[The King's Avatar] The Misconstrued Situation With An Overdue Explanation

Chapter 23: More Feelings

2507 words, 12 minutes

If there was one thing Akane firmly believed, it was that the arrangement of all the students in the Music Performance club was superbly organized like an orchestra to make her feel intimidated.

Before any neat rows were made, the amateur orchestra was asked to dress up in black blazers with white-collared shirts underneath, black dress pants for the boys, long black skirts for the girls, black dress shoes for the boys and black flats/heels for the girls.

Once the students that didn't own such clothes at the moment were provided with them, Jiàoshòu Yue discussed their placement on the theater's stage; the student in charge of the gong  was placed at the back of the stage with another student playing regular drums and 2 students each with tanggu drums. The 12 bamboo/metal flutists were all stationed on the front-left rows, whereas the 8 violinists were opposite of them. With the violinists were 6 erhu players and 3 pipa players grouped together. The 3 sheng players sat along one separate row with 3 trumpet players and 4 trombone players. The 2 cellists were lumped with 2 double bassists for the last row.

A total of 48 students were going to perform, including Akane.

But where was Akane placed?

Well, since many orchestras with a piano have followed this seating format before, Jiàoshòu Yue placed the piano just in front of the conductor's square platform.

Thus the pressure of being the most visible to the audience.

Overall, the entire length of the musical piece Jiàoshòu Yue and the leaders of the Music Performance club wrote was 6 minutes, but Akane knew it was going to feel longer because of all the emotion that came with a unified symphony performed in sonata.

Friday November 8th was showtime.

~

Just a couple of minutes was left before they would start performing at 7PM. They were already in position with their stands and music sheets in front of them, and a peek past the wine red curtain showed the many university students and family members entering the theater to take a seat on any of the chairs that were placed beforehand.

It's only 6 minutes,  she nervously reminded herself, biting her thumb while glancing at the students speedwalking around backstage to make sure they were ready to control the lights when needed.

She stared back at the rest of the students already taking their seats before settling her eyes on Tang Rou. Although she had great skill in the piano, she was one of the bamboo flutists instead since that was the next best instrument she was good at playing. Plus, she wasn't amazing at playing the bass yet, and it wasn't included in the musical piece anyway.

The serene woman shot her a glance and gave her a reassuring smile, mouthing "Do your best". Akane nodded back and mouthed "You, too" before everyone finally settled down and Jiàoshòu Yue beckoned her to come now.

When Akane walked across the stage clad in black, the rest of the orchestra stood in respect as she and Jiàoshòu Yue firmly shook hands. Akane was so in the moment that she didn't even register the door opening.