Epilogue:

A little less than two years down the road

"Pianissimo! Oi, Front, Center, did you even read the music?"

I dodged the swipe of Tsuchiura's hand to my head and elbowed him in the gut for a counterstrike.

"It's the middle of the phrase, you prat. We have to make some change of dynamics or it'll fall flat. Look here," I pointed in the score, ignoring his daggers-for-eyes, "it's clearly indicated at the C sharp I play, at the climax of the phrase, 'un poco mosso'."

"You know as well as I do that means 'more motion', not 'louder'. Or do you not even know that much?" he insinuated slyly, whacking my hand none-too-gently out of the way.

"Ow," I winced, pulling back the offended hand and rubbing it gingerly. His eyes widened, and he instantly adopted an attitude of penitence.

"Sorry...I didn't mean to hurt you...is your hand okay?" he asked gently, grabbing my hand to inspect it.

"None of your business," I snarled, attempting to pull it back, but he held it steadily.

"It is my business to make sure my partner doesn't get hurt," he tossed in my direction. "After all, I don't want to lose this 'four-hands one-piano' competition because of you."

"Psh. My hands will be fine, as long as you keep yours on your side of the piano."

He released my hand with an air of "my hands are clean of the matter" and turned the page back to the beginning of the movement. "Blame Schubert if you will. It's not my fault the man enjoyed playing these pieces with young ladies of his acquaintance."

"And whose idea was it to choose this piece, anyway?" I pressed.

Tsuchiura sighed. "You know the answer to that as much as I do."

I hate to say it, but it was both of our faults. Having scoured the scores to half-a-dozen duets together, and having eliminated each by default of neither giving in to the other's opinion, the only piece we could agree on was Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2...Victor Borge style.

Not exactly contest material. But we had fun trying it out, anyway. I especially liked sitting on the piano keys and slamming the key cover on his hands.

Nevertheless, this left us in a quandary as to exactly WHAT piece we were going to play.

After arguing to the point of declaring we'd never speak to each other again and Tsuchiura actually going so far as to remove his set of "Grove's New Dictionary of Music and Musicians" from my apartment, Jacques called us together for a peace treaty over café au lait and crème brûlée and sent us off to settle our differences at the Tate art museum.

The instant we'd gotten inside, we sprinted in opposite directions, me for the Pre-Raphaelites and him for the modernists, and tried to forget we knew the other person at all.

As I gazed in awe at Waterhouse's "The Lady of Shallot", it came on softly over the speakers: the perfect piano duet.

Stormy. Moody. A perfect combination of wistful melody with the militaristic dotted eighth-sixteenth rhythm. Classic Schubert.

I abandoned "Ophelia" and "Ellen Terry as Lady MacBeth" and "The Awakening of Conscience" a bit regretfully and went hunting for Tsuchiura.

When I finally spied him, his face was sparkling with excitement, and he came for me eagerly.

"Oi, I've got it! The perfect piano duet!"

"Schubert's 'Fantasie in F minor'!"

I can't remember who said what, maybe we said them at the same time.

But the point is that we looked at each other for a minute, stunned, and then started laughing.

A security guard in the corner coughed loudly and purposefully in our direction.

"Shh, shh," I giggled at Tsuchiura, "you're going to get us kicked out."

"I'm going to get us kicked out?" he chuckled back. Then he cleared his throat and stood up solemnly. "Okay. We're here for art. So, here we are, in front of the lovely..."

We gazed at the picture in front of us in horror, mouths open slightly.

Lucian Freud's "Naked Portrait".

Tick, tick, tick, went Tsuchiura's wristwatch.

"Let's move on," he whispered, falsetto, and I could only nod in ascent.

So that was the end of that.

We'd bought the scores and practiced our parts separately, satisfied that this was the piece that would win the competition...and the accompanying cash prize of 5000 euros. Which seemed like tiddlywinks next to school tuition, but every little bit helped.

Then came the shock, when we'd finally put the piece together.

Tsuchiura cleared his throat next to me. "Excuse me? Do you need an invitation to start?"

"No. I'm ready, whatever. Let's just play already."

We lifted our hands to the keys, me in the treble and him in the bass, and in one breath, began to play.

Twirling, swirling, mingling melodies, intertwining, the contrapunctal subjects and countersubjects chasing each other and crossing like butterflies over a shallow pool of water. We met the phrases with the same objective, summitting the crescendos and cascading into the arpessios. Hands meeting, jumping over each other, passing on to the other, intermingling like the notes.

Then came the awful moment when my left hand and his right had to play a set of chords, my fourth and little fingers under his. Given the tempo, there really wasn't any chance for us. We were doomed.

I concentrated on the sheet music to ignore the fact that his face was burning red under his bronzed tan, as the outer palm of his hand pressed against mine. And also to try to forget that my own cheeks were on fire.

We ended with a gasp, realizing the cadence at exactly the same time, and lifted our hands from the keyboard, glad to be out of each other's clef.

Gorgeous...the music had been absolutely wonderful.

"Eh, it was okay," I said off-handedly.

He also shrugged. "Yeah, we need more practice."

He flipped back to the first page. "Ready?"

I put all dizzy, giddy thoughts out of my head and concentrated on the 88 white and black keys.

"Ready."

I'll never forgive Kahoko for sticking me with this guy.

But maybe someday I'll forgive myself for being okay with it.

.

"That haircut looks good, Kahoko."

I looked up from Leopold Mozart's book on violin technique in astonishment. My eyes met Len's gently smiling face as he entered the kitchen, heading for the hotpot, the sole designated "Len safe" area in the room.

Wow, he'd noticed after it had been only been a week since I'd cut my hair. This had to be a record.

"How is your studying going?" he continued, taking down a teapot and putting in three teabags, even though it only needed one.

"Um...fine," I said, ignoring the little voice inside that was reminding me of my recent low score on a theory paper. I think I'll just send out the next one to Usa and have her write it instead. "How was your rehearsal with the Prague Philharmonic? Oh, and when are you leaving for the tour in Singapore? I'll miss you..."

"Don't worry, it's only two weeks," he said.

I sighed. "I never get to see enough of you."

The tenderness in his eyes cancelled out his crisp reply. "You knew it would be like this when we decided to get married, Kahoko. Besides, it's just until you graduate from the Conservatory. Then I'll take you with me everywhere."

"And I'll have to learn new languages again, just when I'd gotten the hang of Czech," I groaned.

"How's my old violin treating you?"

I smiled and reached down to touch the case at my feet. In the end, Len had given me the violin he'd used since he was in junior high; the one he'd played through the first concours. I missed Mahou, but magic isn't in the violin, after all. It's in the violinist's fingers.

"We're friends now," I assured him.

"Are you getting along with your teacher?"

I shrugged a little, thinking of my violin teacher, who resembled Kumoyama-sensei in sensitivity, lacking a bit of the nostalgic gentleness. "Yes, but I like your lessons better."

He laughed very quietly. "You are a serious glutton for punishment." He poured water into the teapot, managing to get half of it on the counter as well, and looked proud of his accomplishment.

Hm...maybe I really should handle the tea from now on...

"And the Franck violin sonata?" he continued in his "Let's grill Kahoko!" string of questions.

I giggled a little. "My accompanist hates me," I informed him.

"As well he should," he said with a grin. "I think the next time I see Tsuchiura, I'll lay that one on him."

Yes, lovely Reader, the soloist-accompanist jokes will continue forever. But in the end, neither of us can really survive without the other. That's the beauty of chamber music.

There was silence in the kitchen except for the tink tink of the teapot lid as Len removed it and replaced it four times, anxiously checking to make sure the tea was, in fact, steeping. I think I'll avoid this cup of tea, somehow.

"Len," I asked suddenly, "when do you want kids?"

His open mouthed expression caught me as hilarious. "What do you mean, 'when'? You're not pregnant, are you?" he managed at last.

"No," I smothered a smile. "I was just wondering, you know."

He ignored the pot and flooded counter to face me fully.

"Well," he said, "that's really up to you, you know."

"Eh?" I tilted my head slightly. Up to me?

He shrugged. "You know your career is going to be affected if we have kids," he reasoned. "I don't want you to have to interrupt your music until you're ready."

"Your mother seemed to manage," I said. "Even though she had you, she still continued her career."

"Sometimes I wish she hadn't," he said quietly. "I missed so much time with her, because she was travelling on tours, because the both of us were constantly practicing. I wish I could have had that 'mother-son' relationship, but we never did. Well, because of that I ended up where I am, but I'm not sure I want to repeat that with our kids. Would you be okay with that?"

I allowed a secret smile. "Yes," I agreed. "That's how I'd prefer it, too."

He leaned across the table and kissed me, a sweet, kind expression in his eyes. "Thank you."

Someday...someday when we're a little older, and more experienced, and I've caught up to him in violin...some golden day, we'll have tiny, adorable children, with serious eyes.

"In the meantime..." Len's eyes started to twinkle, and with a mischievous look, he pounced on me and lifted me into a bridal carry, heading for the bedroom.

"What are we doing?" I asked.

"Practice," he replied with a grin.

A little while later, lying side-by-side in sheets that smelled of lavender, we enjoyed the rare luxury of staring into each other's eyes, wordlessly. A lovely moment. How seldom there actually was time for this.

He reached out and stroked a few stray hairs from my cheek. I captured said hand in its leaving trajectory and pressed it to my lips.

"Ah, the memories," he said.

At last, he sighed and sat up, reaching for his shirt, which had somehow ended up draped on the lamp.

"I really should be practicing," he said.

I restrained a giggle. "Yeah, me too."

Author's Notes:

It's over! Okay, break out the Christmas crackers, I know you have them on hand as a "Finally! We thought it would never end!" celebration.

Admittedly, I'm a little disappointed to fall back on the oh-so-original Kahoko/Len pairing, but I think the round-aboutness of it all is a slight departure from the norm. Ah...but they really are meant to be together, no matter what way you look at it. And I really wanted to give Kahoko an appropriate musical accomplishment, because honestly, she worked damn hard during the course of the anime and manga, not to mention these fics.

I'm pretty unhappy about Ryou/Usa, for various reasons...but here they are, clawing at each other's throats like two jealous cats, when I'd hoped to separate them for good. I'm sorry! I really didn't mean for them to end up this way! Really really really!

Aaaand...that's it! I don't have time to write anymore...I really should be practicing...Bach and Beethoven beckon me back to the piano as usual.

Thanks so much for reading through these two (long) fics!

Arigatou gozaimasu, soshite, sayonara!