One Shot - Music Notes and Hopeless Skies
Title: Music Notes and Hopeless Skies
Genre: ...not a clue, just randomness really
Pairing: None, totally Ueda-centric
Rating: PG
Summary: What kind of melodies do cloudy skies make you think of?
A/N: Yeah...this is random personified, don't ask, I don't know where it came from.
MUSIC NOTES AND HOPELESS SKIES
Dragging a small hand towel over his glistening brow Ueda Tatsuya leaned his head against the window as he sat on the sill, staring with hazy eyes at the roiling grey sky overhead. It seemed like Sod’s Law that the first day off he had had in over a month was the day the weather decided it was in a bad mood. It had been blisteringly sunny all week and then the previous night a giant bucket in the sky had toppled over right on his head as he had left the Jimusho.
Upon arriving home he had balled his dripping clothes up and thrown them at the laundry hamper, missing completely, thus being rewarded with a wet patch on his wall and a damp spot on the carpet. Taking a few seconds to fume he had rubbed his eyes sighed in an ‘oh-well-what-are-you-gonna-do?’ kind of way and stumbled into the shower, emerging half an hour later, lightheaded and sleepy, only to remember he had a half finished song lying on his piano and he had promised himself he would finish it.
Leaning on the doorframe and groaning to himself for a moment he gave another defeated sigh and pulled on a pair of sweat pants and a long sleeved t-shirt, pausing on his way to the piano room (more like half-room) only to snag an orange and a bottle of water from the kitchen before getting down to work.
He had sat, drumming gently at the keys for a whole three hours before he realised what he was doing, but the song was almost finished so he resigned himself to staying where he was.
Truth be told, the song would already be finished, but his mind kept sidling off on a tangent, and notes and melodies that had nothing to do with what he was writing kept floating across his consciousness…just like these clouds.
In the end he had finished the song after another two hours of getting distracted and had watched some random movie that was playing on TV while eating a bowl of rice with stir fried vegetables before falling into bed, his head full of melody…a melody he had never written before.
And it had been in his head all day today too. It wasn’t complete, if he was asked to he probably couldn’t even hum it, but the notes and the bare, raw idea of this new, soft and gentle tune wouldn’t stop poking him. He had decided, since the weather was obviously not going to cooperate with him he would simply spend more time at the gym.
He had spent four hours here already, he had gone through everything twice and had just finished a heavy sparring session with someone a level above him and had been lucky not to get his ass handed to him.
As much vigour as he had been putting into training today, every so often the nagging idea of a new song, a new melody would creep up and wind its way around his mind, and on three occasions he had almost taken a formidable right straight or left hook to the nose.
Finally stopping for a break he had found himself drawn to the window to observe just how hopeless the sky was dressing itself up as. Countless shades of grey swirled lazily like the froth on a cappuccino, dragging themselves across the afternoon sky as though they couldn’t really be bothered, only to be replaced in Ueda’s vision by more sleepily rolling clouds floating in from god only knew where.
What kind of music did that make him think of? A hopeless, drowsy tune started to form itself in his head, somehow matching with the mystery music notes that had painted themselves into his mind the previous night. Unconsciously the fingers of his right hand drummed against his knee, envisioning the way the melody would be played out if he were sat at his piano instead of the window of his gym.
Tipping his head against the cool window he lazily brushed his bangs away from his eyes, letting them fall shut as the song began to form itself in his mind, the background noise of fists connecting harshly with punch bags, bodies slamming down on the floor of the ring, instructions barked at the other boxers as they trained, all of it fading from his ears until all he thought he could hear was gentle piano music, soft and delicate like raindrops.
Opening his eyes he stared straight up at the sky, at it’s hopeless attire, its insistent cloak of despair, and felt a smile tug at his lips as his mind laboured to place each roll and glide of the clouds with a note, a bar, to connect with the previous ones, mentally sketching out an endless melody, a testament to the day and to what he could see.
This one small square of sky, miniscule when compared to the true vastness of the sky that stretched not only over all of Tokyo, but all of Japan, all of Asia, all of the globe, this one small square was now his to adorn with a new song, to disprove the mask of hopelessness it fashioned for itself with endless grey. To him each new shade of the usually dismal colour was a different note and whichever way they decided to roll or turn, however slowly or quickly they would glide over head, or which way, all of it only added to the song.
Where had the idea for some new melody without a cause come from? Why when he had been so tired, and so intent on finishing the already existing song, had sample notes and tunes fluttered across his mind, distracting him, painting lines without order or direction behind his eyes, creating a musical chaos at the back of his mind?
Well…that hardly mattered now; he had all but completed a new melody.
He tipped his head a little further back to better see the sky without having to swivel his eyes painfully and let a wry smile brush over his features. Mind you…it was only written in his head, on the spur of the moment, to match the clouds he saw, could he remember it and write it down correctly later? Maybe not, maybe it wasn’t possible, not for him, he was no musical genius, perhaps that particular melody was lost in the depths of his mind now, buried within his subconscious.
No matter, if that was so, maybe he’d hear it again in a dream, but for now, he would go home, to his piano and he would try composing it as best he could, and if it really was impossible, then why not simply look out at the evening sky and rewrite it?
The sky as Ueda stepped from the gym, the ends of his hair damp and softly spiked, sticking to his cheeks, was still dressed in a swirling grey gown of hopelessness that wasn’t true. Ueda ran his fingers through his slowly drying hair and let his eyes fall shut, following the lines of colour behind his eyes as the melody continued to play.
おわり