Episode 32 — Music
The classical music filling the car only sharpens the silence. Unaccustomed to riding in cars, I’ve pulled the seatbelt too tight and it presses against my chest. The awkwardness compounds the difficulty of breathing. I glance quietly sideways.
In the driver’s seat, Shion’s mother stares straight ahead, guiding the car with practised hands. Her expression is as sharp as ever, and before she catches me I look away and return my gaze to the road ahead. Inside my head, I murmur. I shout.
How did it come to this.
Well — how it came to this is actually quite simple, once you trace it back. I walked Shion home, and from the entrance of a mansion far grander than anything I’d imagined, Shion’s mother appeared. And said, in a tone that left no room for argument:
“Thank you for bringing Shion home. It’s late now — I’ll drive you home too”.
…And I had no choice but to nod.
Shion, for her part, said she wanted to come along too — and was dispatched in the most irrefutable possible fashion with “If you come, there’s no point in being walked home. Go and do some self-practice.” I think if Shion asked me to, I’d try to grant any request no matter how unreasonable — so a mother’s firmness is a different creature entirely.
And that’s how I ended up climbing into a large, impressive car that emerged from an equally impressive garage, and the impromptu drive home began.
Not that it feels impromptu or enjoyable in any way. If anything, the situation is mysterious enough to make my stomach ache. I’d forgotten, because being in close proximity to Shion had never once made me uncomfortable, that I’m fundamentally shy around people. This experience is reminding me of that in full.
And on top of that — at the shopping mall, and then after the competition — I’d spoken to Shion’s mother with more force than was warranted. Which makes the awkwardness considerably worse.
I steal another glance at her profile. Expressionless as always, terrifyingly beautiful in a way that seems impossible for someone with a high school daughter — and somehow, undeniably, similar to Shion. I was starting to think that — half as a way of escaping reality — when the silence wrapped around the car was abruptly broken.
“Have I got something on my face?”
A cool voice. I scrambled to explain myself.
“N — no. I just thought, well, you really are very young and beautiful.”
Flustered, stumbling over the words — and then:
“My, what a way with words, for a novelist.”
Said with a slightly wry edge. While I was still reeling from that opening shot — Shion’s mother said something else, equally out of nowhere.
“When I gave birth to Shion, I was still twenty.”
I couldn’t help opening my eyes wide. No wonder she looked so young. And the magnitude of it hit me at the same time. I’m fifteen, and marriage and childbirth are things I can’t begin to imagine. I haven’t even been in love yet — and the idea of becoming a parent in five years seems entirely impossible.
While I was still too struck to speak — Shion’s mother continued. A red light ahead, the car slowing to a stop, but her words not stopping with it.
“I was desperate. To raise her into someone worthy of the Kanzaki name. To make sure Shion wouldn’t suffer under that name as she grew.”
The red light at the main road was long, slow to change. Shion’s mother arranged her words as if looking back at something far away.
“Whether my wish reached her, or whether it was the Kanzaki blood — Shion was blessed with talent. Unlike me, she was loved by sound. And unlike me, she didn’t love sound particularly.”
“Even so, music was all I knew. It was the only way I could be with Shion. And I knew, however much talent she seemed to have, that something small — the smallest thing — could make the sound slip through your fingers. So I couldn’t afford to ease up.”
Flat words, carrying no colour. But to me they sounded like a confession. And Shion’s mother’s confession did not stop.
The light turned green, the car started forward — and the words shifted somewhere else.
“Shion told me. ‘If I win the competition, will you let me be with Shio?’ It was the first time that child had ever wanted something. In the first place, because I’d kept everything except music at a distance, there was no reason she’d ever be able to want anything. And yet Shion — even after I’d scolded her — still asked. And what she asked for was you.”
“Was that so.”
I was a little embarrassed and turned to look out the window. I don’t usually travel by car, so I couldn’t gauge from the passing scenery how close we were to home. I’d given her the address, so she’d get me there — I assumed.
Thinking through this — Shion’s mother continued.
“After that, Shion’s sound became incomparably better. Her technique had always been impeccable, but all at once she was like a different person — emotion entered the music. And she actually won the competition.”
The glow of streetlights, stretched by speed, grazed the edges of my vision. From somewhere distant, faintly, a siren sounded.
And through those sounds and that scenery, cutting across it all:
“I couldn’t guide her to the right sound. I couldn’t become the reason Shion plays music. Even though the whole of my reason to live is Shion.”
I found myself turning toward the driver’s seat. Shion’s mother had pushed her lips into a slight pout — and that childlike gesture, that unpolished quality, that sulky little murmur — was unmistakably like Shion.
So I smiled, and said:
“But it was you who gave Shion her sound.”
Fairly impertinent words, coming from a fifteen-year-old. Shion’s mother looked straight ahead and murmured:
“I wonder if that’s what Shion likes about you.”
Before I could even begin to digest those words — a braking sound erased them. Around me, suddenly, a landscape I recognised.
“Will somewhere around here do?”
“Y — yes, this is fine. Thank you very much.”
I said my thanks and, eager to escape the chaotic atmosphere of the car, unclipped my seatbelt and climbed out promptly.
Shion’s mother made no move to get out and see me off — simply, as though nothing had happened, began slowly pulling away.
I watched the car body catching the streetlight and glittering as it went — and then the window opened suddenly, and Shion’s mother leaned out and called:
“As long as Shion plays well, I have no objections to anything — and so I’ll accept your relationship with her. But if you let her get injured, I won’t forgive you!”
Oh, and tell her to contact me when she’s going to be late.
And with that — a mixture of obsession with music, arrogance, and a small measure of worry — all of it thoroughly maternal — the car drove away.