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As a child, Jean hated music. His mother forced him into it, took him to piano lessons he didn’t want to attend and made him practise for hours every day until he could play his competition pieces perfectly. The competitions were the worst part. Coming second, third all the time frustrated him even more than it frustrated his mother. What had he been doing it all for, he thought? What was the point in all those hours of practise if he didn’t get to win at the end? It didn’t make sense. So when he left high school, he gave it up, focused on what he thought was a more realistic career. It broke his mother’s heart, but Jean didn’t care. It was his life, and Jean was going to do what he wanted with it.
For a while, he felt free without his mother’s constant nagging, and he loved being able to do what he wanted in his free time after having gone his whole life being forced to play the piano. Jean knew his mother loved him. She was just a strict woman, and he resented her for it until it was too late.
Shortly after he graduated from law school, she passed away. And Jean found himself longing for music again, to feel close to her memory. There was a hole in his heart that he knew only the piano could fill but after all those years he was too scared to go back.
And then the pianist moved in below him.
He played at all hours of the day and night, and Jean could hear it through the floor. He was good. Really good. If it had been anything else, the noise would have turned Jean crazy, driven him to write up a noise complaint like several of the other neighbours had done. But he couldn’t stop listening.
Sometimes, a piece came through the floor that reminded of his mother, and Jean would sit there on the kitchen tile just listening, thinking of her. He thought of all the arguments, of all the times he hadn’t expressed himself properly and said hurtful things and rejected the only thing he had in common with her.
The music he played, muffled by the floor between them, made Jean feel. Was this what his mother had been talking about when she said you had to feel the melody in your bones? Jean had always focused on pressing the keys when the sheet told him to, following the notation exactly, but the way his downstairs neighbour played sounded different. Jean didn’t know why. Some of them were the same songs he had heard a thousand times, ones he’d learnt by heart under his mother’s watch. It got to the point where he was sat on the floor with his ear against the glass, trying to hear him better. He knew every note, so why did they sound totally different? He needed to learn more about this, needed to try and understand.
So he started leaving requests.
When the slip of paper came under his door, Armin thought it was another noise complaint. He'd glared at the paper as he unfolded it, shoulders hunched defensively, wishing people would understand that he needed to practise.
He blinked when he saw was written there.
Prelude in E Minor (op.28 no. 4). Chopin. If you know it.
The corners of Armin’s mouth twitched. Of course he knew it. What pianist didn’t?
As he sat down to play, Armin wondered who could have sent him the note. The people in this apartment block kept to themselves for the most part, unless it was to complain. The idea that there was one person that didn’t find him irritating was a blessing. At least he knew he wasn’t annoying everyone. But what were they like?
Whoever they were, Armin hoped they liked it. He took his time as he played, letting himself get lost in the slowly descending melody, feeling the emotions in every measure. This piece always pulled on his heartstrings, made him feel a longing for something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He wondered if his anonymous listener felt the same.
Months passed. Armin kept practising, though he kept it down at night. He got more slips of paper under his door. Whoever this person was, they had interesting taste. The pieces they asked for weren’t things Armin usually went for, but he appreciated the variety. Sometimes he got stuck playing the same few pieces over and over, but now he got to branch out.
Armin found himself thinking about them all the time. Who was this silent person? They obviously knew a lot about music. He wanted to meet them, to talk about all of these pieces and the piano and ask why they wanted to hear him playing through the walls so badly when there were countless recordings of them on the internet.
His curiosity was killing him, so one day when he got home from university, he decided to wait near the door and see if the person left another note. It took almost a week before he managed to catch it - he was in the kitchen when he heard the paper slide under the door, and Armin raced to go and open it.
The person standing on the other side was... nothing like he’d been expecting at all.
Armin had been almost sure they were elderly, maybe an old grandmother who lived with five cats and didn’t have an internet connection. At the very least, he hadn’t expected the mystery person to be around his age.
But he was. And he was gorgeous.
Tall, with long hair and intense eyes and slight facial hair that showed off his jawline. Armin was stunned to the point of complete silence, just staring at him. What on earth? Why was this beautiful man sending him requests under his door?
“Uh, sorry, I - can I help you?” Armin asked, sounding like an idiot, cursing himself.
The man was staring at him. Armin was sure his face couldn’t get any redder, and he bent down and picked up the slip of paper just so he had something to do.
“ You’re the one playing the piano?” He said.
Armin thought he has a nice voice. A really nice voice.
“Nobody else lives here,” he mumbled, unfolding the note. He raised his eyebrows. “Rachmaninoff? You don’t request the easy pieces, do you?”
“You’re more than capable,” the man said, and Armin was suddenly aware that they were still in the doorway and he didn’t even know his name.
“Uh, thank you, I guess. I’m Armin.”
“Jean.”
They stood and looked at each other. Armin’s heart was racing.
“Do you, uh, do you want to come in? I can play for you…?”
God, what was he doing, inviting a stranger into his home - a handsome one, at that? Did he have a death wish? There was something, though - something about him and the pieces he chose that made Armin feel like he already knew him.
Jean blinked.
“Yeah, alright,” he said, stepping in and looking down the hall, noticing the piano that took up the whole of the living room. “A Steinway?”
“It was my grandfather’s,” Armin admitted, scratching his neck, embarrassed. “Do you play?”
“No,” Jean said quietly. Armin thought that sounded like a lie, judging by the sadness and regret he could hear in his tone. “Not anymore.”
Ah, there it was.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” Armin asked, motioning to the kitchen. He wanted to do something to relieve the tension.
“Yeah, go on then. Thank you.”
As Armin busied himself in the kitchen, Jean walked over towards the piano. He hadn’t been this close to one in years. Especially not a Steinway. He’d only ever played those at competitions. In Armin’s living room, other than the piano, there was only a small loveseat and a bookshelf which was practically overflowing with sheet music. This was the home of someone who lived and breathed music.
He couldn’t stop himself as he sat down at the piano. He yelled at himself to stop as he adjusted the seat up and set his feet on the pedals. What was he doing , just walking into a stranger’s home and thinking he could play his piano?
“You can play it if you want to,” Armin said, making him almost jump out of his skin. Jean turned around to see him standing in the doorway holding two steaming mugs of tea.
“No, I, uh, it’s fine,” Jean said, moving the seat back down and standing up.
“No, I’m curious now,” Armin went on, sitting down on the small sofa and setting down both mugs on the floor. “You can play, right?”
“I haven’t in nearly four years, now,” Jean said, wondering why he was opening up a little. He never talked about himself if he could help it.
“Why not?” Armin asked.
“Why not?” Jean repeated, looking away for a moment. “Because I hate it.”
“The piano.”
“Yeah.”
“You hate the piano?”
Jean sighed. “I don’t know.”
“You know, sliding requests under someone’s door for months doesn’t exactly scream ‘I hate the piano’ to me.”
“It’s complicated,” Jean sighed. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he should go now, before this got any more awkward.
“Doesn’t have to be. Why not just try and play something? Sit down.”
For some reason, Jean did as he was told, adjusting the seat for the third time.
“What do I play?”
“Can you play that Chopin piece from the first time? Do you need the sheet music for that?”
Jean lifted the lid on the piano and held his hands over the keys. It was muscle memory, all the notes coming back to him before he even pressed down. He took a deep breath and started to play, wondering what the hell he was doing. He could feel Armin’s eyes on him, and even worse, he knew he was listening.
This was just the same as before, as he pressed all the keys at the right time with the right pressure for just the right length. Everything was perfect. But it sounded nothing like it did when Armin had played it. It sounded like frustration, Jean thought, as he got to the end and the final chord had none of its usual satisfaction.
Armin waited for the final note to stop ringing out before he spoke.
“I understand what you said about it being complicated,” he said, and Jean looked up at him, confused. “Were you forced a lot to play the piano growing up?”
Jean looked at him in shock. He could tell?
“Yeah,” he said simply, still surprised.
“And you didn’t like it?”
“Not at all. But… I like the way you play.”
“It’s because I take the time to feel the music,” Armin said, and Jean felt his stomach flip. That was exactly what his mother was always telling him.
“I don’t get it,” Jean said frustratedly, getting up from the stool. “How are you supposed to do that?”
“And people tell me I’m too analytical,” Armin murmured as he took Jean’s place. “It’s not about following the score exactly how it was written. It’s about trying to understand what Chopin was trying to say. Just… alright, I’ll play it now. And think about… think about someone you’ve lost, or had to say goodbye to. Then you’ll get it.”
Jean wanted to scoff at him, but he was the expert, so he bit his cheek and followed his advice.
And it only took the first few bars, but Jean got it. The piece seemed to come alive when Armin played it, and it was as if Jean was feeling all the things his mother felt when she listened to music, how passionate she was, how she got frustrated with Jean for never understanding what he was doing wrong.
It sounded so beautiful, even though he was holding some notes on too much and letting them linger for longer than the score told him to. It made it better, even though it was supposed to be wrong. As he played, Jean imagined all the good times he’d spent with his mother, few that they were amongst the bad ones; he thought about how he never really got to say goodbye, or tell her the things he was too proud to say.
When Armin reached the final chord it felt strangely like coming home.
“What the hell,” Jean whispered when he was finished.
“You just have to play with emotion,” Armin said matter of factly, like Jean hadn’t just had his mind blown.
“Will you teach me?” Jean blurted out, much too fast.
Armin looked at him over the rim of his glasses.
“Of course I can,” he said, smiling a little. “Now, do you want to hear the Rachmaninoff?”