literature

England x Reader-The Greeting of Love

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The song had almost ended when you heard a sudden crash and banging noise from behind the stage where you were playing causing you to gasp in surprise.

"Wh-Who's there?" you stammered trembling in place, your feet cemented to the floor.

All of a sudden, you heard a quiet storm of cursing before someone revealed himself from the back covered in shambles of broken wood and crinkled sheet music.

"Bloody hell, it was too dark. I knew where I was going…"

The young man in front of you had messy blonde hair barely covering a pair of bright emerald green eyes underneath the bushiest eyebrows you had ever seen. He was wearing an embarrassed expression probably because he had tripped on something in the back. You didn't know what he was doing here, though.

"Um, are you alright?" you asked quietly bringing your bow closer to your chest in case he was going to lunge at you (though you wouldn't know why he would do something like that in the first place).

The young man dusted his uniform and straightened his hair before clearing his throat and speaking.

"I was just trying to fetch some supplies for a classmate of mine," he said in a smooth British accent. "Do you know where they keep the violin rosin?"

You shook your head. "I don't think the school provides us with that. You're supposed to get it yourself."

The young man cursed under his breath.

You looked at your violin case that was a little ways away from where you were standing. Your feet were still glued tightly to the floor.

"If you'd like, I could let you borrow mine," you offered pointing to your violin case. "It's in the smallest compartment if you open it up."

The young man's thick eyebrows rose. "Really? I appreciate it."

"It's nothing," you replied feeling a sudden redness growing on your cheeks. Noticing this, you quickly turned away and began to read your sheet music trying to see where you had left off. When you found your place, you began playing again, but it didn't take long for you to get interrupted a second time before the young man began to speak once more.

"It's a lovely song," he said once he had gone over to your violin case and found the rosin you had told him about.

Your cheeks were growing even hotter so you refused to look at him.

"Thank you…" you barely whispered.

You could have sworn you saw the young man smile from the corner of your eyes.

"I'll promise to give this back to you when my classmate is done. What's your name?"

"______________," you answered in a quiet voice.

"____________," the young man repeated. "I'll remember that. My name is Arthur, by the way."

"Arthur," you repeated on the edge of your lips.

"I'll be seeing you, love," Arthur said before heading off the practice stage and exiting the music hall.

"Arthur…" you said again testing out his name like a new flavor of ice cream. I'll definitely remember him.

~~~~~

For the entire day, Arthur had the same song looping in his head over and over again. It wouldn't come out—neither would the image of the girl he had seen.

What sort of song is that? he wondered as he began to unpack his things and prepare for his next class. It's sort of sad, but at the same time, it's almost…romantic…Maybe Roderich knows what it's called.

When his musically gifted classmate entered the classroom and took his seat in front of him, Arthur tapped his shoulder to get his attention.

"Oh, Arthur," Roderich said turning around and handing him the box of rosin Arthur had received from __________ earlier in the day. "Thank you for fetching this for me."

"Roderich, I have something to ask you," Arthur said taking the box of rosin back. He would have to remember to give it back to ____________ when he saw her again.

Roderich raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

Arthur pursed his lips together. He wanted to be able to ask Roderich what the song ______________ was playing was called, but while the song played over and over again in his head as clear as day, he couldn't carry a tune to save his life.

"Do you know of this song that's played on the violin? It's sort of sad but at the same time it's romantic."

Roderich narrowed his eyes and frowned. "Arthur, there are several songs that sound like that. It would be more helpful if you could give me some specifics. Perhaps an excerpt?"

Arthur cringed. "I know the song in my head, but I don't know if I can hum it correctly." Here goes nothing…

After Arthur had finished humming, Roderich began to speak.

"You've butchered the song and your voice-box can use an immense amount of work, but I was able to recognize the piece," he said. "It's known as Salut d'Amour. It's a rather famous piece."

Arthur made a face when he heard the name of the piece. "It sounds French."

"That's because it is," Roderich said. "It means—"

"It means 'the greeting of love!'" Arthur's classmate and arch-nemesis Francis suddenly interrupted getting in between Roderich and him.

"Buzz off, frog face!" Arthur hissed pushing the nosy Frenchman to the side.

"So what is this about and this talk of salut d'amour?" Francis asked getting rather close to Arthur's eyes. "Are you perhaps seeking the certain companionship of a significant other? French, perhaps?"

"You sick snail-eating git! Of course not!" Arthur snapped pushing Francis even farther from his face.

"He was trying to find out the name of a violin piece," Roderich explained rather calmly.

"Oh, is that it?" Francis asked looking slightly disappointed.

"It doesn't matter now that I know it's French," Arthur said distastefully suddenly feeling guilty that the piece was still playing in his head.

"The name is French, but it was written by an English composer," Roderich added.

"Why would any proper Englishmen want to name such a piece in French?" Arthur nearly shouted.

"You don't have to spit," Roderich huffed. "He named it that way because he wanted it to sound as romantic as possible. It was a courtship song, after all."

"Ohonhonhon," Francis laughed. "Are you sure you're not trying to get acquainted with a certain love, Arthur?"

"As if I would even bother telling you in the first place!" Arthur growled getting annoyed with the Frenchman. "Now get lost! Class is about to start!"

Francis only laughed and returned to his seat as soon as the teacher walked in.

~~~~~

The next day, you began to tighten the strings on your bow after placing the shoulder rest on your violin. When the strings were tightened to a suitable amount, you opened your compartment in your case to get the rosin out when you noticed it was empty.

Oh, that's right, Arthur took it, you remembered. I wonder when he's going to give it back.

Suddenly, before you decided to begin practice without rosining your bow, you heard the door to the music hall open and saw Arthur panting and wheezing like he had come back from running a marathon.

"____________!" he gasped and ran towards the stage.

"A-Arthur?" you stammered and stared as he searched his pockets.

"Here," he said holding out your box of rosin. "My classmate told me to tell you he said thank you."

A soft smile escaped your lips. "Tell him I said you're welcome."

"I'll be sure to do that later today," Arthur chuckled. There was a gleam in his emerald eyes that made your cheeks grow beet red. Trying to find some excuse to get away from looking at him, you began to open your recently returned rosin box and started rosining your bow.

"So that's how it works," Arthur commented.

"Mm-hmm," you nodded keeping your head down so he wouldn't see your rosy red cheeks flushing with blood.

"Say, ____________?" Arthur spoke up, his voice hinted with a slight note of hesitance. "Would you mind if I perhaps stay and listen to you play for a while?"

You blinked and caught him staring at you with hopeful green eyes.

"Why?" you asked. "I'm not very good at playing. You're just going to waste your time."

Arthur shook his head. "No, I think your playing is great!"

You lowered your head in bashfulness. "It really isn't…"

Now it was Arthur's turn to get flustered. "I mean, if you say so, it's actually not that great, but it's not bad, either. Uh, wh-what I meant to say was…I liked hearing you play the violin! I—dammit! I just keep making things worse!"

Not being able to control yourself, you suddenly found yourself bursting out laughing with tears nearly leaking from your eyes.

"I'm sorry, Arthur, but no one's spoken to me like this before," you said between fits of laughter.

Arthur looked clearly embarrassed. His face was even redder than yours.

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Not at all!" you quickly answered. "I'm happy! I've never heard someone say that about my playing before."

"S-So I can hear you play?"

You pressed your lips together. It would be weird knowing that someone was going to be listening to you practice—especially someone as handsome as this person—but then again, it would be a good opportunity to practice playing in front of a live audience for when the time came when you would have to play in front of the whole school.

"Yes, you may," you finally answered with a bright smile. Arthur smiled, too.

~~~~~

When the time came around for the spring concert, you began to feel more than just nervousness. While you and Arthur had become extremely close friends despite the fact that he could sometimes be cold to you the more you got to know him, you noticed that he had stopped coming to your practice sessions. You didn't know if this was because he was mad at you, because he was too busy with the student council, or simply because he stopped caring about you all together.

And it's right before the concert, too, you thought with your heart heavy with worry. Maybe he's not interesting in me anymore. But then, why would he have been interested in me in the first place? I'm not pretty, I'm not outgoing, I'm not talented…And I thought Arthur and I had something special.

Nevertheless, you couldn't cut corners on practice with the spring concert only a week away. Whether Arthur was there to listen to you or not, you would just have to ignore your personal emotions so as to not affect your perform for the concert.

~~~~~

When you entered the stage, your heart began to race so fast, you were sure it was going to leap straight out of your chest. There were so many people waiting to hear you play, and even the slightest mess-up would be remembered by at least one person in the audience. Swallowing a lump in your throat, you slowly made your way to the middle and situated yourself in front of the piano that was going to accompany you during the performance. The pianist that was going to play alongside you was going to be Arthur's classmate, Roderich, the one who had borrowed your box of rosin the first day you and Arthur had met.

Since you had already tuned your violin before the performance, all that was left to do was to wait for Roderich to come onto stage so your performance could begin.

Then, you heard a second round of applause signaling that your accompaniment had entered the stage, but when you turned to face the bench to give him the starting signal, your mouth nearly dropped open.  It wasn't Roderich who was sitting on the piano bench. It was…

"Arthur!" you breathed. "Wha—" But before you could say anymore, your friend placed a finger to his lips and smiled. You took a while to process what was going on, and before you knew it, you were smiling, too. Then, you readied your bow, took a deep breath and looked at the audience, and signaled the beginning of the song with a short bob of your violin.

Francis watched from behind the curtains at the couple playing beautifully together with a smile.

"I never thought that scone-eating bastard had it in him to learn how to play that part," he chuckled turning to Roderich who was also watching the performance.

Roderich rolled his eyes. "It was a pain teaching him how to do that," he groaned. "Not only did I have to teach him how to play the piano on top of playing the piece, but I had to learn the violin part so we could practice accompanying each other."

"No wonder he hasn't been listening to ____________ practice all of this time…" Francis murmured. "He's been busy with his own practicing."

"You've got that right," Roderich sighed and sat back to listen to the rest of the performance.

When _____________ and Arthur finished playing, the entire audience erupted into applause even given them a standing ovation at the pure beauty of the melody and harmony the two carried out.

~~~~~

After the show was done and you listened to your music teacher give you a round of praise, you rejoined with Arthur who was blushing like a madman.

"Arthur, you surprised me!" you giggled. "I never knew you would go out of your way like that for me."

Your friend began to fidget nervously in place. "Yes, well, I wanted to be able to play that song with you."

"Because it's the first song you've heard me play?" you guessed.

Arthur swallowed. "That, too, but Roderich told me that the original intention of the song was supposed to be that of courtship."

Now it was your turn to blush like crazy. "Oh…I never knew that…" you whispered.

"W-We're a little too young for marriage," Arthur stammered, "but I still love you, and I would be honored if you would become my girlfriend."

You instinctively cupped your hands to your cheeks. "Oh, Arthur…I….I'd love to! I'm so happy!"

Then, your boyfriend placed his hands over yours and moved in closer, his emerald eyes getting so close, you could see them shaking with anticipation.

"So am I, love," Arthur whispered and sealed his move by planting a kiss on your lips.
This is a request for :iconchokorettomilkku:.

I love the song, "Salut d'Amour." :heart: It's what got me interesting in playing the violin in the first place.

Axis Powers: Hetalia: :iconhimaruyaplz:.
This story TeralGeo.
© 2012 - 2024 TeralGeo
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Saroona0410's avatar
This IS BEAUTIFUL I'LL SO FAVORITE IT