Duet Partner

Chapter 4

Funny, how unalike two consecutive mornings can be, Brett ruminates while pulling open the curtains and bathing the room in golden sunlight. It's eleven am – and yesterday at this time he already sat in the most atrocious history lecture of the whole semester, with a drastically elevated cortisol level and 99 unsolved problems. Today – well, he has at least five worries less, partly curtesy to him finishing the paper for Professor McCoy, sending an email to Professor Walsh and securing himself a lesson-free forenoon. To his deepest regret, filling the refrigerator is not one his latest achievements.

But Brett's stomach has been grumbling for a while now and if he doesn't want to get takeaway for the umpteenth time this week – the content of his wallet won't last much longer –, he'll have to hurry to buy his breakfast/lunch at the canteen. And so, Brett can be seen sprinting across the campus once again. This shouldn't become a habit, seriously.

Luckily, he almost immediately spots his friends at a table when he enters the cafeteria. With a chock-full tray, he falls into a chair a few minutes later, still a bit breathless – just to find Alex smirking at him.

"Well, if it isn't Mr. Yang, our soloist-to-be. Since I haven't been around yesterday evening, I'd like to remind you of our agreement now. Have you already asked Naomi or are too much of a wimp?"

Wow, straight to the point. What happened to Hello, how are you?  Brett just stares at him, mouth still packed with his first forkful of rice. He now chews and swallows intentionally slowly before he answers. It might be a little bit petty, but who cares.

"What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? I arrived only thirty seconds ago. Jesus."

But despite his words, Brett isn't going to make a fuss out of it, especially because this – revelation, if you will, is going to be fun. So, he just shrugs his shoulders and proceeds. "I won't have to ask Naomi because I actually – you won't believe it – managed to find a different duet partner."

Alex's eyebrows raise in surprise. "You did? I thought you asked everyone and no one agreed!"

"I seriously didn't expect that anymore!", Joanne, who is sitting next to them, jumps in – and suddenly, their whole friend group erupts in animated chattering, one question sticking out: Who agreed to do it?

They don't have to ask Brett twice; he is just as eager to share this unexpected turn of events as his friends are to hear it.

"My duet partner is going to be Eddy Chen!", he bursts out, shushing the whole table.

All eyes are on him and the silence is almost deafening – it's not every day that someone fraternizes with their persona non grata – until Hyung breaks the speechlessness with a quiet "Well, that wasn't on my bingo card for this day".

This puts an end to their table's apathy – how can a group of six people be that loud? At this point, the whole cafeteria is looking at them and now, Brett definitely needs to lay down the law. It's not that big of a deal, is it?

"Calm down, guys! You are reacting as if I told you I was Beethoven reincarnated!"

Joanne just scoffs. "Yeah, because just ten minutes ago, I would've said that that is more probable than you getting over your hate for Chen!"

Oh, come on. "I wouldn't say I hate him! We just used to not get along due to irreconcilable differences!"

And the whole table is cracking up again. It seems like Brett has a previously undiscovered talent to amuse them – maybe he should become a comedian...

His friends are gasping for air now, faces red and Zoe is even wiping tears of laughter from the corner of her eyes.

"That sounded different yesterday!", Alex splutters. "I hate Chen so much, he did this, he did that, have I mentioned how much I hate him?"

Brett is grinning too; his best friend's got a point there. And it's not as if Brett himself hasn't been perplexed as well – you should've seen him twelve hours ago! He still can't quite believe it.

"How did that even happen?", Hyung asks, curiosity painting his features.

Everybody is looking at Brett now – it's story time, he surmises. He recalls yesterday evening, him going to the practice rooms, finding Eddy with a violin in hand – and starts talking. His friends' concentrated gazes are almost funny, it is as if he's explaining the solution to a century-old conundrum.

"And then – I don't know what got into me but desperate times call for desperate measures – I asked him to play that duet with me! He didn't expect that at all, so I kind of had to explain the whole circumstances, but then he said he'd do it, it would gain him some extra credits he needed to continue playing basketball – so I guess he's failing some courses..."

Alex looks like he is near feeling disappointed ("What a boring and weak-ass reason!") but the others seem satisfied.

"Interesting! I don't know what surprises me more – Eddy Chen being a violinist or him going along with the request of be your duet partner – of all people!", Zoe says – Brett is nodding in agreement – but Joanne seems to be of a different opinion.

"I don't know, I mean I already knew he was fond of classical music –", she earns a few unbelieving stares, "– because he has been to our concerts before!"

Brett nearly spits out the soda he's just taken a sip of. "Eddy Chen has been what?!"

Joanne gives him a jovial nudge. "Really? We played like five concerts this year and I'm pretty sure I saw him at at least three of them. You guys have seriously not noticed that? How blind are you?"

Apparently quite. And Brett doesn't really know what to do with this new piece of information. Maybe – maybe he has to rethink his entire image of Eddy Chen.