Classroom of the Elite: After Story

The Orchestra

It had been a week since he had given his name for the orchestra club. He was now standing in the campus' music hall with the rest of the members of the orchestra club staring at him curiously. He had been called by a second year business student, Shiromeguri Meguri to attend the audition to join the group of musicians.

Yukinoshita Haruno was to be the judge of whether he would replace the current pianist of the orchestra who given by everyone's gazes was the small, nervous looking girl sitting alone in front of the group. Her barely touched the ground from her large chair.

How does she even play the piano with that height?

Yukinoshita did not recognize him as the winner of the raffle which meant that her parents also did not tell her about him. She was a very strict judge. All the previous 4 auditionees were rejected. She didn't care if there were less members in the orchestra after the seniors left, she wanted only quality and would sacrifice nothing for it.

The way the auditions were conducted was that, the person auditioning had to play his or her instrument along with all the all the other members of the orchestra who were all highly skilled musicians. Yukinoshita-senpai would then stand in the front, leading everyone as the conductor's role required. This allowed for her to discern any out of tune notes, which would if found lead to a rejection.

The piano was present at the back of the second set of violins which was to the left end for the conductor. When he went to to the piano, he already found a music sheet for his role in the symphony they were going to play. Normal symphonies were anywhere between ninety minutes to two hours long. For the audition they were going to play a short thirty-minute melody with all the instruments at the same time.

He sat down and took a look at the music sheet flipping through its pages, playing it out in his mind. It was an original by Yukinoshita-senpai and was very impressive. 

He had been observing Yukinoshita-senpai the past week. She normally seemed to be always smiling and laughing with her friends but whenever she entered the music hall, her posture and facial expressions changed. She began to show more emotion, whether it was when she was scolding someone or helping someone. 

It was like, she showed passion in doing what she liked and wasn't afraid to give a negative reaction there whereas, in her social life outside of the club she was always smiling and was basically a people's pleaser. Smart and cautious in whatever she said and did, was this part of the training she had gotten to succeed her parent's company?

This gave rise to the biggest question yet, does she even want to succeed her parents' company?

Having memorized his part in the symphony they were going to play, he closed the booklet and set it on top the piano. Haruno who had a clear view of him, raised an eyebrow at him when he set the booklet completely aside as if saying that he had memorized his entire part. 'Cocky', she thought, 'or maybe a genius.' 

The conductor lifted her baton signifying that the ensemble of musicians to get ready to start. Kiyotaka cracked his fingers, and got ready as he closed his eyes remembering the notes he was going to play. The moment he heard the tap of the baton on the wooden pedestal, the orchestra roared to life. Every musician playing their instruments beautifully. Perfection which was not expected from college students. His fingers were gliding over the keys as he played not missing a beat, in perfect cohesion with everyone else.

He played the full thirty minutes and was not stopped like all the others. Thirty was nothing to him compared to the sleepless nights where he played the piano blind in the dark unable to sleep in that place.