Spring Writes Stuff

45. Deal?

"Well, this is awkward..."

Whenever Agatha sings to herself, even just a small tune, it never fails to ease out the stress out of her body. She has always wanted to keep her singing talent as a hobby she can do by herself, and since then she has been avoiding the thought of performing live for an audience for her entire life. Her singing mostly remained within her close friends and relatives when she gets caught red-handed. Although they've told her time and time again that her talent has "massive" potential, she just loved doing it for the pure enjoyment she feels out of it.

But along the way, she met a boy whom she thought might end up spilling her singing talent. 

His name is Kubo; a transfer student who came all the way to Japan, who is very talented in the world of music. His forte is an instrument called a 'shamisen', which is a three-stringed Japanese guitar; he played it wherever he goes. Obsessively.

Though only after a couple of weeks into his transfer, Kubo has quickly learned other stringed instruments available in their school; such as the violin, piano, all variants of guitars and even percussion instruments like the drums. He even performed around the school in his free time. Kubo's fast-learner skill caught the attention of the entire school, instantly making him a celebrity cool kid. It got to where 'Knox'—the biggest band group in their school, caught sight of Kubo's talent. 

Just a few days after, the band has already acquired Kubo as one of them.

At first, Agatha avoided ever being friends with Kubo, despite him having an awful lot of attempts. She felt and assumed that Kubo was only doing so to fortify her singing talent and sell it to his new band, even if he hasn't heard her sing before.

Until Kubo accidentally went to their class early only to hear Agatha's singing completely by accident.

But instead of freaking out over it or even saying anything about his band, Kubo chose to his shamisen to accompany her singing with a lopsided smile that Agatha can still remember to this day.

After that incident, the two commended each other's talents and continued on as very close friends. They'd even go to their classroom early and just jam along with each other. Enjoyment aside, Agatha found comfort and safety in belting out songs with him, as if Kubo silently understood that she wanted this combination of her singing talent and his incredible shamisen playing to stay between them — like a silent agreement.

After jamming with him for quite some time, Agatha half expected for her singing talent to turn into an instant gossip wildfire within the school. But even after several months after Kubo heard her sing, nothing came up.

At that point, Kubo gained Agatha's trust.

Inevitably, words of their jamming sessions have leaked out on its own amongst her peers within her school. Shortly after, an acapella group called 'Laikapellas' entered the scene and got word of her talent. The Laikapellas is considered to be the best acapella group in their school — and quite frankly the only acapella group in town. 

The group listed Agatha for their auditions, much to her protest. But to her genuine surprise, she was accepted.

Now, fast forward to a few years, Agatha finds herself besides Kubo — both of which stood in front of the school's bulletin board, looking amongst a big poster about the town's annual band competition with the list of groups participating in the event.

And unfortunately, the band groups that they're both members of are listed as active competitors for the event.

"I hope none of us win the competition so we wouldn't feel too bad," Agatha jokes with a nervous chuckle.