The Harmony of Obsession

Chapter 7

"It's a strange thing, but I desperately don't want to leave this place. I think that it is all to do with Bob"
——Tchaikovsky's Dairy, 3/15 June 1884

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The second semester finally began. With a little excitement, Brett stood in the tiny balcony of his dorm, feeling the gentle cool breeze from the southern hemisphere in his face. He could sense the spring in the air.

His phone buzzed. It was an email from the registry, along with his transcript from last semester. Brett prayed to the violin God before he clicked the file, hoping he won't disappoint his stern Asian mom. The life in the conservatory was more competitive and stressful than he thought, even he just spent one semester in it. It was only the first day of the second semester, Brett could already felt the peer pressure on his shoulder when he found all practice rooms were full this morning.

To his surprise, he got straight A for all of his classes except the Basic Conduction, which was A- as he messed up the closing gesture due to a mind-skip. The boy sighed in relief. Well, at least all his practice time payoff. He then clicked to the university website to check the new released course schedule for Year one students.

Weekly private violin lesson with his advisor Jonathan Morris as usual, not surprising. As he kept scrolling down his phone, some more compulsory courses continuously popped up and Brett felt a bit overwhelmed already. His gaze soon stopped at the violin studio lessons.

Brett almost dropped his phone downstairs when he saw the name of the lecturer: Prof. Edward Chen. Oh my god. He felt his heart literally pounding like Alexander Peter's Virtuoso Timpani Concertos and Brett even could imagine himself smashing his head into one of the drums as the original piece required. God knows how desperate he was to take Eddy's class. How lucky he was!

Brett gave a shout of joy, headed back to his room happily and jumped to his bed, muffling his screams in his pillow. After spending 5 minutes giggling and rolling around in bed, he finally lifted up his head. Brett kept checking his phone again and again, as if he couldn't believe the name of the professor was actually lying in his schedule. He even took a screenshot of Edd's name, but soon found his action was creepy AF and deleted it immediately.

He needed to practice even harder before his class, Brett didn't want to embarrass himself in front of Eddy. With this in mind, he picked up his violin case and headed to the department building, hoping he could find an empty practice room this time.

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Brett arrived in the course room 30 minutes before class in order to grab the front seat. The room was not big, with a small stage in the center. A dramatic spotlight hanged directly above the stage. Some broken music stands were carelessly placed in the corner of the room. After tuning his violin, Brett kept checking the time on his phone nervously. It would be his first time playing in front of Eddy, Brett really wanted to leave a good impression.

Violin studio lessons consisted of 10 students from different years of violin program. The lecture format was designed as each student could volunteer to play in front of the class, which helped students get used to preform on stage and gain valid feedback from both peers and professor.
The rest of the class arrived successively. Brett felt a bit awkward when some senior students entered the room, chatting excitedly with each other. He pretended to play his phone when a person sat down next to him.

"Oh my god! Brett is it you?"

The boy immediately looked up to the person in surprise when he heard the familiar voice. It was Ray. A bright smile spreader across Brett's face as he finally found someone he knew, "Hey Ray! What a coincidence! Great to see you again!"

"Me too! How was your winter break?" Ray asked casually while settling his shoulder rest.

"Pretty good, I took a trip to Sydney. It was so fun and meaningful." Brett answered briefly. Of course he wouldn't tell Ray the reason why he went to Sydney.