Kingdom by the Sea by Jada Xu

It was beautiful at the Kingdom by the Sea. It was a nothing more than a simple wooden playground consisting of a battered castle, a creaky set of swings, and a broken seesaw, but the people of the town a mile down the road had given it the nickname decades ago and called it that ever since. Though the playground itself wasn’t much to look at, it was perched on top at the edge of a cliff overlooking the magnificent scenery of a stormy grey sea that stretched out into the misty horizon, always rumbling with the sound of thunderstorms from thousands of miles away.

Of course, the parents were worried. They fretted that the gusts of wind and water would give the children colds, but the youth grew quickly accustomed to the brisk temperatures and didn’t catch more than sniffles. They fretted that the dilapidating wooden castle would give way and cause the unsuspecting children to fall and injure themselves, but those planks stayed firm and remained unbroken. Most importantly, they fretted over the fact that there was nothing that separated the youth from the safety of the hard-packed ground to the steep fall that would send them dashed among the crashing waves. They wanted to set up a tall fence or at the very least paint a thick yellow line that would do something to keep the children safe, but at the same time, they couldn’t bear to do it, to establish a crude manmade thing that would inhibit the view of the beautiful landscape. So they ended up doing nothing. After all, there was always an adult present with the children, and there has been no accounts of accidents or suicides.

It was there where I met Haruto, the quiet piano prodigy. It was a windy late afternoon where the sky was beginning to show streaks of gold from the setting sun, the stars beginning to glimmer among the clouds. We were six then, and he was sitting alone at the castle while my friends and I were at the swings, shrieking with laughter as we took turns pushing each other around. I saw him from the corner of my eye, kicking at the ground and leafing through a book and looking as if he was alright, but I caught him stealing glances at us.

I headed over, taking a seat beside him. Even then, I noticed how his long slender fingers were curled around the wooden ledge he was perched on and how mine looked so short and chubby next to his.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello,” he replied. His voice was tinged with a curious accent.

“You’re Haruto.” It was a statement. I didn’t know him very well since he was homeschooled and never showed up in church or other events, but belonging to the only Asian family in town, everyone knew his name.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t see you at school. Why don’t you come to school? What do you do at home anyway?” I asked.

“It’s nice at home, I think.” He answered thoughtfully. But he cheered up, his round face breaking into a dimpled smile. “Did you know I have my own garden? I like planting dandelions. My dad says they’re nothing but weeds, but I like them. They’re fun. I can spend at least two hours there. That’s a lot of time. I only spend more time than two hours playing the piano. I play a lot of piano.”

“Cool! Do you like playing the piano?” I asked. It was meant to be a light question, but he sobered up quickly.

“I guess.”

Right at that moment, a battered old car came screeching up the road, sending up plumes of sand behind it. Haruto’s mother came stepping out, hurrying up the slope and cursing in Japanese as her heels wobbled dangerously along the unevenly paved ground.

“Come now, Haruto! Your piano teacher’s coming in five minutes!”

She didn’t even look at me as she snatched his hand away, striding down towards the car with him trotting along, but as he turned to scramble into the backseat, he glanced at me. I waved. And smiling, he waved back. In moments, engine was rumbling as the car veered sharply away, speeding down the road and out of sight.

Little did I know that that was the last time I would talk to him again in many years. Of course, I still saw glimpses of him with his mother in the supermarket, checking out books in the public library, or even buying a bite at a café, but he would always be gone before I could approach him. He was like a shadow, hidden in the background and out of sight.

∞

I was fourteen when I saw him again. My father came home from work one day with a handful of tickets to a recital in Portland, a gift from his boss. Our family loved the sciences and to be honest, didn’t care very much for the arts. Both my parents were engineers and I wanted to be a scientist, and driving two hours to the big city for a musical performance was definitely not on our list of priorities. But as we glanced at the tickets again, we realized with a jolt that each costed a thousand five hundred bucks, and it would be a shame to waste it.

That was how I found myself in a terrible mood as I struggled to finish my physics homework in a bumpy car, dressed uncomfortably in a stiff black dress I would never wear again, and regretting the wasted time. I wasn’t impressed as we pulled into the parking lot of a grand concert hall that looked as though it popped straight out of a picture book and how the woman sitting next to me wouldn’t stop chatting about how amazing the show was going to be. When the opening orchestra began, I’ll admit that it did sound quite lovely, but I was tired from the long ride and struggled to stay awake the whole time.

An hour into the concert, I was asleep. It was the sound of applause after a particularly moving violin solo that roused me, and I was just about to doze off again when I caught the announcer saying, “… a piano solo by Haruto Okada…”

I jerked awake, the exhaustion falling away immediately. I hadn’t thought of Haruto in years, and I didn’t know why his name startled me so much, but I found with my eyes wide open and at the edge of my seat as his slight figure made its way gracefully on stage and taking a seat by a grand piano. The lights dimmed, sending the hall into darkness as a spotlight illuminated him at the instrument.

He began to play. It started off simple, like a ripple in a pond of still water, the first sprout of spring, or the first flake of snow on a barren landscape. But it flowed, faster and faster, those slender fingers flying across the keys. I could feel my heartbeat quicken, my hands suddenly clenched into fists, and my eyes were burning in pain from the concentration but I refused to look away. Before I knew it, the music had reached a crescendo. Those little ripples had become roaring waves, the sprout bursting into flowers and fruit, the delicate snowflake into a blazing snowstorm. And when the recital had drifted to an end, everyone was on their feet, the applause shaking the chamber. Everyone was in awe of the skill and sheer amount of talent this young boy had, to play such an emotional piece at such a young age. And I was among them, on my feet and hands numb from the clapping hard. Despite the overwhelming approval, Haruto remained impassive, his face devoid of any particular emotion as he bowed and left the stage.

With a curse, my mother realized that a work emergency had suddenly popped up, so we left a few minutes after Haruto’s recital, tripping around in the dark room as we groped for the exit. We sprinted down towards the parking lot, but as my parents hustled into the car, I glanced up to see a few more figures hurrying towards a very familiar battered viechle.

“Haruto?” My voice was shrill with astonishment.

He glanced up, surprise on his face as he recognized me and a smile began to spread across his face.

“Where are you going?” I asked. I was smiling too, surprised but definitely not unhappy to see him. “Why are you leaving so soon?”

“Hurry up, Haruto! We have to make it to the next recital in thirty minutes!” His mother called impatiently from the front seat. Haruto’s smile turned apologetic as he scrambled in. In moments, he was gone again.

∞

I was eighteen when I saw him again at the Kingdom by the Sea.

I was heading there on the last week of my senior year when I saw him sitting at the castle, hunched over with his head in his hands. I slowed, heading over there cautiously and taking a seat beside him, feeling my fingers scrape at the battered wooden planks of the structure.

“How are you?” I asked quietly.

He didn’t reply. I didn’t pressure him. I didn’t know how long we sat there for, facing the endless grey sea and the misty horizon. The cold, clear breeze blew across us, ruffling our hair and sending droplets of salty water into our faces.

“I can’t do it anymore.” He choked out at last. The pain was evident in his voice.

I immediately thought of his mother, dragging him away to lessons when he was a child and then to recital after recital, never giving him a break. I had never seen him play with the other children or do anything other than to sit at the piano and play it until his fingers bled.

“Is it your mother?” I was surprised by the amount of anger that came through.

“My mother? Oh God, no. I wish it was, but this is worse, this is so much worse. My mom’s just like everyone else now. They want me to get out of here, to give up playing the piano, to do anything. They want me to go to college, to study anything but music. Can you believe that my father even suggested me to try physics?” He barked out a bitter laugh. “I can’t even remember the multiplication table much less do any physics!”

I was confused. “Wait… so… you want to continue playing the piano?”

“Yes.” Haruto paused. “Yes. It’s become my life now. It’s the only thing I’m good at. There’s a recital, and I’m not going to play something some old white man wrote hundreds of years ago. I’m playing my own composition. But do you know how painful it is? Do you?”

I opened my mouth. My first instinct was to give an answer, but I had no idea.

“Of course, but that’s not your fault. It’s like your soul is being stripped away. I am pouring my blood and tears into this piece. I’m pouring my life into this piece, and I love it so much. But I also hate it. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. All I can think about all day is this composition. I hate it. But I love it. I love it so much. It’s painful. My parents know it, and everyone knows that it’s so painful for me and they want me to stop. I want to stop, but I can’t, because… I just can’t.”

The naked pain in his voice was agonizing to hear, and I wanted to help him. I wanted to comfort him, to say something that would help him in any way, but nothing came out. My lips parted, but my mouth was dry, and not a whisper passed over my tongue.

“Will you come to it?” he broke the silence. He pulled a ticket out of his pocket. I took it without hesitation, promising that I would be there. He seemed to relax a little, the tension going out of his shoulders.

We didn’t speak after that.

∞

I was terrified at the day of the recital. I arrived at the concert hall, filing in with the crowd, finding my seat in the cavernous chamber. My hands were shaking and I placed them firmly on my lap, hoping that the tremors would fade. Haruto’s recital was the last, and the agony of sitting through two hours of other performances was indescribable. Of course, the music was breathtaking, but the fear was humming in my veins, and I had no idea how to stop it. I didn’t know why I was so nervous for a boy I barely knew.

The crowd hushed as Haruto walked onstage. I could see the tension on his face, the tightness around his mouth and shoulders even under the thick black tux he wore as he settled down. The spotlight casted deep shadows across his face, turning streaks of his hair white and making him appear much older than eighteen.

A long slender finger played a key and the note hovered in the air, clear and pure. Another followed, and the song began, the music flowing from the piano and filling the chamber with the promises of warmth and sunshine. I felt myself relax. The music seemed to tell a story of innocence, of a young child filled with wonder of the world around him and loving life. It reminded me of lazy summer days and cozy winter evenings. It reminded me of home. I wasn’t the only one, as around me, I could see everyone sighing as they allowed the melody to bring back memories of better places and times.

But that didn’t last. Lower notes began to weave its way into the song, and I felt the mood shift. Life wasn’t as free as it was before, not as beautiful, not as pure. Something happened that brought a dark mark into an innocent soul, and it only worsened. The music grew deeper and deeper but louder and louder, and there was more to it. There was anger. There was a fury I had never seen before, its rage chasing away any trace of joy, and it didn’t just fill the chamber – it overflowed. The sheer amount of raw emotion filled the song, and I couldn’t breathe. My hands had stopped trembling, and all I could do was to sit there, my breath feeble in my lungs as I stared transfixed at the prodigy pouring his soul into his music. Haruto was hunched over, fingers flying over the keys, and I tried to see his face, but it was turned away.

Just as quickly as the crescendo appeared, it stopped. The song stilled, the fingers slowing, until all that was a lone note hovering in the air, once again clear and pure… but I couldn’t understand what it meant. I knew that Haruto had poured his life into this piece and that every note was created from his sweat and blood, but the last one… I didn’t know what it meant.

I glanced around me. Everyone was crying, and that was when I realized that my face was damp with tears as well as the crowd burst into applause. People were standing up left and right, and I was one of the first to jump to my feet. The approval of this new composition was amazing, everyone loving his piece, and I had no doubt that nothing but praise would come from this performance.

Haruto stood, a little shaky and stiff. His fists were clenched at his side as he bowed, but as he straightened, the light illuminated his face, and finally gave me a clear view of his expression. His eyes were closed, and the lighting that now washed over his visage turned it into a sheet of white, making him appear almost angelic. But all I saw was peace. A still, pure, beautiful peace.

∞

The next morning as I padded from my room to the kitchen for breakfast, I saw my parents standing frozen before the television. I hurried over and felt the blood flush from my head, sending me tumbling into the couch. A newsman was reporting that the prodigy Haruto Okada was declared missing only hours ago. The young prodigy had gone home the previous night but wasn’t in bed in the morning, and his parents were frantic at the discovery. The police were investigating, detectives called in, and there were even talks about contacting the FBI. Everyone was in shock.

I remembered the little boy I met years ago by the Kingdom by the Sea, a slender silhouette against the grandness of nature, still filled with love and joy with life. I remembered the sound of the tinkling piano I would hear whenever I passed his house, clumsy at first but becoming flawless as time passed. I then remembered the broken young man there, hunched and broken because he had given so much of his soul away and was left with nothing but an empty shell. I remembered the passion and emotion he had poured into his composition, and then the frightening and wonderful peace he had expressed afterwards.

I didn’t know where he now was or what he was doing, but one thing I could say for sure is that he was in a better place. And for that, I am happy for him.

Featured Image – Cliffside Beach – Photo Courtesy of suwalls.com