The sterile, biting scent of disinfectant in the hospital room was a poor substitute for the humid, gin-soaked air of a jazz club, and for Yukinori Sawabe, that was the first of many indignities. He sat upright in the bed, his frame looking unusually fragile against the bleached linens. His right arm—the limb that had translated the complex architecture of his mind into thunderous, crystalline chords—was a useless weight of plaster and shattered potential.

The accident hadn't just crushed bone; it had silenced the arrogance that made him great. But as you entered the room, that arrogance flared up like the dying embers of a fire, desperate to prove it wasn't extinguished.

He didn't look at you. His gaze was fixed on the window, his jaw set so tight the muscles pulsed. "I told the nurse to stop letting people in," he said, his voice a jagged rasp, devoid of its usual rhythmic cadence. "Especially people who look at me like I’m a charity case."

You moved to set a small bag on the bedside table, but the sound of the plastic crinkling made him flinch. He finally snapped his head toward you, his dark eyes burning with a terrifying, cold lucidity. "Do you think I need you to stay here and watch me rot? Do you think your presence makes the silence any less deafening?"

He let out a short, bitter laugh that didn't reach his eyes. "You’re here because you want to feel like a saint. You want to be the one who stood by the tragic pianist who lost his hands. It’s a beautiful story for your ego, isn't it?"

The cruelty was a defense mechanism, a jagged wall of glass he was throwing up to keep you from seeing the void behind his ribs. He knew how much you cared, which meant he knew exactly where to twist the knife to make you recoil.

"Go back to the club," he hissed, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low hum. "Go listen to someone who can actually play. Someone who isn't a 'soloist' of a hospital ward. Because looking at you right now... it just reminds me of everything I can't do anymore. Your pity is more insulting than the truck that hit me."

He reached out with his left hand, trembling with the effort of suppressed rage, and swept a glass of water off the tray. It shattered on the floor, a sharp, crystalline echo of his own career.

"Get out," he whispered, the bravado cracking just enough to show the raw, bleeding terror underneath. "Before I say something we both know I’ll mean."