"Oh, I hit another wrong note. I'm sorry, Sensei. . ."
"That's okay, Wataru. When you need to press both the F and C keys at the same time make sure you reach with your pinky. Stretch it as far as you can and reach for them as if you're trying to grab something important. Now try it again and keep giving it your best. I know you can do it." I pat the young boy on the head before he started to play the song again. The song I'd given him for his lesson was 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'. Sure, it might seem to be an easy song to play on the piano, but Wataru was a boy with small hands. So this was a good song to stretch his hands with.
I stood there next to him as I listened to him play. As I listened I slowly got lost in my own thoughts. I remembered how it had been Kaori's idea for me to open this piano school. As soon as she'd seen this building open for sale she'd jumped at the quickest opportunity to tell me about it. She knew the piano was my passion. Just as she had been with the violin.
I felt my heart ache. 'Kaori. . . What am I doing here without you?'
It'd actually been Kaori's idea to make the school for all ages. The building itself hadn't been entirely large but it had been big enough to fit one room where the students played, another for an office, then there were the restrooms and the supply closet. Hours were simple. I would teach each student for two hours each from Monday to Friday and my lunch break was at twelve and I closed at ten every night. Whenever a student didn't show I just took those hours and either asked if the next student wanted to come in early or went out and gave myself an early break.
It wasn't the greatest paying job but I was able to keep up with all of my bills and I had a true passion for it, so I didn't have a problem.
"Sensei?"
I snapped out of my thoughts. "Huh? Yes, Wataru? What is it?"
"Didn't you hear me say I finished? I finally finished the whole song without messing up!" Wataru smiled. He was ecstatic and I missed it.
I frowned before I quickly replaced it with a smile so that I wouldn't discourage the boy in any way. "Yes, you did. I'm proud of you Wataru."
I'd been getting distracted like that ever since Kaori's death. After her funeral I jumped back into work quickly so that I could only distract myself from the pain. I could only see that it hadn't been working out well. Even Watari had been worried about it as well. I couldn't blame him. The first few weeks back into it were probably the worst of my career. I would scare the students with my unexpected breakdowns and I would yell at them for senseless mistakes. I nearly considered taking a break myself until I slowly recovered to where I was now. I was better, yes. But the hurt was still there.
Kaori had been diagnosed with anemia when she was younger. She'd always seemed to have an iron deficiency but it wasn't discovered that she had actually had anemia until she was around fourteen. Though we both didn't think that her illness would get as badly as it had. In fact, I along with her parents and even the doctors thought that her condition had only been in the early stages and that she only needed to continue to eat the correct foods so that her body would gain more iron. There'd been no sign of it getting any worse than that.
However, that hadn't been the case.
Right after Kaori had graduated from college earning her Bachelor's degree, her condition had only worsened. Though her passion was the violin, her dream was to teach music to elementary school kids. But just before she could even start looking for jobs at the local schools, she'd started fainting and suddenly getting weak everywhere she went. Eventually it got to the point that she'd ultimately been unable to walk.
After that, Kaori had been admitted into the hospital several times. There was one time when she'd had to stay there for nearly an entire month. I watched as she pushed herself every day in physical therapy. She was determined to reach her goal of becoming a music teacher. She told me that she was going to marry me and have my children before she ever gave up hope of being better. It inspired me but at the same time it broke my heart having to watch her like that. Day by day went by and she only seemed to be getting worse rather than better. One by one everyone slowly began to lose their hope in her, starting with her doctors. Then it was acquaintances we knew. Then Watari. Even her parents. But I refused. I would never lose my faith in Kaori.
Finally, the day came when the doctors suggested she have surgery done. They would go in and give her a bone and marrow stem cell transplant. Kaori jumped at the opportunity. Everyone seemed to get a spark of hope once again that she would get better. I decided that would be the day. I had planned to propose to her once she'd gotten out of surgery and had recovered.
She never made it off the table.
After that. . . Well, you can guess what I felt.
"Hello? Arima-san? I'm here to pick up my Wataru," a woman had been standing at the door.
"Mama!" Wataru leaped from the bench and jumped into his mother's arms.
I couldn't help but adore the sight. It only made me wonder if Kaori would have been the same with her own children.
The woman then smiled to me as she'd noticed I'd been staring. "Thank you for teaching my Wataru the piano. Ever since his first lesson he's been so excited to come back and see you. It's probably been the happiest I've seen him ever since the day we got him a cat."
The woman's name was Mayumi Umeko. She'd been widowed when her husband had been in a car accident. He'd been driving home from work one night when it'd been raining heavily. He'd lost control of his car after his front wheel hit the shoulder and hit the other oncoming car head on. Both drivers died immediately.
That'd been at least seven years ago, just before Wataru had been born. Mayumi-san had told me all of this when Wataru first started coming here at five years old. I felt for her though at the same time I wondered how she had seemed to talk about her husband's passing so easily. I couldn't even talk about Kaori without breaking down.
I thought about asking her about it but I changed my mind once I saw her putting her son down and holding his hand.
"Goodbye Arima-san. We'll see you again tomorrow." Mayumi turned and waved as the door was pulled open in front of her.
Had my next student already been here? No, that wasn't right. It'd already been noon; it was time for my lunch break.
"Thank you, sir," Umeko-san smiled politely before walking out. I saw Watari step in right after her.
"Watari?"
"Yo." Watari came in and sat down on the bench facing the piano.
"What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be out on a date with your girlfriend today?" I adjusted the glasses sitting on my face before I went and put the sheet music Wataru had been using back in his folder.
"About that. I came to pick you up. We wanted to take you out while you're on your break. And you told me yesterday that two of your students cancelled on you for today, so Kumiko and I wanted to steal you for the day."
"Huh?" I looked at him as if he was crazy. I hadn't seen Watari much ever since he had started dating his girlfriend and I didn't really know Kumiko so I didn't really feel like hanging around to be the third-wheel.
"No thanks, I think I'll pass. I'm—"
"Too busy with sheet music. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, sure. But you can be busy later. For now, you're taking a break." Watari stood and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and practically dragged me out of the building.
"So, how did your date go, Kousei?" Kumiko sat across from me. We'd stopped by an ice cream shop after Watari kidnapped me.
I looked at her and frowned. "Eh, I'm afraid I may have scared her off." Hopefully they bought that one. I pushed my vanilla ice cream around in my bowl.
Kumiko was pretty. She had shoulder-length chestnut brown hair and her eyes were gray. She seemed good for Watari. She kept him in his place when needed. They'd been together almost a year now.
"What? Even after all that preparation? What happened, Kousei? My plan was one-hundred percent fool proof! I even double checked!" Watari exclaimed from where he sat beside me at the round table.
"Idiot! Don't be so mean!" Kumiko hit Watari against the back of his head.
"Ow! Kumiko-chan! What was that for?!"
"Jeez! You're always saying something stupid! What if you end up hurting Kousei's feelings one day?!"
I couldn't help but laugh at the scene before me. Suddenly they both stopped bickering and looked at me.
"Why are you laughing, Kousei?" Kumiko asked.
I shook my head. "Nothing. It's nothing. Anyway, I don't think I'll be seeing Izumi again anytime soon."
Kumiko frowned. "I see. I'm sorry it didn't work out for you."
"No, don't be. I believe it was meant to be that way anyway. I'm sure someone as pretty and nice as her will find someone better than me anyway." I shrugged.
"Ah, don't be such a downer Kousei!" Watari hit me on the back. "I swear to you. I'll find you someone new to have dinner with!"
"No thanks. I think I'd prefer to not have to go through something like that again."
"What happened, anyway? What did you say to her that would have made her actually run away?" Watari sat back in his chair and went back to eating his chocolate ice cream.
"It wasn't that. . . I mean, she didn't really run away." I didn't want to tell them the real reason. I didn't want to ruin their day.
"Then what happened, Kousei?" Kumiko asked. She seemed to be even more concerned than Watari was. Then again I guess that's just how females were sometimes.
"Nothing. Can we go now?"
They seemed to share a glance with each other before they nodded. "Come on, I wanted to go to the park today Watari."
I followed behind them as we left the little ice cream shop.
I was shivering as it was suddenly very cold. Winter had still been in the process of saying goodbye and I hadn't thought of bringing a scarf. Not only that but I had lost Kumiko and Watari. So now I was sitting here at the big fountain in the middle of the park waiting for them.
"Jeez. . . did they have to walk without me? It was like I wasn't even there!" Though I couldn't blame them. They were in love. But that didn't tell me why I was sitting here waiting for them.
Before I knew it there was someone standing in front of me. A woman, at that.
"Here," she smiled as she handed me a mahogany red scarf.
It was all I could do to stare at her in shock. Who was this lady?
"Well are you going to take it or not? I had an extra and saw you were cold so I decided to be nice. I'm Tsubaki, by the way. Tsubaki Sawabe."
I was still staring. Finally, she felt impatient enough to put the scarf around my neck herself. "Jeez, you don't even know how to accept a gift…"
I blinked. "Oh, sorry. Thank you…"
"Well?" Tsubaki put her hands on her hips, huffing out a breath of cold air.
"'Well'?" I was still confused. All I knew was that this weird lady had come to me giving me her scarf.
"Huh?! No manners, either? Tell me your name in exchange for the scarf!"
"Oh, sorry! I'm Arima Kousei. But you can call me Kousei." I took a closer look at this girl, adjusting my glasses. Her short and wavy chestnut brown hair was shining from the sunlight. Her almond brown eyes were sort of glaring at me and her cheeks were flustered but I wasn't sure if it'd been from the cold weather or something else.
"'Arima Kousei'. 'Kousei'. I see," she sat down beside me on the stone bench.
Looking around, her and I were really the only people sitting outside right now. I looked at her and saw that she was shivering. I stood. "Come on. It's too cold out here. Let's go find somewhere to be warmer."
She looked at me like I'd suddenly grown a third eye or something. "Huh? What makes you think I'm going with you?"
"Well you wanted to talk to me about something, didn't you?"
For a moment I could have sworn I saw her blush before she pulled her blue scarf higher to cover her face. "Um… never mind! Bye!" Next thing I knew she was gone. I couldn't help but laugh.
"Tsubaki, huh?"
Hello!~ I hope you have enjoyed reading this second chapter of "Love and Heartbreak". Chapters will come as soon as they are written!~^^
Disclaimer: I do not own Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso (Your Lie in April) nor do I own any of the original characters from the manga or anime itself.