Fortissimo
--
Allegrezza; cheerfulness, joyfulness
She was so hyped for this, like oh my god, full rehearsal was literally at their doorstep, and this was their last instrumentalist – only practice.
This was going to be beautiful.
Playing through Bows to round up their last rehearsal, Ari was left breathless, and her desk parter teased her for inhaling too much resin. She was really grateful towards Nerida, despite her constant jabs for her supposed aggression, (read; passion) for music. She was only at this combined musical because of her enthusiastic persistance for her to join. She usually wouldn’t participate in such frivolities, but at her friend's deliberately saved and well timed puppy eyes, Ari had lost, and wasn’t really regretting it.
Their conductor winked and bid them good night, and Ari received several ‘Cheers!’ and pats on the back on her way out, her cello weightless over her back.
This play was going to be perfect.
--
Libero; freely
Her wings were music.
She’d left the womb humming. As a child, she remembered tapping rhythms instead of crying and replicating the 80’s tunes that her father had loved so much on the little harmonica that she’d be entrusted to at birth. She had been playing scales since forever, and when she pitched a melody perfectly on the ivory keys, her lungs had been full and her mind open.
--
Furia; furiously
The first full rehearsal was a disaster.
Their lead hadn’t learn any of her parts off by heart, and could never remember her note. Her quality of voice was amazing, Ari could graciously grant that, but to be such an irresponsible lead, was probably not the wisest choice. Performance night was months away, fine, but music didn’t happen over night.
Not being able to help her blown up cheeks and furrowed brow, Nerida tried to soothe Ari’s tantrum as Miss raised her hand to stop, halting everything as the lead continued to sing on. Moments of silence lead to her realising her absolute solo and she blushed heavily under her freckles, turning back to the conductor, whose ever lasting stretch of patience seemed to be waning.
Watching the poor girl get grilled didn’t really do anything to assist the fading of anger, and Ari couldn’t stop a growl in the back of her throat. It wasn’t even nine am yet, it was a Saturday morning, she could be sleeping.
The rest of the cast weren’t even there yet, just the leads. They’d come around break—for another very possibly gruelling hours. They ran through more of the pieces, and Ari found that the only thing that was appeasing her was when the orchestra were playing backing music.
When break came around, she took the opportunity to retune and work out the small cramp below her shoulder. Nerida had run off with some other boy, and the rest of the orchestra was seemingly older than her own fifteen years. With none of her friends in the production, she exhaled slightly irritated, slightly relieved and slightly appreciative for the break. She gently laid her cello on its side, stroking the resin from its strings, before making off for her water bottle in the corner. A few punctual members of the cast had started filing in, ooh-ing and aah-ing at the beautiful instruments without their players, laid for display. They took their seats away on stage, chatting up that one lead who couldn’t keep in either time or tune.
She was getting better, but it really was the practice that was needed.
Ari squatted back in a corner, fingers tangled in her bag for a snack as she watched the hall fill with excited students from the sibling school or her very own. They came in twos or threes, sometimes in a massive hoard.
She felt herself curl further back into the wall, sinking into the silence of herself.
Miss called back everyone, deeming break was done and dusted, and that time was a limited resource that was far too often wasted. She returned to her baby, swallowing when she felt the wood back against her fingers, the metal carving onto the tips.
The backing cast were surprisingly controllable, except someone called Darren who continuously ended up getting called out.
Finally, when Miss wouldn’t deal with the brat anymore, he got called out to sing beside her, directly in front of the orchestra. Nerida snickered along with the rest of the hall as the boy stumbled forward, ears humiliated red, and lips forced in a jesting smirk. Ari raised her eyes (and eyebrows) to his face, studying it as it roused some kind of nostaligia in her belly.
He hadn’t noticed her yet, too busy fisting his hands in his pockets and smiling good naturedly back to his friends in the masses. When Miss raised her hands again, and when they started playing, he (finally) turned his eyes to the orchestra, surveying them as they played the intro.
She could feel the eyes that had avoided her, on her. They were curious, and somehow, even when her own were focused on the dark notes in front of her, she could hear his heart ticking in time with her solo.
--
Con Brio; with vigour
It clicked with her who he was by the last rehearsal they were cramming in, literally night before practice that was definitely in dire need. It wasn’t about the music this time, apparently, seeing as the lead had seemingly fixed herself up, it was something about the acting (???).
He was someone she thought she’d forget.
Slight memories tapped the back of her mind as she bassed the notes, adding slight vibrato for the warmer undertone that she felt in her toes.
Of him recommending her classics when they were in primary.
Of her teaching him how to play the first few bars of the accompaniment.
Of him punching someone in the nose when he pulled her pigtails and called her names.
Of her gently lecturing him when he lost heroically, with scrapes he bravely brushed off as nothing.
Of his hands twined with hers while he walked her home, a nagging finger saying it wasn’t safe for girls to walk alone.
Of her leaving CD’s in his book bag.
Of him suddenly ignoring her for more than half a decade, leaving her with one year of bittersweet memories to pause, play and rewind.
Nerida’s eyes snapped to Ari in alarm as she started playing with a sudden vigor, out of time, for the first time.
--
Divisi- divided, into usually two parts
She ran the minute they hit break, even though she heard his voice calling after her.
She didn’t even know why she ran.
Finding refuge against the door of the staff’s bathroom, she cradled her head against her knees while trying to control her breathing.
No.
No.
No! He couldn’t just—walk right into her life again. She’d spent four years rebuilding herself around the lack of his presence, sure it was a childhood memory, but still, she managed to sound like a child, even to herself.
(She knew how pathetic it sounded)
He had ignored her for so long, no he wasn’t allowed back in just like that. She wasn’t someone who came when called for, not a dog. She wasn’t replaceable (but she was, or had been, evidently).
Seeing his face seemed to open up the old wound, so to speak. She’d thrown herself further into music after him, and she remembered how it felt when her best friend hadn’t come back to bring her home.
--
After a few attempts that were sharply ignored, he seemed to have given up on her.
Again.
And it was like another new ache, one that left her with the bad kind of breathless, and she didn’t like it.
--
Bruscamente; brusquely
The night of the performance, she arrived far too early, and sat patiently watching while the actual cast filed in. So she picked up her beauty, and tuned, retuned, and tuned. She ran a few riffs, played a few pieces, pulled the melody of requested songs from the tech crew. Her eyelids slid shut as she felt the music, not blood, in her veins, only hearing herself and the mellow hum of the tune sing out from her strings.
When she heard the clumsy heels of her desk partner, she smiled in her general direction, letting her melody fade before opening her eyes. Nerida’s were warm, as she set up, but they continuously flicked behind Ari’s back. Suspicious and slightly wary, she turned, and one guess to who was standing there, leaning against the stairs that lead to the stage.
Stage was empty, rimmed with very red, very fake velvet, and to the side, standing very confident was Darren himself. In all his costumed glory.
How long had he been standing there?
Ari did not know.
Regardless, it made her pretty uncomfortable that her ex-best friend was standing there, leaning against a wall in his 'soldiered' costume, majestically observing her.
When she (ugh, finally) kept his eyes, he kept his face schooled blank, while she coaxed her lips to smile. Manners, she scolded herself, is what she owed him, at least.
He stuck his tongue out.
Ugh.
He was ushered in by an irritated friend, but his eyes never left her.
--
Con Amore; with love
The first night, the play unfolded itself perfectly. Everyone was in tune, everything was acted out so beautifully, and no flaws seemed to escape onto stage.
Which is uh, what it sounded like.
So, of course she was tempted to turn and watch.
And god damnit, he had to be one of those soldiers that were lined up.
Currently, he was being yelled at for mentioning something out of line.
But… His eyes were trained on her.
Ari felt a bubble of laughter in her throat, and her fingers left the board to rest the back of her palm against her lips, stifling it to silence.
The corner of his lips quirked up.
--
They danced around each other like this for the entire week that the play was running
--
Fortissimo; very loudly
On the final evening of the play, she could pull his voice out from the rest of the casts’, and his deep tenor warmed her from her core. She heard his tune harmonising with her own part, and somehow, she felt free again.
They played Bows, the applause ringing and heavy over their music, but she didn’t care.
While assisting the packup, a pair of arms wrapped around her waist, laughter warm on her collar, before spinning her around to fully hold her.
‘Aria.’
Her name was a breath, but that was a perfect coda for this song.
--
A Battuta: return to normal tempo after deviation.
They kept in contact before he cut her off again, a week later.
Dick.
--
AN: this was just something that hasn’t left me for half a year. Some elements true, I guess, but some nah ;’D