the sun’s symphony | naruhina week day 5: music
Rating: K Summary: When he sees her he hears bells, the soft keys of the piano and the chords of violins. It is a symphony he cannot stop listening too. And though he finds solace in his music, and she in her face, he also starts to find hope in the sunlight she brings. Time would not wait, but they knew with each knowing gaze that what they had was worth waiting for. Word count: 4124 Note: I wish I had managed my time better to describe her dance better! (You will see what I mean)! I was also considering splitting this into two parts?? Paragraphs in italics are flashbacks and ones in individual phrases are thoughts! I’ll also probably edit along the way, but I wanted this out on the day :D Enjoy my fellow NH shippers!
Her voice was like a blessed symphony. And she didn’t even know it.
The first time he hears it, he instantly thought she was an actress of some sort hiding in the corridors near the hall entrance. Maybe an upcoming actress even who was waiting for the big break, or a singer who was visiting. But when she walks into the room, her black leotard clinging to her body, and her hair done up in a messy pony tail with loose strands licking like vines at her porcelain skin, he realises she was something much different.
He had been called in by Hikari-sensei, an old friend of his late mother who had always watched him from afar and taught him right from wrong whenever his father couldn’t put him in place. She was once a beautiful dancer from the prestigious Konoha Royal Academy of Arts, which she now taught at, though she also held outside classes for those who also wished to attend the school. She had asked him if he could play music for her dance class as she found the live music more enticing and it seemed to have more of an effect on ‘the girl’s’ movement during her after class sessions - he had yet to be given the name of said ‘girl’. She was meant to be some sort of solo dancer who was auditioning for a scholarship the Konoha Royal Academy of Arts in addition to a staring role in one of their famous shows. Though Naruto himself was no dancer, for he could never tell (even now) from his left and rights, he still found himself in this school more than his own.
Though unlike the rest of the girls in the class, who were all boastful and loud, she was quiet. Silent even - and yet though that silence could be assumed as shyness, instead he thought of it as a quiet confidence in her own abilities, something he noticed when she nodded her head to the instructor, eyes unwavering and fully focused on the tasks being given to her. Yet this was not the only thing that made her stand out compared to the ladies next to her, who would do the same moves with the same poise and precision. She harnessed a particular graceful motion in comparison to them however, almost like every step she made and breath she took, even the way her arms rose to the ceiling and down to the floor again she did with a sense of wondrous purpose. While the others stepped across the floor, she glided. When they spun, she twirled. When they jumped for their jeté, she soared. Every movement she made he saw in slow motion, watching as the raven locks whirled with her and the sunlight protruding through the windows kissed her ivory skin . And those legs, oh wow, those legs that ran for miles and disappeared underneath the small, thin white skirt she wore over her leotard…
But the bit that made him stare the most, the part which caused him to blink rapidly and cheeks to heat up, was the way her eyes were graced with an everglow about them, like the bright outline of stars against a pitch black sky. And he found this particular glow only came about when he started to play his melodies. He swore he could watch the notes play across her skin as she moved with the others, yet he pondered why it was only her he could see them against. It was then he realised, this was the girl.
He kept watching her, and even after the solo lesson with Hikari-sensei had finished he still felt himself being enticed by that rich contrast between her skin and hair, and even the curves of her body as she swayed her hips side to side in pursuit of her shuffle bag. He was so entranced he had forgotten he was putting his music papers away into his plastic folders and ended up missing the opening completely.
“Gah!” Naruto gasped loudly, only to widen his eyes further at the realisation he had caught the attention of the only two other individuals in the room, “Oh kami!”
The papers fluttered all over the floor, some making it further than others as they drifted in the small breeze the gaping window behind him had allowed in. His eyes darted towards the girl, who’s eyes were wide but fluttering with amusement. He could tell she was trying to banish the small smile pulling at her lips, and hurried to cover her mouth with her hand. Hoping to escape the judging looks, he fell to his knees and hurriedly started grabbing at the paper. It would take him ages to put them back in order, and crap! Some of them didn’t even have page numbers on them!
Even as he felt a presence loom over him, he continued to grab for the papers, and soon saw another smaller hand racing to catch the pieces of paper too yet in a much more fluid way to his own frantic movements. Glancing up he saw the girl with raven hair and ivory skin picking up his compositions, sometimes studying the notes briefly with her eyes before going on to the next one. She soon met his gaze, and it was then Naruto realised his mouth was slightly agape. She smiled shyly at him when she knew she had definitely caught his attention.
“You have a lot of music sheets,” she notes, tilting her head slightly,
He almost didn’t hear her, for her melodic distracted him for just a second. It was then he heard within his mind the delicate chords of a piano playing, and if he were to describe it, he felt the melody reminded him of spring, where flowers were blooming amongst the long, dewy grass of the meadow after a long winter.
He watches as a single strand of her hair falls from her messy bun, skimming her still pink cheeks, “Yeah, um, need that variety for you girls, ya know?” he pats himself on the back at the eloquent answer, despite the rush of his heart.
Her cheeks flush a darker shade of pink, “You play so beautifully,”
Violin strings suddenly start playing, smoothly entering the chords of the piano, and he still has no clue where the sound comes from - he soon realises he is the only one listening to the piece, and wonders if maybe he is going insane.
“Thank you,” he grins at her, and its so wide he thinks his cheeks will hurt for days, but the praise was more than worth it, “And you dance, um, so good!”
He kind of wants to bash his head on the floor at that - ‘so good’, she was definitely better than that. And yet she still laughs, her cheeks still hot but her embarrassment all but sapped away.
Her laugh is like bells, and he thought they too would go so nicely with the composition currently coming to a diminuendo in his mind, and it becomes so silent he has to strain his hearing in order to pick up the notes.
“T-thank you!”
“What’s your name?” he spills out before he has realises it, a case of do now and think later.
She hands him the rest of his papers, whispering her name, “Hinata,”
A place in the sun.
“My name is Naruto,”
She smiles wider at him, and he feels her fingers brush against his own as she pulls away, “Naruto…”
It takes days for just those delicate touches on his fingers to melt away, that warmth he felt he could envelop himself in diminishing into the shadows. It is then he realises, that her name suited her very well.
It was the second time he heard her voice that it left him breathless. Not because of her sheer beauty, he’d already caught that the moment she first walked into the room. It was because of her fire.
He had just made a comment on the the complexities of music theory within the memory, and compared it to what he thought was the simplistic movements of the dance. He above all expressed how music was more of an art and an expression then that of his counterparts own hobby, almost completely due to it’s sheer hardness to actually express such a joy in his music.
“No offence but, this is much more difficult. It’s easier through your body to express something, I mean we do it all the time,” he notes as he straightens his music papers on the top of the piano, “smiles, laughter, animated yelling and body actions, you name it! With music, you need so much more imagination ya know?”
He’s not really sure how the conversation first started out, maybe due to his jealousy? The way her hands always seemed to find the right motion, her spins always so elegant and flowed so perfectly into her next move. And she did it all without breaking a sweat, and she was always smiling at the end. She was born to do this, and the way her routines so easily came to her and the way it lit up her eyes caused an envy in his own being at how his joy in his art was becoming less and less pronounced. Piano was his saviour during a time of great mourning for him when his mother passed away, it was a way to feel connected, and yet that passion too was dying. What purpose did he have if he didn’t have that?!
She places her cup on the top of the piano, and rests her elbows on the slick, black body of it. Her palms meet her cheeks as she stares at him, slightly confused and dare he even say, slightly frustrated. He’d never seen her pout before, but the scrunching of her lips was definitely that of a pout. In fact, it even reminded him of a child, but he wouldn’t say that out loud. Instead, he would just smirk inwardly at the small observation. It was kind of cute.
“I disagree completely,” she says so sternly he almost thought it was actually someone else.
He sighs, “I’m just being honest,” he really wasn’t trying to be a dick - honest!
“B-but dancing isn’t just a movement, you can’t just do it, you have to work extremely hard-”
“I’m not saying it’s not hard!”
“But you were implying it!” she frowns at him, and yet she still kept that soft look in her eyes as she spoke to him, really spoke to him,
“Look all I’m saying is t-,”
“Have you ever felt lost?” she interrupts, and he froze, stunned at her sudden interest, “all hope shattered with no where to go? Where shouting and screaming, and tears and cries just weren’t enough anymore?”
“Where music can take you into another world, so does dance. Where you find yourself stressed over the purest note, I find myself stressed on how exactly to express that note in person - that sadness, that love, that whimsical bliss. Where I find myself stuttering my feet and struggling against the wooden floors, trying to get that hand placement and pirouette just right to the rhythm of your music, you too too find your own fingers dancing along your keyboard, the slick black and white keys tickling finger tips. Dance is a feeling. A grace. It brings us to tears, it expresses joy and happiness, and revels in fits of passion and motion. It transfixes us, it moves us, it gives us deliverance,“ she sharply turns her eyes to him, and it takes everything in his power not to physically show his awe at the way her voice caused goosebumps to spread over his skin as she said her words, "it is like music, in that way, neh Naruto-kun?”
It was as their eyes met, he found himself fighting for his breath. There was a fire in those lovely, lovely lavender eyes.
“Tell me, don’t you feel freedom when you play your songs?” her eyes flutter,
And that delicate, but graceful hymn when he first laid eyes on her rang in his mind again.
“Ugh!” she screams and slams the hall door shut. He instantly drops his pen to the music stand he had been leaning on.
He had never seen her so flustered, her movements so erratic compared to the elegant movements of her legs and the sway of her hips. She dropped her usual duffle bag with a thump to the ground, before falling to the ground herself and her fingers already working at the laces of her shoes. That adorable pout was plastered on her face, and her long midnight-blue hair was placed in all different directions, unlike the smooth, silk like threads she usually tended to so well - even when doing up her messy buns.
“Wanna talk about it?” he spoke up, silently amused at her state of temporary disrepair,
She jumps up and kicks her shoes off in an angry fit, mumbling under her breath, though he only catches the words ‘Hikari sensei’, ‘hated’ and ‘song’. He strung together the pieces he had collected, and even though she shot him a glare full of frustration he never realised she could harbour, he still smiled back sadly and fondly.
“That bad, huh?”
He became aware of her eyes glazed over not in the brightness of her joy she usually wore, but instead sensed a desperate attempt to stop her impending flood of tears. Such a sad face did not suit her, and for some reason he felt his heart sink just a little at her small sniffle.
“I can’t believe she didn’t like the music, of all things Naruto!” she whimpers, slowly drawing herself to the music stand he was placed behind, folding her arms tightly in hopes to stop herself from bursting into a theatrical piece of anger, “she said my movements were fine, the spins were elegant and my transitioning was smooth. She said my originality would score highly and my poise was perfect from beginning to end. But that none of that mattered if she couldn’t see the music running through my bones! Like what does that even mean?! How does she know if I can feel the music or not?”
“By the look in your eyes,” Naruto spoke quickly out, causing her to halt her flames.
She looked curiously at him, dumb-folded, “M-my eyes?”
“Yeah,” he scratched the back of his head, eyes peering at the ceiling with his lips pursed slightly, “I mean expression for contemporary dance isn’t just about the movement of your body. It’s the facial expression too,”
“I know that,”
She was so close now, so close if he had reached his hand out he could easily brush his fingers across those rosy cheeks, and memorise each and every eyelash that framed her lovely eyes and the colour of her sweet lips. Was that lavender he could smell?
“Oh, trust me, I know you know that,” he teased and watched her cheeks become dusted with a shade of pink at the reference to their quiet spat a few months ago, “look I’m going to be honest with you,”
“Please do! I need someone to be honest” she intwined her fingers in one another, and her voice leaked with a certain desperation and pleading.
He sighed, thinking over the right words to use and his eyebrows furrowed at the memory of the last time he saw her dance the routine, “Your eyes usually express some sort of connection with the song, they glaze over and you give off this like - I dunno - vibe I guess? Yeah! A vibe which shows just how lost you are within the music, and like no one else in the room really matters. And the thing is, is that I’ve seen you dance before, and you’re super amazing. Your movements totally rock and you’re so elegant when you sway,” he watches her pink tinted cheeks turn into a blistering red, and does everything he can to fight off his own growing heat, “but the best thing when watching you is watching you become so free. We talked about dance being your escape, and how music and movements are things that let us take those tears and laughs we make and create them into art. But I didn’t see that with you with this set of music - I dunno if maybe its your lack of personal connection to the music, or maybe the instrumental isn’t right. Heck, maybe you’re just having a bad day, or…” he whispers the last part, his finger darting to trace his lips while taking on his deep thoughts, “…tell me Hinata, do you feel free like you usually do? Like you told me I should do?”
She bites on her bottom lip,
“Do you find the music running through your bones? Does it create goosebumps on your skin and create a warmth in your body?”
“I m-mean I should feel that way! I’ve worked so hard on this, every movement, every breath, every landing-“
“And that’s the problem!” he, “you’re too calculated all of a sudden. What happened to the girl that spoke of dancing as her escape? Maybe instead of thinking of this as a means to the end, you actually do just need to do it,”
“Just do it?”
He puts on his signature grin, before grabbing at the pieces of paper with rough lines and notes written across them and waves them in her face, and a confused look spreads across her face. His masterpiece was ready.
“This piece, these steps…I swear with this song, you’ll find your liberation, and then you’ll fly,”
Moments pass in silence.
The song cascades through the air again, and for the first time as she smiles back at him with her eyes closed he realises that maybe she could hear those notes too. He’d never seen anything exude such sunlight before, and he thinks perhaps he is glowing too.
He found himself so lost. A blissful lost however. His eyes lazily followed her steps and movements, tracing the arch of her body as she bent back with her arms above her head, in hopes they would be embedded within his memory like print on paper. As her form transitions from her leap into a jeté and falls into spin. Her legato never stops, movements always falling from one to the other without hesitation and with vibrance. There was no stopping her. She truly was the epitome of freedom.
“Remember not to look at the audience too much,” he says, watching her as she stares onto the stage from behind the curtains, silently admiring her simple choice in clothing. This was about the dance and music after all, not just her physically. And they would keep it that way.
“Y-yeah,” she gulped, a bead of sweat running down the side of her face, “There are so many people, Naruto…”
“Just means more people to admire you,” he shrugs, grinning at her nervousness.
“Or hate me…”
He frowns suddenly at her negative aura, and was stuck between wanting to hug her or shake her into the alluring, quiet confidence he knew she had within her, “Nata,” he says in a hushed yet firm tone, and she quickly turns her head to him, “It’s going to be perfect,” he grasps one of her hands boldly, running his thumb across her knuckles in order to ease her shaking, “You are perfection,”
He would serve as her truth.
Yet he never stops playing, almost becoming automatic to her movements, following as she dives and soars into the air and his fingers cascade along the keys with equal measures of desire.
Every arch of her body, every pirouette, every landing, every transition all expressed a variety of different elements which slowly changed with every small positioning of her smiles and the assertion within her eyes. You could read the notes of the music off her body, especially when reaching the crescendos of his piece, and feel the emotions running through her body as she twisted slowly and kneeled elegantly.
Her dance screamed out that she was grace.
She was liberation.
She was love.
She was faith and hope.
She was the blossoming on colourful flowers in the spring, full of a tranquil radiance and element of coming warmth.
That she was the sunlight.
“Remember to point your toes yeah?” he whizzed off a list in a sudden panic of his own, “and make sure to glance at the judges, but also make it look like you think no one is in the room. But at the same time also make it look like you are performing for the audience too! Oh god, do have you tightened your bun properly?! Have you stretched enough!?
“C-calm d-down, Naruto-kun!” she said in a hush toned, her hands waving about in front of her face to distract him from his on coming panic attack.
Naruto started to feel on edge as her time drew nearer, noting how he was just as much an element to her success as she was. What if he got a note wrong? Or he sneezed or cough? Would that completely distract her? Would she fall off the stage and into the judging panel? Oh hell, did he check his phone was off? He’d never be able to look her in the eye again if his ringtone went off in the middle of the routine!
“What if you bun falls out and your hair goes all over the place while you spin?!”
She giggles quietly at this, eyes gleaming at his nervousness, “Then I just have to get on with it won’t I?”
Naruto nods hesitantly, and with the slight quivering of his lips he takes a glimpse at the pink haired, green eyed women who was bowing to the audience with people jeering her. He felt a growl in his stomach, “Hinata, I don’t feel so good,” he lays a hand to his stomach.
Hinata pushes her palms to her lips in hopes to stop the laughter erupting, “Well we can’t have that, can we?” and she swiftly holds his hands in her own, skimming her finger along the depressions of his knuckles with the effect of lulling his anxiousness into nothingness. A soft glowing pink emitted on both their cheeks, and a small smile meets a large grin.
He holds his breath at her final moments, his fingers moving against the chords so faintly. She rolls across the ground before so smoothly sitting up. She draws her arms to her body, knees to her chest and her head resting on her right hand. She looks as though she is in a daze, but it is not until the rupture of applause that he realises that she is staring at him. He gulps.
Blue orbs meet pearls. Soft and chapped lips curl into a smile. They share a knowing look. And the feelings that engulf him come in phases: the first is relief, the second is devotion, the third is an aching passion and feeling of love and the fourth is a quiet sadness at their time now ending. Just for those few seconds, they knew she had succeeded. And they knew the underlying tones of what they felt for one another, all without words. No one else in the room honestly mattered as long as they knew.
He was a simple pianist who thought he was in love with the stars, but ended up falling in love with the sunlight.
She was a contemporary dancer, who was set to rattle those stars and yet still fell in love with the pianist. But she knew she couldn’t have him.
Different worlds. Different futures.
There was no time for waiting for one another.
That was all there was to it.
As the room emptied and the stage lighting dimmed, he once again found himself mulling over his work, straightening them and putting them into their original plastic files. The only sound echoing in the room was the sound of paper shifting.
“Did you ever name it?” he hears a quiet voice, and turns to see Hinata pulling out her band, her dark hair swaying down as they are unleashed down to her back with some locks licking at her collarbone. Using her hand she combs through her hair before twirling a strand between her fingers, waiting for his answer patiently.
“Nah, not yet,” he laughs nervously, throwing his hands behind his head, “I’ll think of something though,”
“I’m sure you will, Naruto,” she said, and he knew she really meant it, perhaps it was that glint of excitement that escaped her tired yet gleaming eyes?
“It’s a shame I couldn’t find a few violinists,” he frowns momentarily only to find himself blushing at her adorable chuckle.
“The song is beautiful either way, Naruto-kun,”
“What are you doing now then, Miss Pro. Staying around here?” he asks as he shoves his composition sheets into his bag, inwardly annoyed at how the papers were starting to scrunch up due to his impatience.
She giggles nervously, “I wish. I’m off to see my father now, he’ll want to know how the show went. And yourself?”
His smile slightly drops.
Please don’t go. Not yet.
“Probably gonna stay here for a few hours longer. Maybe practice some pieces?”
“You never do stop do you?”
“Of course not!” he does his best to grin a bit wider, but the inescapable look of her sad smile she wore etched itself into his mind - he wishes he could make all her smiles happy ones, “I’m going to keep practicing until I’m the best musician I know! Believe it!”
A silence falls upon them, a comfortable one though.
“So…” She whispered so quietly he had to strain his hearing just to catch it, “…I’ll…see you around?“ Her hands grasped at the red curtain, curling the material tightly between her fingers. When had the air become so heavy?
Not just yet.
"Yeah, of course,” he said, pressing his urges, “Good luck out there!”
She giggled, and he suddenly heard that melody in his mind again. Hinata’s Theme? No it was too simple a name.
“Thank you! And I hope you manage to find the perfect title!” She waves one hand at him, a smile gracing her lips and suddenly she glowed again, like the sun against clear, blue skies.
“Thanks! And make sure you don’t forget me when you become popular at the Academy!” he grins widely at her.
Please let me tell you something. Give me time.
“Bye Naruto-kun!” She chuckled again,
I think I may love you.
He laughed with her, “Hey, just Naruto is fine!” before waving his own hand and she gives him a final smile before she dashes into the darkness of the backstage, and he was left alone with nothing but a single light over him and his beloved piano.
He felt as though his heart was aching against the coldness that had suddenly engulfed him in his loneliness. He turned to his piano, hand leaning on the top of its body while the other went to his forehead where he felt a throbbing sensation. His eyes hurt too slightly and he felt the electric pulse of the pain tingle down his spine. Had her mere presence really caused him such relief? Such calm and focus? Had her sunlight really made him feel so warm?
So engulfed in his thoughts, he fails to recognise the shallow, quiet huffs and rushed footsteps across the light, wooden floors.
“A-almost forgot!” a voice rang.
Essentially shaken from his thoughts and eyes now wide and alert, he spins himself around and finds a pair of soft, pink lips grazing against his cheek. Blue eyes turn wide as he sees her pull away after a few seconds, her eyes never once wavering from his own.
“Thank you,” she shyly whispers, grasping at his large and what she thought of as comforting hands in each of hers, her thumb running across his palms, “I hope you found your freedom in your music. You’re r-really a-amazing.”
And before he can say anything back, her embarrassment at her bold actions start to catch up with her, and she briskly walks into the darkness once again.
He stands there. Dumbfolded. His fingers immediately tracing the single spot her lips once had been on his cheek, and the usual feeling of coldness when she left his presence was instead replaced with a warmth and glow he had never experienced before. One which called out to him to jump to the highest heights and cheer as loudly as he could!
When he was sure she was gone, he picked up his pen, jotting down in his small handwriting on the music paper he had been mulling over for months.
'The Sun’s Symphony’.
Simple.
Hinata, a place in the sun.
Naruto smiled to himself, as he remembered the knowing glance between the two of them, electric running between their fluttering eyes. He leaned back and closed his eyes, feet resting in the keys of the piano as he wondrously stared to the ceiling and revelled in the lingering touch of her closed lips against his tanned skin.
Maybe he wouldn’t be brushing her long, raven haired locks away from her flushed pink cheeks and behind her ear today in order to bask in the full beauty of her sweet heart face and porcelain skin. And maybe he wouldn’t be brushing his chapped lips across her soft, light cherry ones, nor would he be gazing into her lavender tinted, pearl eyes with his own electric blue ones. And even, just maybe, he wouldn’t be hearing those honey coated, eye opening and heart stilling words 'I love you’ from her soft, melodic voice.
But that knowing gaze into her eyes which rivalled the stars. The small wave of her hand as her fingers elegantly clasped at the red, velvet curtain. The smile gracing her lips which helped him dream of a sunny place, and covered him in warmth. He knew from all that, that one day, just one day, she would be his. And in return he would be hers.
What they had was worth it.
She was a song worth waiting for.