The Virtuoso and The Muse- A CrankGameplays X Reader

The Price of "Talent"

       Ethan and I just ended up at some chain burger place. Which was fine with me, fast food meant I might actually be able to practice tonight. We decided to interrogate each other while we were eating, because I guess that's what normal humans did. 

"So what made you so music crazy Y/N?" 

"I was born with perfect pitch. I have this weird talent where I can listen to a song once and play it perfectly on one of my instruments. I'm a fast learner so learning technique wasn't too horribly complicated. It still took an insane amount of practice though. Music just made sense. It's who am I, ya know? I'm not sure what else I'm good at. Don't really care either. I love music and it pays the bills, why wouldn't I be music crazy?"

"That's crazy. I wouldn't even know what to do with all of that talent."

"Oh whatever. Most of it is just me spending 3/4 of my life in a practice room. What about you though? Haven't you found your thing you could spend forever working on?"

"Oh of course. I did gymnastics for 10 years. I was a level ten which, in male gymnastics is the highest level. I can do backflips like they're nothing."

"I don't believe that until you show me."

"I'll show you if you play for me."

"Deal. What about YouTube?"

"Oh of course. YouTube is my whole life. I just want to get better and put out the best content that I can. I want to keep making people happy and just grow my amazing community. All in all, I just want me and my channel to grow for the better."

"Well, I'm sure a really amazing guy like you will have no problem with that."

He giggled a bit and smiled, "That means a lot coming from someone as successful as you."

"Oh ha ha. What you're doing is actually having an impact on people's lives. You make people feel wanted and loved, I'd call that successful."

"Your music could do that. Who do you play for?"

"Nope. That answer is going to cost you another burger."

He simply just smiled, "Alright then. Another time. Are we ready to head out? I think you could use the sleep."

      The minute I closed the door to my apartment I started going through my bags until I found my bag of pills. They were just your typical OTC stay awake pills, but I wasn't sleeping tonight. My whole schedule was thrown off because I slacked off and I wasn't letting myself get away with that. I grabbed the pills, a bottle of water, Scarlet and pulled out a chair. Scarlet had a cherry tint making her a lovely light red color. There were places on here that were a deeper red, but those were my own contributions. I placed my bow into playing position and began to play Locatelli's Caprice in D major Op. 3 No. 23 'Il labirinto armonico, a piece many refer to as a violinist's Hell. 

You call that music? Start again.

Look at that sloppy finger work. Again.

Do you even know what tempo is? Again.

That was a wrong note. Start again.

You can't even play a three minute piece? Some musician you are.

This is the work of a virtuoso? Disgraceful. Start again.

Every time I messed up, I would chastise myself and pop another pill. I needed to stay focused. If it wasn't great practice time, it was wasted practice time. I finally played the piece to perfection. My fingers felt like they were on fire, but it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. Raising my bow again I started to play Ernst's Variations on "The Last Rose of Summer. Only a small handful of violinists attempted this piece and that was because of how brutal it was. The piece nearly required you to break your hand for the fingerings at times. There are plenty of times in the piece when it sounds like two violins are playing. I managed to get halfway into the piece before I could feel the strings of Scarlet cut into my fingers. I was bleeding and any movement hurt, but I kept playing. I couldn't stop. This wasn't the first time I bled while I was practicing. This was my normal punishment for slacking off. I couldn't afford to relax, too much was on the line.