CHAPTER 8 Where Feelings Begin to Sing

The morning after the performance felt like waking from a shared dream.

Ren stood at the window of his apartment, watching golden light slip through the city skyline. For the first time in what felt like forever, he wasn’t haunted by silence. He was held by it—softly, like a blanket still warm from someone else’s presence.

On the table behind him lay a message from Yui.

> 「今日…図書館で、少しだけ。話したいことがあるの。」

(Today… at the library, just for a little while. There’s something I want to talk about.)

He smiled without realizing.

---

Yui stood in front of the tall glass doors of the city library, fidgeting with her sleeve.

After the performance, the world had grown just a little louder. Classmates who never spoke to her before had stopped her in the halls, offering smiles, praise, and cautious curiosity.

But it wasn’t the crowd she remembered—it was the stage.

It was Ren.

The way he looked at her during the song, not as if she was broken, or someone to protect—but as someone who was already whole.

---

When Ren arrived, she greeted him with a shy wave.

“Did you… get much sleep?” he asked.

She shook her head, then nodded. “I dreamed music.”

He chuckled. “That counts.”

They sat at their usual corner. Sunlight poured through the window, turning pages golden.

Ren opened his sketchpad—not to draw, but to let Yui see what was inside.

Inside were short bars of notation, lyrics, fragments of melody. All from their song. All preserved.

Yui stared.

Then, in a small voice: “You kept all of it?”

“I couldn’t throw it away,” he said. “It’s ours.”

---

The quiet between them wasn’t awkward—it was suspended, waiting.

Yui took a breath. “There’s something I didn’t say. Before.”

Ren looked at her gently. “You can now.”

She hesitated. Her fingers curled lightly at the edges of the sketchpad.

Then—

> “I used to believe music was only for people who weren’t afraid.”

Ren blinked.

> “But now… I think it’s for people like us. People who are afraid—but sing anyway.”

Her voice cracked slightly. She lowered her head.

Ren reached across the table. He didn’t speak. He simply covered her hand with his own.

The gesture said everything.

---

Later that afternoon, they walked together under trees just beginning to flower.

Yui carried her lyric notebook tucked beneath her arm. Ren had his violin strapped over one shoulder, as if he never wanted to be without it again.

“I want to write something new,” she said.

“A new song?” Ren asked.

She nodded. “Not just sad. Something that begins hopeful. Something that smiles when it ends.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A happy ending?”

She turned to him, eyes glimmering with rare boldness.

“One that isn’t an ending at all.”

---

That evening, they returned to the music room where they first began.

It was quieter now—emptier. But the ghosts they’d once feared were gone.

They sat at the piano.

Ren placed his violin on the table beside them.

Yui opened her notebook to a blank page.

Her pen hovered over the top line.

Then she asked him, in a voice barely louder than breath:

> “Ren… when did you stop playing music for yourself?”

He thought.

Then answered:

> “The day I lost someone I loved.”

She nodded slowly.

Then asked, even softer:

> “And when did you start again?”

Ren looked at her—really looked.

And finally said:

> “The day I met you.”

---

Outside, it began to rain again.

But this time, Yui didn’t flinch.

She simply closed her eyes, tilted her face to the sky through the open window, and smiled.

“I think,” she whispered, “that we’re both getting better.”

Ren stepped beside her, brushing gently against her shoulder. “Together.”

---

They didn’t kiss.

Not yet.

But as they stood there, listening to the soft fall of rain, something else began.

Not a performance.

Not a memory.

Just a feeling.