Story excerpt

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The metronome's steady song continued to play as Jin stared at the paper in front of her. Alright. I can do this. I can do this. she thought as she looked over the writing on the paper for the third time in the past few minutes. A familiar voice suddenly broke her chain of thoughts.
"Alright, Jin. Time's up. You ready?"
She took a deep breath before replyling in a confident voice.
"Yes, I'm ready."
She placed her bow on the strings of her violin and played the notes on the paper as well as she could, silently reminding herself to make sure all of the notes she played were perfectly in tune. A natural. G natural. Accidental B flat. C natural. Accidental D flat. Jin continued repeating the notes on the sheet music as she continued to play each note, watching out of the corner of her eye as her bow floated gracefully over the thin E string. D natural. E natural. F natural. Wait a minute. Crap! Jin suddenly realized she had made a mistake while reading over the sheet music and winced slightly at the fact that she had made such an idiotic mistake and at the sound of the wrong note. Dang it! I thought I had checked everything! How could I have forgotten that there was an F sharp?! It even says in the key signature that this piece is in G major! I'm such an idiot!
As much as Jin wanted to stop, and kick her chair over, she knew it wasn't an option she could choose at that moment. She continued playing through the last few measures of the piece, making sure she was playing F sharp instead of F natural. She let out a loud audible groan as she played the last note of the piece. Jin leaned back in her chair and let her head hang limply over the back of it as she stared blanky at the pale ceiling above her.
After a few seconds, she finally let out a sigh and muttered, "I did terribly. Right, Otou-san?" She glanced at the tall blonde haired man as he looked up from the notes he had taken while Jin was playing. He let out a quiet chuckle, cocked his head to the side, and said jokingly, "Do you always have to be so pessimisstic?" A smile crept onto her face as she let out a quiet chuckle of her own. "Only when I'm around you, Lucius."
Lucius rolled his eyes at her comment. "Whatever and stop being so hard on yourself. Your work with sightreading is perfectly fine. You should stop worrying so much about it. Besides, you should be picking out which song you're going to play for the next competition." Jin pouted childishly at her godfather's comment, even though she knew it was all too true. She only had three months to get ready for the next solo competition and Jin knew extremely well that it took her well over three months to pick out her solo and get it down. It wasn't because she was a slow learner. Jin just didn't like being rushed when it came to things that involved music. She was one of those people that believed that being able to play something correctly took an extremely long amount of time and practice.
"Hey! Where exactly did you get the sheet music for this song, Otou-san? I've been searching for this piece since forever!" she exclaimed excitedly in an attempt to get Lucius off the subject of the competition. "Simple. I went to Google and typed in 'First Love by Utada Hikaru violin sheet music'. It wasn't that hard to figure out. Oh and nice try, Jin. But you still have to figure out which song you're playing." he replied with a slight smirk. Jin let out a disgruntled groan and stuck her tounge out childishly at her godfather. He laughed at her childish antics, walked over to where she was sitting, and said with a smirk, "And you ask why people don't believe you when you say you're seventeen."
Lucius patted Jin on the head and walked into his office causing Jin to scowl at his simple act. She looked at her watch and her eyes widened in shock at the time. "Oh my God!" she yelled out suddenly. Lucius ran back into his music room, while frantically asking Jin what was wrong. "We're going to be late!" Jin screamed while pointing at her watch. Lucius looked at her watch and his eyes widened as well. "Crap! Your parents are going to kill us if we don't make to that dinner party in time!" "I know! Why else do you think I'm yelling?! Quickly, help me pack up Senbonzakura. I need to get changed!" Jin rushed to the bathroom, but was suddenly stopped by her godfather's voice. "Senbonzakura?"
She groaned in frustration and turned around. "I've told you a million times already! I named my violin Senbonzakura! Now, just hurry up! I have to change!" And with that, Jin grabbed the dress she was supposed to change into and continued towards the restroom to change. Lucius only nodded in reply, quickly put the violin back in the velvet lined case, and rushed to go change as well.
In the span of just 5 minutes, Lucius and Jin had gotten dressed, fixed their hair, put their instruments into the back of Lucius's car, and were now in the car. "How much time do we have?!" Lucius exclaimed frantically while driving. Jin looked down at her watch. "About 15 minutes." she replied worriedly. "To get there?!" he screamed. "No. We have 15 minutes before we have to be on stage, ready to perform! We're not going to make it, Otou-san!"