November Rain by Guns N' Roses
_________________________________________________
The woman arrives in December with a smile that has too many teeth.
"Yassine," she says, extending a hand. Her nails are red. Her blazer is sharp. Her eyes are measuring him the way Thorne measures things: for value, for potential, for what can be extracted. "I'm Miranda Chen. I'll be preparing you for your public debut."
Yaz shakes her hand. Her grip is firm and brief, a transaction completed.
"Preparing me how?"
"Media training. Interview technique. Presence management." She consults a tablet, scrolling through something Yaz cannot see. "You'll be speaking to millions of people. We need to make sure you say the right things."
The Practice Room feels different with her in it. Smaller. Invaded. For six years this has been his space, his cage, his refuge. Now it holds the smell of her perfume and the sound of her heels clicking on the floor and the weight of everything that is about to change.
"The right things," Yaz repeats.
Miranda Chen smiles again. All those teeth.
"The things that make people love you."
The lessons begin the next day.
There is a camera now. A small one, mounted on a tripod, its lens pointed at a chair where Yaz sits for hours while Miranda asks questions he is not supposed to answer.
"Where did you grow up?"
"I'd rather talk about the music."
"Good. But softer. Smile when you redirect. Make them feel like you're sharing something, not hiding something."
He tries again. The smile feels like a crack in his face.
"How does it feel to be the Hidden Voice?"
"It feels like exactly what I'm supposed to be doing." The rehearsed answer. The approved answer. Words that mean nothing and fill space.
"Better. But add a joke. Something self-deprecating. 'Hidden Voice sounds very mysterious, right? Honestly, I just didn't want to do my own laundry.'"
Yaz stares at her.
"That's not funny."
"It doesn't have to be funny. It has to be likeable." Miranda makes a note on her tablet. "You're not answering questions, Yassine. You're controlling narratives. Every interview is a performance. Every answer is a choice about what story people tell about you."
The camera's lens stares at him. Unblinking. Patient.
He wonders how many hours of his life will be spent performing for lenses like this one.
He suspects the answer is: all of them.
January brings the stylists.
Three of them, moving around him like satellites around a planet, taking measurements, making notes, speaking to each other in a language of fabric and color and silhouette that seems designed to exclude him from conversations about his own body.
"His coloring is interesting. The Korean-Algerian mix gives us options."
"Shoulders are narrow still. We'll need structured pieces."
"The eyes are striking. We should frame them."
Yaz stands on a small platform in the green room. The mirror in front of him is huge, surrounded by lights, the kind of mirror where you cannot hide from your own reflection. He watches himself being circled, being assessed, being converted into raw material for a brand.
A tape measure wraps around his chest. Cold against his skin.
"Arms up."
He raises his arms.
"He's still growing. We'll need adjustable sizing for the first six months."
The reflection in the mirror looks back at him. A thin boy with dark eyes and a face that is losing its childhood softness, becoming something sharper, more angular. A face that will be on screens and posters and merchandise.
He does not recognize it.
Or maybe he recognizes it too well. Maybe that's the problem.
The stylists finish their measurements and leave, taking their notes and their fabric swatches and their plans for who he is supposed to become. Yaz stands alone in front of the mirror for a long moment.
The lights are very bright. They show everything.
He looks at his eyes and tries to find himself in them.
The persona takes shape in February.
It is built like a character in a story: piece by piece, choice by choice, until something coherent emerges from the raw material of Yaz's exhaustion.
Humor first. Quick wit, the kind that makes interviewers laugh and audiences feel like they're in on the joke. Self-deprecating but not weak. Confident but not cruel.
"So I've been playing music since I was seven," Yaz practices, alone, in front of the green room mirror. "Which means I've had exactly six years to figure out that I'm terrible at everything else. You should see me try to cook. Smoke alarms have never worked harder."
The joke lands in empty air. No one laughs. But that's fine. He's not performing for anyone right now. He's building the machinery that will perform later.
Taunts next. Playful challenges. The swagger of someone who knows they're good and isn't afraid to say so.
"Yeah, I'm the Hidden Voice. Hidden because once you hear me, you can't think about anything else. I'm protecting your productivity, basically. You're welcome."
Cockiness. The final layer. The armor that makes people want to knock you down and root for you at the same time.
The persona fits like a new skin. Tight at first. Uncomfortable. But he can feel it loosening, conforming to his shape, becoming easier to wear.
That's the part that worries him.
You're getting good at this.
The Maestro's voice is different today. Not the usual measured wisdom. Something quieter. Almost hesitant.
I have to be.
I know. I just... A pause. Unusual. The Maestro rarely pauses. Be careful what you practice. The things you repeat become the things you are.
Yaz looks at his reflection. The persona is there now, visible in the set of his shoulders, the tilt of his chin, the carefully constructed confidence in his eyes.
Underneath, something else watches.
He hopes it's still him.
Mrs. Adaeze Okonkwo
She has been watching for six years.
It started with a phone call. A conversation with Dayo, the recording engineer, who had heard something extraordinary in the basement of an orphanage. A child's voice. A melody that had made him weep.
"You should hear this," Dayo had said. "You should bring someone who can help."
And she had. She had called Thorne. Had introduced them. Had watched the contract being signed, the thumbprint pressed to paper, the boy's future being traded for what everyone called protection.
Six years.
Adaeze sits in her small office in the orphanage and looks at the photograph on her desk. Not Yaz. Her son. The boy she lost to fever when he was four years old, back in Lagos, back before the war ended, back when medicine was scarce and hope was scarcer.
She came to this job because she could not save her own child. She thought maybe she could save others.
Instead, she brought one of them to Thorne.
Her bracelet clicks against her wrist as she adjusts it. Click. Click. The sound of guilt she cannot name.
Through her window, she can see the hallway. Soon, Yaz will walk past on his way to another coaching session, another styling appointment, another piece of preparation for the machine that is about to consume him entirely.
She will watch. The way she always watches.
She tells herself it's almost over. Soon the reveal will happen. Soon he'll be free, famous, able to make his own choices.
She does not believe it anymore.
Yaz
March 15, 2158.
He turns thirteen in a room full of strangers teaching him how to smile.
No one mentions the birthday. He does not expect them to. Birthdays are not part of the approved narrative. The Hidden Voice does not age; the Hidden Voice exists outside of time, perpetually young, perpetually talented, perpetually ready to be revealed whenever Thorne decides the moment is right.
The media coach runs through another mock interview. The stylist arrives with samples of the Look. The schedule marches forward, hour by hour, grinding him down like stone under water.
At night, finally alone in the Practice Room, Yaz sits at the piano and feels the weight of six years pressing on his chest like a physical thing.
Thirteen years old.
Six years in this room.
How many more?
His hands find the keys. Not playing. Just resting. Feeling the familiar smoothness, the slight resistance before a note sounds.
The Maestro does not speak in words. Just a presence. A warmth in the space behind his eyes. Something that says: I'm here. I know.
And then, without planning it, Yaz begins to play.
The melody is slow. Heavy. Not like anything he's written before. Not an anthem. Not a statement. Something deeper. Something that starts in the lowest register of the piano and builds, note by note, like water rising.
What is this?
I don't know. Yaz's fingers find a chord progression that aches. Something that can hold it all.
Hold what?
Everything. Six years. Everything I can't say. Everything I'm becoming. Everything I'm afraid I've already lost.
The Maestro is silent for a long moment. Then:
Then make it big enough. Make it longer than anything you've written. Give the weight a place to live.
Yaz plays. The melody grows. Layers begin to suggest themselves: strings that will come later, a guitar solo that climbs toward something almost like hope, and underneath it all, the sound of rain.
Rain falling on everything.
Beautiful. Cold. Relentless.
Mrs. Adaeze Okonkwo
She hears him playing late at night.
Not the words. Not the details. Just the sound of the piano drifting up through the floor, through the walls, through the building that has held them both for six years like a shared sentence.
The music is different from what she's heard before. Heavier. More complex. It builds and builds, wave upon wave, and there is something in it that makes her chest tight, her eyes sting.
She does not go down to listen.
She has not gone down to the Practice Room in years. Not since Suki left. Not since she saw what her distance was doing to him and could not bear to face it directly.
Instead, she lies awake in her quarters and listens to the muffled sound of a child trying to put six years of captivity into notes.
Her bracelet sits on the nightstand. Even without wearing it, she can hear it clicking. The sound of guilt that will not let her sleep.
Yaz
April and May dissolve into music.
The song grows in stolen hours. Late nights after the coaching sessions. Early mornings before the stylists arrive. Every gap in the schedule that Yaz can find, he fills with composition.
Nine minutes now. Five movements. An architecture of feeling built note by note.
The first movement is piano alone. Quiet. Vulnerable. A boy sitting in the rain without shelter.
The second movement brings strings. Layered, building. The years accumulating. The cost compounding.
The third movement explodes. Full orchestration. (He cannot record it that way, not yet, but he hears it in his head, knows how it should sound.) Everything breaking open. The storm arriving.
The fourth movement is a guitar solo. Soaring. Climbing. Pain transformed into something almost beautiful.
The fifth movement returns to piano. Alone again. After the storm. What remains.
He calls it "November Rain." Not because it is November. Because rain falls in every season, falls on everything you build, falls without permission or mercy or pause. And November is when you finally feel how cold it is.
The Maestro watches the construction. Offers less guidance than usual. Just presence. Just witness.
This is different, Yaz says one night, fingers aching, eyes heavy.
Yes.
It's not a weapon. Not like the others.
No. A feeling of warmth, of understanding. This one is a survivor. This one is proof that you made it through.
Mrs. Adaeze Okonkwo
May.
She stands in the hallway outside the green room, watching through a gap in the door.
Yaz is inside, alone for once, practicing in front of the mirror. She can see him clearly: the sharp new haircut, the carefully chosen clothes, the posture that has been coached into confidence.
He is running through the routine. The jokes land perfectly. The smile appears on cue. The taunts roll off his tongue with practiced ease.
"Yeah, I'm pretty good. But you knew that already, didn't you? That's why you're watching."
A wink at the mirror. A tilt of the head. The persona performing for its own reflection.
Adaeze watches. She has watched him for six years. Watched him arrive as a small, silent child with eyes too old for his face. Watched him grow. Watched him learn to hide.
And then.
The performance stops.
For just a moment. A breath between characters.
Yaz's shoulders drop. The smile falls away. The confidence evaporates like morning fog burning off under harsh light.
And she sees him.
The real him.
A thirteen-year-old boy with exhausted eyes and a face that has forgotten how to rest. A child who has been performing since before he knew what performance meant. Someone who has been carrying weight no adult should carry, let alone a child.
Someone who looks ancient. Used up. Hollowed out.
Her son had looked like that. In the final days, when the fever was winning. That same exhaustion. That same terrible knowledge in the eyes.
She did this.
The thought arrives like a blow. She brought him to Thorne. She watched the contract being signed. She spent six years telling herself it was opportunity, protection, his best chance.
She did this.
Her hand goes to her chest. The weight there is physical. Real. Her vision blurs, and she realizes she is crying, tears sliding down her cheeks without permission, without sound.
In the mirror, Yaz straightens. The persona returns. The smile clicks back into place.
But Adaeze has seen beneath it now.
She cannot unsee it.
She leaves the hallway.
Walks to her office.
Sits in her chair and stares at nothing.
The photograph of her son watches her from the desk. Four years old forever. Lost to a fever she could not stop.
She came here to save children. Instead she helped trap one in a gilded cage and spent six years watching the gilding wear through.
Nwata kwụọ aka ya, o soro okenye rie nri. Her mother's proverb, the one she said to Yaz once, years ago. If a child washes his hands, he can eat with elders.
But what if the elders are the ones dirtying the child's hands?
What if she is one of those elders?
The guilt has been background noise for years. A hum she learned to ignore. Now it is screaming. Now it is everything.
She has to do something.
She does not know what.
But she cannot watch anymore. Not after what she saw.
Yaz
June.
The song is almost finished.
Yaz plays through it late at night, the full nine minutes, his fingers knowing the path now even when his mind wanders. The movements flow into each other. The rain falls. The storm breaks. The quiet returns.
It is the biggest thing he has ever written.
It is also the truest.
When the last note fades, he sits in the silence and feels something he hasn't felt in months.
What is that?
I don't know. Yaz rests his hands on the keys. Lighter, maybe. Like something that was inside me is outside now.
The song took it.
Yes. The song took it and made it into something that can exist without me carrying it.
The Practice Room is dark except for the small lamp near the piano. The red light blinks in the corner, recording, always recording. But Yaz does not care anymore what it captures. Let them have the recording. The music itself, the meaning of it, the weight transformed into sound... that lives in him.
They can have the notes, he thinks. The notes are just the shadow. The thing that casts the shadow is mine.
Mrs. Adaeze Okonkwo
July.
She opens the bottom drawer of her desk.
Inside: six years of documents. Notes she kept. Things she noticed. The instinct of a woman who has learned that institutions lie, that powerful men lie, that the only protection is documentation.
She did not know why she was saving these things. Some vague sense of wrongness. Some whisper that said: remember this. You might need to prove what happened here.
Now she knows why.
The first document is dated six years ago. The day she made the call to Dayo. The day everything began.
She lifts it out. Sets it on the desk.
The next document. And the next. Teachers who were fired for asking questions. Scheduling anomalies. Financial records she glimpsed and copied. The pattern of isolation. The evidence of what protection really meant.
Outside her window, summer rain begins to fall. Warm and insistent, tapping at the glass like a reminder. Like the opening notes of something large.
She does not know what she will do with these papers. Confront Thorne? Find a journalist? Contact someone who has the power to stop this?
She does not know.
But she is done watching. Done being complicit. Done telling herself that silence is safety and inaction is wisdom.
The boy she saw in the mirror, the real boy beneath the performer... he deserves someone who will fight for him.
She should have been that person six years ago.
She will become that person now.
🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶
When I look into your eyes
I can see a love restrained
But darlin' when I hold you
Don't you know I feel the same?
Nothin' lasts forever
And we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain
We've been through this such a long long time
Just tryin' to kill the pain, ooh yeah
Love is always coming, love is always going
No one's really sure who's lettin' go today
Walking away
If we could take the time to lay it on the line
I could rest my head just knowin' that you were mine
All mine
So if you want to love me then darlin' don't refrain
Or I'll just end up walkin' in the cold November rain
Do you need some time on your own?
Do you need some time all alone?
Ooh, everybody needs some time on their own
Ooh, don't you know you need some time all alone
I know it's hard to keep an open heart
When even friends seem out to harm you
But if you could heal a broken heart
Wouldn't time be out to charm you?
Oh, oh, oh
Sometimes I need some time on my own
Sometimes I need some time all alone
Ooh, everybody needs some time on their own
Ooh, don't you know you need some time all alone
And when your fears subside
And shadows still remain, oh yeah
I know that you can love me when there's no one left to blame
So never mind the darkness, we still can find a way
'Cause nothin' lasts forever, even cold November rain
Don't ya think that you need somebody?
Don't ya think that you need someone?
Everybody needs somebody
You're not the only one
You're not the only one
Don't ya think that you need somebody?
Don't ya think that you need someone?
Everybody needs somebody
You're not the only one
You're not the only one
Don't ya think that you need somebody?
Don't ya think that you need someone?
Everybody needs somebody
You're not the only one
You're not the only one
Don't ya think that you need somebody?
Don't ya think that you need someone?
Everybody needs somebody
🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶
Yaz
The song is finished.
Nine minutes of everything he could not say, given form, given voice, given a structure that can hold the weight of six years without breaking.
He plays through it one more time. Alone. The Practice Room dark around him, the piano glowing under the single lamp.
The rain falls in the music. Falls on everything. Falls without mercy or pause.
And when it ends, something remains.
Not triumph. Not yet.
Just survival. Just the proof that he made it through another storm.
Mrs. Adaeze Okonkwo
Her hands are steady as she opens the drawer.
Six years of watching. Six years of records. Six years of silence about to break.
The rain taps at the window. Somewhere below her, in the basement, a boy is playing piano. She cannot hear the notes, only the feeling of them, vibrating through the bones of the building like a pulse.
She does not know what will happen next.
She knows only this: she is done being still.
The first document goes into her bag.
The second follows.
The rain falls harder, and Adaeze Okonkwo begins to gather the ammunition for a war she should have started years ago.