Chapter Text
The hot summer sun was merciless and people in downtown were trying to hurry out of the sun. Some tried to find shelter in the shadows cast by the trees and buildings while others rushed inside the air conditioned stores and shopping centers. Inaho was walking down the busy street with tourists, families and busy business men and women walking in his way, and he found no energy to hurry past them due to the intense heat. His sister had asked him to buy groceries on his way home from cram school. Since Inaho was Inaho he had accepted her request and headed straight to the grocery store right after school had ended; he always did what she told him to since she was the only one he could not say no to. Now he slightly regretted going all the way into town instead of buying groceries from the store close to their apartment building.
‘But that store doesn’t have the ice cream Yuki-nee likes,’ he thought and found it somewhat a hassle that he wanted to surprise his sister with her favorite ice cream after she got home from work. She enjoyed the chocolate covered vanilla ice cream of the slightly finer kind and the store in town was the closest store which sold it. It meant Inaho had to take a bus all the way from school which took about 20 minutes, and then take another bus back home which took 35 minutes.
He stepped out of the way for a woman walking his way with hasty steps and managed to somehow not bump into her on the busy street, and as he rounded the corner from where she had come from a calming sound reached his ears. It was bittersweet, almost like the sound was joyful of it finally being heard after a long time of silence. He did not pay it much mind at first but the closer he got to the store he was heading toward the louder the sound got, until he could not ignore it anymore.
‘A violin?’
The song which he was hearing sounded like it was played on heartstrings. It was gentle and warm as well as touching. It was not unusual for Inaho to find music interesting since it was something he found easy to understand; all he had to do was to feel while listening to it. It was a welcomed break from the stressful socialization he had to battle with each day, and it was the only time he could completely relax in his own world; it helped him shut out the world where he lived with everybody else when he simply wanted to be left alone.
As Inaho got to the entrance to the store he had to stop and look around to see where the song came from. Someone was playing a violin on the street and for some reason Inaho wanted to see this person who managed to play such a sad instrument and make it sound so gently joyful. A crowd had gathered on the other side of the street and Inaho found himself walking over to the crowd to get a look at the source of the song. A blond boy, dressed in a light blue t-shirt and white shorts, completed with navy blue boat shoes, was standing in the middle of the crowd. He could not have been much older than Inaho. He was standing in a relaxed pose and held the violin lovingly. His eyes were closed, almost like he listened closely to the violin to make sure it was happy, and he had a warm smile on his lips as he made the strings vibrate with the bow. He was rough in his posture – nothing even close to a professional violinist – and yet he seemed so at home with the violin and bow in his hand. He must have had begun playing at a young age.
‘Schubert…’
The piece the western boy played was a classical piece by the well known composer Schubert. Inaho had heard the piece many times before but somehow this time the violin solo sounded so much more alive and inviting. If he had not had the mission to buy groceries to worry about he would have stayed for a while longer to listen to the boy play, but since Inaho was Inaho he could not break the schedule he had made in his mind. He left the crowd to get the things he needed from the store.
When he exited the store with two grocery bags in his hands the crowd on the other side of the street applauded and began dispersing, and the only one left at the spot was the blond boy. Inaho watched him gather the money the people had given him from the open violin case in front of him before he put the violin and bow inside it. He took a cloth from the case to clean the violin gently before he began tuning it. The boy had managed to gather a lot of money from his little performance and he seemed happy.
‘Is he poor?’ Inaho thought and got surprised he actually cared to ponder about such a trivial thing as a stranger’s economical situation. He usually never put any thought into something that did not concern him or his sister. This boy had caught his interest; it was not something Inaho was used to.
While he was perplexed by his interest in the boy he rummaged around in one of the grocery bags for one of the ice creams he had bought. The blond was sweaty and had red cheeks from the merciless sun burning him and Inaho thought it would have been best for the boy to cool down in order to not get a heatstroke. As he found one of the ice creams he walked over to the boy and held the ice cream out to him. The blond stopped tuning the violin to look up at him with surprise in his blue eyes.
“You look hot,” Inaho said calmly and saw the boy’s cheeks turn redder as an immediate blush crept over the western boy’s face.
“Um… Th-thank you,” the blond said with nearly perfect Japanese and stared at Inaho with an awkward gaze. He did not touch the ice cream and Inaho wondered why the blond did not even look at it.
“Here,” Inaho said and reached out the ice cream a little further to make the boy notice it.
“Huh?” The western boy’s gaze dropped to the ice cream. “Oh… Oh!” the blond exclaimed and seemed embarrassed as he noticed the ice cream. “Th-thank you. You are so kind,” he then continued as he accepted the ice cream from Inaho’s waiting hand.
‘What a peculiar reaction,’ Inaho thought and wondered why the blond had thanked him for the ice cream before he had noticed it.
“You’re welcome,” Inaho said with his usual monotone voice after he had decided not to bother asking about the boy’s reaction. He left the blond with the ice cream and headed home before the remaining ice creams would melt in the bags.
♪♫♪♫
The scraping sound of a pen against paper was all that was heard in the apartment. Inaho was immersed in studying math in his room to prepare for the entrance exam to high school and thus he was quite busy with his summer cram school. None of his friends were as serious as him about the exams; Calm would be calling during weekends to ask if Inaho wanted to meet up and have some fun along with the others, and lately Inaho had turned them down to be able to finish up his – according to Calm – unnecessarily ambitious homework.
“I guess your dreams are bigger than ours since you take this high school thing so seriously,” Calm had said somewhat downcast the last time he had called.
For Inaho there was no time for slacking off. Becoming a physicist in the field of thermodynamics was his goal and he knew how important it was to start early in order to have a chance in the academic world once he got there. Calm wanted to become an engineer but he had not decided on what kind of engineer yet, and so Inaho could understand his lack of motivation in school; keeping up the level of motivation was hard when there was no set goal to strive for. Nina was dreaming about becoming a fashion designer while Inko had been talking about the Environmental Committee (which basically meant she was striving to become a politician). It suited her, Inaho thought, since she was a member in the student council and had been the top student in school before Inaho had taken her place. Inaho knew Inko was studying just as hard as he was even if Calm tried to make it seem like Inaho was the only one who was busy with his studies. He probably did the same to Inko. Calm had made futile tries to give Inaho guilt in order to make him accept the boy’s invitations to hang out.
The phone vibrated on top of the desk and Inaho interrupted his mathematical problem solving to look at the phone for a while. His sister’s name flashed on the screen and after a couple of seconds he put his pen down to pick up the phone.
“Nao! Could you get some ice cream again? It’s so hot I think I’m dying!” was the first thing he heard his sister say.
“Will you be late today as well?” Inaho asked and heard the sounds of a busy workplace in the background on the other side of the line.
“I’m sorry if I’m barely at home recently, Nao, but I have a lot of work to do. Have you been studying?”
“I finished about an hour ago,” Inaho lied; he did not want to give his sister any kind of guilt for interrupting him in his studies. She was already working hard as a fill-in police officer in order to be able to pay for Inaho’s cram school, and guilt was the last thing she needed on her mind. Inaho was already grateful for what she did for him and buying ice cream in order to cheer her up was something he would gladly do even during his time of studying.
“Oh, then I’m not interrupting you with my selfish request,” he heard her say with a voice which sounded like she was smiling.
“Not at all,” Inaho answered. “Do you want the usual ice cream?”
“Yeah. Buy two cartons this time. The amount you bought yesterday was not nearly enough to cool me down,” she laughed on the other end of the phone.
“You are just using the heat as an excuse to eat as much ice cream as you can fit in your stomach, and recently it has been able to fit a lot of ice cream in there,” Inaho answered back and there was a slight pause before his sister’s loud voice screamed at him:
“Are you calling me fat!?”
“If you keep this up then that might become reality,” Inaho said with his typical voice which lacked any kind of emotion.
Yuki sighed heavily.
“Fine, fine! Buy just one carton this time then,” she said and before they hung up she thanked him for going out of his way just for a little ice cream.
♪♫♪♫
The sound of a violin reached his ears once again while he was walking under the hot sun, but this day the sound was what would have been called romantic. The piece played was calm and beautiful, slow and beckoning – something that would have been played on a wedding. This time Inaho stopped to listen before he entered the store. The majority of the people in the crowd, which once again was obscuring Inaho’s vision of the blond boy, were enjoying the beauty of the song with their eyes closed and with slight smiles on their lips. The crowd seemed to have grown since yesterday.
After a while of listening and enjoying the song Inaho entered the store to get Yuki’s ice cream and the sound of the violin accompanied him all the way to the freezer at the back of the store; this time he could not stop hearing the slight sounds of the violin which were barely strong enough to reach his ears in the store.
With the bag of ice cream in hand he came out of the store and stopped to look at the crowd which still stood there and enjoyed listening to the violin playing boy. Something was going on in the middle of the crowd. Curiosity took a pitiless grip of Inaho and forced him to walk over to the crowd in order to look at what was happening. That was when he saw a man on one knee on the ground with a little box held in front of a woman who looked like she was about to burst into tears.
‘A proposal,’ the brunet thought and let his eyes wander to the boy who was playing the violin. He was far more interesting than the soon to be married couple. The blond boy had a heartwarming smile on his face as he played the song and watched the couple. He did not seem surprised at all about what was happening and Inaho wondered if the man asking for the woman’s hand in marriage had asked him to play for them this particular day. It was a kind thought which made this day special for them.
Once the woman had answered yes and gotten the ring onto her finger the crowd applauded and the boy faded out the romantic violin solo. Once the applauds were dying down while the couple kissed he played the intro for the Wedding March but interrupted himself after just a couple of strokes on the violin and chuckled.
“Maybe it is a little too early to play it now?” he asked and the crowd laughed together with the couple – who thanked the boy and gave him a 10 000 yen banknote. The boy protested slightly; apparently it was too much for him to be able to accept it but after the couple insisted the blond bowed deeply and thanked them sincerely.
The boy put down his violin into the case to take a break and the people who had gathered there continued on with their business and scattered. The blond picked up a water bottle to have a drink and hydrate his body, which must have been hot from the scorching sun, and Inaho took one ice cream out of the bag to walk over to him once again and hold it out to him.
“You are hot today as well,” he said and waited for the blond to notice him. “You should be careful.”
This time the blond got a slight blush as he realized it was Inaho, but looked down at the ice cream instantly almost like he was making sure it was there, and smiled happily.
“Oh, thank you. You have no idea how much this saves me,” he said and accepted the ice cream.
“Do you play here often?” Inaho asked and waited for an answer, and the blond chuckled.
“Yes, everyday if I can,” the boy answered. “Do you buy ice cream here often?”
“Only when I’m asked to,” Inaho said and watched the boy open the wrapping around the ice cream. A question had been nagging in his mind from yesterday and he could not stop the urge to ask: “Are you poor?”
The boy looked up at him from the ice cream to stare at him for a short moment – surprised by Inaho’s blunt question – before he gave Inaho a wry smile.
“Both yes and no,” he answered with an unassertive tone.
“Sounds like a paradox,” Inaho remarked and waited for the blond to explain.
The other boy leaned against the wall behind him and seemed to think how to easiest respond to the brunet’s question. He took a bite of the chocolate topping on the ice cream before he said:
“I am not poor but I can’t ask my guardian to pay for the service I have to do on the violin. The violin is old and worn so it will need some repairs in the near future.”
“Why are you wearing it out by playing on the street? Shouldn’t you keep it securely in its case?” Inaho asked again with his blunt manner.
“Because I promised someone to keep playing it,” the blond answered with a weakened smile and seemed somewhat upset about Inaho’s question; Inaho knew he had probably sounded rude to the other boy with his question being so blunt. “And I want to get it into its proper shape. The neck is slightly crooked and two of the pegs aren’t strong enough to keep the violin tuned for as long as they should. The neck is subjected to great stress due to the tension from the strings, so it will probably be the first to go if I won’t do anything about it.”
‘In other words it has sentimental value,’ Inaho thought secretly.
“What was the name of the song you played?” the Japanese boy wanted to know.
The westerner’s slightly saddened expression turned happier in an instant and he blushed a little as he answered with a somewhat childish smile:
“Canon by Pachelbel. It’s my favorite.”
Inaho stared at him for a short moment as the boy’s smile was so expressive Inaho found himself be caught in it. Westerners always seemed to be less withdrawn when expressing emotions than Japanese people were, and meeting Calm and Nina had been interesting for Inaho due to their western nature. This boy seemed interesting as well.
“Will you play here tomorrow as well?” he finally asked as he had decided he had observed the blond boy’s smile long enough, and the boy tilted his head slightly to ask:
“Will you buy ice cream tomorrow as well?”
Inaho had bought enough ice cream he would not have to take a trip into town for at least two days and he instantly regretted buying that much ice cream. He wanted to buy ice cream the next day as well.
“No, I have bought a lot of it today,” Inaho answered honestly and the boy smiled with a slightly disappointed smile.
“Then why not let me return the favor and buy you some ice cream tomorrow?” he asked with his smile returning into that bright and expressive smile of his again. For some reason Inaho looked forward going into town; the hassle to run his sister's errand had turned into curiosity to return the next day.
“Sure,” he said expressionlessly and the western boy nodded happily.
“See you tomorrow then!”
Inaho nodded back and turned to walk to the bus stop and get back home to continue studying; he had to finish up tomorrow’s quota of studying tonight so he could have tomorrow free and go into town and be able to enjoy some ice cream for a while.