Dorian pressed the first key. A single, clear piano note hung in the air, pure and simple. He took a slow breath, his fingers hovering over the sensor array. Then, he began to play. The melody that filled the room was gentle, a little hesitant, like a quiet confession. He closed his eyes, letting the memory of the music guide him, and then he began to sing.
His voice was soft, colored with a vulnerability Juno had never heard from him before.
"It's a little bit funny, this feelin' inside... I'm not one of those who can easily hide..."
Juno watched, her initial playful mood dissolving into a quiet focus. He was right there in front of her, but with his eyes closed, lost in the music, it was like she was seeing a hidden part of him for the first time.
"I don't have much money, but boy, if I did... I'd buy a big house where we both could live..."
The line hit her with a gentle pang. She thought of her family's sprawling estate, then of this small, cramped apartment. The lyric was not one of bitterness, but of simple, honest longing. It was the most sincere thing she had ever heard.
"If I was a sculptor, heh, but then again, no... Or a man who makes potions in a travellin' show, oh..."
A small, self-deprecating smile touched Dorian's lips as he sang, a flicker of his usual humor shining through the heartfelt melody. Juno found herself smiling back, charmed.
"I know it's not much, but it's the best I can do... My gift is my song, and this one's for you."
The words landed, simple and direct. This was not just a performance. It was a gift. The music swelled, his voice growing stronger, more confident, as he moved into the chorus.
"And you can tell everybody, this is your song... It may be quite simple, but now that it's done..."
Juno was no longer just listening; she was captivated. The song was unlike anything she had ever heard. The music of her world was complex, synthesized, and often emotionally distant. This was raw, honest, and profoundly human.
"I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind, that I put down in words... How wonderful life is, while you're in the world."
Her breath caught in her throat. The sentiment was so direct, so overwhelmingly sweet, that it felt like a physical warmth spreading through her chest. Her hand rose to her mouth, her violet eyes wide.
Dorian's fingers danced over the sensor keys now, his movements fluid and sure. He was completely lost in the song, a man possessed by a beautiful ghost.
"So excuse me forgettin', but these things I do... You see, I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue... Anyway, the thing is, what I really mean... Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen."
The line, so personal and specific, made Juno's cheeks burn. She thought of her old eyes, the blue-greenish eyes she had when she met Dorian for the first time. Now, their genetically modified violet color. The lyric felt less like a poetic flourish and more like a forgotten memory, a detail of the girl she used to be that he had somehow remembered. The music rose again, his voice full and soaring, filled with all the emotion that had been building since the first note.
"And you can tell everybody, this is the song... It may be quite simple, but now that it's done... I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind, that I put down in words... How wonderful life is, while you're in the world."
He repeated the final lines, his voice growing softer, more intimate, until it was almost a whisper. The last, gentle piano chord hung in the air, then faded into a profound and ringing silence.
Dorian kept his eyes closed for a moment longer, slowly coming back to himself. He let out a final, quiet breath and opened his eyes.
Juno was just sitting there, completely and utterly stunned into silence, her expression one of pure, unadulterated awe. She shot up from her seat, her eyes wide and sparkling. "OMG, Dorian! What was that?"
Dorian let out a shaky breath, a slow smile spreading across his face. "How was it?"
She did not answer with words. She leaped from her stool and wrapped him in a fierce, happy hug. "That was amazing!" she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder. She let go, her hands still gripping his arms. "How can you play like that? Have you played a piano before?"
Dorian stammered, caught off guard by the question. "Well, I... I have got some experience, haha," he lied, the words feeling clumsy in his mouth. He had never touched a piano, not in this life or the last. But when he had closed his eyes, his hands just knew where to go. The chords, the melody, the weight of each key press, it had all flowed from a memory so deep it felt like instinct. It was a strange, unsettling feeling, and for a moment, he could not believe he had done it himself.
"So, it was good, right?" he asked, needing the reassurance.
Juno nodded emphatically. "It was super good! Are you lying to me about not having written it beforehand?"
"I am not lying," he said, and this, at least, was the truth. "I have never written anything before that moment."
Juno walked over to her small orb drone and carefully retrieved it. "You should record that song properly and upload it to Stellarcast. People would love it."
"I think I will," Dorian said thoughtfully. "But there will be tweaks. I need to add more instruments, fill it out."
Juno clutched the drone to her chest. "Mhm, good. So mine is the only version. It is my version."
Dorian chuckled. "Whatever makes you happy."
"Oh," she added, her expression suddenly serious. "Do not forget to apply for the copyright before you upload it to the net. The Accord's creative commons laws are a nightmare."
"Of course," he said with a mock salute. "Will do, ma'am."
They both chuckled, but the shared laughter faded, leaving a warm but heavy silence in its wake. An unspoken question hung in the air between them. Juno was the one to finally try and grasp it.
"So... about the song," she began, her voice suddenly a little shy. She looked down at the drone in her hands. "The... the lyrics were... very specific."
Dorian felt his own cheeks grow warm. "What about them?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral.
"I just..." she looked up, her violet eyes searching his. "Did you... mean them?"
He had. Every single word. But saying it out loud felt like a step he was not ready to take. He did not want to rush, to define whatever this fragile, changing thing between them was. "I just... sang what felt right," he said, his answer both completely honest and a total evasion. "For you."
Before Juno could respond, the hiss of the apartment's front door sliding open broke the spell.
"We're home!" Lyra's voice called out, followed by the sound of Marcus's excited chatter and Leo's polite, robotic greetings.
Juno jumped to her feet, flustered, as if caught doing something she should not have been. "I should get back," she said quickly, her face a mess of conflicting emotions. "Uh... thanks, Dorian."
Dorian stood up as well, grateful for the interruption but also regretting the lost moment. "No, I was the one who should say that," he said, his voice sincere. "Thanks for the desk, Juno."
Lyra and Marcus looked up from the living room floor as Juno emerged from Dorian's bedroom.
"Sis Juno!" Marcus called out happily.
Juno bent down and patted his head, her earlier flustered energy replaced by a warm smile. "Hello, guys. Sorry, but I have to catch the starliner."
"There is another rotation in forty minutes if you wish to stay for a while," Leo offered helpfully from its charging dock.
"Thanks, Leo, but not today," Juno replied. As she stood up, her eyes met Lyra's.
Lyra's gaze narrowed, her expression sharp and perceptive, far beyond her years. For a long, silent moment, Juno and Lyra just looked at each other, a complete, wordless conversation passing between them.
"What are you guys doing?" Dorian asked, confused by the silent exchange.
In perfect unison, Lyra and Juno broke into identical, knowing smiles. "Nothing," they said at the same time.
"Women's secret," Juno added with a wink to Lyra. She walked to the front door, the hiss of it opening filling the apartment. She turned and waved. "Bye, guys!"
Lyra, Marcus, and Dorian all waved back. As the door closed, Marcus ran off to his room to play, while Lyra went back to the living room, a thoughtful, smug little smile on her face.
Leo floated silently over to Dorian. It lowered its volume until its voice was a conspiratorial whisper. "Did we ruin your intimate moment, Dorian?"
Dorian blinked. "What are you talking about?"
"Do I need to inform you about the protocols for safe intercourse?" Leo continued, its tone clinically serious. "My projections indicate that Master John would not appreciate the logistical and financial burden of a grandchild at this particular moment in time."
A smile stretched across Dorian's face, but his eyes were filled with a dangerous, simmering anger. "I think I misclicked some of your behavioral code last night," he said, his voice dangerously sweet. "How about a full diagnostic inspection, right now, Leo?"
The Compadre's optical sensor flashed a brief, panicked red. It immediately floated away from Dorian at high speed. "Let me prepare dinner!" it called out, zipping into the kitchen.
…
A month evaporated in a crucible of creativity. Dorian's room, once just a place to sleep, transformed into a monastic sanctuary of work. He became a hermit in his own home, his life shrinking to the space between his bed and his new studio, fueled by nutrient paste and a burning, obsessive passion.
His days were dedicated to the meticulous, painstaking work of building a world from memory. He had made his decision on Stardew Valley's art style. He would stick to pixels. It was not just for the charm, a nostalgic echo of a life no one else remembered, but for the sheer practicality of it. For a one-man studio, creating a world in a refined, pixelated aesthetic was achievable.
He scaled the art up slightly, moving beyond the chunky blocks of his distant past to a more detailed pixel style that allowed for more expression and detail while retaining the handmade feel.
His desk's secondary monitor became a digital canvas, slowly filling with the building blocks of Pelican Town: sprites for parsnips and ancient fruit, tilesets for a cozy farmhouse, and expressive character portraits for a cast of villagers only he had ever met. In a separate notebook, he mapped out the game itself, filling pages with flowcharts for crop growth, diagrams of the mines, and complex relationship trees. It was a bible for a world that did not yet exist.
His nights were a different battle, a silent war waged against the machine Juno had given him. The producer's desk was a marvel, but it was also a product of the Accord, its software a beautiful, locked-down "walled garden." It was filled with user tracking protocols, creative governors, and connections back to the central Accord network. To truly make it his own, he had to break it.
This took far longer than he had anticipated. It consumed nearly the entire month. It was like performing digital brain surgery. Night after night, he delved into its core programming, holographic schematics spread across his room. He had to build backdoors, reroute data calls, and create a sandboxed partition for his own custom software, all while tricking the desk's core OS into thinking everything was normal. One wrong move, one misplaced line of code, could have bricked the impossibly expensive gift.
But after weeks of painstaking work, he finally succeeded. The desk now ran his own firmware, free and untraceable, while keeping all of its incredible features fully operational.
Now, with the tools forged and the blueprints drafted, he faced a new, more abstract dilemma. He sat before his main monitor, a blank Stellarcast channel registration form glowing in the dark. The cursor blinked expectantly in one empty field: Channel Name.
What should he call himself?
His first instinct was to just use his name: Dorian Kepler. It was simple, direct. But the name already felt heavy. "Dorian Kepler" was the scholarship student who had failed. He was the kid from the lower levels. Using his own name felt vulnerable, tying his real, fragile self to this new, public venture. If he failed again, it would be his name dragged through the mud once more.
The alternative was a pseudonym, an artist's persona. It was safer. It would grant him anonymity, a mask to hide behind while he released these strange, revolutionary creations into the world. He could build a brand, a myth, separate from the boy in the sunless apartment.
He stared at the blinking cursor, the weight of the decision pressing down on him. Who was he going to be in this new world he was about to create? A person, or a phenomenon?
⋘ 𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎... ⋙
🎮: Stardwey Valley: █▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ 12%
🎬: -
♬: - Your Name – Elton John (ch.9)
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