Chapter Text
“Dinner is ready,” Harumichi Aoyagi’s voice filled Toya’s silent room, “Come eat,” he closed the door softly, the sound of the door closing being Toya’s cue to release the breath he subconsciously began holding.
Toya quickly finished the last question on his math homework, and slowly began making his way downstairs, feeling more like a prisoner on his way to execution than a son going to eat dinner with his father.
Toya sat on the opposite end of the table from his father, and they began eating in silence. This wasn’t uncommon in the Aoyagi household, even when Toya’s brothers and his mother were home from their overseas trips. There was no “How was school, son?” or “Have you talked to any pretty girls recently?”
Just silence.
That is, until his father spoke up, “Have you been practicing for your recital coming up, Toya? We don’t want you to be late on your entrance like you were last time.”
Toya felt a wave of nausea pass through him upon thinking about his last recital. Despite having practiced until his callouses bled, he managed to be just a second too late for his violin solo.
“Yes, father,” Toya replied simply, not wanting to upset his father with his excuses for his underwhelming performance.
“You know, Natsuomi and Shuji were never late when their solos came up during recitals, why can’t you be more like them? Maybe if you practiced more, then you wouldn’t be behind like this.”
Toya felt his nausea worsen upon the mention of his older brothers, and he lost his appetite. He began pushing his food around his plate, not knowing how to respond.
No matter what I say, he won’t accept it. I should’ve practiced more.
Toya was relatively sure that he had missed his mark during his last performance due to his lack of sleep, as he had spent the night before practicing until he physically couldn’t any longer.
“This upcoming recital has you doing a very impressive piano solo, Toya. If you mess this one up, I won’t hear the end of it from my fellow composers.”
Toya’s father was a famous classical composer, and therefore knew many influential composers of the same genre. Toya had spoken to a few of these men before, but he knew next to nothing of their opinions on him. From what his father had said, they all seemed to prefer his brothers over him.
“Yes, father. I won’t disappoint you this time,” Toya couldn’t bear to meet his father’s eyes as he cleaned up his plate and shamefully headed back upstairs to practice his piano solo for the next few hours.
This had become Toya’s routine. Practice piano and violin until he physically couldn’t any more, study until he knew the information like the back of his hand, practice more (making sure to memorize the notes and chords until he could perform in his sleep), perform at his orchestra or recital or concert or whatever his father had him doing, get yelled at by his father for not being good enough, and repeat.
Balancing his school studies and his music career proved difficult enough, so he rarely had any time for himself. Having friends was too difficult for Toya to devote time and energy to, and dating anyone was completely out of the question.
Toya can’t remember a time when his life wasn’t consumed by music and his performances, yet he could remember a time before this routine changed him.
He remembers when the beautiful strings of the violin and the sweet sounds of his piano would flow through him like a river, reverberating through his body. He remembers when playing music made him feel alive and when he found solace in the notes on the music staff.
Now, music has become the opposite for him. Every song he is forced to remember just acts as a test to try and to stop him from falling into a pattern of failure, leaving him tired and drained, a husk of who he was before.
He felt like an observer of his own life, not feeling anything, only seeing. Seeing how he was failing his father. Seeing how he would never be as good as his brothers. The sheet music he reads turns into essays of his shortcomings and his inadequacy.
He can find no relief, no way to feel anything other than despair and a looming sense of anxiety that won’t go away no matter what he does.
He tries to feel something, anything , but to no avail. He drinks his now tasteless coffee without letting it cool down, scalding himself in a futile attempt to feel.
His life had become monotonous and bland, each day duller than the last, his music blending together into a dissonant chorus that made his head hurt and his body ache. He was tired.
With every day that passed, he felt like he had lost another part of him. He felt less and less like a person, and more of a tool. He was a tool for his father to gain more respect among his peers, a tool to play music to crowds of people who would never even know his name. A tool for his father to puppeteer around until the strings broke and the joints stopped moving. With every performance, Toya felt himself fall deeper and deeper into his own pit of emptiness.
One day, maybe the pit would be big enough to swallow him whole, and he could finally know peace.
He could finally disappear.