Disclaimer: I do not own Nodame Cantabile.
Some things you need to know before reading this:
onigiris - riceball
senpai - a Japanese honorfic for someone older than you. In this case Chiaki is older than Nodame, therfore she calls him Chiaki-senpai or just senpai.
Cantabile - a musical term meaning singing style.
Despite Her Eccentricities
By: Higasa
Nodame's eccentricities perplexed him.
But what surprised Shinichi Chiaki even more was that she could play even the most difficult piano pieces, despite the fact that she lives in the pigsty apartment next door to his or that she can't cook at all (except for onigiris).
Even though Nodame played the piece her way and sloppily, nevertheless the music flowed in a cantabile style. It sounded fun and was unpredictable as she would improvise from time to time. And on top of that, she'd make that face.
What was even stranger was how that sloppy music could relax him. The crescendos and diminuendos, each note connecting like a piece of thread.
Wait, music? Chiaki thought, as his ears perked up. Mozart. And on top of that it was pink-colored, just like Nodame had suggested the other time when the A-Oke performed a Mozart piece. But this one was sloppy pink and one that kept messing up on the same measure he had heard for the past hour.
"Gyabo!" Nodame said. Chiaki pinched her cheeks. "Ah, senpai! You're awake. Did I wake you up?"
"What are you doing in my apartment?" he asked. "Don't you have your own piano to practice on?"
"I thought you wanted to listen to something relaxing while you were asleep, senpai."
"I wasn't asleep," Chiaki said. "Besides no one can sleep through that since you kept making the same mistakes."
"Gyabo." Before Nodame knew it, she was sitting on the floor listening to the same song she had been playing only now played by Shinichi Chiaki. She closed her eyes and listened to the melody while her fingers subconsciously played along in the air.
It was interesting all right, Nodame's style. It was so haphazard and carefree and of course far different from Etou-sensei's conformity. It was her world alright (minus the mushrooms growing on her socks and her smelly hair) and although Chiaki had tried to resist from stepping on the pink colored Mozart world he wasn't surprised. Something interesting had drawn him in.
After all it was Nodame Cantabile…the style that drew him in.
Fin.
Author's Note: I really wanted to write a Nodame Cantabile one shot and ta-da! But…I don't think it made sense. Haha. Anyhow I hoped you enjoyed it.