Student

At the backstage of the theatre geishas are moving around, preparing themselves, all except one, a brunette haired geisha with golden ornaments and a red flower in her hair, wearing a black kimono with floral patterns.

"Good work out there Kiyomi!" Another geisha compliments her, but she knows they don't really mean it.

"Thanks!" She tries to put on a polite smile, but they both know they're just putting an act.

The second her fellow geisha disappears the smile on her face vanishes as if it was never there, instead only a tired expression can be seen on her face.

<Sigh>

They have been trained to act since children, this is nothing out of the ordinary, they hire them to a play or an event, she plays the shamisen, she gets compliments by her companions and she politely thanks them, rinse and repeat, it just so happens that she has talent playing one particular instrument.

Sitting down and closing her eyes, she tries to get some rest before she's needed again letting her body relax letting the world around her fade away.

"Oy" She feels her kimono being pulled from the waist, probably just the wind, the air inside the backstage is very annoying.

"Oy Oy" a vein bulges on her face as she feels her kimono being pulled again and again.

"Oy Oy O-"

"What!?" looking down with an annoyed face not suitable for a geisha, she sees a kid with white hair and feminine facial features pulling her kimono.

<cough><cough>"Are you lost kid?" Realizing she just shouted out loud, she tries to put on a fake smile, but her anger is still visible in her face.

The kid shakes his head in denial, seeing this she feels more veins popping in her head.

"Then what do you want?" with every passing second it becomes increasingly difficult for her to keep her smile and not shout again at the kid.

"Teach me how to play that instrument!!" the kid answers with stars in his eyes and the biggest smile Kiyomi has ever seen.

'Cute!' Kiyomi immediately shakes her head to get that thought out of her, looking down at the boy, she starts opening her mouth to tell him to go away.

"O-Okay"

!? 'Did my mouth just betrayed me?!'

"Great" and with that the kid takes off running with a smile on his face.

!!!!!???

"NO! Wait!" but it's already too late, the kid has already disappeared.

'What did I just get myself into?' She starts massaging her forehead, she would like to do a lot of things, but certainly she didn't expect to teach a kid when she woke up this morning.

"Here!" Before she even realizes, the kid is already right in front of her holding out her shamisen.

'Wait!, I can use this to my advantage to escape this situation, I can tell him to play and tell him he just doesn't have the talent to learn, Yes!'

"Why don't you show me what you know?" Kiyomi says this not really wanting to start teaching a kid.

Nodding, the kids sits on his knees perfectly imitating the posture of the geishas at the play and grabbing the Bachi in his right hand and his eyes closed, he starts to play the same song as Kiyomi back at the stage, note by note he recreates the song without missing a finger position or losing the rhythm. Some things can be improved here and there about his way of playing, but Kiyomi is absolutly stunned with the kid's ability to even care, little by little the other geishas come closer drawn by the music only to see a little kid playing the shamisen.

With the last note fading into the air and letting the silence reign again, the kid opens his eyes coming out of his focused state.

<clap><clap><clap><clap>

Only to be greeted by a large number of applauses, confused he starts looking around taking in all the geishas around him that watch him play, which brings a little red shade to his face.

Kiyomi has her jaw is wide open in astonishment, clearly not having expected the kid to not only know how to play, but to do it almost perfectly.

<cough> "W-where did you learn to play that way?" in an attempt to regain a little of her image, she tries to put on a stoic front clearly not succeeding.

"Well, I started watching you how you played and how you were carrying yourself and I tough, wouldn't it be cool if I could-" The kid kept on rambling on and on about everything he saw in Kiyomi entering his own world to exited to realize the state Kiyomi was in.

'HUH? When did I do that?, when did I do any of that?!' Her head started spinning listening to the kid talking how great she was at playing the shamisen 'I think he is looking to deeply into things' She was just playing an instrument as she had done a thousand times before!.

"-and that's when I realized I wanted you to teach me!" After an amount of time Kiyomi thought impossible for someone to talk without breathing, he finally came to a stop, looking at her eyes waiting for a response, Kiyomi could swear she saw a literal light of excitement coming out of his white eyes.

"Y-You certainly have a little bit of talent, so there might be something I can do about teaching you, but don't get your hopes high okay?" Without knowing it herself, after listening to them talking about her, a blush crept up to her face.

"Yes!" Only seeing a white blur, Kiyomi felt the kid giving her a hug to which she didn't know how to react, just standing there like a statue, and before she knew it the kid already took a step back.

"You have a good eye to pick up all that much just seeing me acting once" Kiyomi bluffed with a puffed chest, if she was going to have a student then she couldn't afford to have the kid think less of her, which by the way the kid was looking at her it did the trick.

"Oh right!, I'm blind"

"Huh?, then how could you- you know what?, never mind" If she started to think about everything she saw she would get a headache.

"What is your name kid?" If she was going on with this then she needed to know the name of the kid that suddenly enters here and practically tricked her into teaching him.

"Yasu!?, where are you Yasu!?" the attention of both of them was drawn to a voice screaming in the background.

"Looks like it's my time to go, bye!" saying goodbye with a smile on his face, Yasu started running towards the voice.

<sigh>"It looks like there's no way out of this now" Kiyomi complained but the smile on her face betrayed her feelings.