The Piano Man (Iwaoi)

Chapter 5

        "What was that one song you used to play?"

        "I played a lot."

        "No, no, I mean, you were obsessed with this one. You must have played it at least twice a day."

        "I want to see if you remember it."

        "Fucked if I know, the titles are all the same."

        "That's not true."

        "Minor, major, random letters."

        "Stop pretending that you don't know anything about music."

        "Okay, fine. I think it was in minor key."

        "Wanna hear something interesting?"

        "Mhmm."

        "I used to hate minor when I was younger. It made me too sad. I only played major."

        "And then?"

        "I started to like minor more and more."

        "This one was definitely in minor."

        "It was probably Chopin or Rachmaninoff."

        "That one. The second one. With the big hands."

        "They both had big hands."

        "Long name. Russian."

        "Rachmaninoff. Do you remember anything about the piece?"

        "You had to use, like, the entire piano. And it's really sad and dark at the beginning, and then, toward the middle, it gets kind of happy. Then at the end it gets fast."

        "Kind of happy?"

        "Yeah. Like, floaty."

        "Morceaux de fantasie, opus 3, number 1, elegy."

        "Was I right? Is it in minor?"

        "E-flat minor."

        "You used to play it all the time. I got so sick of it."

        "Well, you never liked Rachmaninoff anyway."

        "Why'd you like it so much?"

        "I don't know. Maybe because it let me feel things I could never feel on my own."

        "What does that mean?"

        "Rachmaninoff felt such sadness. He pulled the music from turmoil. I never felt that."

        "You're a horrible liar."

        "Always have been."

        It was the middle of the night. Tooru was on the couch, lying down with a quilted blanket that Hajime had dragged out from the closet over his body. With droopy eyelids, slurred, sleepy words, heavy limbs, he watched Hajime sitting on the armchair smoking his cigarette. Neither of them could sleep. So they were talking, and Tooru worked very hard to pick up the tones, melodies, harmonies in Hajime's voice that had changed. He was trying to gauge who this person was, whether he really was the same. The lights were off, so he couldn't see very well, but since his eyes had adjusted he had become aware of f Hajime's silhouette on the chair. He wasn't sure how long they'd been talking. About everything.

        He examined in excruciating detail the curve of Hajime's arm when he stretched it over his head, his gaze turning up to the corner of the room in thought. The way his lips moved, not totally matching his words, when he spoke, asked questions, all directed at Tooru himself. The swell of Hajime's chest when he breathed became as vivid, as colorful, as dramatic as a cinema screen and as loud as the percussion he used to hear on stage when he played concertos. Every few moments, he wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes with his raw, red fingertips, in the hopes that Hajime hadn't seen them. When his eyes hurt, when his heart ached, from looking at Hajime in this intimate darkness, he buried his face in the crook of his arm. Gemini had decided, for some reason, that she liked Tooru, and elected to sleep on the couch with him. It made him much warmer but significantly restricted his movement.