A thing that happens quietly
Kitty
Happiness comes in on tip-toe
Well what'd'ya know
It's a quiet thing
- from Flora the Red Menace
It was her safe place and she loved it. The heavy glass doors would shut and cut off all sound from the outside world filled with the noises of cars and foot traffic. Inside, there was peace.
Kagome inhaled deep and long into her lungs, the smell of varnished wood sank into her and embraced her like an old friend. She swept past the magnificent grand on display in the front and found her favorite, old, clunky upright collecting dust in the back. The piano was a masterpiece, holding a warm, mellow sound despite the creaky pedals and years of young, inexperienced fingers learning to play for the first time.
"Ah, welcome back, Kagome," an old voice rang out from the desk.
"Hi Totosai," she answered, "I'm just going to play a little in the practice room."
The old, bald head nodded. The girl was a regular appearance in his store and he'd grown used to hearing her melodies from the poorly soundproofed practice room.
"Let me know if I need to tell my nephew to quiet down."
Kagome turned in surprise. "Your nephew?"
Totosai shrugged, a hand waving carelessly in the air to indicate toward the back of the shop. "Well, a good friend's son, really. He's recently come under my care."
Kagome's curiosity was mildly peaked, as well as a small burst of disappointment. She was a shy girl, self-conscious, and wasn't thrilled at the prospect of having another person hear her as she played. At least the room could be closed off to help mute her music. She turned back to enter the long hallway lined with practice rooms. In a time long past, she'd had lessons in this dusty corridor and it was a place of comfort whenever the outside world overwhelmed her. Now, she found her favorite, sat down on the narrow bench and reached to close the door.
A warm, chocolatey note reverberated through the walls of the practice room and she paused. The note shifted in pitch and a slow, hypnotising vibrato was added. Cello, she guessed by the sound, Totosai's nephew plays the cello.
Kagome sighed when she realized this mystery cello player had chosen the practice room adjacent to hers and she briefly contemplated switching rooms. But this one was her favorite. She even went to far as to call it hers. She made a face and closed the door with a click, determined not to let this stranger ruin her one small moment in the day by his presence. The sound of the door closing cut of the deep low note like a pair of scissors and Kagome sat frozen for a breath or two, on the one hand guilty for interrupting someone else's time, on the other, hoping he would move, leave, finish up and go.
The silence grew protracted and she wasn't sure how long she sat there listening for silence. Finally, she took a breath. He had to have left by now, right? The spotty soundproofing must have just prevented her from hearing. She shifted in on the bench, found a comfortable distance and height. Then she lifted her hands and lay the gently atop the old, yellowing keys. This was an old piano. It could probably be classified as an antique and she knew to be gentle with it. The keys were made in days when ivory was still used and the texture, though subtle, made a difference under her fingers. The log beside the door indicated that the old beauty had been tuned recently, and Kagome was eager to hear to sound wrap around her.
The warm up was simple, a few Hanon exercises that ran up and down the range of the keyboard. When her fingers had shaken off the frosty chill of the outside winter, a felt warm and limber, she began to play the first thing that popped into her mind.
There was a special sensation that took over her body everytime she sat down to this instrument. It was as if she heard the melody with her body, rather than just her ears. Both the high notes that sang out or the low, sleepy notes that vibrated up her arms. It was magic, a magical power that could transport her far and away and she sighed, losing track of her physical shell and savoring the release of the notes she played.
When it started, she didn't notice it right away. It was a subtle, tentative thing that matched with her left hand as it navigated the lower portions of the keyboard. As it burrowed up to reach the conscious layers of her mind, her focus drifted toward it slowly and her playing tapered off as she realized the sound was coming from the wall in front of her.
Totosai's nephew was still there.
She sat there in silence, staring at the wall. Her fingers hovered over the keys where she'd paused and was stuck in a dilemma to flee or to stubbornly continue. Before her brain could choose, the melody she'd just been playing sang out sorrowfully from the room beside hers. It continued for a few bars and trailed off, the leaving the note hanging in the air.
She was frozen for a beat, two beats. Then her hands returned to the keys and she let her right hand sound off the second half of the verse the cello had played. Crisp and rich, the string instrument repeated the verse and trailed off again, waiting for her.
This time, when she began to play, the cello continued as well, harmonizing with her and adding a little flourish towards the end. Her mouth twitched. She threw in a variation of her own. The response was immediate and the cello lead the way into an entirely different key, evolving the melody and inviting her to pick it up.
They conversed in this way for some time, picking up speed, slowing things down, until it came back full circle and the boy beyond the wall returned to the original slow, plaintive melody she'd started off with. Kagome paused, listening to the warm, mellow notes and the steady vibrato. He played the stanza again, slipping a finger down the fingerboard to introduce a different key. She couldn't help but feel like it was a question being asked and she hesitated in her response. Her fingers fidgeted above the keyboard, unsure what to play to answer the melody being passed on and she jumped when a soft knock rapped at the door.
"Sorry, Kagome," the old man said, "You mother just called wondering where you were."
She blinked hard once or twice, her mind kicking back into gear. Clearing her throat and double checking her phone, she curse softly to see how much time had passed. "I-I'll be out in a few minutes," she answered.
He nodded and quietly shut the door to return to his work and Kagome sat in the hollow silence that now filled the space around her. She took a breath, lifted a hand, and play a thin, verse in answer to the cello's question before hastily grabbing her things and rushing out the door. In the room beside her vacated one, a wooden bow clanged softly as it was placed on the music stand in front of the seated figure, his knees supporting the sides of the wide wooden instrument. Shifting, the boy gently laid the gleaming string instrument on the ground before standing to peer out the door, glimpsing the wavy hair and slender waist as the girl rushed out the door, waving goodbye to his uncle on the way.
A/N: recently watched a youtube video about Lea Salonga and heard a mix she worked on between Blackbird and A Quiet Thing. Just a quick blurb i felt like writing after hearing the mix. It's been a very long time since i've actually played an instrument, hope i got the technical words correct :P