The bow dances. It skids. It sings. My left hand flies up the fingerboard, not to impress, but to escape. The B-string whines. The E-string screams. I play a wrong note. A glorious, jagged wrong note that is entirely mine. It hangs in the air like a confession.
I realize, standing there on the stage, that I do not know if I will get the chair. I do not know if I will be first violin or last chair or sent home with a “thank you for your time.” ichika matsumoto pov
The calluses on my fingertips are the only map I need. They are rough, permanent, and ugly, sitting just below the first knuckle. My classmates spend their allowance on cherry-scented hand cream to impress boys. I spend mine on rosin and gut strings. They don’t know that pain is not the enemy of beauty. It is the prerequisite. The bow dances
I lower my violin.
But for the first time in seventeen years, the silence after the music does not scare me. My left hand flies up the fingerboard, not
I am seventeen, and I have never held a boy’s hand. Last week, a boy from the literature club, Tanaka, tried to talk to me in the library. He had kind eyes and a paperback copy of Soseki. He asked if I ever got lonely, practicing alone in the soundproof room until midnight.