The Fourth on the First

Three

"Get out of my sight."

Brett walked out of the studio without knowing how. He leans against the street light pole as if all his strength has fully left him.
The violin case is in his hands, he holds it tightly as if it were the funny pink plushie toy he sleeps with every night.

The phone, in his pocket, coincidentally happens to ring when Brett's mind is somewhere else. He picks up the call, not recognizing the number.

"Brett?"

"—Yes? Sensei?" The voice offers familiarity and security, pulling Brett back to consciousness.

"Yeah, it is me. I changed my number. How was your first lesson?"

"Um, it was—" Good? Not at all. "Good."

Sensei Chen chuckles softly on the other side of the call, "Huh? Really? It was good?"

"Yeah...I guess, kind of."

"Hey, I know you're not telling the truth," Chen pauses for a moment and smiles, intentionally saying quietly. "Come on, how was it actually?"

"It was actually...pretty good." How can he tell his teacher he almost ran away leaving his instrument behind?

"What kind of good?"

Brett runs out of responses. He doesn't have the brain cells to make up beautiful lies.

"It was—just good."

Chen sits in his chair, lefthand fingers tapping rhythmically on the desk until he realizes that he's doing the fingering of the Sibelius Violin Concerto 3rd Movement—he indeed had some great memories learning this piece with Professor Wenuhin, "Didn't you just learn, not to lie?"

He meant it as a joke, but the trauma haunts Brett again.
"Oh, ugh. I mean, he was kind of scary."

Chen can't help but gives a wide grin, his shoulders trembling and tries hard to hold back laughter, "Told you! Finally spilling some tea here, aren't we? What else?"

"No-nothing more."

Chen raises an eyebrow, mischievously lowering his tone as he always does to inflict mental damage on Brett.
"You realize—how I knew what you learned, right?"

A volcano erupts—no, explodes right in front of Brett. He stands with his over-loaded brain, stunned.

"Hey!" Brett is eventually able to make a sound. "Hey, you don't talk behind people's back like this!"
Brett tends to be really casual around Sensei Chen, as the latter treats him more like half a friend than the traditional teacher-student relationship, "That's not nice!"

Chen finally can't stop himself from giggling, covering his face with his left hand and biting his index fingernail while Brett blows up on the phone, "Why you laughing! That's so not nice! Treat people how you want to be treated!"

"I, I'm—" Chen tries to catch his breath. "Not my problem. He texted me, he texted me first...And be, be careful now...I'm, I'm telling whatever you said to me to him and he'll have you screwed up like how you screwed up that D string today for not respecting your teacher...hahaha..."
A three-year-old-Sensei-Eddy-Chen has fallen off his chair by emotionally damaging his student.

That sentence is quite effective on Brett as he instantly shuts up and glares at the building viciously. Lingling never stands on his side, "Are-are you okay?"

"Yeah...I guess, kind of..." Chen mocks, laughing his head off.

"I'ma hang-up now, you just tease me." Brett has more than a thousand ideas of how to talk back, but they were all held back due to the majestic authority.