The rain had not stopped by the time Aria went to bed.
It tapped against her window like impatient fingers, steady, relentless. She pulled the blanket up to her chin, but the rhythm seeped into her bones, dragging her back to the memory of the piano.
She closed her eyes.
But silence was louder.
The silence of a stranger's gaze, of notes that felt like bleeding wounds, of a name she didn't know but carried in her chest anyway.
---
Sometime after midnight, she woke to a sound.
A single note.
Her heart leapt. She sat up quickly, the apartment cloaked in shadow, her breath fogging in the cool air. She told herself it was her imagination. A trick of memory.
But then—another note. Faint, trembling, as though it had crossed walls and distance to reach her.
Aria's pulse hammered. She slid out of bed, bare feet cold against the wooden floor. She followed the sound through her apartment, toward the window.
Outside, the city was drenched in silver rain. The streets glistened under streetlamps, empty except for the hiss of water.
But the melody was there. Fragile, broken. His melody.
Aria pressed a hand to the glass, her skin tingling with fear and longing.
---
Morning brought no answers.
Her body ached from lack of sleep. The manuscript on her desk waited, but she couldn't focus. The music lingered in her ears, haunting.
By afternoon, she gave up pretending. She tucked the sheet music into her bag and left the apartment.
The city smelled of wet asphalt and roasted chestnuts from a vendor on the corner. Umbrellas bloomed like black flowers along the sidewalk. Aria kept walking, unsure where she was going—only knowing she had to move.
Her steps, unthinking, led her back to the café.
The door chimed when she entered.
Inside, the air was thick with cinnamon and espresso again. The old men were there, still bent over their chessboard. The waitress gave her a surprised smile.
"You again."
Aria hesitated. "Was he here?"
The waitress frowned. "Who?"
"The man at the piano."
The girl shook her head slowly. "We don't keep a pianist. Customers play sometimes, but… it's rare. Why?"
Aria's fingers tightened around the strap of her bag. She forced a smile. "No reason."
But her pulse betrayed her.
She sat at the same table as before, the wood scarred by years of cups and careless knives. Her tea came hot, fragrant, but she barely touched it. Her gaze fixed on the closed piano, its polished surface reflecting the light like water.
What if she had imagined him? What if the old man at Vinyl & Verse had been teasing, spinning ghost stories for gullible listeners?
The thought should have comforted her. Instead, it hollowed her.
---
Later, as dusk painted the sky in bruised purples, Aria walked home. Her phone buzzed—another call from her mother. She ignored it.
Her mother wanted her to return home, to help with family matters, to stop chasing… whatever this was. But Aria couldn't explain. She barely understood it herself.
She turned a corner, and that's when she saw him.
Standing beneath a flickering streetlight, rain dripping from his coat.
Her breath caught.
It was him. The scar. The silence.
Elias.
Though she didn't know his name yet, her bones whispered it.
He wasn't playing. He wasn't moving. Just standing, as though waiting for her.
Aria's steps faltered.
The air between them thickened, heavy, pulling her closer even as her fear screamed don't.
"Why…" her voice cracked, too soft to carry. She swallowed hard and tried again. "Why me?"
For a moment, she swore something flickered in his eyes. Recognition. Pain.
But no words came.
He turned instead, slow, deliberate, and began walking away.
"No!" Aria's voice was sharper this time, raw with desperation. She ran after him, her shoes splashing through puddles. The city blurred around her—the neon, the headlights, the smell of fried food and rain. Nothing mattered but his shadow ahead.
But the faster she ran, the further he seemed.
Until—he vanished.
Just like that.
One heartbeat he was there, the next he was gone, swallowed by the city's veins.
Aria stumbled to a stop, chest heaving, hair plastered to her face with rain. Her throat burned.
Tears blurred her vision.
She clutched her bag, pulled out the music sheet, and held it against her chest as if it could anchor her.
The ink smeared under her wet fingers. Silence.
Her whisper broke. "Who are you?"
Only the rain answered.
---
That night, Aria lay awake, trembling between exhaustion and obsession.
Her body begged for rest, but her mind replayed everything—the old man's words, the waitress's confusion, the ghostly melody at her window, the impossible sight of him on the street.
Was he real? Or was she losing herself?
When sleep finally came, it dragged her into a dream.
A grand hall.
A piano.
Her father's voice whispering, Listen, Aria.
And the man—the stranger, Elias—playing, his eyes not on her, but past her. Toward something she could not see.
When she woke, her pillow was damp with tears.
And her chest whispered only one truth:
The silence was unraveling her.