HIDDEN MELODIES REFLECTING THE LOST WORLD OF PEPPERMESSES

According to tales passed down for generations, a few of the stars shimmering in the sky were to be condemned to eternal darkness, punished harshly for defying the decrees of the night. However, dust clusters that resisted surrendering to this fate waged an endless war against the guardians of the night. Despite heavy losses on both sides, neither could bear the disgrace of defeat; they fought on, blind to consequence, driven by sheer resolve. One by one, lights were extinguished, and the armor of the guardians crumbled into dust. For a long while, they watched their legions perish. And when they finally realized the war would not end, they chose to make a pact.

The stars would not be allowed to attain the necessary heat at the core of their densely compressed mass, formed through the pull of gravity. However, they would be permitted to borrow warmth from the hearts of puppets—beings that defied the laws of the universe. Thus, the souls of the stars split into dust, taking the form of tiny butterflies and began to communicate with humans who stood in contrast to reality. They made agreements, promising to grant these individuals whatever they desired. In return, the humans’ hearts grew warmer, and the sparks within them began to merge, forming bundles of light. Once dozens of bundles had been created, the souls of the stars collected them and began to shine once more.

But in time, these stars began to fade—perhaps for reasons unknown, or maybe reasons long forgotten. Among the countless stars sentenced to punishment, only one immense and powerful star continued to shine. For what might have been thousands of years, it blazed without ever dimming. Yet over this span of time, the dust cluster that endured grew bitter toward the universe. Succumbing to its hatred, it began teaching spells to certain individuals—spells that would plunge the world into chaos. From that great star, only selfish puppets remained, those who had stirred disorder to keep its flame from extinguishing for centuries, along with the remnants of their actions.

(…)

In the depths of the abstract concept known as life—where one is shaped from clay and left to live out a fate written long ago—there were innocent, tiny bodies still unaware of the cruel truths it concealed. These children sometimes gathered in groups, sometimes parted ways. They all slowly left the building they had come to, hoping to learn. Their laughter bloomed and echoed, growing distant with the expanding smiles on their small faces. A place once filled to the brim just moments before now once again cast the shadow of loneliness upon its empty heart. She knew, of course, there was no choice but to surrender to the silence. After bidding farewell to the teachers waiting in the lounge, she would be completely alone.

Mizuki, a student at this loneliness-bound school, spent time at her aunt’s café near the town center, playing with the children who came by. As she engaged with their colorful imaginations—untainted by melancholy, like vibrant stalks of sugarcane—she searched for fragments of herself within their innocent world. Only while drawing or spending time with these children, teaching them things, did she feel she could truly access her own essence. Through these two activities, she slowly rekindled the warmth in her heart—a feeling she had been estranged from for quite some time. Yet this heart, newly warmed, had for years been shaken violently by a cause she either did not know or could no longer remember. Mizuki could feel the cries of pain echoing in others’ souls with every contour. She could hear the heartbeat of despair, second by second. At first, her brain perceived these heartbeats as threats, shocking her into stillness. Each one sent tremors through her soul. But with time, those sounds could no longer resist merging with calm. She now heard these cries for help less frequently and spent her time waiting for them to cease altogether. And when those cries, trapped in silence, did not come, instead of a flower of joy blooming in her chest, a void grew—snowballing into an avalanche that consumed everything.

Outside the times she spent drawing—when she was tethered to a world she could never quite keep pace with—every second clawed at her in agony. To avoid repeating these painful episodes, she needed to return to her room as soon as possible. Her footsteps quickly fell into rhythm, moving in sync toward her own universe, while the sounds of handmade instruments played by children echoed through the street. Each note struck her with sharp clarity, like an artist retracing fading lines of memory—drawing bolder and bolder with every sound. Everything in her line of sight blurred, transforming into fragments of a memory that always brought sorrow. Her feet obeyed the brain’s command to go forward without hesitation, while her consciousness compelled her to fully re-enter the memory—forcing her to become one with it.

The memory revived in her mind was from a day she went into town to help her aunt with work. The wind that embraced distant melancholy, the sky bubbling with fleeting foam-like clouds, the falling leaves beginning their journey into the unknown… Creatures of this world, which Mizuki could never quite belong to, passed by her from all directions. Then, in her mind, she heard screams—undeniably fatal in magnitude—more intense than anything she had ever experienced. The louder the scream she tried to silence, the more it grew. In the midst of the crowd around her, she felt as if the air itself could no longer reach her lungs, her chest tightening with invisible wires. A part of her believed she needed to go somewhere devoid of life. Placing her left hand over her heart, she stepped away from the crowd that had been pulling her down. She felt the wire slacken and her breath return. Slowly, she laid her heavy body onto the grass. In her pupils, the somber reflection of the sky expanded. As always, she took her sketchbook and pencil from her small bag, ready to translate the murk of the atmosphere onto paper. But the moment she held the pencil, a violin’s melody—its origin unknown—seeped from her ears to her heart. With no trace of hesitation, she wanted to find the one behind these melancholic melodies, which felt strangely like home, as though she had once belonged to their universe and had somehow been torn from it.

A question fluttered through her thoughts: “Could the cries of pain in my heart belong to the one who plays this sorrowful music with such grace, carved from a rubber-like instrument?” As the melodies drew nearer, her curiosity deepened.

Within the shadows—at the edge of faint glowing lines that spread softly outward—two crystals held Mizuki’s gaze captive. That night, thanks to those heaven-sent crystals, she felt, for the first time, the unknown depth of love. Time itself seemed to freeze, dust particles suspended in the void. As waves of breath, entangled with the ashes of the nothingness in her heart, drifted through her veins, she risked everything to fight the darkness buried within her. A child, long asleep under the deadly spell of sorrowful flowers blooming in her chest, awakened—remembering her dreams and the meaning of life, joining the fight she had long abandoned. With each move she made, she painted the colorless world anew, breathing vibrant tones of hope across its pale surface. She wished—fervently, earnestly—that the fire ignited within her would never fade, that this immortal scene, adorned by the gentleman’s violin, would remain etched into her soul forever. She didn’t want to lose the unknown force that had reconnected her to life. And as a few teardrops, aligned with the moonlight, fell from her eyes, she wished she could hold on.

Yet the moonlight mocked her wishes. As it turned away to leave, her eyes—drowning in sorrow’s pinkish-red hue—met his. She could see then: life’s cruel arrows had struck him just as deeply. But how could she, someone who hadn’t even figured out how to heal her own wounds, say anything to a stranger like him? Though her feet longed to rush toward him, her mind was resolute in its refusal.

She repeated to herself, over and over, that she should not approach the man. Instead, she tried to write a few comforting words on scraps of paper from her bag—words that might make him feel a little better. Though she didn’t know who he was, she wanted to help him. She had been so moved by his presence that she decided to reconcile with the paints she had abandoned. "She drew a picture to make him feel better and turned the paper into a plane. She threw the paper towards where the gentleman was. Because she was afraid of being caught by him, she headed home without observing his reaction."

When she came home, she took out dozens of colors from the locked cabinet that she had exiled to the closet and gently poured them onto the brown palette. With her curling fingers, she guided her brush over the colors, letting it dance. The pigments clinging to the brush came alive as they met the canvas with gentle strokes. Each line challenged the last, holding hands with the next, slowly shaping the chaos into meaning. The deeper she dove into the details of the painting she was trying to complete, the more something inside her trembled. Without even trying to make sense of this unfamiliar feeling, she poured herself into the work with burning excitement—losing hours to the canvas. And when she finally finished the portrait—capturing the very same misty expression she had seen in the gentleman’s eyes—she felt an irresistible desire to give it to him. Though she doubted he would ever return to the same place, she went anyway. Before the memory could finish playing out, she realized she had arrived home. Taking her key from her bag, she unlocked the door and stepped inside.

Clouds of every shape and form, drifting like helpless stars clinging to the seconds slipping away, spread across the deep blue of the fading sky. Their translucent white was a reflection of the pain suffered below, cast upward in clustered darkness. Shards of stars, large and small, blinked in and out with the hopes of humankind, one by one surrendering to the sorrowful dark. Trees, stripped of color, reached upward like pale columns, and in the midst of this hauntingly beautiful scene, two small brown eyes shimmered. After a moment of flickering, they dimmed, overcome by the charm of despair. These once-sparkling orbs—now wells of sorrow with a reddish-pink hue—were drowning in painful glimmers. The pain pulsing in her chest every few moments felt as if it were pulling her very soul from her body. Desperate to escape this torment, Mizuki tried to fully feel the contrast between the surrounding gloom and the pale whiteness fogging her garden. And in that very moment, a melody—like something from a fairytale—drifted into her ears, fragmenting and spiraling into the depths of her soul, each shard leaving a different feeling behind. Growing more curious with each note, she began to search for the source of this music. And after a few seconds slipped away, she found him. But she had no idea how to respond. All she could do was stare in awe at the sight before her.