James Hiwatari

The apocalypse came on Friday. The bastard was on heat and our table did not appreciate it. At rehearsal our director announced the new leader would arrive on Tuesday. Until then I had been able to hope this whole travesty would end with none of the candidates being at Arnar’s level, or no candidates showing up at all. But no; Arnar was definitely not coming back. We were told to watch the news on Saturday night to know what was waiting for us. The replacement would be on TV. Most likely all

WARNING: (If you missed the one on the chapter note) There is implied child sexual abuse later in the chapter. If you would rather not read, please skip the bit starting with "O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O". The same marking is used to indicate the end of the scene. Henry was not at school on Thursday. It was a consensus in our group that his absence was due to the embarrassment and public humiliation caused by Jean the previous day. As much as we tried to call the blond out on it, though, our words seem

When pressure rose for Princess Lin to get married, she convinced her uncle, the King, to let her partner be someone who was at least as smart as she was. Therefore it was decided that she would marry the first man or woman to defeat her father in a chess match. Soon after that she met a wanderer with a remarkable disdain for royalty...

Once upon a time, in a very rich and very prosperous kingdom, there was a very beautiful and very intelligent princess who lived in a very tall castle full of very high towers. The princess was very happy because she had many friends and was very well-liked by everyone in the kingdom. Her only problem was with the chroniclers of the land, who were very keen on using “very” at every single sentence of their tales, though that was because she was very talented and knew how to write better than her

I can't listen to music with lyrics while I'm writing because I get distracted and want to sing along (badly, of course)... But After some experimenting I realised there are certain songs that put me in the right state of mind to write a given story. Be Myself! and The Orchestra are both written in first person, so I need to get their voices and their tone right all the time, particularly in the case of The Orchestra, where the narrator changes each chapter. So, I now found that: - Beethoven Symphonies 3 and 5 (without the slow parts) are the background of choice for Be Myself!. I just got Symphonies 6 and 7 in my computer, so I'll see if I can include them too. I know I'm never writing anything to Symphony 9 because I always get in a kind of trance that's far too distracting. - Mozart's Violin concerti n. 1-5 put me on the mood to write Gunni's parts in The Orchestra. It's fitting because Violin Concert n. is his favourite piece and a kind of character theme, as much as there can be one. - Tchaikovsky's Pathetic Symphony is the background for Siggi's chapter in The Orchestra. It's actually the music I imagine as Dmitri's theme, but it's inspiring nonetheless. For all pieces, I never listen to the slow parts. Not even when things get dramatic. When I'm writing slow movements make me sleepy and unproductive.

The week passed in a blur. I didn’t pay attention to the things I did and talked very little to other people. I almost forgot about the rest of the world, lost in all kinds of fantasies about the outcome of the audition. I knew there was very little chance of being chosen, so much that the most rational part of my mind took this first audition as just a preparation for future ones and begged me to treat the trip to Reykjavík as just the first of many to come. But even then most of me still hoped

Gunni and Siggi will alternate telling the story. Gunni gets the odd numbers, Siggi gets the even ones. Every now and then someone else will pop up too, but that will be clearly signalled so people don't get too lost. Dmitri is definitely fun. As for his interaction with Gunni, you'll have to wait and see. You might be amused. Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Hey, thanks for the review! Jean has his own issues, but I can't quite get into them just yet. You'll have to wait and read when time is right. Edward hasn't got much of a choice, really. He lives in the same house as Jean and they are in the same school year and doing the same subjects. Poor Edward indeed, but who knows, maybe it'll get better at some point. Thanks for reading!

Iceland is a very interesting place. To be fair, all I know is based on my own research of the place and lots of reading of things written by people from there. But hopefully this is good enough for a story like this. And it's a lot of fun to write those opposing personalities. I'm glad it showed well in their opening chapters. Obviously I can't say anything about how it works out in the end, but isn't that the fun part? Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Well, as you said yourself: Jean in kind of an ass. All I can say at this point in time is this: yes, he knows all these things, but for him those feelings are not something that he considers important. He can't quite understand why someone would be after the things Henry is after, so he basically scorns it. About Ariadne: yes, I have seen many stories like that too. It's all nice and well to be supportive of gay people until it affects your family. Then it gets personal. But yes, the Headmistress is a very decent person. Lucky not just for her daughter and "daughter-in-law" but for all the children in that school, I guess... o.o' And let's wait and see about Henry's future, shall we? Thanks for reading and reviewing!

We saw Henry in school next day, but he merely greeted us from afar and walked in the opposite direction, and during all the breaks he was nowhere to be seen. Despite his obvious avoidance of our group, Jean did not seem at all concerned. The whole day he acted as if he had not been making out with the brunet since he started school, as if he barely remembered Henry from days long past. Probably as a way of proving his point, Jean dragged Edward to sit with us again, and proceeded to try doing

“May I take your orders?” Great, they had a new waitress. She looked like she had barely left school. Likely, she could not tell the difference between the soup of the day and cat vomit. This would be a long lunch, and we only had an hour to eat and leave before we were late to rehearsal. “I want just the beef and some lettuce with no dressings and no seasoning.” I said before the others could open their mouths. The dumb waitress looked at me as if I was the one with a mental disability. “

I spent most of Easter Break in my room, hiding from my parents and texting Olivia. Every now and then my father would knock and either ask if I was studying or tell me to practice viola because I ‘seemed to be neglecting it as of late’. Encouraged by my girlfriend, I usually lied and told him I was indeed studying. ‘I lied again. I should be feeling guilty, but…’ I texted her one afternoon. ‘He’s 2 controlling. It’s 4 the best .’ She replied. Over the last couple of days she had described my

Thanks for the review! Yeah, I have a thing for musicians and stories around music, though usually classical music because it's hard to find stories about it elsewhere. I've been playing instruments for about 4 years now (didn't have much of an opportunity to start earlier) and since then it's like a whole new world opening up for me. So of course I had to write a story about it. Iceland is a place I would love to live in at some point. I'm teaching myself the language and doing as much research as I can, so hopefully I'm not getting many things wrong. Hope you enjoy the rest of the story too!

Gunni is a 16 year-old violinist who has just been hired as the leader of the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra. Siggi is the 19 year-old Principal Cello who is not at all happy with this new development. This kind of plot obviously demands that Gunni develops a crush for Siggi, but that's just the beginning. The story is told by Gunni and Siggi in their own distinctive way. Expect everything from humour to drama, and of course music (and plenty of fun in bed!).

I had never been this nervous before. As I walked I felt my heart jump in my chest, reaching my throat and sinking to the bottom of my stomach. The clouds covered the sun outside, but the snow on the ground was reflecting light through the glass walls of the Harpa, the brand new Icelandic National Concert and Conference Centre in Reykjavík. The man that led me through that labyrinth of a building did not make me feel much better either; he kept glancing at me as if I was an animal in a zoo, or i

You know, at first I wasn't going to write Oscar's father's lines that way, but then I came across some real-life situations of people saying those things and I realised that sadly it wouldn't be all that unrealistic to give him lines straight from the 15th Century... ¬¬ Next chapter is really for publishing, and thankfully Oscar's parents aren't in it so much. We can all breathe safely =D Thanks for the review!

Thanks for the review! =P I'm not entire sure what else I can say, seeing as you answered your own comments... (i.e., nope, not happening any time soon and yes, Oscar's father is an arsehole.) Hope you like the next chapter!

My parents were very pleased that Olivia’s parents answered so promptly to their request for social interaction, acting like the Viñas had passed some kind of test or ticked the first box of a long ‘Worthiness Checklist’. After some further texting between Olivia and I, our family dinner was arranged for Saturday night from six o’clock onwards. This meant dad and I went shopping early in the morning and mum spent the rest of the day busy with preparing a properly multicultural menu for the night

Contrary to my expectations, a full eight hours of sleep on Thursday night was not enough to clarify anything. In fact, it probably made me even more confused. My dreams were punctuated by random snapshots of what seemed like badly-made porn involving me, Jean, Wendy and Olivia. They kept creeping up in what was otherwise a normal dream sequence about learning how to fly over my neighbourhood. My alarm clock rang when I was being forced to contemplate a naked Jean sucking me while being fucked b

No, it's fine. Thanks for the review! Yes, for now Oscar has to rely on his friends. Talking to his father right now would be... well, dangerous, probably. Next chapter will come along in the next couple of hours! (finally)

Well, the reason it's two weeks is so that I can get chapters ready in reasonable time. It's just about the right amount of time I need to finish writing a chapter and revising an older one. Atm I've got up to chapter 08 ready, but I'm hoping 09 will come along soon so I don't panic in two weeks time. Oscar is growing up, looking for his own information... But yeah, talking to his father might not be such a good idea at this stage... Thank for reading! ^^~

“So, Oscar, how was school today?” My mother asked as soon as we sat at the dinner table. She was smiling pleasantly. “Did you talk to your girlfriend about our little family dinner?” “No, sorry, mum, I forgot…” ‘Because of everything that went on with Helena, Ariadne and Hannah’, though I had the feeling it was better if this last part was not said aloud. “You got distracted?” My father asked, smiling in a way that said he had an idea of what the ‘distraction’ was and it pleased him very much

It could definitely be useful.

Hey! Thanks for the review! ^^~You would be surprised by the number of people who don't know or ignore this kind of information. It still baffles me somewhat. Your opinion of Helena's personality on her first appearance is much appreciated. As for Biology and Chemistry: in the UK they basically give you a table with lots of subjects divided in columns and you have to pick one from each. Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geography, History and many others appear together there. Only Maths, English and PE are compulsory. (And out of curiosity: in Brazil you don't get to pick any subjects at all, you do all 13 of them. As soon as you get into High School, around 15 years-old, you start having Chemistry, Biology and Physics (broken down from general "Natural Sciences" in Primary School), and many other things that I shall not bore you with). So in fact I was bit surprised that there are places with requirements like that. Interesting random knowledge... ^^~ Henry's feelings will be dealt with in due time, don't worry. =D Thanks again for the review and I hope you keep liking it!