Chapter Text
Karkat hasn't taken a music class since he was about five, so learning he had to take a credit of one to graduate high school was a shock to the system, to say the least. At least it's only for the first half of the year. As for the choice of class, well, he can play instruments about as well as an arthritic koala, so the obvious choice was chorus.
Who does he even know in chorus? Fucking, like, Vriska? Yeah, he's sure he'll have plenty to chat about with the girl who threw spiders on him in eighth grade. Whatever, he can deal. (This is just a little sample of what's going through his mind as all the people with names earlier in the alphabet than "Vantas" go through meaningless vocal exercises and warmups with Ms. Peregrine at the piano.)
Fuck, he can't recognize anyone, actually. A tad embarrassing for senior year. A mental picture aggresses itself on him of him at a reunion in twenty years talking to, like, Kanaya and Sollux and knowing fuck all about anyone else. Not to mention avoiding the little contingent of people who completely hate his ass due to a, erm, robot-smashing incident last summer. Is that what he wants? No - probably not.
Plus, he has to find someone to snark to. Surely someone else in this room is in the same boat vis-a-vis the anal bureaucratic tangle-up that put him here.
He predictably does absolutely nothing to change the situation.
"Karkat?"
His turn to get tested. He leaves the poorly-painted wall he's been leaning on.
"I see this is your first semester with us. Have you ever sung with a group before?"
"No."
"Ever sung on your own?"
The director is so polite it would, like, hurt him to just brush her off. Somebody once told him she had a kind of good-cop-bad-cop routine going on with the assistant director. Makes sense.
"Uh, I did karaoke once. It kind of sucked."
She laughs. "Alright, try to repeat the notes I play."
A high note. Karkat puts out a hugely embarrassing squeak that he really fucking hopes no one just heard. He covers his mouth. Oh god Vriska is making direct eye contact with him from the front row. When did she even get here.
"Come on, open up a bit, we don't judge voice cracks here," Peregrine says. The nicey-nice routine is already wearing thin, but he obliges.
A few lower notes: he just about gets it.
Lower: actually, this one comes out great.
Lower still: whoa, a whole cavern he didn't know he had is suddenly opening up at the bottom of his voicebox. Something to show off in a FPS voice chat in the future.
Lower than that: finally he hits a wall, with a noise sounding like a frog croaking.
Jump up to a higher note: still a squeak, but a slightly more controlled one.
"All right, you're definitely a baritone. I'm excited to work with you this semester - here's your music, please let me know if you have any questions!"
Karkat takes the music (three Beatles songs and some ridiculous, mushy-looking classical piece) and wanders off. He's not sure where he's supposed to sit - everyone else seems to know exactly where they're going. At risk of getting spiders thrown at him again (eeeugh), he goes up to Vriska.
"Karkat! Nice surprise to see you here," she says with a tone of voice that indicates hideously villainous intentions. "What's brought you to Choral Arts, fearless hero?"
He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I have to do this for a music credit. Believe me, I wouldn't be here of my own will if those geriatric freaks in the office weren't getting off on making me miserable. Where are the baritones?"
"Over in the back, where Egbert and Nitram are sitting." She snorts. "Those fuckin' losers. You'll fit right in!"
"Yeah, yeah."
He makes his way through a bunch of unorganized black folding chairs, about half of which have chorusy-looking people sitting in them, to the back. He knew Tavros as a kid, although they kind of drifted apart after middle school. The other guy is unfamiliar.
"This is the baritone section?"
"Oh hi Karkat, uh, it's been a while! Yeah, this is the place," Tavros says.
"Hi Tavros. How's it been since, uh…" Karkat desperately racks his brains for the last time he exchanged eye contact, let alone a word, with this poor motherfucker. No, wait, there was that one time. "That whole thing with Gamzee?"
"It went fine! Um, we agreed it was better to stay friends. I, um, never got to say it, but thanks for your help back then."
"Yeah, no problem."
('That whole thing with Gamzee' was eight months ago, and he contributed about ten minutes of his all-too-fucking-precious time. Karkat really has to get his shit in order.)
"And what's your name?" he asks the other guy.
A moment of hesitation. Karkat looks him over. A slightly oversized white T-shirt and cargo shorts underline shiny black hair with, for some reason, a light pink coquette bow tucked in it.
"That's a bit up in the air at the moment, but call me John! It's nice to meet you." He sticks his hand out. Karkat is thrown off by the gesture for a moment (when was the last time someone under forty shook his fucking hand? Who is this guy?), but fulfills his end of the handshake.
"Yeah, yeah, don't get too comfortable, I'm only here for one semester 'cause I have to be," he says. Wait, what was that about his name being 'up in the air?' Too late to ask now, he's already sitting down. Whatever, Karkat doesn't care.
The singing is alright. He can't read sheet music, and honestly isn't paying much attention, but it is kind of fun at parts.
Well, some parts. Mostly he's just copying what the other baritones are doing. Situated on either side of him, Tavros is quiet and often sings confidently wrong notes, while a guy who came in late (Jake something-or-other?) is too loud and frankly giving way too much nasal, theater-kid flamboyance to the fucking bassline to fucking "Can't Buy Me Love." Actually, John, to Tavros' left, is probably the best singer in earshot right now, absolutely nailing all the notes both low and high. His tone is very round and natural, almost operatic. Wow, look at Karkat using flattering music snob phrases like that. He's only paying more attention to him because the pink bow and the fucking handshake threw him off. Also, he just seems naturally look-at-able, like he's the main character in a shounen. Weird guy.
Karkat's got an issue with the way they practice this stuff though. It would be a lot more interesting if they could actually sing the songs all the way through, but they just keep going through these weird, 30-second fragments of the most confusing, complicated bits, then Peregrine stops them when they get to the fun, easy stuff. It's not like he wants to express himself through the power of song or some shit, but this is getting old fast. He does at least get some schadenfreude seeing Vriska's poisonous expression across the room whenever Peregrine critiques the sopranos for the gazillionth time.
Somehow they're only fucking halfway into the hour-long period. At least lunch is next. Karkat wills the second hand on the wall clock to move faster. "Can't Buy Me Love" becomes "Blackbird," which becomes "In My Life" - randomly, that one's much harder and more complicated than the other two, to the point where they only get through the first page in the entire rest of the period. Doesn't help that Karkat's never heard the actual song before. The weird-looking classical piece remains untouched.
At the end of the period, Karkat shoves the music into his backpack and walks out as fast as humanly possible, but John is faster, catching up to him in the hallway towards the lunchroom.
"That was some great singing earlier! Are you sure you've never sung with a group before?" John says, adjusting the bow.
"I mean, I guess. It's just the Beatles." He raises his eyebrows. "Actually, when the fuck did I say that to you?"
John shrugs. "You can hear a lot in that room. Plus, I know some tricks. I have a sight line to the piano, so I can read Dr. Peregrine's lips, as well as whoever she's talking to."
"So you spied on me?"
"Don't worry, I was listening to other people too. You know, this is also two other people's first semester in chorus!"
"Who?" Now he's gotta know more. He needs contacts to commiserate with.
An obnoxiously playful grin. "You'll have to find out. I don't know their names yet."
"Ugh, fuck off. Who the fuck are they?"
"No, I mean I actually don't know, haha…"
"You read their lips from all the way back there, but couldn't tell their names?"
"Well, I wasn't paying that much attention."
They get on the lunch line. The walls in here are all covered in awful student art exhibits from years ago that he's seen too many times to process. The paint is, as always, sickly green, but a more vibrant sickly than usual. Like its condition has improved. They must have touched it up over the summer.
"So what's with the bow?" Karkat asks. He wanted to sit alone, but fuck it, this is kind of fun. "It doesn't fit the rest of the dweeb gamer vibe you have going on."
John laughs. "Everyone likes the bow. I've gotten like four compliments on it already today. I can't wait to see what my friends think about it."
"Yeah, but why a bow?"
"Oh, no reason," John says, clearly a tad caught off guard. "I, um, thought it might look nice."
"Nice for what reason, I mean?"
"Well, ahh, if you really want to know, I'm… kind of exploring presenting myself in a way that's- oh, potatoes and no meat, please," he says, turning to the lunch lady abruptly. Argghhh! This fuckhead is a tough nut to crack.
"Presenting yourself in a way that's what?" Karkat says, getting his potatoes.
"Like, more feminine. I just, I think it's an interesting direction to go in," he says, confident voice suddenly in an ashamed mumble.
This is probably a topic Karkat shouldn't prod at further, on second thought. "So where are you sitting?"
"Oh, I'm sitting with my friends! You know Dave, Rose, and Jade?"
"Not really. Wait, you mean Jade Harley?"
"Wait, oh my god, you're Karkat! I can't believe I didn't make that connection," he says.
Karkat winces- so the truth comes out! - and braces for an "ew, fuck off," but John just laughs it off, then tilts his head, seeing the pained expression on Karkat's face. "Well, it's not like she hates you or anything. I mean, I don't want to speak for her, but I certainly don't think she'd mind if you sat in with us! All that robot stuff was like a year ago."
Fuck, he can't even imagine sitting face to face and making eye contact with fucking Jade fucking Harley, even this far removed from the insanity of last summer. That name has haunted his conscience for blind eternities. It's nice to know her entire group doesn't completely hate him, but he needs a way out. Nope - they're already at the table. It would be weird to turn around now. John's chucklefuck niceness really has disarmed him.
Jade is actually the only person here so far. She gives him a mocking raised eyebrow. "Hi! So Mr. Robot Smasher finally shows his face around here?"
"Ugh, fuck off, I've said I was sorry already." No, wait - this is camaraderie, like, friend camaraderie. Like, the kind that happens between friends. He's enormously misjudged everything. Best course of action is to respond in kind with more insults, not drool all over himself like some tool. "That thing probably deserved it."
She shakes her head. "You are a funny character, mister."
So Karkat is an actual fucking idiot and has been assuming that a person who is at worst mildly annoyed by him actively hates him for a year. Really being the dumbbeast that prowls the wild stupid savanna here. John, not privy to this self-inflicted psychological warfare, informs Jade that Karkat is joining choir this semester and asks where Rose and Dave are.
"Rose told me they had some family function. Ms. Lalonde is going crazy again..."
"On the first day of school?"
"A pretty likely time for a person to be going crazy, if you ask me," she says, sticking out her tongue.
"Rose and Dave are both in choir too," John says to Karkat. "There are a lot of interesting people in that class, you know, you should try to meet some of them sometime!"
"Yeah, I'm fucking jumping at the chance here."
John smiles. "Great!"
(He actually interpreted that as sincere enthusiasm? What is this kid, a Mormon? A feminine presenting Mormon? Now Karkat's seen everything.)
"So, guys, is it true you're doing Mozart in choir this semester?" Jade asks. At a nod from John, she gasps - like audibly gasps out loud. (Who the fuck gasps? Maybe he was in the right when he broke that robot.) "Oh my gosh, I'm so jealous! He's like the best classical composer of all time! I actually transcribed some of his early pieces for bass to learn over the summer!"
She proceeds to go on a twenty-minute rant about Mozart and shit, taking John's copy of the mysterious classical piece they didn't look at in class and pointing out some sort of re-occurring musical figure in multiple parts that somehow proves the guy is some sort of geeeenius (see, it's slightly different when it comes in this time!!) It all kind of goes over Karkat's head, and he's really more going along with it because he still feels bad about the robot, but John seems used to it, nodding along at all the right points.
She strikes Karkat as a little weird in person, but he can't judge - he definitely has a few things he could go on that kind of rant about (classic terrible rom-coms come to mind). Plus - the key - she has this tight-knit little group and he doesn't. How does he gain access to this circle, especially John and his weirdly gripping, bizarrely exciting charm? Choir might be the solution, as corny as it sounds.
Oh well. Here comes a fun semester. One for the ages, hopefully.