[Mister the Tall Pianist]

Part 1

    Berthold Hoover despised his fingers. There was always something about them that repelled him. When he was young, they were tiny and weak, easy to hurt and clumsy. It was a wonder he never broke one up until now while Reiner, who was already burlier than him, found a way to crush a few while trying to get a heavy door not to close and lock him out from his apartment building as he had forgotten (yet again) his set of keys before leaving for school.

Long story short, as Berthold tried to get rid of his clumsiness that embarrassed him more than his abnormally long figure for a young boy, his parents enrolled him in a music class.

They didn't choose his instrument for his own sake, not wanting to force him to do something that would end up embarrassing him (not that his first venue in the practice room wasn't embarrassing, the poor thing just wanted to disappear behind his mom's slim legs) or that he didn't like for that matter.

And so he tried every type of instruments. He first tried the percussions as he didn't trust his fingers to be agile enough to play on anything more elaborate. However, the loud sounds that would easily gain the attention of the other kids around him made him want to shrink in a shell like a hermit crab.

He then tried the stringed instruments as they could be much quieter. His fingers started to get stronger, but he quickly quit as the pain that would erupt to their tips each time he started practicing was unbearable to him. That, and he didn't like the rough feeling that they were starting to gain from pinching the taut strings. He wanted his hands to get stronger, but not rough to the touch.

So then he tried the brass instruments, but quickly found out that they weren't for him. The way he had to blow into the instrument while letting his lips vibrate against the mouthpiece made him feel awkward, which made him sweat and that resulted into the mouthpiece to be filled with water and dirty the whole interior of the instrument.

Then he finally tried the woodwind instruments. He liked their sound and they weren't too hard to play either. His fingers lost of their clumsiness and gained flexibility, though he still had some difficulty with the beak that would quickly get wet and quite disgusting to say the least after his practice lessons. Though the reason he quit was after he overheard the responsible for the cleaning of the instruments grumbling about the 'damn sweaty brat that was filling the beak of his instruments with his nasty body fluids'...

On the next lesson, he went up to the teacher to tell her that he didn't want to play this type of instrument anymore, that he still got breathless too fast to become any good at it. Though, upon seeing Berthold's defeated expression, his mistress walked him to the back of the class where a grand piano was standing...

Berthold's lips etched upwards at the memory as he sat behind his own grand piano, playing a little tune to himself in the silence of the room.

His eyes had opened wide in wonder, awing at the impressive black instrument standing proud, but secluded in the corner of the room as it reflected his awestruck face. His teacher sat behind it and started playing a soft tune, so soft that he had to walk closer to her to hear it properly. That's when he saw her fingers delicately hitting the keys in fluid movements. When he pressed a key to see if they were hard, he accidentally interrupted his teacher's song, making him retract his hand as soon as it hit the dreaded key, his face flushed pink.

His teacher had laughed it off, making him sit beside her instead and started teaching him to make the instrument sing for his quiet and fragile heart.

Now that he thought about it, Berthold believed that it was because he thought that the piano was just like him that he chose to stick with it, not because he could reach his goal to shape his fingers in a way that would please him more. Indeed, the piano was a big instrument, the biggest in the room, just like he was the tallest; it stayed behind the class, unmoved, just like he preferred to be the wallflower; it was impressive, but could play the most delicate sounds, just like he had a glass heart...