It Had To Be You ~ Joost Klein

Chapter 23 - Mov. 3 Moonlight Sonata

3rd Person

"Should...should we ask her if she's okay?" Joost questioned, a look of amazement but also intense worry on his face as he held his side.

"No, she would probably bite your finger off if you interrupted her," Teun whispered, the same amazed yet disturbed look on his features. The two dared not to take their eyes off the wonder before them. Neither have they seen such a talented freak of nature bestowed upon them like this.

Teun and Joost stood outside the booth y/n resided in, watching the woman in front of them spiral as she furiously played the third movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. They were gawking. I mean, how could they not? Seeing someone who usually kept to themselves play piano so beautifully yet with such an immense amount of fury was not something you see every day. It was a side of y/n that Joost had never seen, but secretly, it excited him. Was this where her abilities stopped, or would she continue to impress?

She could feel it, feel their eyes on her. If anything, it only enraged her more that she had eyes on her in such a vulnerable moment. She just wanted to play and allow herself to have her moment. She had been needing this for a while. Leading up to her final exams, piano always became strategic, formulated, and pattern-like. She needed to vent.

Teun was out with Joost and some of their friends when his phone began to ring. He thought it may have been his girlfriend but was shocked to see it was y/n. He excused himself from the noisy club they were in and answered, unsure what was to come of the call.

Then, within the span of an hour, he and Joost left. Due to y/n's request, he was going unlock a nearby music studio a buddy of his lent him access to. He could tell from her tone of voice something was up, and she insisted that Joost needed to come with him. Y/n didn't say much to the two of them but went straight for the sound booth with a piano.

"How'd she even learn to fucking play that?" Joost said, his hand wiping over his gaping mouth. Teun could only shrug, words ceasing to escape his person. At this point, they weren't even upset they were taken away from their night out, their casual drunkenness being sucked out of them into the blackhole that this performance was.

It was the piece she auditioned with to get into the school in Amsterdam. She had started practicing it a year in advance, anxiously. Every day, hours were spent in a practice room leading up to the fateful day, perfecting each and every note. However, after a while, it wasn't a big deal. At its core, the song was arpeggios but remarkably fast. She enjoyed the way it made her hands wail in agony.

However, at this moment, that was all out the door. The tempo, the touch of the keys, the dynamics, gone. All that the keys had to deal with was the wrath of her hands abusing them. There was no pattern, no logic behind her movements, just the pent-up anger and unadulterated rage. Though it wasn't evident to the untrained eye, she was playing sloppily, and it was eating away at her.

I'm out of practice, she thought.

Her fingers and forearms began to burn as they marched up and down the keyboard at a BPM of 155. The harder she pressed, the more she believed it would drown out the constant word vomit happening within her mind. But it still wasn't enough. Y/n was pounding away at the keys so hard that every string inside the wooden cabinet began to twang and thud with each strike.

"That's insane..." Teun muttered, his voice serious.

"What is?" Joost finally looked away towards Teun, his eyebrows pinched together.

"I just realized how small her hands are. She shouldn't be able to play that. I feel like I'm witnessing magic...or like she's cursing someone," he scoffed, "I'm glad I'm not the one on the other end of it."