Chapter 4

He honestly didn't expect her to react the way that she did. He just assumed that she would behave the way he would if he suddenly couldn't play tennis. He thought she would yearn and ache to play again, and it would cause her to be restless and she'd nearly lose her mind. He thought she might even lose her sense of self, not knowing what to attach her identity to if not to 'musician'.

But she showed none of those behaviours. No, Makoto lived her life as if she hadn't been all consumed by an instrument just a few weeks ago. She slipped so easily into the life of a normal high school student, hanging out with her friends after school and going shopping over the weekend, it was like she was returning to a life she once lived. But she hadn't lived this life before. Shishido knew the only life she'd lived was that of the violin.

She was different when they hung out too. She spoke so candidly and joked around more often. He hadn't seen her do that weird nervous habit of rubbing her thumb against her fingers in a while. Her laugh was so free. She was free. In such a short amount of time, Shishido felt like he'd met several new sides to one of his closest friends.

Like today. Makoto usually didn't stay late at school these days, after all there was no reason to. She would usually leave school with her friends and hang out with them for a while. Then she'd go home to study and eat with her family. Since she didn't get her daily chat with Shishido when they walked home together anymore, she would sometimes come out to where he was doing late night practice and just bum around while he trained. Sometimes they would chat. Sometimes she would just read to the tempo of his ball hitting the wall.

She would always show up looking like she hadn't done laundry and was down to her last-resort clothes. Today, she wore a hoodie that was a bit too oversized to be considered fashionable (she had 'borrowed' it from him a while ago and he suspected she never had the thought to return it), sweatpants, socks, slides and her thick glasses in lieu of her usual contact lenses.

The first time she showed up like that, Shishido almost didn't recognise her. He couldn't imagine that the girl he saw every day wearing her uniform with the pressed shirt tucked neatly into her skirt and that impeccably tailored blazer, or the girl wearing floor length gowns to perform at the most prestigious venues in the country, led a double life as a human attempting to cosplay as a pile of clothes on a chair.

It was cute.

Shishido couldn't help but feel a bit blessed that he'd been given the privilege of seeing her in this state. The unguarded, undone Makoto that usually only her family was privy to. No one else would be able to see her like this, sitting cross-legged and dazed on a bench in all that fabric, hands in pockets, empty juice box hanging out of her mouth via the straw. It was the epitome of "no thoughts, just vibes.'

She was usually more of a 'too many thoughts, no time for vibes' kind of person. At least, that was before her injury. Perhaps it was poetic irony that the gift everyone said was given to her by the gods was in fact the curse which prevented her from being fully liberated.

"You're like a different person these days," he said as he sat down to take a little break from training.

"You thought I'd lose the will to live, didn't you?"

"Something like that."

She gestured at her outfit, "it does kind of look like I've given up on life, doesn't it?''

"Yeah, maybe to someone who doesn't know you well."

She magically pulled out another juice box from the hoodie pocket and poked the straw through the hole. "To be honest, I thought I would too," she offered her drink to him.

"I thought I'd have to fight you off every day from trying to get your violin back," he took a sip.

"I don't know if I ever want to touch a violin again."

Perhaps he would've been more surprised if she hadn't mentioned it to him 'hypothetically' several times. He never took it to seriously, since the thought of Makoto without her case in hand was like seeing her without her right arm. The instrument had long become an extension of her body.

He did usually think it was odd that her mind even went there. By default, Shishido figured that Makoto felt the same way about the violin as he did about tennis. But the way she would ponder over quitting or how she easily lived her life without being able to play made him realise that maybe Makoto felt a kind of resentment towards or burden from the violin that he didn't get from tennis.

To him, tennis was freeing. To be able to channel all of his motivation and energy into improving and winning. It gave him a sense of limitless purpose. With the momentum he'd been gaining in his training recently, he felt unstoppable.

But he knew Makoto didn't feel the same. The way she would emotionally shut down before competitions, or the hint of sadness and disappointment in her eyes every time she had to reject an invitation from her friends to hang out. It was like music had become a cage, imprisoning her into a way of life she wasn't sure she wanted.

"My teacher told me to quit music cold turkey during these two months. No thinking about the violin, no listening to classical music and no studying music theory while my hand heals. This life of a normal high schooler, I think I like it."

Shishido looked down at her hand and there it was again - that nervous habit of hers. Just as he was about to point it out, her left hand froze and her head jolted down to examine the tips of her fingers with her brows slightly furrowed.

Shishido watched as she ran her thumb slowly over her fingertips again, as if she was confirming something to herself. "It's only been two weeks and my callouses have faded so much already."

"Why did she tell you to quit cold turkey?"

"She said she can tell that I'm wavering. And she's right - I don't think I care about winning music competitions anymore, but I'm still terrified of losing them. She said she can hear it when I play. I haven't been improving as I should and… that my notes have become dull."

Shishido was as confused as possible. That was a ludicrous thought, but then again he didn't know the first thing about classical music. The only thing he knew was that all classical music sounded the same to him unless Makoto was playing it. When he heard her play, suddenly the notes that would usually send him straight to sleep became sounds that made every hair on his arm stand straight.

"Do you think you're playing has become dull?"

Makoto nodded her head slowly after taking a moment to ponder the idea. "I think she's right. I'm not sure why I play anymore."

"So what's her plan? You don't play while your hand heals and then what?"

"Not sure," she shrugged. "She has a big performance right around the time my hand is supposed to heal up. She said to take time away from music until then, and then to go see the performance."

"And then?"

"And then I make my decision."

This silence was killing him. Everything that happened so far seemed to be well in the range of normal for Makoto. Weeks had passed since her injury and she was due for her final check up in a few days. As she promised her teacher, Makoto erased classical music from her life completely. And today was the day that embargo ended.

As usual when Shishido would accompany her to these kinds of things, he would show up in a smart white button up, blazer and trousers. He would text her that he was outside and she would open the door and reveal the smart outfit she'd chose. No matter what she wore, Shishido felt himself catch his breath every time.

As usual, Makoto would shiver slightly when they entered the venue. These venues were always too cold for her, and somehow she always forgot that fact when getting dressed. As usual, Shishido would give her his blazer to wear during the concert and for the walk home.

He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he felt like Makoto was different during the concert. From the moment the lights dimmed and the first note was played, Makoto's body stilled as if frozen in time. Her eyes plastered to the stage, breath short and shallow and not once did her hands moved from their position in her lap.

Even when the audience would applaud at the end of a piece, Makoto remained still.

After the concert ended, without a word the two stood up and made their way out of the venue. Usually, they'd talking about whatever until they came across somewhere to eat.

But not today. They were currently walking in dead silence as Makoto remained in her trance-like state and Shishido was suffocating from the questions that were caught in his throat. That concert was the last milestone to Makoto deciding whether she wanted to keep playing or not, and Shishido couldn't remotely gauge what her decision would be.

"So… what did you think?" he asked, praying that he hadn't just opened Pandora's Box.

His question had startled Makoto out of autopilot. "Hmm? Oh…" she stopped and took her hands out of his jacket she was wearing and stared at her fingertips which were only left with ghost callouses. "I didn't expect to feel like this."

Both of them turned towards each other slightly as they looked at Makoto's palms between them. With how easily Makoto slipped into the life of a normal high schooler, and the lack of thought she had towards the violin in recent weeks, Shishido honestly expected Makoto to quit playing. A part of him would be sad since every time he heard her play he was getting a bit more cultured. But other than that, he liked how much more carefree and unburdened she'd become since her injury.

"I'm itching the play," she said, the shock on her face mimicking his.

"Really?"

She nodded her head in affirmation, "those notes we just heard - the high notes that pierce your skin and the low notes that pierce your soul - I want to produce those notes."

"So you're going to keep playing?"

"Yeah… that feeling when I'm playing a concerto - when the sound of the orchestra envelops my body and fills my spirit, and then my notes pervade through - if I quit playing the violin now I'll never experience that feeling again. Winning competitions; losing them; first chair; second chair; no chair, I don't care anymore. I will do whatever it takes to produce those sounds. I want to play those pieces that were written hundred of years ago but continue to move people to this day."

The smile that erupted on her face made Shishido realise something he'd missed all along. Sure, in these 8 weeks Makoto had become untroubled, but the smile he saw in that moment had only shown itself when she had her violin resting on her shoulder. That free and easy life she could've lived without the violin was far outweighed by the pure joy of playing it. In recent months that joy had become clouded by the pressure of competition and expectations, but after everything that happened it seemed like she was ready to transcend all of it.

Almost instinctually, Shishido grabbed Makoto's hand and pulled her into a hug. "That's great!" He placed one hand on her head and the other around her back as he felt her hands reach around his waist and squeezed him back.

"Thanks, Ryou," he heard her muffle into his chest.

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