Mine, Age Twelve
Mine lives with his grandpa above his restaurant. He likes to help cook different things. There's the club sandwich he has to know how to make, even though it isn't on the menu, because it's a special order. There're the ramen noodles, and udon, and then all the Chinese recipes one could think of. He asked, once, but Grandpa said they weren't actually Chinese, it was just what he liked to cook.
When Mine isn't at school, he's supposed to be home, and he's supposed to practice violin. He used to like it, when he was little, and his father would show him little tricks that made it so cool. The music was dotted with birds and frogs, up and down, showing which way he had to bow. You could move your fingers higher on the string and squeaksqueaksqueak as you play until you sounded like a mosquito. "Give me a break," his mother moaned, holding her head.
"Oi!" Grandpa roars every evening, when he comes down to help with the rush. "Did you practice enough today?" And he says, yes, of course, and Teacher said I was coming along very well. He doesn't add that he did some scales and left off there, because the music he was playing wasn't fun at all, and he'd rather cook in the restaurant.
Mine only practices when his parents are coming home, so they'll be able to listen and scold him, "Ryuzaki, you should practice more!" No one calls him Ryuzaki but his parents because it's a lousy name, so it's almost worth them scolding him, just to let them use his name. Everyone else calls him Mine-kun, and Grandpa calls him "Boy" when he's yelling and "Kiddo" when he isn't.
Everyone expects him to be a musician, famous and talented like his parents. Ah, with a mother so beautiful. Ah, with a father who's a second chair in the orchestra. Ah, here is Mine, who lives with his Grandpa because his parents are always on tour, who hates playing violin and would much rather make Chinese food, but he can't tell anyone.
It's worse because they live right next to Momogaoka, the starting place of the famous Miki Kiyora, Stresemann's only protege Chiaki Shinichi, and even the competition-sweeping pianist Noda Megumi. The teachers come in almost every day for drinks and food, and it's Mine's job to introduce the new menu (Special!! Red Fruit Cobbler, for the Red Jewel of the Orient's Win -- it would be embarrassing, if he hadn't had to announce even drippier stuff) and get them to buy it.
"When are you coming to our school, eh?" "Look at that hair, he takes after his father." "No, his mother's was always long too." "Are you still practicing? What are you playing?"
Only Tanioka-sensei, the oldest there, orders his meal without any silly preamble. Once Mine asked him why, and the old man shrugged and told him he saw no need to butter him up or make him like him. He was a piano teacher, violin was a different division. He came to eat, not to goggle, but he hoped Mine would be something worthwhile, anyway. "It might be fun, you see," he finished.
Mine doesn't want to play the violin. He wants to be a cook, and take over Grandpa's restaurant when he retires. He'd support the local orchestras, because he knows music is important, but he wouldn't be in any of them. And when he had kids, he'd live with them above the restaurant, instead of being in a different city in Europe and America every month and leaving his kid in Japan.
But his parents love the violin. It was their first baby. So Mine doesn't tell them they're lousy parents in his weekly emails, but tells them about school and business and that yes, he remembers his scales. He doesn't mind living with Grandpa, anyway, and going abroad is totally overrated.
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author's notes: This might be more drama based, but I was struck by how Mine and Kiyora are not just lovers but rivals, too; so I wanted to write something a little more in the future. Of course the secret ending is: they fought about it, and then they lived happily ever after.