Note: Firstly, this story was mostly to see if I can still write something more than 500 words. Even though I achieved that, it seems that this is merely composed of several drabbles. My success is still rather unsure. Secondly, my knowledge on music is hazy at best. Corrections are welcome. Thirdly, this is slightly AU. Mostly inspired by a detail from the game that didn't quite make it to the anime/manga.
I. A Child's Prayer
Tsukimori Len's very first love was the piano.
It is also a very unhappy coincidence that his very first failure was also the piano.
Len would learn of Misa Hamai, prodigies, and pressure in elementary school. But right now, at four years old, all he knows is that he loves his mother, pianos, and music.
His fondest childhood memory consisted of his mother beaming down at him, offering him her hand and telling him that they would play the piano together.
There are three pianos in the Tsukimori household: a white Baldwin baby grand, an ebony Yamaha grand piano and a mahogany Kawai upright. He loved each one of them equally. He delighted in the polished wood, the black and white keys, and the slippery leather of the bench. But most of all he loved the sound.
Len would sit on his mother's lap and together they would press the keys to produce glittering sounds. Leaning over their shoulder would be his father, voicing out encouragements and teasingly telling him that he was clearly the better between the two of them.
His father used to be a violinist and his mother is a pianist. His paternal grandmother also used to be a violinist. His maternal grandparents were a conductor and a pianist. So it was really no surprise when at the age of four, he formally asked his parents to learn the piano and the violin. They agree of course. It is, after all, as expected.
His father gives him his very own violin. He admires the hourglass-shape, the ebony fingerboard and the feel of the strings beneath his fingertips. But the piano is his first love. He practices the piano a little bit longer and he can't help but secretly prefer the sound it makes.
But aside from octaves, notes and clefs, Len learns of expectations. He learns of Hamai Misa, how she started playing at the age of two, how she made her debut (age six, Mozart's K.310), and how at his age she had started performing Beethoven and Chopin in sold out concerts.
His parents make it seem so easy. But music isn't as easy as he thought it was.
Len sometimes wonders whenever he struggles with a particularly difficult piece, in between half notes and rests, in between the crescendo and the fortissimo, whether his mother would stop smiling at him, whether his father would stop ruffling his hair, if he quits music.
His teacher praises him but he can't quite feel happy about his accomplishments. He learns to look past the glossy polish of the pianos and he takes note of the newspaper clippings, magazine covers and trophies bearing his mother's name and her accomplishments displayed all over the house.
He is told he's making good progress but he struggles with Beethoven's Pathétique and he can't help but think that his mother learned to play this piece when she was five. His breaking point is when he fails to make it to the final round of a piano competition his mother won at his age.
Three months before his eight birthday, he tells his parents that he wants to quit the piano. The news is met with silence and the questioning ensues but in the end they don't press him to change his mind. He doesn't play the piano for the next three days and he spends most of his time in his room.
His maternal grandparents never seem to tire of telling him his parents' love story but this time he listens like he's never listened to it before.
"Your father was absolutely hopeless before he met your mother," his grandfather declares.
"His parents absolutely despaired of him," added his grandmother.
"He only started studying the violin seriously when he met your mother. He wanted to impress her. He was almost twenty by then, but really, better late than never."
Second year in elementary school he focuses on the violin. Misa Hamai is a child prodigy. Tsukimori Len, while certainly talented, is not a genius. He knows that now.
He doesn't stop playing the piano completely. He does an hour or two of exercises and he occasionally plays his favorite pieces. His mother still smiles at him but sometimes he finds himself staring at the newspaper clippings, the trophy cases, and the magazine covers and he feels like a failure.
Len considers sleeping in as his greatest luxury. The maids all know how difficult it is to wake the young master for school and even if he does crawl out of bed, he's listless and barely half-awake. But failing twice is simply out of the question.
It is to the surprise of the whole household when they hear the sound of the violin at 5 am.
Sometimes Len imagines the apology in his father's smiles. Sorry that you have to practice nine hours a day. Sorry that people expect too much of you. Sorry that you don't have friends your own age. It's alright, you can stop now. You don't have to do this.
But he never hears the words spoken out loud.
To drown out the silence he simply practices harder.
Seiso Academy has well-manicured grounds, top of the line facilities, and beautifully maintained buildings dating back to the sixties.
Len surveys the scene before him dispassionately. It's his first day and he tries hard not to think that at his age, his mother studied at a conservatory in Vienna.
By lunch he hears of the ridiculous school legend. It's about a fairy, violin romance, and concours. The concours would be held at his second year and he takes into consideration the impact of this information to his practice schedule. As for the fairy and the violin romance, he decides that it's the mere creation of fanciful students.
II. A Fairy's Answer
Based on Lili's experience, the students who practice the most are the ones who are most likely to hear him. The reasoning behind his theory is that the students who practice the most are the ones who enjoy music the most. They could spend hours playing because they're having so much fun.
Tsukimori Len proves his theory wrong.
Lili didn't really have a good first impression of him. He held himself as if he were better than everyone else and he was borderline anti-social. But it was difficult to dislike someone who was so dedicated to the violin.
It started out as an accident. He didn't mean to be the person who was the closest to Tsukimori (though Tsukimori didn't know it himself). The first year practiced the hardest out of anyone. He had a tendency to loose track of time and he ended up staying in school long after all the other students have left.
Lili was practically forced to listen to him.
These are the things he know:
Tsukimori doesn't appear to have any friends. People admire and respect him, but they don't really like him.
He's slowly making his way through Paganini's 24 caprices.
He plays the piano. And quite well too.
He's having some difficulty with the fourth section of Sarasate's Ziguenerweisen.
Outside the practice rooms, he is self-controlled and cold as ice. But once that door is shut, he allows his frustrations to show. He harshly runs his fingers through his hair, he paces the room madly, he mutters angrily under his breath and when it's a particularly bad day, he takes out blank sheet music and methodically tears it to shreds.
And one last thing, which he finds most interesting, when he plays Schubert's Ave Maria, Lili could almost swear that Tsukimori is truly enjoying himself.
If Lili could only choose the person who could hear him he would have chosen Tsukimori Len. Not because he was the best (although he is). But because he probably wanted it the most.
It's not stalking, Lili tells himself during the times when he catches himself following Len around the campus. Somewhere between Bach's Violin Sonata No. 3 and Beethoven's Spring, Lili starts calling him by his given name.
It's somewhat pathetic, but sometimes, the highlight of his day is when Len would silence his opposers by a single raised brow or a carefully enunciated sentence. People are quite mean-spirited. Len's technique and ability come neither from his parents or his grandparents. It's all him.
But then, people would probably like him so much better if he didn't act so high and mighty all the time. Smiling wouldn't hurt either.
It is a seemingly normal Thursday. Lili, as per usual, is off to practice room number seven. The one that Len likes to reserve.
For some inexplicable reason Len is sitting in front of the piano. His brows are furrowed, and his eyes are trained on the sheet music. Lili knows the song. It's Mozart's K.310, Piano Sonata No. 8; the third movement Presto.
Sometimes his fingers slip and fumble. Sometimes, he actually stops and repeats a measure.
When he finishes, he lets his fingers slowly slide down the ivory keys and he rests his forehead on the music rack.
He looks exhausted and defeated and Lili impulsively decides to do something which he might regret later.
"It wasn't so bad," he calls out.
Wide amber eyes meet determined purple ones.