Fifty Words for Rain(18)

Nori didn’t particularly mind. It was a nickname she had earned.

She was always behind him. Every day, he rose early and dined on a breakfast of rice, miso soup, fish, pickles, and eggs. He preferred coffee with a dash of milk, but sometimes he would have tea. He teased Nori about her habit of blowing bubbles in her juice. Once, he had allowed her a sip of his coffee. It was so bitter that she had spit it all over her dress. He’d laughed at her until she’d wanted to crawl into a dark hole and die.

Akira favored the warmth. At midday, when the sun was high, he liked to sit in the foyer, directly beneath the open windows. Though the servants had offered him a chair more than once, he would sit slumped against the wall with a cup of tea and a book or some sheet music. How anyone could drink tea in hot weather was beyond Nori.

She would sit across from him, hiding in the shade. The heat was too much for her. Periodically, Akiko would come to check on her, and she’d request some ice water. She’d pretend to read her books, but mostly, she watched him through her eyelashes. He didn’t need to be doing anything. She just liked looking at him.

When Akira had finished whatever it was he was doing, it was usually late afternoon. For lunch, he often ate some fish and the pickled vegetables that Nori so despised. He smothered it all in so much wasabi that she wondered how he could even discern what it was that he was eating.

She had become addicted to ice cream and now gulped down at least three bowls of it daily.

Akira made her eat some real food before he’d let her have it, though. He also made her eat vegetables, much to her chagrin. But she felt that the ice cream was worth it.

When they had finished this late lunch, Akira would always retreat to the music room. Of all the rooms in the house, the existence of this room surprised Nori the most.

It seemed rather impossible that a woman like her grandmother would have an entire room dedicated to something that, until Akira’s arrival, was never heard in the house.

Akira told her that the first time he’d discovered it, the door had been shut tight and the air was so thick he could hardly breathe. The instruments had been covered in a thick layer of dust—a decade’s worth at least. He’d put in a request to have it cleaned, and by the next morning, the room was sparkling and pristine. It still smelled like lemon-scented cleansers.

The room was dominated by a baby grand piano, with glistening ivory keys and a sleek black finish. Bookshelves piled with scores lined the walls, and there was an empty shelf that was clearly designed to hold more instruments if the need arose. There were no windows, which made Nori very sad, as peeking out of the windows had become one of her favorite hobbies. The grounds around the house were manicured beautifully, and the patchwork of colors that came with spring made her heart ache.

But there was a very comfortable love seat in one corner that Nori could sit on while she watched Akira play.

And by God, did he play. Never in her life, or in her most euphoric and hope-filled dreams, had she heard a sound as beautiful as the music he brought into the world.

Despite her admittedly all-consuming adoration for Akira, she was aware that he was only human. In some vague sense, she recognized that.

He was human, and his violin was nothing more than an intricately crafted piece of wood with some strings attached. But the two of them together transcended mortality to become something divine. She knew it was blasphemy to have such thoughts, and she tried to atone for them in her prayers every night.

She would curl herself onto the couch and listen to him making paintings out of sound. And each piece was a different picture. In her mind’s eye, she could see a garden full of trees with white leaves and a fountain with blush-pink petals floating in the clear water—that was a concerto. The volta: scarlet and plum-colored ribbons winding around each other, battling for dominance. A requiem . . . a lone horse walking down a dimly lit cobbled road, looking for a rider that had died long ago. From these dead foreigners whose names she was slowly growing accustomed to, Nori was learning what it was to live a thousand lifetimes of joy and sorrow without ever leaving this house.

Beethoven. Ravel. Mozart. Tchaikovsky. Names that she could hardly wrap her tongue around. She knew better than to interrupt Akira while he was practicing, but after, when he had exhausted himself and sunk onto the couch next to her with his eyes half closed, Nori would ask all the questions she could think of.

And he would answer. He didn’t initiate conversation with her, nor did he encourage it. In fact, he probably said three unprovoked sentences to her from the time she joined him in the morning to the time she was escorted away at night. But he didn’t discourage her, and he didn’t ignore her when she spoke to him. Sometimes he would reach out and toy with her braids or fix her collar if it was standing up. Akira found her wiry curls interesting. He liked to wrap them around his finger and watch them snap back into place when he let go, a feat that his own straight hair could never accomplish. He was the only person who had ever liked her hair. Nori valued these rare moments, and she tucked them away in the most precious corner of her mind, right next to the memories of her mother.

One such evening, as Nori sat curled up on the sofa beside him, she queried hesitantly, “What was that song you played?” She was torn between her desire for interaction and her reluctance to break the tranquil calm that had settled over them.

Akira did not bother to open his eyes.

“Which song, little sister? I played at least fifteen.”