Chapter 22 The Silence Between Cities

The Vienna sky was cold and pearl-grey.
Snow dusted the rooftops, and the air carried a crisp clarity that made everything seem sharper—voices, thoughts, memories.
Yui Tachibana stood outside the Conservatory of Classical Arts, violin case slung over her shoulder, staring up at the ornate building she had dreamed of since childhood.
And she felt… nothing.
No thrill. No spark. Just a weight.

---
Classes were in German and English.
Yui’s language skills were decent—Ren had helped her practice English every day before she left—but here, conversations moved too quickly. Jokes slipped by. Names blurred. Accents clashed.
She smiled a lot.
And said little.
She hadn’t sung in front of anyone in two weeks.

---
Her roommate, Anya, was a fiery soprano from Poland who practiced at 6 a.m. and left coffee stains on all the sheet music.
“You never rehearse out loud,” she said one day, adjusting her scarf. “That’s not very musical of you.”
Yui smiled politely. “I sing when I need to.”
“And when is that?”
Yui looked out the window, to the snow falling like ash.
“When I feel heard.”

---
Every night, Yui listened to the recording of “The Voice Between Stars.” Ren’s solo. Her lyrics.
She whispered the missing harmonies as if her voice might float across oceans and find him.
> “Even if I break alone...Let the wind carry the pieces back to you.”



---
Week four.
Yui stood in front of the conservatory practice mirror, staring at herself. Pale. Tired. Silent.
She hadn’t written a lyric since she arrived.
The melodies in her head had gone quiet.
And she was terrified.
Not of failing—she could handle failure.
She was afraid of forgetting how it felt to feel.

---
An email arrived.
Subject: Tokyo Gala Performance Upload – Link.
She clicked it.
There he was.
Ren, under golden lights, violin cradled in silence.
She didn’t blink for five minutes.
When he reached the final bars, her hands were shaking. And when the last note faded, she whispered:
“I’m still singing with you.”

---
She opened her lyric journal for the first time in weeks.
And she wrote.
The words came broken at first, unsure, like children stepping into snow.
But then—
> “Even when stars can’t touch,The sky is still ours.I’ll send this melody wrapped in winter…”



---
The next morning, she recorded a rough vocal track in the dorm’s acoustically awful stairwell.
She emailed it to Ren.
No subject. No message. Just the audio file.
That night, a reply came.
> Subject: Winter Duet.


> “I heard you. Let’s finish it—one verse at a time.”



---
From then on, they built the new song across cities and time zones.
She sent humming fragments in the morning. He sent violin replies at midnight.
Verse by verse, harmony by harmony.
It was like speaking again. Not through words, but music.

---
In her voice class, Yui volunteered to perform her original piece for critique.
She trembled. She wasn’t the most technical singer. Her German pronunciation still stumbled. Her voice wasn’t powerful—but it was honest.
And when she sang, she saw her teacher lower his pen. Anya stopped fidgeting with her nails. The room went still.
At the end, there was no applause.
Just a quiet voice:
“Where did that come from?”
Yui smiled.
“From far away.”

---
Ren messaged her later:
> “Still scared?”


She typed:
> “Yes. But I’m singing anyway.”


Then she added:
> “Do you think people can be close even when they’re far away?”


His reply came instantly.
> “Only if they keep listening.”



---
Later that week, Yui stood on her tiny Vienna balcony.
Snow falling. Bells ringing somewhere distant.
She raised her phone and began to sing.
> “Even if I’m half a world apart,I’ll fold my voice into the dark.If you play it back at dawn,I’ll know we’re not gone.”



---
She didn’t hear Ren’s harmony that night.
But she felt it.
And that was enough.