Thoughts are in italics within quotes.

Disclaimer: I do not own Kiniro no Corda or any affiliates in any way shape or form.

With a soft sigh, he stretched out his long legs on his spot on the grass and lay down so he could look up into the vast expanse of deep, clear blue. A leaf of deep amber dropped near his head of grass. If it weren't for the pallor of his skin, one wouldn't be able to distinguish his face from the ground where he lay. He took another breath to gird himself before staring levelly at the great blue. Today was the day. He'd lay his soul bare to the sky which saw all and remembered all, and then he'd leave, never to return.

"Do you believe in soul mates?" he asked. "I do." He cocked his head slightly. "Well, provided that it doesn't have to be love at first sight. Don't get me wrong; I'm sure love at first sight works for some people, but for me, it just wasn't that way." He chuckled with a reminiscent smile. "I had to literally fall over her before I began to realize just how special she was." His smile changed to a painful grimace. "Now that I think about it, can you call yourself soul mates if the other half doesn't feel the same way about you? She said that I always made her smile, and we share a lot of interests, but she doesn't love me—at least, not the way I love her." Rapidly blinking his eyes, he strove to press on. "But…there's something about the term soul mates that seems right, so for now, I'll call her mine…even if I'm not hers."

"For six beautiful years, she was everything. The world was brighter with her in it with those eyes of limpid sunlight and that hair of blazing flame. And her smile…" for a minute, he closed his eyes and basked in it. "Oh, that smile…it…it always took my breath away. She was always a pretty girl. Although," he smiled wryly, "being silly, oblivious me, I don't think I really noticed until she smiled at me that first time on the roof. But when she smiled, she was radiant. It just bubbled up and shone from within. As long as she was smiling, everything was right in the world and nothing could go wrong."

Buoyed by the feelings of yesteryear, he smiled serenely in a way that was now unfortunately unfamiliar. "I met her my senior year of high school. We had both been selected to participate in a school-wide music competition. Unusually, this girl was from the General Education Department, not the Music Department like the other participants and me. I didn't really think much of her until about a week after the start of the competition. Some girls in the Music Department were bullying another participant and her, and in order to protect them, she agreed to play a song on her violin to show she was deserving of being in the competition or something like that. The ways of girls are a bit strange. Regardless, she ran across me practicing on the roof and we chatted for a bit. I guess she thought I helped her somehow because she thanked me and smiled at me. That was the first time she had ever smiled at me. It was a really cute smile, made her light right up. I also helped her when she hit a rough patch in the actual showdown performance the next afternoon. That was our first duet," he smiled softly, "and the first time that I really felt like we were friends."

"After the first round, all the participants, plus a new guy who pinch-hit as her accompanist when hers didn't show, went on a trip to focus on practicing and stuff, I guess. Whatever the exact purpose was, it was a trip, which meant fun and ekiben!" He laughed. "The first night of the trip, she was aching all over from having practiced too hard. She played violin, so I guess her arms and chin were sore or something. Either way, as a nice senpai, I offered her something sweet to eat. Sweets are good when you're tired or something, I guess. And I discovered that we had a shared love of sweets. It was cool to just hang out with her and the others in our room. It was like she was one of the guys, and then…suddenly she wasn't." He shook his head with a suppressed chuckle. "It was so stupid. For some reason, Tsuchiura—he was one of the other participants—and I started playing tug-of-war with a pillow while arguing about who was going to sleep on the couch. In the end, the pillow split and I started hurtling for the floor. Not wanting me to fall over, she reached out to help me regain my balance, but I was too heavy and ended up shoving her into the bed." His eyes glazed over as he remembered that night. "It was…the weirdest thing. Somehow, she became the whole world. Sight, smell, touch, sound…she filled them all. If I lowered my face by even a couple centimeters, we would have kissed. You can imagine how appalled I was when Tsuchiura lifted me off of her. It hadn't even occurred to me that I had been laying on her that entire time!" He looked embarrassed. "Then she fled from the room before I could string together two coherent words. I did manage to apologize the next morning and we parted ways with our friendship intact, but I knew that after that night, I would never be able to look at her the same way again. She couldn't just be like a guy with long hair that I'd pal around with."

He smiled up at his confidante. "That was when I started to fall in love, though I didn't realize it until a while later. It was at this park." He could see it as if it were yesterday. "We ran into each other and she chose to practice near the courts where I was playing bball with my brother and his friends. After they left, we ran into Tsuchiura and his ex at a café. We just chatted for a while until his ex convinced us to play one-on-one bball. We played for a long time until I fell. I was clumsy, wasn't looking where I was going, but being the sweet, compassionate person she is, she took care of me. And it was then, being near her, that I realized it: I liked her. From that day forward, we continued along as we had been as friends, slowly growing closer as time went by, but now I had a secret." He sighed. "Maybe if I had told her how I felt at that summer camp later that year things would be different, but I just wanted to keep it to myself for a while. I'd never had a secret like this before, and it felt good to love her even if she didn't know it. I was blinded by the joy of being friends with her and loving her from afar. Maybe I thought it was more romantic this way, like the courtly love of the knights of yore or something. Maybe I was afraid to risk the steady, easy friendship we had. Whatever it was, I eventually learned that one-sided love is not all it's cracked up to be…" he rubbed his eyes to clear them, "but I'm getting off-topic."

His face shone softly with the glow of youth as he remembered good times once again. "For her first two years of college, we were inseparable. If we weren't in class or practicing, we were hanging out and working on homework. It didn't bother me that she'd always tell people that we were just friends whenever they'd hint discreetly," he grinned, "or not so discreetly, that we were close. Because every time she denied it, she seemed to blush a little more deeply and her eyes would search mine a little more earnestly for support. As long as I was special to her, it was good enough. And in the future, who knew? Maybe one day, she'd just realize in a flash—as I did—that I was the one for her, just like she was the one for me."

His mouth thinned a bit. Though he hadn't known it, this had been the beginning of the end. "At the end of her sophomore year, she received an invitation to study abroad in Prague for the remainder of her college years. Of course she took it," he snorted. "Who wouldn't? It was Prague for crying out loud!" His eyes went pensive again. "So we parted with tears and promises to write and video chat for special occasions, which we kept faithfully. At their most frequent, letters came and went every three days, and at their most infrequent, once a month. We always sent our mail first-class so it'd get there as soon as possible." He chuckled. "The postal service must've made a killing on us. Eventually we settled on every-other week and kept to that for the next three years. We shared everything from the day-to-day to the deeply personal. Even though she was on another continent, when I read her letters, I felt as if I could reach out and touch her."

His eyes flickered with unhappiness. "I had been counting the days before I could see her again, but every visit she had originally planned kept getting pushed back and back until she just resigned herself to saying that she wasn't sure if she'd be able to visit until after she graduated. Her family visited her a couple times while she was away, but being a poor music student and then music teacher, I could hardly afford to go zipping off to the continent, at least, not for a while." He grimaced slightly. "I scrimped and scrounged to save money, hoping I'd be able to make it for her graduation, but I hadn't even made it three-quarters of the way by the time it rolled around. After settling for video-chatting with her on her graduation day, she told me she'd be staying another year because she'd gotten a one-year contract with an orchestra over there." He sighed. "So I scrimped and scrounged some more until I finally had enough. Coincidentally, she had a concert during Golden Week, so I made all the arrangements."

He laughed mirthlessly. "It was the worst trip in the history of the world, though it didn't start out that way. I arrived on the day of the concert, and had arranged to meet her backstage. I was on cloud nine at the prospect of seeing her again after three years apart. As soon as the curtain rose, I picked her out among the sea of faces. She was just as I remembered, but somehow so much more. The trip and the experience had been wonderful for her." His eyes filled with awe again as he stepped into the scene. "Even with all the instruments playing, I could pick hers out of the throng. Her music had always called to me in a way I could never strive to understand. Seeing and hearing her was…it was like someone had reached into my chest and yanked on it. It took me a minute to get my breath back. I had to tell her. I knew it better than I knew my own name." He blinked back tears. "I flew backstage like I had wings on my feet or something. But even then, I was out of time. When I arrived, it was to see my beloved swept happily into the arms of another man with his ring on her finger. The diamond sparkled brightly as the others surrounded her with their congratulations." He glanced back at the sky, the focus coming briefly back to his eyes. "But wait, it gets even better. I was so floored by the whole thing, it didn't even occur to me to try and get away so I could get a handle on things until her hand touched mine. Then I was forced to smile and congratulate her and her fiancé. Of course the trip was a wash after that. I only got one moment alone with her the entire rest of my trip: the morning I was leaving. And at that point the conversation completely revolved around him. She told me about how she and that guy had met—did you know they had been dating for two years and she didn't see fit to tell me—and how excited she was for the wedding and oh, what was she going to do? You get the general picture."

He heaved a great sigh. "I really am a child with no right to love." He looked miserably into the expanse. "Right before I left, when she was bidding me good-bye, she asked me if I thought she was doing the right thing marrying him. I could see the uncertainty and hesitation written all over her face. Any other person, when faced with that would have taken the chance God gave him and gone for broke. Told her he loved her and had since freaking high school and begged her to take a chance on him." His laugh was grating to the ears. "But me? I bit down and told her that if she loved him, it couldn't be wrong. I don't know what her response to that would have been because the final call for my flight came then. But a year later, they were married. And I was stupid and masochistic enough to go. The wedding was in Japan since both of them were from there. I spent most of the reception avoiding it since it hurt to be there. I was glad she was happy, but that's the only thing that kept me at the party until they left for their honeymoon and their life abroad."

"I haven't heard from her much ever since the baby was born five years ago." His face darkened. "No, that's not true. When I got birth announcement, I sent my congratulations and made up something about how I'd be busy and she'd be busy, so she didn't need to trouble herself with writing to me anymore. True to form, she wrote back. I received a reply two weeks later as if nothing had changed."

Shame and sadness filled him. "I didn't open it, still haven't actually. I was afraid to. Maybe she saw through my ruse. More likely, she was reassuring me that even with a baby in her life our friendship was something that she wanted to keep strong. Either way, I didn't want to read reminders of her love for another man." With a sigh, he continued, "I received another letter a few months later; haven't opened that one either." His eyes drifted over to the beat-up metal box beside him. "For three more years, she continued to write me with slowly decreasing frequency until finally the letters stopped." He ran his fingers over the latch. "They're all here, every single one, both opened and unopened."

"Sometimes I wonder what the baby looks like," he admitted. "Does he take after her or his father? Sometimes I wish I had been brave enough to learn more about the baby other than that his name was Yuji and he was a normal, healthy weight. But unlike the letters of her life both before and after she was married, I knew that her letters wouldn't be able to be devoid of her child as they were her husband. For some reason, her letters never mentioned that man more than in passing. I'm not sure if she somehow gathered that I wasn't particularly interested in hearing about him or if it was by accident, but either way, I was grateful. But a baby changes everything. They're her life now." He frowned and sat up, continuing to maintain eye contact with the sky above. "Since then, I've been plodding along through life. The only thing that gives me any joy is music and teaching, and even that has begun to finally wane." He stared solemnly into the aching blue. "So that's my story." He ducked his head before staring up at the leaves above. "Kind of pathetic, isn't it?" He glanced down at the box. "Apparently a soul mate isn't much without the other." He picked up the box and played with it. "But that'll be over soon."

Folding his legs beneath him, he began to dig with the small spade he had brought. Carefully, so carefully, he placed the box in the hole and covered it up. Then, he headed toward home, trumpet slung over one shoulder. Yes, it would all be over soon.

"Excuse me?"

With a start, Kazuki turned to look down at a small thoughtful face.

"You're the trumpet man, right?"

He raised his green eyebrows in confusion. "The what?"

"The trumpet man," the boy replied patiently. "My friend said that sometimes he plays in this park." He motioned at the case. "That's a trumpet isn't it?"

He nodded.

"And your hair is the same green as the grass and you're tall, so you must be him," he finished logically. The brown-haired boy perched himself on the curb of the sidewalk. "Will you play for me please?"

"Uh…Sure…." He knelt down beside the boy with a small smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "But where's your Mommy? You aren't all alone are you?"

"I think she might be over by the basketball courts still," he replied solemnly. "We were watching the big kids play, but I got bored and thought I'd try to find you."

"Ah…well…." It was only then he noticed the boy's eyes were pale gold. Averting his gaze, he forced a lighter tone. "We should try and find her first, don't you think? She must be worried."

The boy cocked his head to the side. "You seem sad."

"Huh?" Where had that come from?

"When you smile, your eyes don't smile with you," he observed. "Does your heart hurt?"

His lower jaw dropped straight toward the concrete. Was this kid hyper-observant, or was he just that easy of a read?

"For a while Mama smiled like that too. When I asked her why, she said it was because her heart was hurt." He smiled proudly at him. "I kissed it to make it feel better just like she kisses my owies to make them feel better." He looked at him seriously. "Maybe you should have your Mama kiss your heart too. Mama said it felt a little better when I kissed hers."

"Uh…." He really didn't have a good response for that.

"Yuji Takashina! What have I told you about talking to strangers?!"

He stiffened. It couldn't be.

"But Mama, he's not a stranger. He's the trumpet man," the boy protested.

"That's enough out of you," the red-haired woman scolded, bending over to haul her child up. "I apologize if he-" her voice cut off as if all the sound had been sucked out of the universe. For the first time in five years, gold met amber, and the world fell off its axis. When it had righted itself again, she stared at him as if he were a ghost. "Hi-Hihara-senpai…?"

"Kaho-chan," he replied in a voice that belied the tumult of emotions he felt inside as he somehow managed to smoothly stand. As she opened and closed her mouth in shock, he looked up at the sky with a slight tremor in his movements.

Apparently it wasn't going to be over soon at all.

Ekiben is short for eki bentou, which are boxed lunches that are sold at train stations. They usually feature regional foods and are reasonably priced. Many people eat them if they have to take long train trips.