Chapter Text
1. a tempest in a tiny room
Someone was playing the piano in the next room over. The sound was chaotic, rampant—he could hear the sforzandos like thunder, bludgeoning through the soundproofed walls of the practice room. It was the first movement of Pathetique, Felix recognized, and it was glorious. Played strongly and passionately—
as if telling a story of a bloody war—
a dance of swordsmen that escalated from sparring to dueling, from first blood to death pacts
—but the war wasn’t taking place on a windy battlefield—
marbled floors and harlequined costumes marked it in a stuffy ballroom
—people kneeling, people pleading
—whispered arguments and stolen kisses.
The whole thing was very distracting.
The practice room beside his was a tempest in a teapot, and the over exuberant Beethoven was making it very difficult to play his meticulous Bach.
His internal counting, usually impeccable, was turning wretchedly on itself. His measures were full of unintentional rubato. And he stumbled over fingerings that he had perfected weeks ago.
Felix’s eyes scrambled to find his place in the score, as his muscle memory stumbled and crawled—a hand disembodied from the mind that commanded it.
The pianist next door was on the second run of the monstrous repeat that defined the piece, and he told himself that he could wait it out. So he waited, resigning himself to tracing the runs on his right hand.
But when it came time for the pianist to move on, to reprise the dramatic introduction and continue through a few more tempests, they took the repeat again.
Bastard.
Despite admiring the arm strength needed to hold down that tremoring bass, Felix was annoyed. And when the other pianist took the repeat for the third time, rather than completing the already godawfully long piece, he was livid.
He stood, swung open the door of his practice room, stomped into the deserted hallway, and raised his fist to knock on the door to the next room.
He wasn’t exactly sure what he would say to this rogue pianist. However, Angry Felix always seemed to find the rightly spited words when the time came. Something would pop out of his mouth, competitive, biting, a little clever, a lot mean (or so he was told). And that would settle it.
He would probably insist that the other musician keep it down. That clearly they didn’t know the meaning of the little “p”s that darted all over the score to mark the piece’s dramatic contrasts. He might even suggest that they invest in a metronome, and take to practicing late at night when no one was around.
If Felix had thought the other pianist was loud before, he could hear them very clearly now. The practice room doors were the weakest point. The sound-proofing was only a bit of foam that covered the door’s interior without filling in the cracks.
But when he went to knock, he realized that the pianist had finally moved on from the rapid repeated section. As they transitioned from the cut-time to common-time section, he heard them inhale a deep breath. It tingled through him, as did the exquisite contrasts of the reprisal. And, rather than knocking, he merely rested his fist against the door. Then, as he listened, he dropped it to his side.
This pianist was doing something with feelings. Between the roguish disregard for the exact writing and kind of perfection that came only from the brigand-pianist’s personal interpretation, the sound swiped like a sword across his chest. The counting wasn’t perfect (the way he would have played it), and yet it sounded right.
As he walked back into his own practice room, he strategized a new objective for himself. This time, instead of immediately berating the other pianist, he would sneak out behind them and see who it was.
Knowing and accepting that he would be distracted, he disinterestedly traced scales and adagios across the keys. He was capable of his own kind of passion when it came to music, but it was nothing like the storm he was hearing next door.
When the first movement ended with a bang, the overly emotive fingers picked up the second movement. This was quieter, more clear, like he would have played it himself, with carefully equal triplets. He was almost grateful that the pianist hadn’t taken the opportunity to make this delicate piece overly saccharine.
When, finally, the sonata was finished in soft tones and whispers much quieter than the initial battlesounds that drew him, Felix listened carefully to the sounds from next door.
Although muted, he heard the stool being pulled back. He didn’t hear the door open, but he could tell when it shut.
For a few seconds he continued to trail his notes down the keys, his mind focused on gauging whether the other pianist was right at the door. Counting in his mind with perfect time, he raised his fingers, hastily packed his bag, and made sure to close the door softly behind him.
There she was, the other pianist. Soft green hair waved behind her as she stepped quickly down the hallway. She looked to be fleeing the scene. And to add to the absurd drama of it all, Felix took to chasing her. Not one to call out, Felix had only one way of really getting her to turn around. Foolish and determined, he sped up to overtake her.
When there was no way she hadn’t noticed him, he put his hand out to tap her shoulder. He blundered it, though, and accidentally punched her on the shoulder.
His knuckles grazed lean muscle and she turned around on him. Despite being slightly taller than her, he felt like she was towering over him. His body seemed to be melting downward into his teal skinny jeans in a way that even his aggressively straight posture couldn’t save him from. It could have been the heeled boots she was wearing or her stern, almost vacant expression.
Her eyes squinted at him and her forehead crinkled. She was annoyed, maybe even angry, but when she spoke her voice was even, “Why did you hit me?”
“You play loudly,” Felix said the first stupid thing that came to his mind.
“So what? The room’s soundproofed.” Her tone didn’t change, but her eyes continued to narrow.
“Not that soundproofed,” he countered.
“You chased me down to tell me that?” She was now looking very annoyed, her pale green hair swinging with a jerk of her head, as if she was hoping to get a new vantage on the man who had hit her—a vantage that would make him seem less stupid. “Were you the person in the other practice room? You seemed to be struggling.”
“You were playing so loudly it distracted me.”
“Focus next time.”
Felix shook his head. He didn’t mean to fight, but now he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.
“Who are you anyway?” This was, after all, his whole intention for chasing her down. Now, though, he was hissing it out, as if to find the proper name of someone he intended to challenge to a duel.
“Byleth Eisner,” she said, sounding confused.
“I’m Felix Fraldarius.” He gave her time to recognize the name. When she didn’t say anything, he asked, “Are you a performance major?” Whatever his intentions about making this other pianist his friend, his tone took on a vehemence of its own, speaking to the thrill of competition.
“No,” she said, looking about to check out of the conversation. “I’m a musicology graduate student, and I was just playing for fun.” Her tone remained infuriatingly neutral.
Felix scoffed. “Don’t let me stop you then.”
“I won’t,” she said lightly as if that was all she needed to hear, and she could get back on her way.
Felix watched her leave, ducking his head in his hand. The gesture made his bun flop dejectedly against his neck.
At some point in that conversation, he was supposed to have mentioned that her music was beautiful, that it made him feel and imagine vivid scenes. That he wanted to hear her play again and soon, and maybe she might even like to listen to him sometime.
But she hadn’t really given him the space to, had she? Byleth—did she make everything into a battle?
Felix shook his head in the middle of the hallway, and said out loud, “What was her problem?”
2. we’ve both been very brave
The quiet porch of Mach Coffeehouse was one of the few places that Byleth let herself dream past the papers to grade, the practical aspects of her research, the expectations and pressures placed on her by the professors and Dean Seteth.
But there was a gnawing anxiety too. An ache in her jaw that made her wonder, what was she really doing as a graduate student at University? Living like a leaf on the wind with no plans of her own.
Normally, when she felt her jaw ache like this, she started irrationally thinking it was the cigarettes—a grateful vice she adopted from her father. Because without the cigarettes and the shoegazey playlists, there would be so little to talk about on the porch when her students were sick of whining about schoolwork and courses. And the smoke and drones had become part and particle of her very thought process.
No, the jaw ache was something else. Maybe she didn’t know what she wanted, but there was something that drew her footsteps back to to Mach Coffeehouse—unprofessional though it may be. There was something about the moshing inside on the weekends and the cigarette haze outside on the weeknight.
Byleth’s position in grad school was—as idiotic as it sounds—about the money and security. Being a TA was one of the better jobs she found herself contracted to. Plus, there was the security, the stability, and the chance to explore her options without struggling for the time.
Did she believe in the academy? Mostly not. Did she care about the clergy of elitist professors? She blew it like smoke from her mouth. Did she really believe she would find herself in some superfluous research? Not in the least. But she liked the kids, she wanted to help guide them, and there were some professors who did more good than harm.
The whole situation boggled her father. Jeralt was a singer-songwriter who was more often found in the corner of a dive than on a legitimate stage. His guidance oscillated between overprotective and downright neglectful, but it left Byleth growing up with a strong sense of her own freedom.
Without grad school, she didn’t know what else to do. Besides, she would have wandered from job to job regardless. If she had underestimated how difficult it would be to teach students who were only a few years (if that) younger than her, she never mentioned it. She just blew all the frustration out with the smoke and the music
Byleth earned her place as a beloved staff member of the Mach Coffeehouse through the piano skills her father taught her. Those ivory keys were her only hope for expression. She had found that there was so much more she could say with a perfectly spread bang on the keys than she could from her fool mouth.
Her degree was in musicology, her focus on the interchange of music and politics. But she was shafted into teaching history. She couldn’t complain, though—there were clear dates and facts to teach. That, at least, was comforting.
She kept her teacher clothes simple, a pencil skirt that descended halfway down her calves and patterned fishnets. Heels everyday gave her the slightest opportunity to match the height of most students.
But on nights that she spent at Mach Coffeehouse, she could wear the clothes she had favored on the road with her dad. That, too, was comforting. The fishnets stayed, and she put to use old shirts, altered and chopped with cut and rolled sleeves.
Thursday night was Byleth’s shift at Mach, and the porch was a blessedly quiet space. Without a band playing, the only occupants were a few students studying inside. Between their individual conversations and cliques, no one bothered putting music on the overhead speakers.
Though she was on shift for the night, there really was nothing to do. Mach Coffeehouse brought music into town, but that was about all it did. Its coffee was abhorrent, cost 50 cent a cup, and was only obligatorily brewed and obligatorily drunk by the kind of crusty masochists who also tended to shun hippies to the back porch.
In between cigarettes and making headway on her lesson plans, Byleth would drift inside and see what everyone was up to. This amounted to making sure the dishes weren’t piling up and that there were no messes to attend to before wandering back out.
The inside of Mach was unapologetically grungy. The place was full of unsettling trinkets—odds-and-ends of unknown origin. Everything felt like it pre-dated the current cohort of students: a gas mask, homespun pottery, assorted books and textbooks from college courses, flags of various origins, half a mannequin, and a bent-up roadsign. The walls were plastered with art that once advertised the various bands and shows around campus.
Case in point, one of the best artists at Mach was currently working on a poster sketch for next week’s show. Byleth saw Ignatz’s distinctive lettering spell out the band’s name Crimson Flower. Below that Ignatz had sketched an imposing and fierce cartoonization of Mach Coffeehouse’s general manager Edelgard.
He drew her in stylized, pointy armor, holding an axe, and standing on a pile of rubble, looking like something from a D&D campaign. The blunt sharpie drawing didn’t leave a lot of room for expression. But there was something in sketch of Edelgard’s big eyes that suggested they were ready—any time, any day—for arson.
“What do you think, Professor?” Ignatz asked with his much-too-sincere voice.
Professor was a nickname the students at Mach had given Byleth when they learned of her TA Instructor position. It was silly, considering that as a Master’s student she was barely a rung above the undergrads themselves. She couldn’t tell if it showed a sense of naivety for the academic system, or if the joke was on her and they were all in on it.
It didn’t matter, because she couldn’t shake the damn nickname anyway. At least it was better than the nickname she had gotten in her undergrad, the Ashen Demon. That one hadn’t been a fond nickname. She had earned it by removing herself from all the other students. Only showing up for piano performances to pound out perfectly rendered ballads to Mephistopheles, Ligetti’s Devil’s Staircase, and other devilish and difficult works.
Still the Professor name haunted her. It wasn’t like she was the only grad student or even graduated adult who spend time at Mach. There was Yuri, a physics PHD student who started his degree that semester, same as her, and whose text messages were currently blowing up her phone. There was also the cold and laconic Shamir, a chemistry PHD, Catherine, the local kickboxing instructor who sometimes told them off about ruining their lungs, and Alois a pompous law student who wouldn’t stop punning no matter how annoyed you looked.
“Professor?” Ignatz asked again, looking disconcerted at her absent expression.
“Is that Edelgard?” Byleth asked, recovering and seeking to comfort her student. “It looks really good. I think she’d like it. Though I don’t know that I understand it.”
“Well, Crimson Flower is a metal band,” Ignatz said by way of explanation. His voice was wavering a little as if he were suddenly doubting himself.
Byleth tried to follow his train of thought. “And Edelgard is metal,” she said.
“For sure,” Ignatz looked relieved, as if all it took to validate him was that one logical jump. “She’s probably the most metal person I know.”
“It’s perfect then.”
Many of Ignatz’s posters were drawn in a grotesque style with thick sharpie lines. Other students would then copy them onto colored photo paper in the school library. The lettering always looked a little like the title of a B horror movie, the sort that they played every wednesday night—Zombie Zendsdays—at Mach when they set up the projector and popped some microwave popcorn.
Nonetheless, Byleth admired the careful artwork, full of monsters and guitars. One of her favorites was a ripped apart keyboard played by diseased kraken who looked about to keel over. She couldn’t think of a single of these posters where the drawing had anything to do with the band, but it didn’t really matter.
It was all to draw attention. Likely, the rest of the school never knew the band on the poster anyway. They just saw that there was a show that night, and thought maybe it would be a good place to start off the evening.
In the rare opportunity that Mach joined forces and budgets with the college radio station and brought in a band that about sixty percent of the student population would recognize, they publicized that event to high hell, and held them in larger venues around the campus. Byleth usually didn’t show up to those. More people, more space, more publicity, more professors and other academic staff meant less fringe, less heart-to-hearts by moonlight, less moshing, and fewer cigarettes. It wasn’t worth it.
Sitting on a squashed couch were Annette and Mercedes. The girls were sweet, but boy could they gossip. They seemed to make up for it by bringing freshly baked cookies and brownies for everyone to share. The home-baked goods undercut Mach Coffeehouse’s already minimal sales of prepackaged shit. But no one ever cared, and the GM found it a charming.
“Dorothea implied that she had a gig at Pub Abyss,” Annette was saying. “I tried to get that gig a month ago and they told me they were phasing out their evening live music.”
“No one can say no to Dorothea,” Mercedes giggled. “Don’t worry, though Annie. What Dorothea does is way different from your singer-songwriter stuff. She covers music that people know, so it’s a lot more approachable. There will be good places for your art, Annie. Have you talked to Ferdinand about doing a set at Noble Tea?”
Annette sighed. “I’m just worried that after my last gig there, when only three tables stuck around for my whole set, that I’m not going to get another call from Noble Tea.”
“You’re a cute girl who plays the guitar and sings like an angel,” Mercedes said, giggling again. “Ferdinand would be be foolish not to get you back in there. Just give it some time. A small place like that won’t prioritize scheduling live music. They’re probably a bit behind.”
“I hope your right, Mercie,” Annette was saying before taking a big bite out of one of the cookies.
In the far corner, at the only actual table in Mach, Leonie and Hubert sat at opposite ends doing homework. Byleth was surprised to see that Edelgard wasn’t there was well, but she knew the ambitious girl often took evening seminars.
Like Ignatz, Leonie was one Byleth’s own students. She was pretty intense, often telling Byleth about how she was planning on attending grad school herself, and how she intended to surpass Byleth’s education. Byleth knew this was because Leonie had grown up listening to Jeralt’s songs, and she was obsessive about proving herself him. Byleth brushed most of it off, but every time she saw Leonie in Mach, she had to stifle a smug memory of that one time while moshing that she knocked Leonie out cold with a flail of her elbow.
Byleth was careful not to throw punches, as she had to protect her hands. But you never knew what would go flying when the music dropped really heavy. The other pianist at Mach, a quiet but aggressive guy named Felix, didn’t hesitate to throw a punch every now and again—and he was a performance major. Now that she thought of it, that might have been why. What a gloriously reckless outlet it must be, when one smashed knuckle could ruin everything you worked for?
She shifted her focus over to Hubert. Pale, with dark hair and a deep-set gaze that even absurdly high cheekbones couldn’t turn into beauty, the man worked diligently. He only had one shift at Mach, and it was during the event he personally organized, the Zombie Zendsdays. He enjoyed chuckling coldly during slasher flix and had a particular penchant for vampire movies. Nonetheless, Hubert showed up to most shifts, and was the secretary of the organization, taking and sending out emails at every staff meeting. According to the gossip, he was childhood friends with the GM.
At first, Byleth had found him deeply unsettling. She had never seen him eat anything, and he actually preferred the bitter burnt dregs of the coffee at the bottom of the pot. But, since he was another one who preferred sitting on the porch during shows inhaling the noxious air, she had a few opportunities to get to know him better. Conversations with him were never what she considered kind or warm, but they were thoughtful. Despite being rough around the edges, and perhaps a little overwilling to kill her enemies for her, Hubert was always a wealth of information and insights.
She glanced into the reading room where Claude was inverted on a couch. His knees were lazily bent against the couch back, and he held a book above his head. He had a peculiar talent of looking at ease anywhere. As the other person on shift for the night, Byleth wasn’t surprised to find him by himself studying or scheming or whatever it was he did. When she poked her head in, he asked, “All good, Teach?”
“All good,” she replied. “But let’s start closing in thirty minutes.”
“You got it.” Claude flashed Byleth a smile before turning his attention back to his book.
Taking in the quiet crowd, Byleth was unsurprised to find that there really was nothing shift-wise for her to do inside. She grabbed her laptop, screen open to a class powerpoint she was preparing, and went back outside to take her spot on the rocking chair.
Shortly after she settled in, Lysithea, a small girl in Byleth’s class, who was shockingly diligent about her applied mathematics and physics double major, came up to the porch. “Hi professor,” she said passing Byleth. Then, she barely had the door open when she called out, “Are those cookies I smell, yum.”
3. walk around on both legs
“Fraldarius.” The voice that called him out was unmistakably commanding, despite its musical undertones. Like many of the voices that circulated the music faculty, Dean Seteth had been classically trained in vocals.
Musical or not, though, Felix didn’t lower his guard. In fact, it was the use of his last name that make him stiffen and raised his hackles.
It was the name that paraded around his father’s and late brother’s musical prestige. The name that was driving him, like an arrow loosed from someone else’s bow, along his current path.
It was also obnoxious to be caught like this. Unfortunately, there were no trapdoors down the the practice rooms in the basement. If Felix wanted to go unnoticed through the department, he would have to become much more stealthy walking these halls.
Not turning around, he waited for the man to draw level with him. The sea green hair emerged from his periphery, until it was standing right in front of him.
“Dean Seteth,” Felix hoped that some ounce of respect leaked out around the sharpness of his tongue.
“I saw that you have not signed up for our Tuesday Open Concert next week. Do you have another conflict?” Seteth raised his hand to the thin strip of beard on the edge of his jaw. A nervous gesture, but purposeful and calculated to inspire trust.
“I have a shift that evening. At Mach Coffeehouse—my work study.”
“I thought as much. But I also think, Felix,” his voice was now taking on a fatherly tone that failed to make this conversation any more endearing, “that you schedule your shifts to get out of these performances.”
“Why would I do that?”
“That’s a good question. You are an excellent performer—one of our best.” Felix glared, forcing himself not to say under his breath that he was the best. “Nerves have never been your issue either,” Seteth continued, immune to Felix’s glares and counting off the likely excuses on his long cellist’s fingers. “So why is it that you avoid these performances? Certainly one such as yourself would relish the opportunity to show off your skills.”
Show off his skills, like his father did, touring his violin all over the country. Like his brother had done when he was still strong enough to bow and pluck his cello.
“Performances like those are mere pageantry. I can demonstrate my skills in other ways. I assure you, I am getting better all the time, whether or not I perform at these open concerts.”
“And yet, it’s not bettering your skills that I’m worried about. There are other reasons to attend the Tuesday Open Concerts.”
“Like what?”
“To begin with, the other music faculty and I expect you to. But even more importantly, these concerts give our music program a sense of community. Musicians need communities and networks, whether you like it or not, Felix. They need chamber groups to play with, clients to hire them, dueting partners to challenge them, and friends to inspire and support them.”
Felix made a scoffing noise, but Seteth was unflapped.
“Furthermore,” he continued. “If I don’t see you sign up, I will be forced to pull seniority on your work study and switch your shift myself.”
Felix knew to yield when he was defeated. “Fine, Dean Seteth, I’ll sign up.”
“Good,” Seteth’s musical voice sounded relieved. “Choose a strong piece. I look forward to hearing you play.”
4. fight for the scary day
Felix attended the staff meeting for Mach coffeehouse that Friday. Despite working there since he started at the university two years ago, his attendance to the meetings was infrequent.
He sat next to a caffeine-eyed Sylvain. Everything about Sylvain, from his posture to the direction of his seat, was facing where Edelgard sat as she ran the meeting. He glued his eyes to her as if she she were the only person in the world, barely breaking away to wink at Felix who was shifting irritably.
“Out of all your misguided causes,” Felix hissed at Sylvain, “that might be your most idiotic.”
“What do you mean?” Sylvain asked, pretending innocence with his puppy dog eyes.
“You don’t have a chance in Hell with Edelgard.” He said it flippantly, but the words felt appropriate. Edelgard wasn’t one to flirt or beat around the bush. The girl was sharp, commanding. And what warm parts she showed her friends were often buried under the weight of her expectations for them. He knew she felt a lot of pressure from her family and her station, but didn’t they all?
“Relax Felix,” Sylvain whispered smoothly. “I don’t have a thing for Edelgard. I just want to see how riled up Dorothea will get if I keep looking at her like this.”
Felix humphed and turned his attention to the meeting.
“So that settles it,” Edelgard was saying. “We aren’t having a concert on Saturday, so instead we’ll host an open mic. Ignatz, I trust you to collaborate with Bernadetta, and get some posters underway ASAP. Then, enlist Leonie and Petra to help you circulate them, they’re usually efficient at that.”
Felix looked at where the purple-haired Bernadetta was sitting next to Edelgard on the couch, already sketching something in a notebook. Although she came to every staff meeting, driven by some inexplicable loyalty to Edelgard, Felix was suprised each time to find the recluse out of her room.
As if she could feel his eyes on her where she was huddled over her sketchbook, she looked up at him. He gave her the barest hint of a smile across the room. She wasn’t so bad. A writer, poet, and artist. Sometimes when well-meaning friends backed her into a corner at social occasions, she would come out saying the most bizarre things—a mouth full of surprises.
“Okay then,” came Ignatz’s voice from another corner, tucked somewhere that Felix couldn’t see him. Ignatz, Felix had learned a few days ago, was one of the TA Byleth’s students. A history and art double major of Felix’s year, he gave glowing reviews of Byleth’s lectures. Apparently, they were inspiring to his art. Felix wondered how good Byleth’s lessons could be. Or was Ignatz just a suck up?
“That wraps up the majority of our agenda,” Edelgard was saying. “Are there any other issues or concerns that we need to bring to the group.”
There was a rustle of people packing up their things, and Felix could even hear Annette picking up the threads of a previous conversation somewhere behind him.
“I have one,” he said.
“Ah, Felix,” the room quieted down again. “I thought you must, considering you don’t often attend staff meeting.” On the other side of her, Felix could see Hubert typing furiously at his secretary notes. That struck him as odd, considering Felix hadn’t even registered a concern yet.
“I need to switch my weekly shift for the long-term,” he said, not bothering to offer his reasons.
“When is your shift again?” Edelgard asked, peering over Hubert’s shoulder to look at the shift calendar.
“Tuesday early and late,” he said, hoping that no one would draw a connection between that evening slot and the open concerts.
“Right,” Edelgard said peering at the schedule. “Well it looks like we actually have three people including yourself on Tuesday early. So assuming everyone shows up as they should—” she didn’t even smile around the threat in her voice. Felix could almost feel Hubert internally simpering next to her. “—We won’t need to fill that spot. Tuesday late, though, is just you and Sylvain.”
Felix didn’t bother glancing at Sylvain in apology. Sylvain could get on much better with his flirting without Felix there glowering at him anyway. And if he felt abandoned, that just meant he would have to show more interest whenever Felix invited him to study.
“Well,” Edelgard was saying, “I’d rather settle this here if we can. Is there anyone willing to pick up or switch to a Tuesday shift?”
As the other staff members looked around the room at each other, Felix became aware of how few favors he had done for any of them lately. He been more or less permanently grumpy to everyone since he and Annette had broken up last year. It was water under the bridge to the two of them, but everyone else seemed uncomfortable with Felix brash glares. Even Mercedes was looking at her hands, unable to throw him a bone. Felix felt a slight sting, realizing he at least expected to hear Annette’s familiar, “I’m your girl.”
When even Edelgard was beginning to look uncomfortable, she said “We’ll send out an email then. Hubert, can you—”
But Felix cut her off. “Wait a minute. Is this about the damn open concerts?” He knew the fury in his voice was an overreaction, but he didn’t like being forced to show his hand.
“Well we all go to them, Felix,” Mercedes said evenly. “Even if we don’t all play.”
“And some of us perform at them,” Dorothea added. Felix noticed she sounded grumpier than usual and seemed to be addressing this remark to Sylvain rather than himself.
“Well I have to perform at them now. Dean Seteth is making me.”
“Oh Felix, that’s great. I can’t wait to hear you perform,” Mercedes said so sweetly that Felix couldn’t find it in him to glare at her.
“Well if that’s the problem,” Claude said, sounding nonchalant as if he just now realized there was a conversation going on. “I can switch with you. Switching though, not picking up more shifts,” he clarified swiftly to Edelgard, “I don’t want too much work.”
“We certainly wouldn’t want to overtax you, Claude.” Edelgard looked at Claude as if sizing him up. It was the only way she ever looked at him. “When is your shift then? Thursday?”
“Yep, Thursday early and late with Teach.”
“And that works for you, Felix?”
Felix nodded. He was still annoyed about having to admit that he was performing—despite it being, after all, the whole focus of his major.
“Okay then. Claude, you’re on for Tuesday late with Sylvain. Felix, you have Thursday early and late with the Professor. She’s not here now, but Hubert will send an email to let her know.”
Felix’s eyes grew wide as he realized for the first time who Claude meant when he said Teach—that other pianist, the TA Byleth.
“Good, is there anything else? Nothing. Well let’s start setting up for the show tonight.”
5. we both pull the tricks out of our sleeves
There was nothing gratifying about seeing that the small theater so full of people waiting to listen to the open concert. It was even worse when Felix realized that so many of them were people he recognized.
There was a whole demographic of Mach Coffeehouse staff who didn’t give a shit about music, only hitting up the shows because they liked the scene and the parties. Then there was the other demographic. The supportive ones who played music of all kinds and went to see their friends play music. The supportive ones were the worst.
Walking in, Felix felt himself scoff and frown though no one was even talking to him yet.
Seteth had put his name last in the concert order. The cruelty of it suited the dean. It meant Felix would have to stay there through the whole performance, watching his peers struggle through their various skills.
Always surveying in vain for a worthy opponent. The copier-printed and crudely scissor-cut program was crumpling in his hand. Was he really so tense? Did it really matter so much?
The thing was, as if pouring salt into the wound, Seteth positioned him on the line-up after that grad student Byleth. So he got the finale position, the best spot. But, wouldn’t it be sensible to distribute the other pianist of the night among the singers and violinists who had signed up?
“Why am I even here?” he said under his breath as he took a seat next to Dorothea, who was busy pulling her long hair down from a ponytail and relaxing it against her shoulders. Who was she preening for tonight?
He allowed himself to scowl at the back of Seteth’s head. And then he turned his scowl on the history TA Byleth who was sitting next to Seteth, her elbow resting on the armrest of the empty seat next to her and her jaw resting on her fist.
Dorothea snatched the list out of his hand. “Yuri’s not on the list,” she said looking at where Felix was glaring. “But I thought he might be here anyway.”
“What? Who’s Yuri?” Felix asked shaking his head as if trying to dislodge his own annoyance.
“Oh, he’s a graduate student. He usually sits in that empty seat next to the Professor.” She meant Byleth when she said this, and Felix heard his quarelous mind wanting to correct her that Byleth wasn’t actually a professor. So Dorothea had seen the direction he’d been scowling and thought he was looking at the empty chair next to the TA Byleth. “He’s an amazing singer, himself, but he rarely performs in public.” She sighed, “With his looks, he could really be something.”
“Is that all you care about? Looks?”
“Hardly, but you have to admit that it helps. The professor’s very pretty too. They’d make such a handsome, talented couple. If they just managed to nail each other down to it and stopped dancing around it. Not exactly a power couple, but something gorgeous, like a work of art…”
“They’re together?” Felix asked, not knowing why he cared one way or the other.
Dorothea looked at him in suprise, and he looked hard at the paper to avoid meeting her eyes. He didn’t usually respond to when she prattled gossip at him. “Not exactly. They’re fucking, they’re sometimes affectionate in public. Ask either of them, though, and they’ll say it’s casual, nothing serious.” Trust Dorothea to have pried about it. Felix made a humphing sound.
“Seteth put me right before Lindhart’s violin performance.” Dorothea continued, “He’s not much of a violinist but he is cute in his own way, isn’t he?”
“Don’t expect him to stay awake while you sing.” Felix could feel how ruffled his words had made Dorothea, though, and decided to soften his tone. “You always need an audience, don’t you? Couldn’t get Sylvain to come see you sing?”
“You know very well that Sylvain has shift tonight,” she said fiercely. Then her eyes looked downcast for a second. “I don’t think it’s intentional, but he really does show very little interest in coming to any of my performances.”
“It’s not personal. He doesn’t have much interest in music in general.”
“True enough,” she said, trying to pretend that she had left her sad expression behind. “Well, no matter! I’ll just have to sing to you then.”
Felix raised his eyebrows but he wasn’t frowning.
Despite his earlier annoyance, the performances flashed by rather quickly. It took a lot, he recognized, for the average student to perform for any more than three minutes, and even the performance majors—mostly people he didn’t talk to very often, two violinists, a cellist, a harpist, another pianist with jarringly modern tastes and styles, and Dorothea with her singing—stuck to shorter polished pieces.
He even smiled when Annette sang one of her whimsical little ditties, watching Mercedes clap from the front row.
Halfway through the concert, a lavender-haired man who must have been Yuri sped quickly up the aisle-way and scooted gracefully into the seat next to the TA Byleth. Felix was impressed by his movement alone. It was stealthy and quick. If Felix hadn’t been scowling around everywhere, he would definitely have missed it.
He watched the TA Byleth’s head turn slightly toward the man. Was that a little smile that altered the shape of her jaw. After all, this Yuri had managed to make it before she performed. That should be enough for anybody, right?
When Dorothea sang, he watched her avidly, and could feel her meeting his eyes. The girl really did need an audience, but otherwise she had everything it took.
Finally, it was Byleth’s turn to play. Felix wondered if she would be playing her Beethoven Sonata. Instead, she came out with something else. He recognized the pieces as Mendelssohn’s Venetian Boat Songs. Under Byleth’s hands, they had a similar tone to Pathetique—
light and moody at the same time, and—
lovely, but simple. They brought to mind the rocking of a boat on soft waters—
he thought of fabric sails the minty green color of Byleth’s hair
—a hand across his brow brushing soft bangs back from his face—
and the soft sounds of bells overhead
—as Byleth stepped lightly off the damper pedal to render the bells into the flow of the haunting dissonance.
The pieces were too easy for her really. But she wasn’t a performance student and had no need to show off. She was just playing this for fun, because it was pretty and because she liked it. And Felix knew this levity was a mask. Underneath it was the Byleth that was playing like there was a fury burning inside her.
Could this duality be the worthy opponent? The cool panache with which she struck the little bells of the gondola, the waves that her hands rang out with so much off-tempo control?
He would have listened to her for another hour, for a whole day and night, for each night of the year with her as his musical Sherherazade playing permutation upon permutation of each new song every night to keep her very life.
But the pieces were short, and her turn had ended, and he had forgotten to clap, because his turn had come up.
The two fugues he had chosen for this concert were no joke. And he handled them as if there weren’t fifty or so people staring right at him— Wondering if he really was as good as they say. Wondering if he deserved to be the son of Rodrigue Fraldarius the celebrated violinist. Wondering what it meant to be the younger brother of Glenn Fraldarius, whose ‘poetic’ death had ravaged the hearts of the world classical music community.
Felix hated that his main motivation during public performances was to measure up to this pedigree. He had promised himself during his freshman year that he would find a way to cut his own path. And yet, every concert seemed to be this same pageant of the Fraldarius name.
When he finished and the concert ended, Felix put a massive scowl on his face to push away anyone foolhardy enough to tell him how well he played.
Of course Seteth always was unflapped by his scowls. He came walking over with the other pianist Byleth and her purple-haired dandy.
Felix watched as Byleth said goodbye to Seteth, smiling almost tenderly at the man as if they were friends. Then her eyes caught Felix’s. Perhaps it was obvious that he was watching her—them—the group of them? She gave him a sharp, unsmiling wave, and then walked out with Yuri—with whom she was supposedly not in a couple.
“Well-done,” Seteth said, looking genuinely pleased. “You’ve gotten better even since your performances last year.”
“I am always getting better,” Felix said, stifling into his own mind the part of him that wanted to say how it was never enough.
“It’s good for your peers to see what you can do. And I hope you’re paying attention to the skills of the other students as well.”
Felix nodded sharply. That feeling of performing was getting to him, and he couldn’t help the part of his mind that kept comparing him to his father and brother. It was time to get out of there, time to do something else.
“Well, I won’t keep you.” Seteth said as if reading signs that Felix didn’t know he was showing. “The next open concert is in two weeks. You’re not off the hook yet. I expect you to sign up.”
Felix walked out of the theater gratefully alone. His path automatically turning its way back to Mach Coffeehouse, where Sylvain would be closing soon with Claude.