Chapter XLII - The Sonata You Played Without Looking At Me (III)

Evening settled over Amane Private Academy like a held breath. The halls emptied of footsteps, the classrooms of voices. Even the persistent hum of fluorescent lights dimmed as the janitorial staff methodically shut down sections of the building for the night. Outside, the autumn wind whispered through half-bare branches, carrying the promise of coming frost.

In the Old Music Room, now officially reinstated as the Four Symbols Club headquarters, silence reigned—not the hollow silence of abandonment, but the companionable quiet of people comfortable enough with each other to let words rest.

The others had departed some time ago. Akise bounded out with grand declarations about preparing his "cosmic composition portfolio" for tomorrow. Sosuke left more quietly, mentioning a phone call he needed to make to his coach. Sairenji, still limited by her recovery, had been the first to leave, guitar case carefully slung over one shoulder as she promised to be ready for tomorrow's practice.

That left just the two of us.

We had originally planned to go to the rooftop—our unofficial sanctuary—but the weather had turned unexpectedly cold, and the fatigue from the day's emotional confrontation weighed heavily on us both. So instead, we stayed, occupying opposite corners of the club room without quite acknowledging the choice.

Minazuki-san sat on the windowsill, one leg drawn up to her chest, the other dangling freely. The fading sunset painted her scarlet hair in deeper shades of crimson, silhouetting her against the darkening sky. She hadn't spoken in nearly twenty minutes, her gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the glass.

I occupied the piano bench, turned away from the keys, my back against the edge of the instrument. In my hands, I held the sheet music for "Echi Perduti" that she had given me, my fingers tracing the notes almost unconsciously as my mind replayed the day's events.

Sunrise Mart had no shifts for me today. Mizushima-san had texted earlier, insisting I take the night off to "celebrate whatever has you actually smiling for once." Minazuki-san, apparently, had no mysterious errands requiring cigarettes or imported cookies. We were just... here. Together.

Without purpose or pretense.

It should have been uncomfortable. It should have been awkward. But somehow, it wasn't.

"Thank you," I said finally, breaking the extended silence.

She turned from the window, eyebrow arched in silent question. The movement disturbed a strand of hair that fell across one eye; she brushed it away with a gesture so casually graceful it made my breath catch.

"For everything," I clarified, unable to look directly at her. "For helping with the club. For bringing in Sairenji. For challenging Arisato like that—I've never seen him so completely thrown off balance."

A lump in my throat, but I swallowed it.

"And... For... for saving my life that night. Even if you didn't mean to."

For a moment, she looked almost embarrassed, as if gratitude was a currency she had no idea how to accept.

"Don't mention it," she looked down and murmured.

"I have to... because I don't understand it."

"Understand what?"

"Why would you help someone like me. After how I treated you when you first transferred. After how I... objectified you, followed you around, refused to leave you alone when you clearly wanted nothing to do with me. After becoming obsessed with your voice and carrying around your earbud like some creepy stalker—"

"Kagami." She cut off my spiraling self-recrimination with a single word, sharp as a knife.

"I'm serious, Minazuki-san! All I've done is make your life harder since the moment you arrived. I was just like everyone else—seeing what I wanted to see instead of who you actually are. I deserved that broken nose. I deserved worse. So why help me now? Why risk your enrollment for the club? For us?"

She was quiet for a long moment, gaze returning to the window as if seeking answers in the gathering darkness. One finger tapped against her knee in an irregular rhythm that might have been nervousness from anyone else. When she finally spoke, her voice was softer than I'd ever heard it, almost hesitant.

"I'm not good at this."

"At what?"

"This." She gestured vaguely between us, with a blush. "Talking. Explaining. Being... normal."

"You don't have to—"

"Idiota," she interrupted, but there was no venom in it. "Just... let me try, okay?"

She slid from the windowsill, moving across the room with that dancer's grace that seemed effortless even when she was uncomfortable. Her skirt swirled around her thighs, the hem still rolled to her preferred length despite the day's momentous events. To my surprise, she didn't retreat to another corner but instead settled on the floor near the piano bench, legs crossed beneath her, close enough that I could catch the familiar scent of smoke and vanilla.

"I'm sorry about your nose," she said suddenly, gaze fixed on the worn floorboards and finger tracing an invisible pattern on the wood.

The apology was so unexpected that I almost laughed. Of all the things to address, she chose the physical injury she'd inflicted months ago.

"It's fine, it's healed."

"Not straight, though." She glanced up, a hint of genuine regret in her expression. "I can see where it's a little crooked now. I... I hit you harder than I meant to."

Without warning, she reached up, fingers hovering just above the bridge of my nose, not quite touching but close enough that I could feel the warmth of her skin.

I held perfectly still, afraid that any movement might shatter whatever strange spell had fallen over us.

"It looks good, though," she added quickly, snatching her hand back as if burned. "I mean, it gives your face character. Makes you look less... perfect."

The blush deepened, and she scowled as if irritated by her own reaction.

"F-Forget I said that."

I also blushed, but I couldn't even cover my face.

"I'll try to...?"

"I've never apologized for it before. I should have. But instead, I just kept pushing you away. Pushing everyone away. It's... what I do."

She plucked at a loose thread on her skirt, winding it around her finger until the tip reddened from restricted blood flow.

"I noticed... but why? Why do you push people away?"

She was quiet again, unwinding the thread from her finger and watching the color return. When she finally answered, her voice carried a vulnerability I'd never detected before.

"It's easier than being rejected. If I never let anyone close, they can't decide I'm not worth keeping around. It's... safer that way. When you expect nothing from people, they can't disappoint you. Likewise for them."

My heart clenched. I understood that feeling entirely.

I was just too much of a coward to ever go through with it.

"You were different," she admitted, still not meeting my eyes. "Even after I broke your nose, even after I told you to stay away, you kept trying. Not just to talk to me, but to include me. To help me, in your own awkward, deeply annoying, completely persistent way."

"I was being selfish, making myself feel better by playing the hero."

"Maybe at first... but the more I watched you with everyone else—always saying yes, always helping, always putting yourself last—I started to realize it wasn't about me specifically. It's just who you are."

She looked up then, eyes locking with mine, all pretense of disinterest abandoned.

"Why do you keep giving pieces of yourself away until there's nothing left, Kagami?"

For all her claimed ineptitude at emotional conversation, Minazuki-san had identified the hollow core of my existence like some sort of philosophical surgeon.

"I don't know how to be any other way."

And that was the truth.

"After my mother died, nothing... nothing mattered anymore. Nothing felt real. But if I could make other people happy, if I could be useful, then at least I had a purpose. A reason to keep going."

"Your mother," she repeated softly. "That's why you stopped playing."

It wasn't a question, but I nodded anyway.

"She died when I was twelve. Pancreatic cancer, they said, but it was discovered too late... She was a pianist—not famous, but talented. She taught me from the time I could reach the keys."

Minazuki-san listened without interruption.

"The day she died, something in my father broke. He started drinking, gambling, and taking his grief out on anything that reminded him of her. Especially me. I have her eyes, you see. Same shade of green. Every time he looks at me, he sees her. And then he remembers she's gone, and I'm still here, and..."

I trailed off, unable to finish.

"That's not your fault. Not one bit of it. He doesn't get to put that on you," Minazuki-san spoke harshly.

"It's not that simple. He's all I have left. He's... my father."

"Blood doesn't absolve him of his actions."

"No, but... it's complicated. I know that. Intellectually, I know that. But..." I trailed off, searching for words to explain the inexplicable. "After the funeral, he sold her piano. Said we needed the money, but really, he just couldn't stand to look at it. And I... I couldn't bear to touch another one. It felt like betrayal. Like forgetting."

"So you became what everyone else needed instead."

"It was easier than being myself. If I was whatever people wanted—the perfect student, the reliable helper, the class representative who never said no—then maybe I could matter enough to exist. Maybe I could justify taking up space in a world where she no longer did."

I had never articulated these thoughts to anyone, not even Akise.

Yet somehow, this scarlet-haired bombshell who projected such indifference had become the repository of my deepest truths.

"Your turn. Fair exchange and all that," I said when she remained quiet.

She sighed, pulling her knees up to her chest in a gesture that made her seem suddenly younger and more vulnerable.

I told you my mother is Violetta Minazuki."

"The opera singer."

"The legendary soprano," she corrected with a hint of her usual sharpness. "Acclaimed across Europe, darling of the classical music world, perfect in every way. My sister Lucie followed in her footsteps. Same range, same technical precision, same adoration from critics and audiences alike. The golden child. The natural successor to the Minazuki legacy."

"And you?" I prompted gently when she fell silent.

"I was the disappointment."

She smiled, a brittle expression that never reached her eyes.

"Too emotional, too raw, too uncontrolled. My mother would say, 'Serena, you must discipline your passion. Art requires restraint!' What she meant was: be more like Lucie. Always be more like Lucie."

Her fingers absently touched her throat, a gesture I'd seen before when she spoke of singing. "Once, at a family recital, I changed the arrangement of an aria. Just a small modification, but it felt... right. Like the music was finally saying what I needed it to say." Her eyes grew distant with the memory. "My mother was furious. Said I'd embarrassed her in front of her colleagues, and that I lacked discipline and respect for the composer's intentions."

Pieces of the puzzle that was Minazuki Serena were falling into place.

"So your parents sent you to Japan...?"

"After I made a scene." She shrugged, but the casual gesture couldn't disguise the hurt beneath. Her voice grew quieter, almost inaudible. "They decided to focus exclusively on Lucie's career. She was the sure investment, the guaranteed return. I was the liability, the risk, the problem child who couldn't be controlled."

"...That's not fair," I said, echoing her earlier statement.

"Life rarely is." She hugged her knees tighter while her chin rested on them. "If even my own parents couldn't love me for who I am, why should anyone else? So I stopped trying to socialize."

"Is that why you smoke? Intentionally damaging your voice?"

She let herself smile.

But it was neither out of joy nor sarcasm.

It was just a tired one.

"If my voice goes away, I won't have to hear my mother's criticism in my head every time I sing. I won't have to be reminded of how I'll never measure up. I won't have to carry this... this gift that no one actually wants."

She reached into her pocket reflexively, as if seeking the familiar comfort of her cigarette pack, then stopped herself with visible effort. Regardless, a flash of satisfaction crossed her face.

"Sometimes I think about how horrified my mother would be if she knew. The great Violetta Minazuki's daughter, deliberately destroying her voice with cheap cigarettes. "It's almost worth the damage just for that."

"But your voice is beautiful... it saved me."

"Ironic, isn't it? The thing I've been trying to destroy became someone else's salvation." She shook her head, scarlet hair falling across her face like a curtain. "Maybe there's a lesson there, but I'm too stubborn to learn it."

She tucked a strand around her ear.

"Besides, it's not just about the singing. My voice is the one thing that's truly mine. Not my mother's, nor Lucie's. If I ruin it, at least I'm the one who decided its fate."

Trauma recognizes trauma.

Pain recognizes pain.

Perhaps that was the inexplicable connection I'd felt from the beginning, the recognition of a kindred brokenness.

A shared understanding of what it meant to be defined by absence, by what had been taken rather than what remained.