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Ze shifted in his seat at the piano and moved a foot to press down on the sustain pedal. His fingers rested on the keys, but he didn’t play them just yet. For a while he just sat there, staring at his hands while lost in thought.
He didn’t know Wakafante had a piano, much less a grand piano in his house. His house didn’t even look all that big if you looked at it from the outside, but he guessed Fante’s house did that thing where it looked smaller but was bigger on the inside. Well, nothing else had been normal in this minecraft world so it wasn’t too unexpected. And then again it was Fante.
Ze was bored one day and decided to explore Fante’s house. That day was when he found this room and a bunch of other batshit insane others. So, Ze hadn’t discovered this room until recently. “Recently” being around a month ago.
Ze pressed down on a key and listened to it ring out against the walls of the room. Today sucked. It sucked really hard. He and ReGect fought about something. Ze couldn’t even remember what now, but it got bad. It turned into an actual fight, not just ReGect being his usual obnoxious self and annoying him, no, he and ReGect were full on screaming at each other. Moe eventually gave up trying to calm the both of them down and left. Then… Then Micha tried to, and he only got caught in the crossfire. If ReGect was angry before, he looked about ready to kill Ze now.
Despite all he says and how he acts, he doesn’t fully hate ReGect. He might’ve used to, but with all the shit that’s happened with the Down Under and the Daemon, Ze… considers him like a friend almost. He’d die before he said that to his face, but still. He didn’t mean for that fight to get as bad as it did. He didn’t mean to hurt someone in the process. He hurt a kid. A kid who gave him weary looks for the rest of the day. A kid that was just as old as his little sisters, and was at this point someone he already saw as a younger sibling.
It all reminded him of… someone else. Ze swore, he promised to himself he’d never end up like him, but… Ze’s his father’s son.
That’s why he even came here. When he was a kid, he made up this… song. He didn’t name or release it or anything. It was a song that he added more and more to as he grew up. It’s… a comfort to him, despite how stupid it sounds. He wasn’t forced to learn it by his father, he didn’t learn it for shits and giggles, he made this song for himself. Some part of him liked that, and it calmed him down. So here he was.
Nobody knows about it. And he wants to keep it that way. It doesn’t make him look like the person he wants to be. It doesn’t make him sound like a person who can prove himself. His bandaged, anger stained fists could never play something as delicate as a piano. Much less this song. But… he just needed to get today off his mind. Then he’ll go to sleep or something.
He started playing. It always started off faulty at first, missing notes here and there and the melody feeling like it shuddered, but he’d get used to playing fast enough.
Music danced around the room, soft as cotton. The sound of his childhood and what he wished it could be filled his ears. His shoulders slowly fell, his jaw unclenched. The notes came more easily, his fingers melted into the correct keys like they were always meant to play them. Something inside him began to untangle.
An object crashed against the floor behind him.
Ze violently flinched, the melody snapping in half with his fingers as he whipped around.
Near the doorway, a potted plant had fallen off a table and lay shattered on the floor. The ceramic pieces were spread across the ground, mixed with dirt. The plant itself lay a couple inches away. The person who stood next to it was…
“M… Micha—?” Ze stuttered. He cleared his throat and stood up. “The hell are you doing here?!”
Micha locked eyes with his, clutching his hands together. “I—I uhm—…” Whatever Micha wanted to say didn’t come out. The kid dropped to his knees and immediately began gathering all the broken pieces into a pile. “I’m sorry— I’m so so sorry, I just wanted to listen, but— but then I— I tripped and— this!” Micha pounded a frustrated hand against the wooden floorboards. The purple flame on his left hand surged to twice its usual size.
Ze stood up and made his way across the room towards Micha. The kid was bent over the pot, quietly crying with his face hidden in his arms. Ze paused. He replayed the moment he first saw Micha standing at the doorway in his head. He didn’t expect someone to be watching. He didn’t want someone to be watching. But he yelled and he shouldn’t have. Micha didn’t deserve his anger.
Ze eyed the bandage wrapped around his upper arm. Micha didn’t deserve that either. He just wanted to help stop his friends from fighting. He just wanted to listen to Ze play.
And… Ze decided he’ll let him.
Ze crouched down next to the kid. He gently rested a hand over Micha’s smaller one. Micha flinched and sat up.
“Hey. Uhm…” Ze grabbed at words in his head. “Look. It’s okay. The… The pot was an accident.”
Micha fixed his gaze onto Ze’s, tears streaked down his face. He doesn’t say anything.
“We’ll clean it up later. And… I’m not mad. I’m not mad at you.”
Micha sniffles and uses his free hand to wipe his eyes. “Really…?”
Ze nodded. “Really. You… uhm… You wanted to listen to me play?” Ze gestures towards the piano.
Micha’s eyes widen. “Mhm! Mhm mhm mhm!” He nods his head over and over.
Ze lets out a chuckle. “Alright, then.”
Ze stands, taking Micha by the hand and helping him stand up as well. He leads Micha over the broken potted plant, lets go of him, and walks to the piano.
Ze takes a seat to the left of the piano, leaving room for Micha to stand anywhere he wants for a good view. He lays his fingers out on the keys, and restarts the song.
The notes come surprisingly easier to him than they did when he first started playing. His fingers fall into the right places quicker. The melody picks back up, and fills the room once more.
Ze didn’t expect how… okay he feels with Micha watching him. Even before bootcamp, he always noted whoever was in the room, including the ones he couldn’t see. He hated people watching him. He still does now. And… this song was supposed to only be for himself to have. So it would’ve been extremely amplified.
He thought he’d hate anyone’s presence. Micha’s… wasn’t that bad.
Around halfway through the song, he heard Micha walk closer to him. He could barely see it — his eyes were trained on the piano keys, but felt Micha hop into the seat beside him. He swiveled around to face the piano keys.
It stayed like that for a little bit longer. Micha closely watching with wide eyes as Ze’s hands waltzed along the piano keys. Ze felt his hoodie pin itself to his undershirt with Micha sitting beside him.
Micha raised his right hand and tentatively pressed a few of the treble keys. A pang of surprise hit Ze, but he didn’t stop him. Out of Ze’s peripheral vision, he watched Micha’s eyes glance from Ze’s hands to his own, making sure the notes that he pressed matched the melody. His hands slowly grew more confident, finding the right sounding notes and keys as he and Ze played side by side.
Ze turned his head the slightest bit, just enough away from his own section of keys to watch Micha. His lower lip was bitten and his eyes were focused down on the keys he was hitting. His left hand rested on the key slip as it illuminated the piano, his right hand played along with Ze. It was shaky, but the notes themselves were played with composure.
The new version of Ze’s song flowed through the air. New emotions and feelings seeped through the melody that he hadn’t felt. Or he had. He hadn’t felt it in so long it felt alien to him.
He glanced back and forth at his own hands and Micha. The kid looked so gently immersed. Ze wasn’t aware of it but a ghost of a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.
The song came to a close. Ze’s left hand rested on his lap as his right hand played the main melody. It was meant to be played alone during the ending. But Micha was here this time. And he’s already done so well. Ze assumed Micha wanted to play with him too. He won’t leave him out.
Ze gave a prompting look towards Micha, glancing back and forth at the kid’s eyes and Ze’s own hands. Micha caught it immediately and gave a small nod. He carefully repeated the notes of the main melody on his side. Their hands fell in sync. Micha did it perfectly.
The two of them hit the final note together. It hung suspended in the air before it softly faded away. The room was left in silence. A kind of silence that Ze felt peaceful in.
Micha turned fully to Ze, giving him a grin that was brighter than the sun itself. Ze couldn’t help but smile. Of course ReGect loved this kid.
“You did good, Micha,” Ze ruffled Micha’s hair. “You… did really well.”
Micha giggled as he nodded. “It was fun playing with you!”
“You too.”
Ze stood up, extended a hand to help Micha off the piano seat and… right. The broken potted plant.
Ze felt Micha’s hand squeeze around his. “…I’m sorry.”
Ze let out a quick sigh. “Nah, nah, it’s fine. You didn’t mean it,” he led the two of them towards the pot. The last time he remembered dropping something as a child, he was forced to clean it up alone. “We could clean it up together?” Ze offered.
“Okay, sure!” Micha smiles. He lets go of Ze’s hand and heads closer to the pot, sitting down beside it and gathering all the pieces into a pile.
“‘Kay. I’ll go grab a dust pan.” Ze steps over the pot and leaves the room. He heads down a floor to grab it plus a brush out of a closet.
With the items in one hand, he opens the door to the grand piano room with the other. The first thing he sees when he opens the door is Micha sitting crisscrossed and holding a piece of the pot between two fingers. It slips out of his grasp and clatters on the floor. Micha frowns at it, looks up, meets Ze’s eyes and waves. “Hi! My fingers aren’t working.”
“I’d say they work well enough if they did this,” Ze gestures to the pile of broken ceramic with the end of the dust pan.
Micha let out a laugh and shifted in his seat, maneuvering his legs against his chest with a hand. Ze crouches down across from him and brushes the spilled dirt into the dust pan. Despite himself, he quietly hums the tune of his song.
A minute or so passes before Micha speaks up. “Ze? Can I tell you something?”
Ze keeps his gaze focused towards sweeping up the dirt. Dear god, of course the dirt had to get in between the cracks of the floorboards. “Shoot.”
“I… I was actually watching you play for a while.”
Ze stops in his tracks, turning towards Micha. “You— You were—? When?”
Micha hugs his legs a little tighter. “Since a couple weeks ago. I kept hearing it and… wanted to see it.”
So Ze’s just had someone watch him. For weeks, and he didn’t have a clue. He hesitates for a while before he speaks. “Okay.” He goes back to sweeping.
Micha tenses. “…Sorry. I thought you’d get mad if you found out. I’ll stop if you—“
Ze cuts him off. “No, no. Don’t… Don’t apologize. You’re fine.”
Micha nods. Ze looks back down and sweeps up the last of the dirt. He sets the dust pan down, grabs the plant and plops it into the dust pan as well.
Ze ran it through his head again. Micha’s been listening to him play. Ze wouldn’t have known at all if Micha hadn’t knocked down that plant.
But Ze played… today. Today when he had gotten trampled underneath him and ReGect’s fight.
“You still wanted to listen? Even after…”
“Mhm. Yeah. I think your playing is pretty. Really pretty.”
Ze’s chest swelled with an emotion he hadn’t felt since moving out. “T… Thanks. Thank you.”
Micha smiled. He clumsily stood up and headed over to Ze. Micha wrapped his arms around Ze’s shoulders, encasing him in a gentle hug.
Ze froze. Then he thawed, and slowly hugged Micha back.
Micha’s voice was almost a whisper. “I forgive you, by the way.”
That was it. That was the breaking point. Ze's throat burned, and he swallowed hard to stop himself from tearing up. He didn’t know what to say. “You’re… You’re always welcome here. You can listen to me play whenever you want.”
Micha unraveled himself to just hold Ze by the shoulders. “Really?!” he beamed.
“Any time,” Ze nodded, a faint smile on his face.
Micha giggled in excitement, hugging Ze once more and squeezing before letting go. He bent down, scooped up the ceramic pieces, and held out his free hand to help Ze up. Ze grabbed the dust pan and brush and took it.
Ze and Micha met eyes for a second. Just earlier today Micha had mainly avoided him, clinging closely to Moe and straying away from him and even ReGect. Now… he and Ze had played a piece that was supposed to be solo.
“So what do we do about the plant?” Micha asked, bringing Ze out of his thoughts.
“We replace it. I’m sure it’ll be fine, Fante’ll never know,” Ze headed for the door out of the grand piano room, and opened it. “It’ll be our little secret.”
“Hehe, okay!”