better than me - minishaw

since when does he even play the guitar?

harry.

"Are you guys going to sign up for anything this year?" Freezy asked when the four of them were walking to school on their first day of year 12.

"I can't do shit" Lux groaned. "My house was a mess after the party and now I'm grounded for forever"

"I'm not doing anything, can't be bothered. I'm probably going to play warzone every day so there's no point in it." Nobody expected him to anyway, Vik always preferred to play video games than hanging out with people who weren't his friends. "How about you, Harry?"

"I'm definitely going to join the band. I finally can play enough and I also bought myself an electric guitar in the summer. You don't know how much lawns I had to mow to save up enough money."

Freezy stopped in his tracks. "Excuse me, since when do you even play guitar?"

"I've played it for the past few years," Harry shrugged. "Didn't think it was something important to mention"

"Bet you're awesome at it and you can shred like a motherfucker," Vik laughed and Harry shook his head.

Maybe this year was actually going to be a good one.

.•*

The hours passed as slowly as possible and after an excruciatingly long maths class, the school day was finally over. The moment the bell rang, Harry ran towards the music room.

When he arrived he only saw three boys, two of them were year 11s that he vaguely recognised as Will's friends. The smaller of the two was under the table but Harry didn't question it. The other boy in the room was Stephen, another one of Will's friends but at least Harry knew him and they got along well.

"Ah shit," a man said, entering the classroom. "Please excuse my language, I was just disappointed to see how few we are today. I'm Professor Phil if you didn't know, and I'm going to try to be a competent music teacher this year. Why don't we start by introducing ourselves, say your names, your ages and the instruments you play"

Phil pointed to Stephen and he began talking. "Uh, my name is Stephen, I'm 16 and I play the keyboard. I can also play drums but I suck at it."

Harry then realised it was his turn to introduce himself. "I'm Harry, I'm 15, and I play the guitar, usually lead."

"I'm James, I'm 15 and I play guitar, bass, and I also sing."

Phil then gestured to the boy under the table, trying to get him to talk.

"Oh, fuck. Okay, I'm Alex, I'm 14 and I'm only here to annoy James but it seems like you need members so I can proudly say I can play the tambourine. And I know, like, four chords on the ukulele."

James chose that moment to throw a rubber at Alex, which bounced off his skull and hit Phil right in the face. It was an incredible icebreaking tactic because the four of them ended up giggling while Phil only stared at them with a face of disappointment.

When everyone had settled down, Phil began making a list of songs they could all learn. Due to the lack of people available, he set up Stephen with drums, James with the bass and vocals and Harry with the guitar. He then tried to teach Alex how to play the keyboard which proved to be an impossible task, even though the both of them tried their best.

There had never been a racket bigger than the one they created. Stephen had a horrible timing and kept speeding up randomly, throwing everyone off balance. James was actually doing a good job but was drowned out by Alex accidentally pressing random keys with his arm. Harry tried to play as well as he could but kept playing other riffs, due to the confusing environment.

"Hey, I'm sorry I'm late, football tryouts — what the fuck is this horrible noise?"

None other than Simon Minter had entered the classroom, just to Harry's luck.

"Simon! Thank god you're here! Okay, here's the new order: Alex, get to play the tambourine now! James & Harry, both of you are perfect, stay exactly where you are. Simon, go to the drums, Stephen, you go to the keyboard. Does everyone understand?"

They all nodded and Alex gave a sigh of relief. Learning how to play a whole other instrument was more than what he had signed up for. The boy ended up going back to his spot underneath the table. Alex was an interesting person to say the least.

It turns out, Stephen was a decent keyboardist and Simon was an excellent drummer who fit in the group perfectly. After a few arguments, they decided they were going to play Come As You Are by Nirvana, which was fairly easy. James stuck to bass but Stephen switched to vocals then, due to the fact that the song had no keyboard.

It was one of the first songs Harry had learnt completely so when it was time, he was able to play the entire song, including the solo, absolutely flawlessly. Add the fact that Simon played it marvellously and James was a good bassist, the song actually turned out well.

Alex was also enjoying his time there. He got to appreciate the music, annoy all of them by occasionally throwing rubbers at them and playing the tambourine.

They were all having so much fun that they only checked the time when Alex started to complain that he was hungry. It was 7 in the afternoon already, they had accidentally stayed for a full extra hour.

"I want to say thanks to all of you who came today, we clearly all had so much fun, I hope you can all come back on Thursday. Even though today turned out well, the band is still pretty small so it would be great if you got someone else to join. And with that, I leave, goodnight kids." Phil left the room, leaving them all in silence. He was indeed a strange man.

"Hey, Alex, you should bring your girlfriend on Thursday," James nudged Alex, who turned a brilliant shade of crimson at those words.

The rest of the boys laughed and went their separate ways but Harry couldn't stop thinking about the fact that Simon was much different than what he had originally thought.