"I'm… I'm not a musician, Kaede."
Her eyebrows lift slightly as she turns to face Shuichi beside her on the piano bench.
Of course I know that.
What about it?
His lips narrow; his eyes drop to the keys for a second before flicking onto her. A subtle change in the shape of his eyes betrays that underneath the bill of his cap and his tousled bangs, his brow has roofed, in that fretful, apologetic Shuichi way. "You and the musicians in the other classes have a show to practice for, right…?" A pause, before he blinks and shakes his head out once. "Why are you offering me a piano lesson, instead?"
She listens for a moment, processing how to take it.
...Then she smiles, a gently-warm melted smile, when she settles upon it.
It's like him to ask questions, is the simple cause. Ha ha… like the detective he is.
"Well - you know how important the piano is to me, right?" That smile is curved nice and deep and cleanly-curving into her voice. Her musician's ears, however, hear the note of tautness in it from restraining a fond laugh; she does not know if he hears it, and if he does, she only hopes that he does not feel as if he's being teased. "I guess… I've been wondering for a while how you would play, Shuichi."
"I see," he says, voice trailing and breezing off low and whispery, as he turns forward to face the piano, eyes to the keys again. His face is solemn. Thoughtful.
She can't quite determine about what, unfortunately. Especially as… she has a feeling he does not get it.
After all, she in fact only told him a fraction of what "it" is. Nothing to indicate where that fraction fits into her purpose, or any purpose outside of itself, for that matter.
Her smile tugs a little further, just into one cheek. Ruefully.
"Here," she still says without pause, warmly soft and encouraging, as she takes one of his hands. His eyes widen and his mouth drops open hesitantly as he turns his face to follow it. She places it on the first three keys of a middle octave, as she shifts on the seat to straighten her back. "Let's start with the basics…"
Let's start with the very beginning.
A very good place to start.
"I'm sure you know what 'solfège' is…"
"I… n-no, I haven't heard that word before. What is it?"
Her voice quivers with a gentle laugh as her two of her fingers likewise take a gentle trace under his, lifting and encouraging his index finger away from the others. "It's nowhere near as fancy as it sounds… You know how to sing 'do, re, mi', don't you, Shuichi?"
She feels his arm stiffen. His fingers, too, lightly. Wanting to feel the guidance, she imagines, stay conscious - keep asking questions.
"Um - yeah…"
The end of that trailing just barely lifting in inflection. His looking back up from their hands to her face furthered the impression of a question.
Um - yeah…?
Or do I?
More questions.
She beams.
"See?" She deliberately brings her voice up sparkling golden-bright. "Then you do know it!"
His lips thin and he looks down at the keys again. She catches a flicker in his throat indicating a swallow.
She takes it as her cue to sidle up to him, should it be any reassurance, leaning her head in beside him - joining him in watching both their hands. "In 'do, re, mi', the 'do' corresponds to the note of C right here…"
She very, very gently flattens a finger over his. She needn't push. It bends with hers less as if manipulated and more as if trying on the motion of a dance, until the key rings.
Kaede beams again. "Right - so that's C, so we have 'do', which means that D…" Guiding his hand to the adjacent key. "...or 're', is right here…"
Another synchronized bend and ring of a key higher.
Repeat and repeat as she walks him up the scale, in letters and syllables, and then back down again. He plays it on its own a couple of times; they take turns humming and singing do, re, mi, her throat warm and voice certainly no polished singer's but paradoxically casually exacting in key, his voice wavering and trembling at the edges as he sheepishly approximates, wincing at high dos in a singing voice he isn't accustomed to hearing.
He laughs blowsily and timidly at her bright "that's right!"s and "you got it!"s in an effort to soothe him.
Turns an appreciative smile at her, though.
It makes her beam brighter, less voluntarily.
Before she finds herself taking his hand again, also half-voluntarily, and guiding it again - his face flickers back into questioning attention - to show him the sharps and flats. Time passes. Notes play. Their hands fit and dance together in grips and shapes and interlockings as she spreads and teases his fingers to play some basic chords. She doesn't let go, entirely, when he moves on to feeling the motions naturally enough to play them of his own accord; simply frees one hand and riffs on top of those chords, unevenly-played, in elegant tickling flourishes and resonant, metered rings, to show him what can be done with them.
Soon enough, she notices, with another warm smile, that he's gotten comfortable enough to watch her handiwork as he plays, keeping his hands in place and trusting them to stay there eyes free while he peers around himself, slouched and making himself small over the keyboard.
He scoffs gently, his own smile sweet and wistful. "Thank you for trying to teach me more about what it is you do," he says, falling out of rhythm with the self-imposed division in tasks, "but I doubt I could ever play on your level. Then again, you are the Ultimate Pianist…"
One last jingle of keys as she lifts her hand off them - bunches it up on the top of her skirt as she leans up to him again, putting on her brightest smile. "Hey," she says, "no one ever really is an instant expert, right? Even if some people do just have… talent, even they don't know everything right away - you've got to start with the basics."
"I guess you're right." Shuichi lowers his head a little, shutting his eyes a second.
Still smiling.
She lifts a brow - and her hand, extending a pointer finger. Attempting to get his attention. "And…" He looks up. "...there's a reason that the basics are what they are, right?" Dials up her smile a hint more. "Once you get them down, you can start doing anything! Like…"
...She starts to lift her other hand off of his. Watching it, and then her face, his face has clicked to uncertain again.
But not anxious.
She knits her brow a little. A pairing with her smile for sympathy. Reassurance.
Just trust me, all right?
"...Play a few notes you like together," she says. "Any notes - just as long as you like the way they sound in a row."
He nods, tinily. His back twists a little on the seat, turning more fully to the keyboard, now that she no longer needs access to his hand. He stares at the keys for a second as if they're pieces of a puzzle he was just shown the solution to, wants to be certain he still remembers the places for before he goes at them.
Another tiny nod.
His finger extends.
C is the first note he plays.
She knew it would be.
He looks at her. Her turn to nod. Yeah, keep going…!
He picks a sharp for the next one - her brow lifts, smile drops lightly open. A surprising choice.
Another note comes relatively effortlessly; for the last, she sees him cringe and squinch his eyes shut, lean back just slightly…
...Ping.
It rings beautifully.
His eyes fly wide; he swoops over the keyboard. Plays the sequence again. And again. Tosses her another look.
She answers his question.
"That sounds pretty," she says, with the under-boost of a laugh.
And with a whip and a flick of each wrist, she is sitting straight up again, her own hands poising themselves over the piano again. She nods at him. "Now, keep playing it! The same way you're doing!"
At first he doesn't question it. A hardness over his eyes as he watches his own fingers in motion, playing the same four keys: one - two - three - four! One - two - three - four! She starts to rock slightly, as a subtle metronome; he picks up on it, and the distance of the notes evens out.
She waits for him to become comfortable again. He's already stolen one glance at her during his repetition - trying to judge whether or not he really is doing what she wants, she assumes.
But now his eyes are back on her, and he isn't taking them off. Fingers still moving with rhythmic, decisive presses. He has memorized the placement of his notes.
And now he's asking her what it is she intends to do.
Her eyes shut. Her smile relaxes. She is going to show him.
Feeling those four simple notes, she plays a riff. Her hand pauses, fingers planted. She dances higher, plays a quickened mirror of Shuichi's melody, and then reverses it. Turns it into a chord and follows it into a logical one after and turns that into an additional source of rhythm before, with her other hand, she evolves his melody further.
It evolves. At some point, Shuichi starts playing his four notes with his own second hand on the adjacent octave. Kaede smiles at the added richness; gets increasingly playful with the speed of her stylings.
It sounds nice.
Free, and loose, and with the strange combined simplicitly and complexity of spontaneity.
She doesn't comment on it. He fell out of rhythm trying to speak while playing not minutes ago.
But she does turn her softly beaming smile back onto him, once again.
Asking him, this time, how he likes it.
He's looking at her again, too, expression almost mirroring hers.
But for his mouth open, lips curved and a lift in the lower lids of his eyes as if to suggest a bashful laugh.
She makes it a little more tangible for him. Shutting her eyes, feeling the vibration in her chest stir a deep, sunny warmth.
She'd been trying to compose a love song.
She has a motif for Shuichi now, she supposes.
And yet this, in the moment, seems a far better way to make such a song.