Four thirty-three

Chapter 20

Brett wiped the sweat off his forehead with his t-shirt, violin and bow resting on his left hand.

This is so fucking hard was the first thought that crossed his mind.

Then, there's no way I can do it .

He would have voiced the thought out loud, had it been Eddy the one teaching him today. The teacher was used to his looming pessimism, and knew exactly what to do to pull him out of his own spiralling thoughts.

But Eddy was still trapped in the clinic, to his neverending woe, and he was stuck with this other teacher (Jeremías, was it?) that had taken over all of Eddy's lessons.

He was a very young, very kind man. He'd heard he was also a very good violinist. And honestly, he wasn't half bad as a teacher.

But, it's just -he wasn't Eddy.

(If any of his friends had accused him of missing the man, he would've snorted in their face.

And yet.)

The lesson was supposed to be over about twenty minutes ago, but there they were still. Brett had been playing nonstop since it started, Jeremías giving him instruction after instruction, to no avail.

Fire would not come back to him again, and he was starting to get anxious.

Both the new teacher and Eddy had warned him that it'd be a bit difficult, that it would be a while before he managed to summon as much as a tiny bit of fire, let alone a corporeal, controlled flame.

Still, it had already been two weeks since he came back from the raid, and there had been no progress whatsoever.

Why did everything have to be so difficult all the time?

♪ ♪ ♪

He flopped face first into the bed next to Eddy's with a heavy sigh.

"Tough one today?" The teacher sniggered.

"You have no idea."

"Come on. Tell me about it." He grinned. "Distract me."

Brett groaned softly and sat straight on the bed, his legs once again dangling in the air. "It was a fucking mess. I spent the whole class playing fucking fortissimo , and still nothing."

"Playing fortissimo ? Why??"

"I don't know! That's what I did last time, and it worked! So I figured..." He trailed off with a shrug. He took off his glasses and wiped his face with his hands. His t-shirt smelled like sweat, and his arms felt sore. He couldn't wait to have a shower and go straight to bed, dinner be damned.

What was he doing down there then? "It's just... Fire came so naturally to me, that first time. And now, no matter how hard I play, it's just... not working."

Eddy hummed softly. "I see. Tell me, Yang, what has Jeremías explained to you about our powers, and how they are summoned?"

"Uh... I don't know? Like, he just told me to play some repertoire, and he keeps telling me to think about the fire. Like, imagine it around me, or imagine as if it's coming from me. But it's not working, and I don't... I don't know."

Eddy smiled softly at Brett's sulking stance. "Okay. I get what kind of approach Jeremías is going for, but it's clearly not working for you. And I suspect the reason it's not working is because, deep down, you still don't consider yourself a true musician, even after actually proving you are, in fact, one, with your own actions. So there's no point in imagining fire coming from you when you don't actually believe you're capable of making that happen."