Disclaimed: Guess what...I don't own La Corda D'oro or any of it's characters! There will be original characters that come into the story EVENTUALLY, but they are not in this chapter. So there!
Author's Note: The summary sucks...just so you know. Well, I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up with this one...But I sure do hope so..because I've become a huge fan of this series. I've decided to refer to all of the characters by their first names, so in case people aren't sure of who is who, well, I'll just make a list up here in case.
Kahoko Hino
Ryotaro Tsuchiura
Len Tsukimori
Keiichi Shimizu
Shoko Fuyuumi
Hiroto Kanazawa
Azuma Yunoki
Kazuki Hihara
Nami Amou
Shinobu Ousaki
Ok, now that that's done, enjoy!
"Kahoko Hino…I love you…"
She looks at him shocked and surprised.
"I…"
Kahoko filed through her music. She couldn't find anything that she really wanted to practice right now. Her life had fallen into a kind of lull. After the concours, people wordlessly accepted the strange change in her playing skills; from sounding like a prodigy to sounding like a beginner. She was greatly relieved it turned out that way, because she wasn't sure if she would've been able to take an interrogation. If the truth came out that her playing had been a lie, what would people think of her; especially all of her friends from the concours. Would they hate her because she had been lying to them? She didn't know if any of them could ever forgive her, particularly Len. She still thought about that everyday.
Also, she doubted that she'd be able to say, "Oh, it was because my violin was magic and was from a fata; that's a fairy, just so you know." That would just make her seem crazy.
Although her skill level had dropped dramatically, she practiced as much as she could to sound better and create her own sound. Actually, she was improving. A little reluctantly, she owed a lot to Len; lately, he had become sort of like a teacher for her. He always kept her posture in check and made sure she held everything up right. He was usually very picky with the sound, but he had perfect pitch and she didn't, so that was to be expected.
Even though Len always felt a little distant and cold sometimes, he had still lightened up since the concours. Of course, that didn't stop him from arguing with Ryotaro all the time. Ryotaro had really been helping her out also. Whenever he had time, he would go into a practice room with her and play the accompaniment part with whatever short pieces she had. He'd give her pointers here and there on what he could, and plus, Kahoko always felt a little more comfortable playing with someone else.
Everyone seemed to be unquestionably supporting her; even Lili, although he could be a little annoying sometimes. She felt so lucky to know so many people who would do so much for her. Kazuki always cheered her up whenever she felt down…although lately, he had been acting a bit strange. Kahoko pondered on this for a moment. He blushed at the strangest things. But anyways, this was still her wonderful world right now…. and she didn't want anything to change.
Len stared at the ceiling of his bedroom. He glanced at the clock on his bed stand: 1:03 AM. Lately, he had been having trouble sleeping. Something distracted him…or rather someone, and her name was Kahoko Hino. She affected him like no other person. He saw her almost everyday, but that never felt like it was enough. This bothered him greatly. Was this one of those things? A crush, right? He couldn't remember ever having one of those. For him, it had always been practicing. Girls had always just been there; he never really cared about them or anyone else for that matter. His whole life had revolved around trying to play well enough to live up to his parents' reputations and grow out of their shadows. That's just what everyone expected. His parents seemed to just want him to be happy and do well in life…but he never really thought about being happy.
Now what? Was he happy now? His style had undoubtedly changed a lot; that had to be admitted. He remembered that first time he started playing…differently. It was during the training camp at the villa; he and Hino had played Ave Maria together…they produced such a gentle sound that was akin to the playing of his father and mother. So…was the change because of her? Her playing?
Her playing…hmm…And then, there was also her change in ability. He still had no idea what happened, but somehow, he felt like he couldn't ask her about it. This all felt so confusing. He disliked thinking so much over one girl. One girl. He refused to let himself go on further, and thus, somehow forced himself to fall asleep.
Kahoko ran down the familiar music school hallways where the practice rooms were. She was about to open a practice door, but it opened before she could reach the doorknob.
"You're late," Len Tsukimori said, looking rather annoyed and a little bit weary.
"Ah, gomen!" Kahoko said bowing her head down. Len let her into the room. "I had to-"
"Hm…"
Kahoko took this as a sign that he didn't care what made her late. The fact was that she was just late. He definitely had a way of expressing words.
For a moment, it looked like he was in deep thought (which, frankly, he was). He wondered, Why do I do this almost everyday?
"Ah…Tsukimori-kun? Len? Uhmm…?" Kahoko tried waving him out of his zone out.
"Sorry, let's start. Just play the piece you started last time."
She started to play.
…That's why…
Len couldn't just listen to her; he had to watch. He felt the notes swelling and filling up the room; this was the same sense of feeling he got whenever she really played out. Even though there were many obvious mistakes here and there with notes being off, the sound itself was still…honest. If she really practiced, she could improve her playing to how it sounded before the end of the concours. Her music had substance and a certain gentleness about it, which his music used to lack; it was insubstantial in comparison. He disliked admitting that.
"Tsukimori-kun, thanks again for today," Kahoko said as she loosened her bow.
"Yeah…" he said, still looking to be in deep thought. Kahoko furrowed her brow; although Len wasn't very talkative in the first place and was usually cold, he kept acting stranger around her everyday. She hoped it had nothing to do with how her playing differed from before. Suddenly…
"Kahoko Hino!!!!!!!!!!" Lili slammed himself into her face.
"Ack!" She fell backwards, surprised, but quickly recovered herself.
"Hino-san?? Are you…alright?"
She seemed rather annoyed and looked like she was picking something off her face. She put on an obviously forced smile.
"I'm fine…just fine. But I just remembered something, I need to rush out, bye!"
Kaho put Lili down on the table and quickly packed up her violin in its case. She ran out of the practice room with Lili following after her leaving Len a little confused.
Such a strange person…
"What the heck was that?!" Kahoko fumed to Lili on the rooftop where no one else would hear her or see her talking to nothing but air. "I was still with Tsukimori-kun; he already thinks I'm strange enough. I'm going to die from these cover-ups!"
"But it's an emergency!" Lili shouted desperately. Kahoko let out a big sigh; this promised to be tiring.
"What happened?" she asked, almost unwillingly.
"I can sense…a fairy hunter in this school!"
"A what?" Kahoko realized there must a million strange things in this world that she had never heard of. First fairies (or fatas), now fairy hunters!
"A fairy hunter! They're usually people whose auras don't correlate at all with fatas; this kind of correlation leads to strong negative waves that we fatas can easily detect. Most of them are part of a kind of organization that go around everywhere to different parts of the world. They…"
At this point, Lili's eyes started welling up with tears. Kahoko became more concerned about this and listened more carefully.
"They do horrible things! They do all kinds of cruel experiments and…they're main objective is to…exterminate us!"
Lili truly looked upset and frightened now. Kahoko let him hug onto her shoulder. She lightly patted his head.
"But…why? Why would they do all those things?" she asked. Fairies were harmless (more or less), right? Why would anyone want to kill them off?
"You see, if you kill a fata, you gain a little bit of its power. With that power, you can grant yourself or someone else three wishes. These wishes could be almost absolutely anything you want! People would do anything to get them."
Kahoko sighed; she knew people could be greedy like this. The world seemed so small and horrible nowadays.
"Do you have any clues to who it is?" she asked.
"No," Lili said discouraged, "I can't pinpoint on one person. I just know they're in the school. I'm not even sure how long they've been here! When the concours started, I didn't pay much attention to anything else besides the concours."
With absolutely no clues or indication of who the hunter was, Kahoko still promised Lili she'd help him find out who it was. She silently wondered what she had gotten herself into now.