Kousei practiced in the evenings when the world was dark and still. No audience to please. No expectations to exceed. Just a boy, his thoughts and eighty-eight keys.
Nights had not been easy when his mother, Saki, was alive.
In some ways, she'd been like any other mother when he was young and untainted by loss. She kissed his skinned knees and worried about what he ate. Saki tucked Kousei in bed wishing him the sweetest of dreams. But then, she got sick, and her world pivoted.
There was no time for the ironic sunset hidden in Clair de Lune or the melancholy minor waves of Für Elise, overplayed as it was. Technical perfection and unrelenting faithfulness to the composer's intention became Saki's obsession as she drilled her child. Again and again, Kousei played robotic notes on a never-ending feedback loop. No out of sync beat or key signature violation evaded Saki's ever-present ear.
Those early nights were cold and long for Kousei. He played scared for his mother as she loomed behind him like a spectre at the feast. It took years for the young pianist to shake the feeling of being watched as he practiced in that same room, Saki's music room. It took longer for Kousei to feel his mother's warmth emanating from the chords of Love's Sorrow.
Saki's return gave him hope. If Kousei could reach through the veil to evoke the spirit of his mother, couldn't he do the same for Kaori? He had to find her in the music, see her again in his mind's eye like he did the day he'd lost her.
And so, Kousei practiced into the night, until his shoulders were heavy with tension and diffuse pain radiated toward his forearms. With reckless disregard, his fingers danced over the keys each evening, seeking communion. Kousei would search until he found Kaori, playing every piece the way she taught him: Freely, haughtily with disregard for convention.
Yet, Kaori remained elusive, and Hiroko grew concerned.
On this particular evening, the young musician found himself pounding out an especially staccato version of Brahms' Rhapsody Op. 79, No. 1 as he thought back to his lesson that afternoon. Hiroko admitted that she was surprised he managed to keep playing, as if Kaori's loss was like Saki's departure. The comparison angered Kousei. Nothing could be further from the truth, and this piece was all wrong for the mood.
Saki's death had almost stolen music from Kousei. Occasionally, he still struggled to hear the notes through the depths of his artistic necrosis, haunted by the reverberation of her harsh instruction. Through her final admonition, Saki drowned her son's passion, his desire to pursue his chosen art form.
But Kaori was more than the memory of a beautiful girl; she was a force of nature. From the moment she walked in to Kousei's dull life through her final days, she breathed light and color into the young pianist's atrophied soul. Kaori forced the musician in Kousei to rise to the surface and stand on the water that once consumed each and every note he played. In equal measure, Kaori's death had occasioned a tidal wave within Kousei, but he hadn't let the waters take him this time, not after all she had done to bring him back.
Kousei's life would never be perfect, and his playing, however good, couldn't heal a broken body. But he could play what he felt, just as he experienced it. He could dig deep within himself to find a silver lining every time the Gods demanded a sacrifice. And with that life experience, Kousei could reach out to others through his music. With any luck, his audience would reach back.
The night seemed to speak to Kousei, and without thinking, his hands found a familiar rhythm, not unlike a waltz: Chopin's Nocturne in E Flat Major, Op. 9 No. 2. His fingers sweetly brushed, rather than pressed, the keys. The melody blossomed with each repetition, becoming more ornate with swelling notes and trills. Kousei's tempo was changeable, malleable to the demands of his emotions. The pianist was all too aware that the piece was as short as it was sweet. How fitting.
Kousei reached out, and either from within his own being or the heavens, Kaori reached back, if only for an instant. He thought to ask her what he was supposed to do next. How could he keep her alive in his heart while making room in it for… someone else? How could he carry her with him always and shoulder the weight of new experiences?
What was it that she told him in her last letter? She was just passing through, that he was meant for someone else, someone who had been there all along, someone who would always be there for him… Tsubaki. Was it even fair to keep Tsubaki is his life when he couldn't reciprocate her affections, not yet anyway?
But Kousei didn't ask anything of the ethereal being that crossed his consciousness. The ephemeral Kaori of his mind's eye simply sat next to him on the small piano bench, her bare toes grazing the wooden floor. She leaned her head on Kousei shoulder as the final chords of the nocturne rang out. Kaori softly glowed with pride as she enjoyed Kousei's music, the hard-won result of her last labor. They didn't need words.
The prettiest smiles hide the darkest secrets. The kindest hearts feel the most pain. Kaori had tried so hard for him. In return, Kousei would keep her memory alive, while remembering to live for himself.