Disclaimer: I do not own Soul eater
RELEASE THE ANGER THAT YOU HARBOUR by ContrastingDeath
He hesitantly put down his thumb on a key, pressing it deep down into its valley, before having his ring finger press down one of the other keys to complete the chord that now spring out of the wooden body of the black grand piano. The tone sounds throughout the large hall, rising and then dissolving into the air. The young man's face wrinkles into a pained expression. The tone had been off, shaky, wavering, squeaky…wrong.
He makes one more try, testing another chord. It doesn't feel right either. It does not sound like that specific C major truly should sound like. It wavers around its assigned frequency, its character. Like a kite on a much too windy day, the angle between the ground and the line is never perfect, flapping in the wind soullessly. It's annoying. He knows what is should sound like. The piano within his soul is perfectly made and perfectly tuned. It's a pleasure to play it. His talent is never as profound as when he plays on it. It has richness in every chord, a fullness and life that no other piano so far has shown outside his soul.
Yet, he continues to look for a piano that IS perfect outside his soul. He tells himself that nothing shows the character of a soul more than through the music that springs from the instrument person plays. It tells all the tales, talents and vices that the person harbours. What angers it, what makes the soul grow and burst out in joy. (1)
He wants to be able to play the piano outside, in the real world, so that they all can hear, can all see that this is truly one of his talents. Of course he would only play really truthfully when only Maka is there, because his soul is truly twisted and she is the only one that should know this. That he wants to know. That he wants to know the character of his soul. She can already see it, but he wants her to hear it as well, because then only she would know him that well. He wants to be close to her.
But he also wants them to see him for the person he wants to be. A cool guy. And he is very, very good at playing pieces where the melody becomes the culmination of coolness. Black Star would of course become green from envy. Because Black Star might be able to battle by himself, but he, Soul Eater, can make dead objects talk, sing even. The piano is his weapon and he is its meister. (2)
So he gets up from this piano and keeps looking for a well-tuned piano during the following year, until he one night lays down to sleep in his and Maka's shared apartment and is woken up half an hour later, by the phone ringing. He can hear Maka answer it, followed by a loud groan and the words "Papa, it's midnight! Leave us alone" then there is a small noise as the phone was put back into its cradle. He falls back into sleep easily.
He dreams of a room painted black, an atmosphere stifling and a huge well-tuned piano. He plays chord after chord, weaving together a sonata, a piece containing everything he wants to convey to the world. The music expands, float into every corner of the room and fills the whole space. He hears the melody and if he closes his eyes he can almost see it. Feel it vibrate under his fingers.
Suddenly, the piano isn't as tuned as it used to be. It starts to sound more unreliable, sounding the same no matter what chord he plays. Is this what his soul is like? A horrible monotone, non-tuned mess? Is he really this twisted? This un-cool and shrill? Nobody would like to hear this. The ringing sound stabs him with blunt edges. It crushes his heart, his lungs; make him unable to breathe properly. The black suit he wears seems warmer, almost burning and his hair sticks to his wet forehead. Suffocating him. He fights feverishly to get into control again. His fingers are hitting randomly, arms straining to put more force into the chords. He wants to take the lead, but his movements have become sluggish, slowly coming to a stop. Suddenly the keys get so cold; the skin on his fingertips starts to be torn off as he plays. Painting the soft ivory keys of the piano a startling dark red.
He pulls away, horrified and in pain, from the piano when he falls out of his bed. The ringing that the piano used to sound like becomes located further away, in the living room. It is of course the phone outside (pianos obviously do not 'ring'). Soul Eater gets up from the carpeted floor in a daze, turning sleepily to look at the clock: 2 a.m. His half-awake brain produces first a few unfocused thoughts that are soon joined by more intense ones, waking him up entirely. What decent person would call somebody in the middle of the night like this? Perhaps something has happened and they are needed? Some attack? An emergency? Somebody hurt? By the end of these thoughts Soul Eater is already by the phone, tearing it away from its cradle and putting the phone to his ear. He takes a deep breath and tries to, despite his breathlessness due to his panic, to sound cool and collected. It doesn't really work.
"Hello? What's the matter? Is there any hurry? I'm not dressed yet…"
At the last statement the person who called interrupts, seemingly upset, screaming in an un-dignified manner:
"Why are you not dressed? If you have dared to lay one of your filthy fingers on her virgin body I'll slay you a hundred times and then…"
The man on the other side of the line is interrupted by Soul, who has scornfully been looking down on his very old (and un-cool, un-sexy) pyjamas during the death scythe's speech.
"I haven't touched her! I wouldn't touch that unsexy girl no matter what you paid me" for at least another couple of years, no need to hurry "you're seriously delusional if you think anyone would want to have sex with her…" Unfortunately for Soul, that sentence along with that thought is abruptly cut off as Maka comes up behind him and Maka chops him into a pleasant sleep.
This is why Soul Eater, when he wakes up a few hours later on the cold floor in the living room, is in no greater mood than Maka. This is also why Soul Eater promise to avenge his dream (because he is now convinced that there is no such thing as a well-tuned piano in the world) by calling the Death Scythe's regular bar to anonymously tell them their well-known customer has AIDS or something equally horrifying. He hasn't really decided yet.
This deprivation of sleep, headache (from the Maka chop), cramped muscles (from lying on the floor) and bad mood from the dream, results in the end of a poorly written in-class essay about myths.
The myth of a well-tuned piano by Soul Eater Evans
There is no such thing as a well-tuned piano. There have been legends, and temporarily insane people have looked for it. But there just isn't any tuned piano to find. This means many people have strived towards a perfection that just doesn't exist. And never will because the current Death Scythe, Spirit Albarn's mere presence disrupts any probability of one coming into existence. His mere voice has made any good professional out there deaf, so they can't tune any pianos anymore. In fact, he is probably the reason we don't have that much instruments around here. He'd try to sing and we'd all be deaf and the Kinshin would sneak up on us and kill us and we'd… and so the essay continues, without full stops, commas, capital letters or any focus on the central topic of myths whatsoever.
In the end Soul's bad mood was vented upon this poor piece of paper. The good thing about this is that no call was made to Spirit's favourite bar, thus he was still welcomed there. Keeping him far away from the rest of the world. Happy End, no?
Author note: this time I actually put some really deep thought into the chapter (in contrast to the previous that pretty much was just written because I thought it was fun.) I hope this one turned out okay, because I feel its one of the best so far, when it comes to character analysis. Not so much humour though. I think I'm getting of track…This fanfic contains a small amout of MakaxSoul, but seriously, who is able to write about either of them without some sort of hint at this? Also, I assume that Soul is well-educated thus his thought are very well-structured. It has nothing to do with my inability to write in another way.
1. (Manga) When Maka and Soul fights that crazy clown Soul encourage Maka to press a key on the piano inside his soul. Soul then mentions that the key she chose was so like her, thus hinting that Soul views music as something connected to ones character.
2. (Anime) Got this idea mainly from the image where it is explained that the meister is like a musician and the weapon the amplifier of this.
Any ideas of who to do next? Review