Chapter 18: Practice Breakdown

Yuna's POV

After leaving Mrs. Tan's office, we stood in the hallway, processing the fact that our club adviser was basically just a cryptid who happened to collect a paycheck.

Leo clapped his hands. "Alright, I think we can all agree on one thing."

"That we're completely on our own?" I guessed.

"No," he said cheerfully. "That we don't need her!"

Kai sighed. "Same thing, Leo."

Erika pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Honestly, I expected this. Some advisers take their jobs seriously, but Mrs. Tan clearly just wants to drink coffee and pretend we don't exist."

"Relatable," Ethan said.

"But we need to focus," I cut in.

"Since she's useless, we're handling this ourselves. First step—making things official."

Kai raised an eyebrow. "Official how?"

"Official as in, you, Erika, and Yuna need to actually be members of this band," Lena said, arms crossed.

"Because technically, none of you filled out the forms."

Leo blinked. "You guys haven't?"

"No," Kai said.

"We were just kind of... here."

"Well, let's fix that!" Leo grinned and dramatically pulled out a crumpled membership form from his pocket.

"…Why do you have that?" I asked.

Leo shrugged. "You never know when you'll need an emergency membership form."

Kai and Erika exchanged glances before signing their names.

"There," Erika said.

"Now that we're official, let's get organized before this turns into another disaster."

"Finally," Noah muttered. "Someone who actually plans things."

Erika and I stood at the front while everyone else settled in.

"Okay," I started, pacing in front of them like I had any clue what I was doing.

"We need a singer. Fast."

"Correction," Erika said, flipping through her notebook.

"We need a good singer. If we just wanted any singer, we could grab a random first-year and hope for the best."

Lena, the band's former vocalist, cleared her throat loudly. "Excuse me?"

Erika didn't even look up. "We all agreed this was for the best."

Lena huffed, crossing her arms. "Fine, but that means I should get a say in who replaces me."

I sighed. "Fair enough. Now, how are we going to do this?"

Leo perked up. "We could set up a stage outside, make it dramatic—"

"No," Erika and I said at the same time.

Ethan leaned back in his chair. "Let's be real, we'll need structure. Like an actual process."

Erika nodded, already writing things down.

"We'll hold proper auditions. Set a date, book a room, and have actual criteria for picking someone."

Lena drummed her fingers against the table.

"I can spread the word. Posters, announcements, maybe even a social media post."

Kai frowned. "Do we want the whole school to show up?"

Lena waved a hand. "Please. Most people won't care unless we make it sound cool."

Leo grinned. "Then we should make it cool!"

"No," Erika said immediately.

I sighed. "Alright. So we hold auditions in the music room, right?"

Erika nodded. "It's got decent acoustics, and we won't get kicked out."

"What's the process?" Ethan asked. "Do they just sing, or...?"

Milo, who had been silently listening, finally spoke. "They should just sing at first."

Everyone turned to him.

He shrugged. "We haven't practiced properly yet. How are we supposed to judge how they sound with us if we don't even know how we sound together?"

I blinked. "…That's a really good point."

Erika immediately adjusted her notes.

"Alright. So first round, they sing a song of their choice. After that, we'll shortlist the best ones and give ourselves time to actually practice as a band before we try performing with them."

Leo nodded. "We gotta make sure we don't sound like a mess before throwing in another voice."

"Which means," Erika continued, "we'll also set a separate practice schedule leading up to audition day. That way, when we finally play with whoever we choose, we'll know what we're doing."

Noah whistled. "Look at us. Actually planning things."

Lena beamed. "I'll start advertising. We'll get tons of sign-ups."

Kai looked skeptical. "Let's hope at least one of them can actually sing."

Leo clapped his hands together. "Operation 'Find Someone Who Won't Make Us a Laughingstock' is a go!"

I sighed. "We really need to work on our operation names."

But still, the plan was set.

Now we just had to hope someone decent actually showed up.

By lunchtime, Lena had already gone full marketing mode. Posters were everywhere—hallways, bulletin boards, even taped to the back of unsuspecting students.

She somehow convinced the cafeteria lady to mention it while handing out food, and I overheard a first-year talking about how 'some new, super-secret elite band' was holding exclusive auditions.

So, yeah. Lena's enthusiasm was not the issue.

The actual issue?

We had no idea what we were doing.

"Alright, people," I declared, pacing back and forth in the clubroom like I was about to direct a Hollywood masterpiece.

"If we're going to judge singers, we need to sound like a real band first. Otherwise, we're just random people with instruments looking for another random person."

Erika, standing beside me like a high-ranking executive, flipped open her notebook.

"Current assessment: unknown. Projected outcome: mild disaster. Strategy: test skill levels before humiliating ourselves publicly."

Leo nodded. "Sounds fair."

Kai, the only actual responsible one, sighed. "Let's just pick a song and get started."

Milo, leaning against his bass like he had all the time in the world, added, "Preferably something that doesn't require Noah's… contributions."

Noah gasped from his songwriter corner.

"You act like I wanted to sing!"

I ignored them. "Okay! Ethan, you got something simple we can start with?"

Ethan, already at the keyboard, cracked his knuckles. "Something slow?"

"Not too slow," Kai said, tuning his guitar.

"Not too fast either," Leo added.

"And nothing that requires backup vocals," Milo muttered, side-eyeing Noah.

"HEY."

After some quick discussion, we settled on a classic rock cover—not too hard, not too easy.

Then, as the band got ready, I took my seat.

And transformed.

By this time I was not the regular, slightly-chaotic Yuna.

Now, I was a Director.

I steepled my fingers, nodding sagely.

"Alright. Show me what you've got."

Erika, ever the professional, raised her pen, ready to take notes like we were judging Olympic athletes.

Kai sighed but smirked slightly. "Let's do this."

Leo tapped his drumsticks together. "One, two—"

And then the disaster began.

At first, it wasn't completely terrible.

Kai was stupidly good on guitar—smooth, precise, adjusting to the others like he had been playing with them for years. His focus was insane.

He kept everyone on beat, subtly leading like it was second nature.

Leo was solid on the drums—except when he got too excited and nearly went off-tempo.

Ethan, cool as ever, was holding down the melody on keyboard. The dude played like he was in his own world, totally unfazed by the chaos around him.

Milo? Mysterious as always, but his bass playing was way too good for someone who acted like he didn't care.

Then.

Then.

Noah tried to chime in from the sidelines with an encouraging "Yeah!"

And for some reason, that one syllable sent Leo into a fit of laughter, which made him mess up the rhythm, which made Ethan hit the wrong key, which made Milo stop playing entirely, which—

You get the point.

I slammed my hands on the desk. "CUT! CUT! CUT!!"

Erika sighed and scribbled something down. "Team cohesion: shaky. External distractions: high."

Milo adjusted his bass strap. "Translation: Noah should remain completely silent."

"RUDE."

Leo wiped tears of laughter from his eyes. "Okay, okay. Let's go again. No side comments this time."

The second attempt was better.

Leo kept the beat steady this time.

Ethan and Milo found their rhythm, their parts actually blending instead of sounding like three different songs being played at once.

Kai? Yeah, Kai was amazing.

I blinked as I watched him play. He didn't just know his part—he subtly guided everyone else. If Leo started speeding up, Kai would nod, bringing him back.

If Ethan hesitated, Kai adjusted his timing to keep the flow.

Since when was he this cool?

They finished the song, and I pretended to ponder dramatically. "Hmm… acceptable."

Leo gasped. "Acceptable?! Do you see the effort we just put in?!"

Erika flipped through her notes.

"Coordination improved. Need more consistency before performing in front of people."

Milo leaned against his bass. "Translation: we're not completely awful anymore."

Noah raised a hand. "I'd like to point out that I did nothing wrong this time."

Kai set down his guitar, rolling his shoulders. "We need a few more rounds to get fully comfortable. But we're getting there."

I clapped. "Alright! Again! And this time, give me passion! Give me emotion! Make me feel something!"

Leo groaned. "You're enjoying this too much."

I grinned. "You have no idea."

And so, practice continued. Chaos and all.

After nearly an hour of actual structured practice, we finally called for a break.

Leo immediately threw his drumsticks into the air and collapsed onto the floor like he had been dramatically slain in battle.

"I can't anymore."

Ethan, not even breaking a sweat, watched him with mild amusement. "You literally sat down the entire time."

"I worked the entire time! It's different!"

Milo, leaning against the wall like the cool bassist he was, smirked. "We barely even ran through three songs."

Leo groaned, rolling over like a dying fish. "Three songs is a lot."

Kai, wiping his guitar with a cloth, didn't even look up. "Drumming requires stamina. You should work on that."

Leo dramatically clutched his chest. "I'm trying, okay? Not all of us are machines!"

I watched them argue and sighed, leaning back on a desk.

We had improved. A lot.

But as I stared at the ceiling, I couldn't help but let a disturbing thought creep in.

Just how bad were they before I stepped in?

I had heard them twice before—the first time was enough to make me feel like I was trapped in a horror movie.

The second time, I had actively questioned if music was meant to suffer.

But still.

How much worse could it have been?

I turned to Erika, who was flipping through her notes. "Hey."

She glanced up. "What?"

"…Before I joined… how bad were they?"

The entire room paused.

Noah, who had been mid-sip of his juice box, froze.

Kai gave me a look. "Are you sure you want to know?"

I hesitated. "…I think so?"

Erika, ever the composed one, set down her notebook and fixed me with the coldest stare.

"Do you remember that one time a cat got into the cafeteria and knocked over all the lunch trays, causing absolute mayhem?"

I blinked. "Uh… yeah?"

She nodded. "It was worse than that."

I gasped. "No."

Leo groaned from the floor. "Do we have to talk about this?"

Erika ignored him. "Think: broken instruments, off-key singing, missed beats, and—worst of all—Noah playing the keyboard like it owed him money."

I shuddered.

Noah pouted. "Hey! I wasn't that bad!"

Milo nodded. "You really were."

Kai sighed. "It was… chaos."

Leo sat up. "Okay, yes, we were bad before, but can we not relive the trauma?"

Ethan, casually sipping his water, decided to be helpful. "We still kind of suck."

Leo choked.

Milo smirked. "He's not wrong."

I groaned, rubbing my temples. "Okay, okay. Look. We have improved. We're no longer a danger to society."

Kai nodded. "That's an accomplishment."

Leo dramatically fell back again. "This is exhausting."

Noah patted his shoulder. "But we believe in you."

"You better."

Erika checked the time. "Alright, break's almost over. We have class soon."

I groaned. "Ugh. Right. Reality calls."

As everyone started packing up, I sighed, shaking my head.

Yeah, this band was doomed before.

Now?

…We were still doomed. But maybe, just maybe, we had a chance.

To be continued.