Chapter XI (11)- Piano and Pudding

Saying his farewells to Harvey, Kizu took out his orb and let it direct him to the music room. He didn’t need its guidance for long. Once he reached the proper wing of the academy, he knew which way to go by the noise alone.

As it turned out, the Music F class was not notorious for its lovely melodies and synchronized songs. He watched as different students played wildly different instruments, all of them poorly. Everything from giant drums that students slammed their elbows into, to a horn that wrapped around a student’s neck like a constrictor snake. There were a few normal-looking instruments, but they seemed like anomalies. He stood to the side, trying to figure out where to go.

“Those of you without instruments, please make your way over here,” a voice said, just barely audible over the noise.

A haggard man wearing the robes of a professor with a disheveled head of receding scarlet hair stood in the corner, scribbling notes in a small leather book. Kizu approached him.

“Name?” the man yelled.

“Kaga Kizu.”

“What?”

“Kaga Kizu!”

“What instrument would you like, Kaga Kizu?”

“I don’t know!”

The professor sighed and waved a hand, suddenly a bubble of silence appeared around them. Even still, Kizu could hear the muffled noise beating at the bubble’s barrier, threatening to break in.

“A lot of students use traditional instruments from their homeland. They’re often loud and obnoxious, but their parents are usually pleased by that sort of choice. Do you have anything like that?”

Kizu dredged up childhood memories, trying to remember any sort of instrument. His mind vaguely recalled Anna playing lullabies on a piano.

“Piano?” he asked.

The professor rolled his eyes.

“Of course, a piano,” the professor muttered. Kizu barely made the words out, even in the bubble of silence. “Imagine an F student who takes on a nice little viola or bugle. Or even better, a tamborine. No, of course not, it has to be a piano.” Then, he said louder, “Go stand in the back with the other percussion students. Next class I’ll have a piano set up for you.”

Kizu did as told, taking his place where the professor pointed. A student who had been hitting the massive drum grinned at him as he approached. He was Tainted, with sandy hair and scales across his cheeks that accented his dimples. His uniform had been modified slightly, the sleeves cut off at the shoulders to expose his arms.

“Welcome!” he yelled. Then he held something out to Kizu with one hand and pointed to the side of his head with the other. “Put these in your ears!”

Kizu took the object. He almost cried out as the things writhed in his hand. Two little slug creatures squirmed on his palm. He looked up at the other student, thinking he must be making a joke. But when he looked closer, he noticed a gray slug wedged inside the other student’s ear. With a deep breath, Kizu stuck the things in.

Immediately, the world’s noise was smothered. He looked up at the boy expectantly.

“They eat noise,” the boy whispered to him. “Live off the stuff. But if you speak softly, they won’t bother eating it. Name’s Gregor.”

“Kaga Kizu,” Kizu tried to say, but his voice was muted.

“Quieter,” Gregor instructed.

Kizu repeated himself, quieter this time.

“Perfect. Let me introduce you to the other percussionists.” Gregor pointed at a Tainted woman with mismatched eyes and talons in place of fingers. “That’s Tara, she’s my other drummer.” He gestured at a tall student who looked almost too old for this class, with bristly facial hair sprouting from his chin. “That’s Yon, he does a bit of everything. Covers whatever sound effects we don’t already have.” Then he pointed to a Hon girl with black bangs, sitting on the floor in the corner. She looked bored. “And that’s Ione. When she bothers to play, she uses a triangle.”

“Nice to meet you all,” Kizu whispered. They all nodded with the exception of Ione, who appeared to not hear him. She was poking at one of the slugs on the ground.

“What do you play?” Tara asked.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“I think I’m being assigned a piano.”

“Boring,” Gregor lamented. “You should switch before it’s finalized. Go crazy and get an organ at the very least. You’ll make the whole academy shake with one of those.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Tara interjected. “Play whatever you want.”

“Or just play whatever gets handed to you,” Yon offered. “It’s worked for me. No commitment necessary this way.”

“Shut up you two,” Gregor said. “Ignis just started the lesson.”

The other three students removed the slugs from their ears and focused up front where the professor stood.

“-and as most of you know, I’ll be your professor for Music F,” the professor said as Kizu peeled the slugs out of his ears. Ignis sounded exasperated as he continued. “Music is a unique magic all its own. It’s subtler than any other. It can be used to bolster and agitate, but also can soothe and rejuvenate. It’s a matter of weaving your magic into your instrument. But, to get to the point where you can do that, you must first learn to play the instrument. As a result, it is unlikely you will be performing any acts of magic in this class. This class will be focused on the basics of reading music and learning your instruments.”

Kizu heard the class groan in unison. Then Professor Ignis picked up a baton from his desk and waved it in the air like a wand. Everyone picked up their instruments and belted out noises as the baton waved in the air. Ignis grimaced with each wave but kept at it.

Kizu spent the class sitting back and watching as students puffed into their instruments and slammed their fists along the strings. He kept the slugs in his ears, otherwise the performance would have been completely unbearable. Recalling Harvey’s beautiful performance during the combat placement test, he saw that the class had a long way to go before they reached anything near competence.

When the dismissal bell sounded, notably louder than usual to be heard over their ruckus, Kizu let out a sigh of relief. He filed out of the class and said his goodbyes to the other percussion members. They insisted he keep his slugs and even gave him a little wooden case to keep them in.

“Okay orb, what’s next?”

“You now have a free period. The cafeteria is open and serving lunch.”

Lunch. His stomach growled at the thought. His earlier trade of breakfast for sleep seemed significantly less clever now.

As he followed the orb to the cafeteria, he started to recognize the hallways. The academy was becoming more familiar to him, and he almost believed he could put his scrying orb away and get there himself. Almost. But while a part of him was tempted to test out his navigation skills, he decided not to gamble his lunch. The orb stayed out.

Unlike his previous visit, the cafeteria was packed with students. He had to battle his way to an empty seat, lunging for a spot on the bench as soon as the previous occupant vacated. Snatching up the menu, he scanned it. Today, it was mostly seafood. He pressed a finger against the symbols on the menu for seaweed-wrapped omelet, water, and a tapioca pudding.

The food appeared in front of him, and he dug into it, scarfing it down with fervor.

“Slow down, you’ll choke,” someone said, sitting down across from him at the table. He looked up and saw Emilia. Her sharp-toothed grin reminded him a bit of Harvey. Her golden hair fell down her shoulders in slight waves. While she seemed a lot less animalistic than some of the other Tainted he’d met, she still maintained a bit of a wild edge to her. Two of her friends sat down on her left, the bench’s occupants making way for them.

Kizu still held the small omelet in his hand. Slowly, he set it back on his plate and picked up the dreaded sticks everyone else here used to eat.

“Sorry,” he said reluctantly. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Not at all,” she said. She selected something on her menu and a bowl of noodles appeared in front of her. “It’s a Hon-themed main course today, but you eat like the people back at home. Watch, when we get some Edgeland food on the menu, you’ll find it way easier. Hon food is infamously tricky. Takes a while to figure it out.”

Despite her words, she ate her noodles with the provided chopsticks perfectly. Her two friends chatted to one another in a low enough volume that their words were lost in the cafeteria’s noise.

“Do you miss it?” Kizu asked, trying to maintain the conversation.

“What, Edgeland? Hardly. I was there just three days ago. Here I get my own villa, and the only family that harass me are the cousins I invite over.” She ate some more noodles. “And the food is interesting. What about you? How are you enjoying academy life?”

“The dorms are fine,” Kizu said. “And the classes are interesting. Some students are friendlier than others.”

“Hold up, you said dorms?” one of her friends interrupted, sounding incredulous. “Aren’t you technically a third year? They’re seriously making you stay in the dorms?”

“Oh, the academy isn’t. But it seemed like a better option than sharing my family’s villa with my younger brother.”

“Who is…?” the other friend asked.

“Kaga Finn.”

Emilia leaned in closer. “Really?” She considered his face. “Can you scowl for me?”

Kizu frowned.

“That’s it! Now I see the resemblance. He’s in my conjuring class. I remember my cousin telling me he was an absolute killjoy disappointment in comparison to his sister. Apparently, she really knew how to throw a party.”

“Your cousin knew Anna?”

“Sort of? That was the only time he mentioned her, that I can remember. My cousin graduated last year, but I can ask about it next time I see him.”

That planted the seed of an idea. If he did his math right, there was a chance some of the current fifth years might have known Anna back when they were first years. He’d have to start asking around.

“I see,” Kizu said. He picked up a spoonful of the pudding. “Did you know she was expelled?”

“Your sister?”

“I’ve never heard of a student being expelled,” one of her friends said, butting in. “Not in the last twenty years. The last one was because he blew up a lavatory near the second year girls’ dorm.”

The bell rang, cutting off any more conversation. The moment after Emilia and her friends stood and left, Kizu shoveled the rest of the pudding into his mouth, hoarding it like a chipmunk. The pearls squished under his molars and the juice burned the inside of his cheeks. He wiped his mouth with a napkin. It tasted delicious.