Bumbleby - play me foolish

Chapter 2

Round one took nearly the entire day to finish. Although the program had it all written and scheduled out, none of the competitors were truly prepared for the gruelling wait.

Sixteen bands, each with a 45-minute long set, 12 hours of nothing but music and waiting and brewing in your own nervousness until it was nearly unbearable. No one could pick apart your own performance like yourself after four hours of sitting in the same position with nothing to think about but every minuscule mistake.

As soon as the Mistral band finished their set, Blake, Ilia, Neptune, and Sun all tore out of their seats and through the door. Half out of excitement for the first round's results and half out of honestly just wanting an excuse to move after sitting for so long. Racing down the steps of the gallery, dodging spectators on their ways to the exits, it felt like the run to get backstage was stretching further and further.

"Sorry!" Sun shouts after running into an older gentleman, picking up his run again after pretending to not notice the death stare the man's wife shot at him. "That woman looked like she wanted to sue me," Sun grumbled as they turned a sharp corner. The concert hall that the competition was hosted in was filled with long winding hallways; walls lined with lacquered oak, velvet carpet on the floors, way above all of their pay grades right now.

They had to make the cut - the only thing that Blake could think of as they pushed through another set of doors. Their footsteps echoed on the concrete halls as they finally reached the performer's hallway backstage; a narrow concrete corridor with various stage rooms lined on one wall.

Many musicians from the other bands packed the small space, crowding around an empty corkboard in the middle of the hallway. The cold fluorescent lights above made it feel as if the air had dropped several degrees despite the flux of bodies in the cramped tube-like passage. All four of them cringed at the heavy smell of metal and cork grease that stabbed their noses.

"Is it posted? Can anyone see it?" Ilia says, jumping up and down while pushing herself up with Neptune's shoulders."I can't see over the crowd, there are too many people." She gives up after a few tries and turns to Sun and Neptune. "Resident quartet giants, it's your time to shine."

Apparently one of the said quartet giants, Sun takes his own turn trying to spot the results. "No, nothing yet," he answers, shoving past some people and craning his head over the bodies. The four of them sighed and backed off from the growing congregation. Finding refuge in the small water fountain outcrop into the wall, they were safely out of the flow of musicians still entering from the double doors just a few feet away.

"Hold on," Blake says, stepping out of the safe haven, "I'm going to go see if there are any rehearsal times posted-"

She couldn't finish her sentence before the wind got knocked right out of her from behind. Again, for the second time that night, Blake's back hit another person. Hard . Among many things, clumsy wasn't something she usually was - something she tried to convince herself of as she stumbled back. Turning around with an apology already half muttered, Blake's eyes lit up in surprise after realizing who it was.

"We have got to stop meeting like this,"

Yang was smiling, righting Blake back up before she fell again. Her stomach drops, fluttering as she took in Yang's presence - her height above the crowd, the leather jacket she pulled on over the dress shirt, the casual ponytail she pulled her hair into.

Blake quickly brushed away the thought before it lingered, before she had to acknowledge its presence. She had better things to worry about. Better things that just attracted another 30 people into the hallway through the doors. At this rate, a lack of oxygen might become a concern with the absence of ventilation and the sheer number of bodies. Great; maybe she won't have to worry about if they made the cut or not if all the competition dropped dead from suffocation.