[Fanfic, 100% OJ] Piano

Genre: Slice of Life

Length: 3082 words

B/D: Despite the picture, this one's actually all about Sham and Nath. 

A melody is forming. Her hands drift across the piano keys, carefully picking out the notes, and she listens keenly for their tone, their warmth, where they lead and where she wants to follow. Her fingers move fluently but thoughtfully, like someone who has returned to a familiar place after many years and is taking note of what has changed. She begins to weave in counterpoint and texture, layering the crisp highs with the sonorous lows, chasing the sound across the scale. For a moment she considers something ambitious, but decides upon more comfortable framework.

“I’m jealous,” Nath says, her voice wry and self-depreciating. She leans in the doorframe with a glass of red wine (something dry, recent vintage) in her hand. There was a chair set out for her, but she hasn’t taken it. She’s more comfortable standing, she says, as though it means something more.

“Ahaha. Well, I do like to show off from time to time.” The high notes break off while Sham speaks, so they won’t compete with her voice. The melody moves forward without pause, without hesitation. “It’s nice, you know? No-one’s ever interested in me playing piano.”

The sound envelopes them once again, cocooning them in the studio. She likes this piano. There’s a springiness to the keys, something lively underneath. It’s a good match for the acoustics. She misses her old setup, a happy accident she could never have planned; it was a more venerable piano, a different space. The high notes weren’t as crisp as she might have liked, but the low notes – they were warm and mellow, honey and sunlight. Good memories.

“Their loss. With all the time you’ve had to practice, you must be a master.”

“Ahaha. Not even. There’s only so much that practice can do, you know?” She shifts the melody, chases it to one end of the keyboard, and raises the hand she’s not using. It’s small and petite, even for a woman her size. “I can practice all I want, but I can’t make my fingers longer. There’s some stuff I just can’t hit. I guess in that sense, I should be jealous of you, right? If you want longer fingers, it’s just, like, swoosh! Unscrew the old ones and replace them with beautiful piano fingers!”

“Not that they’d actually help. But anyway, that’s just the technical side.”

“Even then. If we’re talking about heart, there’s a whole bunch of people way better than me. They’re the ones who really, like, devote themselves to it – they get up in the morning and the first thing they think about is the piano, and it’s the last thing they think about before they go to sleep. They fill themselves up with it, until there’s barely any room for anything else. Those are the masters, for however long they live after that.” She pauses in her thoughts, lets the notes fill in the gaps. “But I’m too old. You know how it is. I have a lot of things I don’t want to forget, or lose sight of. So I can’t put my whole heart into it. The piano’s nice, but it can’t be, like, my everything.”

Nath doesn’t reply, seemingly meditating on the words. Her face is still thoughtful when the melody draws to a close, and Sham allows herself a long, satisfied stretch.

They return to a living room that is only half-furnished – a sofa in the middle, a horrendously pink shag rug leaned up against the wall, waiting to be laid. As soon as her last tour date hit, Sham had made the sudden announcement that she’d be settling down to work on an album, the first of many years. No doubt her managers had been surprised by it. But there was a difference between being managed and being ordered. Sham can abide one, but not the other.

Was it just an excuse to buy property near Sora? Nath couldn’t tell. But if it was, she was going through the motions. Even though the very basics of furniture were still being set up, there was soundproofing on the walls and a desk with paper, pens and a synthesiser.

“So. Not that I didn’t like the piano, but why did you invite me?” Nath asks. Invite is perhaps too gentle a word; it was more like an insistence, a summons.

“Oh! Sorry, I just got so wrapped up in everything that I forgot. Hang on just a second–”

The idol bobs down to the bottom drawer of a (somewhat poorly constructed) flatpack bureau, and takes out a piece of machinery, wrapped delicately in a clean, white towel. “I finally got around to taking one of my babies apart. I don’t think this is the same type of connector as yours, but it’s pretty close. Maybe your lab people can use it to refine their designs?”

‘Your lab people’. Nath smiles wryly as she takes the connector, which seems no bigger than the palm of her prosthetic hand. Even if she didn’t know that Sham is used to an entourage – to having ‘people’ – she would be able to guess. “Are you sure? You probably won’t get this back.”

“Oh, it’s fine! I was thinking about turning him into a coffee machine anyway. But, while you’re here,” she continues, eyelashes aflutter, “maybe we can… y’know, have some girl talk?”

Nath feels her eyebrows furrow. It’s true that she’s trying to reach out to Sham. That was the decision she came to when Hime slept over at her house; for her own reasons, she’s going to try and push past the awkwardness that her accidental eavesdropping had created. Her logic, although clean-cut, is perhaps a little selfish. She values her friendship with Sora, and with Suguri and Hime; she wants to keep that as a part of her life, for as long as she can. That means putting up with Sham – for years, decades, maybe even centuries. She might as well put herself in a position where she can enjoy that.

Even so, she thinks, she’d prefer to do things at her own pace. And ‘girl talk’ isn’t one of her specialities. On the other hand, though, she’s been given a glass of wine, a private performance and a rare mechanical part; a little bit of banter seems like a minor price to pay.

She wonders when she became so easy to persuade.

“All right. What do you want to talk about?”

Sham pauses. Her eyes flicker to the kitchen, to Nath’s wine glass, to the table. Without thinking about it, she touches her fingers to the right side of her face, to the dark and seared skin she usually hides with hair or cosmetics. Playing for time.

“Uwah… It’s kinda embarrassing to ask straight out, you know? Like, I promise it isn’t anything weird or anything! People always ask me all sorts of weird stuff in my job, so I’m super careful not to–”

“You wanted to talk about Sora.” She smiles, although her tone is just a little exasperated. After all, what else would they talk about? They don’t really know each other well enough for anything else. Sora might be their point of contention, but she’s also their common ground. “It’s fine. I had some questions I wanted to ask you as well. About being an idol.”

“Well, it’s not all about her, but… anyway! I guess we’ll just have to get right into it!” Sham declares, balling her fists in her sleeves. From determined to embarrassed in the space of a sentence. Not for the first time, Nath remembers that the woman in front of her is used to playing to an audience. “Question one! You and Sora are good friends. But what’s your number one most favourite thing about her?”

Nath sips her wine, hiding her frown with the glass. It isn’t what she was expecting. She was expecting… well, something more banal. Questions about Sora’s likes and dislikes, stories about what she’d been up to. That kind of thing. She wonders if she’s been tricked. For a moment – just a moment – she considers lying. It would be the easiest thing in the world to pick something arbitrary, like the colour of her hair, rather than baring her real feelings. But she came here to become better friends with Sham, and a friendship that starts with a lie isn’t worth having.

Besides, she thinks, she’s too old to be embarrassed about this kind of thing. If the rest of the world thinks it’s funny, the rest of the world can bite her.

“…Honestly? I like how she says my name.”

Sham’s expression flickers, before settling on surprised. “Oh. Really? That’s… um, that’s it?”

“Mm. She… It’s hard to explain. But she always says your name first, and then pauses. Like you were the most important thing, and now she has to figure out the rest of what she wanted to say.” She finds it harder and harder to keep her eyes away from the shag carpet, which is probably soft and plushy and will not judge her. “I just like it. That’s all.”

“Wow, I never even noticed! I’ll have to pay attention for that. She, uh… she doesn’t speak very well, does she? Or a lot. She’s got that quiet librarian thing going on. I just wanna put her in glasses and a sweater.”

“Her mother tongue is about ten thousand years past its expiration date.” She shrugs, takes another fortifying sip of wine. “The fact she can speak to us as well as she does is incredible. Anyway… my turn. Is it lonely? Being an idol, I mean.”

For a long second, Sham’s face – usually so animated – is blank. Her eyes are fixed in Nath’s direction, but they aren’t looking at her; her hand comes up to fiddle with the bangs that hide her scarring.

Finally, she smiles. But it is a smile so faint, so brittle, that Nath cannot see it as anything but broken.

“Well… yeah. Yeah, it is. A bit. You know? You’re always moving around. On tour, concerts here, concerts there. You don’t get a lot of time to really settle down and socialise with people outside the industry, right? I mean, I get along great with all the staff, but… at the end of the day, that’s because they get paid and we have to coexist. And, y’know, in my case it’s a little bit more difficult, since I have to disappear every so often and reinvent myself. New name, new life… by the time I come back, they’re all gone.” She takes a deep, slightly unsteady breath. “Again. And it’s still showbiz on top of that, right? All that pressure, from the fans, from the producers, from yourself. A lot of idols end up… well, drinking’s the least of it. They don’t… they don’t live all that long, you know? Even for ordinary humans. And the media say, oh, they were taken before their time, it’s a tragedy, and it is, but the worst thing is that it’s a routine tragedy. It’s… oh, I really hate this phrase, but it’s the cost of doing business. It’s what they pay to live the dream, and that somehow makes it alright. I try to clean up the industry every time I come back, but it just backslides when I leave again.” Her hands have balled into tight, angry little fists. To have so much spirit, and so much influence, and yet be impotent. “So, um, yeah. I guess… I guess I’m a bit lonely. And tired.”

Nath takes another sip of wine, and finds her glass almost empty. She’s not used to this – to dealing with so much emotion. Even amongst her new friends, Sora and Suguri are fairly subdued, and Hime never fails to be cheerful. If she were the Nath of a year or two ago, she would apologise for touching a nerve, make her excuses, and leave. But she’s not. It sinks in again, in that moment, that she’s changed more in the last year or two than in the thousand before them.

“…looks like we found you just in time, then,” she says, as warmly as she can. “Sora’s not going anywhere. Neither am I, or Suguri, or Hime. Even if you have to do a concert somewhere else, we’re not afraid of some air miles. We’re what you would call–”

“Frequent flyers?” Sham finishes.

“There you go.”

“Hahah… Whoo! That was a tough question to answer honestly.”

“That’s how you know it’s a good one, so I’m told.”

“Well, I feel good for having gotten that off my chest. I think I’m gonna get a drink, though. You want a refill?”

She takes Nath’s glass without waiting for a reply and scurries to the kitchen, all without looking her in the eye. There is a very loud ‘pop’ from the kitchen, and when she returns, the glasses are full of something very pink, bubbly and alcoholic. Nath continues to commune with the spirit of the shag rug, which is the least embarrassed out of any of them. Sham drinks half of her glass at a gulp.

“Alright, my turn!” Sham says, in a voice that perfectly matches her drink. “Just between you and me, do you, um, get Sora? I mean, I’m super happy we found each other again, and it’s fun to hang out with her, but I can’t really work out what’s she’s thinking a lot of the time…”

“Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t,” Nath admits. “But I think that’s fine. I don’t think she gets herself sometimes. We’ve had a long time to get to know ourselves and get set in our ways, but she hasn’t had that opportunity.”

It feels right when she says it, although it doesn’t really explain Sora’s baffling trains of thought. Sora, quietly, was changing – trying new things, and becoming accustomed to her new, relaxed lifestyle. That spirit of change had also jerked Nath out of her comfort zone – something she’d grown to appreciate. She’d been comfortable with the old her, the habits and the familiar ways of doing things. But she hadn’t necessarily been happy, and she’d lost the ability or the desire to become somebody who was. It had been Sora – who dragged her along against her will, who pulled childish tricks to make their one-time encounter a more lasting friendship – who changed that.

“Ahaha... Thank goodness. I was scared it was just me… So, do you have a question?”

Nath smiles wryly. After the response she got last time, she almost feels like one question is enough. But she indulges anyway. “You’re really making an album, then?”

“Yeah… Honestly, it’s the first time in a while that I’ve really wanted to do one! Usually, they have to drag me to the recording studio and handcuff me to the mic!”

“Doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. Just take your arms off and walk away. Simple.”

“Pwahaha! I wish I could sometimes. Once you get used to having an audience, it’s hard to go back to recording in a studio. Usually I just pay a songwriter, and I’ve been in a bad habit of recycling old stuff for retro value, but this time I want to write something new.”

“With a piano riff?”

“Hah. I’ll throw one in there somewhere, just for you! That’s what we call fanservice.”

“I thought that was something different.”

Laughing, Sham retreats the kitchen again, and comes back with the bottle this time. Nath gets the sudden, sinking realisation that the only reason Sham has brought it is that she intends to drink it, and she probably does not have the alcohol tolerance she’d need to do that without consequences. So when Sham moves to refill her drink, she puts her hand over her glass and shakes her head. One ten-thousand year old drunk is enough. She’s not sure the world will survive two.

“So, there was one last thing I wanted to know, and then I’ll stop bugging you,” Sham says. “Is that okay?”

Nath rolls her eyes. Not even Hime does quite so much dancing around things. “Sure.”

“Are you into women? I kinda got that impression, but I figured I should check before I totally assume, right?”

It is all Nath can do not to snort. It’s not the first time she’s been asked that question, but the sheer nonchalance of the delivery tickled her.

“Well, I’ve tried a few things over the years – never for too long, but still. I came to the conclusion that it doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s the right person, or the right people.”

She thinks, ultimately, that it’s a mature and even perhaps an obvious viewpoint to take at their advanced age. To grieve is difficult; to be bereaved is even more so. People worth putting yourself through that pain are rare and special, no matter what package they come in. So she expects to see Sham smile, maybe even nod, when she discovers somebody with a similar position to her own.

What she doesn’t expect is the brief puzzled look that flicks across the idol’s face, followed by a gradually dawning expression of pure starry-eyed amazement.

“Wow… the right people? I mean, that’s super cool, but I really didn’t have you figured for that kind of thing… I can’t believe I underestimated you that badly!”

“Ah, wait. That isn’t… I mean, it’s not necessarily what I –”

“No, I think it’s really cool! Hey, why don’t we tell date stories? I bet you’ve got some really juicy ones, huh? What’s the worst date you’ve ever been on? This one time I went out with this diplomat, and oh my gosh, he got so drunk that he managed to flush his room key down a restaurant toilet and it almost became this huge international incident, I was super scared at the time but I laughed about it for years afterwards–”

Nath smiles, nods, and tries once again to commune with the spirit of the shag rug, watching carefully as the contents of the bottle disappear, glass by glass. By the time it is three-quarters empty, Sham is curled up on the sofa, giggling herself to sleep under a blanket. No doubt, Nath thinks, she’s going to have an incredible headache when she wakes up in the morning.

Although probably not as big as the headache she’s going to give Nath in the future.

A/N: This was a difficult one to write. I've been trying, or rather wanting, to do stories with a bit less dialogue recently. But this one is completely based around two people having a conversation and trying to understand and get to know each other, so I had to go against what I actually felt like doing... oh well.