Note: I actually only wrote this because I was listening to Icon for Hire's "Pop Culture", and certain lines sort of inspired me lol
The sound of the piano wafts across the street and drifts in through Tsubaki's window. This is nothing new. Kousei has been playing incessantly since Kaori's death. Tsubaki had been afraid he would stop again like he did after his mother's death, but this is almost worse.
The first days—weeks, even—had been soul-rending as the piano wailed out his agony to the world. Now the sound is detached, clinical, following the score as precisely as a metronome. His old playing, from before Kaori had breathed life back into it.
Tsubaki tries not to let her jealousy get in the way, but sometimes she can't help but resent Kaori for stealing Kousei's heart and then shattering it like glass.
And Tsubaki… Tsubaki, who has promised to stay by Kousei's side like a guardian angel, doesn't know what to do.
She looks back out the window for the millionth time at the house that is so close yet unreachably far away, hiding Kousei away from her within its walls. This time she sees Seto Hiroko hovering on the doorstep, listening to the mechanical beat.
Tsubaki's heart flutters in weak hope. Jumping to her feet, she rushes to throw open her door and call Kousei's mentor inside. Seto doesn't look good. Her face is pale and pinched with worry, and Tsubaki can see the older woman looking her over and making much the same assessment.
"Are you going to talk to him?" Tsubaki asks without preamble. Remembering her manners, she ushers her guest into the kitchen and busies herself making tea so that her fidgety hands have something to do.
"I'll have to try again, but…" Seto shakes her head. "That playing speaks for itself. I don't know that this is a good time…that there will ever be a 'good' time. Does he play frequently?"
Tsubaki grimaces and tilts her head as the notes from across the street tangle in her ears. "All the time. All day and all through the night. At first it was so heart-wrenching, but now it's so…"
"Perfect," Seto supplies. "He's following the score perfectly again."
"…Yeah." Tsubaki doesn't know enough about music to judge how technically perfect this is, but she doesn't doubt Seto. Even she can hear how detached it is, with none of the emotion of before. "Will he…? Do you think he'll be alright?"
Say yes. Please say yes.
"I…don't know. I remember how completely his mother's death devastated him."
"But he was doing so much better! Kao-chan made him so much stronger, and he's come so far."
It grates at Tsubaki's throat to praise Kaori so, the words burning like acid. But it's true, and it's unseemly to be so bitter towards a dead girl. And she is grudgingly grateful for everything Kaori did for Kousei…even if she wishes that it could have been her to bring him out into the light instead.
"Yes, she helped him a lot," Seto says grimly. "And now that she's gone, her loss will be even more devastating. But Kousei is a strong boy, even if he's fragile. It will take time, but he'll pull through."
Tsubaki hopes so. She glances back out the window. She desperately wants to go to him, but it isn't her that he loves, and she doesn't know how to compete with a ghost.
Across the street, Kousei sits frozen to the bench like a statue as his fingers fly across the keys. He can't remember the last time he left the piano. He hasn't slept in days or dreamt in nights. He has to stay here and play, but he can't find what he's looking for in the sound.
He doesn't think about Kaori, not really. Not anymore. At first, he did. Before she died, when he found out how ill she was, he had played for her. He had played to inspire her and give her hope and make her fight. Maybe he had even secretly hoped that if he just played well enough, she would get better. But that was a child's logic and he should have known better, because that hadn't saved his mother either.
It felt like he had just been counting down the minutes until her heartbeat stopped, always trying to fool himself into believing that things would work out.
And after, he had played like Orpheus, half-hoping that the intensity of his grief and longing hovering in the air could call her back. If he just played hard enough and poured out his feelings to the world and didn't look back, he could reach her.
But of course he had looked back, because how could he not look to the past?
So instead of playing how she taught him, he plays how his mother taught him. His mother's puppet, the human metronome.
The notes trap him back in the porcelain cage of the score, smoothing out all the grief and heartbreak he'd had to shout to the sky before. On and on, the droning beat of the metronome drowns out the boom, boom of his last hopes being shot down.
He doesn't want to think or feel, just play. The notes waver in and out of his hearing, but his hands know the keys. He knows the important music by heart, and his hands can play on autopilot. No thinking or feeling. Just the metronome droning on and on and on, drowning out his heartbreak beneath the steady, lifeless beat.
He moves seamlessly from Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star into Love's Sorrow, back and forth and back again.
He glances out the window for a brief moment, but the once colorful world has turned back to the gray of ash and he drops his gaze back to the porcelain keys, counting down the minutes until his heartbeat stops.