Chapter Text
Matsuyo Matsuno owned a piano. Matsuzo had gotten it for her for their tenth anniversary, and the movers had brought it in yesterday. It sat awkwardly in the corner of their bedroom, looming large in the small room, nearly blocking the door to the bathroom altogether. They didn’t want to put it there, but with six little boys in the house, it was important that they kept something so expensive— relative to their other belongings, anyway— in a room where they could lock the door. It was the best they could do, even though it messed up the balance of the room.
She hadn’t had a chance to play it yesterday. The boys had a soccer game in the morning and then they all went to the grocery, which was always an adventure. Then they worked on the garden, which took far longer with the eight of them than it would have with just Matsuzo and herself, but it was good to make the boys work in the dirt sometimes, right? None of them had really liked it except Jyushi, and that was only because he kept finding bugs. Matsuyo figured maybe if the boys put the flowers in front of the house themselves, they’d be less likely to pull them up or trample them later. After that they ate dinner, and by the time the kitchen was clean and the boys were bathed and all in bed— and actually asleep, the real kicker— it was late into the night and all Matsuyo wanted to do was collapse into the sheets and sleep for eighty years.
But now it was early Sunday morning and Matsuyo was alone in the house. The boys had wolfed down their breakfast and immediately headed outside. They would come back when they got hungry, she figured. Matsuzo had taken this opportunity to run out and pick up a few things from the grocery that they’d forgotten the previous day. So, Matsuyo, relishing the silence of the house and the early morning light pouring in through the windows, walked back to the bedroom and sat down at the piano.
For a moment, she just admired it. It was used, and small, but still very beautiful. There were a few scratches on the side, but she didn’t care. All the keys were still there. That was all that really mattered. She stretched her hands and cracked her knuckles, plucked at the keys experimentally. She was very rusty, and as she sounded it— she winced at all the wrong notes. After a few minutes of playing she started to get the hang of it again, and started to reminisce. As she played a soft refrain her mother had taught her, she thought of watching her mother play, of her mother’s gentle hands guiding her as she learned to play. She sighed. Sometimes she wished she had a daughter who she could dress up in frills and have quiet girl time with. The piano was for her, she knew that, but she wished any of the boys seemed interested in it.
“Mama?” a small voice said, and she felt a small tug on the back of her robe.
She turned, and found Ichi standing there, still wearing his pajamas, hair a mess. She wondered if the sleepy look was just making her think it was Ichi, but when he pointed wordlessly to the piano and made a curious little hum instead of asking about it outright, she knew it was him for sure.
“This is the piano Papa bought for me,” she said. He just nodded and then rubbed at his eyes sleepily. She smoothed down his hair and pulled him toward her a little by the back of his neck, kissing the top of his head. “Did you go back to sleep after breakfast, baby?” she asked. He nodded and then yawned, stretching. “Oh! Big stretch!” she chuckled.
Ichi climbed onto the bench beside her, scooting in close to her side. “Play more, Mama,” he mumbled, lisping. She looked down at him expectantly, one eyebrow raised. He sighed. “Play more, please.”
She hummed and started to play again, a bit more confidently this time. Once she was feeling comfortable enough to take her eyes away from her hands, she looked down at Ichi. His eyes were locked on her hands. He snuggled closer, warm at her side, one of his little hands gripping her robe. Matsuyo smiled to herself and started another song, the quiet between them comfortable as she tinkered with the keys, trying to remember how it went. Once it started to sound more like music, she glanced at Ichi and remarked, “Your grandma taught me this song. When I was a little girl, we had piano lessons every Sunday.”
Ichi just nodded. He paused for a moment, then said, swinging his legs, “Totoko Yowai takes piano.”
“Totoko is very talented,” Matsuyo hummed.
Matsuyo kept playing, and after a moment Ichi leaned forward and put his small hand on top of hers. She paused for a moment, heart warmed by the gesture, then took her hands off the keys and held them out to Ichi. “How about this. C’mere.” She patted her knees. Ichi climbed eagerly into her lap, grinning up at her. She started to play again, and he put his hands on top of hers, looking down at the piano and occasionally craning his neck to smile up at her. “Pretty cool, huh,” she remarked, clicking her tongue.
“Yeah, cool!” he answered.
Matsuyo leaned her cheek against the top of his head as she played, took a deep breath. He smelled like soap and like… Ichi, the way the top of his head had smelled since he was a baby. That smell was therapeutic, the quickest way to make her heart ache and remind her why she’d had children in the first place. She wondered how long it had been since the last time she’d had alone time with Ichi. A while, probably. She spent so much time just trying to keep her head above water that sometimes she forgot to slow down.
She finished the song, and wrapped her arms around Ichi, tickling his sides. He laughed and pushed at her hands. “All done!” she said. Ichi leaned forward and looked closely at the keys, then held out his hands, hovering just above the piano. He craned his neck to look up at her, giving her an imploring look. “Oh, do you wanna play?” she asked. He nodded, biting his bottom lip. When had he lost that front tooth? She put her hands on her hips. “What do you say?”
“Please!” he chirped.
“Okay,” she chuckled, wrapping her arms around him and giving him a squeeze before she took one of his little hands in hers and positioned his fingers over the keys. “Okay. Try that. Press down.” Ichi basically slammed on the keys, and Matsuyo squeaked, taking his hand in hers again. “Oh, oh! Whoa there, maestro! Not like that, we have to be gentle. Gentle hands like when you pet a cat.” That seemed to work, because when he tried it again, he pressed the keys much more gently. As she talked him through hot cross buns she thought about how obvious it should have been to her that he would be interested in the piano. Music was one of the few classes in school where Ichi actually did well and seemed interested. He tended to shut down, pout and refuse to work when he was forced to learn content he didn’t care about, but he always got high marks in music. Matsuyo had never really thought about it. She got too many report cards to read into them too much. But now, watching Ichi crinkle up his nose seriously as he plucked at the piano keys, she asked him about his music class at school as they played, and he talked to her about playing the triangle and laying on the floor while they listened to sad classical music and she wondered why they had never had this conversation before.
By the time the other boys came in yelling for her, hungry for lunch, Ichi had learned a few new songs and Matsuyo had learned a lot about Ichi.
As they walked down the hall to the kitchen, Ichi said, “Hey, Mama.”
“Mm-hm,” she hummed.
“Can we do this again next Sunday?”
She nodded. “Absolutely.”