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Monika’s fingers hover over the black and white keys. D flat, F, A flat, C flat, E flat. She cannot force her hands to connect to the composite plastic. Two positive magnets forced together, invisible forces pushing them away like dark magic.
As a result, the music room is dead silent. The school track and field team train outside in the afternoon sun, the slap of spikes digging into their unending trail as they run, run, run. It distracts Monika from the imminent dread seeping through her bloodstream, bunching up her muscles into unmoving clumps of useless flesh.
The grand piano judges her with an eerie squeak as she presses her foot down onto the sustain pedal. The dotted crotchets and staccato ninth chords displayed on her sheet music seem to mush and dance together, forming a jumbled inky mess lost in the gloopy haze of the grand stave. Unintelligible, imperfect, unplayable.
"Tone, Monika. Your notes should feel more bouncy at eighty-five. More spunky, okay?" her director had said. One comment of constructive criticism and she shut down.
The whole damn Stage Band had stared at her with dead eyes, a hivemind of zombies muttering curses and witty remarks. Monika swears Natsuki scoffed, Sayori was definitely too nice to say anything, and Yuri… Monika had not dared to look at Yuri. She just knew her girlfriend was all too disappointed, turned away in shame.
Images rush through Monika's mind. An unimpressed Yuri, an embarrassed Yuri. Monika's fingers blaze alive, a sudden rush of inferiority and adrenaline and anger. Her wrists lock into place so tight they ache, and as she raises her arms to strike the D flat 9 she has been yearning to…
They turn to stone.
Pent-up energy shoots to her fingers, and yet they stall in motion, doubled over like beggars hauling sacks. She forces a scream. No noise erupts.
A soft rolling, the sudden bump of plastic rollers on uneven tracks. The wooden sliding door opens.
"Monika?"
Monika gasps sharply, eyes widening in shock as they land on the girl shyly peeking her head through the doorway.
"Yuri…"
Monika places her hands in her lap neatly, willing herself not to tremble. She does not look as Yuri enters the music room, closing the door behind her so politely. When approaching her love, she is as quiet as she is unsure.
"M-May I sit here?"
"Mhm."
She perches next to Monika, the plush raven seat of the piano bench dipping slightly to accommodate her. Yuri takes up so little space despite her tall stature, keeping her hands to herself. She shrinks purposefully. Monika has to be right.
Yuri tilts her head to the side, brows furrowed as she gazes at Monika. "Are… you well?"
With a few sharp breathes, Monika slams her head into the piano's keys, the resulting sound wonky and discordant. She groans, her voice cracking. No, of course she isn't freaking well. She feels as if defenestration into the field is actually a splendid idea.
"I'm fine…"
"I find myself not believing you."
"But I'll be fine."
"I still do not believe that."
"Then what will you believe?"
"That… That something is clearly amiss."
Monika's shoulder's slump, hopelessness consuming her form. Her fingers twitch for some sort of contact, buried against her chest. Yuri does not seem to catch on. How merciful. Though, so kind and sweet it breaks Monika's heart, she asks, "May I… M-May I, um… listen? To what is bothering you, that is."
Monika blinks. She realises this is the first time Yuri has attempted to comfort her, the first time Yuri has seen her so down in the dumps. Debilitating heat blooms in her chest, sickeningly warm all over. Shame and adoration keeling her overboard and drowning her senselessly in the beautiful blue sea.
"I… I'm-"
"Please do not lie to me," Yuri's voice is laced with poisonous concern.
Monika cannot deceive her, no matter how hard she tries. "… I can't do it."
Yuri is silent, listening. Monika sits up and stares at the chalkboard while she runs her mouth.
"I can't play, Yuri. You saw me in rehearsal. I messed up once and I got so scared to mess up again that I could barely press a single key. And it was in front of everyone, too! They were all just staring at me! And when Director called me out, it got even worse! I think I'm good at piano for one second and she finds something to criticise me for! I'm just, like, supposed to live up to everyone's expectations of me and as soon as I break that illusion, I just… crumble."
Monika stares at the wall in silence for what felt like minutes before she blinks. She fixes her bangs in the reflective surface of said piano, yet when she turns her head to gaze at sweet Yuri's eyes, filled to the brim with understanding and love, the reflexive urge to hide away takes hold. Monika buries her face in her hands.
"I feel like disintegrating. Disappearing so no one is disappointed in me again."
Yuri waits a small moment to see if Monika says any more. She inhales deeply, the lack of words communicating everything. She hesitates only for a millisecond, fingers twitchy and unsure of the best route of comfort. Still, when she shyly opens her arms, her love melts into her, careful and easy. A rare gesture from a girl so averse to holding hands in public, a shrinking violet too timid to show affection through a hand's soothing touch.
Monika curls up, tucking her head under Yuri's chin, swaddled in Yuri's arms, listening to Yuri's heart beating out of her chest. She physically feels Yuri's body temperature rise, and the gentle laughter trapped inside her chest bubbles up and out like carbonation.
"H-Huh? Did I do something wrong?"
Yuri begins to move away from the hug , but Monika catches her wrists in time to wrap her arms back around her torso. "No, no, don't worry. I just, well, you're just real cute sometimes."
Yuri's pale cheeks are brightened with blotchy pink. Monika catches a brief glimpse, and smiles.
"You, well… uh… never mind."
"Say it."
"N-No…"
"Please?"
Yuri sighs, "Later."
"Hmph, fine. I'll remind you then."
"Alright."
The pair stay locked together until the Sun begins to set, the sky painted with washes and strokes of oranges and pinks and purples and faint blues. The gentle light peeking through the blinds illuminates once invisible specks of dust permeating the music room, settling on shelves, wooden floor boards, instruments on the teacher's desk taken apart by the school's music department to fix at an undisclosed and undecided time. Monika, eyes closed, does not mid breathing it in.
Surprisingly, Yuri is first to brake the comfortable silence. "We should leave soon."
Monika chuckles through her nose, breathy and quiet. "More like now. At this rate we're getting locked inside."
"Then let's go."
The lovers de-tangle themselves from their hold on each other, graceful as they stand from the piano stool. Monika walks towards the sliding door, though pauses from the sound of Yuri's voice.
"You… You don't have to be perfect all the time."
They face one another once more. Yuri plays with the split ends of her long purple tresses.
"You don't have to tell me that," Monika murmurs.
"Don't I? It seems as if someone should be telling you such an obvious point."
"Hmph."
"It is alright to make mistakes. As long as you learn and grow from them. You taught me that when I first started playing bass guitar in Stage Band, remember? I was terrified of playing the wrong note because I believed my band mates would make fun of me, shun me. Despite my fears… you proved me wrong. You encouraged me to keep practising and you became my friend," Yuri takes Monika's hand, bold and brave and beautiful, "And then the one person I cannot imagine living life without."
Monika, clearly, does not know how to take the compliment. Yuri presses a tender kiss to the apple of her cheek and all she can do is gasp like a fish out of water and ogle at her lips. She feels so shy for a girl so confident, squeezing her love's hand so passionately as if she will disappear right before her eyes if she lets go.
Yuri looks at Monika as if she were much more than her entire world - her star, her galaxy, her universe. While playing with the pleats of her own skirt, she mumbles, "This time, let me help."
Monika ponders the possibility. After a mere two seconds, she orders, "Stay at my place for the night. Bring your bass so we can practice together. Remember that spare amp I got?"
Yuri does not hesitate to agree. Monika's confidence ceases to waver.