Chapter 21 Echoes of a Distant Voice

Winter tightened its grip on the city. The days grew shorter, and the nights stretched endlessly, as if time itself slowed to brace for change.

Ren Amamiya sat alone in the music room, his breath visible in the cold air. The heater had broken again, and yet he didn’t mind. The silence had become his rehearsal partner.

Yui had left last week.

No grand farewell. No teary send-off. Just a long hug at the train station, a whispered “Sing when it hurts,” and a smile he couldn’t forget.

Now, her absence was everywhere.

Her empty seat in class. Her laughter echoing in the music room walls. The tea mug she always used still sat on the shelf — washed, but untouched.

But most of all, she lingered in the silence between notes.

Minato High’s music teacher, Mr. Sakamoto, knocked gently on the open door.

“You’ve been here for hours.”

Ren looked up from the piano.

“I know.”

The teacher walked in, carrying a thick envelope. “I thought you might want this.”

Ren opened it slowly.

Inside was the official invitation to perform at the Tokyo Winter Youth Gala—a national-level showcase for promising young musicians.

“She signed both your names,” Mr. Sakamoto said softly. “Before she left.”

Ren’s breath caught.

“Will you perform?”

He looked down at the lyric sheet Yui had left him—creased, smudged, precious.

Then he nodded. “Yes.”

The weeks passed like turning pages.

Ren practiced tirelessly, composing the accompaniment for the song Yui had left behind. He called it “The Voice Between Stars.” It was their song, even if she wasn’t there to sing it.

He rearranged the piece as a violin solo. It wasn’t easy. He had to translate her voice into bow strokes, her breath into pauses, her hope into melody.

Each time he played it, the ache inside him softened.

The night of the Gala arrived, held in a theater as grand as it was intimidating. Velvet seats. Crystal chandeliers. Rows of young musicians from across Japan—each brilliant, polished, nervous.

Backstage, Ren adjusted the chinrest on his violin. He could hear applause from the previous performer—a girl who played a haunting flute piece inspired by snow.

His name was called.

He stepped onto the stage.

The lights blinded him momentarily, but he didn’t hesitate. He walked to the center, bowed, and raised his violin.

Then—

Silence.

A breath.

And the first note.

The audience did not expect what came next.

It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t technical gymnastics.

It was… a confession.

The melody wept, then soared. It lingered in fragile tremolos before blooming into crescendos that trembled with hope. It sang not in words, but in feelings too deep to name.

Ren’s bow moved like it was dancing with memory.

He imagined Yui—her voice harmonizing in the back of his mind, her eyes closed, singing beside him.

“If I cannot reach you,
I’ll leave my voice in the sky—
So when you look up,
You’ll know I never truly said goodbye.”

He heard the song even though he played alone.

And somehow, in the final bars, so did the audience.

When the last note faded, the hall remained silent.

A full heartbeat passed.

Then the applause came—not thunderous, but steady, genuine, heartfelt. A few audience members wiped tears from their cheeks.

Ren bowed, deeply.

And as he stepped off stage, he wasn’t alone in his heart.

Backstage, a boy from another school approached him.

“That song,” he said, “it felt like someone was singing through you.”

Ren smiled.

“She was.”

That night, Ren walked home with the Tokyo wind biting his cheeks. He didn’t feel cold.

He stopped by the old park bench where he and Yui once wrote lyrics under the summer sky.

Pulling out his phone, he recorded a voice message and sent it to her.

“I played it today. They heard you.”

No reply came immediately.

But two hours later, a message arrived.

“I watched the livestream. You were incredible.
I cried.
Let’s write another. Even across oceans.”

Ren stared at the words for a long time.

Then smiled through the blur in his eyes.

“Let’s make it a duet. When you come home.”