This story is based off an AU where Adrien Agreste becomes blind.

Why do I play?

Well, I'm a pianist. My mother taught me how to play. When I was a little kid, I would watch her hands dance over the keys in such a graceful manner it left me in awe. Every time I heard her play, my heart would flutter with excitement and I'd just sit and listen… I can still remember the sound.

When I learned how to play, I was so frustrated that I couldn't play as well as her. My stiff hands would jump and pounce, much like an angry cat, across the piano. I remember hearing her laugh, and her gentle hands, the same beautiful hands that I would watch dance, lay on my shoulders.

"Relax, Adrien," she would say. "You're doing very well," I could hear the smile in her voice. Was it a smile of pride?

By the time I was 8 years old, I was in competitions, set on becoming better than my mother. My mother and father told me I was better than her already, since she didn't know much about piano, only that one peaceful tune she'd play… But still. I didn't believe them. Whenever she'd play, I'd watch her, and it give me this feeling in my chest; a feeling that made me think absolutely nothing was wrong with the world. I didn't feel that feeling when I played.

So I practiced and practice. I became fluent with the keys, and by 12 years old I was a record-setting pianist prodigy. But that same year, I got in a bad accident. The doctors thought I'd come out of it perfectly fine; however, when I woke up in that hospital bed… I had lost my sight. I remember this feeling of terror enter my chest and it refused to go back out. As if it were trying to choke me, my throat tightened up.

My Mom was with me, so she wheeled me out in a wheel chair to the lounge area. I felt her presence leave, but I could tell she was close. Moments later, I heard her play… that same song that brought every anxious thought to rest. And I smiled, imagining her sitting at the piano at home with her hands dancing across the keys.

I was never able to see again, but that didn't matter if I could simply hear my mother's playing.

As it turned out, I could still play the piano, despite my new "handicap." I couldn't learn any new pieces, but that didn't stop me. I began writing my own pieces, and since my free time had grown substantially during my remaining days at the hospital, I worked hard on playing the piano without sight.

I remember when I had finally almost learned the piece my mother played. Though it was one of the first I tried to learn, I was never able to play it like her. I still can't, and it wasn't perfect, but I had practiced it enough to sound similar enough. I eagerly awaited for her to come to my room after her work so I could play it to her, but…

She never came.

My father visited me this time. Alone. He told me she had a stroke, and there was nothing anyone could do.

She's why I play piano. She's why I'm a pianist. And the thought of her never coming back was a weight in my chest that has ceased to lift. I continue to write, and I continue to play, chasing the image of her beautiful sound; the way the keys fell and lifted at her every whim. I chase an angle, desperately trying to remember her face with the sound of her song.

That's why I play.

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-LovelySheree