Symphony of Sound.

“Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t have to.” Zack reminds Rian, softly squeezing the older boy’s hand, which is currently clasped with his.

“No, Zack, I do need to.” Rian replies, taking a long, unsteady breath and starting to walk in the direction of Cassadee.

They’re now less than a week away from Zack’s seventeenth birthday, and Rian has been freaking out over how he’s going to break up with Cassadee.

This problem is averted, however, when the girl turns from her apparently thrilling conversation with Eric to face the two junior boys standing nearby.

“I...” Rian starts, but she raises her hand to stop him from continuing.

“You’re breaking up with me to date Zack, I know. I’ve known for a while, actually.” She says with a small smile. Rian stares at her, mouth agape.

“Yeah, I know, you weren’t expecting that, were you?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“Yeah, I figured. What you fail to realize is that I can read people fairly well, and I’ve seen the way you two look at each other, and it’s really kind of ridiculously cute, so I’m not going to stop you from being happy.”

Rian and Zack stop staring at her for a millisecond to glance at each other nervously, before redirecting their gaze to the younger girl.

“So, you’re saying that you’re totally okay with this?” Zack asks, confused.

“Yeah, basically.” Cassadee says with a shrug, taking a glance behind her at her friends. “And besides, who am I to stop you from being with someone you really love? No one, that’s who. Seriously, Rian, if you want to be with him, be with him. I’m certainly not going to stop you.”

“Thanks, Cass.” Rian says with a small smile, moving to embrace the girl with one arm, still holding tight on to Zack’s hand. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”

Cassadee smiles, gives Zack a small nod before looking back at Rian.

“Hey, and in all fairness, I’m kind of glad you’re breaking up with me for someone attractive. I’d never be able to sleep again if you left me for, like, Nick or someone.” She says, shaking her head in disdain.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Zack says with a nervous laugh.

“You probably should, yeah.” Cassadee replies softly, turning and sitting back down at her table.

Zack and Rian are a few feet away when she next speaks to them.

“Hey, guys!” She shouts, and they turn around to look at her.

“Yeah?”

“Good luck, alright? I’m sure you’ll be an awesome couple.”

Zack blushes at this, his cheeks tinting pink in a way that Rian finds completely adorable.

“Well, that went better than I thought it would.” Rian says with a small laugh as they leave the sophomore area of the lunch hall and head towards the junior section.

“Yeah, I’ll admit it, I was expecting fire, brimstone and our impending demise.” Zack says with a small laugh.

“So, I was thinking we could go out this weekend. I think Harry Potter is showing at one of the theatres in Augusta somewhere. We could go and see that.”

“That’d be cool.” Zack replies almost shyly, despite the fact that Rian has been his best friend for as long as is really significant, and only now their friendship is escalating into something more is he really getting nervous.

“Okay, cool. I’ll pay.” Rian says, pausing for a second to press a kiss to Zack’s cheek. The blonde boy giggles and blushes a darker shade of pink.

“You don’t need to.”

“I do, it’s our first real date and I’ve been a complete asshole.”

“Hey, I’m not going to say no, so you can’t go back on it now.” Zack says with a small laugh as they take their seats opposite Alex and Jack at the table.

The other two boys look up at them from the plates set out in front of them, with a less than appetising spread of potatoes, vegetables, and worryingly overcooked meat set in front of them.

“You know, I’m not even going to ask.” Jack says, rolling his eyes and raising his eyebrows a little as he takes a look at them properly.

“It’s probably better for both of our mental health if you don’t, Jacky.” Alex replies, not even bothering to tear his eyes from his less than appetising food.

“Moving on.” Zack says almost sternly. “Are you two ready for the spring concert tonight?”

“Kind of.” Jack replies. “I can’t find my sheet music for Pomp And Circumstance, though. I had it earlier, and now it’s vanished. And I can’t ask for another copy, since this is my third one.”

“You really are an idiot, you know that?” Zack replies, rolling his eyes at the younger boy and leaning against Rian’s side. “Is anyone coming up to see you, by the way?”

“I think so. Mom and Dad mentioned it, but I don’t know. Is anyone coming over to see you, or not?”

“Doubtful. It’s too much of a trek for them from California all the way over here.”

“It is near your birthday, though. They might surprise you.”

“You can tell you’ve never met my family.”

But, much to Zack’s surprise, as he heads out on stage for the first time with Hayley, he scans the audience briefly and catches sight of his father, his Aunt Carolyn, Andy, Emily and Holly sitting beside Jack’s parents.

He glances offstage quickly to look for Jack, but by the time he’s supposed to come in, he hasn’t found the taller boy.

Stay goes relatively smoothly, and Hayley gives him a quiet high five as they leave the stage as the brass band enter behind them.

“Your mom and dad are out there.” Zack informs Jack, jabbing him with the bow of his violin. Jack nods, and goes back to checking and double checking that his cello is in tune.

“Next to my dad, my aunt and my cousins.” Zack continues, and Jack looks up from his cello to talk to him.

“I told you they’d be here.” Jack replies, grinning.

“Yeah, but still.” Zack shrugs. “I didn’t expect them to actually, you know, drive from California to be here.”

“You need to have more confidence in your family, dude. They love you, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s just... California to Maine is a long way to travel for no real occasion, though.”

“It’s almost your seventeenth birthday, you idiot.” Jack replies, rolling his eyes. “If that doesn’t count as a ‘real occasion’ then I have no idea what does in your world.”

Behind them, on the stage, they hear the brass band finish playing whatever loud, obnoxious fanfare they’d chosen, and the crowd applaud half heartedly.

Jack and Zack take hold of their instruments again, moving quickly to the side of the stage as Dr. Walker introduces the string quartet and the curtains go up.

They position their music carefully, organizing themselves and their instruments before Jack starts the introduction.

It’s nerve wracking, he decides, having to do the entire bass line on your own, without the other cellists to back you up if you go horrendously wrong anywhere.

His nerves calm themselves slightly when everyone else rejoins when what would be the vocal sections start.

It goes well, overall, Jack thinks, and the loud chorus of applause they receive from the audience only helps to convince himself so.

Rian and Alex are waiting for them at the side of the stage, and they each press a quick kiss to their respective boys’ cheek and whisper a congratulations before Rian has to disappear off for the woodwind band performance.

The concert closes with the full orchestra performance, which follows the show choir performance of Lady Gaga’s Poker Face, the theatre group’s scene from RENT and Christofer’s solo performance, a guitar backed cover of Green Day’s Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).

They play Pomp And Circumstance, as conducted by Mr. Johnson, and it goes as well as it had been going in practice over the past week, if not better.

All four boys know that there’s some after concert refreshments bar over in the dining hall, and it is their full intention to go over there and enjoy (read: digest as quickly as possible) some juice and snacks.

Their plans are scuppered, however, when they emerge into the main auditorium hall from backstage and a vast group of parents and relatives greet them.

Rian is almost immediately engulfed in a hug by his mom and dad, Sarah and Ian, and his younger brother Brandon.

Alex’s parents, Michael and Isabella quickly search out their son and run to him, hugging him like he’s been gone for years.

Jack’s mom, Lotta, goes running at her youngest child and picks him up in a tight hug, leaving his father, Joseph Sr., to trail after her.

Evan’s older siblings, Nathan and Alanya, have come up from Virginia, and they hug their little brother tightly together.

Kara’s parents, Lauren and Howard, and her younger brother and sister, Jonathan and Natasha, have travelled from Northern Florida to be here, and so Kara greets them with a squeak and embraces them tightly.

Zack stands there sheepishly smiling as his father, his aunt and his cousins make their way over to him. He gives his father the tightest hug he can manage, considering his arms ache slightly from all the ferocious violin playing only ten minutes before.

“I’m so proud of you,” His father says in a hushed tone into his son’s ear, “and I know your mom is too.”

Zack pulls away from the hug and smiles widely at his father, because for once in his life, he thinks his mom is proud of him too.

It’s a long line of people that want to give him congratulatory hugs, and by the time he’s reached little Emily, Rian is waiting for him a few feet away.

“Rian, they don’t bite.” He laughs, glancing over Emily’s head at the brown haired boy. “They’re just my family.”

“Yeah, but still.” Rian says, tentatively taking a few steps towards them. Zack rolls his eyes and releases his twelve year old cousin and drags him over.

“Everyone, this is Rian. Rian, everyone. Now make conversation.”

“Actually, Zack, we were thinking,” Carolyn says over her brother in law’s shoulder, “do you want to bring Rian home with us for spring break? That is, if his parents are okay with it.”