Day 43: Music Room [Fourth Shift]

[fuzzy_diablo]

[For Kitty!]That'd been a good nap, and the conversation with Tony had reassured him a little. It was nice to regularly talk with someone who knew what he looked like without the watch. Bracelet. Whatever

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[moral_liberty]

Kaworu did not speak much to his nurse while she led him to the music room, as had been promised. Although she was kind and asked him questions, Kaworu could not find the words. He felt weak all over, and unable to think of anything that didn't lead back to Shinji. He could still feel his hand, and hear his voice. He wondered if perhaps it would be easier if he were able to forget about Shinji, just as he had been fearing, but immediately recoiled at the thought.

Now every moment Kaworu had spent with him seemed vivid and loud. He could remember looking down on Shinji, who had insisted on sleeping on the floor, as he explained how his life had been boring before he was recalled by his father. There was no resolution to the story; he had only wanted Kaworu to hear. Kaworu had wanted to listen.

The music room provided him with only an electric keyboard, and his heart fell slightly at the realization. He settled down in front of it anyway. It took him a moment of adjusting and testing the instrument, during which he began to recall details about the piano that had been wheeled into the research laboratory when he was very young. It had never seemed important to him before.

Kaworu could not remember which songs he had been planning to play all morning. As soon as his fingers touched the keys, he launched into a complex variation of Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee, smoothly and confidently. Though the sound of the keyboard was slightly unnatural, and the song itself sounded nothing like his churning mind, Kaworu almost immediately felt better.

[For Tsukasa!]

[cannotlogout]

The nurse had been typically patronising about his drawing when she came to get him. Awww, he'd drawn a kitty. Wasn't that cute. Tsukasa had been tempted to scrunch up the drawing and throw it away with those words, but he folded it instead, shoving it into his pocket and ignoring the nurse entirely as she led him to another room. All this being led around was really getting on his nerves.

Music assaulted him as soon as he entered the room. He smiled slightly at it, only then realising how much he missed not having background music. It was something that you just came to take for granted in The World.

He wasn't musical himself really, but he could appreciate it at least. He found a chair near to where a boy with almost the same shade hair as him was playing the keyboard skillfully. It must have taken so long to learn to play like that.

[moral_liberty]

Kaworu saw a figure approaching him out of the corner of his eye, and his playing began to slow. Soon the tune had transformed into something simpler and slower, so that he was able to glance over and smile at the boy who had sat down to listen. As he looked the Lilim over, the similarities in their hair color did not escape him. It distracted him from his heavy, overcrowded mind in a way that the music has only partially done. The song, he knew, was the one he had been focused on while waiting for Shinji not even a week ago. He feared that as soon as he stopped playing, he might have slipped back into the place where Shinji had left him.

So when Kaworu felt the familiar tug of curiosity, he latched onto it.

"A song can cleanse the soul," Kaworu said to his small audience, though as he spoke he softly stopped. He held his fingers lightly over the plastic keys. As long as he thought only about the new face before him, his mind stayed as still as his fingertips. "Would you like to play?"

[cannotlogout]

Tsukasa was a little surprised when the other boy addressed him, still a little lost in the music that he was playing. It was good, as good as any proper CDs that Tsukasa had heard, even played on a little plastic keyboard in this room. He flashed the other boy a smile though and nodded. "I guess it can," he agreed. Sometimes he'd just sit around listening to the music of The World to the point where he'd become used to having it there. That had been startling when he'd finally woken up.

He looked down at the floor when the boy offered to let him play. "Ah, I never learned how to play an instrument. You're really good though."

[moral_liberty]

"Thank you, that makes me glad to hear." Kaworu continued to smile as he looked at the keyboard. Often, it had been all there was to do when he was left alone. He had not minded it, nor had he been bored. Honestly, he hadn't felt much of anything at all, except for when he learned a new piece. There was a feeling not unlike gratification to know that the time spent with his instruments had accomplished something. It wasn't tangible, but it was his.

"Did you lack the desire, or merely an opportunity?" He asked before taking a brief glance at Tsukasa's fingers.

[cannotlogout]

Tsukasa smiled at him. "Are you a professional player?" he asked curiously. "You must have been practicing for years to get so good." He didn't look that much younger than Tsukasa was, although Tsukasa had learned not to just take age according to appearance.

His expression turned a little sad but he shrugged dismissively. "I never had the opportunity to learn." Because he would never have paid for any kind of lessons like that. The basics he provided because everything had to be perfect outwardly, but asking for anything else?

[moral_liberty]

"The ache of something not lost, but rather denied entirely, is difficult to ease," Kaworu said softly, watching Tsukasa's eyes carefully. "It is to yearn for what one does not even know."

Kaworu bowed his head, causing more strands of gray hair to fall into his face. The sadness that had crept into Tsukasa's voice had not escaped him. Between the two of them, it felt like an echo.

Suddenly, Kaworu scooted over on the bench that had been put in front of the keyboard. "I am not professional," he explained, "however, I may give this to you. Do you wish for me to teach you?"

[cannotlogout]

His eyes widened in shock when the other boy spoke, reflecting how Tsukasa thought about things he hadn't even realised himself. Even if he had every opportunity now, thanks to Bear, he'd still missed out on so many things that he would have liked to do. It wasn't regret exactly, but yeah, an ache for the things that could have been.

The offer took him completely by surprise and Tsukasa stumbled over his words for a moment before he nodded. "I'd like that," he replied with a smile. He pushed himself to his feet and moved to sit on the bench next to Kaworu. "Thanks."

[moral_liberty]

[Ahaha I replied with the wrong journal first. ._. SORRY ABOUT THAT. ;;;;;]

"I am glad to," Kaworu said, smiling back. He had never taught anyone, and for a moment couldn't do anything but stare at the keys. Slowly, he removed all of the layers of thoughts he had accumulated about music. When he had stripped it all down to the first thing he had learned, he broke free of the frozen state he seemed to be in for several seconds.

"First, you must find C," he said softly as he reached out and touched the key in question. "C will never be far, because it is always the white key to the left of every pair of black keys." His voice felt unusually halting as, for once, he struggled to find the words. Kaworu's demonstration was much more smooth, as he played several of the C notes across the keyboard without hesitation.

"It is by using C as an anchor that one may find all of the notes." He paused for another moment, trying to find his footing, before playing the successive chain of notes. He recited the letters with each note, almost singing with them. Although compared to Kaworu's playing, his voice was lackluster and unsuited for music.

Afterward, he pulled his hands away from the instrument and looked back at Tsukasa, searching to see if the other boy had understood. A small incline of his head implied that he wished for Tsukasa to imitate what he had just done.

[cannotlogout]

He didn't know why Kaworu would want to bother teaching someone else to play when he was probably going to be frustrated with Tsukasa's lack of knowledge, but Tsukasa appreciated it anyway. maybe it was something like helping out newbies in The World. Mimiru had said that it was a good feeling.

He listened carefully to the explanation, following where Kaworu's fingers moved along the keys, elegant and practiced as he played the notes. So C was the anchor, the save point of the keyboard and that thought made Tsukasa smile a little.

He nodded when Kaworu looked at him, reaching out to touch the closest key that he thought was a C. To the side of two black keys. He played it, following it with the other notes as Kaworu had stated them.

[moral_liberty]

Kaworu's smile widened, and for a brief moment he had almost completely forgotten about what had happened an hour ago. It became less of an intense pressure on his mind, and retreated to nothing but a lingering, threatening cloud. Tsukasa's successful notes kept it at bay. Kaworu found that teaching was a very novel experience, and as Tsukasa had theorized, it was a good feeling.

"Yes," he said aloud, clearly pleased. "The black keys are the flat and sharp notes. They are one half lower or higher than the white keys that are beside them. A single key may be both the flat of one note and the sharp of another." Encouraged, he sounded and felt more sure of himself and the spur of the moment lesson. He played the black keys, naming them as he went.

"These are all of the notes on a piano, and now that you know them, you are able to use them to create music." Kaworu looked at the instrument in front of him with deep affection, though he remembered the music and the emotions more than he saw the material plastic casing in front of him.