Eastman's Biography of Red Cloud
Eastman's biography of Red Cloud (l. 1822-1909) is the first narrative of his Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains (1916), and it sets the tone for those that follow, including the pieces on Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, in explaining the motivation of the Plains Indians in their response to the US government's genocidal policies of expansion.
The piece is of particular interest historically because the Sioux physician and author, Charles A. Eastman (also known as Ohiyesa, l. 1858-1939), was able to interview the warrior and statesman Red Cloud in person, as he was unable to do with many others, such as Crazy Horse, and was also able to receive the story in Red Cloud's native language, unlike the narrative Black Elk Speaks (1932), which was given by the Lakota Sioux medicine man Black Elk (l. 1863-1950) to the American poet and writer John G. Neihardt (l. 1881-1973) through an interpreter. Eastman then translated Red Cloud's account into English for his book. The result is a firsthand account of the life of one of the greatest Sioux chiefs of the 19th century.
Text
The following text has been abridged for space considerations, but the online version of Eastman's book will be found below in the External Links section. The version presented here is taken from Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, 1939 edition, republished in 2016:
…Red Cloud was born about 1820 near the forks of the Platte River. He was one of a family of nine children whose father, an able and respected warrior, reared his son under the old Spartan regime. The young Red Cloud is said to have been a fine horseman, able to swim across the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, of high bearing and unquestionable courage, yet invariably gentle and courteous in everyday life. This last trait, together with a singularly musical and agreeable voice, has always been characteristic of the man…
…The future leader was still a very young man when he joined a war party against the Utes. Having pushed eagerly forward on the trail, he found himself far in advance of his companions as night came on, and at the same time rain began to fall heavily. Among the scattered scrub pines, the lone warrior found a natural cave, and after a hasty examination, he decided to shelter there for the night.
Scarcely had he rolled himself in his blanket when he heard a slight rustling at the entrance, as if some creature were preparing to share his retreat. It was pitch dark. He could see nothing, but judged that it must be either a man or a grizzly. There was not room to draw a bow. It must be between knife and knife, or between knife and claws, he said to himself.
The intruder made no search but quietly lay down in the opposite corner of the cave. Red Cloud remained perfectly still, scarcely breathing, his hand upon his knife. Hour after hour he lay broad awake, while many thoughts passed through his brain. Suddenly, without warning, he sneezed, and instantly a strong man sprang to a sitting posture opposite. The first gray of morning was creeping into their rocky den and – behold! – a Ute hunter sat before him.
Desperate as the situation appeared, it was not without a grim humor. Neither could afford to take his eyes from the other's; the tension was great, till at last a smile wavered over the expressionless face of the Ute. Red Cloud answered the smile, and in that instant a treaty of peace was born between them.
"Put your knife in its sheath. I shall do so also, and we will smoke together," signed Red Cloud. The other assented gladly, and they ratified thus the truce which assured to each a safe return to his friends. Having finished their smoke, they shook hands and separated. Neither had given the other any information. Red Cloud returned to his party and told his story, adding that he had divulged nothing and had nothing to report. Some were inclined to censure him for not fighting, but he was sustained by a majority of the warriors, who commended his self-restraint. In a day or two they discovered the main camp of the enemy and fought a remarkable battle, in which Red Cloud especially distinguished himself
The Sioux were now entering upon the most stormy period of their history. The old things were fast giving place to new. The young men, for the first time engaging in serious and destructive warfare with the neighboring tribes, armed with the deadly weapons furnished by the white man, began to realize that they must soon enter upon a desperate struggle for their ancestral hunting grounds. The old men had been innocently cultivating the friendship of the stranger, saying among themselves, "Surely there is land enough for all!"
Red Cloud was a modest and little-known man of about twenty-eight years, when General Harney called all the western bands of Sioux together at Fort Laramie, Wyoming, for the purpose of securing an agreement and right of way through their territory. The Ogallala held aloof from this proposal, but Bear Bull, an Ogallala chief, after having been plied with whisky, undertook to dictate submission to the rest of the clan. Enraged by failure, he fired upon a group of his own tribesmen, and Red Cloud's father and brother fell dead. According to Indian custom, it fell to him to avenge the deed. Calmly, without uttering a word, he faced old Bear Bull and his son, who attempted to defend his father, and shot them both. He did what he believed to be his duty, and the whole band sustained him. Indeed, the tragedy gave the young man at once a certain standing, as one who not only defended his people against enemies from without, but against injustice and aggression within the tribe. From this time on he was a recognized leader.
Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses, then head chief of the Ogallala, took council with Red Cloud in all important matters, and the young warrior rapidly advanced in authority and influence. In 1854, when he was barely thirty-five years old, the various bands were again encamped near Fort Laramie. A Mormon emigrant train, moving westward, left a footsore cow behind, and the young men killed her for food. The next day, to their astonishment, an officer with thirty men appeared at the Indian camp and demanded of old Conquering Bear that they be given up. The chief in vain protested that it was all a mistake and offered to make reparation. It would seem that either the officer was under the influence of liquor, or else had a mind to bully the Indians, for he would accept neither explanation nor payment, but demanded point-blank that the young men who had killed the cow be delivered up to summary punishment. The old chief refused to be intimidated and was shot dead on the spot. Not one soldier ever reached the gate of Fort Laramie! Here Red Cloud led the young Ogallala, and so intense was the feeling that they even killed the half-breed interpreter.
Curiously enough, there was no attempt at retaliation on the part of the army, and no serious break until 1860, when the Sioux were involved in troubles with the Cheyennes and Arapahoe. In 1862, a grave outbreak was precipitated by the eastern Sioux in Minnesota under Little Crow, in which the western bands took no part. Yet this event ushered in a new period for their race. The surveyors of the Union Pacific were laying out the proposed road through the heart of the southern buffalo country, the rendezvous of Ogallala, Brule, Arapahoe, Comanche, and Pawnee, who followed the buffalo as a means of livelihood. To be sure, most of these tribes were at war with one another, yet during the summer months they met often to proclaim a truce and hold joint councils and festivities, which were now largely turned into discussions of the common enemy. It became evident, however, that some of the smaller and weaker tribes were inclined to welcome the new order of things, recognizing that it was the policy of the government to put an end to tribal warfare.
Red Cloud's position was uncompromisingly against submission. He made some noted speeches in this line, one of which was repeated to me by an old man who had heard and remembered it with the remarkable verbal memory of an Indian.
"Friends," said Red Cloud, "it has been our misfortune to welcome the white man. We have been deceived. He brought with him some shining things that pleased our eyes; he brought weapons more effective than our own: above all, he brought the spirit water that makes one forget for a time old age, weakness, and sorrow. But I wish to say to you that if you would possess these things for yourselves, you must begin anew and put away the wisdom of your fathers. You must lay up food, and forget the hungry. When your house is built, your storeroom filled, then look around for a neighbor whom you can take at a disadvantage and seize all that he has! Give away only what you do not want; or rather, do not part with any of your possessions unless in exchange for another's.
"My countrymen, shall the glittering trinkets of this rich man, his deceitful drink that overcomes the mind, shall these things tempt us to give up our homes, our hunting grounds, and the honorable teaching of our old men? Shall we permit ourselves to be driven to and fro—to be herded like the cattle of the white man?"
His next speech that has been remembered was made in 1866, just before the attack on Fort Phil Kearny. The tension of feeling against the invaders had now reached its height. There was no dissenting voice in the council upon the Powder River when it was decided to oppose to the uttermost the evident purpose of the government. Red Cloud was not altogether ignorant of the numerical strength and the resourcefulness of the white man, but he was determined to face any odds rather than submit.
"Hear ye, Dakotas!" he exclaimed. "When the Great Father at Washington sent us his chief soldier to ask for a path through our hunting grounds, a way for his iron road to the mountains and the western sea, we were told that they wished merely to pass through our country, not to tarry among us, but to seek for gold in the far west. Our old chiefs thought to show their friendship and good will, when they allowed this dangerous snake in our midst. They promised to protect the wayfarers.
"Yet before the ashes of the council fire are cold, the Great Father is building his forts among us. You have heard the sound of the white soldier's ax upon the Little Piney. His presence here is an insult and a threat. It is an insult to the spirits of our ancestors. Are we then to give up their sacred graves to be plowed for corn? Dakotas, I am for war!"
In less than a week after this speech, the Sioux advanced upon Fort Phil Kearny, the new sentinel that had just taken her place upon the farthest frontier, guarding the Oregon Trail. Every detail of the attack had been planned with care, though not without heated discussion, and nearly every well-known Sioux chief had agreed in striking the blow. The brilliant young war leader, Crazy Horse, was appointed to lead the charge. His lieutenants were Sword, Hump, and Dull Knife, with Little Chief of the Cheyennes, while the older men acted as councilors. Their success was instantaneous. In less than half an hour, they had cut down nearly a hundred men under Captain Fetterman, whom they drew out of the fort by a ruse and then annihilated.
Instead of sending troops to punish, the government sent a commission to treat with the Sioux. The result was the famous treaty of 1868, which Red Cloud was the last to sign, having refused to do so until all of the forts within their territory should be vacated. All of his demands were acceded to, the new road abandoned, the garrisons withdrawn, and in the new treaty it was distinctly stated that the Black Hills and the Big Horn were Indian country, set apart for their perpetual occupancy, and that no white man should enter that region without the consent of the Sioux.
Scarcely was this treaty signed, however, when gold was discovered in the Black Hills, and the popular cry was: "Remove the Indians!" This was easier said than done. That very territory had just been solemnly guaranteed to them forever: yet how stem the irresistible rush for gold? The government, at first, entered some small protest, just enough to "save its face" as the saying is; but there was no serious attempt to prevent the wholesale violation of the treaty. It was this state of affairs that led to the last great speech made by Red Cloud, at a gathering upon the Little Rosebud River. It is brief, and touches upon the hopelessness of their future as a race. He seems at about this time to have reached the conclusion that resistance could not last much longer; in fact, the greater part of the Sioux nation was already under government control.
"We are told," said he, "that Spotted Tail has consented to be the Beggars' Chief. Those Indians who go over to the white man can be nothing but beggars, for he respects only riches, and how can an Indian be a rich man? He cannot without ceasing to be an Indian. As for me, I have listened patiently to the promises of the Great Father, but his memory is short. I am now done with him. This is all I have to say."
The wilder bands separated soon after this council, to follow the drift of the buffalo, some in the vicinity of the Black Hills and others in the Big Horn region. Small war parties came down from time to time upon stray travelers, who received no mercy at their hands, or made dashes upon neighboring forts. Red Cloud claimed the right to guard and hold by force, if need be, all this territory which had been conceded to his people by the treaty of 1868. The land became a very nest of outlawry. Aside from organized parties of prospectors, there were bands of white horse thieves and desperadoes who took advantage of the situation to plunder immigrants and Indians alike.
An attempt was made by means of military camps to establish control and force all the Indians upon reservations, and another commission was sent to negotiate their removal to Indian Territory, but met with an absolute refusal. After much guerrilla warfare, an important military campaign against the Sioux was set on foot in 1876, ending in Custer's signal defeat upon the Little Big Horn.
In this notable battle, Red Cloud did not participate in person, nor in the earlier one with Crook upon the Little Rosebud, but he had a son in both fights. He was now a councilor rather than a warrior, but his young men were constantly in the field, while Spotted Tail had definitely surrendered and was in close touch with representatives of the government.
But the inevitable end was near. One morning in the fall of 1876 Red Cloud was surrounded by United States troops under the command of Colonel McKenzie, who disarmed his people and brought them into Fort Robinson, Nebraska. Thence they were removed to the Pine Ridge agency, where he lived for more than thirty years as a "reservation Indian." In order to humiliate him further, government authorities proclaimed the more tractable Spotted Tail head chief of the Sioux. Of course, Red Cloud's own people never recognized any other chief.
In 1880 he appealed to Professor Marsh, of Yale, head of a scientific expedition to the Bad Lands, charging certain frauds at the agency and apparently proving his case; at any rate the matter was considered worthy of official investigation. In 1890-1891, during the "Ghost Dance craze" and the difficulties that followed, he was suspected of collusion with the hostiles, but he did not join them openly, and nothing could be proved against him. He was already an old man and became almost entirely blind before his death in 1909 in his ninetieth year.
His private life was exemplary. He was faithful to one wife all his days and was a devoted father to his children. He was ambitious for his only son, known as Jack Red Cloud, and much desired him to be a great warrior. He started him on the warpath at the age of fifteen, not then realizing that the days of Indian warfare were well-nigh at an end.
Among latter-day chiefs, Red Cloud was notable as a quiet man, simple and direct in speech, courageous in action, an ardent lover of his country, and possessed in a marked degree of the manly qualities characteristic of the American Indian in his best days.
Continue reading...
30 notes
·
View notes
dolce (sweetly, softly, gently)
* pairing: accompanist/violinist!katsuki bakugou x violinist!reader (gender neutral!) ft kamijirou
* genre: fluff, kinda angst, enemies to lovers, classical musician au hehe
* words: 9.5k (holy crap, this was a rollercoaster to write)
* warnings: swearing bc not only does bakugou exist, he is a prominent character, brief viola/second violinist jokes (reader’s words not mine), poor rosins being dropped :(
* a/n: SO this is very late for @prettysetterbaby‘s v-day collab!! pls check out all the other talented writers involved >< jj is an ANGEL for putting up with me being late T_T there’s some violin terminology in here but it’s fine if you don’t understand it! more notes at the end aha
* playlist (spotify in source link): violin sonata no.9, op.47 in a major “kreutzer” (beethoven) ; liebesfreud (kriesler) ; violin partita no.3 in e major (bach) ; duo concertante for 2 violins no.3 in d-sharp major, op.57 (beriot) ; clair de lune (debussy) ; duo for 2 violins in d-major, op.67, no.2 (spohr) ; 24 caprices op.1, no.24 in a minor (paganini)
* synopsis: being a soloist is not made easy by your new accompanist, bakugou. you step on each other’s toes when playing - but that’s alright, he’s just a pianist. you’re separated in your two worlds of musical instruments, until one day, you’re not. bakugou traverses over realms like a simple string crossing, and there’s a lot more he’s brought with him.
a double stop in violin is a technique in which two notes are played simultaneously. played correctly, one violin playing two notes should sound like two violins playing separate notes. if your life was a violin, you only needed double stops to play it. you'd perfected the art of being alone, playing the parts of two in your sad solo sonata. you were so, so sure you could compose and play for the whole orchestra - a symphony that would surely please the audience.
you were wrong. after all, a double stop has its limits as well, impossible to play with an interval of larger than a tenth. you were content with your double stops and playing by yourself. this was how you won countless competitions - what good would changing anything be?
you were born a soloist, or that's what your parents would say. you never followed the crowd, sticking to your own mind and doing what was true to you. you never worked well in an orchestra setting (and who knew what would become of you if you ever landed in second violin!). thus, you became a soloist, determined to keep the spotlight on you. it was you and your perfection that kept the eyes of the audience transfixed; you were desperate to keep their focus enraptured by every slight movement of your bow, every shift in finger position on the fingerboard. you wanted them to follow every dynamic and tempo change like their life depended on it, feel their emotion spark the moment your bow pressed a string. you were the only one on stage, an entertainer and an artist to the audience. you brought joy and sorrow through key changes and wonder through glissandos and held suspense with every tremolo. the audience was yours for an entire piece, for a story, for a lifetime.
oh, and there was the accompanist. what was his name again? batsugou? bakugou. the last part was a joke, of course. you'd never forget the man who ruined your first recital overseas.
katsuki bakugou was quickly made your accompanist after the previous one quit last minute and schedule clashes between any other potential candidates rendered them unable to travel with you. no one in their right mind would've come along on a plane to play a piano accompaniment for you. indeed, bakugou was not in his right mind. his name was prominent locally, an orchestral prodigy with the gift of perfect pitch since the tender age of thirteen. he never ventured internationally, though given the chance multiple times to do so. you could never understand why he never took any of the opportunities. you'd jump at any chance of expanding your musical horizons and performing for a larger audience, so it frustrated you to see someone with such potential to throw away possibly beneficial opportunities. not that you really paid much attention to him, anyway. bakugou was a pianist, and you were a violinist. you only cared about competition, not those with blessings you could only dream of achieving.
the months leading to your recital, bakugou had gone quiet. well, you didn't know him personally, so it was news of him that had gone practically radio silent. he was no longer featured in news articles or even pinned on bulletin boards for upcoming recitals. there were no updates from him on social media, too. not that you really paid attention, anyway. he was a prodigy, gifted naturally with talent, and you were a violinist.
an ambitious violinist, at that. you had dreams to perform anywhere out of the stifling air of japan. even to fly a short distance to south korea would be amazing, because it meant you'd be outside of japan. you worked towards this goal tirelessly. you dreamed of stepping on a plane, violin case in your right hand and your dreams in another, to fly to another country and perform. you wished to see the talent beyond your own bubble and feel the music resonate in an auditorium in a different way than it did in japan.
one day, that dream was realized. your violin case in one hand and dreams in another, you boarded the plane flying out of japan full of hope and the faith that good days were coming. while yes, you didn't expect to step out of that plane with anyone but your old accompanist, momo, bakugou's presence comforted you in the foreign atmosphere. for the first ten minutes, he said not a word to you but made it a point to speak to everyone else he could in what seemed like very convincingly fluent english.
to which you finally mustered up the courage to say, in japanese, "i thought you didn't travel internationally."
his japanese voice was a comforting sound. "i don't. this is my first time out of japan."
you stared at him like he just said he ate babies for breakfast (which seemed just as astronomically insane as him never stepping foot out of japan).
"but-" you stuttered. "your english is so good?"
"only because you can't understand it."
to be fair, he had a point. you could only say the basics, like, "hi," "how are you?", "i'm fine, and you?," and the ever-so useful, "do you speak japanese? my english is not good." he appeared to never use any of these phrases, so he was a god in english compared to you.
it was a miracle you navigated out of the airport with your luggage in hand and a general idea of how to get to the hotel you'd booked. you're not going to talk about the events in the hotel, though. sharing a bed with bakugou was a whole different story that consisted of him complaining about your phone usage at eleven pm and you complaining about his lack of sufficient english skills to be able to get the right hotel room (which he'd retort by saying "at least i speak english!").
the path to your first international competition was rocky, so understandably by the day of the performance, your metaphorical feet were sore and you only had water on your metaphorical mind. that is to say, you hadn't practiced with bakugou once until the day before the performance. said rehearsal was cut short due to misunderstandings as a result of bakugou's apparent not-so-fluency in english. you felt bad for him at this point.
and then you were up on stage, violin in one hand, bow in the other, and arms full of your childhood aspirations. also, definitely not prepared enough. you glanced once at bakugou before beginning and he looked confident enough. the lesson you learned that day was that looks can be deceiving.
something you could remember quite clearly was the way the spotlight shined on the varnish of your instrument as you held it, propped between your chin and shoulder. you focused on this shine before taking a deep breath, closing your eyes, and praying muscle memory would take over and you'd play the piece faithfully to the score.
you liked to think your playing was accurate. you, the soloist, were the main focus of the piece. the accompaniment made the piece richer and fuller, complementing the violin beautifully while keeping attention on said violin. the thing was, bakugou, like you, played like a soloist.
the performance was like a fight, and sadly not the graceful kind you'd see in a ballet. it was gory and a nuance to the ears, melodic tinkling of the piano becoming tears of a soldier dying in combat. at parts, you clashed by overshadowing the other by playing too loudly. sometimes it was you, and sometimes it was bakugou. it was a merciless game of tag; bakugou would be running to keep up with your playing; once achieving so, you were forced to start chasing after him. you can't exactly remember if he played well, though. for certain, he was not in sync with you, but you were mainly too preoccupied with your own playing to pay attention to his. listening to the recording of the performance, you were unable to evaluate his quality of playing properly, and thus, he remained your accompanist even when you returned to japan.
(actually, the biggest reason he stayed your accompanist was because of your classical musician friends' nagging. they were all in complete awe that the famous soloist, katsuki bakugou, had offered to be your accompanist, and begged for an autograph. of course, you declined.)
you figured that like you, bakugou was a soloist. he wasn't fit to assist your playing, far more suited to his own solos to entrance the audience with only his playing. being a soloist, he played like one too - that's simply how things worked. this understanding of him, though, still couldn't stop you from harbouring a small grudge against him for ruining your international debut.
and then there was the man himself, all standoffish and rough in words and persona. obscenities had no hesitation coming (thrust!) from his mouth. he yelled brashly and frequently and it astonished you that he was a classical musician, as most of your friends of the classical music profession were typically on the quiet, softer spoken side. those that were extroverts were optimistically so, in far contrast to bakugou, who you'd expect from looks alone to be playing in some heavy metal band. it was scary to hear his renditions of debussy's dreamy, serendipitous pieces when over your earbuds, he was yelling at some guy named "shitty hair" on his phone. you were curious how he looked recording the piece.
you didn't typically communicate, though. conversation, which only ever existed during rehearsal, was a question from you and a clipped grunt in response. there was nothing else to your relation; he played his part, and you played yours. sometimes you did this simultaneously, but it was as if you were playing two completely different things. performance, according to your friends, was now stilted. this was partially the reason you stopped listening to recorded performances. it wasn’t even like you’d ever derived pleasure from listening to them - you only nitpicked your mistakes.
your old accompanist, momo, on the other hand, was an absolute angel. she was kind, polite, and skilled on the piano, fingers dancing over the keys like a graceful ballet. you fit well with her; each performance was like a delightful conversation between friends, pleasant on the ears and twinkling with joy and laughter. with her, every performance felt like something resembling victory, even if it wasn’t a competition. to you, winning the audience’s gaze was enough.
then again, you didn't feel that you could judge quite yet. momo was your accompanist for years, and you could barely remember how the two of you sounded when you first started out. bakugou had been your accompanist for mere months (though it did feel much, much longer considering how frustrating he could be). you couldn't understand why he became your accompanist at all.
opposites. it was an accurate representation of your relationship with bakugou. he was a pianist, you weren't. he was a prodigy, you weren't. he was blessed with talent, you weren't. there was nothing to talk to him about, obviously, because of these dividing factors.
the longer you knew him, the more your disdain for the man grew. at rehearsals, it always felt like your performances were about him, him, and him. he was the star piano player, of course. he hadn't volunteered to be your accompanist as a sense of "stepping down"; no, no, rather, he was flaunting his piano playing with a violin playing in the background. he played perfectly. for a soloist.
as time passed, these frustrations with him became more and more apparent. you became acutely aware of how his performance would outshine your own, and it sickened you. slowly, the quality of your own performances took a nosedive. if the piece was originally pianissimo, you'd take it up to piano (then, if bakugou increased his volume, forte). if the tempo was andante and he was playing moderato, you'd play allegro. it was a competition at this point - instigated by him, of course. you were just upping the ante, even if it meant sacrificing your own artistry.
a lot of people warned you of what would happen, but you ignored them. the fierce competition you felt between you and bakugou caused your own downfall as a musician. slowly, gigs stopped trickling in, like a faucet being shut off. you blamed this on bakugou. ("i was international before him. now, i can barely get a gig in musutafu! why does everyone think he's so great?" you had fumed over the phone to jirou, your old roommate from university. she asked you if you had even listened to him play.)
you were scrambling for places to perform at this point. (“fire him,” the very unhelpful hagakure told you. you didn’t know what you were thinking when you asked her, a violist in a local orchestra. it wasn’t like she ever got a solo.) you’d seriously considered doing so, but came up empty when looking for another accompanist. online forums and friends’ connections could only do so much. they were all either unavailable during rehearsal schedules or inadequate in terms of adapting to the music given.
“you need to try working together with him,” jirou advised you one day over the phone.
“yeah, say that to yourself and kaminari,” you muttered bitterly under your breath. kaminari was a guitarist in jirou’s band who hadn’t quite gotten along with jirou well. jirou made fun of the lightning bolt streak in his hair. when you first met them, all they did was bicker day and night; now, according to the other guitarist, tokoyami, they still did this, though on a smaller scale.
she heard you. “well,” jirou said, slightly ticked off, “we get along better now. because of communication. look- i’m not saying you need to be best friends with bakugou or anything, but you need to talk to him about what’s working and what’s not. respect him as another musician, y’know?”
“i’ll… try,” you said begrudgingly.
you heard a muffled yell from the other side of the call. “kaminari, you idiot!” jirou called, voice a bit far. “what did i tell you about plugging in the amp? i said not to-” she cut herself off. “sorry, y/n, i need to go now. kaminari’s back to his normal antics.” she sighed, but it sounded more endeared than irritated. the call ended.
respect bakugou as another musician. you could do that. bakugou was only a pianist. you were a violinist. he was your accompanist. he was to support your playing. you’d forever be separated from him, doing your own thing. he, certainly, couldn’t understand the woes of being a violinist. not the intonation nor the techniques; you were sure that if you handed him a violin on the spot, he wouldn’t be able to even hold the bow properly. the notion of bakugou, piano prodigy, struggling to make a decent sound on the violin with a bow clenched in an ungainly grip deeply amused you.
these thoughts kept your relationship with bakugou afloat and restrained you from strangling him every time he stepped a toe out of line during rehearsals. ploddingly, with as minimal communication as you could manage, you tried to play with bakugou together, as a duet rather than as two soloists playing simultaneously. you swallowed your pride to play accurately to the music, patiently explaining any qualms you had with bakugou’s playing.
eventually, you found yourself building up your performances to the quality they had once been with momo. it was still far from the pristine playing that led you to an international invite - but it was an improvement, and that was all that mattered to you. innately, you were slightly ashamed of the thoughts that allowed you to keep working with bakugou. they were thoughts that told of your superiority to him, because he was playing piano for you. that’s all he was; an accompaniment to you. you told yourself that having these thoughts on the inside was better than fighting with bakugou.
somehow, along the strings of notes slurred together and shifts of fingers from one spot on a string to the next, you found yourself experiencing a strange joy gliding your bow against the strings of your violin. the rich sound of your instrument, withering and blooming with every stroke of vibrato you performed, fulfilled you unlike how it ever had before. up until now, you’d been playing for the audience, rather than yourself. the melody reverberating in the hollow body of your violin was never for your own ears to enjoy, it was for the audience’s satisfaction and listening pleasure. for it was their own enjoyment that won you competition after competition, playing with a blank face. on some occasions, you’d open your eyes during the applause to see some audience members crying, which ultimately confused you. how you were able to draw emotions from them with your playing when the music was unable to render you anything but indifferent?
you knew it in yourself, though, that the happiness you felt was hollow. delightful notes supposed to boast joy and love echoed in the rehearsal room, falling flat on your ears.
you were a soloist, though. you couldn’t let thoughts like these get to you. you could only play, for both your pride and your audience. these woes were for you to shoulder, on top of the violin you held between your chin and collarbone.
“you’re here early,” bakugou commented one day, opening the door to your shared rehearsal room. tucked under one arm was his folder of sheet music. he caught you in the middle of practicing one of the pieces for a gig - liebesfreud, by fritz kreisler.
it was true. the morning sun basked the window sill and laminate flooring, warming the particular spots it shone through. you’d arrived an hour or so early. pleased by the bright nature of the morning, you pulled up the blinds. typically, you ran late, arriving ten minutes after bakugou’s text of “you’re late again, idiot” with a coffee and a bagel in your hands. those mornings, you were really grateful for having a case with backpack straps. if you hadn’t the time to eat your bagel on the way to rehearsal, it was cold and hard by the time you had a lunch break.
thankfully, today was not one of those days. whether it was the sun or the title of the piece (“love’s joy,” how wonderful), you’d woken up and decided that today, you’d have a warm and soft bagel for breakfast. you had a coupon for a free coffee and surprisingly, the commute to rehearsals was more punctual than usual. thus, you arrived an hour early, a smile on your face as you opened the door. you opened your case with extra care and rosined your bow with extra zest, humming a tune you heard playing on the radio. bakugou would’ve had a heart attack had he saw you then.
you ignored his entrance, only peeping one eye open at the man and nodding your head toward the piano as you continued on with the piece. you allowed yourself to become immersed in the music, following the soft pace bakugou set in his playing. closing your eyes, you saw the audience before you and felt your fingers sliding and pressing the strings. time flew while playing the piece; you’d barely noticed that the piece was nearing its end, playing its familiar melody one last time before opening your eyes. a glance at the rosin dusted in between the bridge and fingerboard of your violin satisfied you, like salt on caramel. you surely played just as sweet, smooth and saccharine like the gooey texture of a caramel confection. you relished in the sunlight streaming through into the room, ignoring the shuffling of papers behind you (from bakugou, no doubt). that was how you should play.
“something’s off,” you blearily opened your eyes to the sound of bakugou’s gruff voice. he was frowning, eyebrows furrowed in a not atypical manner.
“what,” you said flatly. “it sounded fine to me. i didn’t mess up or anything.”
“no,” he replied, deep in thought, crimson eyes darkening a shade. “we don’t have proper… emotion in the music.”
“huh?” you felt a comical question mark rising out of your head. “i played it perfectly to score. it conveys the composer’s emotions to a t,” you said, getting annoyed with the pianist. your grip tightened on your violin’s neck.
“well- yeah,” he gritted his teeth. “but what about your emotions?”
“who cares about my emotions?” you said. “all that matters is that my playing is perfect. the audience feels the emotions, not me.” why else had you been plucked into violin lessons when you were five? surely not for your own enjoyment.
“idiot, that’s definitely not how it is.”
“it’s just violin playing!” you snapped. “it’s not complicated with- with emotions! it’s the same as anything else!”
“you’re wrong,” bakugou coldly answered.
“what would you understand?” you seethed. “you’re just a damn pianist. you follow my lead.”
he ignored your remarks. “why do you play a fucking instrument, then? why bother to enter competitions or recitals?”
“to win, like any other normal person!”
he let out a clipped, exasperated breath. “fuckin’ explains it, then.” he didn’t elaborate. dismissing the topic, he said, “whatever. play the piece from the top. actually try to look at me this time, so we can stay together. put more emphasis on the downbeat at the start.”
“it’s not like you even heard me play the beginning,” you retorted, but made sure to accent that note even more during the replay. pianists. they always were on their high horses.
something you looked forward to every year was the valentine’s recital. the organizers, an old couple, had known you since you were a child, and thus developed a soft spot for you. you were a shoo-in for the event, relied on to learn the music on a short deadline. last year, you played preludio, from bach’s partita for violin no. 3. this year, though, the catch was weird.
“the letter says it’s a violin duet?” you said to jirou while video calling her. “i don’t have a violinist on hand, just a pianist. it’s not like bakugou can suddenly master violin.”
jirou looked at you with a surprised expression. “you don’t know?”
you stared back at her. “know what?”
“he plays violin, too.”
“huh?” you must’ve misheard her.
she nodded. “he’s pretty good, too. have you not seen the videos?”
“videos?" your eyes widened as you soon realized the implications of bakugou harbouring an aptitude for violin. "i’ve… i’ve got to go.”
“he’s as good as you, y/n,” jirou said with a knowing smile. you were quick to press the hang up button.
five seconds into teenage bakugou’s rendition of one of paganini’s caprices, you exited youtube.
the next day, you kicked open the door to the practice room.
“you,” you pointed a finger at bakugou, who sat at the piano midway through a piece.
“what is it now, dumbass? you’re late again.”
“shut up,” you grumbled. “that’s beside the point. you- you play violin?!”
he shrugged, not avoiding your piercing gaze. “i’ve dabbled in it, yes.”
you shut the door behind you. “and why did you never tell me?!”
“tch. you never asked, did you?”
“you’re my accompanist, i should know these things!”
“you know i play piano, and that’s enough,” bakugou said stubbornly. “i only play piano with you.”
“not anymore.” setting your violin case down, you shuffled through the pocket that held your sheet music. flipping out a packet of sheet music, you thrust it in bakugou’s direction. “here.”
he grabbed the sheets from you, skimming the title. “duo for two violins in…. fuck,” he muttered. “why didn’t you just say no? who even is this from?”
“valentine’s recital. the pay’s good, bakugou, and we need it.”
“you need it,” he mumbled bitterly, holding the sheets out for you. “i don’t.”
“it’s not like i’m happy about it either. since when were you a violinist?”
“since when was it any of your damn business?”
"you're supposed to be my pianist! not anything else!"
you didn’t understand how he could be so musically inclined. you blinked, and your sight smeared, blurring the sight of your feet with the laminate flooring. this wasn't right, you thought as you felt a telltale heat creeping up you. why were you crying now?
if there was one thing you prided yourself on, it was your violin playing. it seemed to be the only thing you were good at as a child when academics and athletics failed you. sure, you hated it at first (as most children did when their parents forced them to do something), but as time went on, the applause of the audience and the title of "winner" rewarded you enough. you were no prodigy, so you worked endlessly every day to prove yourself worthy. you never understood how you'd worked so hard only to be in the shadows of others so naturally gifted who surely would never understand how much you practiced to become better.
when it came to bakugou, he was never supposed to be better. he was your pianist, talented in a completely different musical realm than your own, so he could never be superior to you - and now he wasn't. he never was. here you were for the past year or so, looking like a fool in bakugou's eyes. on the days you struggled so hard with fourth finger vibrato, he was probably laughing at your inadequacy at violin. as easily as he played the violin, katsuki bakugou played you like a fool.
everything collided when you stepped out of the room, leaving a particular golden haired boy alone to stare at the sheet music you tossed him. your head throbbed with the groggy sensation of almost-tears and anger coursed through your veins.
you couldn't back out of the recital now. you couldn't.
you couldn't stand to look back into the vermillion eyes of katsuki bakugou now. even more so now, you couldn't.
your solution?
"hey, what's up?" jirou's collected voice filled your ear, your phone pressed to it.
"hey, kyo, i… kind of did a bad thing," you said, feeling jittery as you sought a commute home. you'd already made up your mind that your sorry-ass wouldn't be able to look bakugou back in the face for the rest of the day.
"...again?" she asked, tone concealing a hint of surprise. "don't tell me it was with bakugou. don't you usually practice now?"
"...usually, yes…" you sheepishly shuffled your feet, standing outside on the sidewalk. "i'll be resuming it again, 'course, when i get home…"
"why aren't you with bakugou right now?"
"that's… that's a long story," you laughed nervously.
"i can wait," jirou coolly replied. "kaminari got his foot stuck in his guitar case - don't ask - so i have time."
you considered asking about kaminari, then thought better of it.
"you know about the valentine's day recital they have every year? well, this year…" you recounted the events that led you to now, standing outside on the phone with jirou.
"where are you going to find a violinist?"
a silence found itself opportune as jirou waited for an answer. "i'm, uh, not…?" you said, deflecting the question back to jirou.
"well, you can't play both parts in the duet, can you? actually, don't answer that. i know you'd try. didn't you try that one time in-"
"what's done in uni stays in uni," you hushed her before she could recall that one time you tried to play a sonata with a recording of yourself. "aren't you going to tell me to try to make amends with bakugou?"
"no," she said thoughtfully after a pause. "you've tried before, and it's not working for you. i don't think you should be forced to do something you obviously don't want to do. i just think," she continued, "you need to find someone to do the duet with, if you don't want to work with bakugou. but objectively, he's your best bet."
as jirou always was, she was right. you thanked her for her advice not before hearing a distraught kaminari shouting for jirou in the background, and then she ended the call.
you repeated her words in your head once you got home, sliding your bow back and forth on your small block of worn rosin. the score for the duet was spread next to you on the floor. it wasn't that you didn't want to work with bakugou. or was it? had you been that selfish all along, sabotaging other performances because you didn't like him? if even jirou had noticed it, had bakugou noticed it too?
your sigh let out a thousand burdens piled up in your mind, blowing air out like dust accumulating on your tribulations. you picked up your violin and bow thoughtlessly, testing out the strings and plucking a couple with your left hand.
was it really only you with the contempt for working with bakugou? you'd assumed mutual hatred with him after your international debut, but had it really been so? had you been the only one picking fights during the time you'd worked together? as you backtracked, your fingers slipped into a familiar position. you began a piece you knew positively by heart, an absolute favorite of yours for years. you played mindlessly, serenading yourself with familiar notes and string fingerings as you thought long and hard about bakugou. how much shit had you given bakugou? he hardly complained, too, but why? why hadn't he quit after you'd been so ceaselessly difficult with him?
why were you so angry at bakugou, a gifted prodigy since childhood? the answer found itself as the composition descended into an array of complicated fingerings and string changes, sounding like an incoherent chaos somehow strung together by the music. you pretended you didn't know the answer.
it was much, much easier to leave bakugou as just a pianist. respectable in his own field, and incomparable to you. it was too good to be true, obviously. all your life, you played to win, and couldn't allow anyone else to surpass you. violin was about winning, winning, winning. how were you supposed to cope when all those hours of practice were easily overcome by someone with innate talent?
the piece eased your tension with a fermata, drawing out your vibrato to think. bakugou's perfection infuriated you, you concluded. knowing this, though, didn't help with anything. you almost screeched the last note as the composition came to an end, unsettled by thoughts of bakugou. you really couldn't stand him.
in an attempt to distract yourself from your dilemma, you decided to start practicing the recital composition. you pulled out an old portable music stand, bending the parts into place and stacking it up. carefully, you placed the sheets on the stand and skimmed over the music, bringing your violin up to your collarbone.
your eyes followed one measure ahead of what you were playing as you sight-read the piece. ahead, ahead, was all you could think as your fingers fumbled the notes, eyes moving from the score to the fingerboard. bakugou was far from your mind as you caught up to the music, too preoccupied with the sharps and flats you'd forgotten and the time you had to keep. you were busied by the shifts and the repeat signs in the music over anything else. your priority lay here for the time being, after all. the sight-reading was almost enough to make you forget you only play one half to a duet. there was still still an emptiness that lurked between the rests and the redundant beats that even your stilted practice couldn't mask. you tried not to worry about that, though.
time floated by as you repeated the piece over and over, playing for accuracy first. it wasn't enough, but you pretended it was. the metronome on your phone ticked away like time, endless and impatient, until you couldn't stand it anymore and packed away your violin.
the proceeding day was filled with more of the same practicing, working on tweaking hesitations and polishing up your playing. it was kind of convenient, practicing at home rather than waking up early to practice with bakugou. you missed the bagel the most.
you were definitely not playing your best, and it was clear by the way your bow occasionally screeched and how you fumbled the fingerings when you were particularly negligent. the piece just didn't sound right without the second part. (bakugou was definitely not the second part missing. not at all.)
by the third day you gave up and admitted to yourself that yes, bakugou was the second part missing. you were only a little bit miserable buying your usual bagel and coffee and rushing to rehearsals fifteen minutes late, aware that you'd be unable to eat it before practice. you were substantially less miserable than how you were the day previous, practicing alone.
you weren't surprised to see bakugou already there, sitting on the piano bench and tightening his bow hairs. he acknowledged you with a grunt as you set down your breakfast and beverage.
"showed up, huh?" he said finally, voice rough. he stood up, setting his sheet music on a stand. you stared at him, awed by his nonchalance. he picked up his violin and bow (which, by the way, looked super expensive) and propped his violin up by his chin. it felt so foreign to see him in position to play violin, fingers already expertly in first position and wrist beautifully curved, yet it inexplicably clicked. the scene in front of you looked like he'd done this everyday, as it was always supposed to have been, his back confidently straight. his fingers arched over the fingerboard and his bow appeared mathematically parallel to the bridge, held delicately between his fingers. you'd never carefully watched him play piano (probably due to your distaste to him and lack of knowledge about the percussion instrument), but he made the violin look like an instrument of the gods. he hesitated, though, bow moving a centimeter then back. he frowned at your idle silence and turned back to you. "well? are we doing this duet or not?"
"oh," you reacted intelligently. "yeah. yeah." it kicked in what you were doing by the time you'd started tuning your violin, first bowing your a string. after tuning your violin (with the help of a tuning fork and none from the perfect-pitched bastard bakugou, who appeared to be watching you with a triumphant gleam in his eyes as you struggled to tune your violin properly), you set your sheet music next to bakugou's.
"ready?" you asked, as if you'd been the one waiting for bakugou all this time.
"ask yourself that," he snorted. "i'll do the count."
you nodded.
"one, two, three, f-"
"wait, wait," you said, squinting at your music. "isn't it supposed to be a bit slower than that?"
"it says allegro," bakugou said, tapping his foot. "need an italian lesson? lively, briskly."
"i know what allegro means," you gritted. "seems too fast, when paired with dolce."
"maybe for you," he smirked.
you narrowed your eyes at him. "and that means what, exactly?"
he opened his mouth to reply some smug, smart-ass answer, but you stopped him.
"nevermind," you said. "do the count again, at the same tempo. i can do it."
you were bluffing, of course. since when was allegro this fast? you wondered as the opening notes sped by you in a musical blur. already familiar with the melody, you messed up dynamics the most. of crescendos and diminuendos? it wasn't like bakugou would notice, too preoccupied with his part.
the ending of the piece took your breath away, storming toward you in a whirlwind. adrenaline filled your veins as you raced to the last measure of the music, overcome by the tempo and the music. this time, full of energy and exhilaration, the piece felt complete. your and bakugou's sound surrounded the two of you, overflowing the room with a saccharine melody. it felt right simply standing beside him playing a two part piece, chest heaving from the piece's energy. you could only hear your breathing, a gentle encore to your playing.
"your playing is sloppy," bakugou said bluntly. he leaned over to your sheet music, starting to point at dynamic markings.
you swatted his hand away before he could say a word. "yeah, well, i just got the music three days ago," you interjected.
"you also had two of the three days off, so i'd say you're not doing enough." he glanced back down at your score. he pointed at a measure. "this is a crescendo, moron, why didn't you get much louder?"
"just- pay attention to your own music!" you said. "besides, it's dolce. i can get away with playing softer."
"that wasn't very dolce to me," he argued. "nothing sweet, soft, or gentle about that," he mumbled.
"i can be sweet, soft, and gentle if i want to!" you retorted.
he raised a brow, as if a challenge, scarlet eyes glinting in the light. "tch. i'm sure you can, but your playing damn can't."
“it can, too! listen,” you said, impetuously raising your violin and bow again. you slowly started to play a d major scale, impatiently scrunching your nose and squeezing your eyes shut to concentrate on making the music soft and gentle, tampering with different degrees of vibrato and bow pressure.
“... that’s just piano,” bakugou said, moving to you as you bowed an a. your bow came to an abrupt halt, making an unpleasant squeal, as bakugou positioned himself behind you. you felt his body warmth radiating behind you as a sweet, homely scent wafted around you. he brought his arms around you, hands overlapping where you held your violin and bow.
“you need to be,” he murmured into your ear, gentle tone almost slurring the words together, "fragile when you play dolce." he angled your bow slightly, moving your hand. "bow closer to the fingerboard." the smooth baritone of his voice resonated within you, becoming lost within the violinist's embrace.
"most of all," he said, dropping an octave to an intimate tone, "you need to feel it. you can attempt to play it, but without feeling, it's fuckin’ meaningless."
"feeling?" you repeated blankly. “the audience’s, you mean.”
he stepped away, a gesture that made you breathless, and shook his head. he crossed his arms over his chest, unintentionally accentuating their volume. “your damn feelings. what do you feel when playing the piece?”
there’s a pause for perhaps a second too long, as you mulled over different answers in your head.
“tch.” his eyes don’t leave you, gaze a laser burning into you. “‘s what i thought. why do you play violin?”
you held your tongue from answering my parents. “to win. i play to win,” you stated.
“and that’s the damn problem,” bakugou said, releasing a breath of frustrated air. “you win to play.”
“that means…?” you were starting to get impatient with the man, who seemed to be stalling and dragging out your limited time.
“you win competitions to play more.”
you almost scoffed, but his words were plausible. “what’s the purpose in playing more if not to win?”
he made a scratching noise in his throat, cool demeanor shifting to that of the bakugou you knew. “l-l-” he coughed, “love.”
“love?” you repeated, the word a surprise to swallow.
he nodded, gagging on his reply. you couldn’t see bakugou as the romantic type - the same bakugou who called all of his friends demeaning nicknames and could barely say the word love out loud. he was explosive, maybe, and talented, sure - but acquainted with love? you pursed your lips at the stuttering man trying to advise you.
“whatever,” he dismissed, voice oddly hoarse. “just play it from the top. fix the dynamics.”
weeks passed in a blur, though bakugou’s advice was left unforgotten. it had, for the most part, faded from your mind but lingered like a ghost in an abandoned attic, stirring up dust in complete silence. it was valid criticism on bakugou’s part, but the problem was that it was criticism you couldn’t digest. it was a ghost that you could not rid of, whispering and lurking until your music played over it.
four weeks before the performance, you had the piece almost entirely memorized other than a few flukes here and there. you managed most of your dynamics, playing in sync with bakugou by your side. three weeks and the piece was mostly smooth, foregoing all sheet music and practicing in the middle of the room with bakugou tapping out the tempo on the honeyed floor. any mistakes were recovered from quickly, and you were pleased to say that the amount of bakugou’s slip-ups equated to yours. at two weeks, though, he brought up the pest bugging your mind.
“play with more emotion,” he sighed exasperatedly, letting out a huff as you played for him. “start on f sharp again.”
you’d tried time and time again, but the longer you’d replayed the same few measures (followed by his criticism for the nth time), the only emotion you felt was frustration. your bow would push too hard or your vibrato would lay on thick, immensely irritating bakugou. you didn’t know why he even tried.
the air felt stale and the lights shone obnoxiously bright. the pads of your left hand fingers had hardened by now, indented with a pair of parallel lines from your unforgiving violin strings. you inhaled rosin dust and occasional bow hairs miserably dropped to the floor. your arms were tired, sore, and sick of playing; your ears painfully endured the same tune again and again, the originally fluid and sweet notes becoming high frequency static.
“i can’t do this.” you were tempted to flop onto the ground, hopelessness pouring over you.
“you can,” bakugou insisted stubbornly. “you just need to try harder.”
“harder?” you would’ve snapped (and you were surprised your e string didn’t already by the repetitive motions on it) if you weren’t so exhausted from rehearsing.
he nodded like it was obvious. “try harder.”
you shakily inhaled, trying to smooth your voice over. “i’m sorry i can’t be a prodigy like you.”
he stiffened, tense to the point of trembling. “whatever,” and it was a strained word pulled from his mouth. it was very atypical for him to give up like this, but you didn't care. you avoided his eyes as you restarted the piece, unable to bloom anything from it.
outside of your rehearsal time, you practiced. arguably, your solo rehearsals were more rigorous. you forced yourself to add emotion to the piece, sometimes playing for jirou. she agreed with bakugou (though was a great deal less irritating), stating that your playing was somewhat hollow. (you restrained yourself from knocking on the instrument and saying that yes, indeed, violins were hollow.)
"how… how do you get any emotions from playing?" you asked jirou at one point, watching one of her band's rehearsals. they were on a break, chatting idly and taking sips from their water bottles.
“well…” jirou started, glancing back at her band members. “i think about the feelings i want the audience to feel because of my songs. i think about how the song makes me feel, then i put that into how i play.”
“how do you…” you shifted uncomfortably, “know what to feel?”
she looked at you, taken aback, but replied easily. “you don’t. it just… happens.”
her response was vastly different than what you’d been taught a child. emotions? sure, there was perhaps a time where playing evoked a feeling in you, plucked something melodical from your heartstrings. it was when you were a child, though, so it was irrational and erratic, an outburst in the middle of your otherwise level playing. your violin teacher didn’t approve when you’d follow how the music made you feel. she said it made you stray too far from the original piece and would make you lose competitions. no matter how you pushed back against her, her advice haunted you over and over every time you got anything other than first place.
your performance is the audience, she’d told you. you didn’t understand what she meant at first, but she made sure you did while practicing for your next rehearsals. the audience, she quipped with thin lips under her sharp eyes, is everything. if the audience wasn’t satisfied, your performance was worthless, no matter how well you played technically. you play for them and you win - it was that plain. there was nothing more than you wanted but to win, at the time. you wanted a trophy, a medal, a certificate stating that you were better than most. it was palpable evidence that you were good enough - for your parents, your peers, anyone. like that, you practiced, a servant for approval. you weren’t a prodigy, but you sure as hell would try to play like one. her advice worked for over a decade, soundly racking you up with countless awards that filled your otherwise desolate self-esteem.
you didn’t say anything else to jirou about it, instead thinking about the bits and pieces of human feeling you could extract in between your piece’s accidentals and eighth notes. perhaps there was a possibility, through the phrases of notes and dynamic markings, you’d find a word that said love. a renewed interest sparked itself when jirou’s band continued their rehearsals, finding yourself to be a normal audience member (maybe even crying at the end. maybe).
you returned home to practice, practice, practice, coercing any hidden message in the music to vibrate in your violin and echo around your room. you watched other renditions of the piece to find something you were missing, but imitating them didn’t seem right. this continued for the following weeks, hiding any potential development from bakugou (or trying to, at least). you knew you’d be disappointing him if you failed after trying so hard. it was only safe to play what you knew, secure in the written parts of the composition and keeping it at that.
by the time the performance came around, you were glad bakugou never found out about your secret efforts. if he had, you knew he’d be sorely dispirited by your lack of tangible progress, your sound just as hollow as the soundbox of your violin. you failed, you knew, and as crestfallen as you were on that cold february morning, the show must go on.
the performances were held in an auditorium, warm compared to the snowy wonderland outside. it was typically couples comprising the audience, all romantic and pepped up in the spirit of valentine's day (white day was no different). some arrived early, finding seats in the empty auditorium and chatting amongst themselves (or sometimes making out, which made you want to throw your violin at them and gag). bakugou’s and your performance was last; it quite the heavy honor to play the finale to the recital.
backstage was a vast contrast to the hushed atmosphere settled over the assemblage. hovering over the staff and performers for the day was a sense of panic, hurry, and hecticness. bits of rosin were scattered on the ground where you prepared for your rehearsal, some belonging to your block and others not. your pack of extra strings lay next to you on the sofa you sat on, arm resting on the side of the seat. similar to your violin's strings, spun tightly over pegs to be kept in place, you felt high-strung. the buzz of energetic excitement flitted in your head, knee bumping up and down and jerking your violin in the same motion. it was hard to calm when you tuned your violin to absolute perfection, relying on bakugou's perfect pitch to do so. the fine tuners on the end of your strings probably hadn't had a harder time in the years you'd owned your violin.
"you're shaking the entire sofa, idiot," bakugou deadpanned next to you. “some of us are trying to rosin our bow, unlike you.” he glanced at the floor, where amber shards of rosin lay amidst white dust (also made of rosin).
“to be fair, most of those aren’t mine,” you pointed out. you reached into your violin case, finding the rectangular case of rosin and opening the top. "mine's only chipped in a couple corners, and the rest is just worn on the edges from my bow."
you leaned over to look at bakugou's rosin, two stubs in its case. "and i'm the one dropping my rosin?"
his ears turned a deep red, matching the velvet curtains on stage. "that's different," he muttered, putting the lid on his rosin and putting it away.
"you ready?" you watched him swallow before speaking, not looking at you. you could hear one of the presenters speaking, introducing the first piece to be played (an ever-so romantic rendition of clair de lune), but the voices felt distant and muffled over the sound of your own nervous heart beating.
"yeah," he replied. he turned to look at you, scarlet eyes meeting your own. "what, you're not scared now, are you, dumbass?"
you gulped. "no… just excited," you said. in truth, you felt disappointed in yourself for being unable to find any emotion in your playing - thinking about the piece, you were devoid of anything but the measures and the notes. what was the piece trying to say in the white space between staff lines? after the clef at the beginning of the music, where did the emotions start and everything else end?
quiet notes, twinkling from the piano on stage, met your ears. you took a deep breath. how did they make you feel?
…not very good, because this pianist was certainly a beat or two off tempo. a large hand on your knee startled you out of your trance. its warmth was surprisingly comforting. you followed the arm connecting to the hand to meet bakugou's concentrated face, eyebrows furrowed and nose scrunched.
"don't shake your knee like that. also, why are you so damn cold?" he moved his hand away, leaving an imprint of heat on your knee. you hadn't noticed the physical manifestation of your nerves prior to bakugou's words.
you left his question unanswered, staring at your violin in your lap. you traced the patterns in wood, fingers following the shape of the f-hole and thumbing circles on your chin rest. how were you supposed to be able to pull living, breathing life in the form of emotions from an inanimate object? what sorcery were you supposed to manage to satisfy yourself and the audience?
you thought back to bakugou's words. what was it had he said you were supposed to be playing for? love, the irrational and sentimental flaw of life - somehow expressed from the symbols on a sheet of paper and through strings on hollow wood. what sort of miracle was bakugou creating with his music?
what was violin, if not just a task to do everyday? what was it, out of competitions and tests of skill? what was the sound reverberating within its vacant body, recording every shift of fingers on the fingerboard?
you looked past your violin to the rosin on the floor. friction, your violin teacher had explained to you. you put rosin on your bow so it creates friction with the strings, and thus creates sound. it was strange how friction caused the smooth sound of a violin. too much friction, added by pressure on the bow, made a creaky sound on the strings. without rosin, the bow would be too smooth on the string and make no noise at all. the happy medium of not too much and not too little created the familiar rich tone on the strings.
a happy medium, you mused. in between too much friction and none at all. maybe that was how you were supposed to feel, in between trying too hard and not trying at all. that's what feelings were in the end, right? a natural human instinct, spurred by life. could you breathe life into the music?
the stage seemed almost too big for the two of you, spotlights centering you on the wide, wooden platform. the crowd's eyes were on you and your fellow violinist, some watching with drooping eyelids. they felt far, distant under the shadows. even so, the question still besieged you - would you please them?
you teared your eyes away to bakugou, who started the count. everything was silent until he nodded to you, your cue to start the piece. it felt too fast when you began but it was the same allegro you’d been practicing with. muscle memory took control now, your fingers finding their places easily.
your fingers and bow took all your attention. everything else fell away - the lights, the crowd, the stage - until it was just you, your violin, and the music. you could practically see the score in your head, playing the notes you'd come to know so well.
you heard your music echo and resound off the walls, but that's all it seemed to do. it touched everyone in the room, looking for a place to stay, and diminished in an empty space alone. it frustrated you that it wouldn't resonate - where was the love bakugou had so told you of? this auditorium was no different than your room, where sounds bounced off walls and landed nowhere. you weren't reaching anywhere or anyone, lacking emotion and any true substance.
love - what was love if not a hindrance? how could bakugou expect so much out of you? love - had you ever felt it for the violin? dolce told you to play sweetly, softly, and gently, but what was sweet about the violin? what was so sweet about the imprints of strings on your fingers, fragmented rosin at your feet, and bruises on your neck from long hours of practice? what was gentle about the arduous replaying of the same measure, the ringing in your ears after playing to master a simple phrase? what was soft about the forte that rang in your head, the fortissimo that filled a performance and clouded your senses?
dolce filled you like an epiphany, euphoric in your eyes that finally opened and awakened. dolce was in bakugou's eyes, soft velvet like the crimson curtains onstage, downcast at his violin. dolce was in his sound as his bow skittered near the fingerboard, in his fingers sliding back and forth on his a string. dolce was in his grasp of his bow and violin, in the very essence he played the violin with. dolce contradicted everything you knew, reminding you of bakugou's soft hands over yours, guiding your fingers and bow. dolce was the morning light streaming into the practice room as you argued with bakugou over tempos and notes, the light glinting on shattered shards of rosin as you anxiously rosined your bow. dolce was the curve of your violin scroll, the bend of your fingers over your bow's frog. dolce was the white space in between staff lines on your sheet music and through half and whole notes. dolce was everything in between the rough of your violin experience, the laughter and smiling gone forgotten during sleepless practice sessions and violin evaluations.
what was dolce, if not a rebellion? what was it, if not a rebellion from the years of work and pain you'd endured in the name of musicality? what was it, if not laughing in the face of your violin instructors and the strict score you adhered to?
when you opened your eyes to meet bakugou's, whose carmine eyes dripped with a burning passion and the essence of souls, you finally felt. it was the so-sought over love, scorching every note and stroke of your bow and bursting life in every movement, breath, and echo of your performance. it was exhilarating, living through every slur and chord you played. when you finally met his eyes he understood, a satisfied smile tugging on his lips as his gaze never left yours. this was it - this was dolce, humming sweetly, softly, and gently in your ears and reflecting in the audience's heart. this was dolce, making you realize that you never wanted to play violin alone again.
you picked up a rose that had landed at your feet at the end of your piece, holding it next to bakugou's confused face. in doing so, you reached your second epiphany of the day - perhaps the more important of the two. bakugou's eyes bloomed redder than the rose, deeper than the lowest note on a double bass, and maybe it was he that was the true dolce you were looking for.
notes!!
if you’re reading this, congrats !! this is my longest fic on my account (the record will be broken soon), so i really appreciate you reading this :> (spare a reblog, perhaps?)
first, explaining the playlist:
beethoven’s kreutzer - this was played in the anime, “your lie in april,” and i simply think it fits the “fight” reader and bakugou have. this was played at reader’s first international recital that did not go so well.
kreisler’s liebesfreud (love’s joy) is in the same series as his piece called liebesleid (love’s sorrow), also featured in “your lie in april.” i personally really like the piece. of all of these listed, i think you should listen to this one the most.
beriot’s duo concertante was the other contender for reader and bakugou’s duet piece!
debussy’s clair de lune is simply a favorite of mine. it’s the first piece played at the valentine’s performance (and i like to imagine reader’s listened to bakugou’s recording of the piece)
spohr’s duo for 2 violins is the piece reader and bakugou play! it’s the second part of the duo in allegro, and i once tried to listen to it while following the sheet music. i was so confused every time i did so; i’d get lost and such, and figured my musicality was declining. nope. i was reading the wrong part. so, i started freaking out because oh god the dolce is in the first part, not the second, and thankfully, there’s a bit of dolce in the second part too! however, it did take me a while to decide whether to use the first part instead.
also, spohr invented the chinrest on the violin! crazy :D
paginini’s 24th caprice is considered the hardest out of all 24 caprices. imagine,,, teenage bakugou playing this,,, doing the left hand pizz and all T^T pain
there’s a lot i wish i could cover in this! a lot of reader’s own flaws (ahem, viola jokes) and development were something i couldn’t cover. bakugou’s arc as well! he had an arc a bit before this story takes place :)) tl;dr i’m very tempted to pick my violin up again and start playing
the frog of the bow does not, sadly, go ribbit. it’s the part violinists hold the bow by!
thank you for reading! i hope you enjoyed this :)
190 notes
·
View notes