Symphony

MysticShadowWanderer

Disclaimer: And Clovis, King of the Freaks, said unto Duane E. Scott, Elevator Necromancer, "Halt, fiend! For thou singeth the filth that is known here only as... Journey. We dare not singeth such light rock in these lands, for God shall smite thee for thine transgressions. If sing you must, sing naught but Marilyn Manson, for thus God will be much pleased."...

2nd Symphony: First Movement

Kaoru couldn't keep her heart from beating a furioso rhythm beneath her chest as she stepped into Kenshin's apartment. It felt as though he knew what she was thinking just by looking at her face; sometimes she thought he could read her like a book that lay open on the floor, just waiting for someone like him to pick up and peruse. Could he hear her pulse racing?

Kenshin simply gave her that familiar reassuring smile and she had to suppress her sigh of relief. He didn't know; she had been foolish to think that he could possibly have come to the same conclusion she had reached. After all, the prospects of that sort of thing happening was slim to none, if that. Then again, she reminded herself, the probability that any of the things that had transpired recently would actually come to pass was even less than that.

Forcing her lips to quirk upward at least a bit, she gave a polite nod to Kenshin as he ushered her to the piano bench. She had to admit, even if it was only to herself, she had been looking forward to playing again. All week she had been slightly nervous, though, because she had never liked to harbor secrets. And this was more than the usual inconsequential bit of information.

She gave a start when she heard Kenshin's voice. His words hadn't registered with her and she flushed slightly as she asked him to repeat himself.

"I know you've been practicing," he said softly. "Won't you please play what you've been working on?"

Last Saturday he'd shown her enough basics that, added to her limited knowledge of music theory that she'd gleaned from high school, she had been able to start learning a real piece of music. They both realized that her performance the week before was simply amazing, nearly unheard of, but she wanted to be able to read music as well as any trained pianist. With a tentative smile that was rewarded by another of his beautiful grins, she pulled her sheet music out of her tote bag and fumbled to get it open and placed on the piano. He chuckled quietly and helped her with the daunting task of unfolding her music, patting her hand affably when she had gotten herself sorted out. She blushed again and quickly positioned her hands on the keys, eager to slip away into the world of music where she wouldn't be such an embarrassment to herself with her ineptitude.

Kenshin's eyes and smile widened as he listened to Kaoru play through the andante movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." A week, he told himself incredulously, she'd been playing for a week. Truly the piece she'd chosen was one of the less challenging works for the piano (he would acknowledge only in his private thoughts that he detested playing the song, as it was boring even at the same time that it was lovely; it was likely that she would come to feel the same way eventually), but for a beginner to have nearly mastered it in a week? It was hard to believe, yet he was witnessing it. The look on her face was pure concentration, and he found himself drawn to that, drawn to another musician who could feel the soul of the piano as he could. Mentally he shook himself; it was best not to travel down the road he had been maneuvering so naturally toward. As the piece slowed to an elegant finish, Kenshin watched in a manner of fascination as Kaoru lazily opened her eyes. Somehow he hadn't gotten the impression that she was aware of the fact that she had closed her eyes during the time that she'd been playing. They locked gazes and Kenshin noted that her eyes were slightly glazed over, as if she were pulling herself out of another world that only she and the piano were allowed access to. He knew the feeling better than he knew his own soul, but couldn't help the sudden longing to also be permitted into that world as she witnessed it.

"It seems that you are nothing less than a musical prodigy," he mused aloud. "You sound quite the savant."

Kaoru laughed slightly. "An idiot savant, at the very best. I think you're too kind to me."

Though Kenshin smiled at her remark, she was proving herself to be rather charming in her dry humor, simultaneously he shook his head. She deserved any praise he gave her, and he was quick to tell her how he felt about that. She had very easily gained his respect as not only a musician, but as an artist and, most importantly, a person. However, while he wanted to say all those things, how much he valued her talents and personality, he couldn't find even the dregs of the courage that he needed to express such sentiments. Kenshin sighed nearly silently; he just wasn't any good with people. It seemed that Kaoru sensed his unease in that moment, because she spoke up in an attempt to draw his attention elsewhere.

"I felt as if I only stumbled through these few measures," she said, running her finger along the music in a place that Kenshin hadn't realized she'd been struggling with enough that it had been notable. Almost smiling again but biting it back because it would have been rude, he looked a little more closely at the measures she'd pointed out and then played them out for her. She nodded as she watched his fingers dance and when she played the section again it was perfect.

Kenshin picked out a few more points in the song where he thought she could strengthen her performance, but on the whole he felt somewhat useless to her. Did she really need his assistance in learning?

"You know," he said softly, "you may want to consider studying from someone with more credentials than I have. I can see you working under a master one day, being someone's protégée. You're going to be good enough. You're going to be brilliant, Kaoru."

"I-I don't think so," she said, her voice so low that he inadvertently leaned forward a bit to hear her. "I would feel... uncomfortable... studying with someone else. I'm not sure..."

Kenshin took one of her hands in both of his and she had to fight back the urge to jerk it away when she felt a shock run through her at his touch; it was as if she were almost on the edge of some sort of breakthrough and it just wouldn't come. He noticed this and gave her something of a curious look, his head tilting slightly to one side. But he didn't ask, and for that she was grateful.

"Kaoru, I appreciate your honesty, and I'm glad you feel at ease with me, but I just feel that with a better teacher that your talent would be better put to use. I want you to be recognized, I really do. You have genius in you."

"I don't know about that..." she whispered, her face a vivid shade of crimson by then.

"No, Kaoru, you do. I don't say these things lightly. Please don't think that I do. Please, please take me seriously. You don't understand... you don't know how amazing it is that you've learned a Beethoven piece after having played piano for two weeks. And last week when you played that song... last week was nothing short of a miracle. No, don't shake your head like that, it's true. I don't know who decided to give you such a gift or why and I don't know why you were sent to me, but this is all some sort of a puzzle that I haven't yet worked out. All the pieces interlock and we're entwined now in ways that I don't understand. But I want to, I do so want to know what's going on here. Because something is, Kaoru, please believe me when I say that something astounding and confusing is happening, and it involves both of us."

Kaoru could do nothing more than stare at him in complete disbelief, stunned into silence by his sudden outpouring of words. She'd never heard a more heartfelt plea, and she suddenly couldn't remember how to move, think, or even breathe. When her mouth opened, she merely hoped that whatever she said was the right thing.

"You have such a beautiful soul." She paled before she blushed furiously; that was not what she had meant by the right thing. But she didn't try to somehow make him think that she didn't believe in what she said, or that she hadn't said it the way it was supposed to come out, because she felt deep in the core of her that it was very true.

Kenshin's heart went out to the girl sitting next to him with her head bowed half in shame and half to hide the redness of her cheeks. Such a thing hadn't been said to him for such a long time, not since the days of his marriage, before his wife had been killed. But he didn't want to think of those times, for that only filled him with sorrow and regret. Still, he didn't know how to respond to Kaoru's sincerity.

Kaoru bit her lip to keep from crying in embarrassment. Because she was such an introspective person, she had to be with the way she lived life, to come out and say something like she had was horrifying. And now Kenshin wasn't saying anything. This situation had gotten out of hand. Perhaps it was best to leave.

As she started to reach up to collect her music, Kenshin's hand shot out and stopped her. When she lowered her head again, he carefully placed his free hand at her chin and lifted her face so that their eyes could meet. If he wanted to say something, he had to say it now and he was aware of that.

"Kaoru..." His mind raced, trying to formulate something, anything, that would put her back at ease and allow her to see how much her words affected him. But there was nothing for him to fall back on, and he simply repeated her name.

Kaoru's breath caught as his whisperings of her name ghosted over her lips. Too close, she thought, they were too close. Swiftly she broke away and grabbed her music, clutching it to her chest.

"I'm sorry, I have to go," she stammered. "I'm sorry."

"I understand," Kenshin said quietly. "Please keep practicing... I'll see you next week?"

She nodded frantically and practically dashed out of his apartment. He watched the door almost hit her in her haste to close it behind her and then he slouched over with a heavy sigh. This girl was a complete mystery to him. She was brilliant in more than one way, and she was so skittish. And lonely. He could practically taste the loneliness rolling off her in waves, and it broke his heart for her.

Kaoru slammed the door and leaned with her back against it, her breath short from having run all the way from Kenshin's apartment to her own. Dropping her music and watching despondently as it floated gently to the floor where it scattered about her, she slid down the door until she was seated roughly. It felt like she was going insane.

So what if he'd been close enough to kiss her? That didn't mean that he would have. And even if he had, why did that bother her?

Because she could fall in love with him. Because maybe she already had. And she didn't want to be in love, she never wanted to be in love again.

The way he'd praised her had made her so very uncomfortable, yet she was unsure why. All over her life she'd been told she was brilliant, that she was amazing, a prodigy. That was why she had to pay almost nothing for her schooling and she could live so handsomely off the pay of a mere three-day-a-week internship. In the back of her mind, though, she always wondered if all of the things that had been given to her, her schooling and her job and such, were gifts from a society that pitied her because she had no parents. She knew she was smart, even while she didn't like to be arrogant about it, but there were people who deserved the chances she'd gotten more than she did, and she thought that maybe she had her chances simply because she was parentless and had been living in an almost squalid state when she'd been applying for scholarships and her internship. She knew that she was extremely overpaid for her position at the office, and she got a strong impression that was because she was an orphan trying to make it in the world without any living relatives. Or at least she was unaware of any living relatives. If she had any, they didn't want to be associated with her, which for some reason sat just fine with her, though it shouldn't have.

Kaoru sighed as she languidly began to gather her music. She still had work to do tonight before she could take a bath and go to bed. Her professors had started giving more work than ever and even if she'd been expecting it, the workload was starting to become a little overwhelming. Maybe she just wasn't going to make it in college, she contemplated.

Kenshin flung himself into his bed with abandon, the pillows and comforter welcoming as they swallowed his body with comfort. Somnolence hadn't settled over him yet, and he knew it wouldn't for several more hours at least, but he needed somewhere to think and, save for when he was sitting in front of the piano, he felt safest in his bedroom. It was an inexplicable feeling, but it was solid to him and like many things he chose not to question it.

Today had been one of the strangest days of his life to date. In retrospect, he realized that he had been far too close to Kaoru earlier, that he had completely encroached upon her personal space, but for some reason it had felt right to him. It felt right in the same way that his bedroom felt safe, thus he didn't know how to explain it, even to himself. Sometimes he didn't like his intuition, because it held things secret from every part of him but his subconscious, which he didn't really have access to.

Was he falling for Kaoru? He had considered that often in the short time he'd known her. He knew that she was an attractive woman, and her intelligence, wit, and artistic abilities were fetching points for him, but he didn't really want to develop any kind of romantic feelings for her, mostly because he was unworthy of such things. But when had heart ever listened to mind?

All he was certain of was that he felt like he'd known her for longer than he could remember, and that something told him he could trust her. He wasn't sure why, but he sometimes thought he could sense how she felt more strongly than he could with other people. How were they connected?

A/N: Holy shit, it took me FOREVER to write that. It's not the best, but it's not too bad, I guess. I'm trying, eh? My will to write lately has just been like "Bleh." I always wind up playing Solitaire instead. It's pretty sad, actually. Anyhow, time for exciting news about my life. My parents and I went to this store that I've always wanted to go to, Henderson Music Company, because I was looking for a particular piece of sheet music. Turns out they don't carry sheet music, but the guy who was working there said "Go ahead and play a piano, don't be shy!" So I was like :shrug: "Ok." I played Bach's "Toccata & Fugue in D Minor", of course, it being the only song I have memorized, and I guess my mom and dad were talking to him about how I was pretty much self-taught and stuff (since I only took lessons for that year when I was 7 and whatnot), and he said I was really good. :bounce: He said I had a natural affinity for the piano and that I had a lot of style in the rhythm that I used and the changes in dynamics that I chose and such. I felt so special:grin: Anyhow, the really awesome part was that my dad agreed that I could start piano lessons in the summer with a guy who is apparently very, VERY good. The dude in the store suggested him because he plays a lot of classical and is working on his Masters from CCM (whoa the crazy prestige) and stuff. My dad said he'd pay for lessons even though they cost $75 a month for 4 half-hour lessons. I'm excited as hell, man...

In other big news, I'm seriously considering changing around this story a bit and having it published. If that's the case, I'm counting on you guys to be my adoring public! I haven't decided yet, but it's looking like a good possibility that I'll at least try to get published, so here's hoping!

Oh! Before I forget... One more thing that could possibly be good news for my beloved readers. Despite my general distaste for anti-depressants, I have just today become one of the medicated millions, so I'm hoping that I'll get back some of my ambition to write since I won't have to worry as much about that crazy depression. Well, of course... meds don't clear up EVERYTHING, but at least I'll be able to function and break teh cycle of not-goodness. :crosses fingers: Here goes nothing, ne? Plus, yay for yoga! Ok, that's all I have to say. Really.