Author's Note: L plays the piano! Or, at least, I can see him playing piano. Maybe I'm the only one. Oh well--here's a far-too-short bit of... something. Oh, and in relation to the theme for 30romances on Livejournal (the theme was "aesthesiogen"), the music is the aesthesiogen. Maybe I was pushing it.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, and the song belongs to Chopin.
Nocturne in B Flat Minor
The nocturne plays mind games. It places the heart gently in the clouds and walks lightly on a largo melody one moment, and the next falls down a decrescendo to a place dark with shadow and sorrow. The bass swells and rolls like noonday clouds in the heavy heat of summer while the treble steps lightly, stumbles, falls, and climbs again above it.
His fingers are long and slim, with delicate knuckles and fragile joints, pale skin, thin wrists. They work tenderly over the piano, gentle so that one might think they never truly touched the keys. He sits at the seat's edge so that his body curves, bowed and frail, his elbows nearly brushing his sides. His shoulders are broad but not muscular; his form is almost feminine with slenderness. As he moves and the nocturne falls into mezzo piano, his eyes are calm and sad.
The pianist's head bobs slightly, slowly with the tempo, and the product of his fingertips--notes, crescendos, trills, diminuendos and staccatos--meld into what every man knows as music. His feet, bare and cuffed by simple blue jeans, work the pedals, up and down, up and down.
L's hair is in his face, unkempt and hanging over his eyes, down his face to the corners of his mouth. The bass continues, tentative, alone; the treble has fallen away.
In the doorway, a second boy stares. One of his hands is still on the door; he entered only a minute earlier. He knows the pianist is aware of his presence, yet he does not understand what he sees. I did not know he played, the observer thinks, why does he not stop, now that I am watching?
L is fragile, there at the piano. He is vulnerable, exposed, and pouring every bit of himself into the music. The nocturne bears calm eyes that hide thunder deep within. As the boy in the door watches he sees L's throat muscles strain, his eyes darken.
Chopin's Nocturne in B Flat Minor rises, fortissimo, into an unsteady closing, the bass hovering on several disconcerting chords. For a moment L remains frozen, his head tilted slightly to the ceiling and his hand splayed over the last chord even as the sound of it dies away. His dark eyes burn and show the thunder.
Then he looks down at the keys, pulls his knees off the pedals and up to his chest, and looks at Raito in the doorway. The second boy is staring, wide-eyed; his lips move but he can find nothing to say. His hand is still on the door, he has not moved. Raito still hears the music; he does not understand the little prick of pain in his chest. He wants, quite suddenly, to smooth down the wisps of hair that frame L's face, and stare deep into his dark eyes and find the thunder again, the music. His arms burn with a need to hold.
L stares back, calm again, the thunder gone. Something stirs within both of them--a strange remnant of the rolling bass and stumbling treble. L's gaze is questioning, Raito's confused and sad. His hand slides away from the doorknob and to his side.
Finally, L lowers his gaze and gives a tiny, sad smile. "Yagami-kun," he says. "We should begin our work."
End Note: Ergh. Did you know that the song is really pretty...?