Silence is not absence.
It is weight. It is the thick curtain draped over the world, smothering everything alive.
For Akami, silence had always been his only companion. Born with weak hearing that slipped into nothingness by the time he was ten, he grew up watching the lips of others move, laughing when he thought he was supposed to, nodding when words became meaningless shapes. The world, for him, existed only in gestures, in shadows, in light.
He was nineteen now, in his final year of high school, a ghost drifting through crowded halls where noise was as distant as dreams. The bell that dismissed class, the chatter of classmates, the scolding of teachers—he saw them, but he never heard them. His name was written in attendance sheets, but in every real sense, he was invisible.
Until that day.
---
It was winter, the air sharp with frost. Akami walked home alone, his hands stuffed deep into his coat pockets, his gaze fixed on the cracks in the pavement. His path always wound through the east wing of the school, past the music building, where echoes of soundless practices fluttered behind glass.
But that day, something pierced the silence.
A note. A vibration. A ripple.
He froze, blinking, unsure if it was a trick of memory. He turned his head, and the faintest trace of sound brushed against him again—soft, delicate, yet undeniable.
Music.
For the first time in years, he heard.
His heart stuttered, his breath sharp. He staggered to the door of the piano room, his palms pressed against the cold wood. The music slipped through the cracks: a piano, not flawless, but trembling with emotion. He pushed the door open.
And there she was.
A girl, alone, seated at the upright piano, her hair falling loose around her shoulders, her fingers dancing in hesitant grace over the keys. She did not notice him at first, her eyes closed, her body swaying faintly with each phrase she coaxed from the instrument.
He stared, not at her, but at the miracle she was creating. The sound seeped into him, not dulled, not muted—perfect. Every note was a drop of water on parched earth, a beam of sunlight piercing endless fog.
When the piece ended, she finally looked up, startled by his presence.
"Oh," she said softly, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "I didn't know anyone was listening."
He opened his mouth but no words came. He wanted to tell her—I heard you. But his voice was broken by years of disuse, and he feared it would shatter this fragile miracle. Instead, he simply stood there, his lips trembling, his eyes wide.
She tilted her head. "You're… Akami, right? I've seen you in the hallways."
He nodded once.
Her smile was gentle, almost apologetic. "I'm Miyu."
And for the first time in years, the silence inside him cracked.
---
Akami returned the next day. And the day after. And the day after that.
Each afternoon, as the winter sun dipped lower, he would slip quietly into the piano room. Miyu never asked why, never pressed him for explanations. She would sit at the piano, her hands resting on the keys, and begin to play.
And he would listen.
Her music was not polished. Sometimes her fingers stumbled. Sometimes the notes faltered, hanging in uncertainty. But to Akami, it was more beautiful than anything the world had ever given him. Because hers was the only sound that existed for him. The rest of the world remained silent, but her piano carved out a space of color in his gray universe.
Once, when she caught him staring with a half-smile tugging at his lips, she laughed softly.
"I'm not that good," she said.
He shook his head quickly, almost desperately, wanting her to understand. His hands trembled as he signed, his motions clumsy: Beautiful.
She blinked, then smiled, her cheeks faintly pink. "Thank you, Akami."
Her voice was light. He couldn't catch every word, but he didn't need to. He could feel it in the notes she played.
---
As the weeks passed, their silent routine grew into a fragile bond. She played; he listened. Sometimes, when she grew bold, she would talk while she played—telling him little things about her day, her frustrations with classmates, her dreams of someday composing music that could move hearts.
He could not hear her voice, not really. But he could hear the piano beneath her words. And that was enough.
One evening, as snow began to fall outside, she paused mid-piece and glanced at him. "You know," she said, "you always sit there so quietly. Sometimes I wonder what you're thinking."
He hesitated, then fumbled with his hands, trying to shape words he could never speak. His signing was awkward, but she had begun to understand pieces of it.
I think… world is empty. But when you play, I feel alive.
Her fingers froze on the keys. For a long moment, she just stared at him, her eyes glistening. Then she pressed her hands back to the piano and began to play again—fierce, trembling, aching.
That night, Akami lay awake in bed, replaying her notes over and over in his mind. He feared he would forget them, that they would slip away like all the other sounds of his childhood. But they remained. Miyu's music lived in him, unbroken, undeniable.
---
Spring came.
The snow melted, cherry blossoms unfurled. Miyu still played, Akami still listened. He began to write in a small notebook, words he could not speak, things he could not sign. He gave it to her one afternoon, his hands shaking as he placed it on the piano.
She flipped through it slowly, her eyes moving over his jagged handwriting:
When you play, I feel like I can see colors.
When you play, I know I'm not invisible.
Please… don't stop.
Her hands trembled. She closed the notebook gently, pressing it against her chest. Then she whispered, "I won't."
And she didn't.
Until she did.
---
It was a Thursday. The piano room was empty. Akami waited, tapping his foot nervously, his eyes fixed on the silent keys. Minutes turned to hours. She never came.
The next day, still nothing.
And the next.
The piano sat in the corner, mute, its lid closed like a coffin.
He asked around, his voice broken, his signing frantic, but no one seemed to know. Some said she had transferred schools. Some said she had fallen sick. Some didn't care enough to answer.
All Akami knew was that the music was gone.
Days stretched into weeks. The silence returned, heavier than before, pressing down on him with merciless weight. He walked the halls, invisible once more. He sat in the piano room alone, staring at the keys, wishing he could conjure sound from them. But when he pressed them, nothing came. Not for him. Never for him.
The world slipped back into gray.
---
Years later, Akami still walked past the music building sometimes. His hair was longer, his face sharper, but his eyes still searched for her. He never found her.
But in his chest, the memory of her notes still lived. The one fragment of sound the universe had given him. The only proof that, for a brief season, silence had been broken.
He sometimes wondered if it had been real at all. If maybe he had imagined it, conjured it from desperation. But when he closed his eyes, he could still hear it, faint and trembling—the melody she had once played when he told her she made him feel alive.
Miyu was gone. The piano was silent. The world deaf again.
But the music remained, etched into him like scars.
---
Silence is not absence.
It is memory.
And sometimes, in the heart of silence, music lingers long after the last note fades.