hueningkai, a former piano prodigy who loses the ability to hear his own playing after his mother's death. his life changes when he meets a free-spirited violinist who forces him back into the spotlight.
warnings: character death x2, kai has an abusive relationship with his mother, obviously based off of your lie in april so angst
kai used to hear the world in measures. in conversations, in laughter, even in the scrape of chairs against the floor. it was all in tempo and in rhythm to him. the precise ticking of a metronome that lived permanently somewhere deep in his mind. when he was young, his mother would press two fingers against his sternum and say, “listen. even your heart keeps in time.” and kai learned very early that love sounded like discipline, like correction.
by seven, he could play chopin without looking at the keys. by ten, judges called him miraculous. by twelve, they called him untouchable. but then his mother got sick and everything changed.
the curtains were drawn more often. the piano lid stayed closed longer. hospital pamphlets replaced sheet music on the kitchen table. kai didn’t understand the word terminal, but he understood the silence. he understood the way his mother’s hands trembled when she tried to demonstrate a passage but couldn’t. he understood the way she grew sharper, colder, and more desperate.
“if you stop, you’ll fall behind,” she told him once, voice thin from exhaustion. “the world doesn’t wait.” so he practiced until his fingertips bled and the keys felt like bone instead of ivory. he practiced until he stopped crying when she struck his knuckles with a pencil for hesitating.
love sounds like correction and pain.
the last time she heard him play, she was too weak to sit upright. he played beside her hospital bed instead of on a stage. there was no audience, no judges, and no applause. just the faint beeping of machines and the hollow echo of a child trying to be enough.
she died in the middle of spring. cherry blossoms bloomed outside the hospital window like nothing had happened. kai stopped hearing the piano a week later. like the world was torturing him for not playing ‘well enough’. kai could no longer hear the art that used to bring him so much comfort and pain at the same time. everything sounded like he was under water.
the doctors said there was nothing physically wrong. his ears worked and his brain processed sound just fine. but whenever he sat at the piano and pressed a key, the note felt like it dissolved before it could reached his ears. he could see his fingers move, he could feel the vibration through the strings, but the sound itself slipped somewhere he couldn’t follow. at competitions, he relied on muscle memory, and on counting. but eventually, even that began to fracture.
until one day, during a performance, the world went completely silent. his hands were moving, the audience was watching, but he was drowning in quiet. after that, he quit playing for good. he simply closed the lid and never opened it again.
the world drained of color. not metaphorically, literally. the sky dulled, the grass faded to a pale green, even food tasted boring. his friends stopped asking when he would play again, and venues stopped trying to reach out to him. kai became something else, not a prodigy, not even a pianist. he was just a boy who used to be one. he was nothing more but a normal high school boy now.
you enter his life the way spring does. without permission and without warning. spring was coming whether he had a say in it or not and that's exactly how he felt about meeting you. kai is sitting in the park because it’s easier to exist in open air than in the suffocating quiet of his house. children are running around. petals are falling in pale pink flurries. the air smells like damp earth and sweetness.
he stares at nothing, then something collides into him, almost knocking him over. it was you. you stumble backward, nearly dropping the violin case slung over your shoulder.
“watch it!” you snap instinctively. kai blinks. you look at him properly then, and your irritation dissolves into curiosity.
“oh,” you say. “you’re not a tree.”
“…sorry.” you tilt your head. your hair catches sunlight perfectly, like a painting that's meant for a museum.
“are you okay?” he nods and you squint at him.
“you look like someone who swallowed a raincloud.”
he doesn’t really know how to respond to that. before he can attempt it, you’re crouching down, opening your violin case right there in the middle of the park like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“listen to this,” you say, not ask if he wants to or not. you just lift the violin to your shoulder and begin. it’s not careful or restrained. the horsehair of the bow bites into the strings with reckless joy. people turn to stare and a child starts laughing, an old man even frowns at the public noise. but kai freezes. the sound is wrong, technically speaking. your tempo wavers, you add flourishes that don’t belong, and you lean into notes that should be passed gently. but it’s alive, the sound is free. it feels like color splashing against a gray wall.
kai’s chest tightens. he hears the sound so clearly. when you finish, you grin at him expectantly.
“well?” and he struggles to breathe.
“that’s not how it’s written.”
“i don’t care.” you shrug and step closer to him.
“…kai.” and your eyes widen.
“kai? like hueningkai?” he flinches slightly at the recognition.
“i don’t play anymore,” he says quickly, before you can say it. your expression sharpens.
“who said anything about playing?” he stares at you as you largely grin. “come to my recital.” and just like that, his carefully constructed facade begins to crack. you don’t ease kai back into music, you drag him.
the first time you show up at his house, he thinks it’s a mistake. you’re standing outside his gate with your violin case and a paper bag of cream buns like you belong there.
“i asked around,” you say brightly. “you’re not that mysterious.” and kai considers closing the door, but you wedge your foot in before he can. “rude.”
“what do you want?” you peer past him into the house.
“where’s the piano?” he stiffens.
“don’t lie,” you cut in gently. “your fingers still curve like you’re holding invisible keys.” kai’s throat tightens. you step inside like you’ve been invited, even though you weren't. the piano sits in the corner of the living room, lid closed, untouched, and collecting dust. you walk toward it slowly like approaching something sacred.
“open it,” you whisper, but kai doesn’t move. you turn towards him now, facing away from the piano.
“kai.” your voice isn’t teasing now, but it isn’t loud. it’s careful, almost fragile. he doesn’t know why his hands start shaking when he crosses the room, doesn’t know why it feels like he’s lifting a coffin lid instead of polished wood, but he does it. the hinges creak, and the familiar black and white keys stare up at him.
“play,” you say, but he can’t. his pulse is already loud, making his ears ring. his mother’s voice is already crawling through his skull.
“i can’t hear it,” he says quietly. you nod like you expected that.
“then feel it.” you place your violin on the piano and climb onto the bench beside him without asking.
“one,” you begin, your bow touching the strings of your violin.
“two.” and he presses a key, but the sound still vanishes. he frustratingly inhales sharply.
“three.” another key and still nothing.
your violin sounds bright and insistent. it's loud enough to drown out his memories.
“don’t listen to the ghosts,” you murmur and lean closer to him.
his fingers move again, the sound is distant and warped, like it’s underwater. but your music wraps around it, pulling the sound of his keys upward. for the first time in years, he doesn’t stop. he doesn’t slam the lid shut and run away. he plays until his breathing steadies and your arm trembles from the weight of the violin. eventually, the sound collapses into messy silence. you lower your violin and smile like you just won something.
“see?” you say softly. “you’re still here.” he doesn’t realize he’s crying until you wipe a tear off his cheek with your thumb.
you insist he accompany you in the upcoming competition. not because you need him, because he needs it.
“it’s a duet,” you say. “violin and piano. i already told them my accompanist is confirmed.”
“relax,” you grin. “i have faith in you.”
“you can borrow my faith, then!” you practice every afternoon, sometimes in the music room at school. you don’t follow the sheet music precisely, you bend it, stretch pauses longer than written, and you rush through sections because you feel like it. and it is driving kai insane.
“that’s not the tempo,” he mutters.
“that’s not how it was composed.”
“then the composer should come argue with me.” he stares at you and you laugh. but when he isn’t looking, your hand trembles slightly on the bow. when you think he’s distracted, you press a hand to your side like something aches. but he notices, he always does.
you collapse for the first time during rehearsal. not dramatically or theatrically. you just… sit down mid-piece, your bow slipping from your fingers.
“y/n?” you blink up at him, confused, like your body betrayed you without permission.
“i’m fine,” you insist immediately and try to stand, just for you to fall right back down. kai kneels in front of you.
“it’s just anemia,” you say too quickly. “i forget to eat.” but he doesn’t believe you. he wants to, but something is telling him that there is more to the story then just ‘anemia’. he helps you up and you keep playing.
the night of the competition, the air feels too thin. kai stands backstage, staring at his hands. they look smaller under stage lights, like they belong to the boy who used to practice until they bled, who tried to earn love through perfection.
“are you scared?” you ask. you’re sitting on a folding chair, tuning your violin. your fingers are steady, but your breathing isn’t.
“fear means it matters.” you stand and step close enough that he can see faint shadows beneath your eyes. “kai,” you say softly. “if you lose the sound again, follow me.” he nods. the announcer calls your names and the stage curtains open, the lights swallowing you whole. the first note is yours. it’s bold and unapologetic. kai follows and for a few measures, it works. he hears enough, feels enough. but then the silence creeps back in. it was subtle at first, and then suffocating. the sound of the piano becomes hollow and his hands begin to shake. the audience blurs and his mother’s voice whispers from somewhere deep in his mind. kai falters, misses a note, and then another. panic claws up his throat, why can't he hear it? suddenly your violin swells louder, fiercer. you step closer to him on stage, close enough that your shoulder nearly brushes his. but you don’t look at him, you look forward. you play like you’re setting the air on fire, like you’re daring him to stay. kai closes his eyes and instead of trying to hear he remembers the park, the cherry blossoms, your laugh, the way you said music wasn’t a cage. he stops counting, stops chasing perfection and he starts to play for you. not for judges, not for applause, but for you. the sound starts to come back. it's not crisp or clean, but it is present. and when the final chord echoes through the hall, the silence that follows feels deafening. but then the applause crashes down, it’s thunderous and overwhelming. kai doesn't know why, but he starts crying and he doesn’t care. he can finally hear the keys again.
you collapse backstage again and this time, it’s violent. your body hits the floor and your violin clatters beside you.
“y/n!” everything moves too fast after that. ambulance lights, white ceilings, the sterile smell of hospitals. kai stands outside your room while doctors speak in low voices. he catches fragments of what they’re saying. surgery, condition worsening, high risk. his ears start ringing trying to figure out what all of that could possibly mean. when he’s finally allowed inside, you look smaller, fragile in ways you never did before.
“hey,” you whisper. you smile like nothing happened, like you didn’t just shatter his world in a different way.
“you heard it,” you say weakly.
“the piano.” he nods, scared his voice would come out as fragile as you look right now. “good,” you murmur. “that’s good.”
“what aren’t you telling me?” he grips the edge of your hospital bed. you stare at the ceiling, the fluorescent lights reflect in your eyes.
“…i’ve been sick for a long time,” you admit softly. the words fall like glass. kai doesn’t breathe.“i didn’t want to be just a patient,” you continue. “i wanted one spring where i was selfish. where i played loudly. where i chose who i stood beside on stage.”
“and you chose me?” his hands tremble.
“of course.” you smile faintly. he wants to say he loves you, but the words burn in his throat. it feel too heavy and too late. “there’s a surgery,” you say. “they think it might help.”
“don’t make that face,” you whisper. “kai. promise me something.”
“if i can’t play… you’ll keep playing.”
“don’t.” kai could feel his heart drop to his stomach.
“good.” you say as you close your eyes.
the surgery is scheduled for early june. the cherry blossoms have long since fallen, spring is ending. kai sits in the waiting room for hours, each tick of the clock sounds like a countdown. he replays everything, the park, your recital, the way you forced him to open the piano, the competition stage, and your shoulder brushing his when he almost lost the sound again. but then doctor finally emerges. his expression is too careful. kai knows before he speaks, and the world turns gray again.
when he goes to school again, there’s a letter waiting for him addressed in your messy handwriting. he opens it with shaking fingers and reads. you write about seeing him for the first time years ago at a competition and how he looked lonely under stage lights. how you fell in love with his playing before you even knew his name and even pretended to like someone else just to get close to him. you wrote about how selfish you were and how you wanted to leave a mark on his life before yours ended. signing it at the end with ‘i love you, kai.’ she thanked him for giving her one more beautiful spring, a spring where she got the be free and selfish. she tells him to continue playing, even if it hurts, because that means you’re alive. he doesn’t realize he’s sobbing until the paper starts to blur.
april comes again the following year, the cherry blossoms bloom. kai stands on stage alone, the piano waiting for him. he sits, presses the first key, and the sound rings clear. and somewhere between the notes he swears he hears a violin playing with him. it's soft, bright, and wild just like you. he plays for you, for april, and for the color you left behind.
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