how to love . ootori

ii.

"I don't know, it's like," Nagako said before taking another long puff into her flute, "Like they don't have any situational awareness. How can that even happen? Being groomed for success and not having situational awareness?"

"Nagako." Mei sighed, and for a second the girl in question thought Mei was about to give her some deep, meaningful advice. Instead, she said, "You missed eighteen notes."

In retrospect, Mei was never good at advice anyways, as deep and meaningful as she tried her best to be. But truthfully, Nagako was just glad to have someone to talk to.

"Yeah, but they weren't whole notes, so technically it's like four and a half." She had to count the last part on her fingers- almost subjecting her flute to the wrath of the hard tile- just to be sure.

Her and Mei had a band. Kind of. Mostly, it was her piping away on her flute (which she had gotten in the fourth grade, as a gift from Mei's father) while her friend desperately tried to play along on her violin. They practiced every day, and although they were both phenomenal on their own, the two never seemed to get any better together.

It began as a get rich quick scheme.

The Uyeda household was nothing but short on money the moment her father was sent to prison; crashing hard on her oldest sibling and even harder on her business-oriented mother.

Nagako, at first, felt she didn't need a scheme to pitch in and help her family. After all, her father would be back in no time, and his tax evasion could be swept under the rug like nothing had happened in the first place. And in the mean time, she would get a job at her local supermarket (which was quite possibly the largest congregation of people who actually liked her known to man).

It all seemed reasonable until she actually got the job, and a particularly nasty boy from her school threw a rice cake in her face when he saw her working. She was twelve. She later had to sweep up the same rice cake, after getting written up for refusing to tell the boy where the pickled plums were.

It was brutal, she would always tell Mei, like normal people became apes when they saw that I couldn't yell at them.

And Mei was merciful, in the same way her father was for getting Nagako the flute in the first place. Because it had been two years, and Yuuto Uyeda was nowhere near the final stretch of his sentence. Each day, Nagako would hope more and more that their family would strike bank, suddenly, and she wouldn't have to sweep up anymore rice cakes or rotten tomatoes.

So Mei purchased a violin, if only to let Nagako know that they could play together every day after work. And that helped a little, even if the two of them hated doing so.

"Just practice without me for five minutes, 'kay? I feel like I'm getting carpal tunnel from trying to keep up."

"I can slow down, if you want." Nagako offered sheepishly, but began another soft song as soon as Mei assured her that it was alright to go on. Mei didn't mind the interruption, as long as she was happy, playing her flute and ignoring all else.

Nagako closed her eyes as the song became deeper, eventually, and she had gotten so enveloped in her own song that she stopped paying attention to her surroundings, as she usually did when left on her own.

Mei smiled softly, in the way a supportive friend does, and let her eyes shift guiltily to the large double doors. They both knew that Nagako had no place here, in Ouran, where the students could use her monthly income as tissues. But she insisted that she wouldn't get caught, not again, by Kyoya Ootori or anyone else.

And she didn't, not for a few weeks. Not until Mei would realize that the doors to the music room weren't fully closed.

The student council member stared at those doors, hypnotized, as her friend played perfectly in the background, indifferent and somewhat drowsy from the long days she always had. Nagako's music was something she could melt into her seat for, where she'd find her eyes slipping shut only to snap them open once again. And this would happen, over and over, until Mei would finally let her eyes droop closed.