Variation upon the Standard
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This is the last time she’s lending Yosuke anything.
Chie shoves her hands deeper into her pockets, kicking a stone as she walks down the hill. The Hanamura’s have the big house on the corner, with his dumb bike parked in the driveway where a car’s supposed to go. Three weeks, she’s let him have Warriors of Kung-Fu - three weeks it’s probably sat, broken, on his bedroom floor, under a pile of laundry.
Chie huffs and rings the doorbell, scratching the back of her leg with her foot. No answer. She rings again and then, for good measure, kicks the door. It hurts her toes and scuffs her shoe, but doesn’t succeed in summoning scraggly Hanamura.
“Idiot,” she says under her breath. She knows he’s here - he doesn’t have work on Tuesdays, and they’re not in the TV, so Yosuke’s got nowhere else to be.
She walks around the house, careful not to step on any of his mother’s dying chrysanthemums, peaking in the windows she could. He’s probably got his headphones on or something, and it’d be great if he did - she loves scaring the crap out of him when he should’ve been paying attention.
She jumps their back fence without too much trouble and finds the curtains only half-drawn on the back doors, so she can see a little of their living room. It always looks so chic, like something out of a magazine display or catalogue (or actually out of a Junes storeroom), with the black leather couch and -
Oh. He’s in his living room but - Chie quietly climbs up onto their back porch, kneeling and peeking through the slit in the curtains.
He in the middle of the room, still wearing that stupid jacket with the fur collar, in front of something with piles of paper around his feet, holding a - yeah, he is! He’s holding a violin, looking like he actually knew how to hold it and everything, with the stick (is it a stick - oh, no, bow) in one hand and his chin on the actual violin.
He can play the violin.
Chie bites her cheek to keep quiet.
Hanamura Yosuke can play the violin.
He’s got his tongue between his teeth and he raises the bow and starts sliding across the strings, his head bobbing around the way it does when he’s listening to a catchy song. She can’t hear a thing through the glass, but she presses her ear against the door anyway. Fuzzy, high noises are all she makes out, but there is some kind of pattern to them.
Hanamura Yosuke actually plays the violin.
Something trickles across her hand and Chie screams at the sight of the spider, slapping at it and falling off the back of the porch. Ouch, damn it, her ass. Doesn’t help the grass is all dead and prickly under her hands and a rock’s digging into her ribs.
She hears the door open and sees Yosuke’s face appear, upside down, above her. He has his ‘what’ expression on - the one cocked eyebrow and the half-narrowed eyes, and the “What the hell, Chie” that comes out of his mouth half a second later.
“You can play the violin!” she announces, standing and brushing the grass off her legs.
“What the hell are you doing in my backyard?”
“You have my DVD. You can play the violin?”
“. . . no I can’t,” he lies badly. He shuts the door with his foot but she can still see the violin on the table, discarded atop old magazines. She jumps up on the porch again and he swings his arm to the side to block her view. “I’ll give your DVD back Monday, I promise, okay? You don’t need to break into my house for it, jeeze.”
“How come you never told me you could play the violin?”
“Because I can’t - only girls and gay guys play the violin!” Except his face is turning red and she easily ducks his dismissing arm, pulling the door open behind his back. “H-hey, that’s trespassing!” She tosses off her shoes and picks the violin up off the table. There’s white powder all over the strings, and it sticks to her fingers too. “Gimme that!” Some of the strings get plucked when he grabs it from her, a dull thunk sound against the wood.
“How long have you played it? Are you any good - you’re at least better at it than you are on the guitar, right?”
He’s either going to throw up or smash her over the head with the violin. “Go home, okay!” Then pauses. “What do you mean, better at it than the guitar - I’m damn good on the guitar! Nanako told me so!”
She picks through the papers on the floor - holy crap that’s a lot of notes. She can’t make any sense of any of it, since half the titles were in English or Italian or something, but Yosuke keeps making choking noises and trying to shoo her away with the actual violin. She grins, watching as his face debated on staying gray or turning beet-red. “How come you never told me?”
“It’s just some stupid thing my mom makes me do, okay?” He runs his hand through his hair, which sticks up even after he returns to glaring at her. He uses way too much hair gel. “And just because I play it doesn’t mean I’m gay or anything, okay?”
She would have said that it was that jacket that made him look gay, if anything, but instead, “So then why are you playing it now? I don’t see your mom anywhere.”
“Well, I mean, uh, it’s her birthday soon and -”
“Aww,” she says, grin splitting her face, “how sweet!” He holds his bright red face in his hands. “C’mon, play me something, anything!”
“Jeeze, why are you doing this to me?” he whines.
“Because,” Chie says again, “you never returned my DVD. Play something.”
“What, no!”
“C’mon! One song!” She holds up one finger and Yosuke rolls his eyes. “One song, and I’ll leave and never speak of this again. Promise.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’ll owe you a favor, okay?” She wiggles her finger. “Pinky swear.” She knows she’ll regret that from the way his eyebrow quirks up suddenly, but it gets him to sigh, sag his shoulders, and agree.
“One song - one song, and you tell nobody.” And then, for good measure, he adds, “Don’t laugh, okay?”
Yosuke’s face is red and she thinks his hands are actually shaking as he lifts the violin, tucking it between his chin and shoulder. His eyes are certainly looking at everything in the room except at her or, weirdly, at the sheets of music.
The first few notes are really off, she thinks, because he’s shaking so badly, but after a deep breath, he starts again, and they come out the right kind of high-pitched. Short, piercing sounds, speeding out as he rocks the bow back and forth. It sounds more like American country violin than the classical junk she’d been expecting. Except somehow its classy anyway.
She settles down onto the couch without looking where she’s sitting.
His fingers spider about the violin’s neck, fluttering faster than the way he jerks the bow up and down and side to side. He even sways back and forth as he saws, eyes shut and bangs flopping, rolling up onto the tips of his toes and then falling flat back on his heels. It’s sort of mesmerizing to watch him dance in place to his own music.
Yosuke makes his fingers quiver - or they shake on their own, Chie can’t tell - on the longer notes, which makes them and her quiver too. They moan quietly and then he makes them screech again, never enough to make her ears hurt, just enough to paying attention to him and him alone.
And then he dips, bending at the waist as the sound slides deeper, strings plucked quicker and quicker, and the music coming faster and faster, and echoing in the otherwise silent room. His arms twitching and bobbing as he slides one foot in front of the other, heel to toe, and Chie makes a note to ask eventually why he’s coordinated only when he wants to be. Between this and the theatrics he pulls in the TV -
But he snaps himself back up and slaps the bow against the violin, sharp, high sounds that actually make her jump.
Fingers shake as he rocks the music back and forth, teasing it into going lower and faster, and its as entertaining, or maybe even more so, just watching Yosuke’s face as he plays. The little twitches in his eyebrows and lips and neck when he changes pitches and slides his hand and moves his bow, a quick and tiny expression coming in with every switch of his fingers and every string he pulls.
Even when he’s not trying to show off, Yosuke still somehow manages to.
But in a good way, this time, Chie thinks.
The melody rings out, clear, concise, faster and faster, dropping and gaining several octaves just depending on how he makes the bow meet the strings. He swings his arm up the way he does before he throws a knife, his fingers shaking as the final notes scream out loud, the end of a song in an opera, or something.
And, at last, throws his arm with the bow out the side and stands up normally. She swallows the lump in her throat.
“There. One damn song, are you happy -?”
He opens his eyes to find hers not more than an inch away. Yosuke cranes his body back again and Chie stands on her toes and says, “You really should have told me you could play the violin,” before she kisses him longer than the whole song had been.
.
.
This is the last time she’s lending Yosuke anything.
Chie shoves her hands deeper into her pockets, kicking a stone as she walks down the hill. The Hanamura’s have the big house on the corner, with his dumb bike parked in the driveway where a car’s supposed to go. Three weeks, she’s let him have Warriors of Kung-Fu - three weeks it’s probably sat, broken, on his bedroom floor, under a pile of laundry.
Chie huffs and rings the doorbell, scratching the back of her leg with her foot. No answer. She rings again and then, for good measure, kicks the door. It hurts her toes and scuffs her shoe, but doesn’t succeed in summoning scraggly Hanamura.
“Idiot,” she says under her breath. She knows he’s here - he doesn’t have work on Tuesdays, and they’re not in the TV, so Yosuke’s got nowhere else to be.
She walks around the house, careful not to step on any of his mother’s dying chrysanthemums, peaking in the windows she could. He’s probably got his headphones on or something, and it’d be great if he did - she loves scaring the crap out of him when he should’ve been paying attention.
She jumps their back fence without too much trouble and finds the curtains only half-drawn on the back doors, so she can see a little of their living room. It always looks so chic, like something out of a magazine display or catalogue (or actually out of a Junes storeroom), with the black leather couch and -
Oh. He’s in his living room but - Chie quietly climbs up onto their back porch, kneeling and peeking through the slit in the curtains.
He in the middle of the room, still wearing that stupid jacket with the fur collar, in front of something with piles of paper around his feet, holding a - yeah, he is! He’s holding a violin, looking like he actually knew how to hold it and everything, with the stick (is it a stick - oh, no, bow) in one hand and his chin on the actual violin.
He can play the violin.
Chie bites her cheek to keep quiet.
Hanamura Yosuke can play the violin.
He’s got his tongue between his teeth and he raises the bow and starts sliding across the strings, his head bobbing around the way it does when he’s listening to a catchy song. She can’t hear a thing through the glass, but she presses her ear against the door anyway. Fuzzy, high noises are all she makes out, but there is some kind of pattern to them.
Hanamura Yosuke actually plays the violin.
Something trickles across her hand and Chie screams at the sight of the spider, slapping at it and falling off the back of the porch. Ouch, damn it, her ass. Doesn’t help the grass is all dead and prickly under her hands and a rock’s digging into her ribs.
She hears the door open and sees Yosuke’s face appear, upside down, above her. He has his ‘what’ expression on - the one cocked eyebrow and the half-narrowed eyes, and the “What the hell, Chie” that comes out of his mouth half a second later.
“You can play the violin!” she announces, standing and brushing the grass off her legs.
“What the hell are you doing in my backyard?”
“You have my DVD. You can play the violin?”
“. . . no I can’t,” he lies badly. He shuts the door with his foot but she can still see the violin on the table, discarded atop old magazines. She jumps up on the porch again and he swings his arm to the side to block her view. “I’ll give your DVD back Monday, I promise, okay? You don’t need to break into my house for it, jeeze.”
“How come you never told me you could play the violin?”
“Because I can’t - only girls and gay guys play the violin!” Except his face is turning red and she easily ducks his dismissing arm, pulling the door open behind his back. “H-hey, that’s trespassing!” She tosses off her shoes and picks the violin up off the table. There’s white powder all over the strings, and it sticks to her fingers too. “Gimme that!” Some of the strings get plucked when he grabs it from her, a dull thunk sound against the wood.
“How long have you played it? Are you any good - you’re at least better at it than you are on the guitar, right?”
He’s either going to throw up or smash her over the head with the violin. “Go home, okay!” Then pauses. “What do you mean, better at it than the guitar - I’m damn good on the guitar! Nanako told me so!”
She picks through the papers on the floor - holy crap that’s a lot of notes. She can’t make any sense of any of it, since half the titles were in English or Italian or something, but Yosuke keeps making choking noises and trying to shoo her away with the actual violin. She grins, watching as his face debated on staying gray or turning beet-red. “How come you never told me?”
“It’s just some stupid thing my mom makes me do, okay?” He runs his hand through his hair, which sticks up even after he returns to glaring at her. He uses way too much hair gel. “And just because I play it doesn’t mean I’m gay or anything, okay?”
She would have said that it was that jacket that made him look gay, if anything, but instead, “So then why are you playing it now? I don’t see your mom anywhere.”
“Well, I mean, uh, it’s her birthday soon and -”
“Aww,” she says, grin splitting her face, “how sweet!” He holds his bright red face in his hands. “C’mon, play me something, anything!”
“Jeeze, why are you doing this to me?” he whines.
“Because,” Chie says again, “you never returned my DVD. Play something.”
“What, no!”
“C’mon! One song!” She holds up one finger and Yosuke rolls his eyes. “One song, and I’ll leave and never speak of this again. Promise.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’ll owe you a favor, okay?” She wiggles her finger. “Pinky swear.” She knows she’ll regret that from the way his eyebrow quirks up suddenly, but it gets him to sigh, sag his shoulders, and agree.
“One song - one song, and you tell nobody.” And then, for good measure, he adds, “Don’t laugh, okay?”
Yosuke’s face is red and she thinks his hands are actually shaking as he lifts the violin, tucking it between his chin and shoulder. His eyes are certainly looking at everything in the room except at her or, weirdly, at the sheets of music.
The first few notes are really off, she thinks, because he’s shaking so badly, but after a deep breath, he starts again, and they come out the right kind of high-pitched. Short, piercing sounds, speeding out as he rocks the bow back and forth. It sounds more like American country violin than the classical junk she’d been expecting. Except somehow its classy anyway.
She settles down onto the couch without looking where she’s sitting.
His fingers spider about the violin’s neck, fluttering faster than the way he jerks the bow up and down and side to side. He even sways back and forth as he saws, eyes shut and bangs flopping, rolling up onto the tips of his toes and then falling flat back on his heels. It’s sort of mesmerizing to watch him dance in place to his own music.
Yosuke makes his fingers quiver - or they shake on their own, Chie can’t tell - on the longer notes, which makes them and her quiver too. They moan quietly and then he makes them screech again, never enough to make her ears hurt, just enough to paying attention to him and him alone.
And then he dips, bending at the waist as the sound slides deeper, strings plucked quicker and quicker, and the music coming faster and faster, and echoing in the otherwise silent room. His arms twitching and bobbing as he slides one foot in front of the other, heel to toe, and Chie makes a note to ask eventually why he’s coordinated only when he wants to be. Between this and the theatrics he pulls in the TV -
But he snaps himself back up and slaps the bow against the violin, sharp, high sounds that actually make her jump.
Fingers shake as he rocks the music back and forth, teasing it into going lower and faster, and its as entertaining, or maybe even more so, just watching Yosuke’s face as he plays. The little twitches in his eyebrows and lips and neck when he changes pitches and slides his hand and moves his bow, a quick and tiny expression coming in with every switch of his fingers and every string he pulls.
Even when he’s not trying to show off, Yosuke still somehow manages to.
But in a good way, this time, Chie thinks.
The melody rings out, clear, concise, faster and faster, dropping and gaining several octaves just depending on how he makes the bow meet the strings. He swings his arm up the way he does before he throws a knife, his fingers shaking as the final notes scream out loud, the end of a song in an opera, or something.
And, at last, throws his arm with the bow out the side and stands up normally. She swallows the lump in her throat.
“There. One damn song, are you happy -?”
He opens his eyes to find hers not more than an inch away. Yosuke cranes his body back again and Chie stands on her toes and says, “You really should have told me you could play the violin,” before she kisses him longer than the whole song had been.
.
.