• Never before had Masada seen such a silent girl.
    Most children were shy when being dropped off at a stranger's house for lessons, but even the shyest of children warmed up to him after an hour of finding the notes on a piano. Not this girl. He had been teaching her how to play the piano for a month now, and this girl had yet to even utter a sigh or a noticeable breath-intake sound in front of him. When asked a question, she would stare at him with sullen eyes, nothing more. The only way he could get answers out of her would be to ask yes or no questions, and even then she sometimes refused to answer.
    Sitting beside her now, listening to her play the piano, he realized that this was the only sound she ever seemed to make. The only emotion she ever seemed to give off was given to whatever she played on that piano, and, Masada noticed, the emotion she put in the piano music made even the happiest song sound sad. She was blank in her facial expressions but powerfully sad in her music, and, listening to her play, Masada wondered, not for the first time, what was on her mind.
    Masada realized that Madotsuki had finished her song, and she was staring at him with sullen, patient, pale red eyes. She had her hands folded in her lap, her posture straight, her brown hair done in two braids. She looked ever studious and perfect.
    "O-oh." Masada slid off the piano bench to stand up, brushing his black suit in nervousness. "How l-long w-was I in dreamland?"
    Madotsuki said nothing, but Masada noticed something in her eyes flicker at the mention of "dreamland". A shadow of... Pain? Fear? Masada gulped, and as quickly as that tiny flicker had appeared, it was gone.
    "M-Madotsuki, I believe t-that you p-played beautifully. You've obviously w-worked in the piece, so I think we're done f-for the day." Masada looked at the clock above his piano. Of her two-hour piano lesson, she still had about forty-five minutes left.
    Madotsuki slid off of her side of the piano bench silently. She straightened her dark-pink hoodie over her skirt and nodded. She moved towards the front door and opened and shut the door with only a tiny fup as the door closed. Masada was alone.
    He looked around his apartment, feeling loneliness creep upon him like a fast-acting disease. It amazed Masada how lonely his place of residence always felt once Madotsuki left for home. As quiet and almost nonexistant as she was, it was nice having another person around.
    After all, this lonely and sparsely decorated apartment had no pictures or momentos of friends or family, because Masada had none. Briefly, Masada wondered if Madotsuki was the same way. While pondering such a thing, he lay out on his old, worn couch, wincing as a rebellious spring scratched against his back. He was really going to have to get a new couch someday.
    Continuing to ponder, Masada realized another thing: he barely knew this girl whom he taught piano to every day. He didn't know her last name, where she lived, what she did for fun. He didn't even know Madotsuki's parents, to be honest. He hadn't even been prepared for her to come to his apartment the first time he had met her.
    Masada could remember that event clearly. He had been watching the news (a bad car crash had happened at that time, and the news was abuzz about the victims: a husband and his pregnant wife, leaving only their sixteen-year old daughter alive) when Madotsuki had rang his doorbell. She had arrived with an envelope containing two hundred dollars and a note, which had read:
    This is Madotsuki, your new piano student. She will come everyday between four o' clock and 6 o' clock for two hundred dollars a lesson.
    The note had no signature, and at first, Masada believed that this was some sort of prank. He had told Madotsuki to go home, but she refused and pressed the envelope into his hands. When he insisted that she quit with the jokes and go home, she started to shiver and shake her head with urgency, and at last he was compelled to bring the girl in. The first piano lesson consisted nothing but questions that were never answered. At 6 o' clock, the girl left, and Masada had two hundred dollars more than he had originally had.
    The next day, she came back with more money, and the day after that, she came back with more. after three days, Masada was convinced that this was no joke, and at once he began to teach the young girl. She caught on quickly, and in an impressive amount of time, she excelled even Masada, who had dedicated his life to the piano. Now, she only came because her parents (at least, Masada assumed it was her parents who sent her) made her come.
    He knew something was wrong with Madotsuki- no child her age (however old she was, Masada was not sure, but regardless) should act sullen and lifeless, but every question he asked her was met with a blank, depressed stare. Masada quickly stopped asking because he hated the stare the poor girl gave him. It was almost like she was trapped behind her face, like the real Madotsuki was hiding behind that blank cage that was her face.
    Masada had to go to the bathroom, and as he walked down the hallway that also contained the doors to two bedrooms, he wondered if Madotsuki had known anybody in that crash, and if that was the reason why she was like the way she was. It was always an idea.
    When he was done, he zipped up his pants and walked to the sink. He looked at himself in the mirror as he washed his hands, and his face stared back at him. This is what Masada saw: limp, straight, shoulder-length black hair, pale skin, a bony body and... His eyes. Maybe it was his eyes that made Madotsuki the way she was. He had hypertropia, had been born with it, and while he was comfortable about the way his eyes looked (one pupil was always higher than the other), maybe Madotsuki was made uncomfortable by it (not that there was really anything he could do; his income only came from what Madotsuki brought him and a few piano pieces he created and sold, so he couldn't have it surgically corrected).
    Masada stopped himself immediately. Why was he thinking about getting surgery for a girl who didn't even talk to him? She might even loathe him because her parents were making her come to him, and here he was, thinking about surgery to make her more comfortable. What was he thinking?
    Perhaps he was tired. That's it, Masada thought. I'm tired. After all, he'd never cared before about what others had thought of him. He turned off his bathroom light and headed for his room, and that night, after he'd changed into his sleep shorts, he fell asleep, Madotsuki and her piano playing invading his dreams like they had been since the first day he'd met her.