Mixed In | Day6 Jae

XI

Jae had everything set up in an organized mess. He has certain things in one area, others in another, his iPad placed directly in the middle of everything, and his laptop in his lap.

I am realizing now I should've invested in a coffee table sooner.

"Actually, Y/N, I think we should move over to the dining table for my space." He started grabbing his stuff and taking it over there, and I did the same and followed him. Soon enough the mess was a little less messy and a little more organized.

He opened his iPad to an app that changed images at every hint of sound. The app also revealed to have a piano in a different extension.

"So.. how do you want me to help you study? I can like quiz you if you have anything like that or-"

"Um, we could try that." Jae said. "My notes are right here."

He handed me a notebook that looked old an worn. I opened it to see notes that were clearly organized, but written in very messy handwriting.

"Jae.. no offense, but I can't understand anything that this says."

"What?" He said in disbelief. He took the notebook from me and looked at it himself. "Y/N, it says right there, "Music is created from placing notes on a musical staff." He turned the notebook to face me and pointed to what he just read. "And right here to the side it defines the musical staff."

"..so what exactly is the musical staff?" There was no way I was going to be able to understand his handwriting.

"The musical staff is a series of lines," he started. "There are five lines, and four spaces in between them." He had put his notebook down and was talking with his hands. "You can out notes anywhere on the lines or in between the spaces, but also, it doesn't have to be just on that specific area! You can put notes above or below those five lines, and the note is denoted with this thing called ledger lines, and that's how really really high or really really low notes are read."

"So how do you read the note? How do you know what the note is?"

"Well if you just have some lines and random notes written on there it's just that, random notes. You don't know what the notes are until that specific musical staff is given a clef."

"What's a clef?"

Yes, I am asking many questions. But do I ever plan to use music in my life, like all the things Jae has currently said?

No.

But, I'm seeing something that I know he isn't.

He's teaching me. And to teach someone something, you have to know the content well enough. And with him doing this, he obviously knows the content well enough.

He went on and on talking about clefs. The four main types of clefs but even though they're the main only two of them are commonly used. And he kept on going with what he called the "basics." But let me tell you, it did not seem BASIC at all.

Something else that I did notice, was that he was extremely passionate about whatever he was talking about when it came to this. Like it really seemed like he wanted me to understand that notes don't have a defined value until they're assigned a time signature.

It went on like this for about forty-five minutes, just me asking him questions and him answering and elaborating on them.

"-so once you're able to see that any given major scale has 8 degrees, you build off of that, and that's how you actually make music!" He said loud and cheerfully, unlike anything I've ever seen him say before. He had a smile on his face, the biggest one I've seen from him this far.

He grabbed his iPad that he had left to sit while he lectured me for so long and opened the app with the piano again.

"Look, to make a major chord, you need to use a major scale, obviously. And a chord is made up of a 1st, 3rd, and a 5th. So looking at the most basic scale, C major, you would take the first of the scale, C, the third, E, and the fifth, G, and then that makes a chord!" He pressed on some keys on his iPad a the device projected a happy sounding noise.

"And actually, chords themselves can be broken into something that isn't a singular as the notes themselves, but something that still is actual music." He started talking about intervals, or something like that, and went on showing me what that meant and just kept on keeping.

About an hour and a half had passed by already. I hadn't retained much information, I was just doing what I could to help Jae.

He was still talking about something, again, what it was, I wasn't too sure, but i really tried hard to seem like I was engaged, just to keep Jae doing what he was doing.

Younghyun was bored out of his mimd in the rest of the apartment, so bored that he decided to clean my entire apartment while Jae was lecturing me.
He was in the middle of sweeping when Jae started talking about chords ands intervals.

"Hey, I know a thing or two about that," he said, walking over to the table where we were.

"Oh," Jae looked slightly surprised. "Really?"

"Yeah, I used to play guitar in high school."

"Oh, so you must know like everything that I'm saying right? Like all of this music theory-"

"What?" Younghyun interrupted him. "Dude, I don't even know how to read sheet music. I just knew how to play the strings and make it sound good." He smiled and shrugged, walking off to keep on sweeping the rest of my apartment.

"Jae," I said. "I think that's it's safe to say that you are well prepared for your test. You've been able to tell me so much without even glancing at your notes. I don't think you should worry," I said, smiling reassuringly.

"You really think so?" He looked at me with his eyes open wide, and sighed. "Man, well, I guess thank you so much for this Y/N. I really do hope that I do good."

I helped Jae pack up his stuff in his bag and then walked him outside to his car.

"Um, so we'll sort out everything else for the project later, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah, just text me!"

He smiled and nodded. "Bye, Y/N," he said waving. "Thank you so much, again."

"No problem," I waved back, and watched him get into his car and drive off. I walked back to my apartment, and walked inside.

Younghyun was standing behind the sink of a kitchen that looked spotless.

"You owe me a really good beach trip tomorrow."
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A/N: hello another update! sorry i didn't update this story as i should have, i'll try harder to do better:)

also, i would like to bring light to something. if you are not active on twitter, then you may not know that jyp released a statement saying that multiple members of day6 are currently suffering from psychological anxiety. all of their promotions for this comeback were cancelled to ensure that they rest. please do not speculate about which members have anxiety and respect their privacy, as it was not specified, but instead just continue to love and support day6. stream zombie and the book of us: the demon and help vote for them on music shows. i hope anyone who didn't know is now aware.

please stay safe and hydrated~
ch. 12 soon!