. . .
Author's Note: I do hope that you aren't lactose intolerant, because this is Pure Cheese. As you all should know by now, I am a cheese connoisseur.
Prompt: Hero
Enjoy!
. . .
Jason lets out a relieved sigh as he walks through the door of his apartment. Today was truly an exercise in Murphy's Law; 'Anything that can go wrong will go wrong'. Between the obscene amount of traffic jams on his way to and from work, the photocopier spraying ink all over the staff room, and the air conditioner breaking in the middle of one of the city's worst heatwaves, needless to say, Jason hasn't been having a terribly great day.
He drops his bag on the table, and reaches up to massage the knot in his shoulder. Hypothetically, he could just lie down and sleep for ten hours and that would be a pretty good way to spend his night, but he hears the low gurgle of his stomach rumbling and grunts. He should take care of his body, shouldn't he?
Not feeling in the mood to cook, he pulls a container of leftover pasta from the fridge and throws it in the microwave.
He watches the container spin round and round, the low hum of the microwave heating his food. It's almost hypnotic, he feels his arms grow heavier and he has to physically shake himself to prevent himself from falling asleep.
Attempting to prevent himself from passing out in the kitchen, he turns his sights to the living room. Taking up a fair amount of real estate by the back wall is a keyboard. It was a recent purchase, but due to his busy work schedule, hasn't gotten the chance to sit down and play. Now that he has a few minutes, he might as well play something, maybe it'll wake up his brain enough to at least make it through dinner.
It's been so long since he's played that he is no longer confident in his ability to play purely from memory. Flipping through his old books that he used while taking lessons, he lands on Debussy's 'Rêverie', which seems like a good place to start. He sits in front of the keys, cracking his knuckles before driving head-first into the piece.
Playing piano is like riding a bike. His fingers gliding across the keys in smooth, long lines. His foot rhythmically rising and falling on the damper pedal. He feels the tension drain away from his shoulders as he settles into the runs, channeling the stress of the day into his music, letting the rest of his worries fade away.
His parents insisted on him and Nadia learning an instrument when they were kids. It was something about how it's 'good for your developing brains'. Or maybe it was so they could declare 'my children are better and more talented than your children'. Nadia took up cello, while he asked to play accordion, but that request was shot down and he settled on piano as a compromise. Initially, he saw piano as just another task, just another thing that he had to do to make his parents pleased. But he started to see piano as an escape. It was a rare time where his parents weren't looking over his shoulder and criticizing his every move, as neither of them played any instruments. Jason could just focus his energy, not on school, not on his family, but just on him and piano making music together.
Debussy wrote in an impressionist style, a blend of soft sounds, bleeding from one bar to the next that creates a scene, like a Monet painting. It's something that he's able to get lost in. He doesn't even notice the beeping of the microwave as he continues to play.
His parents always preferred him to play Bach. There are hours of his life that he will never get back performing preludes and fugues for the guests that his parents would invite to the house every Christmas. Those would always please his parents, but he'd usually sneak in a romantic piece at the end, purely for his enjoyment. He's always liked the more expressive style of playing, how interpretation was often left to the player. Chopin was always a crowd pleaser, and now he'll have to brush off a couple Mendelssohn pieces.
He ascends into the final run, holding the final chord to its fullest sound. He exhales as he lets go of the pedal, lifting his hands from the keys. He didn't realize how much he's missed playing until now.
But just as he finishes, he hears a knock at the door. It completely takes out of the post-piano bliss, snapping him back to reality.
"Dammit," he says to himself. It's probably one of his neighbours with a noise complaint. He really, really isn't in the mood to deal with this right now. He groans, standing up from the piano bench and walks towards the door with dread in every step.
He opens the door, surprised to find no one there. Jason pokes his head out of the door, looks around, with no one to be seen. Just when he's about to head back in, he sees a note scrawled on a ripped piece of lined paper, left on the floor just in front of his door. Jason reaches down for it to get a better look at it.
"Do you take requests? Know any Chopin waltzes?"
Jason snickers, looking back up and down the hall, double checking that the person who left the note isn't there. Walking back to inside, still staring at the note. Sure, he can play Chopin.
Jason opens his window, assuming that whoever requested the song would be able to hear it better. The crisp autumn air rushes into his apartment, helping to awaken his senses.
Luckly, he has a whole book of Chopin. He flips to an annotation filled copy of 'Waltz in C-sharp Minor', a piece that he used to play at the aforementioned Christmas parties. Trying not to feel too nervous that he suddenly has an audience, he rests his fingers on the keys, taking a breath before pressing the down beat of the waltz.
When he reaches the end of the first line, he hears applause echoing out from his window. He smiles, proceeding to play.
It's not his prettiest work, he is definitely out of practice. There are a couple note slips as his left hand jumps from octave to octave, and he doubts that he kept a consistent tempo, but he gets out the other side alright without too many noticeable mistakes.
When he finishes, he hears more applause, then accompanied by a whistle. He laughs, the first time he has done so today. He stands from the piano, taking a bow that the audience does not see. He then sits back down, flipping the page to find another piece. Landing on a Chopin Nocturne, he begins to play again, his pasta dinner well forgotten.
. . .
The next day, after he returns home from work, there is another knock at his door. This time, Jason is quicker to answer, hoping to find out who sent him last night's musical request. When he opens the door he doesn't find a person waiting in the hallway, instead, a bouquet of flowers, beautiful long stem red roses to be exact. Stuck onto the clear plastic protective wrap is a sticky note simply reading "Bravo!"
Jason chuckles as he brings them into his apartment.
He plays two more piecesㅡboth Beethovenㅡbefore dinner. His performance is once again accompanied by applause.
. . .
It starts to fall into a comfortable routine. Once he comes back from work, he'll open his window and play a song or two before dinner. What would follow would be a one-man standing ovation after every piece. Then every couple of days, he'll get a song request from the mysterious music loving stranger. Sometimes he'll find a rose by his door when he opens it, and one time it was a tin of homemade snickerdoodle cookies.
Jason will always play for free food.
. . .
He decides to send a note back to his secret admirer (would they qualify as a 'secret admirer'?). Before heading out to work in the morning, he tapes a piece of scrap paper onto his door.
It reads:
"To whomever is making music requests,
I have been enjoying playing, but also, who are you?"
He fiddles with a piece of duct tape and scissors, trying to cut a piece that keeps folding on on itself.
He hears the door to the apartment beside his open and close.
"Jason?" He hears a voice ask. "What are you doing?"
He looks up to meet the eyes of his neighbour of five months, Peter, who wears a confused, albeit slightly amused look on his face.
"Um, how do I explain this," he says, mainly to himself. "Okay, so there's been this person, requesting me to play piano, and I have no idea who they are. Have you by any chance seen anyone lurking outside my apartment?"
Peter shakes his head. "I have seen no mysterious stranger, music-loving or otherwise, outside of your apartment. But I will tell you if I do."
Jason nods. "Thanks."
"But I have heard the music," he adds.
"I'm sorry, has it been bothering you?" Jason asks.
"Not at all, I like it. My mom used to play. I never did, but I definitely do love listening to it. You play beautifully."
Jason smiles, feeling a subtle warmth rising to his cheeks. "Thanks."
"Whoever is requesting has good tastes. Last night was Strauss?" he asks, as he locks his apartment.
"It was."
"Well whoever this music loving stranger is, I hope you find out who they are," Peter says as he pockets his key.
"Yeah, me too," Jason says in agreement.
"Have a nice day," Peter says as he passes Jason in the hallway.
"You too." Jason says, returning the other man's smile. Peter nods before turning and disappearing into the stairwell.
Jason finishes taping the note to the door and leaves hoping that he gets a response.
. . .
When he returns back from work, the note is gone, exchanged with another taped to his door.
"Dear Jason,
My identity must remain a secret for now. But in the meanwhile, do you know Claire de Lune?"
Jason blinks. So clearly, the person knows who he is, so they must not be a total stranger, and they are playing hard-to-get. He plucks the note off of the door and heads into his apartment. If they want Claire de Lune, oh he'll give them Claire de Lune.
. . .
Another couple of weeks go by. More concerts, more requests, but no idea who has been sending them. Seems like whoever is sending the request also is a romantic fan, with some Haydn and Mozart thrown in there for some extra flavour (he's just thanking his lucky stars that there hasn't been any requests for Bach fugues).
It's not that Jason's complaining about the requests, far from it. Playing a little concert has been a great way for him to unwind from work, which has just seemed to get exponentially more stressful as the days went by. He's grateful that he gets this excuse to play. Just that he wishes that he could put a face to it.
. . .
"Have you caught your music loving culprit yet?" Peter asks as he unlocks his apartment door.
"Not yet," Jason says as he walks down the hallway towards his place, fishing his keys out of his bag.
"I have my own theories that Ms. Lambert has been sending the requests, I'm pretty sure she used to be a music teacher."
Jason shakes his head, "I'm pretty sure that it's a male voice that has been cheering," he says as he inserts the key into its hole. "I was thinking Damian, but I don't think that the handwriting matches up. So all of my leads are cold."
"Well, I hope you get to the bottom of this mystery."
"Yeah, me too," Jason says, "Have a good night."
"You too." He smiles back warmly.
. . .
Right on time, Jason hears a firm knock at the door. Opening it into the hallway, he looks down. Usually there is just a note on a scrap piece of notepad paper, but this time the familiar handwriting is scripted across a sticky note, which is attached to a manila folder.
He picks up it up, reading:
"I know, I know, it's cheesy. But I will say that my ultimate guilty pleasure is 80s pop rock. Thank you for enabling my addiction."
Opening the folder, Jason can't help but laugh as he pulls out the sheet music for 'Holding out for a Hero'.
Cheesy indeed.
It's definitely outside of his typical repertoire, something that his parents wouldn't allow to be played in their household, but he's up for the challenge. And who doesn't need some cheesy pop-rock in their life every once and a while?
As he always does, he opens the window, before settling in front of the piano.
Driving into the heavy 4/4 beat, he hears a loud cheer. Jason laughs as he starts to play the first verse against the repetitive beat. Yeah, this is definitely not in his romantic wheelhouse, but he finds himself enjoying the song.
By the time he reaches the chorus, he thinks he hears singing? Yeah, it might be a little off key, but it's definitely singing.
Oh god, he knows exactly whose voice it is. After five months of them being neighbours, he's heard that voice belting Diana Ross tunes in the shower multiple times now.
He should have known. He fights the urge to stop playing, march out into the hallway and beat his 'not-so-mysterious music stranger' to the punch. Continuing to play until the songs' end. But this time he doesn't hear applause as soon as the song ends. Instead he hears a knock immediately at the door.
He hurries to the door, opening to see exactly who he thought the voice belonged to.
"Surprise!" Peter exclaims, holding another bouquet of red roses.
"I asked you if you knew anything about the mysterious requests!" Jason exclaims.
Peter smiles, not caring if he seems smug. "Well, I thought that it'd be more fun to keep you guessing. Aw man, the look on your face! I should have been recording it!"
Jason shakes his head, an amused smile on his lips.
"Well, as your biggest fan, can I ask for one more request?" Peter asks.
"Yeah, of course."
"Are you free next Sunday? The Philharmonic is doing a Tchaikovsky concert, I think they're doing Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, amongst other symphonies. It should be a good time. And I was hoping that you'd be able to join me."
"Iㅡ" he says, slightly taken aback by the request. He then smiles. "I would love that."
Peter seems relieved at his response. "Great! And oh, here," he says as he passes the roses to the other man. "For the master pianist."
"Thank you." Jason feels a warm glow on his cheeks, mentally shaking himself before asking, "Do you want to come in? While I find a vase for this, we can order take-out if you'd like."
"Yeah, that would be great. And maybe you can play me a little concert," Peter teases.
"Sounds perfect," Jason says as he opens the door wider, letting his musical-secret-admiring in.