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The summer afternoon was pleasant; Morishige sipped his tea by an open window, kept cool by the caress of the wind’s gentle breath. The soft sound of a not-too-distant violin accompanied the atmosphere, and the young lord closed his eyes for a moment. The sunlight was radiant on his eyelids, senses captivated for all but a moment.
Abruptly, the music stopped.
“No, no... that won’t do.”
Morishige almost smiled to himself; it was oddly pleasurable to hear his tutor tell someone off like that. He had never experienced such a thing. He abandoned what little of his tea remained and went to satisfy his curiosity.
“Try again. This time, as if you mean it.”
The woman was scolding a young man around his own age; finely dressed, his own kind of nobility, black hair catching the sunlight. He was breathtaking to look at; like one of the paintings his parents were so fond of had been granted the ability to draw breath. He looked the way of the intruder for only a moment, and Norishige met his eyes; gray, and intense for all that they were empty.
Perhaps he was simply sick of violin.
As he resumed the melody from the beginning - a Mendelssohn, a favourite of his tutor that Morishige had come to love himself - a strange feeling came over the room. How technically brilliant he was; there was not even a hint of discomfort in his high notes; a fluidity in his hands that Morishige himself could barely match, and yet, seeing him so up close, feeling the music he produced so sweetly, made something odd swirl inside of him.
A piece like this would almost move him to respectable tears; however he felt no such thing as he watched this young man play. That steely gaze of his was focused and desperately serious. No glimmer of anything cracked through him; this stoicism, such guarded silence, in the face of something so moving, was astonishing. It fascinated Morishige; he felt enchanted by this emotionless void. If he closed his eyes he could still feel it; that heavy, unmoving air of passionate apathy.
“Yuuya!”
Until he was interrupted once again, and the music came to a screeching halt that jolted Morishige out of his reverie. He almost wished to mutter the name to himself, now that he knew it . Yuuya.
“I'm going to fetch some tea. Sakutaro, perhaps you could teach him something - because goodness knows my words are lost on him.”
She sounded exasperated; the way she crinkled out of the room in that dress was anything but musical. “Blink twice if you require my help,” Morishige spoke, finally, and the stranger - Yuuya, the stone-hearted stranger - looked in his direction. It was as if he didn’t understand.
“Getting blood from a stone would be easier,” he said. What a voice he had; sonorous like the violin. Morishige stood up and extended his hand.
“Sakutaro Morishige.”
“Yuuya Kizami. Such unfortunate circumstances for a meeting.” Kizami was almost able to sound regretful, but the look on his face was nothing more than bored.
“I’m afraid there’s nothing i could teach you that you don’t already very well know... your playing was effortless indeed.”
“Your tutor seems to think I am an affront to art.” Morishige knew by the subtle scrunch in his facial expression that saying something so pompous was beyond him. It made him smile himself.
“No... I wouldn’t call it something so dismissive as that.”