Chapter 2: Fantasia in D minor
The sound of a thunder storm rumbles its way closer to the mansion. Thick is the air; humid yet dry at the same time, a heat that frailly insists on freezing cold.
We stand in silence, here, on one of the many balconies, watching the storm come in.
Work has been pretty scarce around here recently. Aside from going out with Neon-sama whenever she wants to go to the casino, or, Heaven forbid, shopping, we've found ourselves here with little to do. Bashou spends much of his time reading and writing poetry, or working out. The two of us; we talk sometimes, we play chess sometimes, sometimes he reads while I play.
Without either of us noticing it, we've become as close as best friends, without actually tacking on such a name to the relationship.
Today there are no words, just silence as we respectfully watch the storm come in. Pretty soon, darkness, not an evening darkness, nor the darkness of a room with closed blinds, but the darkness of a dungeon, advanced.
The air around us suddenly becomes frigid, and I shiver.
He narrows his eyes as he looks suddenly at me. "Are you cold?" he asks, in a question that is not a question.
Plop, plop, the sound of raindrops that is only the sound of raindrops from a thunderstorm. Landing on his head, my head, and the balcony.
My ears warn me before anything else, and wordlessly, I pull him back under the shelter of the awning above. An instant...no, less than an instant...later, a pure sheet comes down, covering the surface of the balcony instantly as rain glances off rain, so fast that what is on the ground has barely been there a moment before it is pummeled from more rain above.
"And here comes the hail," I murmur. Of course, I'm right.
He opens the sliding glass door for me and gestures for me to enter first, which I do.
Impulsively, I walk...trot...perhaps even a little run...towards the piano, which is in the same room we have just entered. He follows, more slowly; I have just begun the first set of arpeggios as he comes to stand next to me, one hand resting on the side of the piano.
Dark arpeggios, rumbling like the thunder that is now so directly above the mansion that it sounds immediately after the lightning flashes. And then, just as suddenly, the thunder is past, and so are the arpeggios.
Staccato notes now coming from the piano, just like the lighter rain that has taken the place of the pounding rain from beforehand. My fingers lightly touch the keys, bringing out those notes with the same delicacy of the rain.
A couple of measures away from one of the harder parts of the piece. My fingers tense up a bit as I ritardando into it, and then whoosh! I let them fly into the dark, fast arpeggio. Just like the notes, a more distance rumble of thunder sounds.
He is still there, watching me. If my cheeks would allow for a blush, I probably would by now. Oh, well. Even if I allowed for a little room for whatever feelings might be there, obviously there's no way they would be reciprocated.
So I concentrate on the notes.
Presently, I have come to the repeated portion of the piece. I can feel the piece lighten into the major key, just as the room brightens as the dark clouds pass from the face of the sun.
More thirty-second, sixteenth, eighth and then, quarter notes.
I play the final dominant chord and leave it there. Mozart kicked the bucket before he finished this piece, and I'm not going to tack on some stupid ending someone else put there.
He has noticed, instinctively, even though he can't understand why. "Aren't you going to end it? It sounds unfinished," he says with a little frown.
I laugh a little. "Yes, it's unfinished," I tell him. "It sounds strange that way, doesn't it?"
He comes around to my left side, leans over, and depresses a handful of keys. He doesn't get it right the first time; he accidentally plays an augmented chord; but he quickly amends it, bringing down the fifth into a perfect. I'm a little astonished actually, that he managed to find the right chord. As he straightens back up, I release the sustain pedal.
He looks up at me with a twinkle in his eye. "It's pretty easy when you figure out the arrangement of the black keys," he tells me. "Incidentally...what chord did I just play?"
"A D major," I answer with a smile. Then...oh, no, not that...that tingling in the nose...AACHOO!
He gives me a little concerned glance as I sniff and wipe my nose with the handkerchief he offers. "Thag you."
He sighes and clucks like an overprotective mother. "You're still wet," he says, admonishing me gently. "Go change your clothes before you catch a cold."
"You too," I say with a wink.
His heartbeat changed a little when I did that.