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Rose tried to recall the last time she had played the violin.
It must have been on that day. The day the world ended, and Rose’s life went to shit. Had it really only been a few weeks ago? It felt more like years, like her life up until that day was some fake life belonging to someone else. A foolish girl whose biggest concern was her passive aggressive strifes with her mother.
Oh well, the past was best left in the past after all. It’s best to just move forward. In the metaphorical sense, but also in the literal sense as the meteor continued to move forward on their three-year journey.
That journey was the reason Rose now stood alone in a room with her violin. Three years in a confined space was a long time, and she was frankly bored.
Rose opened up the alchemized music book and flipped to a familiar song. After finding it, she placed the violin under her chin and lifted the bow to the strings.
As her fingers and bows danced on the strings Rose’s mind focused only on the notes. Thoughts of her dead mother, anxieties about her friends not on the meteor, every fucking traumatic thing from that day that she would talk about with a therapist if Rose was the type to do so and if there were any therapists to talk to all faded away as the music played. Rose felt a peace that she hadn’t felt since, well, since before her life went to hell in a handbasket.
Everything faded but the sheet of music in front of her and the violin in her hands. Rose could almost imagine that she wasn’t on a meteor on a three-year journey. She was at some stupid recital her mother signed her up for. It wasn’t a solo performance she was just one of a dozen or so violin players. At the end of the performance her mother would still enthusiastically applaud and praise her performance all the way back home. It was clearly all part of her mother’s passive aggressive master plan, but Rose would be lying if she didn’t admit that she missed the normalcy of it.
Suddenly a noise startled Rose just as she finished the song. She turned around and saw Kanaya standing by the doorway applauding politely.
“I Apologize If I Startled You,” Kanaya flushed after being noticed. “I Happened To Overhear Your Playing And… I-I Can Leave If I’m Bothering You.”
Rose quickly wiped her face (not to wipe any tears of course, that would be absurd) and weakly smiled at Kanaya. “You’re not bothering me at all, I was just unaware that I had an audience.”
“I Apologize Again, I Just Didn’t Want To Interrupt Your Performance.” Rose couldn’t help but notice the adorable shade of green Kanaya’s cheeks turned. “You’re Really Quite Talented.”
“You must be tone deaf if you thought that was talented.” Rose snorted. “Still I do appreciate the sentiment.” Rose paused for a brief moment really taking in Kanaya’s compliment. It was so genuine, all one had to do was look into Kanaya’s gorgeous green eyes to see the admiration in them. It was ridiculous honestly, but Rose couldn’t help but find it sweet. “If you’d like I could play another song?”
Kanaya’s grin was dazzling. “I Would Enjoy That Very Much.” As Kanaya entered the room, Rose flipped through the book looking for her next song. After selecting a song, Rose readied her violin and began to play once more, trying not to let the beautiful troll with an adorably expectant gaze distract her.
It wasn’t the same as those recitals from the past, those days were gone forever with the planet Earth. But sameness is overrated and different certainly had its charms. In fact, if you asked Rose, performing right here for Kanaya was better than a hundred lousy Earth recitals.