Chapter Text
He needs a break. That’s what Bai would say.
A grunt escapes Hei’s throat when he at last pulls himself up onto the roof of a grandiose building. It’s another evening of fighting crime then taking refuge where people won’t think to look. The last rays of sunlight greet him here after he has torn through shadowed alleyways and vile gangs. Only when he lets himself sit on the stone floor does he register the faint sound of a grand piano.
The very presence of any sound should annoy him. A quiet breeze after his daily patrolling and assignments around the city’s nastiest parts is more than enough. But tonight, as he rests his head against the tall border of brick for the roof, he lets the muffled classical repertoire take him back, even further back than his childhood. It’s a time unnamed yet familiar to Hei. He can’t put a finger on it.
He’s seen her but never heard her. He doesn’t have the money, he’s sure, but he doesn’t need money to just know about her. The city streets inhabited by artists, painters, writers, musicians alike, murmur about where she is on the globe, who she’s giving music to in real time. Billboards jovially echo her latest accomplishments and advertisements.
Kirsi has just arrived at Tokyo, her last destination in her world tour, “Cherry on the Top.” Bai had shown Hei every single video she could find of her performances in the previous locations. He’s come to enjoy them on his own; an incredible feat on Kirsi’s part. Music was something he had never set aside time to indulge in, yet he’s been visiting the roof of this very building almost every night now, just in case he can hear her play again. And, tonight he is lucky.
Hearing her music relieves that insistent tug in his gut just a little bit, the one that torments him suddenly when he passes by a billboard of her, or sees the latest news of her work. Perhaps her music—her being—was really as magical as everyone said if it’s moving him, of all people, to an emotion he can’t name.
He doesn’t know how long he stays sitting on the roof. He gets up once he hears a distant roar of clapping follow the music, music which he’s been trying again to ingrain each note into his mind.
The trip back home isn’t long, but he does stop by a convenience store along the way for a few groceries to last him and Bai through the rest of the week. This time he could afford to spend a little on some of their favorite snacks before he gets his next paycheck from the Syndicate. Sometimes he wonders if this is what his life has come down to: ridding the streets of crime just to rack up enough money to purchase a few nice things over necessities every once in a while.
Soon enough he’s out of the lightly snow-lined pavements. When he enters the front door of their apartment, only the light from their single bedroom is on. He leaves the bags of goods on the coffee table. The bedroom door creaks when he inches it open to confirm his guess: Bai had fallen asleep studying, faceplanted in her books. Whether it was unintentional or whether it was a ploy to leave the bed empty for him to take tonight, he could never tell.
Still, he takes the couch. It’s not the worst, furnished with a nice blanket and a throw pillow, maybe two if he needs to elevate whatever he’s sprained from a fight. He switches off the bedroom light, not bothering to carry Bai to bed because she always hated it when he’d do that, and retires to the leather couch.
He lets the rumpled bags of groceries wait on the coffee table. It’s the only time he can lay down, throw an arm over his eyes, and let himself be a mess.
His legs are being handled in a familiar way when he wakes up the next morning. As she holds up his legs to clear a space on the couch, Bai notices and explains herself immediately. She always does. “No school. The snow picked up just before dawn and we got an email from the principal.”
Hei groans, “Time?” He briefly curls in his blanket clad legs to let her take a seat at the other end of the couch. Only when she tugs at his trousers does he allow himself to straighten out again with his calves now on her lap.
“Almost eight. AM.” She fiddles with the TV remote to get something on screen. It’s a news channel, probably just to get Hei to open his eyes. He does.
“I know it’s AM.”
“As if you don’t sleep some days off until eight PM,” she huffs. She’s not wrong, and they both know it. “When did you come back last night?”
He doesn’t know. “Late enough to see you knocked out on top of your magnetism homework.” The news reporter on the TV is still going on about the sudden change in weather and the traffic it’s causing. He cuts off Bai before she can start again. “No, I’m not doing it for you.” She grumbles and pokes at his legs while he glances back at the TV.
This time he’s looking at a headline reading ‘Pianist’s Last Leg Of World Tour Reaches Millions.’ Bai gives up pestering Hei to bolt upright with a gasp. The reporter himself looks a little happier to not be droning on about the weather anymore, “It seems that Yin’s latest tour has left such an impression that she’s extending her stay in tokyo to put on another show, improvised this time!”
Hei’s certainly a little more awake now.
“Brother brother brother brother!” Bai is rapidly tapping his shins. “We need to go!”
“We don’t need to go. We want to go. Money doesn’t go to ‘wants.’”
“So what if we want —” She cuts herself off with a gasp. “‘We.’ Did you say ‘we?’” She grins, an eerie sight to Hei. “‘We want to go?’ So that means you also want to go?”
“Bai, we’re not going.” He finally sits up and drags a hand down his face. The blanket falls to his waist.
“This is a once in a lifetime chance!” Bai turns back to the TV, where the news reporter is summarizing the details and logistics of the upcoming show.
This weekend, in the afternoons and evenings, Hei catches despite himself. And, with the show being put on at such short notice, each ticket is selling for— Oh goodness, he doesn’t even want to know. He grumbles, swings his legs off the couch, and heads into the bathroom to freshen up.
The moment he returns, Bai is already chattering as she frantically scrolls on her phone. “It’s thirty-thousand yen.”
“What?!”
“Well, thirty-four-thousand, actually—so sixty-eight-thousand for the both of us—but I rounded down to save your sanity. And that’s a seat in the back row. Towards the front row—”
“Bai, stop.”
“I’m not asking for a front row seat, Brother, I’m just informing you how much more expensive it is than the back rows!”
“That’s enough ‘informing’ from you in one day. We are not going.” Hei sets about the kitchen to make a quick breakfast for the both of them. A few last-minute errands would be good to run today if he can get out of the apartment a little earlier than most would.
He hears her socked footsteps pad into the kitchen, much like that stray cat who follows him around the streets whether he’s fighting or not. “You also want to hear Yin play. I know you do!”
Hei sighs, “Sure, but the videos you’ve shown me of her do the job.”
She clears her throat with that mock politeness only she can manage. “Let me correct myself: You also want to hear Yin play live.”
“Wrong,” he grunts. The sound of eggs frying joins them now. “What’s the point of hearing her play live when I can watch a video someone will post of her later?”
“But this one’s different. She’s improvising! Making up repertoire on the spot! A genius at work!” She adds, grumbling, “What you said is exactly why I never asked to go to her shows here before, and you should be grateful.”
She’s right, he realizes. He’s gotten so careful with his pay that she’s been growing up with an intuition to know what she can and can not ask of him. Usually there’s little she can ask. He hears about much less mindful families sometimes, and frankly he is grateful.
But, if he’s regularly setting aside some of his paycheck to buy their snacks, which they don’t really need as much as they want, can’t he throw his wallet into a few hours of live music from a renowned pianist?
He sighs after a long moment. “I’ll think about it.” It’s a low mutter.
“But, tickets will run out—!”
“I said I’ll think about it. They won’t run out today, they just put them up.”
She whines, “Brother, you don’t know how show tickets work!”
The sizzling and popping of their food dies down. He plates one serving of the breakfast and slides across the counter to her and she catches it. On another plate, he sets aside what’s left for himself. “I do know they will be resold by third parties at much more affordable prices.”
“In the dark web,” she scoffs.
“Just eat.” He glares at her. “I’ll figure something out.”