I do not own La Corda d'Oro.
Because the world needs more cello and more Shimizu Keiichi, who continuously reminds me of my own cello buddy -.-.
Previously titled Infinity. I was bored myself with the direction it was going in, so I changed the plot.
Summary:
Vocalise, clumsiness and, above all, a broken cello. That was how it all accidentally started. Because of the untimely demise of the A string of his second favourite cello, she was ruthlessly thrown into her most difficult dilemma of all time: are flowers larger than or equal to music?
Pairings:
Shimizu Keiichi x OC, Tsukimori Len (for the moment) x Hino Kahoko x Others
Initial Setting:
A round of concours that is not in the manga is being inserted by the authoress. The story begins a week before an imaginary second round of concours, right after the group training camp in the Fuyuumi vacation home. Therefore, Tsukimori is not yet locked up in a closet in the upcoming round.
Read on and it would make sense, sort of.
Please R&R! Concrits welcome! I'll give you cookies XD!
Bass Clef I – Vocalise: The Trigger
There was something about that melody that lured her towards the source of it, aside from the fact that she knew it, and knew it well. The deep, firm timbre of the sound, adorned by the lushness of vibrato distinct to the magic of a cello, plucked a chord in her heart that resonated deeply into her soul. There seemed to be an invisible string that wrapped around her, leading her involuntarily forward, towards the source of the sound and the core of her musicality. Her footsteps echoed down the empty hallway, compatible with the gentle rhythm of the melody, but she failed to notice that. She merely searched with much serenity for the source of the music, with only one thought encircling her musically-intoxicated mind,
I could listen to this forever.
When the volume of the melody increased, she knew that she was close. She made no note whatsoever of the many doors she had to open, because as she approached the music, her heart swelled. The musicality bottled inside of her began to suffocate her. She began to yearn for the luxury of expressing herself, with her own share of musical understanding, with the only gift of music she had – voice.
She pulled open one last door and knew that this was it. She was so close to the source of the sound that she didn't care about what, or who, it really was. She could only perceive the sunset that gracefully gilded the figure of the cellist, along with his blissfully closed eyes. His reverie was contagious, and she could no longer suppress her heart's desire.
She let her eyelids drop, and sang.
Sergei Rachmaninoff, Vocalise.
No flamboyant ornaments. No lyrics. A simple melody. A voice and a cello.
It was enough for both of them.
At some obscure time which mattered not, the tip of his bow slid graciously off of the cello string, and the eyes of the musicians opened. They began to stare at each other, in curiosity, in wonder, in awe. The silence only broke when she asked, in her soft and melodic voice, with much incredulity,
"What is your name?"
He seemed not completely lucid, yet not utterly unaware.
"Shimizu Keiichi."
But she didn't expect them to meet again this way.
Nishihara Yui cursed herself with much spite, when she found herself clumsily sprawled over his cello, on which a string – yes, a lovely string of a heavenly cello – had come off. The peg attaching that string had blown out of the scroll of the cello the moment she had bestowed her weight – which was not much, but too much for a cello – ruthlessly onto the cello's general structure.
His cello! What had she done? She would rather much have knocked herself out than to have damaged a cellist's cello!
Despite great pain in her own flesh, as she had hurt herself in various places during that violent, clumsy fall, she jumped up as soon as she could. But the damage had already been done. The A string of the cello had been completely blown out and was dead past the point of no return.
Oh God. I am totally fried now!
She gulped and shuddered uncontrollably as she turned mechanically to look at him. He did not look amused. In fact, he was staring at her quite darkly. Yui repeatedly and silently berated herself for being such a blockhead. Tripping over the floor tile – that has got to be the stupidest thing she's done since she was five years old. And how did his cello manage to get caught in her fall? Why did she stumble into his practice room again, after so many months, when she thought she'd forgotten all about that encounter?
"Shimizu, I am so sorry." She repressed herself from crumbing from the chills he was sending her with his eyes and bowed repeatedly, sweat dripping off of her brows. She did not want to antagonize him, of all people! There was something very special – at least to her – between them, and she'd always admired his music from afar for it.
Sergei Rachmaninoff, Vocalise.
Keiichi looked at the Regular department intruder with the same impassive face. His eyes, however, were not very happy. Although he had another preferred carbon fibre cello at home, he did not fancy the idea of a wrecked A string on his still-very-much-liked one.
He heard her apology, but didn't seem to mark the sincerity in it. He merely opened his mouth and dictated flatly,
"You damaged my cello."
Yui gulped and sweated more. She never knew that the peaceful-looking "sleeping beauty" Shimizu Keiichi can be so intimidating. "Y-Yes, I know I damaged your cello. I'm very sorry, Shimizu. I'll pay for whatever damage is done, even if I have to work five shifts a week in the Ling's Flower Shop for it. I think the owner will appreciate me more if I work more anyway… B-But that's not the point," she tensed more as she saw that Keiichi was not happy with her straying off topic, and continued to express how sorry she was, "I realize that the cello is very important to you, and I understand that a cellist is meant to value a cello more than his life, so I will do everything I could to compensate for the damage I have done – why, my mother is a cellist. I could get her to look at it if you want to. And I'll pay for the damage, I emphasize yet again - "
As she babbled on with a discomposed blush and continued to bow at each sentence, Keiichi finally got the idea that she was indeed very sorry. He sighed, and then yawned.
"Nishihara, right?"
"Y-yes."
"Your mother is a cellist?"
"Y-yes."
Utter silence.
Keiichi stared for the longest time at his broken cello with an airy sort of melancholy, even though he knew that it could be fixed in no time. It was a cellist thing. Nobody but a cellist could understand.
At last when he turned again to the culprit, he seemed to have noticed something else worth of noting.
"Nishihara, you're bleeding."
"What?" Yui mumbled confusedly as she looked down. It was then that a sharp pain in her right knee finally seemed to seize her, and she saw that blood had trickled all the way from her knee to the flawlessly clean floor of the practice room.
She turned inhumanly white as her voice became feeble all of a second, "Oh no… Shimizu, help… I have hemophobia!"
Keiichi seemed confused. "And that is…?"
"Fear of blood."
With these even feebler words, the poor girl tumbled down yet again, landing perfectly flat on her face, but subconsciously managing to direct herself away from Keiichi's cello.
Keiichi blinked numerous times and sighed.
As much as he wanted to turn his full attention to his instrument, he had to admit that the life of a fellow schoolmate – especially one that had once sung along with one of his favourite melodies – was perhaps just a bit more important than his cello.
A river would come in real handy right now…
Yui could not help but achieve loads of goosebumps as she was stared at, like some kind of an exhibition, by the pack of musical geniuses of Seisou. She could not remember how she got there – because she had fainted – and did not really want to remember.
Nonetheless, she was obliged to remember. She'd broken Shimizu Keiichi's cello. She'd promised to pay for the damage. The A string had completely popped off and would probably take a few weeks to fix.
The next round of the Seisou concours is next week.
Shoot.
She was even more devastated when she learned that Kanazawa-sensei had personally carried her here to be sentenced by the rest of the musicians, because, by the musicians' logic, if one of their fellow musicians is severely hindered by a cause during the concours, that cause shall be directly looked upon and blamed collectively.
"So, you broke Shimizu's cello?" It was Hihara Kazuki who spoke first, looking more curious than offended. "Even though you are from the Regular Department, you don't look like the other mean girls."
Yui shook her head fiercely, "It was totally not on purpose. I mean, I tripped over a floor tile and - "
"Clumsy as ever, Yui-chan…" Yui was more than relieved to hear the voice of Hino Kahoko, her favourite senpai.
"Hino-chan, you know her?"
Kahoko shrugged, an embarrassed smile on the face, "Yeah. She's been quite clumsy ever since I knew her. I can vouch for her that she didn't do it on purpose."
Yunoki Azuma smiled his ever-so-refreshing smile on the side, "I see. But that does not signify that she may be easily forgiven for devastating Shimizu and his musicality."
"She should hardly be forgiven at all." The voice of Tsukimori Len sent multiple chills down the poor clumsy girl's spine, "To have taken the instrument of another so lightly as to trip carelessly and land on it, in my opinion, is as much a sin as breaking the instrument on purpose."
Yui cried herself a river. Tsukimori-senpai is as ruthless as ever!
Kahoko scowled and protested, "Gee, Tsukimori-kun, it's not like she could control where she'd fall. I mean, sure, she had done something terrible to Shimizu-kun, but look at how badly she'd hurt herself!" She pointed with much sympathy at Yui's bandaged knee and the bruise on her head. "I don't think she deserves that much of a death sentence."
She smiled as Yui sent her a teary thanks. Fuyuumi Shouko received the same teary thanks after she expressed her shy agreement with Kahoko.
Len seemed impassive. "Physical wounds can heal easily. And she doesn't play an instrument, does she? Perhaps she is not aware that Shimizu's cello, even when fixed, will give off a different feel and hinder his performance."
"…You're making me feel even worse than I did when I realized I had landed on his cello, Tsukimori-senpai…"
"All the more reason for you to willingly accept your punishment without further excuses."
Tsuchiura Ryoutarou cut off his enemy impatiently and shot him a glare, "Rather than being a snob like always, Tsukimori, why don't we let Shimizu decide this? He's the one who should be giving the sentence after all."
The group cast their eyes towards the cellist, and when they saw that he was asleep, they (with the exception of Azuma) flipped in unison. To think they had thought that he valued the wellbeing of his cello that at least he would not fall asleep when the cause of his cello's demise was being sentenced!
"Forget it," Ryoutarou groggily stood up and addressed Kanazawa, "Let's just let Kanayan decide this."
Kanazawa stared penetratingly into the poor Yui's eyes, causing the latter to shiver uncontrollably. She had never been a favourite of his, as she continuously fell asleep in his music class whenever he talked about theory. He would most definitely not let her off easy.
She was right.
"Nishihara, you will now be my full-time helper with all the details of the concours. You are to come to all the contestant gatherings and keep track of all their selections of music, take care of all the advertisements and decorations, try to catch most of their rehearsals and report to me their progress, et cetera. Your primary job is to stick around with the concours participants and comply with their needs. Understand?"
"What!" The poor girl exclaimed so loudly that she woke Keiichi. "That's, like, the job of a stalker and the most strenuous job I could ever think of! You just wanna make me do that so you can slack off, am I right? That is so - "
Her complaint was cut short by Kahoko's kind whispering of a reminder, "Yui-chan, it could've been much worse. Besides, he might add more chores if you complain more!"
The poor girl realized how right her senpai was and immediately shut up.
"I see that you understand," Kanazawa nodded briefly and turned to the group, "Is that sentence sufficient for her or does anyone else have anything to add?"
Kazuki bounced happily and declared that he would be happy to "report stuff" to Nishihara-chan. Shouko nodded continuously in accordance with Kazuki's response. Azuma smiled and made no objections. Ryoutarou shrugged. Len was about to protest, when the overly teary eyes of Yui and the fuming ones of Kahoko made him unwillingly relinquish his argument. Keiichi, as expected, fell asleep once more.
So Nishihara Yui was to embrace her fate and accept the fact that she would be inevitably connected to the Seisou concours – to music.
She would no longer be able to head-on avoid it.
Yui glanced sheepishly at Keiichi, who was walking in front of her, and held tighter onto the strap of the cello case. She had insisted that she take his cello home and let her mother inspect it. She'd told him that her mother was quite skilled when it came to repairing the instrument. He seemed to not object, but insisted on walking with his cello and see with his own eyes that it arrives safely at the Nishihara resident.
He'll never trust me again… The poor girl lamented as she secured the cello case on her shoulder even more.
Her lament was soon forgotten about when she saw that he was about to cross the road when the light was still red. She hastened to restrain him, and urged him to be more careful.
He made no response for a while, and when at last he said something, it was not at all what Yui had expected.
"You know, I haven't personally punished you."
What! Yui tensed considerably and gripped the cello case strap so hard that her fingers hurt. "Shimizu, I said I'm extremely sorry! I swear that I'll pay back the damage even if I die of fatigue working in the flower shop! Please don't hold a grudge against me – I'll do anything you ask, as long as it's within my range of reason."
Keiichi seemed abnormally lucid, and it intimidated her. "Anything?"
She gulped. "Anything."
"All right. Then I'm going to ask you a few questions, and you must answer me truthfully."
Yui waited for the questions, and when she heard the first one, she froze.
"Nishihara, you sing, right?"
There came the question she feared more than she did blood.
If you would like a continuation, please leave me a review XD! Reviews are a big part of my motivation XD. Some suggestions on who Kaho should end up with would be nice too… ;D I really do like them most equally well.