebrows slightly, but made no comment. "All right, then. From the beginning of this last phrase, please."

♪ ♪ ♪

Brett sighed deeply as he made his way to violin lessons a few weeks later. He'd just come out of a music theory class nearly an hour ago and had just the time to grab a bite and pick his violin and sheet music from his room before he had to run not to be late -again-.

On his way up, he looked briefly at the score Chen had given him for the week. It was a very short piece from Suzuki book 2, all crotchets and quavers, nothing to really worry about. Wait, was that a B flat on the key signature? Had he practiced it with the B flat or natural? He shrugged to himself. Well, either way, it didn't look very hard. He'd played far harder pieces than this on the flute. He could sightread this alright, but he had gone over it once or twice this morning, just in case.

Yeah. It should be alright.

♪ ♪ ♪

"You're doing it too slow. That piece goes faster." Chen said.

Brett gulped. "Does it?"

Eddy glared at him. "It says Moderato , Yang, not Largo . If I wanted to be bored to death by your playing, I would have given you the cello part of Canon in D."

Brett raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. He shuffled uncomfortably where he was standing, eyes wandering in the hopes of avoiding the teacher's piercing gaze. Lea was nowhere to be seen today, and this meant Chen had a whole hour to chew him up as he pleased.

"Come on. Up to tempo. One, two, and."

This caught Brett off guard. He barely managed to put the violin in place on time, came in late, and proceeded to absolutely butcher the first few bars of the piece.

Eddy sighed loudly, and Brett went red to the tip of his ears, lowering his head in shame.

"That's not right."

"I know," he answered, eyes glued to the floor. I fucking know, I have ears , he wanted to say, but he didn't. Not only because it was extremely rude, but also because he was, in all honesty, a bit terrified of Chen.

"Maybe it was my fault, I started without you being ready. Let's try again."

But it hadn't been Eddy's fault, and Brett knew it. With an increasingly sinking feeling in his stomach, he started over. This time, he made it halfway through the piece before he stopped, utterly defeated by the same crotchets and quavers he had dismissed earlier.