Endless Recital - an enenmon fanfic

Chapter 20: J Ensemble meets Ferrago

2007-03-18T01:11:00.002+08:00

"Yijuan!" Xinjie called out and head towards the table which him & his band mates were at.

Yijuan was laughing around with his band mates when he heard his name being called. He looked up and was delighted to see Xinjie and her friends. "Hey! Xinjie!"

"I'm so sorry we're late." Xinjie explained.

Frankly speaking, Junjie wasn't really sure how to handle the today's situation. He was actually quite freaked out. But he told himself to keep calm and steady. It wasn't like he was meeting the President or a Superstar. Nothing to get nervous about. But when he saw the guy whom Xinjie went forward to, his ego was badly crushed. It was those group of people with weird sense of dressing and her boyfriend happened to be that very chiseled good looking guy with sharp features.

A voice at the back of his head was ringing with, "算了吧！人家长得这么帅！你凭什么喜欢人家的妞！不自量力."

It was an 8-seater table. Their sitting arrangement was such that Jielun & Junjie were opposite each other, beside them were Xinjie & Jieqi respectively. So meaning to say, Junjie & Jieqi were sitting side by side, same for Jielun & Xinjie. On the other side of Xinjie was Yijuan. And the rest of the ppl at the table were Yijuan's bandmates, Rob, Michael, KC & Bernie. The one sitting on the other side of Jieqi was Rob.

"Right!" Xinjie said and cleared her throat nervously. "Hey, let me introduce my group J Ensemble. This guy beside me in pink top is Jielun. He's our cellist."

Jielun nodded shyly and said a modest "Hi." with a nod.

Xinjie went on, "That guy in front him in white, is Junjie. He's our band major and our pianist."
Junjie nodded and waved, "Hi! Nice to meet you all."
"And this girl here is Jieqi, she's our violinist."
Jieqi ducked her head and smiled sheepishly, "Uh.... Hello everyone. 初次见面，请多多指教."

And guys being guys, especially those hormone-ranging ones from Ferrago were all excited to introduce themselves.

Rob wasted no time and turned to his left and stretched his hand out to shake Jieqi's, "Hi, my name's Rob. I'm the guitarist of the group. I write most of the songs..."

"Erhem!" A fake cough came from Yijuan, signaling that he also had credit.

"Well," Rob continued, and his hand still holding Jieqi's, "Yijuan would provide most of the lyrics which I'd then work the melody & compositions out..."

Out of the blue came Jielun's voice, "会不会握得太久了啊?" 笨女人，不会把手拿开啊！He was the first one to notice Jieqi's uncomfortable expression.

Rob looked at Jielun and Jieqi took the opportunity to retract her hand back and smiled sheepishly.

Xinjie turned to look at Jielun, signaling him to keep that tone & attitude in front of her boyfriend and his friends down. She turned back to Rob and said, "Sorry. That's the way he speak sometimes. Don't take that to heart."

KC & Bernie also took turns to introduce themselves as the bassist and drummer respectively. Since this was a buffet dinner, few of them went to take some food back, few went to get drinks, some waited behind.

"Xinjie, what do you-"
"Xinjie, do you want-"

Both Yijuan & Junjie were asking Xinjie at the same time. Both the guys looked at each other.

Junjie automatically backed off, allowing Yijuan to speak first. "I was wondering what do you want to have? I'd go get some for you."
"Oh! It's ok." Xinjie said. "I can go with you."
"No no no… sit down. It's the guy's responsibility to serve. You'd just sit there and wait for me ok?"
Xinjie's heart was filled with happiness and nodded, "Ok!"

Junjie's heart sunk. Since someone had already asked her, he'd ask someone else then. "Hey Jieqi, let me get something for you? What would like to have."

But before Jieqi could reply, Jielun said, "你拿什么给她，她都会吃的."

Jieqi pouted, "Wei! 你很不守信用哦! What did you promise me yesterday! 你说你对我说话的态度会好一点的! 你反悔了哦!"

Jielun then retorted, "I didn't. I was merely stating the fact."

Jieqi gave him a smug, "I'm in exceptionally good mood today, I won't argue with you. Hrmp!" She then turned to Junjie and said, "Let me be the one to get the food then... what would you like to have?"

"Get me some salad please. Oh! and some braised pork! Those broccoli looks good too! Thanks!" Apparently, Jielun was the one who gave the 'orders'.

Jieqi took a deep breath and tried to force a smile while 'correcting' him, "不好意思，我是在问俊杰。你如果想吃的话，麻烦你自己拿."

But Jielun replied as a matter of factly, "反正你都要过去拿，那就顺便一下嘛."

Junjie sense another 'volcano erupting soon' and quickly said, "No, Jieqi it's ok. I can go get the food on my own." Then he turned to Jielun, "I'll get your share too."

But Jieqi was eager to impress and insisted, "No! You sit down, let me get some food for you..." she shot daggers at Jielun and said, "... and Mr Zhou too. I'll be back in a while."

Jielun flashed Jieqi a grin as she shot daggers back at her before moving on with the buffet queue! And Junjie was all puzzled by the commotion and wondered what was Jieqi trying to do and what was going on between the both of them too?

"What are you doing?" Junjie went back to his seat and sat in front of Jielun.
"Nothing." Jielun answered casually. "她要拿就让她拿好了."

Junjie eyed Jielun suspiciously, "Is there something going on between you two that I don't know of?"

Jielun shrugged, "Nah! Don't be stupid. Why would I have anything going on with her!"

对啊，干嘛啊？我的思绪干嘛要被她牵着啊？

*******

Jieqi was in line of the buffet queue and was taking a bit of everything from what was displayed, in front of her was Yijuan who saw her coming along and decided to say hi to her.

"Hi, Jieqi!" Yijuan smiled. "Need a hand?"
Jieqi was pleasantly surprised, "Oh! It's alright, I think I can managed. I'd probably be coming back here again when I'm done."
Yijuan was surprised by her appetite when he looked into her plate, "Woah! You have a big appetite!"

Jieqi smiled & explained, "Oh! These are not for me alone! I'm just taking it for everyone so that they don't have to get up and walk to & fro here."

Yijuan smiled widely, "Aww... you're so sweet. Thanks for taking care of Xinjie all these while. I heard a lot about you from her."

Jieqi explained again, "Nah! 没有什么照顾不照顾的. I'm glad to have Xinjie as my bestest friend at school too. In fact, she's the one who took care of me. I'm the muddle-headed one. 她是个做事很谨慎的人. I envy you 2 lovebirds so much!"

Yijuan's heart sunk a little. Lovebirds? "Didn't Xinjie get to meet other guys? Or... 难道没有其他男生追她吗?"

Jieqi paused to think for a while, "Occasionally there are a few but Xinjie would always tell them firmly to forget about it as she's attached to a very wonderful boyfriend. And that would be you even though you're not physically by her side."

Yijuan's heart sunk even further. That made everything even harder. He managed to squeeze a smile and said, "Oh... Ok. Hmm... I get back to the table first. See you later."

*******

Yijuan got back to the table and beemed at Xinjie, handing him the food he'd taken for Xinjie. "Nah! For you!"
Xinjie smiled at him lovingly, "Thank you, sweetheart!"

Junjie looked up and saw the both of them looking at each other endearing and was crestfallen. He didn't realy want to look at the couple in front him and was looking elsewhere but he kept getting distracted by them...

"Er..." He cleared his throat, "I'm going over to get something."

But before he could get up, Jieqi returned with multiple plates on a tray. "Hey! These are for everyone!" She struggled to bring the heavy tray over.

Jielun saw Jieqi coming over and attempted to get up from his seat to help her but from the corner of his eyes, he saw another man stepping forward.

To be continued....

Chapter 19: Never Seen Someone As Cute As...

2006-09-08T00:32:00.001+08:00

Xinjie was smiling to herself on the bus and picturing her boyfriend's band and J Ensemble together. Wonder what would Yijuan think! This was such a happy & joyous occasion because all of these people here were people whom she cared about. It really meant a lot of her.

She was so engrossed in her thought that she didn't noticed Jieqi had boarded the same bus as her.

"Xinjie!" Jieqi called out.
Xinjie's thoughts were broken and turned to the direction of the voice, "Oh! Jieqi! You board the bus too!"

"Yeah! I almost couldn't board this bus and I thought I'd be terribly late." Jieqi said with a sigh of relieve then asked, "Where's Yijuan?" She was puzzled why her boyfriend wasn't with her.

Xinjie explained, "Oh, cos he'd be going there with his bandmates. Since he knew the place, we could meet there on our own."
Jieqi nodded, "I see..."

Xinjie was seated while Jieqi was standing. So Xinjie was checking Jieqi's outfit out and said, "Wow! Woolen striped top and mini skirt! Since when do you wear such outfit, Jieqi? Did you renew your wardrobe collection or something?"

Jieqi blushed, "Nah...I bought these long time ago but didn't dare to wear them out or rather no chance to wear them."

"You look really pretty today! You should wear mini skirts often to get guys' attention!" Xinjie half teased and half meant it.

At the same time while Xinjie commented, several guys looked over at their direction. Jieqi was blushing fiercely, "Shhh!! Guo Xinjie! Look what you've done!"

"哎呀，有什么好害羞的." Xinjie teased again. "You must know how to show your assets!"

The red-faced girl was really embarrassed & shy, "Err...I'll try." And hopefully he'd notice later, Jieqi thought.

Jieqi probably spent a whole 2 hours trying to look for a suitable outside to go with it. She has rejected so many others and finally chosen this set. It was her first time in a group outing with her seniors, of course she'd have to dress up. She even put on some light make up to make her face glow and did a bit of styling to her hair. She thought she looked pretty ok but hopefully she won't get so shy later on while facing them...

*******

Junjie was waiting outside the buffet restaurant for Jielun and the girls to arrive so that they could go in together. While he was waiting, a group of guys with weird sense of dressing walked passed him, heading toward the buffet restaurant. They are Asians but they spoke in loud twang of British English... Junjie wondered where they were from.

Junjie then glanced up at that group of people and he eyes caught up with this chiselled looking guy with sharp features and thought he was really very good looking for a guy! His eyes sparkled with confidence and he had very good complexion. For a moment, he thought what he saw was a group of celebrities. 穿着怪是怪，不过个个都很帅，怎么会有这么帅的人啊？ he thought.

And then Junjie's mobile phone rang. He shook off the thoughts earlier and picked up the phone. It was from Jielun. "Hello?"

"Hey," came from another line. "I think I'm reaching soon. Where are you?"
"I'm standing right outside the buffet restaurant. You see me? What are you wearing?"
"Pink shirt and khaki pants..."

Junjie was looking around for guys wearing pink shirt... he was scanning in front and... Yeah! He saw Jielun looking a little lost. He raised his hand up and wave while speaking onto the phone, "Hey!! Here! Your 3 o'clock. Turn to your right!" Wave. "Saw me?"

Jielun was looking around with hands in his pocket, "Where?" He scanned closely and spotted a guy dressed in white sleeveless and white pants waving at him. "Oh! There!" And both of them hung up while he jogged across to where Junjie was.

"Yo!" Junjie called out.
"Hey, sorry I'm late." Jielun apologised but he realised the girls weren't around. "有没有搞错啊？她们又迟到了啊？"

Junjie smiled, "Girls need time to doll up. Because for her boyfriend whom she haven't seen in a long, Xinjie's would definitely dress up in her most pretty outfit for him."

Jielun rolled his eyes, "Xinjie I can understand. 不过另外一个白痴就不需要了。反正她在怎么打扮也是一样丑."

"Tsk!" Junjie glared at Jielun, "你怎么这么说捷琪啊！她其实很可爱的." While talking to Jielun at the same time, he was also looking out for signs of the girls in case they also couldn't see the sign of this buffet restaurant. And he seem to spot them but wasn't too sure.

"Yeah, right. Cute. Duh!" Jielun exclaimed. "Whoever thinks that idiot is cute gotta have their eyes check because that person is blind. And let me tell you-"

Junjie cut him off, "Hey, I think I saw them. They're in front."

"Hey, I haven't finished..." Jielun went on. "我从来就没有看过像她这么-"

Junjie yelled, "Xinjie!! Jieqi!! Over here!!" He waved to get their attention. The girls heard their names being called and saw their seniors and walked towards the 2 guys.

Jielun then glanced slightly at the two girls walking toward them then turned back at Junjie and went on, "没有看过像她这么...." He wanted to say "这么笨的人！" but the moment the girls walked nearer, he let his sentence hang and jaw dropped. He didn't believe what he was seeing. He practically froze and forgotten what he wanted to say because someone had taken his breath away...

"Sorry sorry sorry..." Xinjie apologised and bowed. "We didn't mean to be late."

"不好意思，让学长久等了." Jieqi said shyly while she looked at Junjie. She only roughly glanced at Jielun a little.

Junjie smiled, "No, it's ok! You girls are very pretty."
Xinjie smiled sweetly and said, "Thank you, I know!" And laughed.
"And wow, Jieqi!" Junjie praised. "Very very cute. I didn't know there's this side of you too. 化妆起来，真得很漂亮！"
Jieqi's heart was fluttering all over with Junjie praising her like that. "Thank you!" She said softly.

Xinjie nudged Jieqi, "See see, I told you!! I told you!"
Junjie was curious, "See what? Told her what?"
Xinjie laughed, "I told her to dress like that more often to get guy's attention. Mini skirts are a head turner. If I had long legs like hers, I would have worn too!"
Junjie nodded, "对啊，可爱的纯情少女带有一点的性感！杰伦，你说是不是？"

But no response from Jielun because he kept looking at Jieqi and his mind was whirling and didn't notice Junjie was speaking to him. "Jielun?" Junjie nudged him. "Don't you think so?"

Jielun regained composure and coughed a few times, "Hmm...oh! Uh."

Jieqi became defensive with Jielun looking at her like that, "干嘛一直盯着人家看嘛！我可没有欠你哦！"

Xinjie then notioned everything to go in, "Alright! My boyfriend and his band had reached. Let's quickly go in and look for them."

Jielun walked behind all of them with hand in his pockets and head bowed low, occasionally bobbing his head up to look at a certain somebody.

Junjie realised Jielun was walking really slow and get behind and nudged him again. "What's up with you? PMS again? Experiencing moodiness again?" He was quite worried if Jielun would pull another foul temper stunt, especially not in a public place while having dinner with other fellow musicians.

Jielun shook his head, "Nothing."

Junjie then remembered Jielun was saying something when the girls came, "Oh yeah, what were you telling me just now? You were saying something about Jieqi."

"Aiya!" Jielun got irritated, "Nothing la! I'd forgotten what I wanted to say."
But Junjie persisted, "你说你从来就没有看过像她这么什么？"
"没有东西啦！" Jielun hissed, "都跟你说我忘了！"

"Alright! Keep up the pace." Junjie said. "I'm quite curious to see how does Xinjie's boyfriend look like." With that he caught up with the girls, leaving Jielun still dilly dally-ing behind.

原来，我从来就没看过像她这么可爱，单纯的女生。。。

To be continued...

Chapter 18: Cry Baby VS Music Prodigy

2006-07-06T00:25:00.002+08:00

Jielun stopped playing his cello and looked up at Junjie, "Why are you asking this?"

"Oh...." Junjie began, "Nothing much, just curious cos actually sometimes I see that you are really trying to help her. but when I see you yelling at her like that, I think she's rather 可怜."

Jielun continued playing his cello back again, "谁叫她这么迟钝！每次都比别人慢半拍！"

Junjie raised an eyebrow, "I see." He suddenly smiled, "Actually both of you look rather compatible eh? She's also the sort of girl you're looking for, isn't it?"

"Don't be ridiculous! This is so stupid! Her? I'd probably vomit blood everyday trying to talk to her." Jielun rolled his eyes.

"Oh...so you don't like her?" Junjie asked. But Jielun kept quiet and didn't reply him.

"Eh, there's this Iceman guy in the basketball team huh?" Junjie asked.

"Yeah, why?"

A smiled crept on Junjie's face, "听说最近他们走得很近?"

"你听谁说的?" Jielun looked at Junjie suspiciouslly, wondering what was he up to?

Junjie smiled, "不过也好. She needs someone to take care of her and help her 出头 when she's being scolded so severely by our cellist from J Ensemble."

Jielun suddenly froze upon hearing that. The thought of Iceman & Jieqi didn't make him feel too good. Jielun have no idea why was he feeling that way. But it was none of his business anyway.

"Really no interest in Jieqi?" Junjie asked once more.

Jielun indeed have no interest in Junjie's silly questions, "WU LIAO!"

*******

Jielun was online at home at night doing his usual surfing of sports news, sports forums, blogs, friends' profiles and then he saw a nick '爱哭鬼' online on his MSN list. He clicked on it to check out who it was. It turned out to be Jieqi with a sad but funnily cute face as her display pic.

He smiled, then went back to his usual solemn face. He clicked on her nick, but he was unsure of what to type/say because he does not chat with her at all. The reason for adding her was because sometimes Junjie would have announcement to make and will add all band members inside the chat conference.

Finally he muster all courage and MSN her.

音乐神童 says:
sorry I said those 难听的话 this afternoon. I apologise and take those back.

Jielun was looking at the screen, waiting for some sort of " 爱哭鬼 is typing a message." But there was no reply nor response from her. So he nudged her.

----------
You have just sent a Nudge!
----------

爱哭鬼 says:
apology accepted

Jielun was overwhelmed! But was quite disappointed with that remark at the same time. That chatterbox always talk and type a lot but what she typed was just 2 words. He was expecting her to throw some nasty words back to him but she didn't. Hmm...

音乐神童 says:
are u still mad at me?

爱哭鬼 says:
don't dare to.

音乐神童 says:
then why all the short answers?

爱哭鬼 says:
cos I won't know what I say will provoke you. so I better keep it short.

音乐神童 says:
你明明就还在生气！

爱哭鬼 says:
我生不生气有分别吗？你有想过我的感受吗？

It was Jielun's turn to keep quiet. He seriously didn't think about that before. 他一只想到他个人的感觉罢了.

----------
爱哭鬼 has sent you a Nudge
----------

爱哭鬼 says:
is there something about me which you can't stand? do I have some bad habits or weird actions which you r unable to accept? 为什么你老是看我不顺眼呢？我觉得真得很辛苦，很难跟你合作下去了。

音乐神童 says:
你只把我当作你的合作伙伴吗?

爱哭鬼 says:
不然？

音乐神童 says:
你觉得我老是看你不顺眼吗？

爱哭鬼 says:
不是吗？不见得你也对心洁这样！

Jielun had typed, "其实我...." but he backspaced it and replaced it with...

音乐神童 says:
因为看你好欺负啊！笨笨傻傻的！:)

爱哭鬼 says:
为什么我感觉不到你是在逗我而以呢？怎么好象每次都在欺负我，取笑我，看不起我呢？

音乐神童 says:
对不起啦，以后不会了。

爱哭鬼 says:
这可是你说的！再发生的话，我就退出 J Ensemble!

音乐神童 says:
好啦好啦。

爱哭鬼 says:
最好明天不要给我看到你的臭脸！

音乐神童 says:
知道啦知道啦！你很啰嗦耶！

爱哭鬼 says:
I'm going offline. Byebye!

音乐神童 says:
Byebye!

Jielun watched as Jieqi's nick turned offline, leaving a happy guy smiling to himself in front of the computer.

*******

The next day, Yijuan was getting changed to prepare for the buffet dinner together with Xinjie and her J Ensemble mates. He was styling his hair while his band mates were just hanging around behind making sure one another looked ok.

Yijuan's mobile phone was ringing.... it was probably Xinjie asking if he was ready. Without looking the name flashing on the LCD screen, Yijuan picked up and said, "Hey sweetie..."

"My beloved honey!" Came from the other line and it shocked Yijuan! Because, he didn't expect the call was from his UK girlfriend, Cassey.

Yijuan stopped what he was doing and said, "Cassey! It's you!" His band mates heard that name and turned to look at him.

"Yes, it's me. I thought you knew it was me?"

Feigning ignorance, Yijuan continued, "Yes! Of course I knew it's you! Why do you think I said sweetie?"

"How's things over at Singapore? I'm missing you already and I hope you can come back soon."

"Everything fine here. In fact, we're going to meet the organisers of the charity concert I told you we were performing for dinner." Yijuan felt bad for lying but that was what he could do at the moment...

Cassey's voice sounded disappointed, "Wished I could be there with you."
"Don't you worry, I'd be back in no time. Wait for me ok?"
"Ok, but remember I'm always thinking about you!"
"Yep, me too. Look honey, we're running a little late, I'll call you soon again ok?" Yijuan explained.
Luckily for him, Cassey said, "Opps, sorry! Alright then!! Love you. Byebye."
"Byebye." With that, Yijuan hung up and heave a big sigh.

One of his pals, Rob asked, "Cassy called huh?"

Yijuan nodded, "Yeah. I didn't expect her call! Goodness, I thought it was Xinhui rushing for us."

"Have you told Xinhui?" Rob asked. Being Yijuan's pal, he knew about what happened to them and part of Yijuan's purpose back here was intending to end things off with her.

Yijuan sighed, "I'm still waiting for a chance to break it up to her."

Rob reminded him, "你要知道，长痛不如短痛。你拖得越久，她受的伤害会越大. The girl has to know that things had changed and people move on and look forward. Not backward, not what was in the past."

Yijuan nodded, "谢谢，我知道要怎么做。我自有分寸的。"

"Ok." Rob said, "Let's make a move then..."

说是一定要说，可是要怎么样把伤害弄得最低呢？

To be continued...

Chapter 17: I Really Don't Mean It...

2006-05-30T00:20:00.001+08:00

"WEI!!" Jielun yelled at the person in front of him, "你可以拉好来一点吗？"

Jieqi jumped with Jielun's sudden yelling, "Ah?? Orh... Ok ok."

Xinjie looked at Jielun and whispered to Junjie, "他怎么了? 火药味这么重?"

Junjie's raised his brows, "I don't know. He was ok in class earlier. Maybe tough bball practice again? Not the first time anyway."

"Wah kao! 有没有搞错！这么简单的曲子给你拉成这样!" Jielun snapped.

Everyone kept quiet and went back practicing... Jieqi was super stress, especially. She totally concentrated on the score and made sure she didn't make any mistakes. But still, Jielun had something to say.

"EH!" Jielun was very irritated, "你真得很不转业你知道吗？你到底会不会音乐的？怎么一点感情都没有？你不是有很多感情的吗？"

Jieqi turned around with creased eyebrows, "Huh? What are you talking about?"

Both Xinjie & Junjie looked at Jielun, no idea what was all these for. Even Sir was not that strict with them.

"不练了！什么烂音乐!" Jielun yelled again.

Jieqi turned to Xinjie & Junjie and mouthed, "What? My fault again?"

Junjie was quite taken by surprised on Jielun's sudden outburst. "Uh... why not we take a break first. Everybody go take a break, ok? Be back by 5.30."

Jielun got up from his seat irritatedly and kept frowning and pretended to busy with arranging scores. Truth was, he also had no idea why was he in a foul mood. 他只知道他心里很烦，不应该那音乐出气的。可是一想到刚才天祺说的话，他就一肚子火。那个水性杨花的人！

Junjie went over to see if Jieqi was ok. It was so ungentlemanly of Jielun to shout at her at like, considering Sir never even did that do them. Jieqi was sitting down on her chair and sighing dejectedly when Junjie approached her, "You ok?"

Jieqi was half shy half touched that Junjie would be so concerned, "Hmm... I guess so. Just a little demoralised."

Junjie smiled, "杰伦也真是的！每次练完球就过来拿音乐出气. 也不懂得怜香惜玉。没有关系！有我们在！不会让他欺负你的！"

Jieqi smiled sheepishly back, "谢谢你！有你这句话就够了."

Jielun, who was watching from behind, was gritting his teeth the whole time. 见到我就好像见到鬼一样板着个臭脸，跟别人讲话就这么有说有笑！花心做作的女人！ He thought furiously. He then walked forward pretending to take some reference notes from the cupboard where Jieqi & Junjie were.

"你们两个这么谈得来，我建议你们在演奏会上可以加一个双人钢琴的项目。一定会很有看头！" Jielun was making lots of senseless remarks which he didn't even realise it so.

Junjie really found Jielun weird and ridiculous today, "What are you doing, Jielun? What's with all these? Why do we need to include 双人钢琴?"

"人家这么喜欢和你表演，你就成全人家嘛." Jielun went on.

Jieqi stood up, frowned and said, "Wei! Zhou Jielun, what are you saying!! What the hell are you talking about?"

"怎么？难道不是吗？" Jielun said and studied Jieqi's expression.

Jieqi stared back at Jielun with displease and said, "我到底什么地方得罪你了？"

"No, you didn't do anything to offend me. I just don't like the way you treat music lightly, as if it was your lowest priority!" Jielun retorted.

Jieqi's brows were creased and her eyes widen. In a raised voice, she said, "你这个人怎么这么莫名其妙啊！说一些没有根据的话！Since when did I treat music lightly, huh?"

Jielun 气得脸都绿了，“我不想跟你这个白痴说话！” With that, he walked away and head toward the cupboard...

The soft-spoken Xinjie was stunned when she saw them quarreling she decided to keep quiet since she wasn't able to do anything to help. But Jielun do look like he was leaving, "Jielun, what are you doing? We haven't practiced the..."

Jielun grabbed his bag and sprouted, "I'm leaving." He looked up at Jieqi and glared at her, saying, "我看到她就作呕，根本练不下去."

Junjie was shocked to hear something coming from Jielun, "Wait, Jielun! 有话好说嘛."

In a swift moment, Jielun shut the door behind him with a loud slam. Everyone in the band room went quiet.

Tears were forming in Jieqi's eyes and mumbled, "他就那么讨厌我？我有那么差竟吗？"

Xinjie came over and placed a hand over Jieqi's shoulder, "Aw... Of course you're not! You're the best violinist in the section."

Wiping away a tear which rolled down, Jieqi sobbed, "我真得会让人作呕吗？我有这么难相处吗？"

Junjie came forward and tried to comfort Jieqi, "根本就不会啊. Don't take Jielun's words to heart, ok?"

"But he was really too much!" Xinjie said. "Fancy taking it out on Jieqi like that!"

Jieqi spoke in 委屈-ness, "I think, perhaps we're unable to work together now. In the beginning, I was still able to tolerate his foul temper, but nowadays 他一直对我作出人生攻击。我知道我迟钝，我慢半拍，可是我真得很努力了."

Junjie patted Jieqi's shoulder, "I know. We all know! We have eyes to see who's working on it and who's not. Com'on, it's not easy for us to form this Ensemble. Jielun didn't mean what he said so don't take him seriously."

Jieqi continued, "But, we won't know when will he flare up again... "

Xinjie nodded, "And I want J Ensemble to meet my boyfriend and his band, I don't want my team members to be so disunited. I know Jielun wasn't being himself just now but... like you mentioned it's not the first time that's happening, shouldn't he do something about it to prevent all these uncalled situations for?"

Junjie sighed and nodded, "Don't worry. I'll talk to him about this and hopefully next time such things will not happen again."

"You better make sure!" Xinjie said firmly. "Poor Jieqi, always get such harsh treatment. She didn't even do anything wrong. Sometimes she'd just be sitting there quiet and Jielun would come over and yell at her for no reason."

Jieqi then said, "他就是看我不爽就是了啦！Forget it, I'm not going to think about it anymore..."
"Alright." Xinjie nodded, "Just a reminder about tomorrow's dinner date ok?"

Junjie nodded, "Got it." He also didn't dare to comment much about anything. But for the sake of J Ensemble & Xinjie, he'd find out what exactly was Jielun's problem. Because if it gets too big, practice sessions would be hard with his roller coaster temper...

*******

Xinjie & Jieqi left, leaving Junjie alone in the band room.

Junjie pulled out his mobile phone and dialled Jielun's number. "Hey, are you still around?"

On the other end of the line, Jielun was hesitating to answer. So he replied with, "What's up?"
"Playing basketball?"

"Yeah."
"Come back to the band room."
"No!"
"The girls are not around. There's only me."
"I...." Jielun didn't want to see some people.

As if able to read Jielun's mind, Junjie said, "The girls left. There's only me left in the band room." He was expecting Jielun to respond but what greeting him was a click sound and a dead tone from the mobile phone. "臭小子！挂我电话！也不会应一声啊. "

Junjie continued practicing his piano solo and he heard somebody opening the door. It was Jielun who was opening the door slowly n carefully and checking around the band to see if there was anybody...

"干嘛？在找谁？" Junjie said, "I already told you I'm alone here."

"No, nothing." Jielun said as a matter of factly and placed his bag on the chairs and sat in front of his cello...

Both of them began to talk a little about their dreams as musicians and how J Ensemble affected them. They also had some bit of guys talk regarding parents and Junjie decided to 进入正题.

"Wei!" Junjie called out to Jielun out of the blue
Jielun who was practicing his cello replied, "干嘛?"

"Actually, you're not a bad-tempered person. But why do you always have to 呼呼赫赫 at Jieqi?" Junjie asked him curiously. From what he knew, Jielun was a very shy boy and he seldom spoke and treated words like gold.

Jielun stopped playing his cello and looked up at Junjie, "Why are you asking this?"

To be continued...

Chapter 16: Ambigious

2006-03-05T17:28:00.001+08:00

"What are you thinking about?" Xinjie asked curiously, was suspecting something happening.

"Oh...nothing. Just wondering about some things." Jieqi said ambigiously. Then added, "How is being back together with Yijuan?"

Xinjie always couldn't keep that smile away at any mentioned of her dearest boyfriend, Yijuan. "I am very happy. I mean, seriously, genuinely happy to see him back. To have him back at my side. After all, I haven't seen him for such a freaking long time. I'm very glad that he still hadn't changed at all. It feels like back during the old days when we're together."

"Oh...." Jieqi exclaimed enviously. She suddenly sighed.... "Hai...."

Xinjie was taken aback, "Why are you sighing? I thought you should be happy for me or at least feel the teeny bit of happiness I'm going through?"

"Sorry..." Jieqi winced a little cos she didn't want to seem like a spoilsport in front of her best pal. "I was just wondering how is it like to like someone. 喜欢一个人是怎样的呢?"

"Hmm...." Xinjie grinned suspiciously at Jieqi, "Why are you thinking about this? 难道说你现在有喜欢的人吗?"

Jieqi was surprised how did Xinjie know? "How did you know?"

"Ah...So I was right." Xinjie nodded knowingly. "I smelt something fishy earlier on. I could tell right away. 说！你喜欢的是谁啊？"

Jieqi turned to look at the window, shyly, "哎呀，不要问我啦."

"快点说嘛。是谁啊？." Xinjie prompted, "Was it Iceman?"

Jieqi's eyebrows were creased, "No! It's not him!"

"Are you sure?" Xinjie doubted, "Both of you were so intimate just now."

"NO!" Jieqi insisted, "It's not him! I won't like him."

"Well, then who? Com'on, tell me?"

"Hrmp...don't ask me again. I won't tell you." Jieqi said. "My stop's reaching. I gotta go now. See you tomorrow." Thankfully for Jieqi, she quickly got off from the bus in order to escape from Xinjie's pushing.

我连自己的感觉都不确定，怎么跟你说呢？

*******

Xinjie & Yijuan were having dinner at this Pasta Cafe they used to frequent...

"Would Ferrago be free to meet up with my group, J Ensemble?" Xinjie brought it up to Yijuan over dinner.

"Hmm... I'm ok with you but I need to seek my group's opnions. But I think most probably they'd be ok too if I give the nod." Yijuan said while taking a sip of water.

"I can't wait for you to meet up with my group too. Well, I know you guys are doing rock while we're doing classical but hey!" Xinjie exclaimed excitedly, "It'd be cool to exchange music pointers, eh?"

Yijuan smiled and nodded, "Yeah! And be sure to rally more supporters for the charity concert which I mentioned to you!"

Xinjie nodded enthusiastically, "Of course!! Most definitely! You guys are going to blow the audience away!"

Both of them went back eating their food. Yijuan glanced up at Xinjie and thought about Rob's words and what he wanted to tell her. Go on, just tell her, Yijuan thought to himself. But he shook the idea off because he couldn't bring himself to and ended up asking Xinjie, "Now that I'm back, what's the thing that you most wanted to do?" Well, perhaps that was the least he could do to fulfil her wishes when he was still around.

Without any hesitance, Xinjie replied, "To spend time with you everyday! To 弥补 the days when you were not around by my side."

Yijuan felt his insides frooze. But still regained composure and suggested, "Like perhaps going to the zoo together? Or to the Underwater World? Or maybe doing extreme stuffs like sky diving or parachuting together?? Or maybe going to playce which you'd been wanting to go? I'd be glad to accompany you to do those!"

Xinjie just shook her head and said, "No, there's no need to. I just want to spend as much time with you as possible because I won't know when will you be coming back again. Time is far too precious..."

Yijuan smiled uneasily and took another sip of water.... 你叫我怎么恨得下心说出来。

*******

During basketball training the next day, on a Friday, Icemen was exceptionally in a good mood. Everyone was wondering what had happened to him.

It was break time and several basketball players from the team were talking among themselves in the locker room.

"Eh? You realised? Captain had been smiling all day!" Player #1 said.

"Yeah! He never smiles." Player #2 said, "Ok, maybe he does but it was only when our team win."

"Maybe he's in love!" Player #3 was speculating...

Jielun was behind Player #3 and was wiping sweat on his forehead and neck in the locker room. He himself also thought Iceman wasn't really himself today, being so extra polite to everyone when he used to shout & yell at the other team members.

"You're half correct!" Came a voice.

The 3 players and Jielun turned to look at the where that voice came from.

It was Gao Tianqi.

"Eh?" Player #1 exclaimed, "Half correct??"
Being nosey, Player #2 asked, "Hmm... Tianqi do you know something we don't?"
"Yeah! Com'on!" Player #3 urged, "Share with us!"

Tianqi was looking himself in front of the mirror, styling his hair and casually saying, "Imagine you got a chance to be able to lift your angel on your shoulder, having her so close to you, won't you be in a good mood too??

"Eh? Angel?" Player #1 exclaimed again. "Iceman 难道有喜欢的人了?"

"Who is it? Do you know? From which class or ECA?" Player #2 continued asking.

However, Player #3 was taking note of the break time, "Hey, I think we better get going else coach will give us a lashing again later."

"Ok. Hey, Tianqi, we'll continue the conversation later..."

With that, the 3 of them left the locker room leaving just Tianqi & Jielun inside. Tianqi was still combing and styling his hair. He always made sure that every strand would be in place despite having a rough training/gaming session out in the court. It was then from the reflection that he saw Jielun sitting on a bench behind him.

"Oh! Jielun, you're around!" Tianqi turned around to look at Jielun for a while then turn back towards the mirror.

What Tianqi & the other teammates had said had made Jielun really curious. Iceman's change, what angel, what having her so close?? He didn't feel too good but yet he wanted to know about it. So he asked casually, "The angel you were talking about is...."

"Huh? What?" Tianqi didn't quite paid attention cos he was more concern of his hair. But after a while, he remembered, "Ah! The angel which Iceman lifted? I thought you know?"

What what lifted? Iceman lifted the angel? I know the angel? Jielun thought. "Huh? Who are you talking about?"

"Jieqi ah!" Tianqi said as a matter of factly. "I was playing basketball after school yesterday. Jieqi joined me. Shortly after that, Iceman joined us. And Jieqi said she wanted to do a slam dunk. But obviously she wasn't tall enough so Iceman offered to lift her to his shoulder so that she could smack the ball through the hoop."

Jielun couldn't believe what he was hearing and silently cursed, "What the hell she think she was doing. What an idiot. 随随便便让男生碰的家伙！"

But apparently, Tianqi didn't hear Jielun's silent curse and continued, "但是我觉得，她喜欢的好像是俊杰而不是我们的队长."

Jielun looked up at Tianqi who was preparing to leave the locker room. 她喜欢的好像是俊杰? He then recalled about the few times when he caught her starring at Junjie during band practice.... 杰伦开始胡思乱想了...

*******

After basketball training, it was band practice for Jielun and he reluctantly went to the band room and saw the others practicing their pieces....

"Oh," Junjie said while flipping his scores in front of the ivory keys, "Jielun, you're here."

"Mmm." Jielun mumbled and put his bag at the locker and brought his cello and scores and joined his Ensemble.

Xinjie was blowing her flute beside Junjie and his piano. Jielun was on the other side of Junjie while Jieqi was in front of Jielun. The 4 of them was practicing several pieces together... But Jielun's ears was super sensitive today.

To Be Continued...

Chapter 15: 你没有必要向我解释

2006-01-05T17:24:00.001+08:00

"My boyfriend, Yijuan is in Singapore now, putting up at his friend's place and remembered I told you that him & his band are back here for a charity performance??"

Junjie noddedly unsurely, "Uh huh, and then?"

"Would you be free this coming weekend to have dinner with Yijuan and his band? We can asked Jieqi & Jielun to come along. I hope we could go as J Ensemble to meet him? I wanna let him know about us!" Xinjie said excitedly.

For a moment, Junjie was spaced out as soon as Xinjie finished her sentence. You wanna let your boyfriend know about us, you & me, Junjie thought stupidly. "Us?" Junjie repeated stupidly. Was there an 'us' to begin with?

Xinjie nodded, "Yeah. Us. J Ensemble. You, me, Jielun, Jieqi. Us."

Junjie was back on planet earth, "OH!!! Us...yeah....us..."

Xinjie raise an eyebrow and asked him, "What were you thinking about huh?"

Junjie feigned innocence, "Oh uh...nothing. Nothing... " He smiled awkwardly.

Both of them continued heading toward the main entrance where they'd pass by the basketball court...

*******

Tianqi felt so much better after taking it out on basketball.

"Oh man!" Iceman exclaimed. "You're a bull today! Where have you found those drive & energy!" He was panting hardly, almost dying upon this one-on-one match with Tianqi.

Jieqi was clapping by the side and said, "Tianqi!!! 你好厉害哦！ You won the captain!!"

Both Jieqi & Iceman were expecting some sarcastic remarks from Tianqi but what came out from Tianqi's mouth was alarming. "Sorry, cap. Sorry, Jieqi." He passed his bottle to Iceman and continued, "Had a rough day today. Didn't mean to take it out on both of you."

Jieqi stood up and said, "就知道你有事！今天一整天都怪怪的."

Tianqi put up a smile and said, "But I'm ok now, seriously. Thanks for your concern."

"So, can we not play rough anymore?" Jieqi asked innocently.

"Of course!" Tianqi said. "If I played rough with you, Captain would probably skinned me alive!" Side glancing at Iceman. "Right, Captain?"

Jieqi took the basketball and tried a few free throws but couldn't get in. But she continued trying and had a lot of fun playing on her own.

"小姐!" Tianqi sighed, "投篮不是这样投的. 你看你那个是什么姿势啊！" He went ahead and impart some 'free throw skills' to Jieqi.

But being slow-witted, of course Jieqi didn't get it. "Aiyo! I'm not a basketball player la. Don't be so苛刻 with me, will you?"

Iceman then shot over, "Eh Tianqi, 你很不懂得怜香惜玉哦."

Tianqi crossed his eyes and said, "Yeah yeah yeah. Captain knows it best. 重色轻友的家伙！"

Frankly speaking, Jieqi was quite intimated with Iceman's pressence. With all of Tianqi's awkward teasing, she was feeling rather uneasy. In order to ease the awkwardness, out of the blue, she suggested, "Wei! 你们会灌篮吗? Can you show me how to dunk?"

Tianqi was known as the 'king koil' of the team. He was able to jump very high despite being a whole 8cm shorter than Iceman. "Hmm...I haven't tried that in a while already..."
Iceman nodded, "I think I'm still able to dunk..."

With that, both guys were practicing & doing some dunks. Tianqi had the first few attempts failed but slowly getting the hang of it. Iceman first few attempts was very good but he said he was pretty tired and had a rest.

Jieqi was commenting casually, "I wish I could dunk too! But it's impossible for me to jump that high. I can't even touch the basket."

Iceman looked at her, "You wanna dunk? That's easy!"

Jieqi was puzzled, "Easy? How?"

"You'd just hold the basketball and I'd lift you up to the hoop. It's that's easy!" Iceman explained.

"HUH?" Jieqi exclaimed. "Erm...."

Tianqi stopped what he was doing and almost flipped when he heard what Iceman has just said, "喂，队长，你不是想要占人家的便宜吧？"

Iceman smacked Tianqi's head and said, "臭小子！你在说什么啊？我想那种人吗？"

Tianqi blinked and shrugged his shoulders, "How would I know?"

Iceman turned to Jieqi and explained, "Don't worry, I'm not what you think or what Tianqi described. I mean, if you wanna have a taste of how it feels like to slam dunk, I can easily lift you up. Of course, if you feel uncomfortable, you can choose not to. It was just a suggestion."

Jieqi cheeks turned pink and looked at Tianqi. "Huh...err....I errm..."

Tianqi explained to Iceman, "What sort of suggestion is this? 人家一个女孩子被你这样抱上去。。。不是很奇怪吗？"

Jieqi was stuttering, "I...well... I kinda wanna try the feeling of slam dunking up there...but well, I'm kinda embarrassed. Will I be too heavy?" She asked Iceman.

Iceman waved, "Nah! I'd lifted ppl much bigger than you... No worries. So uh...." It was his turn to turn awkward.

"Erm...it'd be a quick one ok? Lift me up, dunk ball through basketball, lift me down again. Ok?" Jieqi said.

Iceman showed an ok sign. "Ok!"

Iceman then bent down to let Jieqi sit on his shoulder and then he slowly stood up. Jieqi who was holding the ball happily dunks the ball through the hoop and clapped happily like a kid!

However, at this point of time, Junjie & Xinjie were crossing over to the basketball court and saw the whole scene of Iceman lifting Jieqi up to slam dunk...

"Is that Jieqi?" Junjie asked Xinjie, unsure of what he just saw.
Xinjie's jaw dropped too, "Uhh...I think it is."

Tianqi was watching Jieqi clapping happily like a child on Iceman's shoulder. He then spot Xinjie standing outside the basketball court. He called out excitedly & delightedly, "Xinjie! What are you doing here?"

Still on Iceman's shoulder, Jieqi turned to the direction where Tianqi called out and saw Xinjie....and JUNJIE!! She got the shocked of her life!!! And told Iceman, "快点放我下来! 快点！"

Iceman was quite taken aback by Jieqi's sudden change of mood and quickly did what she said, "Orh! Ok. Sorry."

Xinjie was still looking at Jieqi, then back at Tianqi & explained, "Oh, Junjie & I were at the band room earlier and making our way out to the bus stop to go home. You haven't gone home yet?"

"Oh, I was playing basketball alone earlier. Then Jieqi came over and joined me." Tianqi explained. He then looked over at Junjie who smiled at him. Tianqi smiled awkwardly back at him.

Jieqi walked over to them with face as red as tomato's. "Err...Hi! Hello!" She took a shy look at Junjie and looked away. Oh no, Junjie must have gotten the wrong idea about me, Jieqi thought disastrously. What to do now?

Xinjie said, "We're on our way to the bus stop and saw you guys here."

Junjie commented casually, "Woah, Jieqi...having a great time out there in the court huh? How was the slam dunk?"

Jieqi's face grew even redder, "No no no...it wasn't what you think! Iceman was just...well, I wanted to dunk the ball but wasn't tall enough...so Iceman helped me out on that. I mean, well, 我不是你们想象的那种随便让人碰的女生."

Jieqi was anxious to explain to Junjie that she wasn't that kind of open girl but couldn't put the words together. But Junjie was indifferent towards her explanation but still smiled and said, "只是逗你的啦。我们都知道你的为人。不过其实，你没有必要向我解释的."

'你没有必要向我解释的' was ringing in Jieqi's head. It sounded so heartless and she was hurt.

Xinjie & Iceman were oblivious to what was happening but Tianqi 看在眼里 and immediately knew that Jieqi likes Junjie. There was glistening in her eyes. But she regained composure and blinked the hurt away......

*******

Jieqi & Xinjie took the same bus home. Earlier on, all of them were waiting at the bus stop but the girls' bus came first so they boarded the bus first leaving the guys waiting for theirs buses at the bus stop.

Along the journey, Jieqi kept quiet and kept staring out the window. Xinjie could tell that Jieqi wasn't feeling too good and offered to asked, "You're very quiet, you know?"

Jieqi turned around and said, "Oh, sorry. Was drifting away."

"What are you thinking about?" Xinjie asked curiously, was suspecting something happening.

To Be Continued...

Chapter 14: Deflated Balloon

2005-10-05T17:20:00.002+08:00

Yijuan was putting up at his band buddy's rented apartment. Xinjie helped him with his luggage and stuffs into the shared room.

"Hey, thanks so much for picking me up." Yijuan told Xinjie.

"Nah!" Xinjie laughed, "You don't have to be so polite with me!" Although Yijuan still looks the same but he seemed to have changed. Well, maybe just a little. He needn't have to be so polite & courteous to her.

"No, I'm just really glad."

Xinjie smiled, "Ok, after taking a 10-hour flight, you must be really tired. You have a good rest first then. Let me know if you'd like to hang out."

Yijuan blinked a few times. He'd tried to cover his tiredness but Xinjie was able to tell, "Sorry I can't hang out with you today. Got a practice session with the guys later in the afternoon which would probably stretch to night."

Xinjie nodded understandingly, "My mom would like to invite you over for dinner, which day would you be free to drop by?"

Yijuan smiled thoughtfully, "Hmm... I gotta check with the guys first. But let me tell u what. What time do you get off school tomorrow? Let's have lunch and we'd probably discuss about what to do during my one-week stay here?"

"Brilliant!" Xinjie replied excitedly. "Just give me a call on my mobile anytime you want to."

"Ok! I'll catch you soon!" Yijuan said and saw Xinjie to the door. He wanted to see her downstairs but Xinjie declined and asked him to have a good rest.

Yijuan plopped on the bed and sighed. "How should I tell her I'm leaving Singapore for good? How should I tell her I'd be living in London for good?"

*******

It was a Monday afternoon at 1pm at AJHS. And Tianqi was playing basketball alone. Jieqi, who had to walk pass the basketball court to get to the bus stop after school, saw him.

"Eh! Tianqi!" Jieqi called out.

But Tianqi didn't stop what he was doing and continued with the layups and bouncing the ball in between in legs and over his body. Jieqi was watching him outside the court. She noticed he had been really quiet in class today. He was usually the most noisy & hyperactive one. He would also always like to come over and talk to her & Xinjie, but he sat at his place obediently. He was like a deflated balloon...

"喂！高天祺，你怎么不理我啊？你怎么啦？" Jieqi called out again, raising her voice a little this time.

Finally, Tianqi spoke while still dribbling the ball, "心情不好."

"Oh..." Jieqi nodded. "谁惹你了?"

"没有人." Tianqi got irritated and yelled, "哎哟！你很烦咧."

Jieqi found him 莫名其妙 and said, "Just showing you some concern as classmates & friends."

"Play with me?" Tianqi stopped bouncing the ball and held it in his hand.

Jieqi raised her eyebrows and said, "Ah? Again? But I don't know how to play, you sure win."

"Com'on, the idea is not to win me. The idea is the block me, get it?" Tianqi explain irritatedly.

Jieqi, being the good friend she is, decided to play with Tianqi despite not knowing the game. She figured he probably need to release his bad mood through playing basketball. She nodded and said, "Orh! Ok, alright!" She placed her bag aside and stood in front of Tianqi and stretched her hand forward to block him.

Tianqi didn't give Jieqi the time to get ready and charged forward with the first score. A few times, Jieqi managed to block him and that only got him more raged and he didn't care if Jieqi was a girl or not and started to play rough and knocked against her just to score. She landed on her butt for the Nth time and groaned.

"Goodness, basketball is such a rough game." Jieqi looked at her bruised leg and felt comfort, "Luckily it's not my hand or arm, otherwise how would I play the violin!"

Tianqi didn't bat and eyelid and said, "That's just the starting of the game. Do you know-"

"OEI!"

Tianqi was cut off by a loud yell. Jieqi, who was still 'sitting' on the ground was shocked too. Both of them looked at the direction where that voice came from.

"你还是不是男人啊？这样子欺负一个女生?" That voice came from Iceman, who has been watching both of them from a distance. He couldn't stand the way Tianqi was bullying and taking out on Jieqi like that.

Tianqi thought he heard wrongly, "Huh? 我欺负她？是她自愿要跟我一子玩的，我没有逼她哦. And besides, that's how basketball is, don't you know this better than me?" He had no intention of challenging Iceman. But all his words contain 'thorns' in them today.

Iceman went forward and helped Jieqi up. "Are you ok?"

Jieqi smiled, "Orh! I'm fine. Just some bruises on my knees. Tianqi won't bully me."

"Are you sure?" Iceman 会心疼他的天使这样被人欺负。

Jieqi nodded, "Umm! Tianqi is having a bad mood and was playing basketball alone just now. By playing with him, I hope he will get better. But..." She smiled sheepishly, "I don't know how to play so that's why..."

"Never mind!" Iceman assured. "Since I'm here, I'll play with him and show him who's boss."

Tianqi, who was dribbling beside them, almost wanted to laugh when he saw how exaggerting Iceman looked when he came over and how he helped Jieqi up. It really seemed like his 队长变成了情圣了！Look at that tone he used! But he was supposed to be the 'bad mood guy'.

"Eh, Gao Tianqi." Iceman called out.

Tianqi stopped his dribbling and said, "Yes, Captain?"

"You and me. One on one. How's that?"

Tianqi feigned fear & inconfidence, "Woah, one on one? I'm not sure..." He suddenly smirked, "...if you can keep up with me!" With that, Tianqi whiz passed Iceman and scored a ball!

Jieqi grabbed Iceman's arm and said, "Quick!! Don't let Tianqi score!"

Iceman looked at his own arm being grabbed by her, he felt adrenaline pumping through him and said, "Watch me." Then he whiz passed Tianqi and grabbed the basketball from him easily. He shot Tianqi, "Think again. Who is unable to keep up with who."

Those 2 guys were having their one on one with Jieqi cheering for them happily...

*******

"Hey you know how to add mp3 songs to website?" Xinjie was asking Junjie casually on their way out of the band room.

"Oh, you have to type in the bgsound thingy." Junjie explained briefly. "You have the code of practice?"

"No." Xinjie shook her head.

Junjie said, "Never mind. I'll send you the soft copy of it via MSN when you're online tonight."

"Thanks so much. I still have some trouble creating the html project we're supposed to do."

"Don't worry about it too much. You'll do fine." Junjie assured her.

Both of them then walked in silent along the hallway. When Junjie casually asked, "What mp3 are you gonna put up? Your boyfriend's creation?"

Xinjie turned to look at Junjie, stunned, "How did you know? Well, they came up with a new composition and I wanna put the song up on my blog."

Junjie wanted to sound surprised but somehow his tone came out, disappointed, "Ah...I see."
"I can send you some of his band's songs to you if you're interested."

Junjie nodded interestedly, "Sure, I'd love to. Thanks."

Both of them continued walking again in awkward silence And Junjie was always the one to break it.

"So erm..I heard you used to play drums for your boyfriend's band, Ferragamo?"
"Ferrago." Xinjie corrected.
"Right. Sorry." Junjie smiled awkwardly. "And..."

But before Junjie could continue asking more, Xinjie interrupted excitedly, "My boyfriend, Yijuan is in Singapore now, putting up at his friend's place and remembered I told you that him & his band are back here for a charity performance??"

Junjie noddedly unsurely, "Uh huh, and then?"

To Be Continued...

Chapter 13: He's Coming Back

2005-05-05T17:16:00.000+08:00

"你不要看我们队长长得高大, 好像很凶的样子, 其实他人很温柔的, 很喜欢帮助别人, 特别是女生." Tianqi was 'advertising' for Yufan to Jieqi as he walked back towards the library area to look for Xinjie.

"Oh." was Jieqi's only reply as she continued to walk ahead without giving Tianqi much attention.

But Tianqi took it as Jieqi was shy and continued to probe, "Really! Captain's caring & helpful, I think he's an absolutely great guy who would make a great boyfriend."

Meanwhile, Jielun who was coming from the other side overheard their conversation and couldn't help wondering why was Tianqi 'advertising' Yufan to Jieqi? Hmm...

Jieqi stopped to her feet and looked at Tianqi, puzzled, "Why are you telling me all these?"
"I'm just telling you how a person is Iceman like so that you can have a better idea before actually getting to know him!" Tianqi explained. "So that-"

"Hey, Tianqi!" Jielun called out to him. He then looked at Jieqi and actually smiled at her! "Hi!" He said to her. "What are you guys talking about? I heard Iceman's name."

Tianqi: What's happening today? How come Captain & Vice Captain are so unlike their usual selves? First, Iceman actually knew how to blush? He's supposed to be ICEMAN, he's supposed to look cool and doesn't smile at all. And Jielun, he NEVER smile at GIRLS! Only girls smile at him. Or rather, *gets big headed* girls smile at US! *looks over at Jieqi who seemed impatient* What is it about Jieqi which attracts our Captain & Vice Captain? She's not even considered as pretty or attractive, she's boring....what else? Hmm...

"Hey, I'm asking you!" Jielun called out to Tianqi but he was looking at Jieqi in a daze. "Why do you keep looking at her?"

Tianqi had a wide smile then said, "Nothing. Apparently, our Captain's interested in her so I'm just merely telling her more about Iceman."

Jieqi couldn't care less about them, "你够了没有? 走快点啦."

"哎呀,有什么好害羞的." Tianqi teased again.

Jielun faked a smile and wondered, 没想到这么快就有表示,有行动了? He knew Iceman was interested in Jieqi when he'd asked him about her. But he didn't expect Iceman's actions to be so quick. Really unlike him.

"Where are you heading?" Tianqi asked Jielun.

"Oh, looking for Junjie to go back to class. We were on our way for our break when he saw Xinjie stumbling on her work and offered to help. I think they should be done by now." Jielun said.

"Oh...Junjie." Tianqi said THAT name with bitterness. "We're looking for Xinjie so I guess we're heading the same way."

*******

What are you doing! What are you doing, Guo Xinjie! Xinjie quickly reminded herself that she had a very sweet & loving boyfriend, Yijuan and shouldn't be thinking about some other guy. It must be the hormones, she assured herself and shook Junjie of her mind.

A while later, when Xinjie was almost done, Tianqi, Jieqi & Jielun marched their up toward them.

"Oh, you guys are here." Xinjie said, starting to pack up her stuffs.

Junjie was puzzled that Jielun was with them, "Eh, Jielun? How come you're with them?"

Jielun shrugged and replied, "Oh, by coincidence."

Xinjie noticed everyone was present and decided to announce something. "Oh! J Ensemble is around, perfect. I've something to tell you all. Come sit around." She urged everyone to sit down, including Tianqi although he's not part of J Ensemble.

"Ok!" Xinjie began as all anticipating eyes are on her. "My boyfriend, Yijuan would be back from UK next week. So I'm inviting you guys to his band's performance at The Max at 8pm. Do come and support Yijuan's band Ferrago, ok? It's going to be a charity concert."

"Yijuan's coming back?" Jieqi looked rather surprised cos she haven't heard Xinjie mentioned about him these days and all of a sudden he's coming back? "Is he staying for good or just back for holidays?"

"I don't know." Xinjie said truthfully, a tint of disappointment in her eyes. "I just hope he'd stay longer this time. So anyway," she continued to the others, "I'd get the tickets as soon as possible. It's going at $12. So don't be stingy! It's for charity!"

Tianqi thought what could Xinjie be announcing, so it's about her boyfriend coming back to Singapore as well as performing for a charity show. He sighed and couldn't decide if he should go.

Jielun 看在眼里 and asked, "干嘛那张脸啊?"

"Oh, nothing." Tianqi lied. "Are you going?"

"Of course. Fellow musicians on the house." Jielun smirked to Tianqi then turned to Xinjie, "Which instrument does your boyfriend play?"

Xinjie smiled and said, "He doesn't play anything. He's the composer and the vocalist."

"Cool!" Jielun said.

Then Jielun noticed Junjie was starring in space and turned to him. "Oei! What are you thinking about?"

"Oh, nothing." Junjie lied as well. "Are you going?"

The end of recess bell had just rang. Students were all hurriedly walking back to their classrooms. J Ensemble & Tianqi were also making their way.

"Of course." Jielun said with his brows creased. "Didn't you hear what I said? How come you asked the same thing as Tianqi? I had to repeat myself twice. 莫名其妙." With that, he attempted to walk off in his usual attitude manner throwing these few words, "走快点吧, 要上课了..."

Junjie glanced at Xinjie for a split second before joining Jielun as they headed off to their block. Xinjie who was walking with Jieqi & Tianqi watched Junjie's diminishing backview and wondered, What exactly happened between us just now?

*******

It was a Sunday morning and Xinjie got up exceptionally early and was choosing some nice clothes in her wardrobe. She dolled herself up prettily and was prepared to go out.

"Mom," Xinjie called out toward the kitchen where her mom was. "I'm going to the airport."

Mrs Guo then asked, "Going to the airport for?"

Xinjie smiled sweetly, "Yijuan's coming back! I'm going to see him, mom! I haven't seen him for one year!"

"Oh...he's coming back this Sunday? I thought it was next Sunday!" Mrs Guo got muddle-headed.

"Yeah! He's landing at 10am. Ok, mom. I gotta go now! Be back in the afternoon." Xinjie told her mom quickly and rushed out of the house and hailed a cab and was on her way to the Changi Airport.

*******

Yijuan was looking out of the little window panel of the airplane. He saw the tiny island, Singapore were he was from. He brought out his wallet and look at the pic he had used to take with Xinjie... Lots of things came to his mind.

And then Yijuan brought out a photo from his shirt pocket. It was of him and a Caucasian girl whom he knew over there. They were not official but he told her that he had a girlfriend back home in Singapore. But the Caucasian girl likes Yijuan a lot. He closed his eyes and shut everything away from his mind.

"Ok, I'm only back here for the charity concert and meet up with mommy, my band buddies & Xinjie. Whatever comes, comes." Yijuan assured himself. "I don't have a worry about anything. I'm back for fun, laughters, enjoyment."

Yijuan kept his wallet and photo and continued to sit through the journey until the plane landed at Changi Airport.

*******

Yijuan's band mates had offered to pick him up when he comes back but he told them that Xinjie would be picking him up instead.

And Xinjie was already standing by at the arrival hall. Yijuan pulled along his luggage and walked through the belt and saw Xinjie who waved back excitedly. Both of them hugged each other tightly. "I'm so glad you're finally back." Xinjie told Yijuan. "We've got lots to catch up!"

Yijuan smiled and replied, "Really?"

"Yeah!" Xinjie scrutinised Yijuan's handsome face, "You still look the same. Your boyishness is till there and you'd grown more muscular, huh?"

Yijuan smile sheepishly, "Yeah, I guess so. From all those gym sessions....."

Both of them headed towards the taxi stand and continued chatting...

To Be Continued...

Chapter 12: Love Interests

2005-02-13T17:11:00.002+08:00

Yufan felt a little big headed after hearing Jieqi's comments. "不要叫我 Iceman 学长啦. 我叫宇凡,陈宇凡. 你可以直呼我名字啦."

Jieqi smiled, "不叫学长, 感觉怪怪的."

Yufan didn't agree but still feel excited, "怎么会呢? 你叫杰伦也叫杰伦学长吗?"

"Errr...no." Jieqi admitted truthfully, she almost wanted to puke whenever she hear that name. "In fact, I don't think I'd ever called him by his name before."

"Never mind." Yufan told her. "Are you eating alone or...."

"Oh! I'm joining Tianqi. He's sitting over there." Jieqi said as she pointed to the direction where Tianqi was.

"With Tianqi?" Yufan said uncertainly. He did feel a teeny weeny bit jealous on seeing the way Jieqi called Tianqi's name. She played basketball with him the other time and now she was going to eat with him? He couldn't help but wonder if both of them are an item. He felt the need to find out.

Jieqi nodded, "Yeah, you wanna join?"
Oh good, Yufan thought. "Sure!"

*******

"Wei! Why didn't you wait for me just now?" Jieqi said as she placed her food opposite Tianqi, who seemed to be in deep thoughts. "I was looking for you just now."

"Jieqi? Oh..." Tianqi's thoughts were broken and even more surprised to see Yufan as well. "Eh? Iceman? You're here too!"

"Hope you don't mind with me being here?" Yufan said.
"Not at all." Tianqi said.

So there was Tianqi stirring his coffee tea and Jieqi eating her chicken rice quietly while Yufan was sipping his soft drink. Nobody spoke anything. Jieqi was only focused on the plate in front of her while Tianqi kept looking out the field.

Yufan cleared his throat, as if to get their attention. 然后他就直接刀枪植入地问道, "你们....是男女朋友吗?"

Jieqi looked up, with mouthful, "HUH?"

Tianqi thought he heard wrongly, "Sorry, captain. What did you say?"

Yufan cleared his throat once again and repeated, "我问你们是不是在交往?"

捷琪差一点没有喷饭! She coughed and laughed at the same time, "Hahaha...."

Tianqi was shocked, "Excuse me, captain. But did you just ask if Jieqi & I were an item?"

Yufan was looking back at him with seriousness, "Yeah!"

Jieqi swallowed and looked at Yufan with disbelief, "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Er..." Yufan was taken aback, not knowing how to answer.

Then, it was Tianqi's turn to laugh. He explained, "我已经名草有主了, 不会跟队长你争的啦."

Jieqi sat straight when she heard Tianqi's statement and was trying to figure out. Why did Tianqi say he wouldn't fight with Iceman? Wait a minute, she thought, Iceman thought Tianqi & I are a couple and Tianqi said he wouldn't fight with him? Does that mean Iceman... Jieqi gasped and covered her mouth with a hand as she'd figured out Iceman's motive of asking.

"Chey! 你不要乱说.什么争的啦." Yufan retorted towards Tianqi's reply immediately as blood rose to his face as quick as a jet. He held onto his cup tightly as he stole a glance at Jieqi to see her reaction.

"Wah! What a rare sight!" Tianqi exclaimed exaggeratingly. "Since when did our Iceman captain learn how to blush?" He teased. "原来队长对捷琪有意思哦!"

Now was Jieqi's turn to blush as she nudged Tianqi by his elbow. "Stop your nonsense already. You're making the situation so awkward!"

Yufan immediately clarified, "My apologies for making you awkward, Jieqi. But ah...well," he ruffled his hair shyly as he continued, "I'm genuinely sincere in knowing you more, well, as a friend if you don't mind?" His eyes sparkled with hope.

Jieqi found herself stammering out of startledness, "Oh, well, yeah. Of course." She blushed again and bend her head real low so that the two guys were not able to see it again.

Tianqi grinned and commented, "Jieqi is a very very shy girl. So captain, here's a friendly advice," He placed a hand on Yufan's shoulder. "Do not attempt to be aggressive cos that won't work on shy girls. Instead, you must attack slowly, to show her your sincerity-"

But Jieqi couldn't stand to hear anymore of Tianqi's teasing and poke him in his abs and called out loudly, "要敲钟了! (Meaning recess is ending soon)" With that, she took her empty plate and walked away, leaving the guys still seating there.

"See!" Tianqi said to Iceman, "I told you! See how shy she is!"

Yufan only 傻笑 and said, "Since you'd known she's shy, shouldn't you tame down your teasings a little?"

"Wah! 什么跟什么啊?" Tianqi looked really surprised, "还没追到手就这么袒护她! 队长, 你很重色轻有耶."

"我哪有!" Yufan snapped.

*******

"Ok, I think I better write all my workings down clearly for me in case you don't understand." Immediately after Junjie said that, he began to back traced on how he derived the solutions and starting to write them out step by step for Xinjie.

"Oh, ok. Thank you so so much for helping me out, Junjie." Xinjie told him and she really meant it. Junjie was really good, she thought. He had explained it so much clearer than that Mr Lim.

After all the explanations by Junjie, Xinjie now had a better understanding of it. And not only that, she also had a better understanding of Junjie as well. And she realised that Junjie was actually a very very gentle guy who has lots of patience. As Xinjie recalled all the times spent practicising in the band room with J Ensemble or the whole orchestra, Junjie as a band major never once flared up. It was as though he didn't have any temper at all. He was serious in his work and have a passion for things he does, he was a really responsible person.

Xinjie rested her chin on her hand as she watched Junjie scribbling profusely all over the foolscap. It felt so....comfortable watching him. But besides that, she had also felt something else. What is it, she had no idea.

"OK!" Junjie called out suddenly, breaking Xinjie's thoughts. "I'd worked everything out for you. You understood everything I'd explained just now right?"

Xinjie nodded, "Yup! Very clear."

"Good." Junjie continued, "All you need to do now is to copy all these down." With that, he handed him those pieces of foolscap sribbled with equations and numbers.

"Great!" Xinjie exclaimed excitement and took the foolscap from Junjie's hands and started to copy...

It was Junjie's turn to watch Xinjie on her copying. He smiled. He smiled because she looked so...attractive when she was concentrating on her work. Just like how sometimes when Xinjie was practicing her flute, Junjie would be watching how attentive she was. There was just this something about her which attracted him and watching Xinjie can sometimes watched till Junjie 失了神...

While copying halfway, Xinjie suddenly remembered that Junjie hadn't eaten due to staying with her to solve the F.Maths. "Oh no, are you hungry?" She looked up and immediately caught Junjie's eyes. She then realised that he was watching her the whole time. Her heart was thumping.

"Oh!" Junjie was back to planet earth. "Well, don't worry about me. I'm fine." He then looked away and pretended he was looking at something else.

Xinjie, too, continued with her work and pretended as if nothing happened. Both of them shook their sudden mutual feelings away.

To Be Continued...

Chapter 11: 可恶的妒忌心

2004-12-15T23:31:00.002+08:00

Junjie walked toward Xinjie and stood in front of her. But as she was engrossed in her work so she didn't notice him until a for moments later. "Junjie?" She was surprised to see him. "What are you doing here?"

"I just finished my lecture and was on my way for break. Then I saw you here." Junjie told her.

"I stood here for quite some time now 可是你都不理我."
Xinjie smiled, "Sorry, I didn't notice."

"你怎么一直皱眉头啊?" Junjie was concerned. Could it be with Yijuan or...

"This F.Math's driving me crazy!" Xinjie exclaimed.

Junjie laughed, showing his trademark 咪咪眼, "I know, I took this last year and couldn't handle it and finally dropped it after the first semester."

"I'm dead, I need to get this done by break time." Xinjie said.
"Oh? Let me see if I'm able to help?" Junjie offered.

Xinjie told Junjie about her difficulty as he read the questions on the textbook. Although Junjie wasn't very good himself but he roughly knew how to solve it and tried to work it out before explaining to Xinjie...

*******

"老板! 给我一个热腾腾的叉烧包!" Tianqi said to the uncle from bun stall. "哦! 再加一个肉包，最大个的那个! 谢谢！"

The uncle passed Tianqi a few hot buns in the packet. Tianqi thanked him and rushed back to Xinjie.

*******

"Xinjie, look what I'd gotten you!" Tianqi raised the packet high with enthusiasm. But he didn't expect another person, a guy, to be there with Xinjie. His face fell immediately, legs rooted to the ground.

"Oh! Tianqi! So glad you're here, I'm famished!" Xinjie said, delighted to see Tianqi after some gruelling maths-solving time with Junjie. Then she realised she never really introduce both the 2 guys before. "Oh yeah, this is Junjie. I'm sure you'd seen him before. He's our band major."

Tianqi walked over and passed Xinjie the bun. "Sorry, tuna sandwich was sold out so I'd gotten you a char siew bun."

"Oh it's ok, no worries." Xinjie said

Tianqi then looked at Junjie, who gave him a bright smile and said, "Yeah, seen him before."

Junjie then said to him and stretched out his hand gentlemanly. "Hi, I'm Junjie. Take a seat. And I'd seen you before too. Athletics & sportsmen are all very high profile in AJHS. They always bring glory & victory for the school."

Tianqi 干笑了几声, "Ha ha, nah. Not really. You flattered me." He wasn't sure to feel flattered or embarrassed. There were a moment of silence as he studied Xinjie & Junjie and watching how close they sat together. "So uh...what are you two doing?"

Xinjie replied while keeping her eyes fixed on her textbook and munching the bun which Tianqi bought for her at the same time and said, "Junjie's helping me in F.Maths. I was really having a hard time doing this...." changing the topic immediately. "Oh yeah, Junjie what were you saying about this question? Sorry I didn't catch."

Junjie smiled gentlmanly, "No, it's ok. Right, so..." He began explaining it to Xinjie as Tianqi was watching on. "You have a better idea of this now?" He asked Xinjie.

But Xinjie was there, having a blank expression. Then Tianqi interuppted, "哪里有人这样解释的? 你说得这么复杂, 我都听不懂了, 心洁怎么听得懂?"

Junjie was alarmed by Tianqi's comment and turned to Xinjie, "I'm sorry, was I too fast? You get what I'm saying?"

Tianqi 一脸不屑 and looked at Junjie doubtfully, "你到底会不会的啊?"

Xinjie gave Tianqi the 'Keep-quiet-cum-shhhh' glare then turned to Junjie, "Sorry, you're speaking ok. Just that, it's the format that I don't get it...do you mind explaining it again?"

"Oh..." Junjie said, "Ok, ok. You see the figure here...." He pointed to the textbook and try to explain it again.

But towards the middle, Tianqi interupted again, "不会的话就不要乱教.免得弄得心洁更乱!"

Xinjie rolled her eyes and stopped Junjie. "Sorry." She turned to Tianqi with her brows creased. "Uh...Tianqi thanks for the bun you bought me. Aren't you hungry?"

Not knowing the reason why Xinjie asked these, Tianqi said, "I'm ok. Why?"

"Uh...I really hope to get my work done and it's kinda distracting with you around, so you might wanna go to the canteen for some drinks maybe?" Xinjie suggested, trying to hint to him.

Tianqi looked at Junjie then back at Xinjie. Ok, so I'M the one distracting you? He thought. "Oh...oh, sure sure. Alright then." He left the stone table reluctantly watching the both of them from behind, 不是滋味. He left sadly and headed toward the canteen.

*******

"老板,一盘鸡饭." She said that.
"老板,一盘鸡饭." He said that too.

The chicken rice stall uncle looked at the direction of the both voices who said that exactly at the same time, not knowing who to serve first.

Jieqi & Jielun turned around and looked at each other and almost scared to death. But Jielun soon regained composure and said, "Ladies first." And queued behind her.

"谢谢." Jieqi called out.
"不用客气." Jielun continued almost immediately.

"跟老板说的." Jieqi retorted. Whoever would thank Mr Attitude must be crazy!
"我在帮老板说的. 你以为我会跟你说吗?" Jielun couldn't be bothered.

"你!" Jieqi realised she was on the losing end, as always, so she kept quiet and turned to wait for her chicken rice.

Jielun smirked as he looked at the back of her neck since she was right in front of him. The length of her short hair fitted her just right. Somehow, he'd always thought girls with short hair looked neater & tidier. Short haired girls are definitely a turn on! But.... maybe minus the temper.

Actually Jielun sorta wanted to apologise for what he did yesterday, for yelling at Jieqi for no apparent reason. But somehow whenever he saw Jieqi, nothing nice will come out from his mouth. Not that he wanted it to be this way, but it just happened unknowingly... Now that she was right in front of him, he'd no idea how to break it up to her. Argh!

Jieqi couldn't be bothered standing there any longer, she left as soon as her chicken rice was ready. She was holding the plate and looking for a place and for Tianqi at the same time, thinking they would eat together without realising he had already ran off after buying char siew buns for Xinjie. Fortunately, after a few moments, she caught sight of Tianqi sitting alone at the corner of the last table.

Just as Jieqi was making her way toward Tianqi, a student happened to dash passed her suddenly. It happened so quickly until she didn't have time to react and almost fell down!

It just so happened that Yufan was on his way to buy a drink after his meal and witnessed the scene and caught hold of the girl who was going to slip and fall after that 横冲直撞的同学 whizzed passed him as well. "喂,同学小心啊. 你没事吧?" He asked the girl.

"我... 我没事.谢谢你..." Jieqi heaved a sigh of relieve. Luckily her plate of chicken rice was still intact! It would be so embarrassing if it was scattered on the floor.

Eh, wait a minute, why does that voice sounded so familiar, Yufan thought. He moved to the front of the girl to check out if she might be who he thought she was.

To his ultimate surprise, it was indeed Jieqi! "Jieqi! It's you!" OMG! This is the second time she'd bumped into me, is that what you FATE? Yufan's imagination was running wild.

"Eh? Iceman 学长!" Jieqi then realised who he was.
"You still remembered me?" Yufan asked excitedly.

"Of course! The whole school knows you! Iceman 学长是了不起的篮球好手兼队长哦." Jieqi praised him.

Chapter 10: The Girl of My Dreams

2004-12-05T23:25:00.002+08:00

Yijuan sighed as he logged off from MSN. He then shut down his laptop and laid on his bed. After starring at the ceiling for a while, he turned to look at the photo frame at his bed-side table.

It was a picture of him & Xinjie taken together 2 years ago at a friend's BBQ birthday. He had hugged her from behind and both of them were smiling happily. He thought about how he used to get to know the supposedly toot-ish Xinjie who caught his heart.

Yijuan sat up and sighed again. "要怎么跟心洁说呢?"

Fact of the matter is, Yijuan had recieved his father's call a few hours earlier before the chat with Xinjie. Yijuan's parents were divorced and the reason for leaving Singapore to UK 2 years ago was his dad's decision. He was the only child and lived in UK with his dad while his mom stayed in Singapore. Apparently, Yijuan's father was seeing another lady at work and had plans of living there for good. Yijuan's hopes of going back to Singapore after he graduated high school in UK were dashed.

How should Yijuan tell Xinjie? How COULD Yijuan tell her he'd be staying in UK for good. He hadn't been back in Singapore for 2 years, he hadn't seen Xinjie for 2 years.

感情似乎好像已经淡化了...大家都这么久没见面了. Would it be awkward if they finally meet up 2 weeks later? Would she still be same? Would HE be the one who had changed?

Yijuan turned off the table light and went to bed, shutting off all these negative thoughts.

"船到桥头自然直." Yijuan told himself and close his eyes and went to sleep.

*******

The next day, Tianqi went to school much earlier than usual. He was one of those who always came on the dot or slightly later, almost barely make it through the gate-keeper.

One would have thought he was early to do some last minute studying or preparing for some presentation but no. He was early to COPY homework which was supposed to be handed up for the first period! Physics, a subject which everyone dreaded.

"Jieqi!" Tianqi called out and rushed to the seat beside her and said, "Eh, you done the homework Mr Lim gave last week? Oh shit, I didn't attend the class, no idea what was going on."

Jieqi usually reached the classroom pretty early just to stone. She was surprised Tianqi came so early. "I was there myself last week, I didn't even know what the hell was he talking about." She took her file out and brought out a few foolscap. "I'm not sure if I'd done it correctly. Aiya...a big pile of mess, sorry."

"Never mind, better than nothing. I totally didn't touch it at all." Tianqi said.

Tianqi was the smart kinda kid. He skipped classes occasionally just to play basketball with his friends or team mates or simply because he didn't feel like it. It didn't seem he was the studying sort in classes too but who knows he probably flipped the whole book at home. But it didn't seem like either, all his textbooks looked brand new but he was able to score pretty well.

Jieqi then added, "I think maybe you can check with Xinjie later on. Or if you want, you can ask Mr Lin directly."

"要死啊! 要交功课的时候才来叫我问老师课堂上在说什么." Tianqi glared at Jieqi who stucked her tongue out.

*******

~Tianqi~

Time passed really soon...I used to be a junior and now I'm a senior. Boy, am I so glad to be in this class with so many cool & good looking people.

Erhem, well, at least I think I'm not bad looking, at least I know I do get the attention of girls whenever I play basketball out in the court.

Iceman recruited me into the basketball court knowing that I was a 国中 MVP. *beams with pride* I guess that's how I gotten a bit of 名气 in the basketball arena.

Anyhow, I looked at my watch, it's going to be assembly time and why Xinjie wasn't here yet? I turned to look at Jieqi, she was just looking through today's time-table and sighing away.

I'd always thought that it was kinda funny how I knew the existence of these 2 girls in class during the first week of class but never spoken to them until our CT had grouped us together with several others to put up a drama skit. Within the first month, we'd gotten closer, gathering out for meetings to discuss the details like scripts, character analysis etc.

We were supposed to come up with a super funny, out of the world storyline concept. And our groups had decided to merge some of the reknown characters from the famous sword-fighting novel author, Jin Yong.

After a draw lot, I ended up the place of Yang Guo and Xinjie had gotten Xiao Long Nu. Jieqi didn't dare to be in the front line and offered to be the backend helper to make the costumes & props for the play. I had several close contact scenes with Xinjie. She probably had no idea how fast my heart was beating at that time, I'd never came so close with any female before all my life!

也难怪这样, 因为她是我第一个喜欢的女生....

*******

"Oh, Xinjie you're here!" Jieqi said as she saw Xinjie entered the classroom.

Tianqi immediately looked up when she heard Jieqi calling out Xinjie's name. "Why are you so late today?"

Xinjie replied as a matter of factly, "I'd missed the usual bus I took and had to take the next one. I'm only like...10 minutes later than usual but still able to make it."

"I'm so glad you're here, Xinjie!" Tianqi said, "Jieqi & I have some problem with the Physics homework, can you help us?"

Xinjie settled down and took her homework out and began teaching them patiently while Tianqi looked at her, a smile crept on his face...

*******

It was break time for the 高二同学. All students are supposed to leave the classroom, as the principal had stated as one of the rules due to the increased reports of thefts. So prefects would be sent to petrol around the building to 'chase away' any students being seen staying back in the classroom during breaks.

Tianqi, Jieqi & Xinjie were on their way out of the classroom. Xinjie needed to complete her Maths tutorial (whereby Tianqi & Jieqi didn't pick this as combi) by break time so she brought her stuffs along.

"You guys go ahead without me, I need to complete my Maths. I think I'd skip the break." Xinjie told the 2 of them.

Tianqi side glanced at Xinjie and said, "Maths? Do you need any help? Two brains better than one!"

Xinjie smiled and told Tianqi, "Nah, it's F.Maths. Both of you don't take this combi, I doubt you'd be able to help."

Jieqi nodded and commented, "对啊.你又不会做,怎么帮? 你还是去帮心洁卖食物还来得更有用."

As if hit by a block of ice, Tianqi said, "对哦! 心洁，你要吃什么？我去帮你买?"

They had walked toward the balcony outside the library overlooking the school field. Before Xinjie settle down there, she told Tianqi, "Tuna sandwich?"

"What else?" Tianqi probed.

"Errr..." Xinjie sat down on one of the stone chairs and place her stuffs on the table. "I think that will do."

Tianqi nodded, "Alright then. Come on, Jieqi let's go."

After watching them go, Xinjie flipped open her F.Maths textbook and looked at the questions. She sighed, stumbled by all the difficult questions and not knowing how to continue...

*******

It just so happened that it was the common break for 高三同学 as well. Junjie & Jielun had finished their lecture from the LT and was heading toward the canteen. From the LT to the canteen, they'd need to walk passed the library opposite the field which overlook the school field.

"喂，要吃什么?" Junjie asked Jielun.
"不知道，到了再看." Jielun said indifferently.

So, there were on their way when Junjie spotted Xinjie sitting at the balcony's stone table doing her work alone and wondered where was Jieqi cos they were also seen together.

"Jielun ah," Junjie began, "Why don't you go to the canteen first?"
"Ok." Jielun replied immediately without thinking further.

Chapter 9: Long-Distant Relationship

2004-11-01T23:19:00.002+08:00

Tianqi looked surprised, "Huh? So soon? But Jielun & Iceman just came... come on, just one more game?"

Jieqi glared at Mr Attitude then turned back to Tianqi, "Nah! I don't feel like playing now, maybe next time ok? You guys go ahead with your game. I'm leaving. See you tomorrow in class. Bye bye." she spoke quickly and walked away.

"Eh! Jieqi! OEI!" Tianqi was calling out behind her. But he was ignored.

"她真的好可爱." Iceman said, watching Jieqi's backview, that tall slender figure, proportioned shoulder and long legs where the skirt seemed quite short for her but he liked it.

Jielun grabbed a basketball from the guys and started bouncing. "打球啦! 还看什么看!"

*******

Xinjie tapped her foot impatiently and looked at her watch again. She stood up and started to pace up and down the bus stop. Just where was that bus?? Three 189 buses have already passed but still no sign of HER bus yet. Grrrr.

"Er…errrr…Xinjie?" Junjie called out.

But Xinjie was too impatient to reply politely, "WHAT?" She turned around and stared at a startled Junjie.

"Er…I just wanted to ask you to stop walking around and relax and sit beside me. I've checked the bus schedule. The next bus won’t be arriving till about 10 minutes later."

Xinjie sighed and walked over to join Junjie at the seat. "Hey! I'm sorry. Didn't mean to scream at you…it's just that…"

"School, band and….I presume stress from LDR?" It was obvious, Junjie could tell from Xinjie's face.

"Yeah," Xinjie nodded, "That obvious huh? But actually no, Yijuan has been a real sweetheart. It's just that…I'm just kind of anxious to get home to talk to him." She blushed a little, thinking again about Yijuan. "But that doesn't mean I get away from screaming huh…so, I apologize again."

"Nah, it's ok. Don't sweat about it." Junjie chuckled and patted Xinjie on her back.

*******

~Junjie~

She seemed relieved and smiled sweetly back at me.

I thought back to the scene just now. Boy! Was I shocked!! Never have I seen Xinjie get so upset over anything before. Even if she didn’t manage to master a piece for our practice, she would still persist on. Never showing to the 3 of us how upset she was feeling. Neither have I seen her scream or be angry at anyone, not even our juniors who can be such pranksters sometimes.

Was that really the shy and soft-spoken girl from our J Ensemble? I gulped. Scarrrrry. But then again, I was a little taken in by how she looked when she was frustrated. Her brows knitted together, her button nose scrounged up (like a rabbit actually!) And I actually liked her voice better when she screamed! (Perhaps it was the only time I could actually hear her voice without straining my ears. But hey! Don’t quote me on this!) I scratched my chin thoughtfully.

"So er…Xinjie. Tell me more about your highly-acclaimed boyfriend, Yijuan."

I watched as Xinjie's face lit up as she began to gush about her boyfriend. I wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying as I was…ok, pretty jealous. I mean, which guy could actually stand some girl gushed about how wonderful another guy was in front of him. I mean, I think I just heard my ego deflate after a loud, pitiful "OUCH!" I am the alpha male *Roars Tarzan style and hits chest* Yeah right, as if I could do that.

*******

"He's really talented…actually I think you would like him! Since both of you are so interested in music. It'll be cool if you two got to know each other and write a song together or something." Xinjie said excitedly.

"I would love to meet him as well." Junjie smiled politely, as if he was really interested in meeting. But the fact of the matter is, he was kind of wishing for the opposite. Oh wells. "Do you have a picture of him?"

"Of course!" Xinjie happily took out all her neoprints collection and slowly explained each and every detail of the whole collection to Junjie, on which particular dates, what happened when they took the neoprint and what others thought etc.

Junjie nodded and smiled along as she talked. Darn! She looks kind of cute in the neoprint, and double darn. This Yijuan is really good-looking as well, Junjie thought. He was much much a better looker than himself.

"他有明星脸哦!" Junjie pointed to one of the neoprint.

"You think so too?" Xinjie asked. "And yup, he’s been told countless times that he looked like Toro. You know, the guy who was from Energy."

Junjie had absolutely no idea who Toro was. He could never figure out boybands, the members of those famous boybands looked pretty much the same to him actually. But he nodded anyway and went on commenting, "哦~…蛮像的."

Xinjie smiled sheepishly, "I think so too. Oh hey! The bus's here!"

Great!! Junjie thought as he stood up and flagged for the bus. He didn't think he could stand anymore of that ego-bashing. Indeed, it hurts a little.

*******

小肉包 --想你-says:
Juan!

爱小肉包 says:
Xin! Didn't expect you to be home so fast! How was practice??

小肉包 --想你-says:
Great! We breezed through all the pieces. Definitely improving. How’s your report coming along?

爱小肉包 says:
Finished it while waiting for you to come home. So I’m all ears right now. ^^.

小肉包 --想你-says:
Hey remember our band major, Junjie? He asked about you today.

爱小肉包 says:
Asked about me? What about?

小肉包 --想你-says:
He just asked about you, where you were studying, when you are coming back and bleah. He said he'll love to meet you. You two would definitely click well since you both are so talented in music!! When would you be back?? *sulks*

爱小肉包 says:
Awwww….*pinches小肉包* Come on~ But hey…actually I’m just about to tell you something.

小肉包 --想你-says:
What? You’re coming back?

爱小肉包 says:
BINGO!! And….Farrago is invited to be the opening act for one of the Charity concert!

小肉包 --想你-says:
REALLY? You're not pulling my leg, are you? So when? When would you be back and when is the concert??

爱小肉包 says:
The concert's in 2 months. I'm coming back in 2 weeks time. Have already contacted the rest about the performance. They are just excited!

小肉包 --想你-says:
Great! I can’t wait to see you. I miss you sooooooo much!

爱小肉包 says:
I miss my小肉包 a lot too. And actually….

小肉包 --想你-says:
Hmm?

爱小肉包 says:
Nah…will tell you when I get back in 2 weeks time. ^^

小肉包 --想你-says:
Bleahhhhhh~~~ Spoiler

爱小肉包 says:
Hehehe…ok I’m going to bed. It’s 3am right here now. I have a long day tml. We talk again alright?

小肉包 --想你-says:
Ok. Take care. Nite!

爱小肉包 says:
I love you ^^

小肉包 --想你-says:
I love you too *muack* Ok ok, shoo! Off you go to bed!! Nite!!

Chapter 8: 情窦初开

2004-10-15T22:33:00.003+08:00

Tianqi then saw the trademark smile crept onto Jieqi's face immediately. "OK!" She said and jumped up beside him and both of them walked toward the basketball court.

"Where's Xinjie?" Tianqi asked.

"She left earlier with Junjie, heard that she was rushing home to chat with her boyfriend." Jieqi replied. "You've something to tell her?"

Tianqi shook his head, "Oh, no. Nothing. Just wondering cos normally both of you would go home together after practice. But today you're alone."

Jieqi laughed and replied, "男友之上, 我可以了解的. Besides, Yijuan's overseas and has different time zones."

"Oh..." Tianqi replied bitterly.

Jieqi turned around and smiled at me, "When you have a girlfriend living overseas, maybe you'd know what Xinjie is going through now."

"I don't even have a girlfriend now. Not to mention having a girlfriend overseas." 天祺苦笑说道.

"It's alright, I don't have a boyfriend anyway too." Jieqi sighed.

Jieqi placed her bag near the post and she joined in for a 3-on-3 with Tianqi and his pals. Of cos Tianqi had gotten her to join his team. She didn't go through any basketball training before, so she only knew how to play a little.

After they had divided themselves into groups of 3, we started playing and dribbling around. Tianqi cautioned his pals not to play rough cos Jieqi wasn't familiar with the routine and stuffs. The game was going pretty good until Tianqi caught sight of Xinjie from the corner of his eyes. She wasn't alone, she was with....Junjie. He stopped to my feet and continued looking on. Both of them were waiting by at the bus stop just beside AJHS' main gate...

"Gao Tianqi!" Jieqi called out. "What are you doing? Aren't you going to pass the ball to me?"

Tianqi regained composure and replied, "Oh, sorry. Just spaced out a little." He bounced the basketball a few times then continued, "Come on, let's get on with the game."

Though that was what he said, but he kept glancing toward the bus stop.

*******

That chatterbox was really hard-headed! Jielun thought as he creased his brows and rubbing his head again. The pain had eased a little now. Sigh.

Jielun really didn't understand why was Jieqi always this clumsy... but *smirk*

She really looked kinda funny with her flustered look earlier. 痛在头上, 可是不知不觉心里却有甜滋滋的感觉.

"Hey, I go get a basketball from the PE room." Iceman told Jielun and jogged off.
Jielun nodded, "See ya later."

Jielun searched for available hoops from the 3 basketball courts that AJHS had. 4 were occupied out of the 6. So it was not too bad, there was still room. While he scanned across the courts, he saw this girl playing basketball with 5 other guys....Hey, wait a minute! He went closer and looked carefully. Isn't that....

"Jieqi?" There was a voice 传到杰伦的耳边.

杰伦差点没被吓死. It was then Jielun realised that Iceman had appeared out of nowhere beside him. He asked, "When did you appear? How long have you been standing there?"

Iceman ignored Jielun's question and kept his eyes fixed on his angel. "She plays basketball?"

Jielun looked at Jieqi then back at Iceman, clearly he was smittened by her? But what is it about Jieqi that Iceman like? "I don't know." He used his user indifferent tone and replied. But apparently Iceman didn't hear him and continued watching Jieqi, who just scored a 3-pointer. Jielun watched in amazed as the crowd cheered for her.

"WAY TO GO, Jieqi!" Jielun heard someone from the crowd said. He searched for the direction of the voice. It came from Tianqi, a fellow basketball team mate who was in the same class as Jieqi. "That was a great shot!" Tianqi continued praising Jieqi.

Then Jielun saw Jieqi blushed and went all shy and said, "Nah! That's just luck! I don't even know how to play basketball!"

Yes. It definitely had to be luck, Jielun totally agree. That muddle-head couldn't possibly get the ball in. If you asked her to shoot again, perhaps the ball wouldn't even had touched the rim!

Jielun & Iceman continued to watch on as Tianqi told her, "I don't think so. I think you've the potential. You wanna try shooting another 3-pointer?"

"Come on!" The rest cheered on. "You can do it..."
Jieqi hesitated, "Err....don't laugh if the ball doesn't get in."
Tianqi passed Jieqi the ball and said, "Never mind. Just give it a try."

Jielun nearly wanted to laughed out loud when he saw the way Jieqi held onto the basketball amateurly. How could she possible get in? She stood behind the 3-pointer line and began to aim.

"Jielun," Iceman called out, "You think she's able to get the ball in?"

Jielun shook his head, "Of course not! How is it possible?" He pressed his lips and raised his brows doubtingly, "I doubt so."

Iceman turned to look at Jielun, "Really? What makes you so sure?"
"你看她那幅德性! 你看她射球的姿势....你自己说说看怎么可能...."

Jielun left his sentence hang as he watched Jieqi 发球 and then the ball sunk in smoothly through the hoop. The crowd was cheering loudly for her. It must be luck again... It had to be!

*******

It was so embarrassing, Jieqi thought sheepishly. It was only meant to be a game. Like a free throw, except, she was free throwing 3-pointers. She didn't expect myself to be that lucky to have 2 consecutive 3-pointers so smoothly! Seriously speaking, she didn't even aim, she just pushed the ball forward with all her might.

As embarrassed as she was, she did feel a little sense of achievement which got her rather big-headed. Well, just for a little while until she saw...

"JIELUN! ICEMAN!" Tianqi called out to the 2 guys who were fellow basketball mates who were walking toward them. "Hey, wanna join us?"

Without hesitation, Iceman immediately said, "Yeah! Feel like sweating out in the court now, plus we have someone new with us." Eyeing Jieqi from the corner of his eyes, Iceman stretch out his hand and said, "Hi, my name's Yufan, AJHS Basketball captain. Everybody calls me Iceman. Nice to meet you"

The other basketball guys were kind of shocked by Iceman's 好声好气 attitude. The captain now wasn't totally unlike the captain during practice.

Tianqi was trying hard not to laugh when he saw Iceman introducing himself to Jieqi. "Iceman, 你怎么啦? 全校的人都认识你了, 干嘛还用介绍啊? 哦~ 难道你要泡她?"

Jielun looked up at Tianqi as soon as he said that, then looked at Iceman who was smiling shyly in front of Jieqi. Then he looked at Jieqi who kept looking down, not daring to look at Iceman. Then he looked away again.

Jieqi took Iceman's hand shyly and replied sheepishly and said, "我...我叫捷琪..."

"I know."
"How did you know?"
"Jielun told me."

Jielun jumped when he heard his name mentioned. He looked up and saw all pairs of eyes on him. "干嘛这样看我?"

Jieqi's mood had changed 180 degree. Seeing Jielun reminded her of her 不爽-ness earlier on and that really spoil her mood. She certainly didn't feel like talking to him, let alone playing basketball with him although it could be cool playing with the hunk talking to her now.

"不好意思, 不能陪你们打篮球. Tianqi, I'm going home first." Jieqi said as she walked toward the basketball post and picked up her bag.

Tianqi looked surprised, "Huh? So soon? But Jielun & Iceman just came...come on, just one more game?"

Chapter 7: 不爽的天使

2004-10-05T22:03:00.001+08:00

Geez... is this girl a jinx or something? Jielun thought. And why hadn't she felt anything at all? Her head was so damn hard. Jielun felt a bun forming on his head now.

"Hold it!" Jielun told Jieqi.

Jieqi was about to bent down a gain but immediately after she heard Jielun's loud voice, she stopped to her feet.

"Stay there! Don't move! I'll pick it up!"
"Orh." Jieqi replied obediently.

Jielun quickly gathered all the score sheets and tied them together while Jieqi placed her violin into the cabinet while feeling 莫名其妙! And cursing & swearing under her breath, "神经病~ 奇怪, 怎么老是爱发脾气呢? 都没人得罪他! 说得好象我欠他一样! 我又没有叫你帮我! 急什么啦!" But of course, she didn't say it out loud hence Jielun couldn't have known.

Jieqi felt rather stupid for standing there without moving. She was that simple minded and listened to Jielun despite feeling 不爽和委屈 so she said, "你好了没有啊?"

No response. Jielun only continued picking up the scattered music scores. "你不会看啊?" Jielun replied impatiently.

"那我可以动了吗? 这样站着好像被点穴道一样." Jieqi continued asking.

天底下怎么会有这么笨的女人呢? Jielun really couldn't stand her and choose not to reply to her stupid question. But she went on again, like a chatterbox as always.

"Eh! Since you wanna take care of things here, I'd make a move then!” Jieqi told him. She was waiting for a reply from him but he didn't respond again. 算了! 管他的!

Jieqi then headed for the door. While making a right turn, she realized she'd bumped onto something or rather someone. "Sorry." she said.

Then she looked up saw a very tall guy standing before her. He had a very nice haircut, his eyebrows were thick, his lips were thin and he had a very nice smile. She half-smiled back at him.

Jieqi was still studying how this guy looked when she heard Jielun yelling behind her, again. "你真的有够白痴的, 连路都不会走."

Jieqi turned her head back and look at Jielun. Her brows start to crease and her lips immediately turned to the inverted U-shaped pout. She felt so 委屈. It was not as if she had purposely bumped onto someone. It was just an accident. She then turned to the tall guy again and apologised, "Sorry I bumped against you."

*******

Omigod! Did I just bumped onto an angel? Yufan thought dreamily.

His heart was racing as she was studying him. Her head fitted perfectly just below his chin. She had very long eye lashes. Though a bit 斗鸡眼, but *wide SMILE* she was very very cute! 傻傻的…

Yufan was intending to look for Jielun and didn't expect to bump onto a cute angel. Why hadn't he met her in school before? All of a sudden he just wanted reach out and hold her…Why was he feeling this way? Sheesh...What a strange rush of emotions!

"Iceman!" Jielun called, breaking Yufan's thoughts. He turned around and saw Jielun walking toward him. "What are you doing here?"

"I just came to see if you're ok. You were so pissed off earlier when, you know, coach was nagging at you and stuffs." Yufan told Jielun with a worried tone.

"Oh…" Jielun said.

By the time Yufan turned around and looked for his angel, she had already disappeared! He had't asked for her name yet! Argh! Eh? Wait a minute, she'd just stepped out of the band room, hadn't she? So Jielun knows her??

"So uh…" Yufan tried to sound as casual as he could. "Who's the girl who stepped out earlier?"
Jielun rolled his eyes and blinked. "The tall girl who bumped onto you?"

"Yeah." Yufan nodded, trying not to show his excitement.
"She's our violinist." Jielun replied as a matter of factly.
"I see..." Yufan nodded while watching Jielun locked up the band room.

They were heading towards the basketball court. "I don't think she's our year right? 1st year or 2nd year?" Yufan continued asking.

"2nd year, arts."
He nodded again. "What's her name?"
Jielun suddenly stopped to his feet. He turned around and eyed Yufan. "Why do you keep asking about her?"

Yufan shrugged his shoulders casually, "Oh..." He tried to think of some explaination. "Just curious that's all. Cos I don't think I'd seen her before around in school."

"Her name's Wei Jieqi." Jielun replied impatiently. "Aiya, forget about her. Let's go have a game with the others, yeah?"

*******

~Yufan~

Jieqi. Wei Jieqi. 原来那是我天使的名字. 好好听. I was determined to get to know more about her.

To start things off, my full name was Chen Yufan. However, it seemed like nobody knew my full name except for my form teacher. Everyone calls me Iceman. This nickname originated when I was in junior high school and was handpicked by my ex-coach then to join the basketball team. According to him, he said I was as cold as ice be it in court or outside court, hence he gave me the nickname Iceman.

Since then everyone had been calling me that. But seriously, I didn't think I am like what people had described me as. Jielun knows me best. Probably because we were fellow Taiwanese. Oh yeah, we've another Taiwanese in the basketball team...his name is...

*******

"Eh!" Jielun said suddenly. "I'm hungry, let's get something to bite first, yeah?"

Yufan nodded in agreement. He came to look for Jielun straight after school. Was indeed a little hungry as well. "Ok, sure!"

*******

~Jieqi~

我很不爽!!!!!!!!

死杰伦! 臭杰伦! 怎么会有那么嚣张的人啊! ARGH!!!!!! 有音乐天分, 有才华就了不起了啊? 俊杰也有啊! 又不见得像那王八蛋一样拽布拉吉的....hrmp!

气死我了啦! 心情坏透了! 都是那个臭人! 我最讨厌人家给我那张丑脸了! 根本都没有得罪他! 他可以不爽我就不能不爽了啊?

*******

Jieqi was on her way to the bus stop in a terribly foul mood because of what happened earlier in the band room.

Jieqi happened to see an empty can in front of her and kicked it hard. But it wasn't enough for her to vent her anger on. So she made a big step forward and stomped on the can! Stomping it really hard! STOMP STOMP STOMP!!!!

"Woah, who has offended our Royal Highness Wei Jieqi?" A voice suddenly broke in. "Poor can..."

*******

~Tianqi~

School has finally ended. Time for some basketball playing! I was having a game with my usual pals when I saw Jieqi walking out of the band room alone. Her face was very black. And I mean VERY BLACK. I was rather puzzled. Normally, Jieqi was a very hyper, smiley girl who was always ever so cheerful & friendly. There was hardly anything that was able to put her down.

谁有这个本事让她生气或难过一定很厉害! 可怜的罐子, 被她踩成这样子, 不成形状. She must be in a damn foul mood. I shook my head and walked toward her.

*******

"What is it?" Tianqi said to Jieqi. "干嘛发这么大的火啊?"

Jieqi looked up and met Tianqi's eyes and said with anger, "天祺,我现在很不爽!" Immediately after she said that, her face fell and sighed. "What are you doing?"

"Playing basketball." Tianqi replied. "Wanna join me?" He hope she could cheer up.

Chapter 6: 俊杰的艳遇

2004-09-05T21:47:00.002+08:00

"Junjie." Jielun suddenly called out for Junjie.

"Huh?" Junjie asked. For a moment, he was too tired to figure out anything.

"They're looking for you." Jielun replied, pointing to the two girls who seemed like freshies standing next to him.

"Oh." Was all Junjie could say for the moment and thought what could be the matter.

Jielun then walked away and continued playing his cello. The two girls walked toward Junjie. Was it him or that the girls looked rather shy?

"Er…hi," A petite girl with pony tail began. She looked very sweet & cute. Junjie was waiting for her to continue. "We…we’d like to join the orchestra band."

The girl beside her was slightly shorter and had dimples. "Yeah."

"Have you girls learnt music before?" Junjie asked automatically to anyone who would like to join the band.

"Yes." Both replied at the same time.

"Have you decided which section you'd like to be in? Our Sir would be here on Fri. The band room's…" Junjie paused and hanged his sentence for a while when he noticed that both of them were starring at him and giggling. Junjie's face was getting hot with embarrassment. Was his fly open or what? He cleared his throat and continued, "….opened everyday from 3pm onwards, so you can actually drop by and see what instruments you’d like to pick up."

The dimpled-girl smiled sweetly and replied, "Ok, thank you very much, Junjie."
"Ok, see you. Bye bye." Pony tailed-girl said.
"Uh...ok. Bye bye." I said. And both of them scooted off.

俊杰觉得有些莫名其妙便仔细打量自己 and wondered what were they giggling about just. "Do I have anything on my face?" He asked Jielun curiously.

Jielun turned around indifferently, "Yes. Charm. Attractiveness. Confidence...and…"

Junjie was stunned by Jielun’s answer. "Ok ok, I get what you mean. Let’s erm…get back to practice, yeah?"

Meanwhile, Xinjie just came back from outside. And she saw the two girls who just left. "Eh? New members?" She asked and began teasing. "Oohh…another two new members joining for our famous Double J as well? Or were they just here for their bus passes?"

Was it Junjie or did he detect a hint of teasing in her tone?

"What are you talking about, no such things, ok?" Junjie explained. "I think we better get back to practice, please."

"Ever wonder why 70% of the orchestra members are girls?" Xinjie blinked at Junjie and asked dramatically. "Because we have a Double J as the main attraction! The girls came here for Lin Junjie & Zhou Jielun!"

Surprisingly, Jielun actually turned around and said, "Nah…I think Junjie is the one who's the main attraction."

"Oh, come on!" Jieqi said, eyeing Jielun, "Please don’t be so humble!"

Xinjie was laughing heartily at a corner.

"Ok ok ok…I think we better get back with our practice, please." Junjie told them straightly.

Junjie sighed and shook my head and thought, Fancy discussing about ME in front of ME. 像话吗!

*******

This time J Ensemble played a Mozart piece…

~Junjie~

Although I was playing the piano as per normal, but I was just thinking…. Well, not that I was thick-skinned but I've had girls who came up and confessed their feelings for me. I've had mysterious gifts from girls on occasions like Valentine's Day, my birthday and more. I mean, I'm really surprised and touched that a plain & simply guy like me could actually have admirers.

However, something which I didn't understand was that, how come despite my so-called popularity with girls, I'm still unable to find a girlfriend? Believe it or not, I've never been in a relationship before. And my dream girl…I guess it was no use listing the criteria out because ultimately when you meet the right girl, all these lists could be thrown away. You fall in love with a girl because you enjoy her company, like her smile, her voice and not because she fitted your criteria. Argh! I could only say I haven’t met the right girl.

I could now concentrate on the music. Fantastic. I couldn’t believe we just learn this piece a few days ago and could play in such harmony. Nonetheless, I enjoyed every practice session with J Ensemble. Sir was right to put four of us together because when our individual strength met, the music we created was totally splendid!

Jielun might seem aloof, hostile and all but deep down he was just a really very shy guy who doesn’t speak a lot. He was not able to express himself well when it came to words but you can tell his mood & feelings when you listen his music. Jielun was one guy who doesn’t like to open up. It took me quite a long time to get to know him and understand him. As for Jieqi, she was a really nice girl. She had a very nice voice….singing voice I mean. But somehow, her spoken voice sounded far too different from her singing voice. She sings very well. Anyway, sometimes I don’t get what she was saying even though most of the time she complained that she had no idea what we were talking about. Actually, I thought Jielun & Jieqi looked kinda compatible. Jielun once told me about his dream girl, and actually I think Jieqi quite fit his bill? No wait…actually Xinjie also fitted…

No wait again…Actually, Xinjie…she was. Oh, never mind. I must be too tired to the extent of blabbering nonsense. To think I even think she was the kind of girl I was looking for. But never mind. She was already attached. I never touch attached girls.

*******

Finally, practice session ended later in the afternoon.

Jielun kept his scores and carried his cello toward the strings cabinet, anticipating for a game of basketball in a few moments.

Xinjie was packing up in a mad rush and said, "Gotta rush off now. Bye guys! See ya tomorrow!"

Junjie then turned to Xinjie and asked, "You going home?"
"Yeah." She placed her flute box into the cabinet and grabbed her bag.

"Oh! We'd be heading the same direction then." Junjie replied, locking up the piano at the same time. Both of them live rather near. Like a couple of train stops away.

"Oh, ok." Xinjie said. "Let’s go."

"Nah! Jielun," Junjie walked toward Jielun and handed him the band room keys. "等一下你把门锁好. 我先走了."

"Bye bye." Jielun said without looking at Junjie cos he was zipping up his cello into the case.

So Junjie & Xinjie left, leaving only Jielun & Jieqi. Jielun slotted the cello at its place in the cabinet and looked at that girl who was packing so slowly like a tortoise. He had already finished packing his bulky cello and she still wasn't done with a portable, easy to maneuver violin??? What the…

"喂! 能麻烦你快一点吗?" Jielun asked, trying to keep his cool.
"Orh!" can Jieqi's trademark reply again.

Jielun switched off the lights, signaling Jieqi to 放快动作. "快点啦! 我要锁门了啦! 每次都慢吞吞的!"

"Orh! 知道了… 马上好." Jieqi replied, 手忙脚乱-ly. Her score sheets were scattered everywhere.

Jielun sighed and shook his head helplessly. This girl was always this clumsy. He figured he should not have rushed her in the first place. "有没有搞错啊你!" He walked toward her irritatedly.

"Sorry, sorry…." Jieqi apologized.

"Can you please get a file next time?" Jielun told her as he bent down and helped her picked up those scattered paper on the floor.

Just as Jielun bent down, Jieqi's head suddenly jerked up, knocking hard against his head just as she asked, "Huh?"

"Owwww…." Jielun shrieked with pain and kept rubbing his head.

"Sorry, Jielun! I didn’t mean it!" Jieqi said, reaching over for Jielun. "Sorry sorry… I really didn’t mean it."

Chapter 5: Juggling Music & Passion

2004-08-05T18:54:00.002+08:00

"Wow, that's wonderful!" Junjie said, applauding after they had finished playing Brandenburg. "We're really getting the hang of it!"

"Yeah, right." Jielun said nonchalantly, "If only the violinist is able to keep her eyes on either her scores or on her violin, it would have been more than wonderful."

Jielun was surprised that the others didn't notice but he was able to hear certain off-keys from Jieqi. Not that he deliberately looked at her or anything but she was just standing right in front of him. Jielun looked up at her a few times when he heard those off-keys. And what did he see? She was actually looking sideways at Junjie.

What Jielun saw that, it hurt his ego a little. He knew he was nowhere close to being labeled as '帅哥'. Just that somehow, girls always seemed to have more interest in Junjie than him.

Jielun then saw Jieqi's face grew red as she retorted, "Eh! 我有用心在拉呢!" She must be 心虚被我说中, he thought.

"Yeah, I think Jieqi done a wonderful job." Junjie said. "What's wrong?"

Jielun stared at the both of them for a while then shrugged his shoulders casually. "Forget it, never mind." He figured it was useless to point out Jieqi's blunder since Junjie couldn't even tell.

"Can we take a 5-minute break?" Xinjie said.

"Sure!" Junjie said, flashing Xinjie his trademark dimples as he smiled. "Why? Calling your boyfriend huh?"

Xinjie smiled shyly and nodded. She replied softly, "Yup." And went towards the locker in the band room.

*******

~Jielun~

For starters, I'm a Taiwanese who came to Singapore to study. I chose AJHS because it was the only high school that offered Music Elective Program. Junjie was my bestest buddy in class as well as in this orchestra band while Yufan was my bestest buddy from the basketball team.

Come to think about it, both of them had contrast in characters. Junjie's soft spoken, quiet at times, very talented in his work & music. He had no sports vibe at all. Yufan's like a whole 12cm taller than me at 1.85m, seriously I think he looked much cooler than me (Why do you think he's called Iceman?). His school work was average but he was a great athletic, always winning medals & trophies for AJHS. I'm not as impressive as them but yeah, you get the picture.

I was arranging my scores in order when I saw Jieqi practicing her violin at one corner during the break. Ha! I was right! She obviously knew she was off-key. 还争眼说瞎话！还说什么很用心在拉琴. Chey!

Talking about there girls of J Ensemble. I'm not really good at describing girls cos uh…well…they'd always make me uncomfortable, in the sense that uh…they're able to make my heart race & face grow hot? But if you really wanna know… Well, my impression of Xinjie was that she was a very very soft spoken girl. If she was asked a question, one would have to 'huh' a lot of times before he/she could actually hear what exactly she said. She was very shy as well. In this case, her shyness was probably something like not daring to speak in public or not open enough to try out new things etc. Perhaps it was the way she was brought up into a feminine & well-mannered girl.

As for Jieqi, she was almost the exact opposite of Xinjie. Wonder how both of them could get along so well? Jieqi was loud-mouthed, always talking like a chatterbox, voicing out her views when nobody even asked her for opinions or comments. Sometimes she was really naive and believed things easily. She was very easily taken in. Or perhaps she was slow-witted that she digest things slower and discover things later. And yeah, she was very tall for a girl. She should join the girls' basketball team. Xinjie & Jieqi have this classmate who was in the basketball team too. Often seen Jieqi playing basketball with....

*******

"Eh, what you doing after this?" Junjie asked, breaking Jielun’s thoughts. He plopped down a seat beside Jielun.

"Oh~ Play basketball." Jielun replied almost immediately. He reached into his back pocket and pulled his mentos out and offered Junjie, "Want one?"

"No, thanks." Junjie declined.

"Ok." Jielun shrugged. After that, he popped one mentos into his mouth and kept it back into his pocket.

Surprisingly, Junjie said, "Aren't you going to offer the girls as well?"

Jielun was stunned. "Huh?" Did I hear him right? Offer the girls? Jielun thought he heard wrongly. 有没有搞错? Offer them for what? Not that they even talk to him or offer him anything anyway.

Jielun's bewildered look lingered for a while before saying. "Ok." He turned around and called out, "Xinjie... Eh?" But Xinjie wasn't around. "Where is she?"

"I think she's outside having a long distance call with her boyfriend." Junjie replied.

"Oh, I see." Jielun said. Too bad for Xinjie then, he thought. Jielun then looked at that chatterbox standing over there practicing some notes. 虽然不是很愿意跟那个傻瓜讲话 but he still called out, "OEI!"

Of course, Jieqi didn't respond. Not that she purposely ignored Jielun but the fact was that she didn't even realise Jielun was calling her.

Junjie shook his head upon Jielun and retorted, "Who will respond with you calling oei like that?"

Jielun blinked and gave Junjie a 不屑 look. His creased his brow and raised the corners of his lips irritatedly and called out again. "Wei Jieqi!"

Junjie rolled his eyes and walked away, giving Jielun the 'I-give-up-on-you' look as he sighed.

Jieqi stopped playing the violin and swung around, "Huh? 你叫我啊?"

天啊! 她是白痴吗? 这房间还会有其他人叫魏捷琪的吗? Jielun wanted to say that but he couldn't be bothered wasting his breath and just spitted indifferently with, "Want mentos?"

Jieqi's eyes grew wide and her tone was excited, "Eh? Of course! Got mentos to eat!"

Jielun stretched his arm out with the mentos in his hands toward Jieqi without looking at her. Jieqi walked over and took it from his hand.

Their hands touched briefly and Jielun quickly retreated his hand as soon as they contacted. She seemed indifferent about what happened and popped one into her mouth, just like a 天真无邪的小孩 while Jielun stole a few glances at her for a while. 真是容易哄骗的傻瓜, he thought again.

*******

"Did you miss me, dear?" Xinjie asked shyly over the phone.
"Yeah of course I do! I miss you loads." Yijuan replied.

It was 4.15pm right now in Singapore, which meant that it was 10.15pm over in UK. Xinjie & Yijuan would call each other like 3 times a week at around this time of the day.

"My band session would be ending in a while. Would probably reach home at about 5pm. We chat online on msn later alright?" Xinjie told Yijuan, looking forward to their chat.

"Hey, I bought a webcam recently." Yijuan said.

"Great! Then I'd be able to see you live, instead of just looking at your pics." Xinjie could hardly wait to see how Yijuan was now. It had been ages since he came back to Singapore.

"Hopefully you'd get a webcam too." Yijuan said hopefully.

"I think I may borrow from my sister." Xinjie said. "Ok ok, I've get back to practice. We'd chat tonight ok?”

"Ok! See you tonight. Love ya!"
"Love ya as well!" Xinjie said shyly and hung up and returned to the band room.

*******

Junjie sighed as he lay on the couch to catch some wink. He felt exceptionally tired today. Perhaps it was due to all those boring lectures earlier. Or perhaps he didn't have a good night rest last night.

It was indeed a tiring task to be a band major. Junjie had to take care so many sections as well as practicing his own pieces at the same time and juggling school work too. But then again, he thought that Jielun 比他更辛苦 for representing the school's basketball training as well. 自己消耗的体力都没有杰伦多, 他有什么资格说累 when Jielun didn't even complain?

Chapter 4: Double J: Junjie & Jielun

2004-07-05T18:26:00.003+08:00

Just what on earth are those 2 weird seniors up to? Reserving first row seats? HUH?

Xinjie turned around and managed to catch the attention of a girl seating behind them. "Hey! You here for your student pass as well?" She asked causally.

"Student pass? Huh? No. I’m here to join band. Aren’t you as well?"

"Er... Well, uh..." Xinjie didn't quite know how to reply her and was fumbling with words.

"Oh, you must be joining band for the Double J as well huh?” The girl smiled at Xinjie knowingly, thinking that she probably didn't dare to say so she said it for her.

"Double J? What do you mean?" Jieqi joined in our conversation and asked curiously.

"Haven’t you heard? Junjie and Jielun!!!"

Xinjie & Jieqi made silent puking noises as soon as they heard the seniors' names.

"I guess..." the girl looked around the room and lowered her voice, "70% of the girls here are here just to get close to them."

"But what so special about them?" Xinjie asked again.

Xinjie was indeed puzzled and she guessed likewise for Jieqi. What do these girls see in a Rat Guy and a black-faced "Act Cool" Guy. Yijuan was so much better! Xinjie thought. She couldn’t help but smile to herself as she thought of how talented Juan was and how well written his songs were. Rat Guy and Basketball Guy were, of course, way out of comparison boundaries. Juan was just too good for them! *grins proudly*

"You really don’t know?!" The girl exclaimed, "They are... Oooooo!!"

The girl suddenly grew all excited and pointed to the small platform in front of them. Xinjie & Jieqi turned back and saw Rat Guy & Basketball Guy walking onto the stage.

"Wei! Our student pass!!" The two girls simultaneously demanded from the two seniors as they walked passed them.

Rat Guy & Basketball Guy ignored the two girls totally and proceeded to sit down in front of their instrument. Rat Guy behind the piano and Basketball Guy behind the cello.

Great! Two deaf musicians! Xinjie rolled her eyes. She also made it a point to sit up real straight so that she could be seen as taller. She was still unable to get over the fact of being called short by that Rat Guy! Hrmp! She then threw Jieqi the 'What-are-we-to-do-now?' look, but she only shrugged her shoulders and pointed back to the stage.

And just at the very moment, the music sounded. Xinjie & Jieqi were momentarily stunned and could only just stare at the two seniors on the stage.

"The Flight of The Bumble Bee??" Jieqi said with her eyes wide open.
Xinjie was equally shocked, "Oh my god!?"

Rat Guy & Basketball Guy were playing one of the most difficult pieces that was ever written, The Flight of The Bumble Bee (蜜蜂狂想曲). And from the look of it, it was no sweat to them at all.

Rat Guy's long & slender fingers were flying across the ivory keys effortlessly and likewise for Basketball Guy, who didn't even need to look at the scores.

Xinjie & Jieqi were so drawn into the music that they practically forgotten all about their student pass and stared stupendously at the two senior. We were also one of the first few to jump up from theirs seats as soon as they finished playing, applauding hard.

"Goodness! That was so amazing?" Jieqi said, "Simple incredible!"
"Yes!! To think that they hardly even made any mistake!!" Xinjie added.

Junjie got up from the piano stool and bowed. He then spotted those two cute juniors he met yesterday and walked over smiling widely at the both of them.

"你好厉害哦!" Jieqi said excitedly.
Junjie laughed, "不敢当."

"You were great!" Xinjie added, "I've never seen anyone played that piece at such a speed before. Absolutely brilliant!!"

"哪里,谢谢你们." Junjie looked at Xinjie and smiled shyly.

Few moments later, Junjie shouted across the band room. "Eh! Jielun! Come over for a while!!"

Jielun, who had been packing his scores in the corner, got up and joined us. "What?" He then realised those two girls beside Junjie were those two juniors at the booth yesterday. "Oh! It's the two of you."

Junjie shot Jielun a look and continued. "Er, well, we wanted to apologize. Apologize for snatching away your passes like that yesterday. We're sorry."

Rat Guy then turned to Basketball Guy and gave him a slight push. Basketball Guy, who had his hands in his pocket, looked down on the floor and said, "Yeah. Sorry."

Jielun looked up at the two girls for a brief second, his eyes caught Jieqi's who was right in front of him at the same eye-level. Jielun immediately looked away again.

"Don’t mind him," Junjie said, "Oh, and here are your passes. So I guess you two are free to go now. We would not force you to join band if you don't wish to."

Jieqi and Xinjie smiled. They looked at each other. They knew what each other were thinking.

"Actually..." Jieqi started.

Rat Guy looked on with interest while Basketball Guy acted all-nonchalant beside him although Xinjie caught him side-glancing at Jieqi, anxious to hear her reply as well.

"Actually, we've decided to join after all!" Jieqi finished.

"Yup, 拜你们为师!” Xinjie added, "You could have convinced us to join earlier by giving a performance as good as the one just now. No need to snatch our student passes in the first place."

Junjie's eyes lit up while Jielun stared at the girls with a look of disbelief. "你们肯加入, 那真是太好了! 杰伦, 你说是不是?" Junjie exclaimed excitedly.

Basketball Guy "hmm"-ing sound which the girls took for being a 'Yes'.

"Oh, silly me. I haven't introduce myself. I'm Junjie, the band major. I play lots of instrument but my main role is pianist in the band."
"Jielun. Cellist."
"I'm Jieqi and I play the violin."
"Hello! This is Xinjie and I play the flute."

"Wow, what a coincidence! We all have 'Jie' in our names!" Junjie said excitedly. "我们真的好有缘哦?"

~End of flashback~

That was how the four of them first got to know one another. And that was the beginning of their story...

*******

Back to the present... In the band room.

Jielun was playing the cello with his eyes closed. He felt really peaceful. Whenever he was in the band room, his mood always turn for the better. Music always had a calming effect on him, hence he enjoyed every moment spent in the band room.

*******

~Jielun~

Ok, I admit. My face was a little 'black' earlier but it had nothing to do with Jieqi & Xinjie being late.

It was just that before I came here, I had some disputes with my basketball coach who had been complaining I spent too much time with the band and missed a lot of training sessions. Even though my captain, Yufan (which everyone calls Iceman) stepped out and defended for me, but I insisted that I won't give up music, neither will I give up basketball. Why can't I have both music & basketball at the same time?

People are always telling me that I have this aloof, unapproachable look who had some major attitude problem, as if the whole world owes me. Yeah, I know I do look fierce out in the court when I play basketball but do I really look THAT fierce when I'm off-court? Maybe I seemed like so but actually I'm just not good with words. Most of the time I'm just extremely shy, hence I always try to act cool to sort of build up my confident to seem as if I'm a tough guy...

Chapter 3: 怪学长奇遇记

2004-06-06T18:19:00.002+08:00

Rat Guy was trying to explain about the band, "It's ok if you don't know any musical instruments, all the orchestra instruments are very easy to pick up. Our Sir would also be teaching some basic music theory, so that..."

Xinjie was trying to get Jieqi's attention by muttering under her breath so as to not let Rat Guy notice they were not interested. "Jieqi... let's get out of here." Then she looked up at Ray Guy and said, "Thanks for your intro, we will think about it first..."

Xinjie 敷衍了几下 and tried to drag Jieqi away from the booth together. Clearly, Rat Guy appeared to be kind of disappointed.

"Hey! Junjie!!!" Somebody called out from behind.

So Rat Guy's name was Junjie?

Rat Guy turned and greeted a guy in the AJHS basketball number-11 jersey and a towel around his neck. He was sweating profusely and had obviously just finished a game in front of a crowd of cheering female fans under the merciless afternoon sun just now.

"Eh! Jielun! Just finished your game?"

So Basketball Guy's name was Jielun?

"Yeah, so decided to pop down to the band booth to see if you need any help. How’s the recruitment coming along?" Basketball Guy then wiped his sweaty neck with his towel.

Rat guy motioned to the two girls over his shoulder and lowered his voice, thinking that they could not hear him. "Trying to get them to join. But it doesn’t seem good…"

Basketball Guy looked over at the two girls and studied them for a brief second, making the both of them really uncomfortable under his seemingly couth gaze. He then whispered something to Rat Guy before the two of them turned back to Xinjie & Jieqi.

Basketball Guy then looked at Jieqi and asked, "怎么样? 要参加我们的乐队吗?"
"不会玩乐器没关系的," Rat Guy said, smiling.

单细胞的捷琪想了几秒后, 很老实地说, "哦~ 会啊! 我们都会! 我会弹琴赫拉小提琴, 她会吹西洋笛和打鼓哦! "

The corners of Basketball Guy's lips curled up to a smirk and exclaimed, "Wonderful! Even more you should join us. What's your name?" He took up a piece of paper and was ready to add them to the list of "confirmed".

"Jieqi, 你-" Xinjie hissed. She wanted to say "你怎么说出来了!" but she was cut off by Rat Guy.
"Ok, she's Jieqi. What about you?" Rat Guy looked at Xinjie.

But Xinjie was too fumed to say anything. On the other hand, Jieqi had just realised the "black face" from Xinjie and was puzzled with a 'What-have-I-done-again?' expression. So she blurted, "Xinjie, did I just..."

"Orh? And you're Xinjie!" Rat Guy said after seeing Jieqi blurting out her name.

Jieqi then shot Xinjie an 'I'm-sorry' look. And the both of them looked at these two seniors in front of them 不知所措-ly.

"Great!" Basketball Guy scribbled their names down on the paper. "Class? IC? Email? Contact number?"

"Er…We'll get back to you on that," Xinjie said, trying to sound as diplomatic as she could, "We're still undecided, really."

"Yeah! *forced laughs* We're still keeping our options free," Jieqi added quickly, seeing the look on Xinjie's face again.

Rat Guy and Basketball Guy exchanged knowing glances. 软的不吃，那只好来硬的了!

It didn't work for the two guys to persuade Jieqi & Xinjie to join the band when they asked them politely, so they would have to resort to underhand methods then.

Rat Guy and Basketball Guy then took the two girls by surprised and grabbed their student pass from their hands which they were holding them as they had just received it from their CT tutor who handed the passes to them in the canteen few minutes ago.

Rat Guy threw Jieqi's pass to Basketball Guy, who already had Xinjie's pass, who then ran off swiftly out of their sights.

"WEI!!" Jieqi shouted, running after the Basketball Guy, only to be stopped by Rat Guy.

"你们在干什么!" Xinjie shouted at Rat Guy.

"Woah! Calm down! Just trying to get your infos so that you two can officially join the band." Rat Guy grinned as he explained.

"WHAT!!” Jieqi and Xinjie screamed again.

"Don't worry. Come for our first band practice tomorrow at 3 and you'll get back your student passes. Look for Junjie and Jielun! Bye!" Rat Guy waved and zoomed off into the crowd.

Jieqi and Xinjie exchanged looks of despair.

They tried to look for those two guys but they were nowhere to be found. What were the girls to do now? No student pass, forced to join band and bullied by two weird seniors. They gave up and resigned to theirs fates and could do nothing but go for band practice unwillingly the next day…
*******
The next day...

"搞什么飞机啦！等一下我就要那两个奇怪的学长好看!" Jieqi said in an angry tone as she walked towards the band room after lessons on that fateful Wednesday with Xinjie. "还有...要让他们再也不敢做出这种伤天害理的事情. 真是岂有此理..." Jieqi went on and on.

Xinjie just nodded her head in agreement. She wondered if these two seniors always resort to this way, forcing people to join the band.

"还有心洁你! 待会儿不能像这样静静不说话的! 要挺着我啊, 知道吗? 要给他们看我们不是好欺负的. 哦! 一想就一肚子火!" Jieqi was really fuming.

Xinjie nodded her head again. And she knew that Jieqi was only making empty threats. She would never dare to jeopardize their next two years in AJHS by offending those two seniors. Well... at least that was what she hoped for.

"Good. Ok, we're here," Jieqi said with her hand on the door knob. She took a deep breath and muttered, "Ok, in we go." She turned the door knob gingerly and stepped into the band room.
*******
The band room was filled with people. And no one seemed to take any notice of Jieqi & Xinjie as they stepped in. They looked around, taking in the scene of the very busy room before them.

A group of girls in the strings section were practicing their scales in the corner. To their left was another group tuning their instruments. And in the middle of the room was a small platform and in front of the platform were a few rows of seats. It seemed like there was going to be a performances later.

"Jieqi ah, I don’t see them anywhere," Xinjie said, looking around the room.

"How could they not be seen? They said they will be around in this room." Jieqi said, feeling weird.

"Erm... excuse me are you Xinjie and Jieqi?" A female voice behind the girls asked.

Xinjie & Jieqi spun around and saw a petite girl wearing glasses looking at them and smiled.

"Yes," Xinjie answered cautiously, "How did you know our names?"

"Oh, Junjie specially asked me to keep a lookout for the two of you. Or in his words 'two very cute girls. One very tall and the other…erm... short.'" The petite girl quoted.

Xinjie snorted. Short?! Ha! Who was Rat guy to call me short?! Xinjie thought angrily. Ridiculous, he isn't very tall himself either. "Hey, I'm of AVERAGE height!" (1.59m but usually Xinjie tell people 1.60m instead to pass off as average height).

"Erm...come, he asked me to usher you to your seats. Specially reserved. First row."

"Did he also mention anything about student pass to you as well?" Jieqi asked.

"Huh? What student pass? No. Ok, here, have a seat, I'll be right back." The girl said and hurried away.

Jieqi and Xinjie plodded down on the seats in the first row and exchanged looks of bewilderment. Just what on earth are they up to?

Chapter 2: Orientation Group & CCA Fair

2004-05-14T18:07:00.000+08:00

Jieqi hurriedly got into position and stood beside Xinjie. Slowly, she raised her violin to the side of her neck and looked at Junjie for him to give the signal…

Junjie looked up at Jieqi and showed his trademark 咪咪眼 smile. And she felt her pulse accelerating! 天啊! 怎么他老是发电呢? Those eyes of his might be small but they were certainly high-voltage current we're talking about.

"Ok, ready?" Junjie asked.

Everyone nodded and Junjie started playing to the tune of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 while the other three joined in one by one. The music echoed throughout the music room, filling their ears with the symphony of Bach’s Brandenburg.

Xinjie lifted the flute to her lips and began her solo part, closing her eyes, enjoying the sweet melody evolving from this small yet powerful instrument. She breezed through her part effortlessly and opened her eyes once again, and was greeted by a slight nod from Jielun, who joined in with his cello, together with the rest. From the look on their faces, she could tell that they were all absorbed in the music.

Jielun's eyes were closed, his head swaying along with the music. Junjie's brows were creased slightly as he tinkered away on the piano. Jieqi, like Jielun, had her eyes closed and had a slight smile on her lips. Xinjie smiled to myself and concentrated once more on the scores before her.

They managed to get through the whole piece without making any mistake. They were all perfectionists when it came to music and even a slightest mistake would make them start playing all over again. To be able to complete playing this piece without any mistake was a great achievement for them, since we started this piece out barely a month ago…

*******

~Flashback~

"Eh… Hello. I'm Xinjie," Xinjie said, staring at the ground before her.
"Huh? Sorry I didn't catch your name?" The student councilor said.

Xinjie immediately felt her face growing hot and she repeated her name again, in what she thought was the loudest voice she could muster.

"Could you speak up a little? Xinjia?" The councilor asked again.
Xinjie turned redder and shook my head, "不是的... 我叫..."

"Xinjie." A tall girl with 很重的阳刚味 sitting on Xinjie's left shouted out her name for her. "她说了这么多次, 你耳聋啊? 真是的..."

"她声量太小, 我没听清楚嘛..." The councilor explained and thereafter, everyone else in Xinjie's orientation group "Oooh"-ed and nodded their heads.

Xinjie gave the tall girl a grateful smile. She nodded and returned Xinjie with another smile as well.

"And er…red light," Xinjie then added to complete her introduction to the orientation group.

*******

~Xinjie~

If you were wondering what all the "red light" was about, it's just some stupid code that the councilor (male, of course) wanted us to add to our self-introduction. Green light means 'Single and Available', Orange light means 'single but with someone in mind already' and Red light means 'Get lost! I'm attached'.

Hahaha... and yup, I have been happily attached for two years with my wonderful boyfriend, Yijuan. We got to know each other from a mutual friend who introduced me to Farrago, a jam band where Yijuan was the lead singer and bass player. He was a really talented guy and wrote the songs and lyrics that Farrago played. They were looking for a new drummer as theirs had just quit the band.

Yup, don't be too surprised. I'm a girl and yes, I play the drums. And well, you can say that my 'image' wasn’t exactly very suitable for jamming then. I admit, I was considered 'toot'-looking, or in other words, a nerd.

Yijuan told me later when we were attached that the members of Farrago wanted to reject me from the band on seeing me but they were desperate for a drummer as they had already accepted a request to perform at the Youth Park. It was their first public performance which was only four days away and so, they had no choice but to agree to let me stand in to be their temp drummer for that performance. Plus, they figured that they'll just shift the drum set right to the very back of the stage that day and lower the stool and hope that I'll be totally blocked behind the drum set for the audience to notice such a misfit in their totally "cool" band.

Anyway that was history once I started my routine on the drums. *Grins* I concluded from their gaping mouths and wide-opened eyes that they were truly impressed. From then on, I got promoted immediately from TEMP to PERM.

Back to Yijuan and I, we slowly became good friends and got together after only three months of courtship. We were inseparable for the next two years until he went to England to further his studies whereas I stayed back here in Singapore to attend Andrew James High School (AJHS). We kept in touched daily with IDD calls, emails, web conference etc. Never failing to talk everyday to keep each other update on our daily lives.

*******

A loud chorus of laugher woke Xinjie from her thoughts and she looked around, trying to figure out what everyone was laughing at.

"Hahaha…That's me. 每次都慢半拍的啦. And if you didn't catch my name the first time, it’s Jieqi. Wei Jieqi. Green light," the girl on Xinjie's left said animatedly. She then turned and smiled at Xinjie once again.

Somehow, from all the smiling, Jieqi and Xinjie were bonded and then became good friends within a week from the start of school. They found that they had lots in common, especially their strong love for music.

There was once during the CCA fair, both of them were walking down the aisle of all the stalls set up by the various CCAs in the canteen.

"中文协会怎么样?" Xinjie asked Jieqi, looking at the pamphlet that was just handed to her.

Jieqi shook her head. "啊? 中文协会? 不要吧. 那倒不如参加篮球设好了. Seems fun. Plus the boys in basketball are really cute as well," Jieqi said as she glanced in the direction of the basketball booth.

It was Xinjie's turn to disagree. "I've ball phobia." She told Jieqi.

"Huh? Ball phobia? Scared of being hit by a ball?" Jieqi teased and raised her eyebrows as I glared at her, "Ok, never mind. Let's go have a look at the other stalls first."

They made their way through the crowd, taking whatever pamphlets that were shoved into their faces.

Jieqi and Xinjie were at a loss! There was just so much interesting CCAs to chose from!! They couldn’t make up our mind until they met Junjie and Jielun.

"What about band? Since we are both so interested in music," Jieqi suggested to Xinjie.
"Hmmm…. seems not bad. Worth considering," Xinjie answered.

All of a sudden, a smiley guy with the smallest eyes ever walked up to them handing both of them a pamphlet each and said, "Hello! I just heard. You two interested in joining band?"

That guy was almost as tall as Jieqi and even though he was really skinny, he was wearing his uniform baggy (The supposed "cool" way of wearing the school uniform). However, the image that flashed across Xinjie's mind was far from that of a cool guy but that of a smiling…RAT!! She nudged Jieqi, trying to get her attention but she was too busy studying the pamphlet.

"Er…band. We’ll consider…" Xinjie managed to say finally. Truth was, she was guffawing madly inside.

Chapter 1: J Ensemble

2004-05-13T00:50:00.000+08:00

"捷琪啊, 烦你走快一点好吗?" Xinjie said, dragging Jieqi's arms along with her. "You're like 12cm taller than me. 长脚的人走路都比我慢, 像话吗?" The 160cm Xinjie narrowed her eyes at Jieqi as she said.

"等...等一下嘛." Jieqi said, trying to stuff the books in her hands into her bag.

For Jieqi, walking while trying to do that at the same time wasn't exactly easy. She had to watch her steps and made sure she wouldn't bump onto anyone or anything for that matter. And with Xinjie dragging her along and jogging along the corridor at the same time, Jieqi couldn't handle keeping her eyes on so many things at one go and her books had fallen off her hands.

"快点啊!" Xinjie urged, "I don't wanna be late!" Both of them bent down and Xinjie might as well helped Jieqi carried my books and they were practically dashing towards the band room which was about another 150-metres away. "Quick! Quick!"

"What's the rush? Sir (the conductor, Mr Lee was being addressed as 'Sir') is not going to be here today anyway." Jieqi said, trying to keep up with Xinjie's pace. "Beside, Junjie wouldn't mind if we're a little late."

But Xinjie didn't respond. When Jieqi looked up, Xinjie was already very ahead of her down the corridor. "郭心洁, 等等我啊!" Jieqi shouted from behind and quickened her pace to catch up with the pony tail.

*******

~Jieqi~

大家好. 我是魏捷琪. 跑在我前头的是我的同班好友郭心洁. *sighs*

Sometimes, I find that Xinjie was being too impetuous, doing things in a rushing mode. I'm not saying that it was bad, in fact that was a good virtue...she was always saying things like, "Time is precious, 一定要分秒必争" "There isn't a moment to loose" etc sorta verses. Do these verses sound like it came from a demure, shy, soft-spoken girl?

Though we shared a lot common interests, but when it comes to personality, I am the exact opposite of her, I'm a very relaxed, laid-back person. To me, the world is a beautiful picture. Hence, I always like to appreciate all good things in life in a slow manner. I just wanna take time to remember each & every stuffs I do, see, hear, smell, taste & feel everyday. Life is about doing what I like, enjoying the process of it & the contentment I get upon seeing improvement or achieving success.

However, there was still something about my life that was incomplete.

那就是...怎么白马王子还没出现呢? *sighs* I'm just like every other girl, who yearns to taste the feeling of being loved. I've had a few crushes in junior high. And so the story goes...Girl meets Boy. Girl thinks Boy's cute & funny & nice to hang out with. Boy asked Girl out a few times. Girl slowly falls in love with Boy. Boy felt Girl's affection. Boy avoided Girl. Boy slowly stopped contact with Girl. Boy had found himself a girlfriend. Foolish Girl's heartbrokened. *BIG sighs* So, you get the picture?

Oh well, never mind! People always say 'Good things are worth waiting for', 我一定会坚持这个信念的 and await the appearance of Mr Right. 说不定我已经遇到了也不知道呢!

*******

"Hi!" Xinjie said as she clomped through the door of the orchestra band's room. "I'm so sorry!" She apologised to the orchestra band major, Lin Junjie who was smiling brightly back at the two girls who just entered the band room.

For Jieqi, sometimes she wondered how was Junjie able to see everything with those tiny-slit eyes of his? Perhaps not a lot? She let out a little giggle on her silly thoughts and quickly added after Xinjie, "So sorry we're late. Sorry to keep you waiting!"

Junjie made a slight wave and replying all smiley, "Nah...it's ok. We were just getting started anyway." He was arranging his piano scores on the couch, sliding pieces of photocopied scores into the clear file pages.

Jieqi watched as Junjie's eyes cringed up by the sides adorably. Aww...those dimples are so cute, Jieqi thought dreamily. "Oh! 还好, Xinjie kept rushing me earlier on!"

Xinjie turned and glared at Jieqi, "你还说呢! 都叫你快点了还在那里慢吞吞的!"

Jieqi sticked out her tongue, "Opps...不好意思."

Junjie turned to them and laughed, "你们快去准备吧." Then he signalled to the two girls about the other guy in the room and made a "I-think-he's-not-in-a-good-mood" expression.

As Jieqi glanced across the room, she saw their cellist, Zhou Jielun practicing on his cello with his back facing them. That backview of his didn't seem too friendly...

To have a better idea, the four of them had made up the 'J Ensemble'. Mr Lee, their Sir had picked them out from their various sections and formed this Quartet.

Junjie was the one who suggested to name it 'J Ensemble' because the four of them had 'Jie' in their names. Jielun & Jieqi in the strings playing the cello & the violin respectively. Xinjie was in woodwind and played flute. And the 灵魂人物 of 'J Ensemble' Junjie was the pianist.

Anyway, Jieqi placed her bag & books in the locker provided. On her way to the 'Strings cabinet' to get her violin, she walked passed Jielun. He was always sitting down quietly practicing his cello.

Does he always have to be so cool? Jieqi wondered. Who was he trying to impress?? 每次扳着一张脸不会累吗? But truth was, Jielun was indeed a very serious & talented musician. Though he was J Ensemble's cellist but he also plays other instruments like the piano, guitar & drums. And not forgetting basketball. Talking about basketball...

Jieqi always had a wandering mind of getting lost in her thoughts. At this very minute, she was recalling how suave Jielun looked whenever she saw him playing basketball. Not that she deliberately watched him play but he always seemed to be at the basketball court whenever she was on her way to the bus stop after school. Too bad he didn't meet Jieqi's height requirement, if not he was actually...

"喂, 魏捷琪小姐!" That voice came from Jielun. "You'd been standing there for ages rosing your bow [enenmon: the brushing of 'hair' of the bow to make it glide smoother on the strings], are you going practice with us or not?" Jielun suddenly stopped playing his cello and hauled at her, breaking her silly thoughts.

"Orh!" Jieqi replied indifferently. 'Orh' was a word she liked to say often. It meant 'understood' or 'ok' or 'yes' to her, in a more indirect way. Jieqi then placed her violin case back into the cabinet. "凶什么凶啦!" She muttered under her breath. Does being talented give him the right to show his attitude? Hrmp!

Sometimes Jieqi wondered if Jielun had split personalities. He can be such a sweetie one minute, then turned into a nasty jerk in the next minute. Unlike the very friendly, very approachable, very well-mannered, very adorable, very charming, very gentleman....Junjie.

On seeing the way Jielun hauled at Jieqi, Xinjie stepped forward and approached Jieqi and said, "Jieqi, can you not try to be so slow-mo all the time?" Then she rolled her eyes and whispered to Jieqi, "You do know that Mr Attitude doesn't always have the time to come to the music room to practice with us due to his basketball trainings & tournaments." She raised her brows after saying, hinting Jieqi that Jielun's mood wasn't very good today which was rather obvious.

Yeah yeah, another trait of Jieqi was that she had this habit of doing things very slowly as if she had all the time in the world.

"哦~...我知道了." Jieqi said as she took her violin & bow on one hand while holding the music score's file & the stand with the other hand. "不好意思,来了来了!"

Jieqi hurriedly got into position and stood beside Xinjie. Slowly, Jieqi raised her violin to the side of her neck and looked at Junjie for him to give the signal.

Forewords

2004-05-12T23:20:00.000+08:00

Storyline:

Set in 高中时期, 4 students with common passion for music got to know one another and eventually love blossoms...

Jieqi & Xinjie had joined the band and got to know Junjie & Jielun. Though 4 of them know piano but actually each of them specialised in different instruments.

Junjie is the band major as well as pianist for the band, Jielun plays cello, Jieqi plays violin, Xinjie plays flutes & drums.

As you'd probably guess, this is a square relationship. And it's no coinsidence that 4 of them has 'Jie' in their names: 周杰伦, 林俊杰, 魏捷琪, 郭心洁.

But of course, the story would be very boring if it just revolve around the 4 of them. So Gao Tianqi & Iceman are introduced into the story to add more contents. We'll just see how the 曲折 relationship will turn out to be.