When she turns the corner and the hallway swallows her, the day feels wider and thinner at the same time. Noise spills back in—the slap of shoes, a shout from the field, a bell that isn't ours—but the center of it has moved. I stand there one more second, then I pick up my bag and head for the doors.
Outside, the air tastes like dust and sunlight. The gate squeaks. A scooter buzzes past and then fades. I cut left at the vending machines and take the street behind the music wing, the one with the crooked fence and the camellia bush that always looks confused about what season it is. It's a short walk if I don't think. It's a long walk if I do.
I think.
Money. Time. Those are the two pieces I can move. Everything else is a wall.
I already started, in small ways. I know which games end how. I know which stocks jump on which dates and which ones pretend to jump and then fall. I am not a genius; I am cheating with the answer key stuck under the desk. It still feels like work, because getting the answer on the paper without getting caught is its own test.
I can't throw big money at it. I don't have big money to throw. And moving big sums makes people ask questions. So I split things up. A little here, a little there. A small bet on a "surprise" winner that isn't a surprise to me. A short trade timed to an earnings call that I can say I guessed right on. I set limits even though setting limits feels like putting a leash on a fire hose. Greed is loud and sloppy. I don't have space for loud and sloppy.
It isn't about the win. It's about the runway. Money buys time, and time lets me turn what I know into something real.
A delivery truck huffs by my shoulder and drags a hot wind in its wake. I take the next crosswalk when it's empty and keep going. The convenience store on the corner has a handwritten sign about a limited candy drop that's already gone. Inside, a chime rings; outside, the sun picks out the scratches on the window like old sheet music.
Uncle might help. The thought steps out of line and then refuses to go back.
While he was a distant family member he was still family and I did get to know him in my previous life well.
I can see his face from the last time I saw him, half lit by a slideshow in a conference room that smelled like coffee and carpet glue. He speaks in the calm way that makes people write down his words even when they don't need to. He works in medicine—real medicine, not the kind you just memorize for a test. He knows people who live in labs. He could put me in a room with a person I can ask for a favor that isn't easy to grant.
Would they let me in? I'm a kid with a school bag and piano hands. If I say the right things—glassware, labeling, cleaning, inventory, data entry—the work that nobody wants but every lab needs—maybe. If I say the wrong thing—even once—they will show me the door so softly that I won't be sure it ever opened.
It's not even about one lab. It's about a door. Any door.
I pass a chain-link fence and the little park behind it. A boy is trying to do a pull-up on the low bar and keeps kicking his legs like swimming might help. His sister counts for him and lies about the numbers in his favor. He drops down and grins anyway. The sound of it reaches me and then slides off, like light on glass.
Kaori doesn't have a year. I push the words into the middle of the road and watch them sit there. They don't move. They don't get less true if I don't look at them. Months. That's what I have. That's what she has. I can hear the shape of the calendar even when nobody is writing on it.
The plan in my head is a map with missing bridges. I know the cure because I saw it—years from now, cleaner tools, faster systems, smarter machines that chew through problems in hours that take us weeks. Right now we have slow sequencers and slower approval. We have models that guess. We have programs that will break if I ask them two extra questions. I'm trying to pour a river into a straw. I can do it, but not fast enough.
So I need shortcuts. Borrowed machines. Quiet help. A room with a centrifuge I can use when nobody needs it. A freezer where I can keep something without twenty forms. A terminal with the right software, or a person who will run the code and let me look over their shoulder. Even the chance to watch other hands do it, to mark the steps, would save me weeks.
Uncle knows the kinds of people who keep keys on lanyards. He also knows which rules bend and which ones break and cost you your job. I'll have to ask like I understand that. I do understand that. I will not say the word "cure." I will say "learn." I will say "observe." I will say "assist." And I will mean all of it.
I rehearse the ask as I walk. Not a speech. Pieces.
"I'm curious about lab work."
"I'm reliable with routine tasks."
"I can take notes. I can sort samples. I can follow a protocol."
"I won't touch anything I shouldn't."
"I'm good at standing still for a long time and doing something precise without getting bored." (That one is true in my bones. Years of scales taught me that. Years of playing for hours under my mother's eye taught me that twice.)
My phone buzzes once in my pocket and makes me jump even though I'm expecting nothing. I don't look. If it's a joke from Watari I'll answer later. If it's Tsubaki, she will come find me with her feet if I ignore her too long. If it's empty, it doesn't matter anyway.
I pass the bus stop and the poster with the cartoon train that always looks too happy to be a train. A sparrow hops along the curb with a noodle in its beak like it stole a violin bow and doesn't know what to do with it. I turn onto my street. The paint on the guardrail is new in two places and old in three. The building across from ours has hanging plants on every balcony like it's trying to be a garden but can't remember how.
My door sticks like always. Inside, the air holds last night's tea and the faint clean sting of dish soap. I drop my bag on the chair that isn't a chair anymore because it only holds bags. The clock on the microwave flashes a wrong time and dares me to fix it. I don't. A note on the table says a delivery will come tomorrow. That could be strings. That could be nothing.
The piano sits in the corner like a promise and a dare. The light from the window lays a stripe across the lid. Dust collects in that stripe if I leave it alone for more than a day. Today I don't wipe it. I sit on the bench and let the wood creak a little and then settle. I put my hands flat on my thighs so I don't play without meaning to.
Playing with her pulled me back into myself. That's the truth. Music makes space in my head where I can stand up straight. But the space fills fast. The other truth is heavier and it knocks.
I open the fallboard and look at the keys. They look back. There is comfort here and there is danger. The comfort is simple. The danger is simpler: it will be easy to hide in this and call it the work I need to do. It will be easy to spend the hours on arpeggios and runs and the kind of polish that loves to eat whole days. That time must live somewhere else now. Music is how I stay close to her. Money and study are how I keep her here.
I close the fallboard again, this time gently, so it doesn't click. I pull my notebook out of my bag and flip past staff paper and half-started lists until I find a clean page. I write in a block print so I can't pretend I didn't see what I wrote. No flourishes. No excuses.
What I can move:
– Money.
– Access.
– Time (if I'm smart with the first two).
Money:
– Keep bets small. (No patterns. No streaks that look like a signal.)
– Rotate sites and accounts. (Don't be lazy.)
– Stocks only on things I can explain if someone asks. (Product launches, earnings. No "gut feelings.")
– Keep cash on hand for fast buys. Prepaid cards. (Write down where they are; stop losing receipts.)
– Don't get greedy. Greed makes noise. Noise draws a crowd.
Access:
– Uncle. Ask for shadow work. (Glassware, labels, anything.)
– Don't say "cure." Don't say "personal." Say "learn." Say "help."
– If Uncle says no, ask for a name. (One step sideways is still forward.)
– University open seminars? (Public talks. Good place to listen without questions.)
– Foundations. Rare disease groups. (They know who will call back.)
– Quiet clinics. (Pay for a consult if I have to. Money buys an hour. An hour matters.)
Tools gap (now vs later):
– Slow sequencing times. (Plan around weeks, not hours.)
– Modeling weak. (Find a person, not a program.)
– Reagents, vectors, assays—cost. (Money goes here.)
– Validation takes time. (Pilot, then expand. Don't promise more than I can prove.)
I sit back and look at the list and feel nothing dramatic. No swell of certainty. No dread. Just a clear sense of the ground under my feet. It's not stable, but it's real.
I pull out my phone and open a blank message to Uncle, then close it. I open it again. If I call, I'll talk too much. If I email, I'll sound like a child who copied words from a brochure. A message is the middle. Short. Plain. Respectful. I can send it, then shut the lid and walk away before I ask the phone to change the answer while I'm watching.
"Hi. Can I ask your advice about science-related part-time work? I want to learn how real labs run. I can handle routine tasks. I'm reliable. If that's not possible, a name to email would help. Thank you."
I stare at it. I take out "part-time." I add "after school." I delete "after school." I add "observe, label, clean." I delete "clean," because it looks like I'm begging to mop floors and I am, but I don't want to sound like I think that's nothing. I put "label" back. I put "assist" in, then take it out, then put it back. I read the whole thing aloud in a voice that doesn't sound like me and decide it's good enough.
I don't send it.
Not yet. I need to line up money so I can say yes to anything that has a price tag I didn't see coming. I need to check the next set of "surprises" on the schedule and make sure I'm not mixing the dates. Small mistakes cost too much now. I don't have spare days to pay for them.
I flip to the back of the notebook and draw a calendar grid by hand. The boxes lean. I write in them anyway. Release dates. Matches. Calls. The points where the world I remember intersects the world I'm standing in. It looks like a dot-to-dot. If I connect them right, a picture will appear. If I connect them wrong, it will just be a mess of lines.
I get up to pour water and stare at the sink while it runs. The water hisses against the steel and echoes in the bowl. The glass fogs a little in my hand. I swallow and feel it go all the way down. My body reminds me that it has needs even when my head would like to turn them off. Eat. Sleep. Breathe. The basic verbs.
Tsubaki would scold me and then bring a bento big enough to injure someone. Watari would say something about protein and then challenge me to a race I didn't agree to. Kaori... Kaori would tilt her head and read the truth off my face and choose to play anyway. She already did.
I go back to the table and write "Call Uncle" at the top of tomorrow. Then I add "send message tonight" in small letters below it, because I know myself. If I wait, I might find a reason to wait more.
The thought of equipment walks in again and sits down. I picture a room with white floors and a hum I can't hear from the hall. I picture racks and tubes and labels that must match if the day is going to make sense. I picture gloves that make your hands clumsy for the first ten minutes and then feel like skin. I can almost feel the stiffness of the lab coat and the way the sleeves always want to dip too close to the bench. I picture someone older than me handing me a protocol sheet and saying, "Don't think. Just do it the way it says." I am good at that. I am also good at knowing when to think anyway. Both skills matter here.
The cure sits behind my eyes like sheet music I memorized long ago. I could play it. I can't prove to anyone else that I can play it. Not yet. In the future I remember, proof is cheap because the machines do the convincing. Now, proof eats time. Proof eats reagents. Proof eats favors. It eats money and sleep and then asks for seconds. I will feed it. I don't have to like the appetite to understand it.
My phone buzzes again, a single, patient vibration. I ignore it again. If it's important, it will ring. If it's not, it will still be there when I'm done writing down the one thought I don't want to lose:
Don't confuse motion with progress.
Practice is motion. Planning is motion. Buying a book is motion. Progress is different. Progress is a result on paper, a contact who replies, a slot on a lab schedule, a model that runs and doesn't crash. Count the right things.
I put a dot next to it like I'm grading myself. Then I finally check the phone.
It's a weather alert about wind tomorrow. It's also a coupon for noodles. It's also a blank screen once I swipe both away. I exhale and laugh once at myself, which feels like opening a window and then closing it again.
I text Tsubaki a photo of the crooked fence by the school with no caption, because I know she will reply with "you finally looked up" and then ask if I ate. I don't send it. I don't want to pull her into this lane of my head tonight. She will come in with her whole heart and then I'll have to slow down for both of us. I love her for that. I can't afford it. Not today.
The light shifts on the floor in a long, slow slide. Somewhere down the hall, a neighbor's TV climbs into laughter and then steps back down. I check the time because I don't trust the sun to tell me the truth anymore. I have hours. Not many. Enough to get three things done if I don't pretend they are six.
I open my bag again and pull out the stack of printouts I shouldn't have wasted paper on but did because reading on paper sticks better in my head. The titles are dry in the way that hides how important they are: case series, trial results, mechanism notes. I underline with a cheap pen that bleeds if I push too hard. I write questions in the margins that look like a stranger wrote them because I'm trying to trick my brain into answering as if we're two people and not one tired boy.
I read until the lines stop making words and start making a fence I can't climb. Then I stop. Not because I want to. Because stopping now means I can start again later without hating the page. I tap the stack square on the table like that might make the ideas line up inside it.
Dinner is an apple and a packet of crackers and the thought that I should do better. I eat the apple and leave the crackers on the counter as if I'm saving them for someone who isn't me.
I think about calling Uncle again. I think about how he will hear my voice and ask me how school is and I will tell him the truth and not the truth. I think about him saying yes and me panicking because yes means I have to walk into a room where I don't speak the language yet. I think about him saying no and me finding a way around the no with patience and names and money. I think about him saying "maybe" and me having to hold still while the word stretches time out like taffy.
I sit on the bench again and this time I let my fingers sit on the keys without pressing. The room holds its breath with me. I can feel the weight of each key under the pads of my fingers. That weight has been the one sure measure of my days. I know exactly how much pressure it takes to make this instrument tell the truth. I know exactly how little it takes to turn truth into shouting. That line is thin. I learned it the hard way. I can walk it.
I press down one note. Soft. Then I lift my hand and stand up.
"Not yet," I tell the piano, which is another way of telling myself.
I take the phone back out, open the message to Uncle, change "Can I ask your advice" to "Could I ask your advice," because the second one reads like a door I'm knocking on, not a door I assume he'll open. I add "I can come by the hospital lobby after school any day," then delete "any day" and put "this week," then take "this week" out because it sounds like I'm not thinking past Friday. I leave it as "after school." I add "Thank you for reading," because he is busy and reading is already a gift.
I hit send.
I put the phone face-down and push it a little away from me like it might bite.
In the silence that follows, the house clicks in small ways—wood, pipes, a neighbor's footsteps that I've learned to translate into which neighbor it is. I write one more list before the feeling fades:
Tomorrow:
– Check dates. (No mistakes.)
– Place small, safe bets. (Don't get cute.)
– Call the foundation whose number I circled. (Ask for public info first. Listen twice, talk once.)
– Start draft email to Professor K. (Uncle mentioned him once. Ask for a seminar schedule.)
– Buy a better notebook. (This one is falling apart.)
– Eat real dinner. (Write it down so you don't pretend you forgot.)
I close the notebook and lay my hand on the cover for a second, like I'm calming a jumpy animal. It's a superstition, but it's my superstition now. It keeps me honest.
The room has gone blue around the edges. I stand, wash the apple core down the sink, and look at my reflection in the window. I look like a student who is very tired. I look like someone a teacher would tell to go to bed. I look like someone who could sit down at the piano and make a bright sound that would make a girl smile even on a day when she is counting breaths.
I turn away from the window and look at the clock again. Numbers are numbers. They don't care how I feel about them. I have the rest of tonight and all of tomorrow and then the next day and the next day, until I run out of days. I don't know when that is. I know it's closer than anyone else thinks.
I pick up the notebook and put it in my bag, then take it back out and put it on the table where I'll see it first thing in the morning. I put the pen on top of it. I turn off the light over the sink. The room shrinks to the circle of the ceiling lamp.
I go back to the piano and touch the lid one more time with my palm. The lacquer is cool. I leave my hand there until the cool goes away.
"I need time," I say into the empty room, because saying it makes it real and real things are easier to measure. "Money can buy some."
I let my hand fall to my side.
"I don't have enough of either."
I stand there a moment longer, not moving, and then I start getting ready for the night I already know I won't spend sleeping.
I don't turn on music. I need the room quiet enough to hear my thoughts hit the table.
Laptop on. Notebook open. Pen uncapped. I stack the printouts in three piles: trials, mechanisms, case reports. I slide the calendar I drew earlier beside the keyboard and write "tonight" across the top of it so I can't pretend it's a plan for some other version of me.
First: money. I check the dates again. I check them twice. The game that flips in the last minute—tomorrow. The call that drops guidance and sends people into a panic—Friday afternoon. The stock that spikes on a product leak—two weeks from now, like clockwork. I break each move into a small, boring action. Boring looks safe. Boring doesn't trend.
I keep amounts low enough to look like luck and attention. I spread things around. I set the orders and then close the tabs so I don't stare at the numbers and teach myself a new kind of superstition. I write the confirmations in the notebook because paper doesn't ping.
Next: names. I pull up the foundation site and skim the page that explains their mission in polite phrases. I copy down the contact line for "general inquiries" and the one for "research liaison." I draft something short and plain.
"Hello. I'm a student interested in rare-disease research. Would you point me to public seminars, published resources, or people who give educational talks? Thanks for any guidance."
I save it. I don't mention Kaori. I don't mention timelines. I don't mention anything they can't hold up in a meeting without raising eyebrows. I'm asking for a map, not a miracle.
I search the hospital site Uncle's team uses and find the monthly lecture series. Most of them will be over my head. I will go anyway. Listening is a skill. I know how to sit still while someone else does the hard part. I know how to catch one useful sentence in an hour of language that isn't mine.
I type a draft to Professor K—the name I half-remember from a boring family dinner where Uncle talked shop and I pretended not to listen.
"Dear Professor K, my name is Arima Kousei. I'm a high school student hoping to observe or volunteer in a research setting so I can learn how labs operate. I can help with routine tasks and I'm careful with instructions. If there are public seminars or open sessions I could attend, I'd be grateful for the schedule. Thank you for your time."
I leave it in drafts. I'll reread it in the morning when my eyes aren't sandpaper.
My phone buzzes against the table. I glance down.
Tsubaki: Make sure to get sleep, dummy. And make sure to eat.
I smile before I can stop it. My thumbs move.
Me: I ate an apple. Upgrading to "actual food" soon.
The dots appear. Disappear. Appear.
Tsubaki: Apple is a snack. Dinner is dinner.
Me: Your very Bossy.
Tsubaki: No I'm Effective. Did you play today?
Me: Yeah...
Tsubaki: With her?
Me: Yes with her.
A beat.
Tsubaki: Good. I'm glad. Don't make me come over there and throw a blanket on your head.
Me: I believe you would.
Tsubaki: Correct. Eat. Then sleep. Promise.
I look at the word Promise and feel it tug. I want to write I can't. I want to write not tonight. I also want her to worry less. I split the difference.
Me: I'll eat. I'll sleep some. I promise.
She sends a sticker of a small bear shaking a spoon at a bowl. Then, a moment later:
Tsubaki: Night, piano hands.
Me: Night Tsubaki.
The screen goes dark. The room settles back around me. I lean back in the chair and let the little warmth from her message sit where it landed. Then I push the chair closer and get on with it.
Sigh.... Sorry Tsubaki... It was gonna have to be another long night. I hope I can perhaps get a few hours or she will grill me in the morning....
Now...
What can I do in one night that matters? I make another short list.
– Organize references.
– Sketch steps from memory.
– Identify the parts I cannot do alone.
– Decide which parts money can rent.
I build a folder structure in the simplest way possible so I won't lose things when I'm tired. "Theory." "Protocols." "Contacts." "Costs." In "Theory," I write out the cure in a plain outline, like I'm explaining it to a version of me who doesn't trust big words. Step by step. No leaps. No "etc." If I can't explain the step, I mark it with a box I can't tick yet.
In "Protocols," I collect the little tasks that eat time: how to spin, how long to chill, which buffers hate light, which steps need ice like a threat, which ones only pretend to. I paste public guides, lab handouts I find, an old PDF that looks like it was scanned in a hurry. I highlight warnings. I add "ask before touching" in red at the top, as if I'll forget.
In "Contacts," I put Uncle at the top, then leave space for the names I want. I add the foundation email. I add Professor K. I leave lines blank on purpose. Empty lines remind me the file isn't finished.
In "Costs," I list the things I can't fake with patience: kits, fees, consults. I add generous padding to each number so the totals scare me into being careful. Money is a lever; it is also a hole if I swing too hard.
I pause when the outline of the cure reaches the part I can name but not build with what I have. The future made that section fast with tools built for it. Here, it's a set of steps I can only represent with arrows and words the software won't understand. I write "person, not program" in the margin and circle it. That means I need a mind already trained to do what I can't. That means I need to be in a room where that mind works.
I breathe in, slow. Out, slower. I think through the steps again, not to memorize them—my memory already holds them—but to feel where the delays live. Shipping. Approvals. Booking time. Waiting for a person who is busy to answer. All the soft, human gaps that add days to a calendar nobody else knows is counting down.
"Months," I say out loud. The word doesn't echo. It just sits on the desk between my hands and asks what I'm going to do about it.
She only had mere months.... The time spent together felt like a fleeting eternity, but there time spent together on this earth wasn't even a year...
I shook my head. I cant think about this right now.
I open the trial reports and read with a pen in hand. I don't trust myself to read passively anymore. I underline doses. I mark side effects, especially the weird ones that hide in the discussion section because they don't fit the neat table. I note outliers. I write questions in the margin where a patient responded too well and the authors shrugged and moved on. "Why this one?" I circle it twice.
An hour slips. Then another. I stand up to stretch, because if I don't I will forget I have a back and I need it. I drink water I don't want. I eat the rest of the crackers and salt makes the inside of my mouth feel like paper. I set a timer for fifteen minutes and close my eyes. Not to sleep. To reset whatever part of my brain starts turning letters into static.
The timer goes off, and I don't hit snooze. I get up, wash my face, and sit back down. The house is quiet in the particular way it gets after midnight, when even the street decides to stop explaining itself.
I open a new page and write the sentence I've been trying not to write.
She doesn't have a year.
I draw a line under it. A real line. Then I add:
She has months.
I tap the period with the pen like that will set the ink faster. I look at the words until they stop being heavy and start being simple. Clarity is better than comfort. Comfort doesn't move anything.
I make a practical schedule that will probably break on the first day. Still, I need a starting point. Wake up. School. Practice with her or on my own. Two to three hours for money work. Three to four hours for reading and outlining. One hour for calls and emails earlier in the day when people answer. Food somewhere in there. Sleep where it fits. Power naps if it doesn't.
I list the traps: chasing every new paper, falling into forums full of confident strangers, wasting time on tools I can't access, letting fear pick my tasks instead of logic. I write Don't in front of each one until the page looks like a warning poster.
My phone lights up with Uncle's reply.
"Kousei, good to hear from you. Come by the lobby Tuesday after school. We can talk fifteen minutes. I don't promise anything, but I'll listen. If you're serious, be on time."
My chest loosens. Not because it's a yes. Because it isn't a no.
Me: Thank you. Tuesday after school. I'll be there on time.
I put the phone down again and sit with the quiet. Tuesday is close. Tuesday is far. I can get a lot done between now and Tuesday if I don't pretend the clock is a friend.
I go back to the outline and add small things I can do without permission. Anatomy refreshers. Terminology drills. Safety basics. If someone gives me a protocol, I don't want to ask what every third word means. I don't need to impress anyone. I need to not slow the room.
When my eyes blur again, I stand. My legs feel like they forgot how to hold me for a second, then remember. I wash the cup, set it upside down on the rack, and wipe the counter because it's a task I can complete. I put my notebook back on the table in its exact place and lay the pen across it. I check the orders one last time, not to second-guess, but to make sure I didn't leave a door half-open.
I look at the piano and let myself think about her for a full minute with no numbers attached. The way she set her feet. The way her laugh made the air feel light enough to carry. The way she looked at me when she said We're joining and it sounded like weather, not a question. The way she didn't flinch when the line got hard; she leaned and I met her and the whole room lined up for a breath.
I pick up my phone. I don't overthink it.
Me to Kaori: Today was great. Thank you for pulling me along.
I don't expect an answer right now. I don't need one. I plug the phone in and leave it on the table so I won't scroll myself into a hole.
I check the time. Morning is close enough to touch. I can try for two hours of sleep or I can ride this line to sunrise and pay for it tomorrow. I choose the two hours. Not because Tsubaki told me to—though she did—but because the math says a brain that got some rest makes fewer mistakes, and mistakes cost days I don't have.
I lie down. The ceiling is the same ceiling it has always been. I breathe in slow, out slower, and count backwards by fours until the numbers stop sticking to me.
I don't dream.
***
Kaori
I almost float down the steps outside the music wing. My case bumps against my knee in a friendly way, like it's reminding me I remembered to bring it. The light in the hall had been flat and kind; outside it turns bright and sharp. I blink and it doesn't bother me. I don't think anything could bother me for at least ten minutes.
He said yes. Not grudging. Not hiding. Not with excuses. He just said yes like it was the obvious thing to say.
I told myself I wasn't scared to ask him. I was, a little. Not the big kind of scared that stops you from stepping on stage. The small kind that makes you worry your words will come out bent. I thought I might have to talk him into it. I had lines ready in case he said no. I didn't need any of them. For a second I felt silly for practicing speeches in my head. Then I felt free for not needing them.
I hum the opening bar of Saint-Saëns as I walk, and then I stop humming because it turns into a laugh and people look at me if I do both. I check my phone out of habit. No messages, which means I didn't miss anything. I put it away. I carry the feeling instead.
On the train, I find a spot by the door and pretend the floor has a beat. It always does if you listen right. A boy in a baseball cap nods along to music I can't hear. A woman rests her head against the window and closes her eyes for two stops like she came here just to borrow a nap. The station names roll past in their steady voice. I read them the way you read a score you already know. They calm me.
At home, I call out, "I'm back," and the house answers.
Mama: In the kitchen!
Papa: Welcome back, Kaori!
I set the case down on the low table and undo the latches. The sound of them always makes me feel like I'm opening a storybook. I check the bridge, check the strings, check the chin rest. Habit, habit, habit. The little red mark on my jaw fades as I stand there. It always fades. I don't rub it. Rubbing just makes it mad.
Mama pops her head around the doorway. "Shoes," she says, but she's smiling, so it isn't really a scold.
"I know," I say, kick them off, line them up, and skip the last step into the kitchen. It smells like ginger and something with broth. Her hair is up in a clip that always looks like it's working too hard.
"How was your day?" she asks. The normal way. The way that gives me space to say "fine" if that's all I have.
"Good," I say, and then I can't help myself. "Better than good. We played. He played like he was already there before I was."
Her eyebrows go up. "He?"
"Kousei," I say, trying not to sound like a trumpet. "Piano man."
"Ah," she says, drawn out, the way you say I see without adding anything else. "You look happy." She hands me a spoon and a bowl without looking, because she knows where my hands will be.
"We're entering Towa," I say, and my voice stays steady like it belongs to me. "He said yes."
Papa appears like he was summoned by the word competition. "Towa?" he repeats, half proud, half concerned. "That's soon."
"I know," I say, and I do. Soon is good. Soon means I don't have to hold my breath as long.
He leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed the way he does when he's measuring how serious I am. "And you're ready to carry that much playing?"
"I'm always ready," I say. Then I soften it. "I'll pace myself." I lay the spoon down like it might break if I don't treat it well. "It will be fun."
Mama looks at me like she can see the edge of my excitement and the edge of my energy at the same time. "Eat first," she says. "Then tell us everything."
We sit. I try not to talk with my hands while I talk, but my hands keep forgetting. I tell them about the moment we lined up so cleanly it felt like the air got thinner. I tell them how he didn't make me drag him; he kept the floor under me even when I took the corner fast on purpose. I tell them how he said yes to Towa and it sounded like he was relieved to say it. I don't tell them about the tiny stillness in my left hand before the tricky entrances. I don't lie. I just don't invite that part into the room right now.
Papa listens like he's watching a match and I'm winning by a point. He asks practical questions. "What's the date? Who else is entering? Do you need new strings?" Mama asks if I remembered to drink water. I hold up my glass like proof.
When I help clear, Mama touches my arm. "Don't overdo it," she says softly, the way you say be careful when you know careful isn't the point.
"I know," I say, equally soft. "I'll be smart."
She kisses the top of my head like I'm still shorter than her. "Smart and brave," she says. "Both."
In my room, I set the case on the chair and ease the violin out like it could bruise. I wipe the strings, check the bow hair where it thins, and make a note on a sticky tab: re-hair soon. The chin rest left a stripe, faint now. My fingers tingle in a way that means I played well and with weight. I flex them slowly. Left hand, then right. The tremor that visits me sometimes after long phrases flickers and fades. Better than last week. Worse than last month. I don't count it out loud.
I sit on the edge of the bed and let the day replay, but only the bright parts. The moment we landed the cadence. The way he smiled without meaning to. The way I told him not to be late and he didn't roll his eyes; he just said do like he meant it.
I pick up my phone. A message from him is waiting.
Today was great. Thank you for pulling me along.
My mouth does a little curl that I can't stop. I tap a reply.
You didn't need pulling. See you tomorrow.
I think about adding a face. I don't. I add Don't be late and then delete it because I already said it once and I like not repeating myself when I don't have to.
I put the phone down and breathe in. The breath catches halfway and then keeps going. It's nothing. It's just the way air feels in the evening when a day has been big. I stretch the way my teacher showed me: shoulders down, neck long, arms loose. I count to eight and let the stretch melt. The little ache that lives under my left shoulder blade sighs and quiets.
Mama knocks and opens the door without waiting for my come in, because she is Mama. "Medicine," she says, and hands me the small cup and the bottle. She doesn't look at my face. She looks at my hands. She always has.
"Thanks," I say. I swallow. The taste is chalky and sweet in a way that makes my tongue want to argue. I drink water after and it helps.
"Tomorrow after school?" she asks, and it isn't really a question.
"Practice," I say.
"With him?"
"Probably," I say, and the word feels new and right. "We need to set the tempo together, and it's easier in person."
She smiles in that small, proud way that says she remembers the first time I made a real sound and the first time I stood on a stage and the first time I told her I wanted to choose one path and not another. "Don't run too far ahead," she says. "Let him find you."
"I know where he is," I say. It comes out sure. It feels sure.
When she leaves, I pull the comforter up around my legs and the room gets quiet in a gentler way than the train did. I count the tiny victories: my bow didn't skate when I asked for weight; my entrance landed; my joke at lunch made him look up. Little wins. Good wins.
The other counts live in another drawer. I open it a crack. The deeper breaths before hard lines. The way my left fingers sometimes set like they're listening for a click that isn't there. The small tremor after, quick, private, gone if you blink. The tired that follows me like a shadow on bright days and gets bolder on the dull ones.
I close the drawer. Not locked. Just closed.
I think about how I called him piano man to his face and he didn't flinch. I think about how he looked at me in the hallway and didn't hide that he was tired. I think about how he stood a little straighter when we started playing, like his body remembered what it was for.
"Good," I tell the ceiling. "Good."
I'm very pleased
I turn off the light and the room goes blue and then darker. My eyes adjust. The shape of the case on the chair looks like a sleeping animal. The street outside moves in ribbons. I listen to the house settle. I listen to my breath. It evens out.
I don't count the months. I don't need to. My body already knows the math. It isn't a year. It's sooner than that. It's soon. I press my hand flat against my chest until I feel the thrum slow. I take another breath, steady, steady, steady, and it holds.
"Tomorrow," I whisper, because the word tastes nice and I want to keep it. "Tomorrow."
I close my eyes and keep the picture of him at the piano in my head. Not the famous one with spotlights. The real one from today. Hands steady. Shoulders loose. Mouth almost smiling. Waiting for me to come in. I walk into that picture and the room in my mind is bright and clean and easy.
I fall asleep like that—giddy, a little tired, and ready to do it again—holding both truths at once: the joy that feels like sunlight, and the small, quiet fragility that asks me to be careful with it.