la violoniste et le cancre
3/4 The Depths Of Deep
Saturday morning, you've woken up rather early, even by your standards. You've cleaned the kitchen twice, and are about to check the dishwasher when your eyes land on the monthly calendar stuck on the fridge's door.
The red circle around the black date sends your heart down to your toes, and your blood turns to ice underneath your skin.
Moving on autopilot, as if navigating through a dream, you set the wash cloth grasped between your fingers quietly down on the counter. Quieter than a draft along the floor, you head to the front door, and nervously walk down the flights of stairs to where the mailboxes of the apartment building are, stacked along the wall of the entrance hallway.
The letters come in pristine envelopes, creamy white in colour. They tear difficultly, as heavy weight papers often do. Because of violin, your nails are filed very short, so the extra seconds it takes to open the envelope are tedious, and your impatience makes your fingers shake ever so perceptibly.
Something falls out of the thick paper package to the floor, and you drop to your knees, hands reaching for the unfolded letter.
As the page smooths out before your eyes and underneath your fingertips, your breathing slows to almost a stop. Your eyes scan the lovely font, the carefully calligraphy of the signature, the shining stamp on the top of the page.
Each word drives your heart further and further into the ground.
Haruka is on time.
She doesn't notice the way your eyes water. She walks ahead of you into your house with her characteristically straight back and chin high in the air and her loud, happy voice is chattering on about something or another.
You force yourself to remain composed.
She grabs you into her arms as you're cutting the flowers over the sink. She brought you a bouquet and you're cutting the stems to vase them (lovely lovely flowers, lilies and little yellow bell-shaped flowers) and when she smiles into the sensitive skin above your collarbone, and it takes all your self-control not to burst into tears.
You realize then that Haruka notices. You're usual stoic demeanor is punctured by the sobs you're desperately holding within.
She tells you to buckle up (and you forget to tell her to do the same.)
She grasps your chin and forces your eyes to meet hers and her soft, daring smile brings out your own timid one.
"Whatever's wrong, Michiru, you don't have to tell me what it is. I'm just going to do my best to distract you from it, all right?"
Your heart feels so light and heavy at the same time.
You grasp her fingers that linger upon your cheek, and kiss them delicately.
You nod, looking into her eyes. You don't quite trust yourself to speak right now.
After a moment, she starts the engine.
The car is parked a a street away from an old temple. With the early morning and the chilled wind, there aren't the usual crowds of tourists.
You appreciate the easy silence, the sounds of your steps echoing on the stone floors. Your hands brush alongside the excellently maintained wooden carvings along the windows and doors, and your fingertips slide along the worn down stone walls and columns.
You gaze ahead, and around.
The barren trees seem not so forlorn, and the silence is soothing. You turn to Haruka, and ask her how she'd figure you'd like this place so much.
"I used to come here with my uncle, when I was younger." Haruka says as you round a wall, coming upon a stony courtyard. "He used to tell me that temples were a place for wishes and dreams and silence. I was fond of that."
Haruka is wearing a thick, black and elegant long coat you've never seen before. It's different from her usual leathery, punk-kid getup.
She looks like a well dressed man from an old black and white movie.
Wishes and dreams...
You notice the way her gentle skin shines in the early sun behind her ear and down her neck, and notice the subtle sparkle of her earring.
"You're very sweet, you know that?" you let the words slip, but you mean them even more as they depart your lips.
Haruka sticks her tongue out, causing you to smile.
She extends her lovely palm, fingers outstretched. "Come. Let's go leave a few prayers. Then I think I'm going to need some food. I'm starved."
You don't hesitate to grasp her hand.
The sunny afternoon draws to an end with you dragging her out of her car. You make her park on a street in front of a bank. Haruka is whining about why she has to park here.
"You really need to stretch your legs."
"Excuse me? Miss I-Can't-Throw-A-Softball thinks I need more exercise?"
"Com'on. You'll love this place. There's a pedestrian walkway a few blocks away, and one of my favourite violin-makers in Tokyo works here. He's a great friend of my teacher."
"Your teacher?"
"My violin teacher," you specify, "I've been working with her since I began, when I was seven or eight." You smile. "Her name is Okiko. She's a little bit eccentric, but a formidable violinist."
Haruka grimaces. "With a name like that..."
You sigh. "So will you get out of your car already?"
Grumbling, she unlocks the front door and clambers out of the low-rising sports car, long limbs straightening beautifully.
The excitement of going to the music store catches up with your usually placid demeanor. You want to skip down the pavement, but restrain yourself.
"Are you coming?" you smile at her brilliantly.
"Wait a moment, greeny. I have to pay for the parking."
The square is like you remember it (you wonder how long it's been since you've come this far downtown), with its hordes of people. Movement here is difficult, and Haruka's impatient weaving through the sea of shoulders and heads makes you smile. It also makes you slightly envious of her height.
The shopkeepers and food stall owners are calling out into the crowd, desperately trying to attract the crowds away from the vending machines by using the smells of warm dishes and treats to compete with their automated rivals.
Haruka gets distracted by a sports clothing store, and mentions she'll have to buy proper running shoes if she'll be joining the track team again this year, but she takes one look at your pleading happy face and agrees to go buy them later.
Whatever guilt you feel at dragging her along and making her do things only you want to do is extinguished by the kiss she plants on your forehead and her wry smile as she asks:
"Alright, green. Where's this music store?"
The violinmaker's shop smells slightly musty and very dusty, with the lingering odour of wood and the delicate lacquers for the instruments still in the air, and it's a very narrow store with a workshop in the back, with hundreds of stringed instruments hanging off the walls.
Haruka groans after nearly missing knocking down a suspended violin with her forehead. "I'm too tall for this," she laments.
You remember when Okiko-sensei first brought you here, and how you were afraid of knocking down the displays and breaking everything.
"Thank you for bringing me here. Let me see if Bachu is in the back." You kiss her on the cheek, and prance away.
A small part of you realizes you're acting slightly childishly.
You turn back as you push back the small door of the workshop, and see Haruka smirking at a couple of violas. Biting your lip, you call into the workshop, smiling at the grey haired man and his shy (but pleased, you are happy to note) manners.
"So you've taken me to a temple, we've gone driving along the harbour, and then you agreed to walk through the pedestrian district with me..." you smile as Haruka fiddles with her keys. "You've made this a beautiful day for both of us."
"Eh." she eloquently answers, pushing her steel front door open.
"Don't tell me you've also cooked me a delicious dinner, as well?"
This is your first time at Haruka's house.
You have butterflies in your stomach.
Your heart still feels like its insides are lined with lead. Each heartbeat seems to sink lower in your chest, and it is painful.
She drops her heavy weight coat on a counter as you enter the spacious apartment.
It's spotless, and decorated modernly, with large windows showing a slowly darkening Tokyo skyline.
Haruka turns on a few of the lights, but the shadows that linger are soothing, and the light is soft.
The tall blonde hands you a takeout menu.
"Pick what you like. Don't worry about the prices."
You scoff. "I'm paying my share."
Haruka smirks, then.
"My parents won't even notice the expense on their credit card. It's not like I use it for much else than food, anyways."
You notice the quiet of the apartment then, and the way Haruka seems to wander the halls like she owns the place. You tend to keep to the kitchen or your room, not wanting to disturb your father.
"Where are your parents?" you venture.
Haruka nodds to a steel calendar hung on the wall. Written in erasable black markers are the names of places. You walk carefully around the large, black kitchen island to check.
"...Paris?"
Your heart speeds up.
"Your parents live in Paris?"
Haruka shakes her head. "No. They have suites reserved for them in a few hotels around the world. Paris, Tokyo, Dubai, a few city in the United States...etc."
You stare at the calendar, and notice the way Haruka's careless handwriting's mapped her parents locations, every now and then including a phone number.
"Wait...you mentioned a hotel in Tokyo...your parents don't live here?"
"They used to." Haruka's voice is neither light or heavy as she utters the words from the dark living room. "Anyways, I have some sake in the fridge, and a few bottles of white wine. Want some?"
You turn around abruptly to see Haruka leaning against the counter separating the kitchen area from the vast living room. Her smile is slightly arrogant at your surprised expression. Her silhouette is set in the yellow light, with a backdrop of the Tokyo high-rises. Despite the breath-taking way she's looking at you (smirking amusement and all) you can't get over a certain amount of shock.
"Alcohol? We shouldn't be drinking, Haruka."
"I turned 18 weeks ago, silly." (Haruka's birthday was a surprise to both you and her when the teacher announced it that morning in homeroom. The next day you brought her a watercolour of her car racing against a bright sun. She was very embarrassed.) "Oh relax. We won't really get drunk. And wine with food isn't irresponsible, it's sophisticated."
You have to admit to yourself you're a little nervous at the idea of drinking wine (what if you make a fool out of yourself?) because you've never drunk anything other than a little sake at New Years or at various festivals with your father and his family. But the idea of Haruka being sophisticated makes you grin delightedly, amused (though her car, and her home, and her manners towards you are slowly suggesting there is more to Haruka than just a one-dimensional high school badass who makes you swoon.)
"What?" Haruka questions after you stay silent for more than a couple of moments, a grin plastered on your face.
"Sophisticated, Haruka?"
"What are you talking about? Who says I can't be sophisticated?" She raised her hands above her hand, grasping her hair in fake exasperation.
You walk over to her, take-out menu in hand, and kiss her on the cheek. "I never doubted it." (Maybe just a hint of sarcasm there.)
Haruka eyes you, then, her arms wrapping loosely around your waist. "You make me really happy, you know that?"
You were just laughing about something, and she peppered the skin along your collarbone with kisses and you shivered.
The laughter died away from your throat, and a fog seemed to have fallen over your mind.
Her hands are warm against your skin and shivering goosebumps rise along your lower back and down the side of your thighs.
She draws you closer and your hands slowly pull the crispy white dress shirt she's wearing off her shoulders.
A gasp when you feel her fingers grazing the delicate skin of your chest.
When she picks you up to bring you to her bedroom, your heart quickens.
A part of you wonders if you have any right to let this go on.
Her soft mattress and her sweet smile destroys all fragments of your resolve.
The room is blue and black and covered in shadows, and the soft lights from the buildings out the window illuminate your fingers gently running through blonde strands of hair.
Her eyelids are gently closed, and you don't know if you've ever seen her so peaceful.
You're in the kitchen, drinking some water from the tap in a lovely tall glass you found in one of the covers.
You are careful to drink at least two or three glasses, because you want to be sure to avoid a headache tomorrow.
You're quiet as you gaze over her sleeping body.
Or, not sleeping. Just quietly laying there, eyes half lidded, her smooth skin disappearing under the soft, thin sheets.
"Michiru?"
You smile.
"You look beautiful in the dark. And in the softest lights. And in the sun. And under the sky."
"Hey, quit the poetry and get in here."
You quickly duck under the covers, underneath her arms and against her warm skin. She holds you to her, facing each other for a moment of calm.
"Green?"
"Hmmm?"
"I didn't ask, before, but..."
You sigh.
"I...I got a letter today."
Her eyes shine warmly down towards you in the dark, and you bite your lip. This is hard.
"A letter?"
"Yeah."
"What was in the...are you... Michiru?"
You can't help it.
"Shit, stop crying...hey hon, are...shhhh...It's okay..."
Saturday morning, you've woken up rather early, even by your standards. You've cleaned the kitchen twice, and are about to check the dishwasher when your eyes land on the monthly calendar stuck on the fridge's door.
The red circle around the black date sends your heart down to your toes, and your blood turns to ice underneath your skin.
Moving on autopilot, as if navigating through a dream, you set the wash cloth grasped between your fingers quietly down on the counter. Quieter than a draft along the floor, you head to the front door, and nervously walk down the flights of stairs to where the mailboxes of the apartment building are, stacked along the wall of the entrance hallway.
The letters come in pristine envelopes, creamy white in colour. They tear difficultly, as heavy weight papers often do. Because of violin, your nails are filed very short, so the extra seconds it takes to open the envelope are tedious, and your impatience makes your fingers shake ever so perceptibly.
Something falls out of the thick paper package to the floor, and you drop to your knees, hands grasping at the unfolded letter.
Your eyes scan the lovely font, the carefully calligraphy of the signature, the shining stamp on the top of the page.
Each word drives your heart further and further into the ground.
"I've been accepted to the Paris Conservatory."
"That's amazing, isn't it?"
"It's been my dream. For years."
"So what's wrong?"
"I've been asked to begin in the spring."
"This spring? That's pretty soon. How much time do you have to decide?"
"I'm leaving in three weeks."
The silence bears down with the full weight of realization.
It's awkward.
That thought immobilizes your thoughts. Things have been tense, and strange, and fun, and more than a little silly, and heated, but the silence is awkward.
Haruka hands you your coat.
"I'll see you Monday?" you ask hopefully as you walk out her front door.
"Will you even be there?" she spitefully retorts. It's quiet enough that you pretend not to have heard.
When she follows you out, car keys in hand, you breathe a sigh of relief.
Almost done, guys. One more chapter. The end will be legendary.