Chapter 30: The tale of a Mourning Heart

I remember the first time I picked up the violin. Melting below the heat of my middle school summer. I waited for Mrs. Shizuka at her doorstep. That day, I knew Yata wasn't home. He had told me he went to his grandparents.

So I waited for his Mom to ask: 'How can I get closer to him?' She let out a feeble chuckle. Yata and I had befriended each other, so I figured she would. But as her lips opened, my slight sense of embarrassment crumbled.

"You love him, right?" Her earlier chuckle, gone. Her emerald eyes locked onto mine with a firm look. The devil had grasped hold of my heart. After I nervously nodded, she invited me inside with a gentle voice.

"I'll teach you to be next to him," Following the echo of her devilish words, I walked inside her house. From then on, I studied sign language under her direction. And introduced me to the violin.

While she didn't play it, she handed me a list of videos. All of them bearing one similarity. A piano-violin duet. Hoping to become something more than a friend, I became engrossed with music.

After hearing Yata acknowledge his feelings, something turned in my chest. My heart still yearning for sincerity now cries. In the echo of its cries, a single song played. A lonely song of an unattainable wish.

The sun dawned through the window of the music room. Yata's eyes searched for mine worriedly. But I couldn't face them, not before he hears my genuine cry. Through the one piece able to let them ring, Scheherazade, Op. 35's second movement in B minor.

After placing the violin over my shoulder, I close my eyes. Once my heart merged with the bow, I let it cry. Starting with a lonely, yearning lento. With gentle strides over the strings, I called for his ears. Silence followed, confirming his attention, I continued.

Pushing through its tears, my heart caressed the strings into an andante. As it told its tale through may what seem like elegant strides. But as they dragged into slower, sadder strides. One could see how the facade crumbles.

Still, I rushed into an allegro. Short yet fast strides entailing the struggle; the journey to just stand beside you, Yata. Spiraling down, my heart teared, but the hope; my wish turned to a fierce climb. As it returned to an allegro.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I plunged into the truth of my heart. The sad reality that my egoism will be unrequited. But as the piece continues and climbs to its epitome in an allegro molto. I too will plow through with my genuine feelings.

A violent, yet elegant dance leaked out of my bow. As I rampantly let it all out. A brief silence drowned the room. But that brief second was eternal. Finally, the unclimactic finale, just how it started. A sad, solitary lento, calling out to its listeners. This was the tale of my mourning heart.

I felt Yata's feeble gaze over me. Still, I couldn't meet it. Because I- I-

"I love you, always have." the words slipped out of my mouth. And once again, the silence made itself known.