Tokyo: Who would still fall in love after being spoiled?

Chapter 87: The Tokyo Metropolitan Competition Gold Medal Band is full of problems
The school cafeteria is closed for lunch during the summer vacation.

Most of the members of the wind band brought their own lunch boxes from home. Asukai's lunch boxes had three layers: the shallowest layer was filled with rice, and the other two layers were filled with various side dishes, both meat and vegetables.

It looked particularly rich, and I opened it to show it off to him while he was still in the classroom.

Tamura also brought a lunch box. When Suzuka knocked on the door outside the classroom, he got up and went somewhere together.

There were very few members of the wind band who went outside the school to find food like him, but those in the sports club went in groups of three or five.

The baseball club was chatting about who had thrown a few good balls; the football club was discussing the many secrets of shooting with the left foot.

He went downstairs with the taciturn boy in the bass section, and there was only silence as they walked out of the school.

The boy played the double bass, and he played the trumpet. There was nothing much to talk about except their names.

It's better than nothing - with this thought in mind, he asked the boy's name.

"call?"

"Tsurumaru."

"Inoue."

"Didn't you bring a lunch?"

"Can't cook."

That’s all the chat content.

Although they didn't communicate much with each other, they tacitly walked into the same restaurant and ordered the same pork chop rice set meal.

They ate at almost the same speed and then returned to school together.

During dinner, Asakura sent him a message saying that the script had been sent out and would arrive before the evening.

When he returned to the top floor of the club building where the wind band was located, he found a stack of sheet music on his desk. These were the theme songs that the wind band had decided on as early as early April.

He glanced at the title "Fairy Tale" ("メルヘン") and the author's name "Sakai Kaku" and opened the music score.

Like the printed sheet music for Tomorrow Spring, there is a trumpet part and a full score.

He first put the trumpet part aside and opened the full score.

"The ensemble practice for 'Fairy Tale' starts at 2 o'clock this afternoon. I don't think you can join us this afternoon, no matter how talented you are."

"Really..." When he just opened the shop, the promotional advertisement of the system store popped up. Because the melody played by the trumpet only occupied a very limited part of it, the price was only 500 points.

"You're not going to say you've already practiced all four of this year's assignment songs, are you? That's too disgusting... seriously." Asukai got angry with himself halfway through his sentence, revealing a disgusted expression, "So disgusting..."

-500 points

"How do you know?" he asked deliberately.

"Ha, hahaha!" Asukai laughed a little awkwardly, but still raised her index finger at him with a smug look on her face and announced loudly, "Let me tell you! Even if you practiced in advance, it's useless! Kita-Sakura High's 'Fairy Tale' was rewritten by Mr. Nishimoto!"

"Rewrite?" Then he would have lost 500 points in vain.

If that was the case, he would have no choice but to ask Asukai to compensate him with 500 butter buns.

"The only part that was rewritten was the alto saxophone solo starting in measure three of section A," Tamura couldn't help but interject. "It's been replaced with an oboe solo, which doesn't affect the trumpet part at all." "Don't tell him!" Asukai complained. "Let him keep it in the dark a little longer."

"Because of this, we have a natural disadvantage in the project music," Tamura retorted. "We should let Inoue-san, who has just joined the wind orchestra, play with us as soon as possible to get used to it."

"Well... that's true." Asukai put away his posture, returned his gaze to his own sheet music, and continued chatting with him, "Don't you think it's novel? There are actually orchestras that use oboes instead of saxophones, and even alto saxophones."

"Rare?" He knew very little about music theory beyond trumpet and piano.

"Unheard of!" Asukai's tone was filled with resentment. "You know the alto saxophone is in E flat and the oboe is in B flat, right?"

"Then?"

"This is completely illogical!" Asuka was dissatisfied with his bland reaction. "Mr. Nishimoto first changed the alto saxophone solo to a soprano saxophone, and then replaced it with an oboe—don't you think that's outrageous?"

"This is the first time I've heard of it." In order to calm Asukai down and prevent him from missing out on the whole story, he echoed.

"Right?" Asuka nodded. "Other orchestras use the soprano saxophone instead because they don't have an oboe player, but at Kita-Sakura High School, it's the other way around... Maybe our entry into the Kanto competition was all thanks to the free music we played, and then, for some reason, Nishimoto-sensei changed the free music again."

"Teacher Nishimoto said that our performance of the theme song was not bad." Tamura refuted again.

"That's right!" Asukai said sarcastically, "Anyway, we don't know the specific evaluations of the judges, so we can only take what Mr. Nishimoto says as the truth."

"I understand that you have objections to Nekayada-senpai's resignation from the club, but you should at least believe what Nishimoto-sensei says—"

"How can I believe that?" Asuka interrupted Tamura, his temper a bit out of control as he demanded, "There's only a month between the Kanto Tournament and the Tokyo Tournament, and you're even planning to re-arrange it within that month! Other schools have been practicing their freestyle music since April—isn't that just giving up on yourself?"

"Do you think Mr. Nishimoto has any reason to give up on himself?" Tamura asked calmly.

"Don't forget, we have a match against Hayami High School in two weeks." Asukai speculated maliciously, "Maybe one of Mr. Nishimoto's relatives is in the Hayami High School wind band."

"Hayashi High School's free song at the Tokyo Metropolitan Competition was not 'Asumi Haru'."

"Maybe they've been colluding since April! From the beginning, they haven't been practicing the freestyle piece for the Tokyo Metropolitan Competition fully, and have been devoting a lot of time to 'Asumi Haru'..."

He didn't interrupt, just listened quietly.

Asukai's speculation has become increasingly malicious.

But at least the part about Zao Shigao was wrong, including the competition in half a month, which was also his idea.

Later, Tamura stopped talking and started playing the trumpet.

Asukai's shattered emotions were nowhere to be vented, so she continued looking at him and said angrily, "So if you want to go to the national competition, you've come to the wrong place! The Kitakura High School Wind Orchestra has never wanted to go to the national competition from the beginning."

"Is that so..." He thought to himself, never thinking that the conversation he overheard accidentally would play a role again and again now.

He looked at the score of "Fairy Tale". The solo part of the alto saxophone was still the version of the original score. It was estimated that the adapted version was only available to the oboe player.

"Asukai-san is also a third-year student?"

"Yeah! So you should call me senior! What classmate!"

"Asukajii-senpai,"

He satisfied Asuai's desire and then asked about his speculation.
"The Nekayada-senpai you're talking about is Menako from Class 3A?"

(End of this chapter)