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There is something strangely therapeutic about rehearsing for a show, regardless of one’s role. The soft bumps of white satin shoes being laced up onto tired feet were the first sounds of the lull that came before a show, before the anxious excitement. It wasn’t exactly showtime yet, for it was still nine o’clock in the morning and everything was being set up, but later that night, there would be a showtime. The second sounds of preparation were a duet of varying bumps of hard boxes hitting black floor, and the gentle tinny sounds of a violin being tuned.
Levi was never one to rehearse before a show. Sure, he’d touch a couple keys to see how the piano sounded in such a venue as this and get a feel for how it was tuned, but that was it. However, he hadn’t had the chance to check this particular piano (a grand, too, quite different from the upright he practiced on) and figured he might as well join the impromptu symphony of noises in the empty theater.
He wasn’t quite ready to give up his seat yet however, for Petra still hadn’t brought him his tea, and nothing got done until he had some tea in him. Instead, he was perched on the edge of the piano, hovering on the thin line between sliding off and putting too much weight on it. Instead, he observed the calm before the storm: dancers stretching, bows rosining, tuning. His eyes fell over the woman he called his other half, her hair tied up in its usual messy ponytail while she was practicing. Upon seeing her raise her bow to the strings of her instrument, he decided that his tea didn’t matter as much as it originally did.
The first piece they play has no real relevance to the show tonight. It’s actually one of the more difficult pieces for Hange to play, a complicated one she found on the internet in the background of a woman playing and dancing. It had some kind of funky dubstep mixed into it and she was instantly hooked, changing her warmup song from Canon in D to that song. As per his usual, Levi supplemented her playing.
He really could never get over watching her play. When she held that violin to her chin, her eyes took on a half-lidded sparkle and a small grin passed over her lips. She swayed slightly with the rhythm of the music, probably picturing the dancing woman in her head as she played. The spell was interrupted when he missed a note, earning a glare from her. Her eyebrows raised ever so slightly behind those silver framed glasses when she was irritated with him, her eyes narrowing along with them in a way entirely different from her spell before. They continued again without pause, recasting the spell.
The show was beautiful, to understate it. The dancers seemed to float across the stage in their feathered costumes, their tutus bouncing and their shoes slamming onto the floor with every jeté and plié barely audible under the orchestra. Levi barely had time to look up at Hange as his fingers flew across the glossy keys of his piano. The idea to replace the clarinets with the piano was Erwin’s idea, an although it was somewhat a lengthy and tedious job to play the part of two harmonies, it was a level of complicated to Levi that quietly made his heart leap just like those ballerinas in front of him. The finishing act was both a welcome break and a somber time. They’d play tomorrow night somewhere else of course, in a theater that maybe wasn’t as cold, but he would miss this theater. Their piano really was beautiful.
Perhaps more beautiful was the glow that Hange carried throughout the rest of the evening. They were already dressed up from the show, her in a simple cut-sleeve black dress that reached the floor and he in his usual black and white suit. He brought her to some low-lit fancy Italian restaurant, where the pasta was too expensive and the wine was plentiful. The handle of her violin peeked out of the top of her purse.
They chattered about nothing and everything all at once. At one point, a family sat down at the table next to their booth, a mother and a father and a little five-year-old girl with pigtails and a missing front tooth.
“Do you remember MRE’s?” Hange asked Levi at one point in the meal, earning a disgusted look in her direction.
“Do you remember having a normal shitting schedule? I think my memory’s screwed up, cause I don’t,” Levi answered her, earning a chuckle.
Hange felt a tug at her dress. “Don’t swear in front of children,” she chastises, looking over at the table next to them and then at her skirt. “Oh, hello,” she says in surprise.
The child from the table over is tugging at the swishy fabric of Hange’s dress, her eyes wide. “Can you play your viowin? Please? Pretty please?”
“You mustn’t talk to strangers, Penny,” the girl’s mother warned her, beckoning her back over. “I’m very sorry for my daughter, we’ve been trying to teach her…”
“No, I’ll play,” Hange decides after a moment of thought. She takes out the violin and bow, her body poised to play, only to pause again. “Levi, can you play my harmonica?”
He scowls, leaning over the seat to dig in her bag for the shiny black instrument. “Your spit’s all over this. Disgusting.”
“And you kiss me, you filthy being,” she retorts, testing a string. “Let’s play what we did today.”
Levi sighs, then draws in a deep breath as she begins to play. The harmonica is no piano, and it’s more of a hobby to him than a serious instrument, but it supplements the violin well enough anyways. The little kid’s loving it either way, jumping up and down in excitement and clutching Hange’s dress. She might ruin it. Levi knows Hange doesn’t care, so it doesn’t bother him much.
When they finish, there’s a hush over the restaurant. Then, all at once, there’s roaring clapping. Only Hange could drag Levi into playing in the middle of a crowded restaurant for a little kid. Only Hange could look so beautiful finishing that last note while her eyeliner was smeared and her foundation was turning orange at her hairline.
The excitement soon died down and their dinner was served. Levi preferred to take his time to eat while Hange ate anything and everything that was given to her, including the complimentary bread (three plates of it. Three.) The family next to them was actually finished before the couple, earning a smirk from Hange in Levi’s direction.
The father paused at their table, leaning down and whispering in Levi’s ear. He smelled like Old Spice aftershave and not enough sleep. “I see the way you look at her. That’s somethin’. Keep that.”
Levi felt heat rise to his ears. “Yessir.”
“Good night. Thank you for playing for Penny. She loved it,” the father directed towards Hange. She flipped her hand, shrugging it off and mumbling a no problem between mouthfuls of spaghetti.
Yeah, Hange was something, alright.