Chapter 3
Even as he neared the house, Chiaki could already see Nodame standing outside their luxurious condo. It was the very same condo that his mother had gotten from Chiaki Masayuki as a divorce settlement. His mother had made a gift of it when he first became the resident conductor of New York Phil. It was a two-storey house with a large garden where the first floor served as their main resident, and the ground floor had rooms for Nodame's piano practice or lessons, or for entertaining guests.
Chiaki drove in carefully and parked his car. Nodame came running towards them.
"Ah, I was just about to go and fetch Sou-chan home!" she said. "How was he, senpai? Was he behaving himself?"
"No," Chiaki replied severely. "We had to gag and tie him with the rope to stop him from interrupting the rehearsal."
"Gyabo! Why is that?" she cried and swept Souichiro up in her arms. "Senpai no Kazuo! How could you do that to Nodame's cute little Sou-chan?!"
"Oi. Your cute little Sou-chan was not behaving. As his father, I reserve the right to do whatever I want with him."
"Gyabo, senpai! You can't take Sou-chan and sell him away to the slavery!" Nodame hugged her son tightly.
"Haa, what are you talking about?"
"She's probably heard something about that shipwreck near East African Sea that was in the newspaper this morning. The ship was said to board hundreds of little children stolen from their parents from remote villages of Africa, to be sold off to some place. Such deplorable acts should be thoroughly investigated and punished!"
Chiaki gaped at his son as Souichiro narrated all this so eloquently. So he was reading the newspaper this morning! But seriously, how intelligent would he have to be to say things like that at five?! He turned to his mother and said: "Don't worry, Mama. Papa's just being silly and teasing you, again. They didn't gag me."
"That's a relief!" said Nodame and handed him over to Chiaki for Sou-chan was growing fast and getting heavier every day! Chiaki eyed him gingerly saying I'm-not-in-the-mood-to-carry-you, but Souichiro opened his arms wide with a look that said Carry-me-Papa!
"You horrible little person!"
When Chiaki took him, Souichiro wrapped his arms around his neck immediately. Spoilt brat! Chiaki thought but unconsciously positioned his arms more comfortably for Sou.
"Ah, senpai! We have a guest today! Sou-chan, you'll be so surprised!"
"Guest? Who is it?" Shinichi asked.
"Come quickly and see for yourself!" Nodame sounded very pleased.
Wondering who could be visiting them, Chiaki entered the house in anticipation. He was certainly not disappointed when he saw the elegant figure of a woman in their living room, studying the pictures on the wall.
"Yuiko!" he exclaimed.
"Aunt Yuiko!" Souichiro also jumped down from his father and ran up to her.
"Hello, there!"
Yuiko, who was the daughter of Chiaki's uncle on his mother's side, had grown into a beautiful woman in her mid twenties. She was one of the most sought after It-girl back in Japan, which put her at a semi-celebrity level, and had scores of suitors throwing themselves at her feet. But claiming that none of them was anywhere close to her idol Shin-nii, she'd rejected all of them and was now travelling around the world, mostly squandering her father's money. She was a favourite with Sou.
"Aunt Yuiko! It's been a while! How have you been?" Sou chattered on.
"You sound like a grown-up, Sou-chan!" Yuiko laughed. "And you are so big already!"
"Yes, I'm already five," Sou declared proudly.
"Aren't you a little gentleman! You look just like Shin-nii when he was your age!"
"You weren't even born when I was five!" he was tired of denying Sou's resemblance to himself. What was wrong with the people today?
"But just look at him, he's so handsome, like you!"
"Isn't he just?" added the devoted mother with teary eyes.
"No, I'm going to be handsomer than Papa when I grow up," said Sou.
The girls burst out laughing and Chiaki put his hand up to his temple with a sigh. But soon he threw sideway glances at his son, wondering if he really did resemble him that much. For sure, Souichiro had inherited his straight nose and regular features. Ah, the shape of his eyes and forehead is similar too. Maybe ears too… and mouth! Oh, he did really look like him a lot! Chiaki was momentarily taken back as he looked at the result of the amazing power of Mother Nature who had combined his and Nodame's genes together and produce something so special: his son. His own blood and flesh! In his rare demonstration of love Chiaki picked up Souichiro and tucked him under one arm.
"Alright, son," he said. "Play some piano for your old man."
"Why?" Sou scowled.
"Because Papa wants to hear it."
"But I wanna play with Aunt Yuiko!"
"You can play with her after."
"But I wanna play with her now!"
"Play the piano first!"
"You are very annoying today, Papa."
"You are very disobedient today, son," said Chiaki and shook Sou a little. "Come now, don't you want to show off to Aunt Yuiko? Impress her. Humour me."
"Oh, alright," Sou replied in a resigned voice.
Chiaki carried him to the piano room and the girls followed him giggling. When he set Sou down, he bowed proudly to the audience and climbed up to the piano stool. Shinichi adjusted the height of the stool for him then Souichiro started playing a Mozart Piano Sonata.
His hands were still quite small and his fingers stumbled here and there but for a five year-old, it wasn't a bad performance at all! And playing Mozart at five!
When the song came to an end, Nodame was screaming gyabos and planting kisses on Sou's cheek, and Yuiko was clapping hard. Souichiro looked up expectantly at his father and saw him smiling broadly.
"Not bad," he said and tousled Souichiro's hair.
"Papa!" cried Sou irritably. "I said don't do that to my hair!"
"Souichiro, do you want to learn the violin as well?" Chiaki asked good-naturedly.
"Violin?" Sou was immediately interested.
"Papa will teach you, if you want to learn."
"Yes! I do!"
His son's enthusiasm pleased Chiaki very much. So he petted his head again. As Souichiro flattened his hair in disgust, Yuiko said: "I think this calls for some celebration, don't you think? I'm taking Sou-chan out for dinner!"
Chiaki was about to protest that he's had enough treats for one day but changed his mind.
"Yes, take him out," he said. "And enjoy your date with Sou as long as you can, Yuiko."
"Oho! I see! Sure!" she winked at him slyly.
"Why? What do you see, Aunt Yuiko?" asked Sou-chan.
"It's alright, Sou-chan. Aunty still loves you very much, you don't need your dad."
"Huh?"
Chiaki rolled his eyes and wondered where Yuiko had gone wrong from that cute adorable little cousin she was all those years ago.
Chapter 4
Finally, he was left alone with Nodame to enjoy a comfortable coze together. They were sitting side by side on the couch and Chiaki had one arm around her waist. With his other hand, he was playing with Nodame's long calloused fingers.
"Will you play something for the old man, Madam?" suddenly he asked.
"Why, of course, sir! Do you have any special request?" Nodame asked laughingly.
"How 'bout Liebestraum by Liszt?"
"With pleasure!"
They moved to where they kept Nodame's favourite white C. Bechstein. It was their second grand piano, in addition to one upright Petrof but Nodame had fallen in love with it at the first sound and Chiaki didn't want to deny her this little thing (although the expense wasn't little at all!). Beside, all the pleasure of listening to her playing was on his part so there was no complaint! She took an exaggerated bow in imitation of their son and sat down at the piano. As she hit the first E flat, Chiaki closed his eyes and gave himself up to the music.
Precise control of the fingers so that the arpeggio doesn't sound too loud and bury the main melody; the speed and force to play the climax to satisfaction; big hands to cover the octaves; strong emotions to express the final part and captivate the souls of an audience: she had it all. A perfect Love Dream if there ever was one!
"Bravo…" Chiaki whispered at the end and went to sit next to his wife on the stool. "Am I flattering myself if I say that I felt your love for me in it, just now?"
"What are you being so modest for, all of sudden?" retorted Nodame, bubbling with laughter. "Of course, your love is the pillar of all my performance!"
"Hmm… you sound a bit sarcastic."
"No, senpai!" she laughed. "I'm not joking. If it wasn't for your love, well my love for you to be exact, the great renowned pianist Nodame won't be here. I wonder, I really might have become a kindergarten teacher… muki, who knows…"
"Ya, who, I wonder…"
The unkempt and hentai girl who claimed that she was in love with him all those years ago was budding with raw talents that needed proper cuttings for her to shine. And she strived so hard to shine; there had been no space for regret, rest or even a proper date with him! But she worked and worked, so that she could stand next to him in the same world, so that she could be with him, for her love for him.
Her goal to perform onstage with him had been realised a long time ago already, on their first wedding anniversary day in Vienna. As she had given birth to Souichiro only two months ago, he was a bit worried but she had exceeded all expectations and their Rachmaninoff #3 together was written off as a legend to be talked of for a long time to come.
And his love was the making of this little wonder! He should be honoured and proud of himself, but what he felt at the moment was only a pure love for his wife who had hung unto him so stubbornly and taught him much more than any maestro could have taught him: to love. He pulled her into a tight embrace and kissed her. Nodame eagerly wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him even closer. They stayed like that for a long time.
"Oh, by the way," he said when they've disengaged. "Our little Souichiro had caused quite a stir in rehearsal today."
"Hugya, what has he done?!"
Chiaki proceeded to tell everything in detail.
"Gyabo, I see! My cute Sou-chan! He must take after you, senpai!"
"Erm, I wasn't so weird like him when I was small."
"He is not weird! How can you call your own son weird?"
"What's wrong with it, I call my own wife weird too," he laughed.
"Booo! Kazuo," she pouted in answer.
He chuckled. "But he must've been influenced by us, I think. He shows such interest and talents for music even now, it's so exciting to watch him! It makes me happy to think that I'll have a hand in the making of another great musician!"
"A great musician?" Nodame looked at him enquiringly.
"For sure! He couldn't be anything less with a father like me and a mother like you!"
"Hmm…"
"Why, you don't want him to be a musician?"
"It's not that. Senpai, you know how I hate to be forced into doing things I don't like. I just don't want to pressure my son into things he doesn't want."
"Of course we won't pressure him!" Shinichi exclaimed. "But you saw his enthusiasm too, right? I wonder if he'll like piano or violin more."
"Hmm… I wonder…"
"What?"
"It's just a 'mother's instinct', senpai."
"Eh, you? Instinct?" Chiaki gave rude barks of laughter.
"Ah, Kazuo again!"
"Why don't we play something together?"
"Together?"
"Yes," Chiaki was in thought for a while. "Do you remember Norwegian Dance No. 2?"
"Ah, are you talking about that piece by Grieg?"
"Ya, the one where it is lively and cute one moment, and turns angry and stormy the next: just like you, unpredictable."
"Ah, mou! Senpai no baka!"
Chuckling to himself, Chiaki gave her shoulder a squeeze with one arm and kissed her forehead before tinkering away on the piano.
Epilogue
However, everyone was thrown off guard when Souichiro decided to drop the bomb on them.
"Not in the least, I don't want to be a musician at all," he said calmly.
"Haa?! But it can't be!" Shinichi was aghast.
"Why not?"
"But you were so into watching the rehearsal, I made sure that you were keen to become a musician one day!"
"Papa…" Souichiro shook his head and tutted his tongue. "You are so dense sometimes."
"Nani!?"
"I was…" he avoided looking at his father and turned shy all of sudden. "I was only interested because you were there, Papa."
"Huh?"
"I always play with Mama but because you are so busy nowadays, I hardly get to spend time with you… I… missed you."
Heeeeeeeeek! Why was his son acting so cute?! Chiaki Shinichi nearly choked on the lump that threatened to suffocate him in this throat.
"Awu, Sou-chan," Nodame interpolated. "Then you should have told Mama about it as well! Poor Sou-chan…"
Chiaki studied his son for a long while. He didn't agree with Nodame that Sou-chan was a poor thing but he finally decided he was cute, after all.
"Baka, you really should have told me or your mama then…" he petted his head.
"Don't do that!" Sou immediately ripped up at him. Chiaki chuckled.
"But seriously, you really, really don't want to be a musician? No pianist, violinist? Or a Conductor like Papa?"
"Not really…" Souichiro frowned and asked his father. "But will you still teach me violin? I promise I'll be good. I wanna learn!"
"Of course I'll teach you," Chiaki replied pleasantly then he became curious about one thing. "Well. If you thought about your future and decided that you don't want to be a musician, then what are you interested in?"
"Oh," his son responded dismissively. "I'm going to be a great physicist one day."
To say that Chiaki and Nodame were shocked would have been an understatement of the century. Where did he get such weird ideas from when he's already surrounded by something totally different (i.e. music!) and already possess the prodigious talent?
"I've read about the Quantum Mechanics from a book recently and it was so interesting."
"Ha? Come again?"
"Oh, Papa, don't you know? It's the study of the relationship between energy levels and matter with respect to valence shell electrons and photons."
"Senpai, what language is Sou-chan speaking in? Nodame doesn't understand a single thing he's saying!"
"How would I know?!"
Little Sou-chan sighed and reprimanded his parents.
"I know you guys are so very absorbed in your music and all that but please read some books sometimes."
"Ok, I take back my decision from just a moment ago," said Chiaki. "You are not cute at all!"
"Since you don't know, I'll tell you. Quantum Mechanics is a ground breaking theory that helped to account for fundamental behaviours of an electron that classical physics failed to explain. I find the wave-particle duality phenomenon most interesting but I still couldn't solve the Schroedinger's equation yet…"
"Ok, stop!" Chiaki shouted and regarded his son in wonder. Who is this little child?
"But Sou-chan, did you really understand what you were reading?"
"Mama," he said in exasperation. "I've already told you. I am a genius. Didn't you know, Mozart was also a genius in maths as well as in music and Einstein was a professional level violinist. I am just like them."
"You are weird!" was Chiaki's final diagnosis.
Ok... haha, that was such a random ending! sorry -giggle-