もう書けない…俺はもう小説を書くことはできない…

I can't write... I can no longer write a story...

-Oda Sakunosuke

Stage~

Eight years after surgery

He pulled at the collars of his suit jacket, then turned to her, in the wing offstage as they prepared to play. "How do I look?" he asked.

She set the violin, which she had been picking up, back down, and turned to him, her white dress hugging her figure like the calm surface of a lake. "You look wonderful, dear," she said, but hesitated. Walking over to him, she took his bowtie, and pulled at it, making some adjustments. "There," she said when she was done, taking a step back to inspect her handiwork.

"Thank you," he said, smiling. She paused, then stood on tip-toe to fix his hair.

"I swear, this mess never sits down," she muttered.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

"Shut up, it's endearing," she said. "And stop touching it."

"Oh, sorry," he said, just realizing that he was ruining her efforts, and promptly lowered his hand.

"Honestly…" she said fondly, and turned to pick her violin up. She paused, and looked back at him, appearing torn.

"You know," he said, voicing what he knew she was thinking as well. "I really want to kiss you right now, but we're up in a minute and I don't want to ruin your makeup."

"Then let's get this over with quickly," she said, but still walked up to him to give him a fleeting peck on the lips.

He laughed. "We're horrible musicians. We're talking about rushing our recital that people have traveled from all over the world to see so we can make out."

She grinned mischievously at him. "We could always do it on stage."

He rolled his eyes. "You've already destroyed every form of common musical decency anyway. Besides…" He quieted, looking off in the direction of the audience, where their three year old daughter – a miniature Kaori with straight blonde hair and eager eyes – was waiting to listen to their performance with her grandparents, and her "sensei", Nagi, along with Takeshi and Emi, who were together, and Tsubaki, who was single, and Watari, who was still fooling around as usual, and Seto-san and her daughter.

His wife walked up to him and rested a hand on his arm. "It's not like she hasn't seen us before…"

He blushed, twenty-two but somehow still susceptible to his wife's teasing. "Come on, that was one time!" he protested. The memory of their daughter, half-asleep, carrying a plushie and rubbing her eyes walking in on them in bed still made him panic.

She laughed. "Or maybe you just don't want to kiss me on stage because you don't want people to know you love me, huh? Maybe I'm just meiwaku to you…" she said, her blue eyes twinkling.

Or maybe I'm just a burden to you…

"Oh, come on!"

She laughed again, shaking her head. "Stupidest inside joke ever…" She looked up to meet his eyes. "But you know what?" she whispered.

And suddenly he found his head pounding, and his breath short. "What…?"

"I love it."

"I…" He took a breath. "I love it too."

"Good." She poked his forehead. He blinked. "I know."

Rubbing his forehead despite the fact it didn't hurt, he looked in the direction of their daughter again. Through the wall, of course, they could not see her, but he could just imagine her holding her breath, and he could see in his mind how her blue eyes would light up when her parents walked onto the stage.

"Thank you for giving me a family…" he heard himself say.

Kaori walked up to him and took her place beside them, also looking toward the audience. "She's going to turn four soon."

"We still need to get tickets for her birthday," Kousei said. Tickets to Disneyland in California, where they would take her for a birthday vacation. They hadn't taken her to the United States since before she was old enough to remember it, so they figured Disneyland Park would be a good place to start her, give her her first impression of the country.

"Let's do that tonight."

"Yeah."

"Four…" said Kaori. "You know, I'm surprised she wasn't born earlier…" She looked at her husband with a sly twinkle in her eye.

Kousei blushed. "Well, yeah… We didn't use protection for like a year… She could have been eight by now."

Kaori giggled, and Kousei shook his head.

"Please welcome Violinist Arima Kaori," the announcer said from off to his right, "accompanied by Arima Kousei."

"Well, we're up," she said.

"So it seems."

"Let's do this," said Kaori. "Let's make our little girl proud!"

He nodded in determination.

In case it caused any confusion - the previous chapter's name was not Final because it was the final chapter. Rather, Final was the prompt for Friday since this is the Weekday Prompt Challenge. Also, I'm warning you – the next chapter is going to get sappy. It's going to get really, really sweet – yes, even more than the fic has been until now. If you're not into that, please do not read tomorrow's chapter. I don't want any angry reviews telling me my stuff is too happy. We need some happiness to balance out all the angst Arakawa-sensei thrust onto us.