Lessons
For: mistakenXsilence
Prompt: Piano
Summary: How a simple object can bring much more than originally intended.
He can remember being eight years old and watching the girl next door through her window plunking out the saddest tune he's ever heard in his life on the piano. That's when it started, just after her grandmother passed, and he began to notice things.
For his birthday that year, he asked his mother for a keyboard.
On the morning of his birthday, his mother fixes him chocolate chip pancakes and sends him to the neighbors' house; the house with the girl and the piano.
His mother has given him more, and the mother of the girl begins to teach him to play the piano on her grand piano in the front room of the house. He doesn't see the little girl, but he can hear her piano when there's a pause in the lesson.
Three years later and he has his own small piano in his bedroom, and his piano teacher passes away. He wants to continue his lesson, and the girl with the piano begins the sad song again. She knows much more of the piano than he does, and after some convincing from her father, she takes her mother's place and begins to teach him how to play.
As the years pass, the two grow close in friendship, but it's hard for him to talk to her when they aren't sitting in front of a piano. By the time he's sixteen, he understands that he doesn't need an excuse to be with her, but still prefers one. He also understands that he is shy and awkward with anyone, and that she has the most beautiful smile he's ever seen.
When he turns eighteen, he's finally strong enough to take on any boy at school. He thinks it ironic, since college is coming up and he can finally defend himself properly. The boys in his school had jeered him from an early age, mocking him for being a bastard son, and learning of all things, the piano.
He understands they're jealous that he spends more time with her than any of them.
He also understands that he's very pleased when she politely declines every boy for a date and vehemently denies any requests for piano lessons.
She follows him to Midgar when he joins the army. She hates he's sometimes out of the city for military purposes, but he explains to her that they'll pay for his college. She attends Midgar University, and almost slips from his fingers when a man named Zack becomes close to her and begins to ask for dates.
The next time he is in town he asks her to give him one last piano lesson even though they ceased those long before they headed for Midgar.
It's on a badly tuned piano in her cramped apartment that it happens; and when she turns her head next to him on the piano bench to tell him he can reach above the octave for this piece, he kisses her for the first time.
She politely declines Zack with finality when she shows him the ring on her finger and vehemently denies him piano lessons when she punches him on the nose.
A/N: I like this one...it's different, I think...but I really like it. The reason she punched Zack? Well, he was close to her 'becomes close to her' so he probably knew what the piano lessons meant between her and Cloud...and he pushed his luck. XP Anyways, mistakenxsilence, I hope you liked this one as much as I did. I'm really enjoying writing these prompts, and I'll start putting summaries in all of em. I'll try and get you next, Tri17, but yours will requrie thinking, and if not you, then it'll be Sam...thanks everyone for reviewing!