XVIII. fairy tales or acting or existing

It'd taken a long time for my voice to change. By the time most of my classmates matured, I began to fear I'd reach high school sounding like a prepubescent girl, but thankfully, that didn't come to pass. I would've just become selectively mute or something. 

While it'd been embarrassing for sure, I'd also learned how to do something that I'd contemplating showing this audition, but...

...yeah.

Easier said than done. I'd never really done it in public anyway.  

"Soooo," Nomura urged.

The voiceless track played from Murase's phone while she looked at me, as if to echo Nomura's sentiments. Her glasses almost seemed to glint. I opened my mouth, but it was as if my chainsmoker lyrinwhatever throat had stopped working. To sing. Talking was a lot easier. "Didn't you mention the evil queen barely sings? What's the point?"

Murase accused, "You haven't even read the version we're doing, have you?"

"Uh."

For the first time since I'd known her, she frowned at me. "We're giving you the chance to show us a song you clearly won't perform well so we can give you feedback on it, yet you refuse to do it. Why? Because you know you can't? Then why didn't you choose something else? You've had more than enough time to ask for—"

"I did! Yesterday. And you ran away."

"No, no. You ran away. You saw me and you turned on your heels."

"Uh. I must've seen wrong, then."

"No you didn't."

"Prez, it's fine," said Nomura. She, too, was taken aback. I'd heard legends about Murase switching personalities when she got mad, but I didn't think it'd be like... well, like that. 

"It's not. Do you even care about being here? You're always goofing off during rehearsals, you barely show up, and when you do, it's excuse after excuse. Is everything a joke to you?"

Nomura picked on the skin between her thumb and pointer finger with her other hand, uneasy. "Um. So. Watanabe. Are you going to sing or not?"

"No," I said, to both things.

"So you'll just let Okamoto get the role?"

"We all knew she was going to get it anyway." I didn't say anything else, not 'I don't even like this place' or 'if it were for me I wouldn't be here' or 'I literally could not care less about fairy tales or acting or existing'. Why? Because it'd be childish to do so. Also, I'd regret it later. 

"...well. Okay then. So, uh. What, then?"

I shrugged.

Murase stood up; Nomura and I flinched. "You have until the end of the day to give me an actual, serious audition piece," she said. "If you don't, you're out of the club. Try to show up in time for once."

She left. Neither Nomura nor I said a thing for a while. Or at all. Awkwardly, she bowed her head at me, then went back to her group of friends at the stage. They didn't bother concealing the whispers because they, too, did not give a fuck. 

I sat where Murase had been before, scrolling through Hanamura's picks. They still made no sense. Her taste in music seemed to be as basic as it got, so at least i knew most of them. She could also just be one of those people consuming anything and everything popular so she'd be able to talk about those as needed. I used to do that last year because of John and his pack of sycophants. It pissed me off not to know what they were talking about.

Upon picking something (I knew) at random (out of spite), I went to bother Nomura and her friends again. "Listen to this," I said, phone, track, heart in hand. "You can laugh if you want. For every five seconds you do, it's a hundred yen, though."

The girl who'd chosen the other song for me, who sat next to Nomura, clasped her hands at my direction. "I'm sorry! I didn't think it'd be a bad pick."

"That's his fault for making you choose without context," Nomura told her.

"We won't laugh," said another, "Promise."

Well, that sucked. I was running low on money this month, in no small part due to my dad insisting I don't work. Anyway, here went nothing. None of them would be able to tell me I hadn't tried now. I'd heard the song enough times to know the melody, but I stayed glued to my phone the whole while so I'd get to read the lyrics as I sang. I messed up quite a bit. It might have embarrassed someone else, but I'd known I'd suck from the start, so.

So.

Nomura's review was, once I'd finished: "It wasn't that bad."

"It was good," said the... S... something with S... anyway, that girl. S-chan. She even clapped a little bit with the tops of her fingers.

"I'm in the choir," informed the one who'd told me no one would laugh before, "so I think I can give some pointers. First of all, that song is too high for you. Second, it's a bad look if one of your hands is on your pockets while you perform. Third, stop smiling when you mess up. If you hadn't done that, then I wouldn't have known you made a mistake because I don't know the song."

Women were ripping me a new one left and right today, it seemed. 

"Harsh," S-chan sweetly noted. "Here." She moved back a bit, then patted the spot next to her. "Sit with us."

I did. "Still," continued choir-chan, "I think your intonation was really good. You only went off-key when you tried to do the higher bits."

"Thank you," I said, "Sincerely."

Would Murase and Nomura have said something similar had I done this with them instead? Choir-chan seemed to know about the topic a lot, so perhaps this had been for the best. Besides, admittedly, I'd done better than expected. She seemed content with this response. Nomura raised her eyebrows at me, presumably because she expected me to deflect; I smirked at her in response. See? I could be serious, too. 

Anyway, they talked about topics I didn't know about. It didn't piss me off, though. One of them even gave me some of her onigiri. Mine was better. 

Being underclassmen and all, surely, these girls should know about Hoshino, right? About her being kind and wise to 'those who deserved it'? But Nomura was around and they got along regularly well, so I couldn't just inquire upon this...

As if on cue, choir-chan asked, "Hey, weren't you the guy Hanamura confessed to? How did that go?"

S-chan looked at me up and down, and while she probably didn't mean for it to happen, I read her face quite well anyway: what? HIM? Fuck you, S-chan. I thought you were nice, S-chan. My non-response was, "So people still think that, huh."

A girl who been quiet until then spoke: "If he had said yes, then they'd probably be having lunch together."

Choir-chan: "Haru never has lunch with me, though. He's obsessed with soccer."

Quiet-chan: "At least he has a good body because of it."

Choir-chan grinned. How vain and superficial of her. Was her (probably) boyfriend naught but a trophy? Time to rank these people from ugliest to prettiest. 

"I've seen her lurking around, though," said Nomura. "Hanamura, I mean. Maybe she wants to join the club or something."

Prettiest: Maybe choir-chan? Since S-chan broke my heart. Also, choir-chan had long black hair and I liked when women degradated me. 

Ugliest: S-chan was right. 

Choir-chan cackled. "What? Her? No way! I've gone to karaokes with her before and her singing absolutely sucks!"

"You don't need to sing well to join." 

They turned to look at me. 

Why had I just said that? "I'm. I'm just saying." 

"Do you like her?" Asked choir-chan. 

"No."

"Ehhh, you totally do." That was S-chan. S for sadist. 

"He's flustered," said quiet-chan, who should've paid homage to her nickname.

"Ehhh, he totally is!"

"No I'm not. I'm taking a piss. Goodbye."

I goodbyed.

I didn't take a piss. (I'd made a vow three years ago to literally never use public restrooms no matter what.)

I washed my face above a water dispenser at the courtyard until I felt like I'd stopped existing, though.