Work Text:
Sharp.
Lumine adjusts her hand position around the violin’s neck, shifting her finger back a millimeter on the string, and glides the bow across.
Flat.
She tries again to no avail. The sound fluctuates between various pitches of wrong. Nothing works like she knows it should. From its perch on the music stand, the ticking metronome laughs at her efforts.
The note doesn’t sound in tune until her hand contorts into an unnatural position with her fingers splayed in unfamiliar ways. Wrong. All so wrong.
Sitting the violin in her lap, she alternates between twisting the pegs and plucking the string, listening as the sound grows closer to in tune. She’s close to finishing—to returning to what she knows is familiar and correct—when the string reaches its breaking point. It snaps, releasing the tension to lash out and strike the top of her hand.
Lumine flinches. Immediately, blood pools to the surface, reddening the skin. A welt forms around the point of injury.
That’s all it ever takes for things to fall apart—a moment.
The piano bench squeaks as Aether rises. “Are you okay?” Squatting down, he takes her violin from her to inspect her wounded hand. Beads of blood peek out from the cut.
“I’m fine.”
His lips twist into a frown. “No, you’re not.”
With tired eyes, she traces over the arch of his mouth. That’s all she sees lately—upside-down smiles. They’re painted on her parents’ faces. They’re painted on Aether’s. They’d been painted on hers too. But at some point, her face must have grown tired of that constant downward pull. Now, it sits flat.
He pats her hand with a tissue. Red speckles stain the white, ruining the material. It’ll never be the same.
Staring at the crown of his head, she follows the whorl in his hair. “You think we’ll still be close?”
Aether’s head snaps up. “Of course, we will,” he spits. “What kind of question is that?”
Fallen out of use, her voice fails her. Apologies sit on the tip of her tongue, but Aether had said that sorry is something the rest of the house should say, not them.
“Hey.” He shakes her shoulder with his free hand. Gently, he says, “Hey. Look.”
She meets his gaze. Exhaustion sits in his eyes.
“Just because we’ll be apart doesn’t mean we’re going to fall apart. That’s not how we are. We’ll call each other every day. And I’ll find a way to visit. Promise! I’ll find a way. We won’t cut ties like them. We’re not our parents. We’re not.”
The corner of her mouth twitches down before returning to neutral. She doesn’t like to lie; this house has been filled with enough of them. But her face has bad habits and does so compulsively.
At the lack of response, he grips her shoulder a little firmer, a little tighter, a little closer. “We’re not,” he says, voice cracking. One tear slips free. Another follows, and then they don’t stop.
She drags him into a hug. “I know.” And maybe Aether does too.
Her shoulder grows wet as she stares at the sheets of music sprawled across the music stand. The metronome needle paces back and forth, steady in its ceaseless ticking, confident as if nothing can stop it from carrying on.
But Lumine knows. Nothing in this world is immune to time. Not violins. Not pianos. Not emotions. Not vows. Not promises. Not even the ones intended to be kept.
Eventually, everything falls out of tune then out of time. All it takes is a moment, less than a beat, shorter than a sixteenth note.
That’s all it ever takes.