Play!

XIII

The rest of the afternoon went by as if someone had rigged the clock to let time pass twice as fast. They rehearsed Mozart again, did a whole run-through with both Eddy and Brett doing concertmaster, taking turns in-between the movements. Eddy was as easy to follow as when he played his Korngold third movement. His gestures were clear, matching with Mr. Thames’ signs and cues and thus proving to everyone that he wasn’t only a great soloist, but also a well-rounded ensemble player and concertmaster even.
Brett would have been envious of so much talent and skill if he wouldn’t have been busy building his admiration for this guy. 

During dinner, this time consisting of Korean barbecue near the Sydney Opera House, Katie happened to sit next to Brett. 
“You heard it too, right?”, she asked over the loud chatter of about twenty people Angelica had managed to gather while they waited for the first batch of meat to be grilled to their liking. 
“What?” Brett turned his head.
“Eddy’s playing. It’s lacking emotion, right?”
“Yeah, you were right”, he said slowly, not sure why she brought that up now.
“I mean, he plays really well. Technically and everything, it was fine. But I liked your performance better.”
“You’re saying my technique sucks?”, he winked, earning a loud, bell-like laugh from her. 
“Of course not!”, she said and tucked strands of her red hair behind her ear, “You’re very musical and lyrical. It very much fits the spirit of the concerto, I find.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Yeah! You did really well!”, Lauren, sitting opposite of Brett, chimed in with her piercing voice, “Eddy stands no chance! You gonna crush him!”
“Lauren, no one’s gonna crush anyone!”, Cole shook his head while simultaneously turning the thick pieces of protein on the table grill around, “ This is a friendly orchestra camp. Have you not listened to Mr. Jones yesterday?”
“What? That boring speech? Come on! We all know musicians need a bit of competition to improve! Why else would they do that stupid choosing soloist thing to begin with?”
“Are you saying we shouldn’t be friends then?”, a violist from the Sydney con asked with an amused grin. Lauren could really count herself lucky that their fellow musicians took her very unnecessary comments with humor. 
“Of course not!”, she said without showing any signs of shame or discomfort, “But Brett and Eddy are rivals! Tell me what you want. And we need to stand with our Brett in the end!”
“I’m not your Brett”, Brett clarified, eyes fixed on the violist in front of him, “And the last thing anyone needs is war between the two unis over who’s the best. So can you please drop it?”
“Brett’s right!”, Cole said, “I used ‘rival’ myself sometimes, so I get where you come from. But it’s not beneficial for anyone to stay in that narrative.”
Her eyes moved back and forth between them until she sighed deeply. “We’ll see how you’ll think about it when the competition’s close.”
“As if I have time to think about anything else besides making sure I won’t fuck up royally, seriously!”, Brett spat, slowly losing his patience. Him being dragged into this was one thing, but for some reason he really didn’t want Eddy to get in trouble because of something stupid Lauren might do or say. She wasn’t a bad person per se, just very direct and loud and Eddy was the exact opposite of that, as far as Brett could tell at least. One wrong word at the wrong time heard by the wrong people and it could escalate. 
Luckily, all the Sydney con people Brett encountered so far were pretty chill. Like the violist from before Brett had forgotten the name of, “It’s not like we’re all super fans of Eddy, so we’re not gonna be like passionate about who’s gonna ‘win’” He emphasized the last word with gestured quotation marks. “I mean, it would be nice, of course, but I don’t think anyone cares that much.”
“See?”, Cole exclaimed and waved at the guy who had just spoken, “No one cares. So neither should you.”
Brett really didn’t know what her problem was, but Lauren just pursed her lips with an unfazed look.

Maybe it would help if Brett could invite Eddy to join their group once in a while so Lauren didn’t have to shoot against someone she didn’t know. He had wanted to this evening, in fact, but Eddy had vanished again after rehearsals like he’d transformed into Flash, escaped from the DC universe, or like he had the same abilities as a ghost. It kinda saddened Brett too, the thought that Eddy was having dinner by himself somewhere. Or did he live at his parents? Probably, right? Since he was still underage and came from Sydney. Although, Brett wasn’t sure if he was. Many of the Sydney con students lived in student accomondations on or near the campus. Maybe his hometown was some small, remote place and that’s why he didn’t like to hang with big city people?

Eddy made him curious, there was no denying it. Be it his almost flawless, certainly impressive violin playing, his awkwardness around other human beings outside himself, by all appearances, or the way he'd helped Brett without second guessing despite Brett first thinking Eddy hated him. And Brett couldn’t really explain why he wanted to fill out all the knowledge gaps he had concerning Eddy Chen, his rival, who he shouldn’t spend one second wasting a thought on, Lauren’s annoying voice was scolding him in his mind.

They were free this evening, no teacher or student concert they had to attend. So when they’d finished their delicious and slightly more expensive dinner, most of them made their way to the first chosen, lucky bar this evening. Brett agreed to join for one drink.
“One!”, he had to tell Nathan, who was a bigger party animal than Brett would ever become, he reckoned and was already tucking at his sleeves.
“Oh, come on. Have some fun! It’s not every day that you can go out in such a big city!”
“Brisbane has a lot of fun places”, Cole meant with a shrug.
“Compared to here it hasn’t!”
“It's like what, freaking Tuesday? And I need to practice. Don’t you guys?”
“You know brass players never practice, right?”, Angelica stated with a wink, making the few brass people cheer immediately. 
“We played the whole day! We deserve some rest!”, Cole meant. 
“Well, I need to practice and actually be awake tomorrow, so…”
“Us too!”, Nathan called and threw his hands at his own chest.
“If you’d fall asleep during rehearsals, no one’s gonna notice”, Brett jibbed, eliciting oohs and aahs left and right through his burn and earning a semi-hard shoulder punch from his friend. 

The bar was ordinary, Brett found. The music too loud, the beer Brett got way too expensive and he couldn’t hear a word anyone was shouting. He’d much rather go occupy a practice room as long as time still allowed it and there was also the slight feeling in a small, small corner of his belly that he actually wanted to hang with someone who he with certainty would NOT meet at such a place, which he kind of tried to ignore and push into an even smaller corner for some reason. So after one drink, as he’d promised, Brett bid his goodbyes to the increasingly louder getting crowd and left, taking in big gulps of fresh air after having to inhale fake smoke the last hour or so. Luckily, the bar wasn’t located far from the conservatory, so Brett made it there with an hour to spare, quickly asked for a practice room key at the reception and climbed the stairs to the third floor, his fingers already twitching with anticipation. Brett smiled. That was what this camp was all about, wasn’t it? Playing the violin, practicing his craft, getting better with every performance opportunity. And he certainly made some progress today, he dared to say, after he’d been rescued by a certain someone… who’s violin playing might be piercing through the door Brett had just passed?