Sonata
Kinomoto Touya reached for the piano bench and with a deft jerk of his hand, pulled it far enough from the large, dusty instrument so that he could sit. With steady hands, he opened the piano cover, and rested his fingers on the keys.
He had always loved the piano and had played it frequently with his mother as a child – and even into recent years, he'd continued to play, long after his mother's passing. It was one of the few possessions of hers that he had adamantly insisted his father not give away, and it was one of the few ways he still felt some connection to her spirit and memory, now that his magic was gone. She had loved this piano and it was one of the few possessions that she had brought with her into her marriage to his father. It hadn't seemed right, or fair, to get rid of it, and so Fujitaka had acquiesced to his young son's quiet demand that it stay. And so the old piano had remained, taking up residence in a quiet, almost forgotten corner of the basement.
Tonight, Touya was alone with his sister, and she had fallen asleep some time earlier. And so, he figured, it was as good a time as any to dust off the ancient piano, and let it see some use. He played the piano less frequently these days, with little time left for leisure between studies and sleep. He relished the few moments he got to himself to go back to what small measure of childhood he'd had, and to lose himself in fleeting moments of nostalgia, as fingers deftly moved over keys, his focus solely on the music emanating from the piano. When he played, the larger worries of his world seemed to drift to some remote place, fuzzy and temporarily out of focus, and provided him with a small measure of reprieve.
He moved his fingers over the keys, testing a few of them carefully. A soft, relieved smile lit his face as he realized that despite years of relative lack of use that it was still in tune. He closed his eyes, and started to play a tune from a long-distant memory – he couldn't precisely remember where he had heard it, but he focused on the sound of the chords, allowing his hands to walk across the keyboard, following the song progression from memory. The moment was less about the perfection of playing from a piece of sheet music, and more about the feeling associated with playing – and so he allowed his hands to wander across the keyboard, unhindered by the constraints of playing from a deliberately chosen piece.
He smiled, as a childhood memory surfaced – unbidden but comfortably warm. He remembered his mother, her soft, contented smile, and the way she had moved, swaying in time to the music she played, and the subtle movements of her feet as she tapped them up and down in time to the music, setting rhythm to the song. He remembered her voice, humming or singing along with the music she played, and the delight she expressed when a much younger and less composed Touya clambered onto the piano bench and attempted to play along with her. She had always loved those moments between mother and son, and he had basked in the warmth of her enthusiasm in teaching him the skill and theory, of quarter-notes, rests, and repeats, of playing mezzopiano. In those moments, it hadn't mattered that she was sick, that she was slipping away – all that had mattered was the music, the feeling of safety, and the warm embrace of a teacher who loved her craft, and a mother who loved her son.
He supposed that music had been a part of her, as much as it was a part of him – an expression of truth; of emotions laid bare when words couldn't quite express them.
He briefly wondered if she was still around, watching and listening. When he had given up his power to Yue, he'd lost the tenuous connection he'd still had to her, her presence in his life dwindling to the minutia of the old photographs of her that remained throughout the house – her modeling photos, the handful of family photographs that had been taken between Sakura's birth and her passing, and his memories, which were becoming fuzzier and less defined as time passed.
He wondered if she had finally passed on, knowing that her family was going to be okay without her.
That thought sent a pang of regret through him. He didn't want to forget her – however, he supposed, that time, in its steady and incessant wave, began to wash over those memories and in the same way that the pain of loss was eased with time, so too were memories faded, like old photographs. The memories were still clear enough to invoke feelings of the unquestioning love between parent and child; of longing for something he missed, but distant enough so that the pain of loss and the regret of things that had not come to pass were less than they had once been, replaced instead with the wistful nostalgia of a child who wished his mother could see what he had become.
His fingers came to rest on the keyboard and he gave the piano a wan smile, before looking up to glance at an old portrait of his mother hanging above the piano.
"I miss you, mom."
He stood, closed the piano cover, and pushed the bench back into its former place. He shot another fleeting glance to the portrait of his mother, and then smiled, walking up the stairs.
Meanwhile, the incorporeal, winged form of a young woman with sable hair and bright, green eyes, smiled in a corner, and whispered so that only she could hear.
"I love you, Touya. And I am proud of you."
**Notes:
This fic was inspired by the classical score from the movie "October Sky". The song he is playing in the fic is an adaptation of the theme from the movie transposed for Piano.
If you have not seen the movie, watch it. Also, if you have no interest in the movie, at least listen to the score from the soundtrack. Trust me, it's worth it. The score was beautifully composed, and I loved the music from this movie.