Chapter 10: JALOUSIE
Author's notes: This is the climax of this entire arc. I hope you all enjoy it.
The concert hall where the competition would take place was a thirty-minute cab ride in from the countryside where they'd been staying. The cab driver was an interesting man who welcomed their money more so than them but had been happy to provide boisterous conversation for the whole ride, talking about his two small children. They exited the cab, thanking and paying the driver.
Odense was an interesting city, to be certain. The people there seemed warm and polite until they learned of their status as foreigners, after which most people seemed curter and in a hurry to escape conversation. They followed the signs to the concert hall, about two blocks away.
They strolled up to the main entrance, music grasped at their fingertips, and arrived just in time to confirm their registration, which they'd submitted in the month prior.
The hallways to their practice room were filled with sound, the sounds of other contestants. Some were better than others.
But Kaori and Kousei paid them no mind. They were going to win, even if they couldn't activate their illusions for some reason. No one had seen them before, and hopefully they would steal the hearts of the judges.
Their practice room was an off-white, with one music stand and a piano. And as the music swelled throughout the building, everyone was entrapped within the snare of the illusion. Everyone else's music stopped for a moment. And the illusion stopped, compressing back into their connection.
"That's not normal. Why did everyone else stop playing, Kousei?" She was confused. Were they that good that everyone stopped playing?
"I don't think so, Kaori. I think that if someone can hear us playing, they are forced into our illusion. We probably just interrupted everyone else's practicing." His eyes were amused, and then they weren't, in the next moment.
"We shouldn't use our bond for this competition. At least not the illusory part. It enhances our own abilities past the normal point." He sounded firm on this, in Kaori's ears.
"But we worked so hard on it!" She really wanted to show off their hard work. "You especially worked so hard for this!"
And then their bond tightened. Poulsen was in the building. "Oh, come on! Not on today, of all days!" Kaori was annoyed. Kousei's mind was running away with him, with its ideas.
"Or maybe, we could devise a way to scare him off." His eyes filled with mischievous energy.
An illusion, a new one, spread out between their thoughts.
They were going to make him very, very uncomfortable by the end of their performance.
"And the best part, Kousei? It'll just seem like he's crazy and hallucinating." Kaori was pleased with their plan; despite the tension in the air, they would be ready for him.
Several minutes passed in chaos as they formed the new illusion for the first time, connecting it to the music.
Kousei hoped they could focus it on just Poulsen. He hoped that someone important would be watching this performance.
They were going to need divine intervention for this.
"Let me get this started! Are you ready for some music!" The announcer, the chairman of the association, was overly boisterous, and as Kousei and Kaori watched from backstage, they were indeed ready to hear what their competition had to bring to the table.
Kaori thought almost nostalgically, reminded of the old days; "Makes me remember when we were younger. Even though we only performed once back then."
Kousei understood what she was thinking. Their hands, clasped together, stuck firm as the order was announced.
"...Kaori Miyazono, accompanied by Kousei Arima, number five!" They were afraid, because the monster was there. They could feel it, tightening their connection just the slightest bit. But they were both brave, each made fearless because of the other.
In unison, they thought as one; "I'm not afraid, because you're here."
There was a solitary bead of sweat as they sat backstage, listening to the first performer and accompanist. The violinist drove through the melody, rushing towards the end.
Kaori smiled a little, and spoke softly;
"Well he certainly has the end of his performance in mind, huh?" And as he reached the end, he made a mistake, playing an G sharp where there should have been a C sharp. Kaori's head snapped up, her face going from normal to an analytical frown.
As he backpedaled from his mistake, she happened to state the obvious; "That was a rather unfortunate mistake. At least it was in the key, though, so it was a diatonic mistake, which is better than a chromatic mistake."
Kousei was facing her, amused by her seriousness; "What I wouldn't do for you to take our practices this seriously."
Her face went a little annoyed, and she gave him the look. She reached over from where she sat on the bench and clocked him on the arm.
"Ow!" Kousei yelped, before realizing the performance was still going on, and shutting himself up.
"That was for saying that I don't take things seriously, you meanie." Her eyes went from annoyed to mischievous. They softened, in a way. Her look was filled with love, after all.
"Ugh, I can't even stay mad at you. But shut up about what you want and be grateful that you have a woman that's willing to put up with you." The last part was spoken with a raised eyebrow.
They heard the climactic tones of an ending strain.
The performer finished his part one measure before the pianist. After the mistake, he just hadn't been able to recover.
The second set of performers was quickly hurried past them, and Kousei saw a set of twins, non-identical, because only one was a girl. The girl turned to look him in the eyes, her beauty almost matching Kaori's, though in quite a different way altogether. Her brown eyes lingered on him for just a moment before her expression hardened into one that Kousei knew very well. She remembered that he was part of the competition. No time to be looking. "Wow," Kousei said, as the two passed, "they make for quite the eye-catching ensemble, don't you think, Kaori?"
Kaori thought they were both rather attractive, what with their dark, straight hair, defined features, and slender builds. She knew that Kousei thought the girl was at the very least cute, and she wasn't mad about it. She turned to him as the pair were introduced onstage, and told him what he'd been told before. "You can look, but not touch. Your touch is… All. For. Me." The last parts emphasized with a pause between them.
She had gotten closer with every word, only seeming to catch herself when she was about to pounce on Kousei.
"I guess we probably shouldn't be intimate backstage, huh?" Kaori's smile, as always, was so contagious, that Kousei couldn't help but grin.
"You're not wrong, hon."
And the two onstage started playing. It was a song in lydian mode, meaning it sounded very bright and happy. Not entirely the best sort of song for a competition, but it seemed to match their play styles well enough, with the light melody from the young woman matching up perfectly with its lilting intensity to its partner in the firm and strong part of the piano.
The young woman's eyes, if Kousei could have seen them, were filled with so much love for the world around her.
Truly a wonderful performance, is what the judges were all thinking.
And as the piece slowed to its development in the third part, the young man got his chance to shine, playing solo for a meager fifteen seconds.
But he made every second count.
They were both sweating and playing in a furious crescendo by the time the ending strain came around, her hair getting in her face, his cufflinks coming loose.
It built to a dramatic finish, and after it was over, the young woman met eyes with Matthew Poulsen, as she scanned the crowd for family. She saw the perversion in his eyes, and then tore her own eyes away, blushing as he mentally undressed her.
Her brother immediately noticed something was wrong, and as she hurried off stage, he managed to catch up with her and ask; "what's wrong?"
Her answer was simple enough.
"There's a pervert in the crowd, Eric. Nothing too major, don't worry." He didn't believe that it wasn't anything major. His sister had always been chaste, and most things sexual made her uncomfortable, especially when she got looks from men she didn't know.
And Kousei and Kaori heard the entire exchange, sitting a mere ten feet away.
The brother noticed them. The sister saw them and turned away, face completely red, embarrassed out of her mind.
"Oh! Sorry, but we just…"
Kousei answered, cutting him off; "There's no need to be ashamed. My girlfriend here gets a lot of looks too, so we both understand what just happened."
The pair took a look each at the couple, grateful for the understanding.
The brother, Eric, had his expression soften a little, a small smile adorning his features.
The sister still had a blush on her face when she looked at Kousei and declared; "See you around, I guess."
Her nonchalance was forced, clearly, in Kousei's eyes. And was that interest, that he saw in her eyes? He supposed that he would never know.
And they walked into the back room to wait for the results of the competition.
The third set of performers were plain looking compared to the last set; two asian men in their late twenties. They were announced onstage, and Kaori and Kousei wished them good luck.
They both nodded their thanks before their expressions went stony. They then walked out onto stage.
"Yikes… they seem rather serious about winning, don't you think?" Kaori winced, remembering that expression.
"Oh, definitely. They probably have a large stake in winning this, after all. Unlike us, this is probably most of their income." Kousei had analyzed the situation quite well.
For indeed, the two young performers from Thailand were so desperate because the first-place winner got 60,000 Danish krone, almost 10,000 U.S. dollars. They needed that money to help support their families.
And they were spectacular musicians, but as Kousei listened, he realized that the pianist was likely self-taught. He might only know this one song, in fact.
Danse Macabre.
They filled the air with the sounds of death.
In the darkness that was the Void of Sin, Death stirred from his dark throne, if you could call it that. It was the only chair in the Void of Sin, period. And he was stirring for one reason only. It was almost time for his creation to act. And if a song praising him was being played, why not show up himself?
He moved, and like the origin, he was amongst the living. He was backstage, too.
Kousei and Kaori immediately buckled. The gravity was two-fold in an instant.
Kousei just turned his head towards Kaori in disbelief. "What's going on?"
And then Kaori saw him. He was almost entirely see-through, but he was there, some twenty feet away. The spectral form of what only could be described as Death.
He was just a humanoid, grey shape with a cloak.
He didn't shine like the Origin. He absorbed the light around him.
One thing was for certain. He had a presence when confronting the living.
Because their bond was doing its best to tell them to get out.
He turned to face them. Usually, unless the mortals were near dead, they couldn't see him. But these two couldn't just see him, but they could clearly feel him, too.
"You two ...can see me? I didn't know anyone still could."
He saw that they were both relatively healthy. But then he saw the strand connecting their souls.
"Ah. A pair of bonded. The fact that you can see me makes much more sense now."
And then he felt the music which was keeping him there vanish, and he was forced back into the Void of Sin.
They heard a final whisper.
"And Kaori? Enjoy your last day alive."
The two performers exited the stage, and they looked hopeful. The crowd had seemed impressed, after all. They actually had a chance. The crowd had applauded them, after all.
Kaori and Kousei understood the situation a little better. The piece wasn't an appropriate one for a competition at all. It was about death, and was dissonant, rather than consonant, making it hard to listen to.
The applause had been awkward at best.
As the two men strode past them, Kaori gave them an encouraging nod.
They seemed happy enough.
And they, too, proceeded to the back room to wait for the results.
The fourth pair of performers were a young couple. A young man with light hair was the violinist, and a young woman with blazing red hair was the pianist.
They seemed very much in love. Almost overly so.
They were… average. There wasn't an overly interesting piece being played, and they seemed like the weakest performers so far. They were getting distracted by each other, and their performance started to fall apart. They ended with a powerful chord, but their overall performance was rather weak.
They received some applause, but the crowd was a tough one that day, to be certain.
They walked out, and Kaori was struggling to keep calm until Kousei literally shoved her back to alertness through their connection. And for the first time, he spoke a full sentence through the bond, though it was difficult.
"I'm right here, you know."
And with that, her everything was suffused with warmth.
And they were announced.
"And I now present to you, Kaori Miyazono and Kousei Arima, with their performance of "Tango Tzigane: Jalousie!"
They looked at each other, and then synced. The whole room started to turn gray, in the eyes of one man, and as Kaori struck the first note, Matthew Poulsen's surroundings changed.
And Kaori played, indeed.
The killer heard the music, but saw only the forest where he'd committed his first crime.
And as Kaori played the last phrase of the beginning strain, Poulsen felt like he was being shot when she played the last three chords.
He was backed up against a tree, overlooking himself committing that first crime. And their illusion forced him to feel bad about it. They were giving him a conscience. Would it work?
Kaori looked out into the crowd and saw Poulsen shiver in his seat, before the illusion finally gripped him in earnest. It was time to give him a scare.
As the scene changed, and Kousei started playing the main melody with both hands on the bass side of the piano, Poulsen saw his youngest victim dying. He felt himself getting sick to his stomach. Each note forced him more into place. He tried to move, and just barely was able to get out of his seat. But then gravity slowly increased, and he was forced to sit back down. And the best part was that Kaori and Kousei knew only of six of his crimes, so they had to make the most out of what they had.
Kousei grimaced as he played. He wasn't enjoying the imagery any more than Kaori was.
It was intense, as he moved back from the melody, as Kaori took the spotlight once more. The crowd was loving every bit of their musicianship, especially during a Danish piece.
And then Kousei stopped playing altogether, at Kaori's cue.
She played with a vicious ferocity, and it felt to Matthew Poulsen that he'd just been slapped.
The scenery for him changed again, as the song switched from normal D minor into something of Kaori's own design.
It was a section where the song went into D flat minor, as opposed to D minor.
And as such, the timbre of the piece turned darker, more violent.
And Matthew Poulsen was forced to watch himself fight against the athletic fifteen year old he'd killed when he was twenty-three.
She had almost been able to match him.
And as Kaori and Kousei seemingly fought over who played louder, the killer was forced to watch how he'd overpowered the young woman.
And he nearly vomited, watching her be strangled to death.
"Why am I feeling like this? I never feel guilty!"
And he received no answer other than Kaori's grim smile up on stage.
The illusion ended. And as the piece turned to D Major, he was allowed to leave.
They couldn't force him to stay for the whole performance, so he just got out of his very convenient aisle seat, and Matthew Poulsen left the concert hall, rattled beyond belief.
Kaori and Kousei then focused the end of their performance on the love they felt for each other. It produced an end truly befitting this part of their journey. They ended powerfully.
And as the crowd gave a standing ovation and they bowed, Poulsen was busy vomiting outside the concert hall, into a trashcan.
And as Kaori turned toward him and everyone watched, Kousei went down on one knee.
He pulled a box from his pocket. Kaori thought: "No fucking way." A wry smile appeared on her face.
"Kaori, will you marry me?"
A slight pause. Her smile turned genuine.
"Yes."
And the crowd went wild.
By the time they were done cheering, the two were ready to depart from the stage.
The judges were flabbergasted.
"This is a first," one said to the others.
"But not an unwelcome thing, yes?" An older, wiser man said. "Any amount of love this world gains is a beautiful amount."
And everyone agreed, as Kaori and Kousei left the stage, that they seemed like the two happiest people on the planet.
And in that moment, they might as well have been.
A rattled man lied in wait, sitting outside the concert hall, for when he could catch the two of them off-guard.
The nettles in the garden out front stung his legs slightly as he shifted through them, making his way back to the door out front. He was going to make them pay for giving him a conscience. Because now he couldn't make that conscience disappear. He, in that moment, was the most tortured soul that would ever be. He just wanted everything to stop. He was so angry. But he couldn't stop the guilt.
"How dare they do this to me! How dare they make me feel bad? I'm the most prolific serial killer in all of Denmark, and they made me feel remorse!"
He shouted this to an empty garden, so did he make any sound at all?
Kaori and Kousei were receiving words of congratulations and didn't notice the door of the lobby open.
Kousei went to go to the bathroom, and that is when the killer struck.
He was fifty feet away when both Kaori and the bond screamed.
"Ah! Get off me!"
"Stop struggling or I'll slit your throat!"
The Origin had been waiting for this moment. He sat on his throne, at the moment. But once again, he stood.
And he was there, in one step. He stopped time. He leant in to Kousei's ear, and whispered.
"My first-born, your loved one is in danger. This is your only chance to save her."
With that, Kousei unfroze. His eyes glowed with the light of the Origin.
And he essentially was right in front of Poulsen in an instant.
Poulsen thought one thought as Kousei's first fired toward him at fifty miles an hour: "Wow that's moving really quick-"
And then Kousei's fist impacted his jaw, snapping his neck from the overwhelming force.
He died immediately, and his soul fled from his body before being dragged through dimensions into purgatory, where he'd be sentenced.
His physical body started to turn cold, and as the bruising of his neck started, the people watched, almost melancholy at the sight.
They understood that what Kousei had done was justified.
But they didn't like it.
Author's notes:
Thank you to all reviewers!
Next Chapter:
Home at Last!