sonata_ariadne so sorry for the mixed povs and i'm quite inahurry
The letters arrive the first Sunday of each month, and Mori Manami stays a little behind as Tsuchiura Ryoutarou dutifully reads each page, more to his colleague's benefit for handing the letter than for himself.
They're happy—it's the first thing that Ryou always says, and it always makes Mori sigh a little. She knows of his love for the red-haired violinist and knows that any news from her tends to slowly kill him so Mori keeps on, month after month, listening, sitting on the piano chair.
It's over the bottom where Ryou's tone changes slightly, in perhaps jealousy, where he reads that she has learned to cook, so Tsukimori won't have to live on instant or take-out food for the rest of his life. She finally sends her love to all of her friends back home, and ask how Ryou had been doing lately, really, because isn't it great that Tsuchiura-kun had become one of the most respected contemporary pianists in Japan? It doesn't matter—Ryou knows there is no kingdom for Hino but for a cottage surrounded by the woods and the sea. He doesn't understand why she even tries mingling with people speaking that damned incomprehensible language anyway but he knows they're happy there. He folds the letter neatly into two, pulls out the drawer by his side and carefully adds it up to the growing pile, and why does he suddenly have trouble breathing?
At his piano, Ryou tries to write her a sonata and his fingers bleed into an adagio without him noticing. He does his best not to feel bitter—for twenty-five years he lived without having her and he can keep on going because she was never his to begin with. Still, it aches somewhere between his fingertips and his chest.
Mori listens.
He still plays for her, wherever she is.