She Ruined All Practice Pianos One Day Before My Music Audition

The day before the national conservatory auditions, the spoiled heiress who constantly acted like a fragile toddler secretly detuned every grand piano in the practice wing by a full half-step.

Lola just thinks a piano tuned down a half-step sounds so much gentler. This way, everyone's music will sound as beautiful as a sweet lullaby.

In my past life, my ears caught the sickening pitch the second I sat down to practice. I immediately reported the sabotage to the faculty, and professional tuners worked through the night to fix every instrument.

Stripped of her precious "gentle aesthetic," Lola threw a hysterical fit, swallowed an entire bottle of prescription sleeping pills, and died before the ambulance even reached the hospital.

To avenge her, my entire class conspired against me at our graduation gala. They spiked my drink with a lethal dose of industrial alcohol.

When I woke up, my childhood best friend had bound my ten fingers with heavy steel piano wire, tightening the razor-sharp metal loop by agonizing loop.

"You love playing the piano so much? Then use your mangled fingers to play a requiem for Lola in hell!"

"But Lola just thinks a piano tuned a half-step down sounds so much gentler."

Lola rubbed her reddened eyes, letting a single, perfect tear slide down her cheek. She clutched a heavy steel tuning wrench to her chest. Her voice was thick with exaggerated, nasal innocence.

"Lola just wanted everyone's audition pieces to sound like sweet lullabies. Why are you yelling at Lola?"

That sickeningly sweet, infantile tone instantly triggered the protective instincts of every guy in the room.

My childhood best friend, Oliver, stepped forward and shielded Lola with his body. He glared at me and let out a furious snarl.

"Violet, do you know anything besides grinding away at those keys?"

"Lola is doing this for our own good. She's trying to help us relax before the biggest audition of our lives."

"Do you have zero empathy? Are you only happy when everyone else is having a mental breakdown from the stress?"

The rest of our classmates swarmed around them, their voices rising in a chorus of toxic accusations.

"Seriously. Shes just a mindless practice machine. Zero artistic soul."

"So what if the pitch is a little flat? I'm naturally gifted. I could play on a broken keyboard and still ace the audition. Shes just a try-hard who is insanely jealous of Lola."

"What a total buzzkill. Shes clinically insane for ruining the vibe."

Listening to those familiar, ear-piercing insults, a violent wave of vertigo washed over my brain.

I was reborn.

I was back to the exact day before the National Conservatory Auditions. The moment Lola secretly detuned every grand piano in the practice wing, and the exact second I tried to stop her.

Lola was a filthy-rich heiress who transferred to our academy six months ago.

When she first arrived, her habit of referring to herself in the third person made people roll their eyes. But within a month, her massive trust fund and constant damsel-in-distress act had turned her into the undisputed princess of the senior class.

Even Oliver, the boy I grew up with, the boy who once promised to protect me forever, had devolved into her most loyal, rabid attack dog.

In my past life, I tried to warn them.

I told them the conservatory judges had absolute perfect pitch. I warned them that a detuned piano would destroy the emotional resonance of their pieces and result in automatic disqualification.

For my honesty, I was viciously bullied by the entire class. They called me a jealous, talentless hack.

Terrified for everyone's future, I secretly alerted the faculty. The professors brought in professional tuners overnight to fix the damage.

When Lola realized her "gentle aesthetic" was gone, she threw a massive hysterical fit. That night, she swallowed a handful of prescription pills and slipped into a permanent, fatal coma.

Weeks later, at our graduation gala, my classmates spiked my drink with a lethal dose of cleaning chemicals.

I woke up tied to a chair in the music hall. Oliver wrapped heavy, steel piano wire around my hands. He pulled the wire taut, slowly crushing the bones in my fingers until my hands were completely mangled.

He looked down at my bleeding, ruined hands and sneered. "You love playing the piano so much? Then use your crippled fingers to play a requiem for Lola in hell."

The phantom agony of my bones splintering still burned deep in my soul.

In this life, I absolutely refused to be their savior.

I took a deep breath, forcing down the bile rising in my throat. I looked at Lola and lowered my head submissively.

"You're right. I'm sorry. I overreacted."

"Lola is totally right. A gentle, soft aesthetic is way more important than rigid, boring pitch rules. I promise I won't interfere with your art again."

A wave of mocking laughter echoed through the practice room.

"Look at her folding. So much for acting like a music prodigy."

"Exactly. Trying to show off her ear training? Next to Lola's aesthetic vision, your textbook theory is pure garbage."

Lola wiped her eyes, pasting on a saintly, forgiving smile.

"Don't be mean to Violet, guys."

"Lola knows that everyone's ears are different. Some people just have a really low capacity for true beauty."

"Please don't ostracize Violet just because her taste is so... basic."

It sounded like she was defending me, but she was expertly branding me as a tasteless, uncultured loser.

I didn't argue. I just silently walked back to my piano bench.

In my previous life, my scores were just a few points shy of a full ride to Juilliard. My technique was peerless among my age group. But to these trust-fund kids, I was just a pathetic "piano slave" who had to work for what they thought they were born with.

Right now, the only thing on my mind was tomorrow's audition.

I was going to take back my rightful spot as the top recruit in the state, and permanently leave these lunatics in my rearview mirror.

As soon as I sat down, a thick, heavy hand clamped down on my wrist like a vice.

"Violet, your pathetic acting doesn't fool me."

Oliver leaned in close, his breath hot against my face.

"You're totally plotting something. You're just waiting for us to leave so you can run and snitch to the department head, aren't you?"

The atmosphere in the room instantly turned toxic. Dozens of hostile eyes locked onto me like laser sights.

Oliver tightened his grip, his voice booming off the soundproof walls.

"You are so incredibly fake. You're probably cursing Lola in your head right now."

"You think if you report her for vandalism, you'll eliminate your biggest competition, right?"

"You want the board to disqualify Lola just so you can finally achieve your pathetic little music dream."

His baseless, psychotic accusations instantly ignited the class.

The practice room exploded into a frenzy.

"Oh my god, her heart is literally black."

"Lola literally just defended you, and you want to ruin her entire life?"

"Classic snake behavior. Lola's kindness is totally wasted on trash like her."

"We can't let her leave. We need to teach her a lesson today so she doesn't try to sabotage us tomorrow."

Someone shouted the order, and a group of guys aggressively stormed over to my piano.

They moved with brutal efficiency. One of them snatched my thick binder of sheet music right off the music stand.

It was the repertoire I had spent three grueling years perfecting. The margins were filled with thousands of handwritten notes from masterclasses and late-night practice sessions.

"What are you even practicing for? Trash like you doesn't deserve to touch a piano."

A sharp, violent tearing sound ripped through the air.

They tore my sheet music in half with their bare hands. The shredded pages fluttered through the air like dead winter leaves.

The entire class erupted into roaring cheers.

Not a single person thought this was wrong.

A few girls even walked over and intentionally dug their expensive heels into my ruined notes.

"Trash paper for a trash person. Perfect match."

The rage boiling in my chest threatened to override my sanity, but I bit down on my lower lip so hard I tasted copper.

Fighting back now would only give them an excuse to physically lock me in a closet and make me miss the exam entirely.

I violently yanked my wrist out of Oliver's grip and bent down to gather the torn, dirty pages.

Oliver lifted his heavy sneaker and stomped down hard on the back of my hand.

"I told you. As long as I'm breathing, you aren't going anywhere near the faculty office."

"I will never let you hurt Lola."

Just as the mob was gearing up to humiliate me further, the heavy wooden door of the practice room swung open.

Professor Harrison, the head of the piano department, walked in carrying a clipboard with the final audition roster.

He froze in the doorway, completely stunned by the chaotic scene.

"What the hell is going on in here?"

He slammed his clipboard onto the lid of the nearest grand piano. The loud, hollow bang echoed like a gunshot.

"Tomorrow is the state conservatory audition. The best musicians in the country are making their final preparations, and you lot are in here forming a lynch mob?"

Professor Harrison's sharp eyes scanned the room. His gaze locked onto Oliver's shoe pressing down on my hand. His face turned dangerously dark.

"Get back to your seats. Now."

Oliver reluctantly lifted his foot, shooting me a lethal glare and dragging his thumb across his throat before backing away.

Lola immediately trotted over to Professor Harrison. She gently tugged on the sleeve of his tweed jacket, her eyes pooling with fresh, glistening tears.

"Professor... please don't be mad. It's all Lola's fault."

"Everyone has been working so hard and getting so stressed. Lola just wanted everyone to hear a softer, gentler tone to help ease their anxiety."

"Lola just loves everyone so much. I wanted to give them a beautiful memory before we all graduate."

Her pathetic, whimpering routine instantly melted the hearts of the guys standing nearby.

A few of the top-ranked students in the class loudly voiced their support.

"Professor, we are engaging in experimental artistic exploration. Is it a crime to pursue a different tonal aesthetic?"

"We are the elite musicians of this academy. Being a little flat isn't going to stop us from getting perfect scores. We aren't robots."

Professor Harrison looked at the bizarre, unified front his students were presenting. He clearly assumed this was just a case of collective pre-exam burnout.

His deeply furrowed brow relaxed slightly, and his tone softened.

"Alright. I know you all share a tight bond. But sit down and listen to me."

Professor Harrison cleared his throat, his expression turning dead serious.

"The audition panel has been updated. The head judge tomorrow is Maestro Rossi. The man has absolute, flawless perfect pitch."

"As your mentor, I am giving you one final warning."

"For tomorrow's repertoire, pitch accuracy is your absolute lifeline."

"You must pay extreme attention to the piano's tuning. If you suspect the pitch is off by even a fraction, you must immediately halt and request the official tuner."

"Even a quarter-step flat sounds like a chainsaw ripping through drywall to judges of that caliber."

"Do not delude yourselves into thinking your technique can mask a flat instrument. If the pitch is wrong, your entire emotional delivery collapses into a complete mess."

"One point will be the difference between Juilliard and working at a local diner. Do not fail on the absolute basics."

To emphasize his point, he casually walked over to the primary Steinway grand piano at the front of the room and struck a standard middle A.

The note rang out. It was a flat, dull A-flat.

Professor Harrison's face drained of all color, turning from pale to a furious shade of purple.

"The pitch is completely wrong. Who touched this instrument?"

His voice skyrocketed, shaking with uncontainable rage.

"This is the primary warm-up room for tomorrow's auditions. Do you have any idea what precise tuning means to a concert pianist?"

"Without a standard pitch, how are you supposed to warm up your ears? How are you supposed to find your center?"

Lola stepped out of the crowd, wearing that same clueless, innocent smile.

"Professor, Lola paid a guy to tune it down."

"Lola thinks it sounds so much softer this way. It makes everyone feel so emotionally stable."

She looked at him with wide, expectant eyes, genuinely waiting for a gold star and a pat on the head.

Professor Harrison froze like he had been struck by lightning.

He stared at Lola in pure disbelief, his finger trembling as he pointed at the Steinway.

"You... you detuned a concert grand by a full half-step?"

"Lola, tomorrow is the most rigorous conservatory audition in the state."

"What do you think this place is? Your personal playground?"

Lola's smile vanished. Her lower lip quivered, and the tears immediately spilled over.

"Lola just wanted to make the world a gentler place. In your eyes, are a bunch of rigid, dead rules more important than our happiness?"

"This is absolute insanity. You are playing Russian roulette with your futures."

Professor Harrison violently slammed his hand onto the piano lid.

"Call the academy tuner right now and fix this. If you don't, I will personally report you to the board and have your audition eligibility revoked on the spot."

A few of the students who had been cheering earlier suddenly looked incredibly nervous.

When their actual college admissions were on the line, the bravado started to crack.

"Yeah, Lola, maybe we should fix it. If the judges are really that strict about pitch, this is super risky."

But Lola just cried harder. She collapsed onto the hardwood floor in a heap of designer fabric, sobbing hysterically.

"Lola just wants to share true beauty with the world. Is it a crime to pursue art?"

Oliver couldn't take it anymore. He shoved Professor Harrison aside and wrapped his arms around Lola, pulling her into his chest.

"Back off, old man. Did Violet bribe you to come in here and terrorize us?"

Professor Harrison was so furious he couldn't even form words.

Oliver brutally cut him off, his face twisting with arrogance.

"Cut the crap. You just want to keep your precious admission stats high so you can get your corporate bonus."

"Lola is trying to save our artistic souls, and you just want us to be mindless exam robots."

"We are prodigies. Even if the pitch is a half-step flat, we will dominate those judges with our raw emotional power."

Fired up by Oliver's unhinged speech, the class's blind arrogance came roaring back.

"He's right. Those judges are ancient anyway. Their hearing is probably shot. What we are doing is called avant-garde styling."

"Violet definitely snitched to the professor because she knows we're going to outplay her. What a manipulative psycho."

Professor Harrison was shaking with a rage so intense his face was flushed crimson.

With the exam less than twelve hours away, he knew escalating this to security would result in a massive scandal that he couldn't control.

"Fine. Have it your way."

Professor Harrison snatched his clipboard and stormed toward the door, leaving them with one final, icy warning.

"Since you all think pitch is a joke, go ahead and see what happens tomorrow. Do not come crawling back to my office crying when reality hits you."

The second the door clicked shut, Oliver's true colors flared.

He lunged across the room, grabbing my jaw with a brutal, crushing grip.

"Did you enjoy the show, Violet?"

His fingers dug painfully into my cheeks. Tears involuntarily pricked the corners of my eyes from the sheer force.

"Tell me, did you slip the old man a text while we weren't looking?"

He tilted his head, his eyes burning with absolute, nauseating disgust.

"I am warning you. Drop the pathetic little schemes."

"Even if you complain to the president of the academy, it won't do a thing. Didn't you just see us run that old coward out of the room?"

"Don't think that just because you practice twenty hours a day, you can play savior and boss Lola around."

Lola stood up, dusting off her skirt. She wrapped her arms around Oliver's bicep and spoke in her saccharine voice.

"Oliver, don't be so mean to Violet."

"But you know... Lola feels like if we really want to promote this gentle aesthetic, just tuning this one room definitely isn't enough."

She turned her head, a flash of psychotic obsession gleaming in her eyes.

"Why don't we detune every single piano in the audition building? That way, every candidate in the state can experience Lola's beautiful aesthetic."

Her absurd, insane proposal plunged the noisy room into dead silence.

The students who had been cheering just moments ago suddenly looked conflicted and deeply terrified.

"Lola, messing with our own practice room is one thing, but if we mess with the official exam pianos... that's a massive federal-level academic crime."

"If they catch us on the security cameras, or if we get caught in the act, our lives are literally over. We'll be blacklisted forever."

A quiet girl in the back whispered, her voice trembling violently.

This was the state audition. It was the moment that decided their entire careers.

The atmosphere in the room turned suffocatingly tense as everyone mentally weighed the risks.

At that critical moment, Oliver shoved my face away and stepped up like a conquering hero.

"What are you all so afraid of? An exam this big has maintenance staff checking the rooms constantly."

"If we tune them down tonight, and they don't notice tomorrow morning, it proves the judges don't actually care about pitch. If they do notice, they'll just fix it before the exam starts."

He beat his chest, his voice echoing off the walls.

"We are doing this to help Lola achieve her ultimate artistic vision. We are going to give those rigid, boring judges the surprise of a lifetime. This is performance art."

Hearing his twisted logic, the crowd found their psychological safety net. Their hesitation vanished, replaced by a sick, fanatical fever.

"He's right. The judges aren't deaf. They'll definitely double-check the rooms."

"Let's go. Let's go bless the whole state with Lola's aesthetic. Let's show everyone what true art is."

"For Lola's dream. Let's go."

The entire class looked completely brainwashed. Cheering and screaming, they swarmed around Lola and Oliver, sprinting out of the room like a pack of rabid animals heading for the audition halls.