I'll Always Be The Rain Cloud To Your Sunshine [Bechloe]

The Barden Bellas

The soft wind blowing across the quad, the sound of laughter and chatter filling the air and the sun shining up in the sky seemed to be the perfect ingredients of a delicious recipe for the perfect day.

Standing under the shadow of a huge tree, the Treblemakers - the all-male a cappella group that for the previous 6 years had won the International Collegiate Championship of A cappella - were performing and dancing on the notes of a softer and in-some-way-more-appealing version of "Let It Whip", the eyes of many students fixed on them, bewitched by their skill. 

As soon as performance was over, the audience gave a round of applause and Bumper - Treble's leader - bowed with false modesty, an insincere smile widening on his face while blowing kisses to the girls passing by. Bumper was as talented as he was a jerk, everybody knew it.

Not too far from there, two girls were standing in front of their booth - a white, capital B printed inside of a blue circle distinguishing it - watching the scene. 

"I will stop at nothing to take down those dicklicks", Aubrey commented, her voice taut, after diverting her attention from the Trebles, "We'd better quickly find eight super-hot girls with bikini ready bodies who can harmonize and have perfect pitch... or the Bellas are over". She spat out the last words as if they were a bitter medicine she'd refuse to ingest, a lump forming in her throat. The Bellas over? She couldn't even think of that. 

First of all because the Bellas wasn't just an ordinary a cappella group. It was an institution, the result of the efforts of the many women that during the previous decades had had the chance to lead the group and struggled to make the voice of the female a cappella world sound louder; but, more importantly, she couldn't accept that the end of the Bellas could be her fault since the previous year, during their set...

"I know what you're thinking", the sweet voice of Chloe interrupting Aubrey's flow of thoughts, "Taking the blame on yourself won't be a solution, we just have to be patient". Chloe knew how hard on herself Aubrey could be so she tried hard to find the right words to comfort her friend: "Lots of students here are freshmen. They do not probably even know what A cappella is, there's no chance anyone knows what happened at the ICCA", she winked. 

Aubrey felt a sudden, deep sense of relief, her shoulders finally relaxing. Chloe always knew how to best calm her down. She thanked her and they smiled at each other. Chloe had known Aubrey for years, fate bringing them to the same high school and then to the same college: they always had each other's back and even if Aubrey's attitude was sometimes a bit rough for Chloe's standards, they cared a lot about each other. 

Aubrey's family hadn't been there for her much, her father being in the army and her mother keeping traveling for work, so Chloe had become a sort of sister to her, even though they physically had nothing in common. Aubrey was a blonde, tall and thin girl, her beady, green eyes brightening up her chiseled, fair face; 

Chloe, on the other side, had an athletic build - as a result of all the jogging she did - and was a couple of inches shorter than her friend; her big doe eyes had the same blue shade of the ocean on a sunny day and seemed capable of peering into the depth of everyone's soul. That, in combination with her tousled, red hair - her waves cascading on her shoulders like flames - made Chloe extremely attractive. Not that Aubrey wasn't.