Disclaimer: I do NOT own Nodame Cantabile.
Comments: Hello…? This is my first Nodame fan fic, and second fan fic ever. Please tell me of any technical errors or suggestions to improve my writing. Thank you for reading, and enjoy!
[[YUUTO SEGAWA]]
"Yuuto-kun? Yuuto-kun! It's dinner time!"
He can hear his mother's high-pitched, irritating voice. He doesn't want to get disturbed. He is concentrating on reading the score of Petrouchka. He thinks. Stravinsky… a very ingenious man. He smiles lightly. He likes this piece. It's fun and dramatic. He feels like playing with puppets and toys when playing it.
"Yuuto-kun! You have to have dinner! Come out right now!"
His mother finally screams. He answers.
"Okay, I'll come."
He has to work hard… but first, he'll have dinner. He must win this Maradona Concour [Piano competition]. Megumi Noda is participating too. I can never lose her. Never. He reminds himself, heading to the dining hall.
Maybe it was inevitable. Meeting Megumi-chan again. Meeting her in front of the piano again. He disliked her for a long time… No, he absolutely detested that girl.
###
His mother first took him to Hanazakura-sensei's house when he was only four. Hanazakura-sensei was a very strict teacher, and Yuuto sometimes cried after lessons in toilet, shrunken and solitary in the pitch-black darkness. It wasn't that Yuuto disliked piano – in fact he absolutely loved it – it was just that sometimes, it was too hard.
However, Yuuto was a strong-willed boy. He practised with all his might. He didn't want to regret. He wanted to be a professional concert pianist. He loved playing. He loved performing.
One day, when Yuuto was 6 years old, Megumi Noda suddenly appeared in front of his life. "A pure genius", they called her. He didn't really care of what people said, since he was also used to hearing "he's fantastic" or "he's truly a talented student". However, one day, he ended up seeing everything. They were right. He was talented… maybe. But she was gifted from God. She was made to play the piano.
She was a technique-demon (for her age), with the most dazzling sound he ever heard. When she played, he just wanted to sit down, listen and cry, because it was so beautiful. At the same time, he became jealous. He was mad with jealousy. A green-eyed monster* he became whenever he listened to her.
As a hard-working and competitive pianist, Yuuto never lost to anyone before. But no matter how he tried, no matter how much he worked, it seemed just… impossible by human means to win against this Megumi girl. He asked himself: "Why is she better? What is so wrong with me, that I can't beat her no matter what? I'm trying ever so hard… but WHY is she better?!"
As a boy who just turned seven, he didn't know how to describe this kind of emotion. He was furious: he wanted to scream, sob, shout and blame someone else, all at the same time.
###
One day, his mother showed him a movie called "Amadeus" to him. It was about the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri… or should I say, the jealousy of Salieri over a prodigy? He cried several times watching the video. It was sad. It was so sad. It was exactly how he felt towards Megumi-chan. She didn't really notice much about him, whereas he was alert of every action of hers, aware of every piece she played.
###
It was soon after he saw this movie, that Megumi-chan started acting strange. She started skipping lessons, whenever possible. And occasionally, he even saw Hanazakura-sensei wildly chasing her. Whenever he saw her hiding from a lesson, he notified it to his mother, as if he wanted to hear "Megumi-chan is such a naughty girl for skipping lessons. Unlike her, Yuuto-kun is a hard-working, diligent boy."
He could see how piano lessons started becoming tortures to her. It was just like how he felt whenever listening to Megumi-chan. You can't breathe, you can't run away, you can't escape. It's like a nightmare. He snickered. Now you know at least how much pain you give me.
###
Yuuto still remembers this day.
He was waiting for a lesson at Hanazakura-sensei's house with his mother. Megumi-chan was having her lesson just before his, so he heard her playing.
She was playing Beethoven's 6th sonata. A bright and cheerful piece in F major. To this day, he can still hear it clearly. Cheerful first movement with lots of fun and giggles… beautiful and sorrowful melody of the second movement in F minor… and the funniest, most cunning of all, the mock-fugue third movement with voices sometimes in the right and sometimes in the left. It was good. It was incredible for such a young girl to play it so cutely. His mother gasped: "She can already play such difficult piece…"
Every time when Megumi-chan had her lesson before him, and he had to sit down and wait, listening to her playing, it was an agony, a torment. At her beautiful playing, he could only burn with jealousy and envy.
Suddenly, the music stopped. Hanazakura-sensei and Megumi-chan were having arguments. He wanted her to play legato. She wanted staccato. It sounded like that.
The argument continued to grow larger. And finally, he heard Hanazakura-sensei yelling "Why can't you play it how I tell you to?!" with a loud whacking noise. For a few seconds, there was a silence, Hanazakura-sensei's scream, someone rolling uncontrollably on the floor, and finally, a loud thud against the wall. Lastly, he all he heard was Hanazakura-sensei's scream, and Megumi-chan, crying, running away from sensei as fast as she could. Tears sparkled in the mid-air for a few micro-seconds, but he definitely saw it.
###
That was the last time he saw Megumi-chan. From that day on, he could concentrate on his piano again. That's how he ended up here. He worked profusely. He knew he wasn't a genius, but he worked like mad.
So it was a complete shock for him to see her in this Maradona Concour. He sighs.
"Mum, can I have some water?"
"Sure, Yuuto-kun," She says. "Do you want anything else?"
"I want it to be warm, but below 35 Celsius degrees."
"Okay, Yuuto-kun."
His mother is kind. Although she seems like a shallow woman, only liking 1st places, he knows that she isn't. Because all the time when he was disappointed or filled with self-hatred, she was always there, supportive, and believing in her son. He doesn't want to disappoint her.
She brings him the glass of water.
"Thanks, Mum." He said, and reminds himself again.
I'm not going to lose to her again. No matter what, no matter how.
*Green-eyed monster: (N) A feeling of jealous envy, especially of a rival.