Work Text:
The sound of a guitar echoed quietly in the night. A soft sound, a missed chord, then another. Hitori Gotoh was one year into middle school. She had spent nearly all her free time for 365 days practicing guitar. She was still only barely able to play.
With a resigned sigh Hitori stopped recording. The channel was a fresh thing she had started once she got her bearings on the instrument. Still, she had to practice each song for weeks to near perfection before she felt comfortable even thinking of making a video. Her sound was still messy and unprofessional. At this rate she would never become popular.
Why had Hitori even bothered to begin doing this in the first place? It was just like anything else she had tried. She was untalented, and no amount of hard work on music would make her presentable as a normal human being. It wouldn't get her any friends, not like this. She would remain lonely, unapproachable, awkward and weird.
Hitori's reputation for middle school had already been set. Maybe by high school she would be good enough at playing that she could turn this around. But her, be good enough? The chances of that were slim to none. She would just have to keep on rolling, with no friends, no opportunities and a dim future ahead of her.
Laying down on the closet floor, Hitori put on a playlist and let the music float through her mind. Rock'n Roll, Morning Light Falls on You. She really liked this song. She had practiced it maybe more than a thousand times. It was the only thing she could play perfectly. Even if she wasn't a great guitarist herself, at least she had discovered in the last year that music had a way of easing her mind.
Hitori began playing along to the music. Softly singing along to the lyrics that had repeatedly kept her from giving up. She would probably never be a star. Those delusions of grandeur were so far away now she could barely see them anymore. But music is what she was, it's the only thing she has. So Hitori kept playing. Each strum of the guitar keeping her grounded to the world. Someday, through these notes and this sound, some would hear her voice.
Hitori was sure of that much.