The Burden In March

Towa Hall, Nerima Culture Center, Tokyo, Japan. 3:35pm.

"There's no point, is there…?"

I sit in the white corridor just mere meters away from the stage's side entrance, on one of the cushioned black and silver chairs leaned on the right side of the wall, clenching both of my pigtails. My violin rests on my white-material lap, like a boat in front of the waterfall which was my face. I can see the tears hitting the edge of my black rimmed glasses, slumping to one side to fall to the ground while some of the remnants stay inside, filling the lens like a puddle. My eyes were red from the nonstop crying that's been going on for the past hour, after I had went to see him.

Dammit, I shouldn't be doing this. My opening is in literally a few minutes, and I'm sat here like a child that's lost their mom at the mall. I can't be doing this. I CAN'T.

I sniffle, the rush of water being heard from my nose as I tilt my head up slightly and put my hands under my chin, releasing the tight grip from my hair and covering my mouth in a cup, the river of fluid now going down my digits like a waterfall.

I don't want you to die. I really, really don't want you to die. For the past year, you've been so distant away from me, like you thought I was an elephant in the room, but that really wasn't the case, was it Kousei? No, you wouldn't have been so… I don't know! Clenchy towards me. You WANTED me there, but you acted all so quiet and polite. So tell me, Kousei Arima…

For the past eleven months, why the hell have you constantly tried, and admittedly, you are, to be the greatest friend I could possibly have?

"Hey, you okay?"

I quickly took my glasses off with one hand, wiping my eyes with my naked right arm, and looked at the blurry image of the boy standing next to me in the middle of the corridor, my eyes narrowing.

I feel like I've seen him somewhere. He sure has taste with that hair, that's for sure.

I put my glasses on again with both of my hands this time, steadying it on the bridge of my nose, connected to my ears. I got a pretty good look at him now.

Oh. It's that kid. What's his name again? Takeshi?

"Kaori Miyazono, right? What's the matter?"

"It's… It's nothing." I blinked twice, my eyes still red from the painful wail. I shift over to my left, politely offering him a seat.

"Thanks." He sat next to me, his posture a little calm but one could tell that he was obviously nervous from all the music and the audience's murmurs from outside. He looks at me, a little wary of why I've been crying for the past few minutes. "So you're just crying for nothing, then?"

I lean over, my elbows hitting my knees fall down, my face facing my white heels on the floor. My eyes begin to shut, stopping halfway, sad.

I don't want to be reminded. I'll start crying again.

"...It's my friend… He's undergoing surgery and I'm… Scared."

He tilts his head to his left as he looks at me closely. "Scared?"

I lower my head even more, a single gulp heard from my throat. "Scared that he might.."

...Die…

"Hey, it's okay. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

"But this person is special to me. Special in a lot of ways."

"Like…?"

"He's… Actually the reason why I'm here right now. When I was little, I went to a piano competition. There was a boy who you could tell, was so new to the world of music, yet he was trained for it his whole life. Heck, he… Accidentally knocked over his chair." I chuckle, sniffing a little, trying to ease up.

"But once his fingers felt the keys of the piano, I felt like connected. Not just to music, but to him on a personal level. He was incredibly talented, and he could make me see what music can create. The world, filled with colour and love, all came from that one little boy."

Takeshi seemed to be a hell of a lot more interested now, scooting over a little and lowering his head so he can see my face from below. "He was that good? What was his name?"

"...His name is Kousei Arima. And I love him." I managed to crack a small, but depressed smile. His eyes and his mouth widened, almost shocked. To be honest, I think he knew exactly who it was, but I didn't have enough time to enquire why, either. I then hear a creak on my left, seeing a man come out of the entrance of the stage with a board in his hand and a headset on his skull. He cleared his throat and without even bothering to look at me, he announced:

"Kaori Miyazono! Please proceed to the stage!"

I stand up while I hold the violin in my hands and tighten my fists, attempting to hold myself together for this one, last song. I breathe in, and I exhale, my eyes closing as the wind escaped my mouth. I look down from my right and nod at Takeshi, right before I turn. "Thanks for the talk, Takeshi. That really helped."

Before he could say anything else that could distract me from what I'm about to do, I quickly head into the doorway, the stage lights colouring the floor gold from across the deck while I'm in the darkness of the curtains on the side.

Huh. That's actually kind of symbolizing. The world being bright and colourful while I'm stuck in the darkness, feeling like crap.

I sigh, putting my attention towards the black piano in front of me. I shouldn't be wasting time like this, but… Goddammit. I can't stop thinking about him. The silence of the entire stadium was broken when my heels tapped the floor with each step that I took towards the seat, slowly coming into the audience's view. I didn't bother to look at them, it was customary. But I could tell they were all looking at me, and my ears absorbed the comments I was getting as I walked to my chair.

'...Kaori Miyazono…' '...Her dress looks creased…' '...Stand up straight, girl...!' '...Has she been crying…?'

Oh. Well, I'm sorry that my friend is in the hospital, taking something that could potentially end his life earlier than what it's already getting to.

I don't think I noticed this at first, but I think the world around me began to slow when I was walking to the piano, like as if I was walking super slow and the audience decided to oblige to my pace.

...He's been through… So much in his life. He can't give up. As much as how quiet he is, deep down, he's been fighting for his life. He's been so alone. Sure, there's his father, but where the hell was he when his mother beat the crap out of him? Or how he's lying there right now in that bed, waiting for the oxygen? Oh yeah, on 'business trips'. Deadbeat.

Kousei Arima, when I come back and I see you there, all better, I'm… I'm not going to let you be alone anymore. I promise you that. I won't leave you.

I turn to the audience in a 90 degree angle as soon as I reached the piano, bowing to my spectators in respect, greeting them; not as a human being, but as a violinist. The stage lights illuminated my body like a trophy, along with the stage.

/

"Elohim, Essaim, Elohim, Essaim."

"What?"

We were on the top floor of the hospital, namely the roof. It was currently the cold month of February, which was surprising, considering Tokyo's yearly snowfall ends at the end of January. I was leaning over on the balcony, hanging my head on top of the railings to look out into the city, which had a clear layer of mist halfway up the skyscrapers. It was almost beautiful. I looked back towards the pianist, who was quietly sitting on a chair comfortably, his hands on his knees. His hospital pyjamas were a cyan blue, which glowed a little in the snowy weather. He didn't seem to care about how his toes curled in the flakes below him. It was almost as if he was watching a stage play.

Was I the stage play?

"Elohim, Essaim. I think it means 'God Of Swarms', a Christian term."

I scoffed at him slightly, surprised at his religious phrase that popped out of nowhere. It sounded so… Poetic. "I never took you for a Christian."

He simply smiled back, shrugging his shoulders while his head tilted left, slightly. "I'm not. Watari gave me something to read while I was in hospital."

My smirk slowly turned into a polite smile, and I pushed myself off the railings, turning myself towards him, almost towering him with my somewhat tall stature. "Why did you just flat out say it?"

"I don't really know. I guess the words stuck to me." He used the strength of his upper body to shift himself to the left, offering a seat to me, patting it to brush off some of the snow to make sure my skirt didn't get wet.

I wish he would think for himself and stop caring, sometimes. I guess that's just the way he is.

Nodding, I relaxed myself next to him, taking almost the same kind of position he was in. I turned my head towards the right so meet his face, the steam of my breath being released into the cold air. "Maybe it's a saying for something. Swarms spread, right?"

"And they come from a single source from many. Like…?"

"Like music!" I exclaimed, smiling at him and understanding the true meaning behind what he was trying to imply.

"Exactly. Music empowers all who listen to it. If they were kind enough to stay there and listen to it from start to finish, that music will live in their hearts forever." He closed his eyes, sighing softly. "And that means the musician themselves will love in their hearts, too."

I tilt my head in suspicion, now having more questions rather than answers. "What are you trying to tell me?"

"I'm going to try some form of surgery soon. I don't want this to end, Kaori, even though I know it will, eventually. I want to play with you one last time, either on that stage, or in my house or yours, I don't care. But…"

"...But?" I asked him slowly, my mouth open slightly from the sudden news that was just told to me.

Surgery? More time? Kousei, I know you're dying, and I know you're becoming desperate to do everything before you're gone, but… Me? Why do you want to play with ME, again? I've done so much to you. I've hit you, made you buy canales for me, and before I even knew you were sicker than what I thought, I made you ride that bike with me behind, and you looked… Weak. You looked like you were becoming peaceful, when you seemingly had no reason to?

...Why don't you hate me?

"The operation has… A lot of risks involved. And if it goes the wrong way, I might have less time rather than what I have now. Or maybe time taken away from me completely." He gave me a sorrowful expression, seeing that what he's just told me is going to take a toll in the next few hours, or days.

"Kousei, what you're saying is just you providing me an excuse as to why you want to live. If you want to live, do it for your family." I told him straight that he needed to live because of more than just me. A single person cannot influence those that know they don't have that much left to lose…

...Can they?

"Kaori…" He puffed in the cold air, looking down at the pristine, clean floor tiles, at the here and there cracks. "I don't even know what a family feels like anymore. I…" He inhaled deeply, and exhaled, preparing for a speech that if he goes on for too long, might actually hurt his chest, considering his illness. I didn't even know what the hell he was sick FROM, I just cared enough to wonder if that could happen to him.

"...When I was five, my mother's teacher saw me playing the piano. She looked at me, like as if she had saw something that she hadn't a long time ago. She told my mother she should teach me, because she thought that I could have the potential to be a lot like her. Maybe even better. She taught me to be kind to the piano. That if I played it roughly, it would become angry, but if I played it softly and calmly, it would sooth it. And then she… Became sick."

"Sick? Like, mental sick, or ill sick, or emotionally..?"

He gulped, regressing through his memories. Some hurt him, some calmed him. It looked like he was almost on a tipping point in his thoughts.

"...All of those. She found out she was dying. She couldn't control her legs anymore, so she wound up in a wheelchair. She was okay at first, but I think she started to realize that I wasn't getting any faster the way she taught me, so she… Started beating me. She wouldn't let me go to bed unless I memorized every single note on a music sheet. And whenever I made a mistake, she-"

I put a hand on his shoulder, realizing where this was headed, and I absolutely implored him to stop. I didn't want him to feel like that, not now. But something also told me that he wasn't going to back down now. "Please, you… You don't need to say anything you don't want to, Kousei. Please-"

"No, no! It's… It's okay. This is something I had to deal with my whole life, so it's not something hard to deal with. She… She left marks on my arms and back…" He lifted his sleeve up slightly, and a line of pink scarring on his flesh. It looked old and worn in, but… Dammit. He wasn't joking. Not that I assumed that he did of course, he's usually serious about these sorts of things.

God… That's horrible. I can't believe he didn't tell me…

He attempted to let out a chuckle as his sleeve lowered, instead, hacking out a cough. He covered his mouth politely, while his other hand clenched the silky material on his chest.

"...I tried to do right by her, you know…?" He looked to the floor, his eyes gray and not showing any signs of reflection of the floor. "A little boy that tried to make his mother love him as much as she could. And when he failed, he kept on fighting." He sighed. "I don't even know why I didn't go to Hiroko when she started beating me, or even the police…"

He was cut short when he felt a hand on his leg. He looked to his right to see me almost inches away from his face. His entire body suddenly went limp when I scooted over and brought him in for a hug, my arms wrapped around him as hard as I could. Kousei couldn't see what I had on my face, but he definitely knew it was there. It was sadness, culminated from his imagination of years of having to go through hell, time and time again, just to make some woman 'Happy'?

"Just stop it! Just… Stop fighting!"

Kousei was surprised at what I said. I could hear a slight release of wind from his mouth, I couldn't tell if it was from the shock or the crash from my body. I grabbed onto him even harder, trying to further emphasize my point.

"Listen to me! You have no right to blame yourself over anything, because you haven't done anything wrong! Nothing! You were just a little boy trying his best to numb his pain, not for you, but for her! She has no justification over what she did! You knew that, but you did it anyway!" A crystalline waterfall began to drop down my eyes as hard as they would. I sniffled, both from the cold air and the whirlwind of anger and sombreness.

"Because that's the kind of person you are, Kousei! You're the most awesome person I've ever met! Even when everything starts to fall apart, you always try to put people first! You're generous- You bought me canales with what should've been your lunch money! When my partner was sick during the competition? You decided to walk on stage with me without a second thought, and sure, we didn't win, but you didn't care! You WANTED to play with me, regardless! You… Out of all the people at school, you asked me if you wanted to be my friend…"

"We… We never got on at first, sure, but that's because you were always so quiet. Then I began to see who you really were…"

He saw my face when I retracted back, he could now see the emotions behind my glasses.

"You're my best friend…"

...If that was the truth…

Kousei's eyes tilted to where my collarbone should be, and he went silent for almost half a minute. I began to wonder in that short span of time. Did he feel the same way? Not about the whole best friend thing, but… How I really felt.

"...If I was in your shoes… Would you be the same way?" I grossly hinted at what I was feeling behind my lies, but I don't think he got it. He touched my fingers with his, and I looked at him, puzzled. Slowly, they both rose up together, and our hands were connected, almost perfectly in symmetry. My mouth went agape. I didn't mind that he was touching my hand, I was wondering as to why he was. He's done things like this before. I didn't understand it at first, but then I realized that there was a bit of symbolism behind all of it.

What are you trying to tell me, Kousei… Please… Just say it.

"Of course I would. No matter when, where, or how. I'll always be there for you."

I smiled at him, sniffing slightly and chuckling. I didn't bother to tell him thanks, he already knew I was. I sighed and looked at the gray sky, tiny snowdrops touching our skin. "We better put you back to bed. I'm surprised that the staff even let us go out in this weather." Kousei then opened his legs, awaiting transportation via piggyback ride, the goof.

"Come on. I'll walk you home." I smiled.