A/N: I often mention my little sister (SkyTurtle) in these notes, but one thing I don't think I've mentioned yet is that she's a bit of a Lolita. Well, she is, and one day she found a little flick called Kamikaze Girls, and I fell in love with it. So of course I had to write a fic for it, right? It's not like I have ideas for more KG fics slowly baking in my brain or anything… right…?

Betas: SkyTurtle

Music:
Chopin's Nocturne, #'s 2, 3, 12 and 18

Disclaimer: I do not own Kamikaze Girls, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

…

Piano

Raven Ehtar

…

"Hey! Momoko! You ready yet?!"

The girl poked her head out from an upstairs window – her bedroom – her head uncovered and a scowl on her pretty face. Ichiko lowered her hands from her mouth where she'd put them, preparatory to bellowing up at her again, and grinned widely at her. The smile only made Momoko's frown deeper.

"Stop making such a racket," she scolded, her curls bouncing. "I'll be down in a few minutes."

"How long could it possibly take to get dressed?" the Yanki girl complained up at her petulantly, and plucked at her own dusty overalls as an example, knowing that it would annoy the finicky Lolita.

She gave Ichiko's clothes a long, distasteful look that made her fidget uncomfortably. When she looked back up into her face Momoko raised a delicate eyebrow and said, with all the haughtiness of a fine court lady addressing the common rabble in the street, "One cannot rush art. Dressing well is an art if one cares to make the effort. Why don't you… play with grandmother's Honda?" she suggested, then promptly disappeared back inside, only her curtains left outside to wave at Ichiko's upturned face.

Ichiko pulled a face up at her friend, which went completely unseen, of course, and sighed. It was her own fault for showing up earlier than she said she would. It was to be expected that Momoko wouldn't be ready to have yet. She barely made it to a lot of their engagements on time, early was unheard of. And all for her girly as hell froufrou dresses. It seemed like such a waste to put so much effort into those kinds of dresses when they lived surrounded by paddies and livestock. Who was there to appreciate her hard work? But then, Ichiko could hardly condemn her hobby, because it was more than a hobby – it was a part of Momoko's identity. It was who she was, and Ichiko could respect that.

Even if she couldn't understand her tastes.

Sighing, Ichiko decided to follow part of Momoko's advice: she would seek out the elderly ex-Yakuza woman that was Momoko's grandmother. She was usually good fun to chat with, more along the lines of her own temperament than her Lolita granddaughter, and chatting with her provided the handy excuse to get inside, out of the sun that was beating down mercilessly on her head. She was so not a hat person, but in the summer she was almost willing to make the switch to those wide brimmed straw things only old people ever wore.

'Grandmother' wasn't anywhere to be found, and didn't respond to her shouted calls when she walked through the front rooms in stocking feet. Ichiko wasn't bothered, the old girl was probably making one of her strolls down to the local convenience store for one of her favorite sweets or drinks. She had spent enough time here and was so welcomed by the whole family that Ichiko felt perfectly comfortable in the house without needing someone to keep her company while she waited for Momoko.

It was an odd house, a nice, typical and traditionally Japanese home one might find in the more rural areas in their corner of the world, and owned by Grandmother. So it possessed those features one might expect from an elderly woman living in a farming community, surrounded by the collected odds and ends of a long life. But those odds and ends reflected her varied life very well, and much of it did not jive at all with the 'grandmother homemaker' vibe that the building itself and the area tried to convey. Then of course there was the overlay that her son, Momoko's father, had added on joining the household. There were plenty of little examples of his past merchandise, cheap knockoffs and imitations ranging in quality and many family photographs featuring much younger versions of Momoko being held by a proud and beaming father.

When Ichiko had still been new to the house she had liked to go from photograph to photograph, peering closely at each and every little framed portrayal of a young Momoko, curious what a young version of the already child-like teen would look like. She'd soon tired of the exercise, however, and become slightly disturbed by them when she came to realize that in none of them was the child Momoko smiling, or even looking particularly happy. Always staring straight into the camera, her lips drawn into a little frown, whatever else was going on around her or whatever silly faces or contortions her father was doing right beside her. If anything, she looked less like a child then than she did now. At least now her clothes contrived to pull it off even if her face did not.

It just sort of underscored how friendless she had been her whole life – happily so, she continued to claim fervently – and part of why Ichiko had been so determined to win her friendship.

And the final layer to the house personality came from Momoko herself, and it was very frilly and girlish, all delicate laces and flounces and the occasional piece of embroidery that Ichiko was learning to recognize as Momoko's own delicate work. There was so much that was fine and sweet and innocent that it was hard to believe that it all came from a girl who was, so hard, cold and cynical herself. She loved everything that was beautiful and refined, true, and Ichiko could understand that well enough. It wasn't her own taste at all, but she could understand it perfectly. It was when Momoko tried to make herself out to be some kind of delicate flower, all sweetness and light, when she patently wasn't, and knew she wasn't that Ichiko got a little lost. But it made Momoko happy, which she supposed was the entire point.

And it gave the house its final touch of just randomly weird. Ichiko loved it, really. So different from her own home with her parents that tried hard to look like the photo of a magazine, everything matching perfectly. This place was a chaos of theme and detail that somehow seemed to pull together despite its disparate parts. It was a home that had grown up around the people living in it, an extension of them, not something put together. She felt immensely comfortable whenever she visited, and was only made to feel more so by the father and grandmother of the house, who seemed to look on her as another daughter / granddaughter instead of a Yanki intruder. Hell, being a Yanki probably helped the acceptance along in this house.

Ichiko wandered about, feeling at home as she waited for her friend to finish her primping and come downstairs. With no one keeping an eye on her, she wandered a little more freely than she had allowed herself to before, poking into drawers and opening random doors to see what lay beyond them. For the most part this resulted in nothing particularly interesting, and nothing that she felt very guilty for having espied.

Then she came to a door that, from its placement and appearance of neglect, she assumed was a little used closet. When she slid the door open, however, she found that it was a moderately sized room, a sitting room or possibly a spare bedroom, that they had taken to using as a storeroom. Boxes were stacked along two of the walls and up high in the corners, a chest of drawers and display cabinet that appeared to be stuffed quite full of knick knacks was along another, and the whole room seemed full of random odds and ends. Stacks old magazines, a dress form, old board games, the various and sundry that collects in every home. Ichiko walked in, a little mesmerized in her boredom, and discovered something rather unexpected buried under the rest of the detritus of the storeroom. A piano.

Ichiko stared. She knew that she shouldn't be surprised, that in such a house of mixed tastes and talents she could find anything in its rooms, but this did surprise her. Momoko would be her first guess as to who would be the family musician, but she had never mentioned being able to play so much as a recorder, much less a piano. Perhaps it had been a hobby of Grandmother? That might explain why it had been banished to a storeroom to be buried and forgotten. People often moved from one hobby to the next without looking back, but still wanting to retain something physical of the memory. So they would keep the instrument instead of selling it, and store it away out of sight. It was nostalgic without the inconvenience of being constantly reminded.

Still, it was sad to see the elegant thing abandoned and buried like this. Moving a few stray books and papers, Ichiko lifted the cover over the keys and ran a finger along the ivories without depressing any of them. It had been a long time since she had played the piano herself, her own memories on the subject she preferred to forget. The time when she had played the piano regularly had been a time when she had been a nerdy pushover, before she had had her chance meeting with Akimi and changed her life. She hadn't played since then, and for all intents and purposes liked to pretend that she couldn't play at all. She didn't spread that little piece of information around, as it was very un-Yanki-like.

And yet still, standing beside this grand, Ichiko was overwhelmed with a sudden urge to play again, to dust off those long disused skills and feel the music.

Ichiko looked around, first towards the door to make sure no one had wandered close as she inspected the piano, and then around the instrument for any sheets of music. There were a few, all of them classical pieces – Chopin, in fact – and Ichiko groaned. Classical music wasn't her forte. She was more at home with modern ditties, the perky things that bounced along and you could play to a room full of kids to get them all singing. She was a little out of her depth with the music of the old masters.

Still, she wasn't completely lost with these sheets. Her mother had insisted she learn classic as well as popular pieces, and she did want to play…

She found the set of sheets that she was the most familiar with: Chopin's Nocturne, number two, spread it out on the stand and sat down. After a moment of examining the notes and running her fingers along the keys, familiarizing and re-familiarizing herself with both, Ichiko began playing.

The piano was surprisingly still well-tuned considering how long it appeared to have lain forgotten, but her own playing left quite a bit to be desired. The notes were uneven and her fingers out of training, she would hit multiple notes when she meant only one, making the whole thing sound clunky, like a cat walking across the keys. Ichiko grit her teeth and kept playing. She couldn't expect to sound as good as she had been since the last time she played, and even then she had been far from an excellent pianist. But since she had begun she was determined to finish the piece as well.

Her tenacity began to pay off about halfway through the sheet. Her timing smoothed out, the flubbed notes became fewer and she felt more like she was playing the music and less like she was fighting it. It felt rather good, and she finished with a proud little flourish.

Then she nearly swallowed her own tongue when she heard a step by the door, quickly followed by a familiar voice piping cheerfully, "That sounded pretty good, father. It's been a long time since you've practiced, what made you…?"

Ichiko swiveled around in the smooth wooden seat guiltily about the same time that Momoko came around the edge of the door and halted, surprised at the sight of her friend sitting at a piano that apparently no one had touched in a long time. Momoko was dressed all in incredibly flouncy blue, complete with a bonnet and high white socks and heeled shoes, but it was her wide eyed expression that arrested her attention. Ichiko felt herself blushing, both from embarrassment at being caught in a place where she could quite conceivably be trespassing, and at being caught playing piano, something she had wanted to avoid anyone seeing. Of course Momoko knew she could play, Ichiko had told her as much herself, but it was different being heard than her friend just knowing she could play. She scowled at Momoko in her embarrassment, hoping it drew attention away from her blush.

Momoko grinned at her, not put off by the scowl and recognizing the pink on her cheeks for what it was. "That was beautiful, Ichigo," she said, deliberately using her less favored name. "I've never heard you play before, you're much better than you let on."

"Oh, shut up," Ichiko snapped irritably, more embarrassed than ever. "I'm not that good, and it doesn't matter, anyway. Playing piano, it's stupid."

"But playing music, and Chopin!" Momoko had clasped her hands rapturously, a familiar starry expression coming into her eyes. Ichiko's flush deepened, but it came this time from a feeling of flattery, a little swelling in her heart when she saw how impressed Momoko was with her tiny bit of playing. She wondered what Momoko would think if she were really in practice and played some of her favorite pieces, just for her…?

She shook her head, clearing away the foolish thoughts and replied in her bluffest voice, "So what? It's just music, once you know how to play its nothing special. Might as well just buy CDs." She shut the cover over the keys with a loud, final snap.

Momoko huffed at her with distaste, her look of nirvana melting away to the much more familiar expression of irritation. "You could try and be a little less gruff, you know."

"And you could try to be a little less sugar spun."

"What is so wrong with being able to play music? Don't you like it?"

Ichiko shrugged, trying for nonchalance. Actually she did like to play the piano, very much, but it was so outside the persona she wore that it was a pleasure she felt obligated to give up. At least to appearances.

Momoko huffed again, crossing her arms over her chest. "Well, I think you play very well, and from now on when you visit you will have to play for me."

"What? Says who?"

"Says me," she said smugly. "And I am the lady of the house. My word stands."

"Can't make me," Ichiko argued, though there wasn't much heart in it. "I just won't visit anymore."

Momoko's eyes flashed, she looked at her slyly. "And miss all the time talking with Grandmother? You know she likes you so much I think she might be considering giving you her Honda…"

That had her attention immediately. "You what? Did she seriously say that, Momoko?"

She grinned. "If you stop coming over, then she may forget all about you and give it away to someone else. Or sell it."

Ichiko knew damn well she was being baited, Momoko using any excuse she could think of to keep her coming to the house faithfully, where she could then force her to play the piano for her. It was a rather poor play, but then Ichiko wasn't looking to be convinced so much as given an excuse to come without seeming to have agreed to something so un-Yanki as playing tunes for her on the piano. She growled for the sake of appearances and glared a little bit up at the Lolita. "And my lady would insist I play her melodies whenever I came to her parlor?"

"That's right," she said, then bent down to plant a small kiss on her cheek. Ichiko felt herself blush all the way up to the roots of her hair at the unexpected little caress. "And I'll be hunting up plenty of little tunes for you to try your fingers on," she promised.

"Fine, fine," Ichiko said impatiently, hoping Momoko hadn't noticed the blush. When she stood, though, she offered out her elbow like a gentleman. "Shall we go, milady?"

Momoko rolled her eyes, but took the proffered arm readily enough and with a smile.

…

A/N2: So, I wrote this before I read the novel. As a result I made a couple assumptions and guesses on background that have since proved to be completely wrong. It doesn't really impact the story too much since it's so short, but just so everyone knows, yeah, I know I muffed up on some details. Won't happen next time. ;)

Thanks for reading, lovelies!