Of Cats and Crows (Sugawara Koushi)

Midterm Madness

"Hey Koushi, do you mind flashing me?" Mitsumi had gone to his place for a study date after practice. They were sitting at the kitchen table eating snacks and working on midterm preparations. Mitsumi had a thick stack of index cards on a binder ring in her hands. It was quite the intimidating stack to Koushi, who was just reading over his notes on his laptop.

The questionable request made Suga's ears turn pink. "F-Flash?!" He stuttered out in utter shock. "What kind of request is that?"

Mitsumi noticed her choice of words and laughed. "Oh my gosh. Not like that. Can you help me with my flashcards?"

He often forgot that she had to do everything on pen and paper. With the exception of an occasional essay or research project. "Sure! I can do that." Sugawara watched her plop the stack of cards in his hands. "Okay, let's see what we have here. Compare and contrast the following forms: a scherzo and trio, and minuet and trio."

What the heck are these flashcards?! Compare and contrast? Music identification? There's nothing like vocabulary in these! Suga was completely shaken by the heavy amount of unknown terminology in her notes. Yet, she could describe everything perfectly without missing a beat. He was not musical at all, but he appreciated the arts. And his appreciation had only grown seeing what Mitsumi did on the daily. The endless rehearsals, the no-credit classes, bottomless practice hours, and heavy lecture classes really made him grateful that he didn't have to go through that. Were his education classes hard, yes. They put him through the wringer! But, they weren't as time-consuming and were much easier to understand.

Mitsumi sighed as he flipped the card. She was stumped on this one. "Identify the Tristan Chord and describe its usage." She stared at the piece of music she had glued onto the front of the card.

Suga had the answer highlighted on the piece of music on the back and looked at it intently. Her neat handwriting was underneath it with an explanation of the usage of the chord. "Do you want a hint?"

"No, I am going to take a guess. The fourth chord in the second measure." Mitsumi tapped her fingers on the table in anticipation.

"No, it's the one before that." He turned the card around to show her the answer. It was the last card in the stack. "You didn't get too many wrong. I'm really impressed."

Kaori marched inside the house. "I'm home!!!" She shouted into the empty living room.

"Welcome home! Food is in the kitchen." Suga shouted in response. "I don't know if your Mom told you, but she had to go pick up Ryu from his piano lessons." He watched his cousin walk in and heat up her teriyaki bowl in the microwave.

The blonde leaned against the counter as she waited for the timer to go off. "Having a study date with Mitsumi tonight?" She gave a playful wink in their direction.

"We have midterms this week." Mitsumi clicked her pen twice before putting it back on the table. "Did you just get home from practice?"

"Heck yeah! The Inter-High prelims are this weekend. So, Coach is kicking our butts so we make it to Nationals again." The microwave beeped and Kaori decided to take her food elsewhere. "Don't you guys have your prelims this week too?"

Suga nodded, "Yeah, we are playing this weekend too!" He sighed a little bit and stretched. "Coach Ueno was saying the collegiate league has three spots for the Kanto region. So, we are hoping to snag one of them." He didn't want to get his hopes up too high.

"The ladies and I are determined to crush Miyagi this year." Mitsumi's tone made the temperature in the room elevate. She wanted to crush Saki as many times as possible. "So we are going to Nationals."