InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Music of Me ❯ The Music of Me ( Chapter 1 )

-The Music of Me-
Broken Dreams

I long to play music the way my mother could. She understood the music of friends, the music of lovers, and the music between enemies. She longed to teach me when I was younger, but I was hopelessly uncoordinated, unable to play chords on a piano or strum a guitar as my fingers fumbled over frets.

I could sit all day at a piano and leave just as I came. Tutors were hired for me, but even still I could not find the music within me. I could never learn to play for others when I couldn’t find my own inner song.

My mother’s song was beautiful. It was the story of a woman who was strong, and adept. It was like the wind on a spring morning or the dew that sits so precariously warm at the end of winter.

I was afraid of my song. What would it sound like?

For a very long time I was lost. I was convinced that I couldn’t hear my music because I didn’t have any. Could it be possible that I carried with me no harmonies?

So I searched out my unique set of notes. Foolishly I had begun to think I could find them by listening to the music other people made. I thought that maybe there could be a piece of music that fit me so well; it would become part of my being. I did not understand then what I know now.

I went downtown every night. My mother started to worry, but I didn’t care. I had to find it.

Every genre of music I heard. Every different style, every single different instrument I memorized the sound. I could not find it.

I found other cities. I lived in other cities for the sole purpose of the night. I wandered the streets long after concerts or “Open Mic” nights ended. I could not concede, could not stop my search.

Getting on the night train towards the city became a singular thought through every single day. I went through my days inexorably listless, but that hadn’t mattered.

Everything changed the night I met him.

It was through my regular routine that I ended up at a small bar on the edge of the city. I had been here before, I was sure of it. I had no real memory of the particular place, but I’d lived too close to have avoided it before.

The moment he ascended the stairs, ready to take his place behind a tall microphone that I heard it. It was faint, but I could not resist its pull. The man before me, his inner music was wild. It bespoke of loneliness and strength.

He cleared his throat and adjusted his guitar. The people around me milled about the bar, not really paying attention to him. He held my attention, though.

I adjusted my coat and leaned forward as he started playing. His voice was rough and deep. His pitch flowed perfect with his notes.

So lost in the delight, I didn’t hear any of lyrics. I couldn’t even comprehend his words.

After three songs he was finished, but I needed more. He descended the stage and packed up his guitar.

Just as sudden his arrival had been, so was his departure.

I spent the next week thinking about him. I could not get his music out of my head. The wild trumpets and cymbals I could feel from him and the beautiful tamed pieces he played on his guitar alike.

All of my thoughts concentrated around him. I was unusually clumsy, I could hardly focus.

I went back one week after the first night and saw him again. Again, his inner music played for me. The music he played was stirring my insides, filling me with unbridled joy.

I had thought that I’d found my inner music at last.

Every week I went to watch him, and every week he was there. Like life support to a dying patient, I needed him. I felt as if I would stop breathing if he stopped playing his music.

For the first time in my life, I felt the thrumming of purpose in my life. His music defined me, gave way to an inevitable change within me. I could not stop returning to that little bar to see him.

My mother, after I told her of him, asked what he looked like. I didn’t know. I told her that he sounded marvelous.

That night I made it a point to study his face. Impossibly light hair that hung down to the stool he was in. When his eyes weren’t closed, they reflected a curious shade of gold. He was almost more enticing than his music, and I was floored that I hadn’t noticed.

A group of men sat at the end of the bar, quite obviously drunk. They jeered loudly, and I longed to stop the man from responding by stopping his set short.

I left before he was finished packing his things. As I pushed my way out of the doors, I realized that his music was slightly more subdued than usual. He seemed to be fading.

“Oi!”

The voice startled me, but I didn’t turn. After all, I didn’t know anyone up here. Everyone was classified as uncomfortable strangers, but I didn’t mind it too much, as long as I could listen to him.

“Oi! Wait!” She felt his hand before it connected with her wrist. He pulled at her, not unkindly.

I could hear it, unfamiliar music rising up within me. I turned to face the man who’d I’d been admiring for weeks and weeks. I couldn’t look him in the eye.

I could feel him studying me. Eyeing the ripped jeans, my white logo t-shirt and loose striped cardigan. Self-consciously I could not stop myself from pushing my thick rimmed glasses up the bridge of my nose.

“You’re here every week.” His tone was barely accusing and I noticed he had not relinquished his hold on my wrist. “Who are you?”

Finally I gathered myself enough to look at him. I found myself just as lost in him as the first night that I heard him play. “I… I…” I could not come up with an excuse.

He looked me up and down again. “Do you go there to listen to me?”

My eyes were locked onto his. I wanted so desperately to answer, to tell him that the music that came from his permeated my whole being. Instead, I could only push out a lame, “Yeah.”

He gave me an odd look. I couldn’t decipher it. Before I could even study it for a moment, he was pulling me, leading me away from the bar. “I’m going to take you to get some food.”

It wasn’t a question.

“T-Thanks…”

That first time, I was so nervous. That night went by far too quickly. He took me to a noodle shop nearly three blocks away from the place he’d come into my world. It was small and quiet, and I, after eating a rather large portion of noodles that he demanded I try, felt comfortable enough to finally speak.

And so did he. We talked about our families that night. We talked about his music and he found out how hopelessly untalented I was with instruments.

Illogically I stayed away too long and missed my train back home. It was too easy to get lost in him. His voice was devastating to my senses. The way his music enraptured me I could not stay away.

When he offered me a ride home, I naturally agreed. I was unaware it would be on a red sports bike. He didn’t have a second helmet, but that suited me just as well. I was pressed up close to him. It was the first time I could feel him.

It was startling to find out just how much power I could feel.

His flat stomach was warm under my fingertips and I could feel the muscles that strained when he moved just so. When he made a turn his back muscles contracted and stretched under my cheek.

The next week I showed up at the bar and he was there. We ended up at dinner again.

The pattern continued for nine weeks. I could not stop, and I felt like he was having the same problem.

Finally, after that ninth week I learned his name. It fit his music. Noru Inu-Yasha.

I gave him my number and he let me tell him my own name. He called me the next night, breaking the long standing tradition we had.

While it was slightly alarming, I could not help but to be relieved that my perceived journey was nigh at its close.

It was then that it hit me, as I hung up the phone with him. It was his music and I was nothing but a slave to it.

My own, it was still out there. I found that I didn’t care.

We went out the next night and the next, until we were seeing each other every single night.

He finally asked me why I had come to see him every single week.

“You… You make wonderful music. Not only on your guitar, Inu-Yasha.” I sighed airily and offered him a smile. It didn’t abate his confused gaze. “Your music comes from inside of you. It’s loud and untamable, but distinctly amazing.”

He gave me a winning smile, something he didn’t do very often. And then he said something that I had longed to hear my entire life. “Your music must be soft, then.” He gave me a long look. “I know it’s beautiful.”

That night I didn’t go home. It was the first time, but certainly not the last.

Six months and I was living in that small apartment. We made do. I was a nurse and he played his music. He played piano, and even tried teaching me.

I could not deny it; I was helplessly, recklessly in love.

And I was free from his music. I still heard it as clear as ever, but I had finally found my own.

It was a tumultuous mix of strings and bass; a steady strum of piano chords and winds.

I, Higurashi Kagome, was alive.



~*~
A/N: This was a strange muse.
I don’t know where it really came from, but I could not get it out of my head.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

<3

Original Post Date: July 23, 2008
Revisions: November 26, 2008

Just want to give a shout of thanks to my reviewers. You guys are really awesome. I read these reviews on one of the worst day’s I’ve had in a while and I was moved. Thanks so much for making me feel good. I felt like a few grammatical errors needed to be fixed up. I may do this again in the near future, I’m not sure yet. Trying to work on a few other projects and Uni classes, so we’ll see. Thanks reviewers for making my day. : )


Kawa-Misuterii – I can’t believe I did that. Haha, Oh man. That’s embarrassing.