The Land of Smut (original) (raw)

Last chapter for now. Maybe post more after class. But I need to work on my essay that I totally forgot about over the weekend due today. -_-

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Sariel had purchased his gastric medicine and taken a dose of it just in case before climbing the grueling sixteen flights of stairs again to pick up his violin and sheets of music to head over to the studio. He was late and he knew it, but the exertion of sixteen floors was rather energy-draining so that by the time he reached his suite, Sariel was quite out of breath and was no longer in the mood to rush himself. Grabbing the case that contained his violin and his binder full of his music, he huffed a fatigued sigh before he rushed back down the stairs to hopefully catch the coming bus. Sariel was glad only for one thing about his apartment building: the flights of stairs he had to climb at least four times a day kept him quite fit. This time, he remembered his cell phone, and he kept it securely clipped to his jeans pocket as he flew out the door, slamming it securely shut and locking it before he bounded down the stairs. He would have to move swiftly because the nearest bus stop with a bus that would round about his studio’s neighborhood was stationed at the opposite side of the park that spread out before his apartment complex, and he figured he only had about ten minutes to get there before the bus would arrive.

Sariel had not yet run four meters into the park path that would take him to the bus stop when his cell phone began to ring. With his violin case in one hand and binder in the other, he had to fumble about for several seconds before he managed to free one hand to answer the call.

“Hell--?”

He was not even able to finish his greeting when a rather pissed voice shrieked through the receiver:

“ARE YOU HAPPY NOW, SKYSINGER!?!? WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU!?!? I’M ASSUMING YOU’VE DECIDED TO CHANGE CAREERS!? BECAUSE FRANKLY, I WOULDN’T GIVE A FUCK IF YOU DID!!!!”

If that was not enough to both deafen and terrify Sariel, Obadiah added:

“TWO YEARS OF GOING NOWHERE, AND WHEN WE FINALLY GET A CHANCE, YOU BLOW IT!! THE NEXT INTERVIEW WON’T HAPPEN UNTIL AT LEAST A YEAR LATER!!! AND THAT’D ONLY BE WHEN WE’RE EXTREMELY LUCKY, WHICH YOU HAVE PROVEN SO WELL THAT WE’RE NOT!!!!”

Then, he hung up, leaving Sariel, who had still been running for his bus stop, blanched and shocked enough that he kept running in a straight line through the brush to trip on a tree root. He went sprawling, his binder of his music sheets flying from his hand to sail through the air and land several feet away. Sariel, too shocked from the news Obadiah had slammed into his head - and not to mention his ears - could not find the sense in him to get up off the dirt right away. He stayed completely still save for a few twitches, finally remembering.

“Interview..? Oh my god..”

Feet bound by the hard black leather of combat boots shifted when their owner noticed the binder that had suddenly slid to his attention from nowhere. A young, ebon-haired man who had been leaning against the railing of the outcropping over the park lake blinked his smoky eyes and glanced down to see what it was that hit his feet, arching a curious brow when he saw a beat-up, grey binder nearly stuffed full of papers.

“Oh my god..” Sariel repeated, his voice choked and dry as he finally came to the revelation of what he had done. How? How could he have forgotten a day such as this?? “The interview.. was.. an hour ago..”

His mind and body seemed to have separated now. His body moved on its own accord as his mind was wrapped in the horror of what he just did, what he just ruined not only for himself, but for Obadiah and Isaiah, both of whom had been depending on him to make this interview work. He had failed everyone, including himself, and condemned them all to however many extra years of prolonged, unnecessary, and perhaps futile hoping.

That was what he was working so hard into the night for yesterday. That was why he felt like he had forgotten something this morning. That was supposed to be their long-awaited ticket to something bigger, to finding something more in their pockets than spare change earned over so many hard hours of work. At least Isaiah had a second job to keep his livelihood well enough to maintain his bike and keep his refrigerator stocked. Sariel, on the other hand, dedicated all his time to his musicianship, being the lead composer and violinist in their group, and thus had no way to earn any more from a second job. He was going broke, and he was going to be the reason why Obadiah might lose his job for managing a client who promised his small music firm nothing but drainage on their resources providing for Sariel’s recording needs.

He was frozen where he was for several long seconds which seemed to last into eternity, then, with a convulsing shudder, he tried to shake off the horror of what he learned as well as his abhorrence for himself and lifted his gaze to see where his treasure trove - his binder - had fallen. His violin case had safely thudded on top of his thigh when he fell, so Sariel had little worries over that, and he blinked when he finally spotted his work several long feet away at a dark-haired young man’s feet.

“H-Hey!” the lavender-eyed one called, trying to scramble up from the vegetation to retrieve his binder. “Hey, you!”

By this time, the dark-haired one had bent down to scoop up the object into his hands to examine it, opening it to carelessly peruse the pages. This immediately got Sariel nervous, for he did not like other people flipping through his music; he was a bit self-conscious and was oftentimes insecure about what he wrote.

“Hey!!” Sariel hollered again, getting to his feet to jog toward the stranger. “W-Would you mind not-- Th-That binder’s mine, there, sir, so, um, would you mind returning it to me?” There was a slight pause between Sariel’s last statement and a: “Please? And I would also appreciate it if you d-didn‘t look through my stuff there. Sir, are you listening to me at all??”

The stranger had not bothered to even arch a brow at Sariel’s approach, much less acknowledge his existence even as he was standing right in front of him. Upset enough as it was from learning where his erroneous memory landed his entire group, Sariel only felt further irked as this jerk seemed to swipe him off his sleeve like he were cigarette ash. He opened his mouth, about to spit a smart-assed comment to the one with his binder when the stranger suddenly tilted a smirk and seemed to laugh out reading from the scores:

“..Sariel Skysinger?”

It was then that the dark-haired man finally turned his head so that his smoky grey gaze landed coolly on Sariel, his dark eyes sparkling with steel amusement. Sariel blinked at the address and swallowed a bit before nodding, about to answer until his eyes caught sight of the vertical slit pupils of the one who spoke his name.

“Holy fuck, a Soraan!? What the hell’s a Soraan doing all the way--?”

Sariel silenced himself at the sharp glare the Soraan shot him, the snake-like pupils narrowed threateningly. Swallowing again in nervousness, Sariel, knowing how notoriously dangerous the Soraan people were, took a step back as the stranger pushed himself carelessly off the railing.

“Hmph,” the Soraan remarked as he slammed the binder closed. “Some singer of the sky. What kind of fantasy is this that you’re living? Or are you just severely out-of-date?”

Sariel blinked at the sudden harsh words the Soraan shot at him and he frowned. Who did this punk think he was to insult him like this? He did not even know who the hell he was.

“What..?” Sariel started innocently enough before the Soraan flashed him a nasty sneer.

“You’re hoping against the hopeless. There’s only one orchestra that has the monopoly on the kind of music you do. No one’s going to pick up on a nobody violinist whose dreams have run away with his sense. If you want me to translate, Sariel, I’m saying not as a Soraan, but as a being with ears that your music’s shit and can’t go anywhere with Lunar Requiem standing around. Open your eyes and see reality through that dream haze.”

With that said and a haughty smirk, the Soraan leaned back against the railing and tossed the binder over his shoulder to hear it splash into the deep lake beyond.

Sariel just watched what the stranger did with disbelieving eyes wide as saucers. All color drained from his face as he watched helplessly while this son of a bitch haphazardly tossed away work that added up to approximately six months of hard slaving.

Boom.

Gone.

Just like that, everything he had worked so hard for for over six months was gone.

For the longest moment, Sariel just stared in disbelief, but he jerked back to life the moment he detected the punk move to leave and he grabbed a firm hold of the Soraan’s collar.

“You sonuvabitch, do you know what you just did!?!? What did you think gave you the fucking right to just throw my binder and my work out into the lake like that!? Goddammit, I’m having a fucking bad enough day as it is, but you just had to TOP it off, didn’t you?!?!?” Sariel cried, shaking the Soraan angrily. “Now, dammit, you’re going to go down into the lake after my binder and retrieve every single page of my music or I’ll..!! Or I’ll.. Uh..”

Sariel trailed off as he tried to think out a formidable enough threat, but, unable to conjure one up, he merely finished with:

“Or I’ll do something really, really.. bad.. to you!”

The Soraan merely gazed back calmly at Sariel, his steely eyes unimpressed and even threatening in return. The frantic musician’s grip on him did not seem to phase him in the least, and in fact seemed to make him take on an even nastier mood. It could be seen burning with unsettling coolness behind those smoky reflections, but his control over it was impeccable. To all of Sariel’s heart-pouring accusations, the Soraan merely arched a brow and tilted a biting smile.

“Oh, would you?” he dared, his icy voice dangerously low. “I’ve seen men like you. You’ll threaten and threaten, but never will you have the balls to carry it out. Heh, you don’t even know what you’re going to do to me if I refuse, do you?”

“Don’t take me as some kind of push-over!!” Sariel cried, his lavender eyes, upset enough as he was, gleaming with threatening tears. He could not help it. Things were okay when the day started. He could handle his entire desktop falling on him to bury him, and he could handle a night of indigestion, but after receiving Obadiah’s call, after colliding into this bastard and losing countless hours of work, work he had always poured his heart into, things just spiraled up and beyond his control. He was frustrated and pissed, and all that was welling up within him to show on the surface, in the rising moisture in his eyes and the angry flush in his cheeks. Glaring back fearlessly at the Soraan, Sariel clenched his hands into tight fists and said between clenched teeth, his voice almost desperate. “Do you.. have any idea how much of my time and effort you just threw carelessly into the lake there..? Any idea at all, you fucking Soraan??”

“Any idea? Hm, let me think. Actually, yes, I do.” There was a ruthless glint in those hardened snake-like eyes. “And it was all lost perhaps for the better, Sariel. There are dreams and there is reality. The latter always wins out. And I have a name, by the way. Asrael. Nice meeting you, too.”

That was all Asrael said, and with a scorning laugh, he brushed aside his hair from his face, effortlessly plucked Sariel from his collar, and coolly walked off, saying nothing more and offering no more condolences. As he passed by the despaired violinist, Sariel blinked and flashed him a heart-rending gaze, enough to make Asrael pause a moment to return his look with one of iron ruthlessness, then those stormy eyes closed and he turned away to walk off.

Sariel could not find the will in him to move. The merciless Soraan, Asrael, was right about him. He threatened and threatened, but in the end, did nothing and let him brush past him to walk off. The bus was long gone by now. He was not going to make it to his studio today. What was the point? He had lost his long-awaited interview, he lost his music, he was set back six months, and he had no way to file a lawsuit against Asrael for what he did. He had no money to hire a lawyer anyways. Sariel had absolutely nothing now. His father, before his death so long ago, had always encouraged him to pursue a career doing something he loved, and he had endured his mother the entire time to come through with this decision. Things did not seem so bad starting out, but now, Sariel could understand why his mother pushed so hard to try and stop him. Isaiah had been the only one who had ever supported him, and both knew perfectly well what they were going up against when they agreed to start their string duo, but now Sariel was getting the hint that he was the only one who had been serious about their project all along.

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G'aah.. no wanna work on essay.. ;~;