In a clean and tidy room with simple furnishings, a thin man sat in front of the piano with a smile.
His eyes were directed at the sofa in the corner, "So please don't blame yourself."
On the sofa, the long-haired girl was toying with a corner of her own body. Listening to the man's words, she felt even more uncomfortable.
She knew that her mistake today had nothing to do with anyone. It was just that the moment she was under the light, she suddenly became nervous for no reason and her fingers slipped.
And the person who should not be wrongly blamed by the outside world for all this is my teacher, he is such a good person.
"Teacher, right..."
The girl murmured, but before she could finish her words, she was interrupted by a voice in front of the piano, "No need to apologize, you have done a good enough job, and I have listened to it. You did not play the wrong note, just two
The notes are too close together."
As the man spoke, he modeled the girl's mistakes at the competition on the piano based only on his feelings and memory.
"That's right." The man smiled.
"Let it pass."
"And I believe you will never be in the situation you are in today again, right, Natsuki-chan."
The man's voice had a comfortable rhythm, as if everything in his world was gentle.
moment.
His empty eyes seemed to flash with a gleam of light, "Do you remember the story I once told you about my first time participating in the competition?"
The girl sobbed and nodded, "I...remember, when you...participated...in the competition...for the first time, you forgot the score halfway through playing...the result...
...and then started to play randomly...in a mess...and finally...was canceled...disqualified from the competition."
"Haha," the man laughed heartily, "Yes, that's what happened."
"Ha, it all seems like yesterday." The man sighed.
Another moment.
"I was born different from you. I can only rely on my ears to hear the melody, and then press the keys to produce the same sound."
"Before that I had never thought about what a musical notation looked like."
"So from that time on, I changed my practice methods."
"From then on, I no longer simply listened and memorized music, and no longer simply relied on feeling to perform. I began to learn music theory and understand staff notation."
"Thus, my mother became my eyes."
As the man spoke, his left hand on the piano began to involuntarily press one soothing chord after another.
"At the beginning, I couldn't imagine what a straight line looked like. I couldn't imagine the difference between hollow notes and solid notes. It was too abstract for me."
"But I never gave up and kept getting closer to them."
"that's all."
The man's right hand also rested on the piano.
"Until one day, I suddenly discovered that they seemed to begin to accept me."
"At that moment, in my mind, I believed I saw them."
"I told my mother all this."
"Then she hugged me and said, Shijing, congratulations, they belong to you forever."
"After that, before I get every new piece of music to practice, I will write it in my heart."
"That's it, in the third year, accompanied by my mother, I went to Osaka to participate in the competition again."
The girl suddenly interjected: "That year you won the championship in the Osaka Youth Piano Competition."
"That's right," the man smiled, "this is where my piano career began."
"Perhaps I did make some achievements in the days that followed, but in the years I spent with the piano, the one who had the greatest influence on me was my mother."
"Of course, there's that one failure."
The man stopped talking, but the melody under his hands became more moving.
Listening to the soothing melody in her ears, the girl fell silent.
Her eyes passed through the man in front of the piano and landed on the wall behind the piano covered with awards. On the shelf beside the wall, the dusty trophies seemed to be full of emotions at this moment.
All of this seemed to be clearly telling her something in some way.
a long time.
"Teacher, thank you, I think I understand."
Listening to the firmness in the girl's tone, Nobuyuki Toshii still didn't say anything, he just kept smiling and shaking his hands.
The melody changed, and the swinging chords, carrying the laziness of the afternoon, slowly came out from the old upright piano that had been with him for twenty years.
‘A time that will never come back.’ – Porco Rosso episode.
A song that originally belonged to his childhood memory in the dead of night.
For people who are not good at words, music is a way to communicate with the world, but for Nobuyuki Toshii, music is all the colors in his life except his mother.
That's what he says in his music.
...
a long time.
In a cadenza without any embellishment, the sound of the piano stopped.
"It sounds really nice." Nobuyuki Toshii put away his hands, "Forgive me for saying this, Mr. Joe Hisaishi's writing is really good."
"Teacher, your playing is also great!" Natsuki Aso, who had obviously calmed down, smiled and brought a glass of water to Nobuyuki Tokui, "Teacher, please drink some water."
"Thanks."
Shi Jing stretched out his hands and fumbled to take it, and took a small sip.
moment.
He slowly placed the cup on the piano and turned to the sofa again, "Then can we talk about it now?"
"What happened during the game? I know that you have something on your mind." Nobuyuki Tokai asked.
"Teacher, I listened to a very special performance before going on stage."
"Oh?" Shijing Nobuyuki said curiously, "What a coincidence. I also met a very special person at the judges' table today. Please tell me about it first."
"She is a girl from China. As soon as she came on stage, her elegant temperament attracted me. I was looking forward to her performance at that moment."
"And her next performance really surprised me more and more. In her Chopin performance, I felt Chopin's sense of time that you once said, teacher."
Nobuyuki Toshii's expression changed slightly, "Is she a player from China?"
"Yes, teacher." Aso Natsuki replied.
"Play me some clips of her performance. Is she playing No. 11?"
"Yes, teacher," the girl said, opening her phone and finding the video of this morning's competition.
moment.
In the quiet room, the crisp sound of the piano came from the mobile phone player.
At the moment when the music ends.
A violent stream of sound rushed out with a different rhythm, and the gorgeous sound was clearly prioritized and regulated.
Gradually.
As music developed, Nobuyuki Shii's vision changed again.
this moment.
It seemed as if the figure that he had never seen before but that made him feel cold in the audience appeared before his eyes again. The sound of the piano was filled with restlessness and unspeakable magic.
This moment is like that time.
a long time.
The sound of the piano is really like the moment when the ruthless east wind blows away in the darkness.
Nobuyuki Tokai sighed deeply.
"Is his student."
...
“It’s so delicious.”
Qin Jian stole the last piece of Duan Ran's takoyaki.