[Fic] Nocturne no.2, Opus 9/2
Uhm...hard to explain why I can't stop writing horribly angsty stuff these days.
Who knows.
Side note; the playlist I put together for this is kinda...bizarre.
Title: Nocturne no.2, Opus 9/2
Pairing/Characters: Gokudera's mother.
Warnings: PG-13; mild situations.
Words: 4300
Summary: He enters her life from the shadows of her recitals, burrowing his way under her skin and taking a firm place within her heart. She lets him in willingly, gives her everything to him. Her all and her everything.
She hums a haunting melody and it’s as if a ghost is passing by. It rests in the air as she moves about slowly, footsteps light as a passing breeze. She moves like a dancer, small and lithe, graceful and effortless. She dresses slowly, chiffon folds falling over her knees like the liquid moonlight hair falls down her back. White. White always suited her, with pale skin and shining silver hair, like the ghosts she feels at her shoulders as she hums. Their melodies spill from her lips, twisted just slightly in a smile that suggests she knows such a beautiful secret, the world would wither with a potent decadence should she share it.
She feels them guiding her hands as she plays, fingertips pressed to the bone white ivory. They breathe their life into her ears, and their talent leaks from her fingerprints, left neatly smudged across keyboards.
She will play the Chopin tonight, she decides. That man that watches her likes the Chopin. He nods approvingly when she plays the Nocturnes, and his eyes devour her like she gorges on the classics. She wants to play the Rachmaninoff really, but her wrist feels weak today, so she decides that is a poor choice. Besides, the man would definitely be there tonight. It was a Thursday. He always came to see her on a Thursday, without fail, even if he didn’t come any other day of the week.
The Chopin it would definitely be.
She brushes her hair with a plain wood handled brush, pulls it through the silver ringlets slowly as she dreams aloud, watches herself in the mirror. Did that man consider her beautiful, or was it simply her playing? She holds her own gaze as she scrutinizes every inch of her reflection, tentatively thinks about her chances of being considered a beauty by that man. Lowering her gaze, she bites the inside of her lip; she embarrasses herself with her girlishness. Fancy her, she smiles, getting so flustered over a man who sits in the shadows and watches her play from afar.
She hums, and it is a melody which is written carefully upon her heart.
~♪~
The roses cast a fiery glow across her dresser, balanced in a crystal vase; another gift. She traces a finger over petals and they respond to her touch, their waxy surface bending to her will. She is careful to avoid the thorns. Her fingers are her progeny, and they are protected above anything else. To her, a simple cut, a scratch or a burn, anything marring the precious flesh of her hands, is something akin to building her own funeral pyre.
She rests her chin in her other hand as she graces the petals. They were a sweet gift, thickly scented as they arrived to her by a tall man’s hands; ‘a present’ he said. He did not need to say from whom, for she knew. She smiled gracefully and received them with modesty; ‘he is too kind’ she said. She took them home and now sits and admires their beauty atop her dresser.
He likes to send her flowers. Bouquets of roses, of lilies, of chrysanthemums. The first he had given to her personally, the last man left to hear her playing. The sole sound of his applause had roused her from her cocoon of harmony, taking the flowers, startled. He left her with kind words and a dashing, honest smile. She looks forward to his gifts now. Not for the sake of the gift, but for the fact it is from him.
She feels special as she retracts her hands from the roses, pulls a cotton wipe from the box and begins to clean her face free of the little make up she wears. Sitting in her undergarments in the sweet, balmy night air, she smiles peacefully as she wipes gently across the curves of her cheeks.
She has yet to notice the wedding band upon his finger, flashing as his palms crack together in such grateful applause.
~♪~
He visits her backstage and kisses her hand, murmuring his love for her performance, for her presence, his awe at her beauty. He asks her to join him for dinner and she accepts, readily. She takes his arm when it is offered, and feels like a princess as the car door is opened for her, helped inside. Adjusting her skirts, she wishes she could have changed out of her concert dress, but then he remarks again how beautiful she is, and the sentiment is quickly adjusted. She sits up straight, hands rested on her knees and ankles crossed delicately; he is a rich man and he will expect such manners of her. She tries her best to fulfil such expectations.
She talks quietly over dinner, drinking the fine wine he has chosen. She looks up through her lashes, tilts her head and laughs at his jokes. Her heart pounds within her chest, a whirlwind of butterflies caught in metronome momentum, and she hopes, she prays he cannot see the way her hand trembles when she picks up her fork. He asks questions of her politely, interested.
What of your heritage, he asks.
My mother is Italian and my father Japanese, she replies with a small nod of her head.
Then that would explain your exquisite beauty, if you do not mind me saying, he says with a short laugh.
She blushes and does her best to ask the same polite questions of him, without probing too much. She refrains from asking anything personal, for she does not want to seem overbearing and pushy, but there is one thing she cannot help but ask, leaning forward so she may keep her voice to a whisper, eyes wide and blinking.
Excuse me, sir, she asks so quietly, but are you so sought after you must keep bodyguards wherever you may go?
She indicates to the men about the gently buzzing room of the discreetly upmarket restaurant with a delicate nod of her head.
He laughs, loudly, handsome face tilted to the heavens.
My dearest, he smiles as he leans forward to humour her, my heart, these men are my eyes and my ears, and when I am so distracted with an angel trying to lead me to an early grave, I need them more than ever.
She blushes a pretty pink and sits back quickly, unable to help the smile tugging at her full lips. Eyes moving to her plate, she shyly switches the topic, to pianos and to music.
The Chopin, he says, predictably.
It is not till some time later that she fully understands the true weight of what he says.
~♪~
When he tells her he is married, she is hurt, but there is sincerity in the way he tells her he loves her even though she knows he will never leave his wife, so she does not care.
When he tells her his business, she is unsurprised yet frightened, but he is powerful, on the right side, with his life in no-one’s hands but his own, so she does not care.
Because she is in love.
~♪~
As she plays now, she feels the ghosts’ silent chuckles tickling her ears, chiding her like fathers and uncles for her silliness. Her fingers trip up and down arpeggios with a lightness she never knew she possessed.
Nocturnes feel foreign to her now. Their minor melodies don’t ring out true, and the delicate accompaniment never seems quite genuine enough. Now she plays waltzes, or the etudes. She plays the pieces that reflect her as clearly as her mirror does; glowing skin, smiling, bright eyed. Her laughter has become as familiar a sound as a breath or a scale.
She lives and breathes the music and it flows freely from her heart through every vein she possesses. It surrounds her and she has never felt more at home.
When she lifts her instep from the pedal and opens her eyes, applause permeating her soft focus bubble of concentration, she slips from her stool and gets to her feet, bowing to the crowd. She raises her head and brushes a strand of hair from her face, she looks for a familiar face amongst the many. As she finds it, her heart soars on an ascending countermelody.
She smiles, unbearably happy, as she bows again, a warmth spreading through her from core to edge, from tip to toe. The world seems brighter now, as if some veil has been lifted and now she can see each crack and dent, shimmer and glint in its full glory, and never has it seemed so perfect.
Calling up her mother, relaying the week’s events, she finally finds the courage to say she met someone. He is a wonderful man, she almost whispers, too loud and the secret will shatter; he is a wonderful man, but I imagine it will not last too long. She speaks in half-truths. It has been a few months, and perhaps it will be a few months more, but it will not be terribly serious. I am happy with what it is now, she says as she sits at her mirror, finger tracing patterns upon her dresser; he makes me happy, gloriously happy.
She does not mention the finer details, to spare them both from arguments.
Her mother is pleased, more than pleased, if a little wary. Just take care of yourself, child, won’t you, she says calmly.
Yes mother, of course I will.
She does not ask for a meeting to be arranged. She thinks it would be inappropriate, and does not know how her parents would react if they should find this man was in fact married. She sets the phone down, satisfied nonetheless.
She gets to her feet, humming as she goes to her piano to practise. Tonight she would play the Rachmaninoff.
~♪~
She is a blushing virgin all over again when his hands trace over her bare skin, drinking her in with a passion in his eyes which she had never witnessed before. She is embarrassed, reluctant to let him see her as she is undressed, as she is kissed and as hands trace through her hair, but then he is between her legs and her arms are grasped around his shoulders so tightly she does not know how she was ever anxious at all.
He whispers her name so sweetly as they move together, and she feels herself melting into a compliant pool of want. It is her first name she hears on his lips and it makes her gasp with feeling; only her surname would be uttered in public, with a gracious ‘Miss’ tacked onto the front. It was polite and formal, and in social circles they were simply good friends bound by their love of music.
She feels she might overdose on love should it carry on she thinks as she curls into his arm and begins to sleep. If the feeling inside her heart grew any heavier she might sink like a stone in a windswept ocean, never to surface again, but then, she thinks, it might not hurt so much.
For though her heart sang loud out with joy, her stomach grew tight with girlish anticipation and her entire body warmed with an indescribable sense of elation when he was near, the feelings came accompanied, poorly, with glass between her toes, stabbing into her heels and scraping across her ankles with every step she took towards him. The glass was his wife, the daughter he had within his home; the home she could never be apart of. She knew, acknowledged without bitterness, that the only way to pull those shards from her flesh was to demand more from him, to beg to be more to him, but in doing so she may feel a pain worse than she could imagine. He could leave her.
Beyond anything, she could not imagine losing him, so she holds to what she had with every inch of her being, and when she found he had given her a greater gift than she could comprehend, she cried.
~♪~
She trembles, on the verge of more tears as she quietly chokes her words out, hands wringing uselessly in her lap. There is a nausea paused in the back of her throat, threatening to force its way rather violently from her person, and she bites her lip as she waits for a reaction.
Suddenly his arms are around her and his lips are in her hair, holding her tight as she blinks in surprise. She is upgraded from princess to queen as his hands cup her cheeks, proud smile tearing his face into a beaming vision, kissing her forehead, the corner of her mouth, her closed eyelids as she sobs quietly, so speechlessly thankful. He laughs at her, tells her how could she think so badly of him that he would leave her helpless with his burden.
She lets out a shuddered breath, half a laugh as she agrees quietly.
The glass between her toes finds its way to her thighs and hips, dragging secret lines under her flesh; she is the mistress and she has become aware of what a mistress is to a man in his profession. And now she is the mistress with child, and she is all too aware of what that means to a man in his profession.
Lavished in comfort, she need not do anything for herself; she is gifted with chauffeurs and maids visiting twice a week, even before she begins to show. She laughs at his over enthusiasm, and tells him she does not need such luxuries, she is quite capable of making her way to her concert halls as she always has. He shakes his head and insists; only the best for her.
She continues to practise and play. She moves her hands in familiar patterns across her piano like always and when she flicks her metronome off one afternoon, hand hovering as a thick, comfortable silence fell across her and her music, peaceful, full, comforting, she thinks quite suddenly that life is perfect.
~♪~
Her concert dress grows tight and soon does not fit at all. She mentions it in passing to him one day, and the next she receives three new dresses, loose fitting and flattering to her bulging figure.
She presses her hand flat to her distended stomach and hums, a haunting melody. He continues to spoil her, more and more as the days and weeks pass, as her ankles grow swollen and it becomes difficult to walk. She attempts to stem his flow of gifts and ‘help’, but he will hear none of it. So she quietly accepts it, gracious as ever, if a little disapproving.
Sometimes, she spares a thought for his wife and the daughter that would soon have a sibling, whether she would know of it or not. She would try and imagine their faces, eyes closed and hands splayed tentatively across her abdomen. His wife, she imagines, is a tall, elegant woman, with hair perfectly coiffed, always smelling of some expensive perfume and with the walk and gait of a girl raised in boarding schools and endless money. His daughter, she imagines, is a perfect little copy, emulating her mother in every way.
She does not think badly of his family. She scolds herself when she spares even a single disdainful thought towards them, for they are as much a part of him as his eyes, his hair, his generosity and kindness were.
Occasionally, she wonders if she should fight for his love. Fight to be the sole receiver of his love, like some determined soldier, but then, her fear once again pushes her back. She is too afraid to fall and surrender and it keeps her waiting on the sidelines. She wishes she has more faith, but then she shakes her head and empties it of all those thoughts. She simply avoids it.
She has decided on names; he did not contend, he agreed readily. The child would be named for her father; Hayako for a girl and Hayato for a boy. He had smiled and twisted his mouth around the foreign sounds, making her laugh with his bizarre pronunciation.
She was playing Chopin when she felt her baby first kick.
~♪~
She doesn’t expect him at the birth, and naturally, he isn’t there. So she screams to herself and rips her throat raw by herself, as a nurse ties back her hair loosely for her, ringlets hanging limply down her back.
She screams for 18 hours and 47 minutes before her child is born is a rush of blood and warm liquid. The child screeches as loudly as she had and she slumps back, feeling empty and sagging, exhausted and worn down.
It’s a boy, they tell her when they lay him on her chest, cloth wrapped tightly around his ugly mottled skin.
She would laugh at how ugly he looks with his puckered face and furious brow were he not the most beautiful thing she had ever laid eyes on. Smiling weakly, she places her hands around him, cradling his fussing head and intaking every part of him even as tears sting the corners of her eyes.
She holds him close and doesn’t make a scene when the nurses take him away. She awaits patiently for his return, filling the time with sleep and recovery. Still, his father does not come. It is understandable she tells herself.
When his father does come, a week later, it is to take him away.
He does not meet her eyes, and simply pats her hand with a grim smile.
Men like myself cannot be known to have two families, my heart, he tells her quietly, please understand this, and do know that I still love you.
You will see him at most three times a year, and he must not learn who you are. He will be raised as my son and my wife’s son. Perhaps you may be his piano tutor, my dearest.
I love you.
When his father finally came, a week later, he left within half an hour with her son and her heart.
~♪~
She visits him three times a year, as is promised to her. She watches him grow in bits and pieces, in stained glass windows of youth. The wife gives her tight-lipped nods when she enters the mansion, the daughter looking up at her with blank curiosity. They were nothing as she imagined them.
She finds Hayato perched dangerously atop a piano stool, and, diving off it with an exuberance only known in children, he toddles towards her, arms outstretched. He does not remember who she is between visits for the first three times, but then he learns her face and comes to expect it, lighting up when she gently pushes the door to his practise room open. Hayato was an exceptionally bright boy. His intelligence was his father’s though, she knew, not hers.
She gave him everything else.
He sits on her knee to reach the keyboard at first, and she tries not to cry upon his hair, the same colour as hers. His eyes, which look up to her full of questions she cannot answer, are hers, that painful jealous jade that would haunt him forever. His gentle jaw line and the graceful bow of his lips, they were all hers.
What am I to call you though, he asked one day as his stubby fingers pressed at keys aimlessly.
Mo-…she faltered. Call me…nee-san.
Naysan is a funny name, he commented dully, cheeks puffed out as he attempted to stretch his small hand into the semblance of a chord.
Nee-san, Hayato, nee-san, she said with a tinkle of laughter, it’s a Japanese word that people use to address big sisters.
You’re my big sister, he asked, not looking up.
No, she answered sadly, positioning the child’s hand for him, no, I’m not.
The shards of glass have slowly made their way past her stomach and mounds of her breasts, across her shoulders and up her neck. The slivers now slice into her fingers as she presses down the keys. Her fingers, her hands; her progeny.
They slip inside fingertips and course through her blood into her stomach, they stab her every time she moved and with every word Hayato said to her, every smile he gifted her and every goodbye she was forced to make. She leaves and makes her way home where she cries herself to sleep, counting off the days till she can next see his face, kiss his head, hug his fragile body tight to her and hear his childish playing.
She writes letters to him which she never sends, knowing they would never reach her son’s hands.
Dearest Hayato, they would always begin, I saw some children chasing pigeons in the piazza today and they reminded me of you. Do you chase pigeons? I imagine you would want to should you have the opportunity!
She writes about her day, and she writes about her playing; what pieces she should like to learn next and what programme she would be reciting at tomorrow’s performance. She would sometimes write about his grandparents, her mother and father and how desperate they were to meet him but knowing, having been given half of the story at least, that they never would, at least, not for a very, very long time.
She avoids phone calls when she can. She is always sure the person at the end of the line can hear the permanent distress which has taken up residence within her and would consequently worry about her. She did not wish to be worried about, nor did she want their sympathy. It was her bed that she had made and she would lie in it alone.
It hurt her heart when she saw families in town now. It felt almost as if, as they walked past, hand in hand, that they were walking across a part of her that had been ripped from her body and laid before her for all to see. When she passed them with her gaze lowered, she felt what she imagined an empty shell felt like. Except she felt far more pain.
She began playing nocturnes again.
~♪~
It is his third birthday as she drives up that mountain road, heart light and pattering against her fragile ribs with anticipation. She glances to her side to the gift set in the passenger seat. She attempts to hold back her smile.
She hoped he would like it.
Her hands flexed on the steering wheel. On days like these her faith took flight from the dirty mires where it usually rested, grime and shadows slipping tentatively from its wings. She had made an effort that morning. Had showered and washed her hair, trying not to notice the way her ribs stuck out, brushed it until it shined and fell in perfect ringlets, even applied a little make up. She set her brush down where the vase used to sit. She got to her feet and left her home.
Now, she hums to herself, a haunted melody, and it’s as if a ghost is sitting with her.
She brakes gently as she sees a man standing by the edge of the road, thumb raised. She comes to a gentle stop and winds down her window, choking only slightly as a bullet hits her stomach. It blooms across her dress slowly, like the unfurling petals of a rose. There is another bullet, and maybe another, but she does not feel them or know where they enter her body.
Her vision begins to get blurry as more men appear and push her car to the railings which have already been broken apart and singed with the effect of a crash. She slumps onto her wheel, disbelieving and dying. There is blood in her mouth and it tastes like pennies.
The thing that hurts the most is the glass between her fingers, digging sharply into the joints. It was Hayato’s birthday after all, and she would not get to see him.
The glass remains the thing that hurt the most as her car bonnet sweetly kisses the earth below the cliff and the flames begin to lick across the paint. Her white dress is pitifully stained, she thinks morosely and attempts to twitch her fingers.
She feels nothing and suddenly she is her own ghost, standing and watching as the light fades from her eyes and something that looks mistily like tears fall unbidden from jealous eyes. She wishes to fall to her knees and sob until she has no voice or tears left to spill, but curiously she cannot. Instead she watches as her life burns out, hopelessly and helplessly.
She feels lighter, her dress is a beautiful deathly white again and the hands upon her shoulders tell her all she needs to know. She mouths his name and prays he can hear her apologies.
I won’t be able to see you today, Hayato. I’m very sorry, I know it was your birthday. I will make it up to you one day, alright?
She smiles as tears she cannot feel spill down her glowing cheeks, and, like an angel hovering above her own early grave, she leaves behind a son that would never know how much she loved him.
~♫~
Who knows.
Side note; the playlist I put together for this is kinda...bizarre.
Title: Nocturne no.2, Opus 9/2
Pairing/Characters: Gokudera's mother.
Warnings: PG-13; mild situations.
Words: 4300
Summary: He enters her life from the shadows of her recitals, burrowing his way under her skin and taking a firm place within her heart. She lets him in willingly, gives her everything to him. Her all and her everything.
She hums a haunting melody and it’s as if a ghost is passing by. It rests in the air as she moves about slowly, footsteps light as a passing breeze. She moves like a dancer, small and lithe, graceful and effortless. She dresses slowly, chiffon folds falling over her knees like the liquid moonlight hair falls down her back. White. White always suited her, with pale skin and shining silver hair, like the ghosts she feels at her shoulders as she hums. Their melodies spill from her lips, twisted just slightly in a smile that suggests she knows such a beautiful secret, the world would wither with a potent decadence should she share it.
She feels them guiding her hands as she plays, fingertips pressed to the bone white ivory. They breathe their life into her ears, and their talent leaks from her fingerprints, left neatly smudged across keyboards.
She will play the Chopin tonight, she decides. That man that watches her likes the Chopin. He nods approvingly when she plays the Nocturnes, and his eyes devour her like she gorges on the classics. She wants to play the Rachmaninoff really, but her wrist feels weak today, so she decides that is a poor choice. Besides, the man would definitely be there tonight. It was a Thursday. He always came to see her on a Thursday, without fail, even if he didn’t come any other day of the week.
The Chopin it would definitely be.
She brushes her hair with a plain wood handled brush, pulls it through the silver ringlets slowly as she dreams aloud, watches herself in the mirror. Did that man consider her beautiful, or was it simply her playing? She holds her own gaze as she scrutinizes every inch of her reflection, tentatively thinks about her chances of being considered a beauty by that man. Lowering her gaze, she bites the inside of her lip; she embarrasses herself with her girlishness. Fancy her, she smiles, getting so flustered over a man who sits in the shadows and watches her play from afar.
She hums, and it is a melody which is written carefully upon her heart.
~♪~
The roses cast a fiery glow across her dresser, balanced in a crystal vase; another gift. She traces a finger over petals and they respond to her touch, their waxy surface bending to her will. She is careful to avoid the thorns. Her fingers are her progeny, and they are protected above anything else. To her, a simple cut, a scratch or a burn, anything marring the precious flesh of her hands, is something akin to building her own funeral pyre.
She rests her chin in her other hand as she graces the petals. They were a sweet gift, thickly scented as they arrived to her by a tall man’s hands; ‘a present’ he said. He did not need to say from whom, for she knew. She smiled gracefully and received them with modesty; ‘he is too kind’ she said. She took them home and now sits and admires their beauty atop her dresser.
He likes to send her flowers. Bouquets of roses, of lilies, of chrysanthemums. The first he had given to her personally, the last man left to hear her playing. The sole sound of his applause had roused her from her cocoon of harmony, taking the flowers, startled. He left her with kind words and a dashing, honest smile. She looks forward to his gifts now. Not for the sake of the gift, but for the fact it is from him.
She feels special as she retracts her hands from the roses, pulls a cotton wipe from the box and begins to clean her face free of the little make up she wears. Sitting in her undergarments in the sweet, balmy night air, she smiles peacefully as she wipes gently across the curves of her cheeks.
She has yet to notice the wedding band upon his finger, flashing as his palms crack together in such grateful applause.
~♪~
He visits her backstage and kisses her hand, murmuring his love for her performance, for her presence, his awe at her beauty. He asks her to join him for dinner and she accepts, readily. She takes his arm when it is offered, and feels like a princess as the car door is opened for her, helped inside. Adjusting her skirts, she wishes she could have changed out of her concert dress, but then he remarks again how beautiful she is, and the sentiment is quickly adjusted. She sits up straight, hands rested on her knees and ankles crossed delicately; he is a rich man and he will expect such manners of her. She tries her best to fulfil such expectations.
She talks quietly over dinner, drinking the fine wine he has chosen. She looks up through her lashes, tilts her head and laughs at his jokes. Her heart pounds within her chest, a whirlwind of butterflies caught in metronome momentum, and she hopes, she prays he cannot see the way her hand trembles when she picks up her fork. He asks questions of her politely, interested.
What of your heritage, he asks.
My mother is Italian and my father Japanese, she replies with a small nod of her head.
Then that would explain your exquisite beauty, if you do not mind me saying, he says with a short laugh.
She blushes and does her best to ask the same polite questions of him, without probing too much. She refrains from asking anything personal, for she does not want to seem overbearing and pushy, but there is one thing she cannot help but ask, leaning forward so she may keep her voice to a whisper, eyes wide and blinking.
Excuse me, sir, she asks so quietly, but are you so sought after you must keep bodyguards wherever you may go?
She indicates to the men about the gently buzzing room of the discreetly upmarket restaurant with a delicate nod of her head.
He laughs, loudly, handsome face tilted to the heavens.
My dearest, he smiles as he leans forward to humour her, my heart, these men are my eyes and my ears, and when I am so distracted with an angel trying to lead me to an early grave, I need them more than ever.
She blushes a pretty pink and sits back quickly, unable to help the smile tugging at her full lips. Eyes moving to her plate, she shyly switches the topic, to pianos and to music.
The Chopin, he says, predictably.
It is not till some time later that she fully understands the true weight of what he says.
~♪~
When he tells her he is married, she is hurt, but there is sincerity in the way he tells her he loves her even though she knows he will never leave his wife, so she does not care.
When he tells her his business, she is unsurprised yet frightened, but he is powerful, on the right side, with his life in no-one’s hands but his own, so she does not care.
Because she is in love.
~♪~
As she plays now, she feels the ghosts’ silent chuckles tickling her ears, chiding her like fathers and uncles for her silliness. Her fingers trip up and down arpeggios with a lightness she never knew she possessed.
Nocturnes feel foreign to her now. Their minor melodies don’t ring out true, and the delicate accompaniment never seems quite genuine enough. Now she plays waltzes, or the etudes. She plays the pieces that reflect her as clearly as her mirror does; glowing skin, smiling, bright eyed. Her laughter has become as familiar a sound as a breath or a scale.
She lives and breathes the music and it flows freely from her heart through every vein she possesses. It surrounds her and she has never felt more at home.
When she lifts her instep from the pedal and opens her eyes, applause permeating her soft focus bubble of concentration, she slips from her stool and gets to her feet, bowing to the crowd. She raises her head and brushes a strand of hair from her face, she looks for a familiar face amongst the many. As she finds it, her heart soars on an ascending countermelody.
She smiles, unbearably happy, as she bows again, a warmth spreading through her from core to edge, from tip to toe. The world seems brighter now, as if some veil has been lifted and now she can see each crack and dent, shimmer and glint in its full glory, and never has it seemed so perfect.
Calling up her mother, relaying the week’s events, she finally finds the courage to say she met someone. He is a wonderful man, she almost whispers, too loud and the secret will shatter; he is a wonderful man, but I imagine it will not last too long. She speaks in half-truths. It has been a few months, and perhaps it will be a few months more, but it will not be terribly serious. I am happy with what it is now, she says as she sits at her mirror, finger tracing patterns upon her dresser; he makes me happy, gloriously happy.
She does not mention the finer details, to spare them both from arguments.
Her mother is pleased, more than pleased, if a little wary. Just take care of yourself, child, won’t you, she says calmly.
Yes mother, of course I will.
She does not ask for a meeting to be arranged. She thinks it would be inappropriate, and does not know how her parents would react if they should find this man was in fact married. She sets the phone down, satisfied nonetheless.
She gets to her feet, humming as she goes to her piano to practise. Tonight she would play the Rachmaninoff.
~♪~
She is a blushing virgin all over again when his hands trace over her bare skin, drinking her in with a passion in his eyes which she had never witnessed before. She is embarrassed, reluctant to let him see her as she is undressed, as she is kissed and as hands trace through her hair, but then he is between her legs and her arms are grasped around his shoulders so tightly she does not know how she was ever anxious at all.
He whispers her name so sweetly as they move together, and she feels herself melting into a compliant pool of want. It is her first name she hears on his lips and it makes her gasp with feeling; only her surname would be uttered in public, with a gracious ‘Miss’ tacked onto the front. It was polite and formal, and in social circles they were simply good friends bound by their love of music.
She feels she might overdose on love should it carry on she thinks as she curls into his arm and begins to sleep. If the feeling inside her heart grew any heavier she might sink like a stone in a windswept ocean, never to surface again, but then, she thinks, it might not hurt so much.
For though her heart sang loud out with joy, her stomach grew tight with girlish anticipation and her entire body warmed with an indescribable sense of elation when he was near, the feelings came accompanied, poorly, with glass between her toes, stabbing into her heels and scraping across her ankles with every step she took towards him. The glass was his wife, the daughter he had within his home; the home she could never be apart of. She knew, acknowledged without bitterness, that the only way to pull those shards from her flesh was to demand more from him, to beg to be more to him, but in doing so she may feel a pain worse than she could imagine. He could leave her.
Beyond anything, she could not imagine losing him, so she holds to what she had with every inch of her being, and when she found he had given her a greater gift than she could comprehend, she cried.
~♪~
She trembles, on the verge of more tears as she quietly chokes her words out, hands wringing uselessly in her lap. There is a nausea paused in the back of her throat, threatening to force its way rather violently from her person, and she bites her lip as she waits for a reaction.
Suddenly his arms are around her and his lips are in her hair, holding her tight as she blinks in surprise. She is upgraded from princess to queen as his hands cup her cheeks, proud smile tearing his face into a beaming vision, kissing her forehead, the corner of her mouth, her closed eyelids as she sobs quietly, so speechlessly thankful. He laughs at her, tells her how could she think so badly of him that he would leave her helpless with his burden.
She lets out a shuddered breath, half a laugh as she agrees quietly.
The glass between her toes finds its way to her thighs and hips, dragging secret lines under her flesh; she is the mistress and she has become aware of what a mistress is to a man in his profession. And now she is the mistress with child, and she is all too aware of what that means to a man in his profession.
Lavished in comfort, she need not do anything for herself; she is gifted with chauffeurs and maids visiting twice a week, even before she begins to show. She laughs at his over enthusiasm, and tells him she does not need such luxuries, she is quite capable of making her way to her concert halls as she always has. He shakes his head and insists; only the best for her.
She continues to practise and play. She moves her hands in familiar patterns across her piano like always and when she flicks her metronome off one afternoon, hand hovering as a thick, comfortable silence fell across her and her music, peaceful, full, comforting, she thinks quite suddenly that life is perfect.
~♪~
Her concert dress grows tight and soon does not fit at all. She mentions it in passing to him one day, and the next she receives three new dresses, loose fitting and flattering to her bulging figure.
She presses her hand flat to her distended stomach and hums, a haunting melody. He continues to spoil her, more and more as the days and weeks pass, as her ankles grow swollen and it becomes difficult to walk. She attempts to stem his flow of gifts and ‘help’, but he will hear none of it. So she quietly accepts it, gracious as ever, if a little disapproving.
Sometimes, she spares a thought for his wife and the daughter that would soon have a sibling, whether she would know of it or not. She would try and imagine their faces, eyes closed and hands splayed tentatively across her abdomen. His wife, she imagines, is a tall, elegant woman, with hair perfectly coiffed, always smelling of some expensive perfume and with the walk and gait of a girl raised in boarding schools and endless money. His daughter, she imagines, is a perfect little copy, emulating her mother in every way.
She does not think badly of his family. She scolds herself when she spares even a single disdainful thought towards them, for they are as much a part of him as his eyes, his hair, his generosity and kindness were.
Occasionally, she wonders if she should fight for his love. Fight to be the sole receiver of his love, like some determined soldier, but then, her fear once again pushes her back. She is too afraid to fall and surrender and it keeps her waiting on the sidelines. She wishes she has more faith, but then she shakes her head and empties it of all those thoughts. She simply avoids it.
She has decided on names; he did not contend, he agreed readily. The child would be named for her father; Hayako for a girl and Hayato for a boy. He had smiled and twisted his mouth around the foreign sounds, making her laugh with his bizarre pronunciation.
She was playing Chopin when she felt her baby first kick.
~♪~
She doesn’t expect him at the birth, and naturally, he isn’t there. So she screams to herself and rips her throat raw by herself, as a nurse ties back her hair loosely for her, ringlets hanging limply down her back.
She screams for 18 hours and 47 minutes before her child is born is a rush of blood and warm liquid. The child screeches as loudly as she had and she slumps back, feeling empty and sagging, exhausted and worn down.
It’s a boy, they tell her when they lay him on her chest, cloth wrapped tightly around his ugly mottled skin.
She would laugh at how ugly he looks with his puckered face and furious brow were he not the most beautiful thing she had ever laid eyes on. Smiling weakly, she places her hands around him, cradling his fussing head and intaking every part of him even as tears sting the corners of her eyes.
She holds him close and doesn’t make a scene when the nurses take him away. She awaits patiently for his return, filling the time with sleep and recovery. Still, his father does not come. It is understandable she tells herself.
When his father does come, a week later, it is to take him away.
He does not meet her eyes, and simply pats her hand with a grim smile.
Men like myself cannot be known to have two families, my heart, he tells her quietly, please understand this, and do know that I still love you.
You will see him at most three times a year, and he must not learn who you are. He will be raised as my son and my wife’s son. Perhaps you may be his piano tutor, my dearest.
I love you.
When his father finally came, a week later, he left within half an hour with her son and her heart.
~♪~
She visits him three times a year, as is promised to her. She watches him grow in bits and pieces, in stained glass windows of youth. The wife gives her tight-lipped nods when she enters the mansion, the daughter looking up at her with blank curiosity. They were nothing as she imagined them.
She finds Hayato perched dangerously atop a piano stool, and, diving off it with an exuberance only known in children, he toddles towards her, arms outstretched. He does not remember who she is between visits for the first three times, but then he learns her face and comes to expect it, lighting up when she gently pushes the door to his practise room open. Hayato was an exceptionally bright boy. His intelligence was his father’s though, she knew, not hers.
She gave him everything else.
He sits on her knee to reach the keyboard at first, and she tries not to cry upon his hair, the same colour as hers. His eyes, which look up to her full of questions she cannot answer, are hers, that painful jealous jade that would haunt him forever. His gentle jaw line and the graceful bow of his lips, they were all hers.
What am I to call you though, he asked one day as his stubby fingers pressed at keys aimlessly.
Mo-…she faltered. Call me…nee-san.
Naysan is a funny name, he commented dully, cheeks puffed out as he attempted to stretch his small hand into the semblance of a chord.
Nee-san, Hayato, nee-san, she said with a tinkle of laughter, it’s a Japanese word that people use to address big sisters.
You’re my big sister, he asked, not looking up.
No, she answered sadly, positioning the child’s hand for him, no, I’m not.
The shards of glass have slowly made their way past her stomach and mounds of her breasts, across her shoulders and up her neck. The slivers now slice into her fingers as she presses down the keys. Her fingers, her hands; her progeny.
They slip inside fingertips and course through her blood into her stomach, they stab her every time she moved and with every word Hayato said to her, every smile he gifted her and every goodbye she was forced to make. She leaves and makes her way home where she cries herself to sleep, counting off the days till she can next see his face, kiss his head, hug his fragile body tight to her and hear his childish playing.
She writes letters to him which she never sends, knowing they would never reach her son’s hands.
Dearest Hayato, they would always begin, I saw some children chasing pigeons in the piazza today and they reminded me of you. Do you chase pigeons? I imagine you would want to should you have the opportunity!
She writes about her day, and she writes about her playing; what pieces she should like to learn next and what programme she would be reciting at tomorrow’s performance. She would sometimes write about his grandparents, her mother and father and how desperate they were to meet him but knowing, having been given half of the story at least, that they never would, at least, not for a very, very long time.
She avoids phone calls when she can. She is always sure the person at the end of the line can hear the permanent distress which has taken up residence within her and would consequently worry about her. She did not wish to be worried about, nor did she want their sympathy. It was her bed that she had made and she would lie in it alone.
It hurt her heart when she saw families in town now. It felt almost as if, as they walked past, hand in hand, that they were walking across a part of her that had been ripped from her body and laid before her for all to see. When she passed them with her gaze lowered, she felt what she imagined an empty shell felt like. Except she felt far more pain.
She began playing nocturnes again.
~♪~
It is his third birthday as she drives up that mountain road, heart light and pattering against her fragile ribs with anticipation. She glances to her side to the gift set in the passenger seat. She attempts to hold back her smile.
She hoped he would like it.
Her hands flexed on the steering wheel. On days like these her faith took flight from the dirty mires where it usually rested, grime and shadows slipping tentatively from its wings. She had made an effort that morning. Had showered and washed her hair, trying not to notice the way her ribs stuck out, brushed it until it shined and fell in perfect ringlets, even applied a little make up. She set her brush down where the vase used to sit. She got to her feet and left her home.
Now, she hums to herself, a haunted melody, and it’s as if a ghost is sitting with her.
She brakes gently as she sees a man standing by the edge of the road, thumb raised. She comes to a gentle stop and winds down her window, choking only slightly as a bullet hits her stomach. It blooms across her dress slowly, like the unfurling petals of a rose. There is another bullet, and maybe another, but she does not feel them or know where they enter her body.
Her vision begins to get blurry as more men appear and push her car to the railings which have already been broken apart and singed with the effect of a crash. She slumps onto her wheel, disbelieving and dying. There is blood in her mouth and it tastes like pennies.
The thing that hurts the most is the glass between her fingers, digging sharply into the joints. It was Hayato’s birthday after all, and she would not get to see him.
The glass remains the thing that hurt the most as her car bonnet sweetly kisses the earth below the cliff and the flames begin to lick across the paint. Her white dress is pitifully stained, she thinks morosely and attempts to twitch her fingers.
She feels nothing and suddenly she is her own ghost, standing and watching as the light fades from her eyes and something that looks mistily like tears fall unbidden from jealous eyes. She wishes to fall to her knees and sob until she has no voice or tears left to spill, but curiously she cannot. Instead she watches as her life burns out, hopelessly and helplessly.
She feels lighter, her dress is a beautiful deathly white again and the hands upon her shoulders tell her all she needs to know. She mouths his name and prays he can hear her apologies.
I won’t be able to see you today, Hayato. I’m very sorry, I know it was your birthday. I will make it up to you one day, alright?
She smiles as tears she cannot feel spill down her glowing cheeks, and, like an angel hovering above her own early grave, she leaves behind a son that would never know how much she loved him.
~♫~