Amor de mi Alma || 2Jae

Chapter 4

A week after Christmas break ended. That is when Youngjae sees Jaebum again. Of course, he had seen the older boy walk around the halls two days in a row, the other three days he had been gone, but it sure came as a surprise to see Jaebum awkwardly waiting beside the bass drum while Lexie and Rosy try to teach him how to read music.

"Finally!" Rosy says in exasperation. "Can you figure out who this dude is? He's done nothing but stare at the ground this whole time."

"Why don't you two let me handle this," Youngjae says pointedly, putting his backpack on the ground. "Go practice your xylophone and marimba parts in Lightning Field, you two seriously need to be in sync for that."

"Fine," Rosy crossed her arms and narrows her eyes in suspicion at Youngjae. "But you better introduce us to him!"

Youngjae sighs and watches as the two girls walk toward the instruments on the other side of the percussion section, chattering about the 'new boy'. To be completely honest, Youngjae realizes that Jaebum is gathering a lot of attention, and he should really tell everyone to leave him alone, but he knows he can't so instead he walks toward Jaebum, picking up his music folder from the table behind the bass drum.

"Hey," Youngjae looks at Jaebum. "You joined Band?"

"Jinyoung convinced me to," Jaebum mumbled, playing with a percussion stick. "And now that I kind of know you I just decided to..." He glanced at Rosy and Lexie.

"Don't mind them," Youngjae says quickly. "They're like that but soon enough they'll get used to having you around. Why don't you but your backpack next to the instrument shelf, that's where we always leave them."

Jaebum nods and goes to put away his backpack, stopped by Yugyeom and Kunpimook, who greet him, halfway on his way back. Their conversation is short and once Jaebum stands beside Youngjae again, hiding behind the bass drum, Mr. Divins walks into the room.

"Good morning everyone," Mr. Divins says, quickly putting down his folder on the stand. "I hope you had a great weekend, but right now let's dig into our pieces. I've gotten a new song for you, it's called Amor de mi Alma."

"Oh, is that the one you let us listen to last Wednesday?" Ariana Sharpe, the piccolo, asks.

"Yes, Ariana, it is," Mr. Divins pulls a pile of music from his folder and begins to hand them out. "We'll start off slow, and since there is not much percussion at the first section of the song, the percussion section can figure out who plays what with this piece and also with the other pieces considering our newest addition."

Some people turn around to look who joined the band and Youngjae glances beside him; Jaebum is fiddling with the sticker on the bass drum.

Youngjae picks up the pieces and while the rest of the band begins to figure out the first few bars, Youngjae puts the pieces of paper with the music on the ground on the ground. 

"Can I do the bass drum?" asks Amber immediately, going for the bass drum part.

"Sure - Lexie, what do you want to play?"

"Timpani," says Lexie, and Youngjae hands her the timpani part (he'd rather play that himself but he already plays the timpani in Children of Gaia, so he lets her).

Rosy takes the marimba part and Dany the chimes and the xylorimba parts, which leaves Youngjae to choose between the gong and the cymbals, or the combination of xylophone, tambourine, and triangle.

"Do you want to play the gong and cymbals?" Youngjae asks Jaebum, who merely nods. "Great, then I'll take the xylophone, tambourine, and triangle parts."

"What about the other pieces?"

"He can take my cymbal-part in Children of Gaia," says Amber immediately. "I still struggle to make my way from the cymbals to the snare drum."

"And he can also play the xylophone in that," says Rosy. "We're still missing that part."

"Okay," Youngjae hands Jaebum the pieces for Children of Gaia, and in Lightning Field Dany offers up her part of the bass drum for Jaebum to play, while in Appalachian Spring Jaebum gets to play the cymbals again and also the cabasa and castanets. 

By the time they're finished dividing the parts, Mr. Divins asks to hear the percussion parts in the middle section of the song. Jaebum seems to know what he is doing - they gave him easy instruments to start him off easy - and in Youngjae's opinion, it sounds pretty good despite Jaebum's inexperience.

Halfway through rehearsal, they take out the song Children of Gaia, and then time seems to fly by and the bell rings, signalling that lunch has started, and everyone begins to pack up.

"Good playing, Jaebum," Amber passes them, patting Jaebum's shoulder, and Jaebum flinches slightly, causing Amber to frown a bit. "See you tomorrow, Youngjae."

"Yeah, see you," Rosy and Dany pass him too and then Lexie tells Youngjae that they'd see each other later in Chemistry before she leaves too. 

"Hey, Youngjae!" Jinyoung yells, and Youngjae turns around. "Are you coming to the rooftop with us for lunch?"

"No, I promised Jasmine I'd take her out for lunch," Youngjae says. "Probably Subway, but who knows."

"Ah, that's too bad." Jinyoung gnaws on his bottom lip. "How about you, Jaebum? Rooftop?" Jaebum shakes his head no, and Jinyoung sighs and throws his hands in the air. "You two are boring."

"Excuse you, I'm trying to maintain a good relationship with my girlfriend, thank you very much," Youngjae counters.

"Haven't things been going a bit down lately?" Yugyeom asks as he and Kunpimook join them by the percussion instruments. 

"Yeah," Youngjae sighs. "Apparently she's interested in other boys these days."

"Which is too bad, just about every girl in your grade wants to date you," says Kunpimook. "She should be feeling lucky."

"Well, what is there to do about it?" Youngjae shrugs. There is a long awkward silence, and then he continues. "Anything you guys want from Subway?"

"No, I'm good," says Jinyoung. Kunpimook and Yugyeom say no too, and then leave to get their lunch, and Yonugjae looks at Jaebum, who shakes his head no.

"All right, well, have fun, and talk things out with her if you need to, okay?" Jinyoung says, patting Youngjae's shoulder. "And call me if I need to cut that bitch."

"And I think that'll be enough from you for today," says Youngjae quickly, pushing Jinyoung out of the Band Room. He grinned at the older boy. "I'll see you later, and you too, Jaebum."

Jaebum nods once, eyes on the floor, and then quickly follows after Jinyoung.