The garden was silent.
Not just quiet—but a hush that felt intentional, as though the trees and flowers were listening for something only they could hear. This section of campus wasn't on the map Lyra had been given. VIVA said it was an "unlisted ambient zone," usually used by composition majors who needed stillness to write. But Lyra hadn't come to write.
She was following a sound she couldn't explain.
It wasn't something she heard with her ears. More like a feeling—vibration without volume, a tug on her chest. Like someone was playing a melody she had once known in a dream.
She stepped off the path and walked through the veil of willow leaves swaying gently in the breeze, and that's when she saw him.
A boy, alone.
He sat at a low stone bench, beneath a tree strung with silver leaves that shimmered like piano keys. In front of him was a glowing synth board—transparent, floating just above the stone, the keys soft and misty like fog over a lake. He wasn't touching it. Not yet.
But he was listening.
He had pale hair that shifted color when the light caught it—silver in one moment, lavender in the next. His posture was impossibly still. Not tense, just… precise. He wore the same academy uniform, though his jacket had long flowing sleeves with faint musical notations etched into the fabric. He looked delicate, not fragile. Like an antique instrument kept in perfect tune.
Lyra opened her mouth to greet him—but then his fingers moved.
The air changed.
It wasn't just sound. It was an atmosphere. A shimmer. One press of the key and the world bent gently around it.
The synth let out a single note—long, resonant, like a bell struck underwater. Then another, layering beneath it, weaving something that had no words. The notes didn't follow any melody Lyra recognized. They hovered in the space between thought and emotion.
And suddenly she felt things. Not her own things—his.
Loneliness. Not sorrow, just solitude that had been so constant it had become its own kind of music.
Then curiosity.
Then, very softly, hope.
She sat down without thinking, a respectful distance away, not wanting to break the moment. But the boy had already noticed her. He didn't stop playing.
He changed the music instead.
A new note entered, light and trembling. An invitation.
Lyra blinked. "You're… talking to me?"
He didn't answer with words. Just smiled—barely, but enough. The music swelled in acknowledgment. VIVA whispered in her ear, Neural pattern detected. Subject is a non-verbal communicator. Music is primary language. AI translation ineffective. Suggest responding in kind.
Lyra took a slow breath.
She closed her eyes and hummed.
No words. No lyrics. Just the feeling in her chest, shaped into tone. Her voice picked up where his synth had left off, echoing the invitation and building on it. Her hum wrapped around his melody gently, softly, adding color and light.
Together, they wove something between them. A duet of silence and sound. His keys shimmered with crystalline precision; her voice flowed warm like sunlight over glass. It wasn't a song that would ever chart or get points—it was something more fragile and more honest. A conversation between souls.
He tilted his head, and a pulse of sound rippled through the air—brief, bright, like laughter. Lyra smiled.
Then the song changed again.
The keys dropped to minor tones. He pushed the tempo slightly, eyes flicking toward hers.
A question.
She answered with a rising trill—brief, uncertain.
His fingers danced across the synth, building a crescendo that surged like waves.
He was asking: Will you let me join you?
Lyra stopped singing.
"Yes," she said aloud, softly. "I want you to."
The music stilled.
He looked at her fully then, and even without speaking, she could read it in his eyes. Gratitude. Relief. A deep, unspoken yes.
"I'm Lyra," she added, voice gentle.
He tapped a few keys. A melody, light and quick, like footsteps.
"Yuu," she whispered. "Is that your name?"
He played the notes again, affirming. Then added a quiet chord—a name-sound that echoed her own voice as he had heard it. Lyra felt her chest ache a little at the beauty of it.
"I'm forming a band. I have Kai on guitar. Rin on drums. And now… you?"
He responded with a soft flourish of harmony that wrapped around her like a scarf. She nodded.
"Welcome to the band, Yuu."
A bell chime rang overhead—real this time—and VIVA's voice sparkled into her ear. Third member recruited. Synth-compatibility: extremely high. Emotional synchronization achieved. Warning: prone to mood-silence communication lapses.
"I don't mind," she whispered to herself, looking at Yuu as he began to play again.
She'd never felt so seen—by someone who never even said a word.
She sat beside him until the sky turned violet and the moon rose in the shape of a treble clef, singing softly as he played, the garden blooming around them with notes made of light.
END OF CHAPTER 7