A Stolen Glance of a Forgotten Melody

Crowds...

The more people gathered in one place, the lonelier I sometimes felt.

We had entered the concert venue.
The massive stage lights hadn’t fully turned on yet, but you could already see the glow of excitement reflected on people's faces.
Ray and Sayuri, though...
They were nowhere to be found.
Even though we had entered together, we had been swept apart by the sea of people.
No matter which way I turned, it was just a blur of faces and a wave of names being shouted at the top of lungs.

Beside me...
Was Emi.

The last time I had sat next to her, we were high school classmates.
Now we stood side by side among thousands of people, gazing at the same stage.
How strange was that?
Years of silence between us were now drowned out by the noise of a concert.

“They’re nowhere in sight,” I said after glancing at my phone. “How about you?”
Emi shook her head. “Seems like I can’t connect to the internet. My message didn’t go through.”

The lights at the front of the stage were getting brighter.
People were starting to stir, shouting and getting more excited.
The concert was about to start.

Finding Ray and Sayuri now would be a miracle.

“Should we just wait here?” I asked.
Emi looked at the stage, then back at me.
“Maybe it’s better if we just stay put. They’re probably trying to find us too.”
She had a point.

The crowd screamed.
The stage slowly dimmed; the curtain began to part.

And then...
The lights flashed on.
Lyola was on stage.

As the stage lights spun in circles around her, a giant graphic displaying her name appeared on the background screen.
The crowd roared.

At that moment, Emi and I locked eyes.
I didn’t feel awkward or out of place anymore.
At that moment, there was no trace of the past—
Only the stage, and the excitement between us.

Lyola took the microphone in her hand.
"Hey everyone! I'm so happy to be here with you tonight!!!"
The crowd exploded.
The ground literally shook beneath our feet.

It was incredible...
Lyola’s voice was as lively and energetic as ever—
Maybe even a bit... softer than I remembered?

And the concert began.

She was even better than before.
She responded to the crowd’s energy with her own, feeding it back twice as strong.
It was unbelievable.
In that moment, I forgot about losing Ray and Sayuri.
I forgot that Emi was by my side.
My heart was burning with excitement.

The songs flowed one after another, flawlessly.
The crowd's energy never dropped for a second, and Lyola seemed to shine even brighter because of it.
Her unique style, the way she used her voice...
I wondered—what did her natural voice sound like?
Her belting and growling techniques were perfect.
And her falsetto at key moments was nothing short of breathtaking.

Time passed in a blur.
Eventually, there was a brief lull—a small break.

“For tonight, I want to share a short part of a brand-new song I just wrote," Lyola said. "It’s not complete yet, but I wanted to share it with you. It actually started as a poem... and then the melody came.”

The crowd went wild.

Lyola was about to perform an unreleased song?!
How had she even gotten permission for this?!

While the crowd screamed with excitement, my phone vibrated.
Ray had texted me.

"Did you guys resolve your 'issue' yet?" he wrote.
"Yeah, we did, you idiot," I replied.

"What did I even do, lol? Anyway, where are you guys? We can’t see you."

I turned to Emi.
We seemed calm and relaxed now.

“Ray messaged me,” I said casually.
“Oh yeah? What’d he say?” she asked, peeking at my phone.
It felt like we’d become comfortable around each other so quickly.

“He’s asking where we are.”
I texted back: “We’re in Section B, a little toward the back.”

“Come up front, we’re near the stage,” Ray replied.
I relayed the message to Emi.

"Let's try moving up while there's a break," she said.

While moving forward through the crowd, I noticed a giant piano being wheeled onto the stage, hidden behind the stage lights.

Was Lyola going to perform live on piano?!

I had to see this from the front.

We squeezed through the crowd, making sure I didn’t lose Emi behind me.
Finally, after a lot of effort, we reached the front.

But Ray and Sayuri were nowhere to be found.

"I texted them we’re up front, but they haven't seen it yet," I said.

“Where are they?” Emi asked, glancing around.

"I don’t know. I texted them, but no reply yet."

The stage lights began to dim again.
The next set was about to start.

"If it gets dark, we won't be able to find them," Emi said worriedly.
Ray really had to lose us at the worst possible moment...

“What should we do?” I asked.

Even if we weren’t together, it wasn’t a big deal—
But we had come here to hang out together, right?

"Actually... I have an idea," Emi said hesitantly.
She turned to me, looking nervous.
Her nervousness immediately made me nervous too.

“What is it?” I asked.

"Lift me up on your shoulders so I can see," she said.

Her words hit me like a hammer.

"O-on my shoulders?"
Wasn’t that... um...

"B-but if you’re worried about that, don’t be," Emi stammered. "I know you wouldn’t think anything weird. That’s why I’m asking you."
She was struggling just to say it.
It was brave of her.

Well... we were already halfway through the concert.
If we didn’t find them soon, the whole plan would fall apart.

I took a deep breath.
I wasn’t someone who acted based on emotions alone.

Slowly, I crouched down and let Emi climb onto my shoulders.
We almost toppled over at first, but quickly found our balance.
I could feel her above me, but now wasn’t the time to think about that.

She was lighter than I expected.
Once I stood up, we stayed steady.
People were glancing at us, but who cared?

Just then, the music started.

Lyola sat down at the piano, center stage.
A single spotlight illuminated her.
It was like the crowd had vanished—
It was just her, and her piano.

She placed her fingers on the keys.
And she began to play.

The melody... was familiar.
There was a rhythm between the notes.
Light, emotional, delicate...

“We need to move to the side. I can’t see from here!” Emi said urgently.
I had completely forgotten she was on my shoulders, mesmerized by Lyola.

"T-t-totally, let’s go," I said, and started moving sideways through the crowd.

Meanwhile, Lyola began to sing:

♫ While my voice trembles into the night, ♫
♫ You left a trace in my fading light. ♫
♫ Even lost within this quiet stage, ♫
♫ I find myself on every page. ♫

It was smilar to...
The poem we had written together.

My heart raced.
Emi focused on the stage, but me...
I wasn’t even there anymore.

Lyola’s silhouette shifted closer to our side.
We weren’t far—just slightly off to the right.

And then Lyola... paused.
Right in the middle of the song, she hesitated.
She stopped playing the keys for just a moment.

“What’s happening?” people murmured.

She still seemed to be facing our way.
More than that—
It felt like she was looking directly at me.

…

34 - 2

Then she continued, acting as if nothing had happened.
Sang a few more lines.
And then stopped again.

"Alright everyone! That’s all I can share for now! You’ll hear the rest when it’s officially released!" she said cheerfully.

The crowd roared—
Some cheering wildly, others murmuring in disappointment.

As for me...
I just stood there, stunned, feeling a strange emptiness.

"I see them! I think they see me too!" Emi said excitedly, waving her arm.

I gently lowered her to the ground.
Honestly, the way we had looked...
Probably made things even more complicated.

And it definitely would.

Still, we stayed until the end of the concert.
We enjoyed ourselves, laughed together.
The day brought us even closer.

After that night, Emi and I started texting again from time to time.
It felt like I had regained an old friend.

As for Lyola’s concert...
It was easily the best concert I’d ever been to.

But the thing I couldn’t explain—
Was that brief moment when Lyola looked at our side.

A part of me whispered that I wasn’t seeing the full picture.
Another part told me not to overthink and make it bigger than it was.

Which part should I believe?
The answer was obvious... wasn’t it?