Chapter Text
"You know," Kanon says. "I haven't walked in on any of your lessons, yet."
Strictly speaking, she's not really allowed to in the first place—her mom tries her best to make her lesson room feel like a proper classroom, even if it is smack dab in the middle of the Oikawa household, meaning no daughters allowed. Kanon sticks to the prefab anyway, but she knows Rinne has gotten chewed out more than once for barging into the space.
They're hanging out in the prefab, as usual—Saki walked home with Kanon, or, walked to her piano lesson, really, but when that was over the rest of her afternoon, naturally, became Kanon's. Which, naturally, means lazing around together on the couch, doing nothing in particular.
"Good." Saki says back, with feeling. "They're kind of bloodbaths."
Kanon snorts. She can't help it! She doesn't get to see Saki look so disgruntled very often. The scrunch of her nose, her brow wrinkling—it's cute.
"Still?" Kanon asks.
"Still," Saki confirms. "Never as bad as the first lesson, but."
"If it makes you feel any better," Kanon offers, "I think you might just end up as mom's favorite, at the rate you're going. And she tries really hard not to play favorites."
"I'm sure it helps that I'm friends with her daughter," Saki grumbles. The girl can't take a compliment, Kanon remembers.
"No," she doubles down, shuffling rightward toward Saki on the couch to shoulder-check her, their thighs pressing together. Saki stiffens a little. "As a student."
Saki looks at her reproachfully. "She certainly has a funny way of showing it."
"She does," Kanon laughs, wincing a little in sympathy. "But I mean it. You know, the first thing she said to me at dinner after your first lesson was, 'your friend has potential?'"
"Really?"
"Yup." Kanon smiles. "Then she used you as a sneaky excuse to try to ask me about school."
Saki laughs, and Kanon realizes she likes that she does. That Saki knows her well enough now, barely a month into the school year, to know this is an idle grumbling, not a real grievance.
"This is just about my Claire de Lune again, isn't it." Saki accuses, suddenly. "You haven't dropped it since the sleepover."
"So what if it is," Kanon says, defensively.
"I knew it! You're relentless." Saki shakes her head. "And absolutely forbidden from spying on my lessons, for that matter."
Kanon pouts; Saki is unmoved. "How do you expect me to concentrate, with you staring?"
"Why," Kanon murmurs, switching tactics, sidling even closer. "Performance anxiety?"
Saki sputters. There's that blush again, Kanon thinks. All the way to her ears. There's a strange thrill of satisfaction, like she's writing something good and knows it.
Then Saki smacks her shoulder. "What was that," she says, laughing, "another line from a book?"
"No," Kanon says, mock-proudly. "That was an original."
Saki shakes her head fondly. "Why do you want to sit in so badly, anyway?"
"I just get curious, I guess?" At some point in the last few minutes, the book Kanon's been reading has fallen off its perch on her thigh and onto the floor; she picks it up and places it next to her on the couch. "What you're like when you're playing. It's a side of you I don't really get to see."
"In a way, you're being jealous of your mom, you know," Saki says.
Kanon giggles. "Maybe I am then! Whatever. Doesn't mean I don't want to see it."
"Well you can't." Saki says, firmly. "Not right now, at least. I'm kind of between repertoire right now."
"So?"
"So it's embarrassing!" Saki wails. "I'm not ready. You don't want to see me flounder, do you?"
Oh, I don't know, Kanon thinks. It's kind of a cute look on you.
"You're like a bride on your wedding day, you know," she teases. It's fun; sue her. "Can't be seen until your big moment."
Instantly, Saki's expression goes blank. Kanon freezes. Too far, maybe? Something she said?
"Sorry," Kanon blurts, feeling a little more panicked than she expects to.
"You don't need to apologize," Saki clarifies, quickly, her voice normal. "Just—wait for me to get my bearings? With the piece."
"Deal," Kanon says, relieved, and then she picks her book back up.
"You should take it as a compliment, you know," Rinne says.
Saki's here to help her study, but Rinne's gotten the hang of completing the square pretty quickly; she's mostly doing her homework now, and chatting Saki's ear off. Not that she minds at all—Rinne's a good kid, and Saki's mostly relieved that the girl seems to genuinely like her now.
"I mean, she's never taken an interest in anyone else's playing since. Well, you know," Rinne trails off. "I'll see sheet music out in the prefab sometimes, but I think she just doesn't really like seeing mom in teacher mode with other students. Makes her miss it more than she wants to."
"Ah," Saki murmurs. "That makes sense."
"So you must be really special, you know?" Rinne spins her pen on her fingers.
"Still," Saki says. "I'm not exactly ready for it."
"Well, you better get ready quick," Rinne declares. She pushes the sheets of paper in front of her away, then reaches upward in a leisurely stretch. "Between you and me, I've heard mom on the phone with other piano teachers in the area. I think she's looking to put together a recital."
"That's different." Saki bites her lip. "Umehara-sensei used to put together recitals every year. I didn't love them, but I'm fairly used to it."
"So what's the issue then?" Rinne asks.
"Kanon's different." Saki shrugs. Rinne gives her a look, but says nothing.
In the end, it doesn't happen for a long time, for a bunch of reasons. The choir competition, for one, and then the recital, and then the sports festival and—quite a lot happens very quickly, it turns out, in a life with Kindaichi Saki in it. Kanon only grows more aware of how precious that is with every month that passes in their first year, more anxious about it, pushes herself more and more to stay by Saki's side, and Saki, well. Things change; the rain stops.
It's the first term of Kanon's second year now, and she finds herself with real responsibility in the Literature Club, which—considering their membership, which isn't dire anymore, but still modest—doesn't exactly count for much, but still. Kanon's talked it over with Tanabe and the others, and they want to try their hand at more regular club activities, besides the student contests Miura-sensei ropes them into: a running book club, definitely, and maybe a couple of writing workshops here and there, even a quarterly lit mag.
She's proud of what the club is becoming. And it's probably a little bit of Saki's influence, but Kanon is proud of herself too—it's a little piece of school life she's cultivating for herself, and it's flourishing, now. Every time she leaves club, she feels a little more ready for the future. Her and Saki's future.
Okay, so she still can't seem to go five minutes without thinking about Saki. So what? That's her girlfriend, after all.
The walk home goes by in a blur. Her mom would probably chew her out—"you have to remember to pay extra attention to your surroundings!"—but it's almost summer and the sun is still high in the sky at this time of day and yes she looks both ways at every crosswalk and everything and Kanon has someone she's just dying to see.
"I'm home!" she calls out, swinging the prefab's door wide open.
Saki's sitting at the piano today. "How was club?" she asks, standing up from the bench so Kanon can see her talk; Kanon loves her.
Kanon pouts. "Nope," she declares, spinning on her heel and walking right back out the door. "I want a re-do."
The door shuts. Kanon counts to 3, and opens it again.
"I'm home!" she calls again.
"Kanon what—" Saki is still standing there, dumbfounded, and then it dawns on her—physically, a little sunrise dusting her cheeks. "Welcome back."
"That's more like it," Kanon says, satisfied, striding across the room to sidle up next to Saki on the piano bench, as close as she can get. Saki leans into it, dropping her head onto Kanon's right shoulder like it belongs there, which it does.
"It's sort of embarrassing, you know." Saki says. "Getting all domestic."
Kanon takes her hand. "What, you don't want to get domestic with me?"
"No! Yes! I—" Saki flounders. Kanon smiles, not even taking a little bit of mercy on her.
"It's just a little embarrassing to say 'welcome back' when it's your parents' household," Saki says, finally.
"Well, it's practice." Kanon declares. "For our apartment. Someday."
Truth be told, Kanon doesn't know if her mom will let them live together. Yet. "The line of friendship" was all well and good at the time, but Kanon kind of doubts that her mom will actually feel much better about Kanon shacking up with her girlfriend so soon, even if said girlfriend is Saki, who Kanon's mom has never had a harsh word for in her life (well, outside of the lessons, anyway). But to Kanon, it's a question of when, not if, and it's a when she rather likes prepping for.
"Yeah," Saki echoes. "For our apartment." She squeezes Kanon's hand. They're both quiet, for a little while.
"Speaking of practice," Kanon begins. "I'm sort of surprised to see you practicing right after a lesson."
"I just wanted to get a head start on fixing my muscle memory," Saki says. "I should have known she'd been a stickler for the fingering. Said that you 'need to use your fourth finger there to make the phrase as smooth as it's supposed to be,' and she's definitely right, but I thought I had it good enough and now I've got to relearn it from the ground up."
"Well, at least it's only like, a measure, right?" Kanon asks.
"No," Saki sighs. "It's recurring."
Kanon rubs her shoulder consolingly. "You're working really hard."
"I've got to," Saki deflects. Old habits die hard, Kanon thinks. "Your mom wants me to put on a solo recital this year; says it'll be good goal for helping me get used to learning multiple pieces at once."
"I'll buy you a biiig bouquet of roses," Kanon says.
"Now I really have to work hard, then." Saki jokes.
"Not right now though," Kanon declares. "Right now it's my turn to be big spoon."
"Somehow it seems to always be your turn as big spoon," Saki muses, a little bit later, when they're horizontal on the couch.
"So it does," Kanon agrees, smiling.
"You can probably hear me a little better if I'm the one holding you, you know." Saki says.
"Oh, I can hear you in this position just fine." Kanon plants a kiss on the back of Saki's neck, laying her insinuation on thick. "Trust me."
Really, the ideal way to cuddle is facing each other, sort of, Kanon laying on her back and Saki facing her, wedged between the right side of Kanon's body and the back of the couch, head resting on the space between Kanon's chest and shoulder. But Kanon's rather attached to this position—to her access to Saki's ear, to gathering Saki in her arms flush against her body, like a stuffed animal, like something precious. Which she is.
"I actually kind of want to watch you play," Kanon admits, after a while.
"You've watched me play so many times," Saki says. "The choir competition?"
"Rinne chewed me out every time I so much as looked your way," Kanon complains.
Saki laughs. "She kinda takes after your mom, huh? Drill sergeant in the making, that one." Kanon grimaces.
"Besides," she says. "Accompaniment barely counts as repertoire. I want to see you play."
"Spoken like a child prodigy," Saki sighs. "I really had to work hard on that one, you know."
"I just mean—I can't be satisfied just seeing you grind out a backing track."
"The recital, then?" Saki points out.
"I was so far away!"
"And the photoshoot?"
"Well..." Kanon begins, trailing off. "It wasn't just us then, was it? And I was distracted. By everything going on. I mean, you saw those photos, didn't you? Draped over the piano staring straight at your face like some sort of lovestruck maiden."
"Yeah," Saki says, fondly. "I did." She snuggles in closer to Kanon's front, clutches the arm Kanon's got draped over her side even harder.
"I just got comfortable, you know," Saki sighs, good-naturedly. "And now you want me to get up and go back to the piano. Besides, it's kind of your own fault when you think about it. I practice in the prefab while you're at club aaaall the time."
"But never when I'm around," Kanon laments.
"I can think of at least a couple of reasons why that is."
"Can you really blame me?" Kanon asks. "It's a soundproof room only we have the keys to."
"Yes," Saki says flatly.
"Well, you never seem to complain." Kanon teases, squeezing her a little tighter.
"I didn't say I was complaining," Saki flounders. "I'm just. Explaining."
"Well. I want to do things properly," Kanon declares. "I want to sit at the bench with you, and see you in your element. No distractions."
"No distractions," Saki echoes.
Easy for Kanon to say. Saki's the one on the spot.
She shouldn't be nervous, really. How many times has she been on stage, at this point in her life? Only, it's a different category of nerves, when it's just the two of them; it always has been.
That shouldn't be embarrassing either—they'd just spent the better part of an hour pressed up against each other on the couch, after all. But all this still feels new to Saki, this strange interstice between their best friendship and this clear-skied adoration. Like those awkward stretches of post-recital weeks, when your new project is still half-shaped and clumsy in your muscle memory, your old piece eroding from it faster than you realize.
Saki has a bad habit of zoning out while she's playing. Her hands moving while her head thinks, doing separate things in the same room. Old habits, maybe, like those days in middle school, confining her eyes to a book while her traitor ears picked Mahiro's voice out of the indistinction of morning chatter.
Focus. Oikawa-sensei showing her an Alicia de Larrocha recording, the way she disjoints the left and right hand triplets written in perfect lockstep in the score—"see? the suggestion of listlessness." Kanon's body heat to her left, the familiar intensity of Kanon's gaze trained squarely on her.
Focus. Her personal hell of the month is six measures of three-staved score—don't lose the middle's melody in your crossing hands. Or the way the outside of your arm almost grazes Kanon's chest every time your left hand thunders out the bottom of a phrase. Kanon leaning in as Saki shifts ever so slightly toward the right end of the keyboard for el Ruiseñor, closing the little distance between them that final page creates.
Focus. Those right hand trills—they're your guide. Keep your left hand touches even lighter, all finger movement and elbow pivot and not even a hint of wrist.
Her fingers lift off the keys; she's lost in the relief of completion now, and too early, her right foot anchored in place on the pedal, the final chord washing out into the sound of the AC.
"So," Saki says, suddenly shy, breaking the silence. "What'd you think?"
"Really good," Kanon says, a little lost for words.
"Only 'really good?'" Saki teases. "What happened to my big-shot writer girlfriend?"
"It was one prize," Kanon protests, "for student writers. And I got honorable mention."
"You're on the website," Saki says, like she's settled the issue.
"You can't put me on the spot like that," Kanon argues, ignoring her. "I need time to put it into words."
"Should I expect a bunch of texts later, then?"
"You—" Kanon flicks Saki right in the middle of her forehead, blushing furiously, and Saki giggles, bursting up from the bench to seek refuge on the sofa. Kanon gives chase, tossing herself right on top of her. "Stop bringing that up!"
She says it with far less venom than she wants to; she's suddenly aware of Saki's breathing, of her heartbeat, of Kanon's own.
"Why not?" Saki asks, hugging her. Surrender. "It was sweet."
"It was self-centered," Kanon corrects. "I mean, I was basically just rambling about myself, not your playing."
"Well I like hearing about you," Saki says, owlishly. Kanon kisses her on the cheek.
"Besides! If we're talking about that recital, you have no right to talk!" Kanon says, indignantly. "You sent me like, one text back."
"I was flustered, okay?" Saki blushes. "In case you haven't noticed, you have that effect on me."
"Oh, I've noticed," Kanon breathes, right in her ear. Saki shivers. Says nothing.
Kanon presses her advantage, kissing Saki's jaw, her neck.
"Your hands," Kanon says, finally. "I like watching what you're doing with your hands. I can tell just by looking—your touches have gotten so intricate, and tender, and..."
Kanon pauses, searching for the word, lacing their fingers together slowly. Deliberate. "Sensual," she decides.
"What, like Toyoetsu?" Saki jokes, like she's trying to deflect, but it's a weak display—so obviously flustered.
"Don't bring up some actor when I'm hitting on you." Kanon says back, lowly. Pressing Saki's hand against the arm of the couch slightly with the heel of her palm.
"Hitting on me?" Saki sounds a little dazed. "I thought you were trying to praise me."
"Double entendre," Kanon says, and then she's intercepting whatever it is Saki has to say to that.
"Kanon?" Saki asks, later, into Kanon's hair. Kanon squeezes her hand. "Do you still play a lot?"
Kanon, her arm circling Saki's midsection snugly, lifts her head from its perch on Saki's shoulder.
Saki backpedals. "I mean—I see folios out on the piano sometimes, and I was just wondering—but you don't have to answer, obviously—"
Kanon squeezes again, her thumb circling Saki's knuckle. "I wouldn't leave them out if it was a sore subject."
"That's true," Saki says. "But it's okay if it's private, you know? I won't press."
"I think... I think it's like this room." Kanon says. "Not a secret, exactly, just. Somewhere I go to be alone." Somewhere Saki has the keys to, she thinks. "So, um, yeah. Sometimes."
She likes leaning on Saki like this. She likes feeling the rise and fall of her chest.
Kanon laughs. "I can feel your curiosity. It makes you breathe funny."
Saki blushes.
"How do I..." Kanon pauses. "Sometimes it feels like I'm seeing if I've still got it? Like a diagnostic test, I guess. Touching the keys. Like playing Hanon."
"Only you would call La Campanella a warm-up exercise," Saki sighs, resigned.
"Well it is an etude," Kanon jokes. Saki shakes her head.
"It's funny," Kanon says. "When mom said my singing wasn't going to cut it for the choir competition, it only hurt for a second, really. And if someone said that about my piano playing..."
"It's closer to home?" Saki asks, softly.
"No, that's just it—I don't think it'd feel that much different." Kanon admits. "It's just. When I think about what I actually lost, I think about competition? Getting so in my head about slipping up, or the podium, or even just what mom would say on the car ride home. My harshest critic. And then I'd think, 'it's just you and the music.' Over and over, until I actually believed it. Barely even listening to anyone else.
"What I do in here is just me and the music. And maybe if someone opened the door and watched me, they'd see a grieving prodigy, I guess, but all I'm doing is just... Seeing how the music feels in my hands. I miss the sound of it, of course I do, but when I'm playing. It's because I miss how it feels, too.
"I think what I'm trying to say is..." Kanon trails off. "I think I just like seeing what you're like when you're alone with the music."
"You know," Saki says. "I don't know if I've ever felt alone like that. On stage, I mean." She plants a kiss in Kanon's hair, and Kanon smiles, closing her eyes. It's one of her favorite things about the prefab now—that it lets her hear Saki's voice.
"Like, at the recital last year." Saki continues. "Mostly I was thinking about you, in the audience. About us."
"Right," Kanon says.
"Yeah," Saki says back, suddenly shy.
It must be a little contagious, Kanon thinks, a little later, when she finally, reluctantly sees Saki off.