Halcyon Symphonies
SUMMARY: "With this series of calamitous events, it turned my life upside down, tossed and turned me, creating a whirling storm in me, and made me fall into ruins."
Of all the ordinary days, Hino Kahoko's life as a common General Education student turned into a life she didn't expected and didn't even bother considering. Living inside a very big and vast villa, wearing extravagant clothes and high heeled shoes, learning etiquette when eating at a five-star restaurant and what the hell? An engagement!
And where are the guys, anyway?
DISCLAIMER: I don't own La Corda D'oro and the characters.
Chapter 6 –
Len's POV
Tsuchiura's words constantly played in my mind for the rest of the day. "Hino loves you!" He said. "So if I were you, I would feel damn miserable to know that I cannot see her anymore. She loves you, Tsukimori." A small, cynical smile immediately played on my face. Miserable? Dejected? Am I not feeling it? It's also amusing to think that I felt such gloomy emotions the moment I started loving her. This certain girl taught me to remove my façade, even taught me to love and cry. The only place I can find relieve is when I cry myself to sleep, yet, ironically, I dream of her. In my dreams, she is everywhere I go, smiling, laughing, every so often crying. But at least, she's there with me. I grieve the moment I open my eyes to start another new day without her and pain seeps through every fiber of my being.
I flinched in the shrieking sound my violin made. It was piercingly loud and aggravating, that I have to stop myself from practicing any further. My room is bathed in the darkness, and only a tinge of orange sunset peeks in the small indents of the curtains. Resting my violin in its blue case, I threw myself on my bed, finding comfort and peace in the soft covers. Never in my life have I allowed myself to cry, let alone cry for a girl. I find it slightly funny that beyond my annoying, cold façade, I am still capable of love. It's overwhelming that I lost her, and she is immensely away from my grasp.
A slow knock on the door made me jump from the bed and fixed myself, wiping the stray tears pooling in my eyes. "Who is it?" I mumbled through gritted teeth coldly. I promptly waited for an answer, beyond the slow shuffling and sigh behind the door. "It's me, Len." I straight away recognized the soft voice from the door. It's my mother, a famous and prominent pianist, Hamai Misa. I walked to the door, placing my shaking hands on the knob and pulled it slightly. "Mother." I said, running a hand through my hair. "Is there anything you want?" From the opening in the door, I can fully see her face, gloomy, worried.
"I need to speak with you." She answered, her voice imperative. With that, I fully opened the door, she quickly entered and opened the lights. She took the chair from the study table and sat while I pleasantly find comfort once again on my bed. I leaned on the wall and crossed my hands on my chest, waiting for her words, but she remained silent for the first few minutes she sat in my room. "Mother," I quickly called out, watching her closely. "What do you wish to speak with me about?" She shook her head several times and leveled her eyes with mine. "Len, I am tremendously worried about you." She started.
I shrugged. "Why?" I asked indifferently, but I fully know and understand why.
"You're somewhat distracted and…" She momentarily paused, as if looking for the right and precise word. "..and distressed recently. Len, you've barely eaten or touch your food during mealtime, let alone even grace us with your presence." Then Mother turned her head to my violin, as if referring at it. "You don't play your violin they way you did before." She heaved a painstaking sigh and stood up from her seat, walking up to me. "Dear, tell me what is your predicament." I shook my head furiously. "There is no problem. You need not have to worry about me." I answered dismissively. "Just tired." She gently placed a hand on my face and turned to her.
"Len, you're my son. Do not lie to me." She said, and with those words, my façade immediately melted away and I felt the sting in my eyes that threatens tears. It was a miracle that I will be able to cry in the midst of another person. "I can't leave you when you're like this for a dim-witted concert." Sure, my mother must have seen my tears an awfully lot of times, but not now when I am in the predicament and there is no way I will be able to hold these overflowing emotions back in and stored in the deepest recesses of my heart. "Mother, I—" I started to whisper and that is the moment when the first tear immediately slid from my eye and made its way on my cheeks, racing to my chin. As a mother, she probably hated the sight of her child crying and withering in pain, so she wrapped her arms around me as I cry helplessly.
I am so vulnerable and weak, honestly. My piercing and muffled crying echoed loudly in my room, drowning the soothing words and expressions my mother gently whispers in my ear. It felt like hours have already passed when I cannot muster a tear anymore and I stopped crying but still have the urge to do so. Mother loosened her embrace on me and she leveled her eyes to meet my swollen ones. "Len," She said, her hand never left my cheeks. "Is this about Hino-san?" I managed to nod slightly without meeting her gaze. My gape fell from her eyes to my laps to hide another threatening session of tears. My mother knew me too well.
"I knew how she went through the hearing and to the jurisdiction of her father." She started, squeezing my shoulders in reassurance. "It must be critically harsh on her part. I mean, to leave the place where she lived most of her life. Somewhere in the world, I know she's also longing, crying." With all her words, the only thing I can manage is a small bob of the head and the muffled sound in my throat, holding back my tears again. "Don't worry, son. Love may be a difficult matter to handle, but with all honesty, it is never hopeless."
"I knew, from the bottom of my heart, that the both of you are meant for each other." She continued. "I'm sure that the both of you, even if your paths left each other now, will find your way back to each other. So stop crying." Her hands dropped from my face and went to my hands, then she squeezed it slightly. "Len, do not lose your hope." She said.
Kahoko's POV
Series of clothes filled my room, and each one of it is amazingly distinct from one another. One side of the room is completely tousled with unopened, angular boxes with tiny, endearing ribbons of different colors, trampling against each other, half-opened boxes revealing stilettos embellished with glittery and vibrant stones and vivaciously colored high-heeled shoes wrapped in creased or folded special scented papers and pairs of stilettos and shoes and sneakers windswept, turned and completely ruffled on the carpeted floor.
Several shoeboxes were carefully labeled in small golden frames with intricate golden design with words "Exclusively for sport-related activities ONLY" and "Exclusively for school utilization". It quickly registered in the back of my mind that one of those boxes holds my new set of school shoes and in the clothes rack hangs several set of school uniform, but I quickly pushed it aside, dissolving that incredulous fact immediately.
The clothes hanging on the clothes rack were extremely spectacular and stunning beyond imaginable beauty, that it is too impossible to duplicate such detailed and complicated patterns and designs. The clothes were circumspectly organized in numerous rows of clotheslines, depending on its shades and hues, lengths and strictly on its function and usefulness. One clothes rack has nothing but spellbinding shades of blue dresses and to the other are riveting hues of red. Some of the clothes were labeled with notes, similarly with the shoes, though in detachable tags.
I wanted to complain on one thing, though. All of those clothes satisfying and complimenting my normal being, my room is filled with nothing but dresses and skirts. No jeans, no pants, except for those black slacks poking out from one of the boxes. I wanted to voice out my protest to the stylists flocking in my room, but they seem too absorbed in the rows of clothesline endlessly piling in my room.
A man, perhaps in his early twenties, approached me from the door towards the dresser with precaution. "Kahoko-sama," He said with a light voice and a smile crept on his face. "Allow me to introduce myself." He bowed his head a little. "My name is Yamamoto Cain. It is an honor to serve the heiress as the stylist." His smile steadily turned into a wide grin, and there's no helping, so I smiled back at him. He took my hand and led me towards the seat of the vanity closet settled by the window. It has a wide, shiny mirror, evidently reflecting all of my face's flaws and ugliness that I cringed slightly in embarrassment.
A loud knock on the door made me jump as Yamamoto-san started combing my hair smoothly. Ryuu-san entered, in a similar black suit and black necktie, and a small tablet on his right hand. He smiled vibrantly and swept a low bow. "Good morning, Kahoko-sama." It is impossible to turn to him and smile with Yamamoto-san intricately fixing my hair so I mustered a visible smile. "Good morning." I said. Ryuu-san opened the tablet and quickly scanned it. Taking a step closer to the vanity closet, he said, "Taiki-sama and Haruka-sama wishes to speak with you once you are done dressing, Kahoko-sama. They are in his study, a floor above us."
I gave an indiscernible nod and he backed away. "Thank you, Ryuu-san." I said and in the corner of my eye, he smiled and walked out of the room.
It was silent in the room, beyond the shuffling of clothes and trampling of boxes. The only thing I can manage to hear is my hair being combed and neatly fixed and the sound of my apprehensive breathing. My hands are coiled, crumpling the hem of my clothes, leaving creases on its wake. It was not long after when Yamamoto-san placed his hands on my shoulders and gently moved me to face my reflection. There is a hint of smile playing on his face as I watched myself in awe. "You're really beautiful, you know, Kahoko-sama." He said, moving in front of me as he prepared the sets of make-up, lining it on the vanity closet.
"I never thought of myself that way." I replied, completely pleased with my hair. A portion of it is in a braid I have never seen before and pinned neatly at the back and my crimson hair falls elegantly on my shoulders. Not long after, he worked with the make-up his lined on the vanity closet. An hour has probably has passed when I am in a light blue dress and white stilettos when I was finished dressing up. Yamamoto-san seemed extremely satisfied with his work with me. He placed his hands on my shoulders and gave a swift nod. "Ryuu-san is outside. He's waiting." He said. "Anyway, it is really an honor to be working under you starting today, Kahoko-sama." There is an honest smile playing on his face and for the first time since I came here in Paris, I found a friend in Yamamoto-san.
"Thank you so much, Yamamoto-san." I replied with a smile. "I look forward to your works, then. And uhm, a friend." He squeezed my right shoulder reassuringly and I left my room with a smile.
I stood in front of the door of Dad's study. Judging by the double doors alone, I guessed as much that his study is one of the prevalent rooms in this place. Ryuu-san knocked on the door and cleared his throat. I felt a pang of anxiety creeping inside of me as I wait for a reply from inside the room. I have been wondering ever since I arrived here as to how my stepmother, Hino Haruka, would look like and how is she as a person. "Kahoko-sama has arrived." Ryuu-san muttered on the door. A hushed and imperceptible command came from the room, probably as a result of thick double doors, and instinctively, Ryuu-san opened one side of the door.
The room smells like roses, much to my surprise. His study is a two-floor library, filled with countless number of books and manuscripts. On the center of the room, there is a miniature living room, where two red-headed man and a blonde woman are sitting, mindlessly chatting with themselves. Dad caught my eye, and I wanted to withdraw back, out of timidity and embarrassment, when he stood up from the sofa and took me in his warm arms. "Welcome, dear." He whispered, wrapping his arms around me. He immediately broke away, squeezed my arm and led me to the miniature living room.
I cringed in fear at the sight of Shouei-niisama, as he was scowling at me. I find the urge to cry at this moment. The blonde woman, with piercing azure orbs and pale skin, stared at me, studying my features from my hair to my face and to the shape of my body. In my view, she is one of the most beautiful and breathtaking woman I have ever seen in my life. "My, isn't she wonderful?" She said in a high, melodious voice. She stood up from the sofa and walked up to me. We were only feet apart when she leveled to meet my eyes. I wanted to look away from her, especially since I am too plain and unadorned for a woman like her. "Hino Haruka, I look forward in our days as a mother and a daughter." She said after a full minute of staring eye-to-eye.
I simply nodded. She took me by my arm and gently pulled me away from Dad. "Taiki, I hope you don't mind." She said, looking much more beautiful now as she eyed at Dad. "I do have a word for my sweet little daughter." Immediately, Dad retreated back to his space on the sofa, and was warped in his own world of business as he took the newspapers recently placed on the coffee table in the middle. Umm, Haruka-san (I have no idea what to call her), took me in an unsuspecting corner in the study, away from earshot, and stared at me and all of the gentleness and calmness vanished.
"Terrible." Were the first words of repugnance towards me that slipped through her lips. "You're nothing but some ignorant child he pitifully picked up from his mistress. "I don't care if you're Taiki's daughter." She mumbled softly, scowling. Then, she rolled her eyes at me and looked away in disgust. "You just turned into a respectable lady because of your dress and make-up, but beyond it, you are nothing but a leech." The way she said mistress and leech made me shy away in fear and anxiety. I took hold of the windowpane and looked away.
"I'm sorry." I said in barely a whisper. "I won't cause trouble for you and your family." A small sound came from her throat, probably a sarcastic laugh, as her scowl intensified. "Trouble? Trouble?" She muttered. "You already did. No matter how you turn everything upside-down, nothing will be the way it was. Now that you have entered this world, our world, there is no turning back; no way to return to the way your life was before." She took my chin in her hand and pressed a terribly painful pressure on it that I had gasped loudly. "To this day forward, I will make your life miserable and wretched." She whispered, releasing my face from her hands. Moments later, her façade returned to her face: the angelic smile of gentleness.
"I look forward in knowing you, Kahoko!" She said almost too loudly with her melodious, tender voice that I saw a grin on my father's face. With one last icy glare at me, she walked back to Dad and Shouei-niisama and took the seat beside Dad. With shaking and terrified legs, I made my way to the miniature sofa and occupied the space beside my stepbrother. I purposely pinned myself at the edge of the sofa so that I am in a respectable distance away from him. "I believe you had a nice chat with Haruka." Dad said with an inimitable pleased grin. He seriously believes the fact that my stepmother is actually kind and gentle and it made me roll my eyes covertly. "Anyway, Kahoko, we must go. The headmaster must be waiting for us. Additionally, I would like for you to meet your new violin instructor."
-x
Author's Note: First update in the year? xD Oh, anyway. Here you go, before school starts in June. :))))