Chapter Text
They climb, and climb, and climb, the slow notes on his violin, but still, stay whispered. Soft and controlled. Toward the inevitable climax. He doesn’t realize he’s swaying to his own music, eyes closed and devoted to the sound. It carries a gentleness in its strength and his chest expands around it. There’s a shiver in his spine when he hits the resolution, the brass would come here and-
A growl crashes his focus, his bow skids on the strings. His eyes flutter open, to the white walls of his apartment, the sun casting shadows by the window tells him it is late afternoon already and he remembers he hasn’t eaten anything since the two pieces of toast from this morning. The growl comes back full force, and his stomach is the culprit.
His fingers are tense around his bow, and his neck cracks when he stretches it.
God, he over practiced. And he’s starving.
He slowly puts down his violin, and steps into the kitchen. His whole body feels stiff. Half of him just wants to order something, but the other half is scolding him about the amount of money he has left. This other half, strangely, has the same voice as his mother.
It will just be rice then.
He would feel down about it; about living in this tiny apartment with thin walls at twenty-eight, in this grey building, in this dirty neighborhood. About the rice two nights out of three if he still wants to afford bubble tea or an evening out with his friends every now and then. About the shower sputtering either scalding water or what feels like ice cubes against his skin.
But he doesn’t. He finds himself admiring the new tags on the walls when he comes back from rehearsal, smiling when he can hear the children from the floor below giggling or arguing, enjoying every last drop of his bubble tea without resenting his very monochrome diet. He was ready for all of this when he became a professional musician, and it is worth every kind of struggle.
Brett is mostly happy with life.
The gas under the pan full of water comes to life with a crackling sound, and blue flames lick at the bottom of the stainless steel pot. He should have asked his mother for a rice cooker, he absently thinks as he stares at the water - maybe hoping for it to heat faster under his glare - images of hot pot and fried noodles behind his eyelids every time he blinks.
A knock on his door takes him out of food-orientated fantasies.
He hopes it’s not the dude next door, drunk out of his wits before 5 p.m, asking if Armanda is there, because Brett has no clue who Armanda is, even after being asked four times. And if she was this dude’s ex-girlfriend, he kind of understands why she’s not around anymore.
So he leaves the kitchen and opens the front door with maybe a little more force than necessary.
“Hey. Huh- I’m sorry to bother you, but was that you playing the violin?”
It’s not the drunk from next door.
The guy in front of him is insanely cute, and he shouldn’t be, with his wiry glasses, bunny teeth showing, messy hair and acne scars. But it somehow works for him. Maybe it’s the sparkles in his slanted eyes, maybe it’s the broad shoulders, maybe it’s that he's tall enough that Brett barely reaches his nose, maybe it’s the way his lower lip juts out, shiny and bitten. Whatever it is, it’s working.
He’s fidgeting with the hem of his black sweatshirt, as if embarrassed to even be here - one of his hands could probably cover both of Brett’s own.
“Depends, if it’s beautiful and smooth, that’s a recording. If you can hear the same bar being badly played thirty-two times in a row, a bit more angrily every time, then yeah that’s me.”
The guy bursts out laughing and relaxes his stance, he’s not even cute anymore, but handsome now. Brett feels really good about himself for bringing that expression on his face, and he knows the left corner of his lip is rising on its own.
Then there’s a whistle, the very recognizable sound of water boiling, splashing, and the gas going crazy.
“Fuck, the water!”
He’s halfway to the kitchen when he throws a look behind him to see the stranger, hesitant on his doorstep, head peeking inside the apartment.
“Just- just come in.”
The sun is streaming through the window, puddles of soft light caressing the furniture, gliding on the floor. Brett is putting the fire on the lowest setting when he hears the door closing, and taking rice from the cupboard above when the guy speaks again.
“I’m sorry, it really won’t take long. I’ll leave you to your…” he looks at the time on his phone and shrugs. “To your afternoon rice. It’s just- I just moved here, and I could hear you play so…”
He has known where this was going from the moment the guy mentioned the violin playing and he groans.
“I know, I’m very sorry. I’ll try to make less noise, but even with the mute on, the walls are damn thin, and I really need the practice, I’ve got this symphony by the end of the week and-”
“Oh. Oh no,” the guy is threading a hand through his hair, shaking his head with a smile and a small chuckle, managing to look both confident and shy. It’s strangely charming. “This isn’t a noise complaint.”
“What is it then?”
“I’m a musician too, and I really liked the way you played earlier. Sibelius 7th symphony, right? The first violin part?” Brett nods. “I- Huh. Oh God, this is awkward. I guess I kinda wanted to know if you would be up for some chamber music?”
*
His new neighbor’s name is Eddy Chen, he’s twenty-seven, he’s a violin teacher at the conservatory and he loves his job but misses the thrill of performing, the spark of making a piece come alive with other musicians. He accompanies some students on the piano, from time to time, but it doesn’t give him the satisfaction he’s looking for, he tells him. They make about the same amount of money, have about the same lack of free time, and joke about the harsh musician life. The similarities do not stop here, the guy is from Taiwan too, and around stories of their almost identical childhood, they find themselves ordering bubble tea, because they only have to talk about it for the craving to manifest itself. Brett offers to share his rice, but his kindness gets declined - something about having actual meals at proper times of the day. He rolls his eyes because he doesn’t understand how one can be a musician and have a healthy lifestyle.
Eddy has a dorky laugh, nice arms, and he keeps alternating between shy and excited, as if he forgets himself in the passion, then becomes afraid his enthusiasm about music will put Brett off. Which is ridiculous, because Brett is pretty sure he mentioned more than once in the conversation that he is a professional musician.
When the sun lowers its rays inside the kitchen, casting evening shadows over their faces, Eddy startles and looks at his phone.
“Shit. And here I said it wouldn’t take long. I’m sorry for taking your time. I should go back home, I still have some classes to prepare and it’s now an appropriate time to have an actual dinner too,” the look he sends Brett at that would be full of reproach if there wasn’t an amused spark in his eyes, and the corner of his lip twitching.
“Yeah, well, I’ll leave you to your healthy lifestyle and go back to my life of decadence then. It was nice meeting you Eddy, don’t worry, I enjoyed talking and chilling a bit after practicing all day.”
“Yeah, same. So, when are you free for chamber music?”
“I don’t have rehearsal on Mondays and Tuesdays, but with the concert coming up, I won’t have much time to do anything but practice. Just give me your number, I’ll tell you on WhatsApp when I can, but it’s probably not going to be before next week.”
“Yeah sure, I’m warning you though, you’ll have some competition in the ‘being the most noisy’ neighbor contest, because I have a tendency to practice at odd hours. So if another violin is interrupting your practice, it’s probably going to be me.”
“That’s another form of chamber music, hey. Let’s see who can be the loudest.”
“And get kicked out of the building in a week? I just moved here, man, I’m not ready to repack what little I’ve installed.”
They laugh, exchange one or two last banalities and say goodbye. The door closes behind Eddy, the sun has set.
He feels a bit unsettled in his own skin.
Brett is cleaning the mess on the kitchen table when he hears music from upstairs. More specifically the first violin part of the Sibelius Symphony No.7. It starts in the middle of the piece, so randomly it cannot be a coincidence, and he realizes it is the exact same spot where he left off when he went to make his rice.
He runs to his violin, trips on the foot of the low table in his living room and takes over the piece, giggling like a five years old boy when he hears the other going fortissimo from another side of the building.
Holy moly, this is so dumb.
The grin on his lips stays on his face until he falls asleep. His cheeks hurt a bit.
*
This keeps going on during the week, like the strangest and funniest flirt Brett ever took part in. They don’t even really text. Eddy will send him a message once a while, with the name of a piece and a question mark. Brett will answer by playing it loudly in the evening if he knows it, and wait for the other musician to take over. They manage to go over three different pieces like this, and Brett thinks he enjoys this a bit too much, with how childlike it is. They send each other secret smiles when they pass by each other in the stairway, but with the eye roll the old lady on the first floor gives them once, Brett guesses there’s not much secrets to have when the whole building can hear them. It is a wonder nobody complained yet.
*
Brett has to do a double take when he looks down at the public. There’s an awful lot of students for a classical concert. His eyebrows frown in confusion, before rising on his forehead when he meets the gaze of his neighbor in the audience. Brett barely has the time to gape before the conductor enters, and he can’t afford to focus on anything else but the music. He’s the concertmaster, he doesn’t have the leisure to screw up.
This time, when the music climbs and climbs and climbs, there is no hungry stomach to stop him, and he breathes with the melody. Release and reload the emotion. His chest never stops expanding around Sibelius and he feels big enough to swallow the universe.
*
“So, did you order the entirety of the conservatory student body to come to the concert?” Brett tries for casual, but he’s already smiling.
There’s noise all around them, musicians packing up, spectators discussing the performance, and it almost feels as if the music never stopped.
His neighbor has the decency to look somewhat embarrassed, but he’s grinning too.
“I didn’t order them, but I might have mentioned the concert in one or two of my classes. And the fact that Sibelius is one of my favorite composers. Something about an extra mark might also be open to interpretation, but I stayed vague on that.”
Brett is laughing when a girl passes by and waves at them.
“You were right! It was brilliant! Thank you for letting us know about the concert, have a good evening Professor Chen.”
“I’m glad you liked it, I’ll see you in class next week. Take care,” the teacher raises his hand and nods one last time to his student before zeroing his attention on him again.
“She’s right, your practice paid off, hey.”
But Brett’s having a difficult time focusing on his words, because Eddy in a sharp suit, hair falling prettily over his right eye, being called Professor Chen hits a bit different. There’s something about the man that’s definitely not shy now, a teacher persona that sticks to him like a second skin, soft but confident. Different from the man, cozy in his sweatshirt, that was almost stuttering in his kitchen when he asked Brett to play with him.
“Thanks,” he hears himself say by reflex, and he’s glad he sounds normal.
*
“Who was that?” Hyung has his eyebrows raised in judgement, following the retreating silhouette of Professor Chen - he will probably get over it at one point, but not tonight.
“The new neighbor I told you about.” There’s a smirk that starts growing on his friend’s face, and Brett definitely does not want to hear what’s going to come out of his mouth, so he adds quickly. “About that, can you come play with us next Tuesday? To maybe try and play a quartet? Eddy’s already got a violist friend coming.”
“Oh. So it’s not ‘the new neighbor’ , it’s ‘Eddy’. ”
“Yes, Hyung. Calling him ‘the new neighbor’ every time would be pretty impractical. So, can you come?”
“No I’ll leave you two alone, besides I have lunch with my sister on Tuesday, so maybe next time.”
“We won’t be alone,” he rolls his eyes. “I told you, he’s got friends coming.”
“If the friends never show up, that means he’s hitting on you,” Ray helpfully provides from where he’s shrugging his jacket on.
*
The friends never show up.
“So, when you said chamber music you meant…” Brett stares away from the music sheet to glance at the man beside him, violin dangling from his fingers.
He feels like a mix between sweatshirt-shy-neighbor-Eddy and suit-confident-Professor-Chen today, with the black jumper over his white dress shirt, sleek look broken by tousled hair and a soft smile. Brett wonders if the violinist made an effort this morning, if he ran his hands through his hair to have them artfully fall back on his forehead, knowing he would have Brett around this afternoon. Maybe wanting to impress him a little - it’s working.
Brett knows he did. Knows he changed shirts at least three times before leaving his apartment, then gave up, thinking he was ridiculous, because they would just be playing music and what he was wearing shouldn’t matter. But now he eyes Eddy, and maybe he should have changed a fourth time.
“Huh, yeah, sorry. Didn’t want to mislead you, but duets are still technically chamber music, hey.”
He was expecting- Brett doesn’t really know what he was expecting when he sent a message to his neighbor with his availability, but it wasn’t that. That being the two of them very much alone in Eddy’s living room, the only music sheets out being for duets, and bubble tea on a corner of the table. Ray’s laughing face pops into his mind.
“Are you hitting on me?”
“What?” Eddy’s jaw drops as his face starts going crimson. “No. No, no, I swear it’s for the music! This isn’t an elaborate ploy or anything. I just really- I really just want to play!”
“It’s okay if you are,” Brett can’t help but answer, lips twitching up.
The guy becomes so red he can’t even stutter his next words out and just gives up, firmly grabbing his violin without looking at Brett.
“I’ll have other friends coming for the quartet. I just couldn’t convince them to come today,” he finally mumbles, defending himself in the middle of tuning.
“If you say so,” Brett can’t stop smiling by now, and his face is hurting from trying to contain it.
“No, look!” Eddy is taking his phone from his pocket and shoving it under his nose. It’s a Messenger group chat titled ‘Save Eddy from himself’ and he doesn’t even want to guess. “See? The last messages! The pianist is the one saying I’ll be there next week, and Me too is from the violist.”
“It’s okay, I don’t need to see your private convo,” Brett is fully laughing by now, pushing the screen away from himself. “I believe you, I was just messing with you.”
“Oh my God, you- I can’t believe you! My friends and colleagues tease me enough with that. I don’t need the source of the teasing to be part of it.”
“Ha, sorry, I couldn’t help it,” he chuckles. “If it makes you feel better, my friends are doing it too. The day you came to our concert, my cellist friend was all,” he wiggles his eyebrow, getting a snort from Eddy, whose face is still pink.
“Yeah, you would believe it’s impossible to make friends now,” his neighbor agrees, going over a quick scale to warm up. “You just have to mention you’ve been talking to someone cute once, and everybody becomes crazy.”
“Am I someone cute?”
“Holy- would you stop it?”
Brett is laughing so hard he sounds a bit like a Gremlin, but Eddy doesn’t seem to mind, if the smile on the corner of his lips is any indication.
“Maybe we should play something now? That’s the whole reason you’re here.”
“Hey, for once, the neighbors will actually hear us play together, instead of aggressively taking over the same piece from different floors of the building.”
They spend the next few hours going over music sheets, testing the difficulty, the melody, how good or bad they sound together, laughing occasionally, when they do something especially bad, grinning when they sound especially good. There is a special kind of sharp softness to Eddy’s playing, when they’re not goofing around. He seems to like the slow pieces better, closing his eyes and melting into it, like he isn’t really there anymore, opening his chest without realizing, and what is inside seems fragile but powerful. Brett remembers him saying - Sibelius is one of my favorite composers - and, oh. How good the Sibelius violin concerto would feel on him.
They settle on the Wieniawski Etude-Caprice, because it’s new for the both of them, and it’s short enough it won’t eat on their already packed schedule. Then Eddy throws a forlorn look at the pile of boxes cluttering the room and sighs. Save for those, the apartment is tidy enough; the grand piano occupies most of the living space - Brett doesn’t even want to know how it was brought up here, the stairs are definitely narrow - there is a mug of tea forgotten on the low table, next to a laptop, their now empty cups of bubble tea, a bunch of papers and music sheets thrown around and miscellaneous items, but the place doesn’t feel quite lived in yet.
“That was nice, we should do that again! Work on the duet a bit, and maybe a quartet or a quintet if our other friends ever decide to come,” the professor smiles at him, putting down his violin before stretching. “But I’m afraid my place is going to be a bit too small for five musicians. And that noise complaint will happen.”
“Yeah, maybe we can use one of the practice rooms of my orchestra, since we’re not rehearsing on Mondays and Tuesdays, I’ll ask and let you know. But as long as it’s just the both of us, your place or mine is fine I think. I mean, we managed some interesting music the past week, without even being in the same apartment.”
There it is, this shyness that comes without warning, vibrating under Eddy’s laugh, creeping in his eyes, Brett wants to tell him there’s nothing to be embarrassed about, that he enjoyed their weird musical back and forth, whatever it was motivated by. But it feels a bit too revealing, so he doesn’t say anything more, just waits for his neighbor to scramble some confidence and answer.
“You were right, though, the walls are too damn thin, it’s crazy. I don’t think any kind of intimacy is possible in this building.”
Brett opens his mouth.
“I swear to God, if you make any comment about my sentence being suggestive, I’m throwing you out,” Eddy warns with squinted eyes, pink already scrambling up on his cheeks.
Brett closes his mouth, lips tight around his badly contained smile. He doesn’t even really know what’s taking over him, there is this strange elation bursting in his chest when he manages to get a cute reaction from the violin teacher, that makes him want to jump around and joke until he can see the tears of laughter in the other’s eyes. He feels unstoppable.
“On second thought, I’ll probably have to throw you out anyway,” Eddy sighs and points to the stacks of boxes. “I still have tons of stuff to unpack before this shitty apartment starts feeling like a home. Thank you for today though, I really appreciate you taking some time off your busy orchestral musician practice to play with me.”
“Anytime, it was fun!”
They are smiling at each other, awkwardly standing in the living room, and neither is moving. For some reason, Brett doesn’t want to leave just yet. The place is exactly as tiny as his own, and there is nothing much to do apart from playing music, which is what they have done for the past three hours.
“Do you need help with unpacking?”
As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Brett wants to take them back. The guy is so easy to be around, the discussion between them flowing so freely, he almost forgot he has known him for no more than two weeks. And unpacking is- unpacking is intimate in a way, unraveling bits and pieces of your private life and setting them around you to make a home, building your own space. He’s a bit scared Eddy will think it’s too intrusive, will get embarrassed and pull back. But then it is too late anyway, and the rational part of his brain reminds him the teacher actually asked him to come here and play, multiple times, bought bubble tea for them and played violin for him at odd hours of the evening. So it should be fine. It should be.
His neighbor still looks a bit taken aback, blinks and scratches his head.
“I- Huh- yeah, sure. If it’s not too much trouble, but it’s okay really. You don’t need to. You must be tired and everything.”
“Nah, it’s cool. I’m done with practice for today anyway, so I don’t have anything important to do.”
Eddy’s grin is bright and happy, and warmth spreads from Brett’s chest to his stomach.
They move around carrying boxes, and he’s in charge of the kitchen while Eddy is putting away the packed clothes in his closet.
“How long do you think you’ll be staying?” he doesn’t even have to raise his voice to be heard, even if the other man is in a different room. The couple that lives next door can probably hear their whole discussion if they pay any attention.
“A while probably, my position at the con feels pretty permanent, and I don’t think I’ll have the money to rent a better place somewhere else. Plus, the neighbors are nice around here,” there is a lilt to his voice as he utters the last sentence.
“And then you say you’re not flirting…” Brett smirks as he puts a ladle into a drawer - none of those kitchen appliances seems to have ever been used.
“So you’re saying the neighbors aren’t nice around here? I’m sorry I can’t compliment the lovely people of this building without being accused of hitting on someone.”
Brett fully laughs at that; as much as he finds the blushing and the stuttering adorable, it’s nice that after spending most of the day together, his neighbor has built up enough confidence around him to tease back.
“You should meet the guy next door from my place before calling all the people here lovely. If someone knocks on your door at strange hours, and starts yelling about an Armanda, don’t answer. Hey, where do you want to put the blue flowered plates?”
“Cupboard left of the oven. And that sounds like the beginning of a horror story.”
“At least, if you start screaming the whole building will hear you. Maybe someone will be brave enough to help.”
“Won’t that someone be you?”
“Dude. Have you seen my arms? My height? I’m pretty sure you’re going to do a much better job at defending yourself without me around. You can throw those beautiful floral plates at whatever is threatening you.”
“I wouldn’t dare, my mother gave them to me. If she ever comes to visit and can’t see them, she won’t care that I used them to defend myself from a psychopath.”
The discussion keeps flowing, and some part of Brett can’t believe this is happening. That he feels so at ease around this person he didn’t know existed two weeks ago, that he wants to play with him again, to hear more life stories, to see the other facets of his personality, spanning from shy to confident. Every shade. He wants to hear him give a class, see if he’s a good teacher, wants to hear him play seriously, maybe a concerto or a sonata.
“Hey, it’s getting late, I think that’s enough unpacking for today. Do you want some dinner with me since you’re already here?” Eddy is smiling at him, his bunny teeth are showing, his sleeves are rolled up and his hair is messier than earlier, sticking up in odd places.
There’s a strange pang of longing for this man he barely knows in Brett’s chest.
“Yeah, sure. Plus your kitchen is almost operational now,” he declares, proud of his work.
“I would offer to cook something for you as a thank you, but I’m a disaster in the kitchen. I pretty much only use the coffee maker.”
“Well, I know how to make rice.”
Eddy burst out laughing, and Brett knows he isn't that funny, but it’s nice to have someone enjoying his attempts at humor that much.
“Yeah, I remember that. But I have nothing to eat it with, and I want more than white rice after today. What do you think about take-out? My treat, since you helped me so much.”
“I mean, I’m not gonna say no to free food.”
*
A few floors below, they can hear the kids screaming, some kind of cutlery falling, and the voice of the mother yelling at them to ‘please eat your soup without throwing spoons at each other’.
They share a look over the spicy chicken, and start giggling.
“Is it always like that?” Eddy asks around a mouthful.
“Yeah, I swear this building is so chaotic,” he shakes his head with a smile.
“You sound fond.”
“I like it here, weirdly enough.”
“Mh,” his neighbor is looking at him, chin propped up on the palm of his left hand, chopsticks unmoving in the other. There is something gentle on his face, swimming in the dark brown of his eyes, gliding on the curve of his lip, and Brett’s tongue is dry.
Then there’s more shouting - That’s enough, the three of you, to your bedroom! Now! - and the moment is broken.
“I don’t remember being this rowdy as a child,” Eddy shakes himself out of it and chuckles. “Though my sister and I avoided many a slipper.”
“Ah. Asian parents.”
“Yeah.”
They fall into a comfortable silence, happy to munch on the take-out Chinese food spread between the two of them. There’s not a lot, but it’s enough, and definitely better than white rice.
The conversation starts back from time to time, exchanges of trivia, and tidbits of their life. Nothing too personal, but enough that, by the end of the meal, Brett feels like he has known this other musician his whole life.
Eddy’s sister is a musician too, she plays the piano and is the one who got the professor into music in the first place, so Brett talks about his little brother who saved the family’s honor by becoming a doctor.
Eddy doesn’t take himself very seriously, and thinks the world would be a better place if people learned to chill, so Brett tells if he had one advice he would give his younger self, it would be to chill out.
Eddy is introverted, but likes hanging out with friends and can talk quite a lot when he feels at ease, so Brett laugh about being extroverted and doing stupid challenges in high school where he would be dared to serenade random people on the violin.
There’s brightness between their shared laughter, and a day spent playing some duets and helping a neighbor settle a kitchen that’ll never be used shouldn’t leave Brett feeling so fulfilled.
“The advantage of hanging out with your neighbor is you don’t have to dread the drive back to your place, however tired you are,” he yawns, violin case in his hand, ready to crash in his bed and fall asleep smiling to the memories of today.
Eddy shrugs with a small - yeah - and the shyness is back. His hands are nervous, fingers playing with the hem of his rolled sleeve and his tongue darts to wet his lips. He looks small, like he wants to retreat inside his own body when he says without looking at him:
“But maybe- Maybe we’re friends too, now?”
This is so stupidly adorable and childish Brett wants to hug the insecurity out of this twenty seven years old big baby.
“Yeah,” he chuckles, “Yeah, I think we can say we’re friends.”
Dread starts climbing in the other’s eyes, as if he just realized what came out of his mouth and a blush takes over his face.
“Fuck. I sounded so lame I’m-”
“It’s okay,” he interrupts with laughter in his voice. “It’s okay, really, it was cute. I’m glad I’m your friend. Good night Eddy.”
“Good night Brett.”
And as he goes down the stairs toward his own apartment, he hears a mortified groan, and the bang of what he’s pretty sure is the collision of Eddy’s forehead against the kitchen table.
He laughs so loudly some of the neighbors shush him.