The second, and probably most important thing, was that he could only assign the actions that were currently on the violin. In this case, being him taking a step forward with both feet. If it wasn’t something on the violin, he couldn’t play it.

He also couldn’t separate the individual actions. Playing the key would force him to step forward with both feet, and there was no way for him to set these actions individually, unless he was to switch back to the violin.

What’s the point of this? Why would I not just play them on the violin?

He continued experimenting and practicing with the piano. The same rules that applied to the violin applied to the piano, like each key only being able to hold one set of actions, and that one action could be applied to multiple keys at the same time.

He couldn’t find much of a reason to use the piano at this point, so he went back to practicing with the violin.

After a while, his stomach rumbled and the violin disappeared, nestling itself back in his soul.

Noticing that he had stopped, Zara, who had been lying down on the couch with her feet up for a while now, looked up from her phone. “You done?”

“Yeah.” Ed got up and stretched before putting his hands on his stomach. “I could do with a bite to eat, you?”

“Same.”

The two sat down at the dinner table, thinking about what they wanted to eat. There was a comfortable silence for a moment before Zara figured out what she wanted to have.

“Can I have some butter chicken with naan bread please?” she asked.

A large bowl of butter chicken and rice appeared in front of her, with three pieces of freshly cooked naan bread sitting on a plate to the side. She picked up the utensils, but waited for Ed to order before digging in.

Ed’s stomach grumbled louder as he looked at her food. “I’ll have the same.”

A near identical set of food appeared in front of him, and with that, they started eating.

They didn’t talk much. Having spent a lot of time together, they knew when to embrace quiet and just enjoy each other’s company. Especially when they had good food in front of them.

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Zara felt that it was lacking just that little something that comes along with cooking food yourself, but she still found it delicious.

Zara broke off bits of her naan bread and dipped it into the butter chicken, using it as a spoon to scoop out some of it and mix all of the flavours together. While Ed tore the naan bread into strips, used a fork to transfer some food over onto the strips, and rolled them up into wraps before eating.

Finishing their food, everything disappeared off the table.

“We should get you a phone,” Zara said.

“I would love to, but I don’t-”

“Just let me pay for it this time,” she interrupted. “You can pay me back later, and it would help us out a lot if you had a way to tell me when you would be coming home.”

Ed really didn’t want to owe someone anything, but he knew that she was right about this. Besides, she was already allowing him to stay at her place, so how much of a difference would this make?

“Okay.” I’ll definitely find a way to pay you back before I get my money back. Ed was kind of embarrassed that she had done so much more for him than he had done for her. He really appreciated everything she had done and wanted to figure out something that she would like.

“Okay. I’ll go out and get it for you. You stay here and continue practicing.” She smiled and left before he could say anything.

I don’t deserve her. He smiled and went back to practicing the violin.

Having no song sheets, or books on music in front of him, he was more learning about how his violin worked, and less about how to play music. Whatever he did play was not enjoyable to listen to and couldn’t really be considered as music.

Maybe the piano could be useful if I stored enough actions on the violin first?

He removed the previously set actions from the violin and rested it in place. At the same time, He sent out about twenty thin threads and had them run parallel to each other in a straight line in front of him.

One by one, he assigned a note to each string and had them bounce in place when the note was played. After a bit of practice and repetition, he could make the strings bounce in order like a Mexican wave.

At least it looks nice.

He switched over to the piano and without thinking pressed the same key as before. Then both of his legs kicked forward.

Oh? Oh! His eyes flickered as he figured it out. I get it now.

He thought about the actions currently assigned to the violin and pressed a different key. And with that, all of the strings bounced in the air.

Even if I remove something from the violin, as long as its saved to the piano I can still play it.

As he had figured out, the true use of the piano was that he could save everything that was on the violin onto a single note, and play it back even if it had been replaced on the violin by something else.

So if I need to do something on the spot, I play the violin. But if I have the chance to plan things out, I can store everything I would need on the piano beforehand to save me time.

He began thinking about how this could be used to his advantage, then dived headfirst into practicing both instruments.

After a while, he heard the door open behind him and he stopped. Seeing Zara return, he smiled, and the two went to bed.