Music is everywhere. From the light to the air, from the air to the wind, from the wind to the tumbling snowflakes, from tumbling snowflakes to crying babies, from crying babies to car honks... It's all around us. All we have to do is open up ourselves to it and take it in. All we have to do is listen.
Simply listen to it and it will not escape your ears.
I look up the sky and close my eyes. Sitting on your house's rooftop surely does you good in relaxing, especially when snows touch your skin. I am lying on the cold rooftop, inhaling the chilly breeze.
Then there is the music again. His music. In my head.
I frown and cover my ears with my hands. "Stop, stop! Just please stop..." I mumble, my eyes squeezing tighter.
No matter how hard I press my hands into my ears it will never stop. It is in my head, and I seem to hate him now because of that.
When Tsukimori-kun left a year ago, I tried to stop myself from hearing music. My reason is pathetic and childish, I know, but as moments and days pass me by, my resolve in playing the violin falters and falters until it gradually disappeared.
But when I am alone...
"Music keeps building up inside of you even if you try to stop it with your hands." My eyes snap open and, with my hands still on my ears, I look up at the intervenor. "Music is in your head, but I heard you stopped playing. Do you mind enlightening me as to why?"
I can feel my heart leap up to my throat, creating a lump I can never seem to disregard. What is he doing here? Isn't he supposed to be in Vienna?
"It's been a while, Hino," says the boy who creates music even in the deepest and darkest nooks of my mind. Hovering me is Tsukimori-kun, in all his perceptible splendour.
A few months after Tsukimori-kun has left, I thought, I'll try playing again - maybe if he hears me, he'll know I am just here, and he'll find me.
But he never did. That is why the fact that his presence is right beside me now astonishes me beyond words. He looks so much more mature than he was the last time I saw of him. His cerulean-coloured hair is longer, fringes falling past his eyebrows. He is paler and he is...
"...Tsukimori-kun," I mutter out of surprise. I have grown accustomed to his lack of presence in my life in the past year that I do not heed any thing concerning him more than just a passing thought. I sit up, eye-contact with him not breaking. "You're... You're back! When - how - why... What... What brings you here? On my house's rooftop? With me?"
The last fragment came out as a whisper. I cannot formulate the right words to greet him - I cannot even say "Merry Christmas!" as I should have immediately said. He is back, and that is everything that goes on in my mind right now.
"Your mother told me you are up here," he says, still looking down at me.
I urge him to sit down beside me and he does, doing so with some bit of reluctance. The falling of snow has stopped, and somehow, I wish it has not. His gaze lingers on me - I cannot help but look back at him.
"Will it be better for you if I did not come up here and just leave you alone?" he asks, his stare turning towards the sky.
I angle my head towards him and look at him from the corners of my eyes. Like me, fog fastens together in his every breath, a product of the chilly night. I stare down at my gloved hands that are moistened by molten snow and with bitterness, I smile.
"Why are you here?" I ask instead. "Shouldn't you be reaching up to your dreams?"
After all, that is why I let you out of my life - to let your hands extend up to your star and reach it.
Tsukimori-kun turns to me. His face is void of any emotions and I cannot fathom why. But then again, he has always been like this - why should now be of any difference?
He looks away from me again and answers, "Because you gave me hope."
I think my heart has stopped beating. I do not know - butterflies overcome me and I cannot decipher what to answer or what to do. Hope? How and when did I ever give him hope?
- How Tsukimori Len gained his so-called hope -
Hino Kahoko vandalises on the sole table in one of the practise rooms through writing. He saw it upon his visit.
She writes:
Tsukimori-kun, please come home.
Tsukimori-kun, we miss you.
Tsukimori-kun, I miss you.
"There are notes I always hear," starts Tsukimori-kun. My body must have frozen over - not because of the season, but because of his words. "These notes... perhaps are the same notes I heard when we first met."
I continue staring at him, still grasping things. I cannot understand the reality that he is now sitting beside me. I cannot understand that he is speaking to me. I cannot understand that he says things I have never thought he would say.
I cannot grasp why I cannot understand this situation.
- Hino Kahoko's belief -
Comprehension is different from understanding.
When you comprehend, you come to grasp an idea.
When you understand... well, you do not merely grasp an idea,
you do something about it.
"Maybe that's how we also parted ways before, Hino," continues Tsukimori-kun. A ghost of a smile lingers on his lips. "Maybe that's how we will find ourselves together again."
"Then why is it that I can't hear music?" I ask, struggling to stand up. I almost slip down the sloped rooftop had it not been because of Tsukimori-kun's sudden clutch on my forearm. I smiled. "We found ourselves here, up the rooftop, together, talking, and whatnot. But see, Tsukimori-kun, there are no notes!"
I do not know what prompted the sudden burst of feelings, but they just did. It is like these mentioned feelings are bottled up for so long they needed to loosen up and free themselves.
"Then tell me, is that the reason why you stopped playing the violin?" he asks, now standing up himself. "Is it because you don't believe there are notes everywhere?"
Oh, I do, Tsukimori-kun. I do. I believe notes are everywhere, music is everywhere, but the problem is I cannot hear it. Because Tsukimori-kun, it is in my head, deafening my ears and shielding them from hearing outside music.
"You don't believe in music, the same way most people believe in fairy tales?" Tsukimori-kun continues to ask. My heart broke. "If you don't hear it - then clearly, you don't believe. And that gives you no right to play."
Does it?
As if on cue, music plays below us. I peek out and see the previous concours participants, even the graduates, in there - Tsuchiura-kun, Fuyuumi-chan, Shimizu-kun, Hihara-senpai, and Yunoki-senpai - playing with their instruments, with Tsuchiura-kun temporarily playing with a keyboard on a stand.
- The song of Christmas that night for Hino Kahoko -
Corelli's Concerti Grossi - also known as Christmas Concerto -
Concerto No. 8 in G Minor
I watch as they play their respective instruments, seemingly hundreds of varied white and red roses in front of them. Where have they gotten roses in winter?
They are looking up at me - at us - as though waiting for something. Then I see Tsuchiura-kun nod. The music ends.
"I used to talk to the moon," I tell Tsukimori-kun, watching below as the group from below comes inside the house. "I thought it talks back to me..."
Snow starts to fall and I shiver. I feel Tsukimori-kun shift beside me.
"...but it never does," I continue. "I used to talk to the violin, I felt like it talked to me back, but it never did. I used to talk to my violin tutor."
I pout at him. I smile at him. I blush in front of him. I embarrass myself in front of him. I am me when I am with him. He would scold me even in the simplest of mistakes, he would frown at me, he would use vile language on me, he would not loosen up when with me...
"Then I realise, he never does."
"I'm here," he equips.
"I know." I embrace myself and cock my head sideways. Snow piles up gradually on top of the musical instruments left behind outside, and so does with the roses. "But I can't hear your replies. Because everything that's in my head is your notes. And it's frustrating."
I hunch my shoulders when all Tsukimori-kun does is bore holes into my back.
Footsteps reverberate around within the area and I look over my shoulders. Standing behind Tsukimori-kun and me are Tsuchiura-kun and the others, bottles of drinks and plastic wares containing foods.
They are here, and I start to smile. It feels like I have not done smiling for so long a time.
"We're celebrating Christmas here, Hino," says Tsuchiura-kun, lifting up two bottles of soda in his hands. "Ten minutes before twelve now. But before everything else -"
I gawk as Yunoki-senpai steps over and says, "We have something to show you first. Ne, Tsukimori-kun?"
Tsukimori-kun is glaring down at everyone, as if there is some conspiracy between Yunoki-senpai and the others that Tsukimori-kun is aware of but does not consent.
"Aaand this may be... I don't know... just - just - just..." Hihara-senpai tries to say, but is apparently at loss of words.
"Just what?" I ask walking towards them, slightly sliding because the rooftop is rather slippery. Tsukimori-kun takes the liberty to balance me and I am flustered.
Hihara-senpai's eyes seem to flash a little. His face appears to be finally enlightened of something, and a grin breaks into his lips. He cocks his head and does a peace hand sign.
"Just a secret soon to be revealed," he answers.
I laugh. "Guys, come on, I can't wait for the food!" I say. I keep on the smiling face, watching as they formed one line. Each of them delves into their pocket to pick up something - a piece of paper.
Shimizu-kun, who is in front, unfolds the paper and shows it to me.
Volim te.
"Volim te, Kaho-senpai," says Shimizu-kun, eyes droopy, but body seemingly active. "Someone... wants to... tell you that."
Smiling, yet utterly confused, I manage a small "Oh."
Shimizu-kun walks away and Fuyuumi-chan, blushing, comes to view. In her hand was another piece of paper, nearly crumpled from constant fidgeting, and she opens her mouth to speak.
"Kaho-senpai," she says, "You - You see the n-nine hundred ninety-nine ro-roses down below?"
My eyes widen in astonishment. "Nine hundred ninety-nine?"
Almost one thousand.
"Y-Yes. Nine hundred n-ninety-nine roses mean everlasting and eternal love."
Then Fuyuumi-chan lifts up the sheet of paper with her and shows me what is written. I cannot understand a single thing.
Jag älskar dig.
It has gone on and one, with every one of my friends. Different words, different languages, but I am not certain if different meanings. It is almost drives me anxious.
With Hihara-senpai are the words Ya lublu tebya. With Yunoki-senpai is the statement Te iubesc.
Next to him is Tsuchiura-kun.
"You see, there is a coward here, Hino," he tells me while unfolding the paper with him. He lifts it up and shows me the words Ich liebe dich.
"Coward?" I ask. "Who?"
Then Tsukimori-kun steps in, his face crumpled into a frown. He seems not to want to do this. He seems not to care. I am astonished the moment he unfolds the paper and shoves it into me.
I read it.
"I..." I can feel the voice stuck in my throat. I look up at Tsukimori-kun and notice that my friends are hopping down to the window sill of my room.
Before Tsuchiura-kun can enter my room through my window, he says, "You're aware that I am rooting for the two of you, aren't you? Even if that guy's a bastard?"
I blushed.
Silence. Somehow, the notes stuck in my head make their way into the outside world, mixing with the air, the wind, the falling softness of snow, the loud voices of my friends below me and Tsukimori-kun...
Tsukimori-kun.
I can merely smile up at him and say, "Merry Christmas, Tsukimori-kun."
Seeming to take my greeting as an anwer, he says, "Happy Christmas."
- Somewhere inside the house -
The grandfather clock rings around the house twelve times.
The next day, Tsukimori-kun visits again. I take it as the perfect moment to ask him a question that bugged me since last night.
"Tsukimori-kun?" I call out, playing with one of the roses brought to my home last night. We have had so much fun celebrating Christmas, especially since I am able to find out something I did not know I want.
"Hn?"
"Where did these roses come from?" I ask. My face reddens when I remember the language beyond these nine hundred ninety-nine roses forcefully filled into my room by my idiotic friends.
I hope that the language of these roses equals to reality.
"Imported from a tropical country, of course."
Embarrassed from asking, I nod sagely, "Of course."
- A fact that continually amazes Hino Kahoko -
The words written on every paper that was with her friends mean one thing.
"I love you."
Tsukimori Len loves her.
This fact is more than music itself.
Authoress' Notes: Merry Christmas! Review? :) And if it is not clear enough, the previous concours participants force Len to confess, but he did not want. They simply took the liberty to take the first step. The second step came from Len himself – the roses.:)
Inspired by: August Rush, starring Freddie Highmore, Keri Russel, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. :)