Love? Nah. (HongIce)

Chapter 8: School

Emil awoke that morning to the sound of silence to stare at his ceiling painted with stars and the moon. The house had just come like that, and Emil took a liking to the design and when asked to pick which room he wanted, he chose the smallest bedroom with the stars on it. 

He groaned and turned off his alarm clock, getting up to put on his school uniform, slip the owl into his pocket, and grab his violin.

His violin lay in the corner of the room  on the side of the upright piano (that also came with the house, but was left in this room. Nobody felt like moving it, but he didn't mind.) that was made of maple wood and the word "Steinway," the name of the company, was written just below where you would set your music. He used that to set up his orchestra music and used the inside of the bench to store his music.  That was the corner he trudged through his tiredness and grabbed his papers and instrument from.  He looked over at the clock.  Now, earlier he'd assumed he'd woken up early, but he'd woken up super late!  He had to leave now! He ran through the kitchen and grabbed a granola bar from the box Lukas usually left out.  

He rushed out the door, sprinting as fast as he could through the spring weather to get to school, and when he got there, he had to fill out a tardy pass and go straight to orchestra instead of going to homeroom where he usually started the day.  He rushed to his locker and the bell ending homeroom rang so he could walk with the other kids to orchestra.

As he put his stuff away, his only friend (well, besides Leon), Louis came up behind his locker.  Louis and Emil didn't talk as much as most friends did, but they talked sometimes. Louis had a whole other group he hung out with.   It's not like the two of them hung out outside of school, and Louis had never invited Emil to parties unless they were huge parties.  Emil never had parties.

"Hey, dork," Louis said playfully.

"What's up, nerd?" Emil replied, giggling a bit. 

"Nothing, wanna walk to orchestra, geek?"

"Whatever, loser."

And that was a normal morning after homeroom.

They walked to orchestra together talking about all the cute classmates they had and how their hair just didn't look right on Saturdays at 12:34 noon at that exact time every weekend.  They finally got to the room and went to grab their instruments and sat down when the bell rang and the entire class chattered since the teacher, Mr. Edelstein, hadn't  shown up yet.  Emil was sitting with the rest of the first violins tightening his bow and tuning his instrument when out of the corner of his eye he noticed a familiar face in the trumpets section aggressively waving at him. 

"Em! Em!" Emil turned back around.  Leon came running to the chairs where the first violins were. "Em! I switched from the afternoon class to the morning class. Isn't that great?"

"Wonderful, Leon.  Just absolutely wonderful."

"You know, that piece we're playing. That's by my most favorite composer." Leon spoke quickly, jumping up and down.

"John Williams?" Emil replied, puzzled but Leon's sudden extreme happiness.

"Well, he's my favorite of today's time.  W. A. Mozart is my all time favorite.  His music is so simple. It's like the Beatles. It's one of those, 'why didn't I think to do that?' moments that sparks a legacy and-" Leon's kept on speaking and his words were swift and clear as if he had practiced a script and rehearsed it perfectly every time, and here he was presenting it right before Emil like a pro.

Emil looked over to Louis who was in the clarinet section giving him a thumbs up, trying not to giggle.  Emil glared and when he turned around, Leon was already back to the back of the room with the rest of the trumpets as Mr. Edelstein walked in and tapped his baton on the stand.